The Truman Show is a movie about a man named Truman that has been watched ever since birth.  He was an unwanted pregnancy so the TV studio adopted him.  He was a 24/7 reality television show and everyone around him was a hired actor.  Not knowing he was being filmed his only reality became the television show.

As the viewers we know he is being filmed because of the fact that we see the director’s area and the people that watch his show.  The director character in the movie is a god like figure.  We see him in the secret room in the moon controlling how everything goes.  The director is in charge, but since The Truman Show isn’t scripted he doesn’t control what Truman says or how he expresses himself.

The director of the movie uses different camera angles that prove to the viewer that he is being watched.  We see wide angle and close angle where the director says they should be.  We also see the camera being in a top angle and even from the bottom, wherever there can be a camera hidden.  Some include: in the dashboard, button cameras, book cameras, and many many more.

Truman later starts to figure out that the world he lives in isn’t the real world.  Events and things that go wrong in his life causes him to believe this.  When the large camera light falls from the sky he begins to question the life he knows.  There are many other things that go wrong.

Once Truman figures this out, he tries to escape.  He goes out onto the sea; the only place the director made to keep Truman in, being afraid of water after his “father” drowns.  Seeing that Truman is trying to escape, and knowing that this would ruin the longest running show; the director attempted to kill Truman by controlling the ocean and almost drowning Truman.

In the end, the director agrees to let Truman go if that’s what he really wants.  Truman ends up giving up the television world and leaves out the door at the back of the ocean.

Over Christmas break I watched the movie, Final Destination 5.  Final Destination 5 is about a guy that sees the way he is going to die one day on the bridge; so he tries to save the people in his company.  He ends up saving eight of them and the other seventeen die on the bus when the bridge collapses.  At the funeral, they meet a very creepy man who says, “Death doesn’t like to be cheated.”

Then one by one the eight survivors die in indescribable deaths that would never really happen.  There is an element of foreshadowing because the deaths happen in the same order as the deaths on the bridge in his vision, or so you think.

The survivors continue to see the creepy man at all of the deaths.  He claims to just be there to clean up the bodies, but as a viewer you can tell that he is death in disguise.  After one of the deaths he talks to the remaining survivors and makes it sound like if the survivor can kill someone and they can take their life.  Since the deaths happen in the order of deaths in Sam’s, the main character that saw what happened the day on the bridge, vision; he can help the final survivors out… Until one of his good friends turns on him.

This movie has really bad graphics and terrible special effects.  In most of the scenes the events would never happen.  Also the blood and guts are very poorly represented. But it is kind of fun to try to guess how the remaining survivors will die.

He is in so much pain

He wishes he was dead

The pain is unbearable

He wishes he was dead

His nostrils flare at the first sign of pain

He wishes he was dead

He glares at the monster that possesses his stomach

He wishes he was dead

He kicks and paws at the devil inside him

He wishes he was dead

His legs shake and cripple underneath him

He wishes he was dead

The doctor’s on the phone, “Keep walking him unless he can stand quietly”

You walk him, let him stand

He wishes he was dead

He collapses to the ground

He wishes he was dead

You regret doing it but it is the only thing that could save him

Your broken foot contacts his flank

He lifts his head and unwillingly gets to his feet

He wishes he was dead

Every step he takes leads to a new contorted body form

He tries to collapse on every step but you must keep him walking

He wishes he was dead

His usually beautiful calm eyes, bulge with fear

Those eyes cut your heart and rip out your soul

He looks at you and you know that’s what he wants

He wishes he was dead

The doctor arrives and you don’t want to hear what he has to say

“If his health doesn’t increase then it would be an issue of quality of life,

we could consider surgery or if that doesn’t help we would put him down”

He might just get his wish

I scream for someone to help him

But it’s too late

They carry the uncooperative sack over

And bury him under the big oak tree, right beside where I lay.

The inspiration of this poem was yesterday, December 11, 2011, I almost lost my horse to colic.  It was one of the scariest experiences I have faced.  Like the poem says all the horse wants is to die, because it is extremely painful for him.  What Stitch, my horse, had was a twisted colon which is extremely severe.  90% of horses that get it die, or have to be put down.  As any horse owner will tell you, colic is quiet common but very scary to deal with, because being the owner you feel useless and there’s nothing you can do to help.  And you never know how quickly their condition could change for the worst.  The last stanza says that how dead you feel and how it feels if they can’ live you don’t want to either.  I will never forget the song that was playing when I entered the arena and Stitch almost collapsed in the doorway.  I don’t know if when reading this you got how scary this truly was.  Even in the barn he was kicking his gut and almost collapsed in the isle.  He’s lucky he caught himself; I was as lucky, but I was just happy he didn’t hit the concrete.  I was checking his heart rate at the time when he almost went down and he caught himself right on top of my foot.  One thing I definitely won’t forget was how offended I was when the vet was talking to me about putting him down… he wasn’t talking about Stitch as the horse that everyone loved so much, he was talking about him like a piece of meat.  But worst of all was I, being the owner, had to decide if he got worse in the night if I was going to send him to surgery.  Logically, surgery is twice as much as I spent for Stitch in the first place, and horses after colic surgery usually only live for a year after.  But he means more than any amount of money to me.

Chapter 4

It was a melancholy little drama, woven from bits and scraps of gossip and neighborhood legend: Mrs. Radley had been beautiful until she married Mr. Radley and lost all her money.  She also lost most of her teeth, her hair, and her right forefinger (Dill’s contribution. Boo bit it off one night when he couldn’t find any cats and squirrels to eat.); she sat in the livingroom and cried most of the time, while Boo slowly whittled away all the furniture in the house.  (pg. 39)

This passage relates to the perspective in Maycomb where people prejudge people because they are different.  In this case, Scout and Jem, along with Dill, are playing the game of “Boo Radley”.  In the game they use how the rest of the neighborhood and them see him as a “malevolent phantom” to help his or her mind comprehend why he stays inside and no one sees him around.  But being the quiet, non-existent soul to many of the Maycomb inhabitants, no one else saw the problem in making fun of Boo in such an offensive way.

The tone of this passage also shows that the perspective of Maycomb is that it doesn’t really matter how you judge someone that is different from you, because everyone in Maycomb thought it was a good game for the children to play, except Atticus.  Even if the rest of Maycomb didn’t believe it was right to play a game such as this one, no one would go against the ways of this small Alabama town.  Like is later described by Scout, “the secret courts of the men’s hearts” and how this that are wrong would never be questioned out loud to the state in fear of being hated just as much.  But at this point in the novel, we only know that Boo Radley is the lonely soul that lives up the street from the Finches.

The plot is also reveled in this chapter, as the inciting incident is the prejudgment of Boo Radley himself.

The day is done and dinner, too

It’s time for the pre-game show

I’m in my room with The Hockey News

Tuning in my radio

Announcers’ voices fill the air

The game’s about to start

Songs of patriotism blare

I admit, they warm my heart

The puck is dropped, the game’s underway

I listen with intensity

I get an image from the play-by-play

My mind’s eye seeing clearly

Throughout the game, excitement reigns

This truly is the best

Tuned in to a hockey game

Tuned out to all the rest

My inspiration for this poem was the fact that hockey is a very Canadian sport.  It is getting close to winter so I thought a poem about hockey would be suitable.  In the winter, skating and playing hockey is one of my favorite things to do.  Besides hockey, I also enjoy snowboarding and sledding.  Hockey, being Canada’s official sport makes it a have to watch sport.  So that is why I wrote my poem about hockey is because it is a great winter sport and a great Canadian tradition.