Shot in mere18 days, “Turnabout”, the sophomore fictional feature from American writer/director/producer E.B. Hughes, is a character-driven crime film whose story unfolds in a single night. Regardless of the prizes collected in festivals such as Atlantic City, Hollywood Boulevard, Chain NYC, and Philadelphia Independent Film Fest, the film wasn’t able to mask the predictability of its plot and simply didn’t work for me. The story starts by focusing on Billy Cain (George Katt), a loser who tries to kill himself after taking a bunch of sleeping pills. Leaving his car aside, he walks a mile down the road to throw himself into the ocean, but is ultimately saved by two men who were cane pole fishing on the bridge. With all those pills, maybe it was the cold water that made him stay awake. Still soaked, he makes this unexpected phone call to his high school best friend, Perry (Waylon Payne), whom he doesn’t connect with for 15 years. His voice …show more content…
We learn that Bill is a former guitarist turned into a drug addict. He confesses he was on rehab and that nothing excites him anymore, holding this frustration for remaining broke after working three jobs. It’s noticeable a bit of envy in his eyes since Perry is a well-established optician. While warming up at a local diner, an incident with a teenager will tell us more about Billy’s deceiving personality and unreliable nature. This particular denouncing scene, besides amateurish in its execution, immediately triggers conjectures about Bill’s real intentions and the direction the story is about to take. Both friends end up in a strip club where Bill spends most of his nights. The idea was just to have one drink and go home, but Perry starts to suspect he was drugged, a fact that doesn’t seem to bother him so much when he has Sherri (Rosebud Baker), a hot stripper, on top of
The Soloist (Foster, Krasnoff & Wright, 2008), is based on a true story of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr. who develops psychosis and becomes homeless. In the film, Nathaniel is considered a cello genius who is discovered on the streets by Steve Lopez, a journalist from the Los Angeles Times. Steve was searching for a city story and he decided to write a newspaper article about Nathaniel. Nathaniel always had a passion for music. He was a child prodigy and attended Juilliard School of Music. However, he faced many complications at Juilliard, particularly hearing voices speaking to him. Unable to handle the voices, Nathaniel dropped out and ended up living on the streets of Los Angeles. Steve and Nathaniel develops an unexpected friendship, in which Steve tries to help Nathaniel to live a normal life; having a home, treat his mental disorder, and to fulfil his dream of being a cellist again.
First his father dies in a hunting accident, then he gets in a plane crash and everyone aboard dies but him, and while he is in the hospital recuperating, his wife dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. There is so much death surrounding his life, that it is no wonder Billy has not tried to kill himself yet. Billy proves throughout the book that he is not mentally stable, yet somehow, he is persuasive in his interpretation of the truth. It is a good example of how people are very gullible creatures, and even in Billy’s constant state of delirium, it is hard to disavow what Billy seems to believe is the truth. He proves his instability frequently:
Sonny states, “Her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes--when it's in your veins. It makes you feel sort of warm and cool at the same time. And distant. And---and sure [...] It makes you feel---in control. Sometimes you’ve got to have the feeling.”(Baldwin,16). Baldwin uses the comparison of music and heroin to emphasize the addictive quality of music for Sonny as well as the feeling of control it gives him. This imagery of the overwhelming feeling shooting heroin serves as an illustration of the power that music has over Sonny. Through this metaphor, the reader gains an understanding of why Sonny needs music.
Over time, the United States has experienced dramatic social and cultural changes. As the culture of the United States has transformed, so have the members of the American society. Film, as with all other forms of cultural expression, oftentimes reflects and provides commentary on the society in which it is produced. David Fincher’s 1999 film Fight Club examines the effects of postmodernity on masculinity. To examine and explicate these effects, the film presents an unnamed narrator, an everyman, whose alter-ego—in the dissociative sense—is Tyler Durden. Durden represents the narrators—thus every man’s—deep-seated desire to break free from the mind-numbing, emasculating world that is postmodern, post-industrial America.
Perhaps Guitar Bains’ defining characteristic is his firm sense of justice. From the beginning of the novel he demonstrates his devotion to morality. Guitar speaks to Milkman about a fight between Milkman and his father, he expresses the feelings of guilt he had after killing a doe: “When I got up to it…I saw it was a doe. Not a young one; she was old, but she was still a doe. I felt… bad. You know what I mean? I killed a doe. A doe, man” (Song of Solomon, 85). Guitar feels that it is wrong for the strong to fight the weak, whether be it Macon Dead striking Milkman’s mother or Guitar shooting a doe. Milkman’s sense of justice and his distain of the Caucasian race find their roots in his father’s death. After Guitar’s father is cut in half in a workplace sawmill accident, the white sawmill owner gives his mother $40 dollars and the children candy as compensation. This demonstration of the low value many whites placed on African-Americans plants a seed of hatred in Guitar. He can’t even eat sweets without becoming sick with the thought of his father’s death, as he explains to Milkman: “Since my father got sliced up in a sawmill and his boss came by and gave us kids some candy” (Song of Solomon, 61). Although his sense of justice never truly decays, as the novel progresses it is twisted and poisoned by his hatred for white people and begins to manifest itself in a far more sinister way: Milkman belongs to an organization named The Seven Days, which kills white men and women in retaliation for the often unpunished killing of blacks. “I suppose you know that white people kill black people from time to time…I had to do something. And the only thing left to do is balance it; keep things on an even keel…There is a society....
After a short break from traumatic occurrences, Billy had the honor of being the sole survivor of a plane crash; his brain was slightly damaged and while he was recuperating, his wife died, of carbon monoxide poisoning. While he was in the hospital, Billy read science-fiction novels, specifically about aliens and time travel. When he was released, he began working as an optometrist again, but experienced sleep deprivation, which, his doctor hypothesized, was the cause of his random weeping. And most recently, his daughter has been stripping him of his dignity, justifying her actions with claims that her father suffers from dementia and senility.
When first reading “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, it may initially seem that the relationship between musicians and drugs is synonymous. Public opinion suggests that musicians and drugs go hand and hand. The possibility lies that Sonny’s passion for jazz music is the underlying reason for his drug use, or even the world of jazz music itself brought drugs into Sonny’s life. The last statement is what the narrator believes to be true. However, by delving deeper and examining the theme of music in the story, it is nothing but beneficial for Sonny and the other figures involved. Sonny’s drug use and his music are completely free of one another. Sonny views his jazz playing as a ray of light to lead him away from the dim and dismal future that Harlem has to offer.
After experiencing a traumatic car crash, Michelle, the protagonist of director Dan Trachtenberg’s film 10 Cloverfield Lane, wakes up in an underground bunker owned by a man named Howard. Howard claims to have saved her from a widespread chemical attack that has contaminated the air, with his bunker being the only place to take refuge for the next couple of years. Yet as the film progresses, Howard’s controlling and threatening demeanor eventually brings Michelle to escape, allowing her to come across the actuality of the situation outside the isolated bunker. Throughout the production, Trachtenberg arranges close frames, manipulates the camera’s focus, and chooses specific lighting to create an ominous tone that mystifies and disturbs viewers.
He marries the daughter of the owner of the school and immediately becomes overwhelmingly wealthy. Being handed so much money Billy was finally able to control his own fate. Yet still feeling powerless in his own life after the war, Billy has a mental break and admits himself into a psychiatric ward where he voluntarily goes through electric shock therapy. Billy still being very naïve after the war took the end of his childhood is unaware of why he still feels so powerless with his fate even though he has the money and power to do what he pleases. Billy’s mind tries correcting itself and causes Billy to have flashbacks, or as he refers to them as time traveling, and
This paper is about how a small time boy from Oak Cliff, Texas with a dream, revolutionized the way blues guitar was played. By 17 he new what he wanted to do with his life, thus dropping out of school to become a blues guitarist. All throughout Stevie's career he was loved and adored for his gentle touch and majestic rhythmic guitar playing. Throughout his life he led three bands to hitting it big, released five albums with "Double Trouble". Most importantly, Stevie became sober. He turned away from the substances, even though he believed they gave him the drive to play the way he did.
...n’t stop him from adding fluff to his story to make it more exciting so that people would listen to him (Kidder 7). Although most of those bad things happened, Bill could even be a fictional character, used to describe the life of Kidder himself.
Throughout the course of the twenty or so pages of “Sonny’s Blues”, the characters are revealed through dialogue to have traits, motives, and fears just like any other human being. For example, Sonny’s revelation to the narrator that he intends to become a jazz musician (Baldwin 1737) and subsequent descriptions of his piano practicing habits (Baldwin 1740) let the reader know that he is not to be thought of as merely a pathetic recovering drug addict. On the other hand, when Sonny says that heroin makes him feel “in control” (Baldwin 1744) and subtly protests the systemic prejudice that often makes black people feel helpless, one can determine that he did not likely take up the drug simply or on a whim or on account of mere peer pressure. Further, when the narrator seems to understand that Sonny is on the path to redemption (Baldwin 1749), the reader once gets the impression that Sonny is more than a druggie. The narrator, too, is a round character, and not just an older brother figure to Sonny.
In the media, prisons have always been depicted as a horrible place. The film, The Shawshank Redemption, is a prime example that supports the media 's suggestions about prison life. In the film we are familiarized with Andy Dufresne, who is a banker that is wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. While trying to both remain discreet and find his prison identity, he assists Ellis Boyd 'Red ' Redding, a peddler, and Brooks Hatlen. In his attempt to fit into the rough prison subculture, Andy strategically starts a business relationship with the captain Captain Bryon Hadley and Samuel Norton. The film gives an insider 's look at various aspects of prison life. These aspects include prison culture; explicitly, guard subculture and inmate subculture.
Few months ago, there was a huge impressing movie to me, which was named Inside Out, and it is an animation movie, and focused on adults. Inside Out is also fifteenth animation movie that Global animation company, Pixar, released. Their ambitious work, Monster University, failed to gain a number of audiences, so Pixar had resting period for two years. As the result, people worried about that Pixar might have been collapsed. However, two years later, according to this movie, Pixar informed they are still alive by obtaining many audiences. This movie completely gave me a good lesson and realization that how much and why all emotions are needed and important.
The “Bad Girls Club” display groups of women who are obsess with drinking and violent behavior to handle their situations, shining the light on negative stereotypes, defining a “bad girls” and the influencing young girls in today’s society. The way these girls act on TV is the way the media portray women as vulnerable and in need of male attention. By depicting women solely as physical objects, we rarely see them as powerful. Women have often seen each other as competition in many realms of their lives and so have become adept at quickly sizing up their female competition as to what makes a women’s woman (Kramer 210).The show 's has a foundation of seven women with personal, social and psychological problems, who consider their self to be