Finding Forrester

In Finding Forrester it was shown that he is a boy who has an extreme talent in writing. Jamal lives in a poor part of town and is a typical kid. He plays a lot of basketball and doesn't try hard in school. Even though he doesn't try hard his English teacher realizes his potential and knows he reads a lot of books. The reason he doesn't try hard is because he doesn't want to stand out as weird and unusual to all the other kids. He felt forced to conform with all his other class mates. When a private school offers him the chance to come to their school he takes it and is than more open about his passion in literature. His teacher doesn't want him to talk out and correct him in class so he tries to get him to be quite. Even in his fancy private school he is still forced to conform to what others want. Besides his teacher the private school does give more room for him to improve his writing. The true key to his blossoming talent was William Forrester, the talented writer. He helped him develop and become a better writer. Throughout the movie the different environments Jamal is placed in have varying degrees of conformity and individuality. The public school in the poor area is much more based around conforming to sports and not anything scholarly. When he transfers to the private school everything is around advanced education and more formal teachers. He doesn't feel as if he has to conform and is actually limited by how smart and educated he is.

Rocky IV

Rocky IV was an extreme case of bias. This movie revolves around Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), an American boxing legend. After his mentor Apollo (Carl Weathers) was challenged to a fight by the new Russian boxer, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Throughout this movie it seems like there is a lot of American propaganda. Rocky's family is very wealthy and they have lots of luxuries. When he travels to Russia it is snowing and bleak. The house he stays in has no common amenities like a television. Considering this movie seemed to be a big statement about the Cold War, it was implying how poor Russia is. To even train Rocky had to use techniques like running or doing cart lifts. The whole movie tries to show Russia as this poor, dangerous, and desolate country. Surrounded by mountains and snow in a tiny house. Even in the fight there was a lot of bias. It was obvious Rocky was going to win, he had taken several monster hits without getting much in return, but it had nearly no affect on him. After ten rounds of having his face pummeled Rocky finally decided to start fighting back. With inhuman endurance he managed to somehow beat Ivan Drogo. One of the more ridiculous parts was when the Russians started cheering for Rocky. They would never cheer against there own fighter. Imagine the Americans cheering for Ivan when he was killing Apollo. The whole point of this movie was to portray America as much better than Russia.

Rebel Without a Cause

I think Jim had a similar experience as the teens in breakfast club. Surprisingly both movies are very similar. They both revolve around teens who are from all different circumstances coming together. In the Breakfast Club there is the jock, the princess, the basket case, the nerd and Bender. In Rebel Without A Cause there is Plato, Judy, and Jim. They where three very different people with Plato acting as a bit of an outcast. Judy was a bit of a princess and hung out with the
thugs. Jim was a nice guy who didn't feel like he fit in with his family. Another main focus of the two movies is the way every character seems to have a broken family. Jim thinks his father isn't brave enough to stand up to his own wife and they are always fighting. Plato's parents aren't around and he only has his maid at such a young age. Bender's father abuses him and yells at him.   One of the major differences in the two movies is how the
Breakfast Club is much more light hearted. Nothing that bad really happens. The movie is supposed to be funny but has a message behind it. They get chased by a principal, smoke weed and In Rebel Without A Cause everything is a bit more dark and serious. Jim is engaged in a knife fight, a fatal car stunt/ challenge and a shooting. The atmospheres of both movies are very different yet they have similar messages.

Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club is a great movie that shows how every different person has their own viewpoints. I focused on Claire during the movie. She is the "Princess", very popular and proper.

When they start asking her questions like is she a 

virgin she got very protective. She wants to be seen as perfect. By the end of the movie she is a very different person. She started to change in what people would consider good ways. She started to become more open and willing to talk to the others. At the end she also helped Allison change her look for Andy. It was almost like she changed as a person, she started to realize how there as more to life than being popular. The other characters showed her how much pressure they face. In the end of the movie you could tell all of these kids shared more than they thought. Almost all of them had issues in their home lives. Claire's parent where divorced and spoiled her. Brian's parents put massive pressure on him to get amazing grades and nothing less. Bender's parents just didn't care about him and abused him. Allison's parents ignored and hurt her mentally. Andy's father expected him to put in a lot of work and be just like him. All of these different problems forced them to do things that got them into detention. By the end of the movie every one of these people with different backgrounds connect in different ways.

Citizen Kane

I think people have to go into watching Citizen Kane without thinking of it as a modern day movie. This movie doesn't have the same action sequences as modern day movies. When you watch this movie it is at a much slower pace. Its very interesting for its time period. It was the first of its time to incorporate multiple timelines. If you step back and realize how amazing this movie was for the time it was made it is easier to appreciate. People are often used to these movies that are action packed or have fancy effects.

The American Dream is an ever changing goal.
In the beginning of the movie all Kane wanted was more money. He craved for success. When he was extremely successful than he wanted love. He married Emily Monroe Norton a niece of the president. They both loved each other at first, Kane became more distant as the movie went on. Than he cheated on her with Susan after he was distant with his wife. This concluded in the death of his political career. At the end of the movie you realize that he wants to be loved. His wife leaves him and he wants to be a child again. His final words "Rosebud" was the name of his sled. The whole movie has many twists and turns, just as our American Dreams are. Our wants change as we age and our minds differ. 

I thought that The Place Behind the Pines was a good movie. I thought that Luke and Avery both had very similar dreams. They wanted to be successful and have a family. Luke was more focused on getting money for his family. He was willing to go to any lengths just to provide for them. As soon as he knew he had a son than he quit his carnie job. He had to do a lot of bad things but he thought it was worth the risk to provide for Jason. He had a big moral argument at first. He threw up right after he robbed the bank.

Avery just wanted to live his life and be succesful. He seemed to want to follow in his father's footsteps and have something to do with the law. He had a lawyer's degree and did work as a cop. The whole reason he became famous is that he shot and killed Luke.  By the end of the movie he wanted to just have a good political career and seemed to care less about his family. His son came to live with him because his mother couldn't show him how to become a man. At first he was reluctant to take him because of how busy he was.   His original goal was having a family but at the end all he had was a political career.

I thought that this movie was really good. It showed how every person has different personal struggles. Trey wanted to be a better person after his father guided him. Ricky wanted to raise him family and was struggling. Trey and Ricky seem to be the "good" kids who are trying to be better than the rest. Trey has a stable job at the mall and Ricky is looking to go to college. The others won't amount to anything, they just live the typical life for them. Doughboy is smart but he doesn't try to be intelligent, he just wants to be nothing. In many scenes he's looking for a fight, and most of his day is spent drinking beer.
Trey wants to go to college with Brandi.

Ricky wants to support his kid and
Furious wants to be successful.
All of this is foreshadowed in the beginning,
doughboy and chris both get shoved into the police car when they steal. Trey decides to not go with him and isn't worried about trouble. You can still tell Doughboy has good character in the movie. In the beginning he tries to fight the older boys to get the ball back for his brother. Later in the movie he is happy to see his friends. He takes some education seriously, he learned to read even though he wasn't around school often. Chris is later seen in the movie in a wheel chair, which showed he was shot or in some kind of incident. Doughboy is killed at the end of the movie which is a result of his violent tendencies.