Rogerian Argument: Tropic Thunder
The movie “Tropic Thunder” is a comedy about five actors who set out to create a movie about a Vietnam veteran’s experience. The actors self-absorbed, attitudes caused them to look fake and over-dramatic. As a last minute last hope effort, the director sent these five actors to, what he believes, is where the war actually happened. Soon after arriving to this unknown land, the director is blown up by an old land mine. The actors then find themselves trapped in a real life situation where they have to use their newly learned skills to survive being stranded in the middle of a dangerous drug triangle. In the movie, Tugg Speedman was a fading action star that was going through a rough patch in his career after he failed badly in his bid for an Oscar. Prior to playing in the war movie, Tugg played a young man named Jack in a movie called Simple Jack. Simple Jack was the film within the film about a mentally challenged farm boy who was left behind by a traveling carnival and was force to like with a farmer, Chet Chetkinson, and his wife, Rebecca. Through out the movie, Jack dealing with the hardships of rejection, but through it all, he has the courage to overcome adversity a live a happy life with his momma and animal friends. After his movie, Simple Jack, was a bust, Tugg was in desperate need for a hit to restore his reputation. During one of the scenes in the movie, the two actors, Kirk Lazarus and Tugg Speedman, were having conversation on why Tugg’s movie, Simple Jack, turned out to be unsuccessful. (Tugg Speedman: There were times while I was playing Jack where I felt... [pause] retarded. Like, really retarded. Kirk Lazarus: Damn! Tugg Speedman: In a weird way I had to sort of just free myself...
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In the book Storm Over Texas, by Joel H. Silbey the critical controversy of North vs. South is displayed. The book goes into great detail of the wild moments leading into the Civil War, the political dysfunction that ran throughout Texas, and many reasons the American Civil War sparked up in the first place. This book truly captives great Texas history and has valid information and points of our states different point of views on history.
In the story “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” by Tim O’Brien, the story is taking place during the beginning of the Vietnam war in the Quảng Ngãi Province of Tra Bong in Vietnam. We are introduced to Mark Fossie,a member of the medical corps that are stationed in Cui Lai or also known as Danang. War time is hard on everyone, and it can have a hard impact on the soldiers that are stationed in the various places. This story explains the fact that war can be a terrible and feared place to be by showing us an example of what happens with Mary Anne and Mark Fossie.
The character, Tim O’Brien, plays a very important part in “How to Tell a True War Story.” Here is a quote from Tim O’Brien in the story. "It happened nearly twenty years ago, but I sti...
By gaining knowledge about themselves, the Vietnam War, and the world around them, O?Brien and Fossie become completely different soldiers. Though these two soldiers see and experience things that they could never imagine, Tim O?Brien and Mark Fossie manage to recognize themselves, the war, and the world for what is really is and undergo an amazing amount of personal maturation.
the right cast. The war film was a popular genre to produce during the war
Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust is said by many to be the best novel to be written about Hollywood. When we immediately think of Hollywood, we think of a glamorous story, in the picturesque setting of Los Angeles, full of characters with abundance of talent living the much sought after American dream. This is perhaps what sets West’s novel apart from the rest. The story is full of characters that have a vague impression of the difference in reality and fantasy in life. The characters are submerged in their lives in Hollywood, with what seems to be a false reality on how the world works. The untalented would-be actors, withering vaudeville performers and prostitutes place a certain grotesque over the novel from the beginning, and in a world of certain fantasy and chaos like this, violence is bound to come to the fore as a theme in many different forms. The protagonist of the story, Tod Hackett, is different to the rest of the characters in the novel. Tom is a talented artist, but still has a good view of reality by times, so Tom can act part as an observer in the novel. Tom however has been sucked in to the fantasy world also life has become somewhat submerged in the fantasy world.
The crowd-pleaser walks a fine, inescapable line between uplift and shameless maudlinism. Cynicism is pervasive, yet unapologetically sentimental films such as Rocky and Forrest Gump periodically magnetize the multitudes. The story of the underdog who defies the odds is as timeless as it is transparent. Rudimentary emotions, despite their apparent simplicity, can be ineffably potent.
Tim O’brien sends us a message that the soldiers that go to war carry emotions with them and these emotions are real and they fight these emotions internally. Tim O’brien shows this message through his descriptions of what the soldiers carry and the character development of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his team.
The setting within the country of Vietnam influences the characters to evolve adaptations to cope with the theme of death and isolation, which assists their journey in retaining the peace within their souls. One of the most noticeable coping mechanisms which develop throughout the novel is through the main character of Tim O’Brien, in his transformation from a soldier to a writer. This coping method develops the behavior of Tim’s character by allowing him an escape from the horrors of war, and the themes that surround it such as death. It is true that stories are written to remove the burdens that soldiers carry in their memories. However it allows characters such as Tim to “keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted Lavender … and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed” (213). These characters represent the people taken away from him due to the theme of death. Even though Linda was not part of the war, she becomes part of the fantasy world he had creates through his
The noir style is showcased in Sunset Boulevard with its use of visually dark and uncomfortable settings and camera work, as well as its use of the traditional film noir characters. In addition, the overall tone and themes expressed in it tightly correspond to what many film noirs addressed. What made this film unique was its harsh criticism of the film industry itself, which some of Wilder’s peers saw as biting the hand that fed him. There is frequent commentary on the superficial state of Hollywood and its indifference to suffering, which is still a topic avoided by many in the film business today. However, Sunset Blvd. set a precedent for future film noirs, and is an inspiration for those who do not quite believe what they are being shown by Hollywood.
“He felt trembling in his arms, and he looked down and found his hands tight on the new rifle.” (Bradbury 80) This is an excerpt from the short story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury used foreshadowing, in this case, to create suspense in the story; however, authors may use foreshadowing for a few other reasons. Authors use foreshadowing in their writing for reasons including; to build suspense, to give the reader information about what may happen later in the story, and to build conflict between characters.
What is time? How does it effect our world and us individually? Most importantly, what is the Butterfly Effect? The 1952 sci-fi short story “The Sound of Thunder” is a good place to start. In “The Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, it is obvious one small thing can have far reaching consequences, as evidence by the election, surroundings, and the mouse theory.
Sunset Boulevard (Wilder 1950) explores the intermingling of public and private realms, puncturing the illusion of the former and unveiling the grim and often disturbing reality of the latter. By delving into the personal delusions of its characters and showing the devastation caused by disrupting those fantasies, the film provides not only a commentary on the industry of which it is a product but also a shared anxiety about the corrupting influence of external perception. Narrated by a dead man, centering on a recluse tortured by her own former stardom, and concerning a once-promising director who refuses to believe his greatest star could ever be forgotten, the work dissects a multitude of illusory folds to reveal an ultimately undesirable truth. Its fundamental conflict lies in the compartmentalization that allows the downtrodden to hope and carry on. Sunset Boulevard carefully considers the intricate honeycombs of dishonesty and deception that constitute a human life, then dissolves the barriers and watches the emotions, lies, and self-contradictions slurry together and react in often volatile and destructive ways.
Tim O'Brien uses imagery to show the perpetuation of the traumatic war memories. After accidentally killing a new soldier, Tim describes the deceased soldier.“He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor
Although there were many concepts that were present within the movie, I choose to focus on two that I thought to be most important. The first is the realistic conflict theory. Our textbook defines this as, “the view that prejudice...