Semester

From inquiry one I took away the idea that movies can have multiple messages and we can pick up on them by doing close reading. Before this I didn't really think to look in the background of a movie to find things that would relate back to the ideas of the movie. I thought they were just backdrops really.
From the second inquiry I took away how to research a movie. I never knew there were cites that would show you old critics review. I found that really interesting as well as the fact that there are several online movie review websites. I never knew this and now use them a lot.
From Inquiry three I learned that everyone is going to like something different and that's okay it only lead us to be curious as to what is out there that we haven't seen, heard or read. I walked away from this begin more open minded about texts and even the word texts in general.
I think I will uses some of my first paragraph of inquiry one because I used a lot of voice and I found this paragraph to draw the reader in which is what writing should do. If we weren't drawn in we wouldn't keep reading the text. I also think I will use some of my research arguments from inquiry two that highlight what my theses was because I really liked my theses and think it was strong for this type of paper. Overall I think I improved as a writer and a movie watched throughout the semester.

reflecting

I found the topics that were presented on Thursday to be almost as good as the ones on Tuesday. I really liked fantastic Mr. Fox to be a movie I would consider viewing. I was also pleases to see someone had grey's anatomy on their list. I really like that show and agree that it touches on both medical senerios as well as teaching life lessons.

Cannon reflection

I really liked Rachel's fly away home video. I remember watching it when I was younger and now really want to watch it again. I also liked the last leaf video. I really would like to look at that as well. I was also interested to find out that Incubus did so much philanthropic work.

Canon

I have found after reading the articles that the canon is truly a male dominated, white dominated grouping of writings. Even after years have past women and writes of color have not seemed to make a dent in the list. This brought me back to high school when we had to read "the classics". It surprised me that many teachers teach them with no relevance to how they relate to our society today. For example we have come a long way form when Of Mice and Men was publish and it is till taught but why? To show that we have changed and what life was like back them. Yes its important to get a view of the past but we need to document the present to because shortly it will also be the past. I like that some teachers are wanting to share new books that have meaning to their classes. Our values have changed slightly the american dream is no longer to own a house with a fence when we have so many towns and skyscrapers. We need more diversity in the canon so kids can truly understand why these works are great other than begin just dead white men. What is valuable now is accepting one another and begin who you are. being an original and the cannon doesn't always do that. Thus it needs to be revises.

My Cannon
The host -Stephanie Myer
Just Listen -Sarah Deesen
Dream Land- Sarah Deesen
Ender's Game
Shakespeare
Silver Linings Playbook
The Help
Boy in Striped Pajamas
Anne Frank
Pride and Predigest

Galaxy far away

My thesis is : Is Avatar the New Star Wars?
I hope to prove thought my research that it is not because of its lack of developed characters and lack of advancing story line. I hope to use research that will point to the facts that Avatar was so progressive using a lot of technology to make the movie but not a lot on the actual story and that its one we have heard before. I also want to focus on the fact that Star Wars was a new breed of science fiction movie that is still highly remembered to day and is constantly being revived with toys and mini series and games as well as keeping true to the original story that everyone knows. Because of this it was nominated for several things that highlighted its originality where as Avatar swept the technical awards and may have just been too advanced for movies now a days. I may have been better released now which is 5 years later when we are more used to 3d and things.

History

http://www.infoplease.com/year/1977.html
The same year Star wars came out we were testing space shuttles and lasers. These are two of the biggest parts of the movie. It all takes place in outer space and on different planets and the main weapons are light sabers and laser guns. Turns out history may have helped propel this movie forward.

I can also use this because in the same year we were getting over the Vietnam war and pardons were begin issued to deaf dodgers. This important because it is said that a lot of the fighting in the movie AVATAR resembles that of the Vietnam war in the fact that we are using lots of new technology and hunting people down in the forests to kill them.

This site can help provide some historical support to both movies in an understanding of why the movies may have taken off.

No Awards

"Voters not ready to honour digitalized acting; Zoe Saldana's performance in Avatar ignored in best-actress nominations." Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia). (February 4, 2010 Thursday ): 442 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web. Date Accessed: 2014/03/06.
Most of the actors that were nominated for awards because of their roll in AVATAR  were denied an award becuse the film comitee denied that the movie was actual acting. They said that the actors should have been nominated for best vocal actor instead. THe movie widly noted for its snimation had taken a toll on the actotrs in it. Yes, ti has become a must see movie but not a highly awarded one because it is so new. 

I can use this to compare how this movie may have been too advanced to get recognition where as star wars is not. It got nomintations for several aspects but the animations of AVATAR sent a new pecidence that the oscors were just not ready for yet. 

Dolls and Cereal

http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?verb=sf&sfi=AC01NBSimplSrch
Star Wars was no stranger to winning awards. It was nominated for almost everything including  original screen play, original music, sounds, special effects. It even came close to being the best movie of the year. One thing is for sure it was the top grossing movie of the year surpassing JAWS. It has also been rumored that things such as cereals, toys and a potential television series will be in the works after the movies great success. This movie is only part of the story Lucas wrote and everyone is waiting anxiously to see what happens next.
I can uses this article to compare how Star Wars was not just a movie but in fact it turned into a whole franchise unlike Avatar who's characters may have been to out of the box to be made into a television show or a doll.

Star Wars?

"MOVIES." The Globe and Mail (Canada). (January 25, 1978 Wednesday ): 1979 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web. Date Accessed: 2014/03/05.
Since Avatar has been said

to be the new Star Wars I figured I would look up the reviews for when it first came out. The first week it came out it had a rocky start. Then the word got out. People loved all of the special effects the movie had in store. They specifically liked the ray guns and the light sabers predicting that they would be the weapons of the next age, a future age. It also helped that the first movie had many interesting and "cute" characters in it. One down side though is that the story itself was viewed as comic book like and something for children at first. It wasn't until adults went to see the movie that its popularity took off. From there the movie expanded into an entire empire unlike Avatar. Although one thing both theses movies have in common is the fact that they both were top selling movies.  

Game?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/movies/18avatar.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
They movie has a very sifi feel to it including having a paraplegic have the ability to embody a huge blue Aline creature that can walk and run, something he can only dream of doing. Not only this but Jake embodies a hero when he take the form of this other being like many heroes do. His original job is to get information about where the natives are keeping this valuable mineral that the Americans have come to get from the planet. Along with this he is charges with a task to become one of the natives and find out about their culture and record it for the future. The author of this says that controlling this navine is like a game. You embody another person and do activities with it that you can't do in real life but at the same time the experiences are not truly yours. Along with this the graphics seem to draw you into the movie so you feel like you are in a new world like when you play a game. You get engulfed with it until you loose track of all around you. That's an effect this movie gives.

Will Leitch

http://leitch.tumblr.com/post/293515120/avatar-1-it-doesnt-take-long-for-you-to-realize
Will Leitch
The author points out that even if the very first moments of the film we can tell that it is different from other movies. Of course this blog talks about how the setting is so different from anything else and how the 3d really makes the movie come to life.He also talks about how the main reason we want to invade the planet is to get resources. He says that this is a metaphor for corporate greed which is relevant because the movie was one the the most expensive to make closely followed by the directors other movie Titanic. Another aspect that the blogger focuses on is how the main character Jake was in the military and how he is recruited for this special meeting. Another military figure is the "bad guy" military commander who is going to take over the planet no if and or buts about it. The blogger states that this can be a metaphor for our war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many people think that we are invading these countries for the oil and not for the benefit to the country itself like we have claimed in the past.

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes (multiple reviews)
Almost all of the reviews on this site said that they loved the graphics and colors involved in the background of the movie. They said that they setting was absolutely stunning though the story was quite simple.Most people thought that for as long as the movie took to make and as much as it cost the story was really lacking especial from the director that gave us the Titanic. Some  said that Avatar would be then next Star Wars.

This got me thinking so I looked up the reviews for when Star Wars first cam out. There were not many reviews that were published about it until long after the first one came out, this perplexed me.The reviewers however,were all similar to that of Avatar. They loved the scenery and special effects but they felt the characters were really under developed compared to the setting.

Silver lining

I think that the movie is really about finding happiness and finding what is important to you in life. The central themes in the movie are reforming yourself, reconnecting with others, and love not only between pat and Victoria but between family and friends as well. I had not seen this movie before and was highly confused in the beginning but I warmed up to the movie. I think what is considered good in "good" is really up for interpretation not only in the movie but it life. For example the dinner scene, pat thinks its okay to wear a jersey to dinner but his hostess does not. He also doesn't have a filter which many of us would consider bad but to Victoria is a good thing. I think one of the scenes that stands out to me the most is the scene where he collapses on the bed and the pile of books he has been reading falls to the floor and he doesn't  care. He has been reading them so he can keep up to date with his wife's teachings and this scene shows that he is progressing past his dependency on getting back with her and he is actually falling for someone else. I would look at the different techniques used to film the movie Avatar because that is what stands out to most people. The same with star wars and tie that in with our science fiction beliefs that here are more intelligent life forms out in space besides us and that we may one day get there. I will also explore why these moves are still remembered even though when they first came out a lot of propel didn't understand or believe that they would be a big hit. This movie has proved that I don't know as much about mental illness as I thought I did and it is something that I may want to increase my knowledge on before I graduate with a Special Education degree. 

Movie for the ages

The fact that some of the earliest movies were used for promotion was both surprising and not all at the same time. I thought the real start to the movies was when we started broadcasting information about the war to us here a home. I had no idea that people were making documentaries about how to make biscuits or how a company worked for promotion before this.After reading this I will be looking for a deeper and not so deep meaning for my film. I had found in some of my research that some thought this movie (Avatar) was meant to be sort of like when we invaded Iraq and they didn't want us. After watching some of the movie again I can kind of see their point. At the same time with all the effects used it the movie you have to wonder if it was just the director showing off his style and who he is and what we can do with movies now a days. I feel like as we progress with movies in the future my movie will be redefined. Every year we are coming up with new technologies and Avatar for all we know could be a stepping stone for more science fiction movies to come.

Avatar

I am thinking of doing the movie Avatar the one with the blue people not the air-bender. I have seen this film only once but among my friends it is famous and one of their favorites. I wanted to do this movie because there are so many events in the movie that relate to our time now and that are interesting. I mean NASA just shut down and in the movie we have set a base up on a moon. We have the science to create another creature that we can enter into while we are asleep and control as well as a few ethical issues. Should we really take out this species of people so we can get materials from their home? Should we really use force instead of asking or finding a solution. Not only that but after doing a little research many people thought it would be a flop because of how much it cost to make the movie. All of this I think would make a great paper.

Editing

My plans for revising my paper include adding more detail to paragraphs of my paper and having less filler. To go along with this I plan on trying to make my paper flow a bit better so the reader can follow my train of though rather than jumping around. I also don't want to give all of it away, some people will want to re-watch the movie again after they read by paper and I don't want to just summarize the first few minutes of the movie. I want to create an opinion and then move on.

I feel like I have used the word because too much. Yes it is used to help prove your point but you don't have to use it all the time which is why I want to work on the flow of my paper and take some of those out. As of now I feel my paper is pretty well organized but I may change it depending on how my editing goes. Overall I am happy with my draft but it needs some work before its ready to be a final draft.

Post 3

I really liked how in the second reading the listed outright what were the things they noticed. However I think that they made it a bit list like. I would have liked for them to provide one or two then go in-depth about them instead of just listing. By doing that they would have made the entry seem more organized and flowing like the first reading in the CCM book. I liked how the Author of this  made connections between the fire and the separation of him and Hana. It invoked more of a reaction because we were really thinking about  he was loosing everything and he is helpless to do anything about it. Yes, he can try and stop the fire but he will have some burnt things and it will take him a while to rebuild. He will not be the same but at the same time it gives him the opportunity to move on.

Disney Renaissance

The film I am thinking about doing a close reading of is Beauty and the Beast. This movie has always been one of my favorites growing up and I never knew it was nominated for an award. Although I guess it makes sense when you think about all the things that make this movie different from the rest of the Disney movies that came before it.

I think one of the things I want to focus on in this movie is what makes this movie different from the others before it and why has it been categorized as the start of the Disney renaissance period. For those of you that don't know what that is there are several definitions. One is that this is when Disney decided to "give in" to the feminist movement. After this movie we had The Little Mermaid and Aladdin for example but I think its more than that. This movie also marks the point when Disney started to incorporate men as the main character in their movies. They were no longer the prince that came to save the damsel in distress. They actually had a story of their own.

I really like this movie and am looking forward to seeing why it is one of the only Disney movies to get an award....as well as getting to watch it again! :)

Meet Me

Hello everyone,

My name is Jessica Miller but I go by Jess. I am a special education major here at Miami. I a am a freshman so technically I am not actually in my major till next year but all the same. I am from Mason Ohio which is about 45min form Miami which is nice. Its away from home but not too away from home which is nice. My hobbies include being a Venture scout with the Boy Scouts of America, I know that sounds weird but Venturing is coed and we go on high adventure trips and camp just like the rest of the Boy Scouts.  Through Venturing I teaching leadership programs, to date I have taught 10 programs in all including some in California, Kentucky, Ohio and New Mexico. This year I am proud to say that I am the first Female to lead a program here in Ohio. I also like to knit. I know this last one kind of stands out from the rest but I think its fun and when I finish something Its actually something that can be used which is cool. I am in the Marching Band here at Miami and love music. I play clarinet. If you live in Tappen or walk by that hall no doubt you have seen us practicing. So I think that's enough about me and I look forward to meeting the rest of you!