Film Review

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along was a great film starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day. This film was just wonderful with great comedy and also a great story line. It is very rare to find a musical film with such great comedy in the songs. Part of what makes this movie so funny is the fact that Nathan Fillion, a very strong, tough man, is singing near every single one of his lines. Dr Horibble's, Neil Patrick Harris, goals are to get into the Evil League of Evil and also, to win the girl of his dreams, or the laundromat, over. Dr. Horrible is a major genius and is inventing a freeze ray and he must steal the last thing he needs to make it. He is on his way to get the last thing and he sees Penny, Felicia Day, and gets easily distracted from his mission. Captain Hammer is Dr. Horrible's enemy. He is always getting in the way of Dr. Horrible and his goals. Captain Hammer is very strong and very attractive and knows it. He is very arrogant and basically all of his songs throughout the entire movie are about how great he is. Being the attractive man that he is, Captain Hammer steals Penny from Dr. Horrible. Because of all these things that Captain Hammer keeps getting in the way of Dr. Horrible decides that he must do something. In order to get into the Evil League of Evil he must murder somebody, and why not murder Captain Hammer? All he is a nuisance to Horrible and so why not get him out of the way? Neil Patrick Harris did a great job playing the evil genius and his voice was quite excellent in the film as well as Felicia Day. Nathan Fillion, although not the greatest singer ever, did an excellent job as well. The songs in this film had excellent lyrics and were sung to perfection. One of the reasons why this movie was so funny was because of the lyrics of the songs. However, making the movie more serious was the way the songs were sung so well. This is not a bad thing though. This movie was an excellent film and was very well directed. I definitely recommend this film to anyone who is in the mood for a short movie with a lot of laughs in it. It is guaranteed that you will walk away with a smile on your face. Excellent film!

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Bonhoeffer was a man who was part of an assassination attempt against the infamous, Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer was part of this attempt because he knew that Hitler needed to be dead. He battled inside of his head thinking that killing him would be a sin but letting him live would be a greater sin. This thought and taking part of the attempt ended up in his arrest and death by hanging. In the final episode of the third book of Avatar, Aang, is faced with this same problem. However, Aang takes a different road than Bonhoeffer did. The Fire Lord, Ozai, and Aang get into a major battle at the end of the final book. Being the Avatar, Aang has the ability to use all of the bendings, water, earth, air, and fire. At the end of the battle Aang is faced with a major decision as he is completely destroying Lord Ozai. He has Ozai pinned down and has the chance to kill him. Even though every body has told him that he must kill Ozai to save the world he finds he can do something better. Aang chooses not the kill Lord Ozai but instead uses his great Avatar power to take away Ozai's bending power. Aang chose the more ethical way to go about the situation. However, both of them were put in a position where either way would have been fine.

Hero

The movie Hero was a great film that starred the ever so great Jet Li. In this film a character named Nameless takes up the emperor's offer of defeating his three great enemies for gold, land, and to be closer to the emperor. One day Nameless find the emperor and shows him three weapons. These weapons were the weapons of broken sword, flying snow, and sky. Nameless told the emperor that he defeated his enemies and the emperor  believed him for he had the weapons of the three great powers. This is where the importance of words comes in. The emperor did not know this, but Nameless made a deal with the three enemies to take their weapons and claim he was a great sword fighter so he could get close enough to the emperor to assassinate him. Throughout the entire movie Nameless lies and lies and lies to the emperor. At the end of the film Nameless does not end up assassinating the emperor because he realizes that only through the emperor can unity happen. Nameless is a true hero because he did not kill the emperor even though he wanted. He thought it through and with his words helped the emperor to believe that China could unite.

Family

 A family is a unit of people who live together. There are many different types of families nowadays. There is a family that has both a mother and a father which is a normal family. And then there are other families that may just have one mother or father, or two mothers or fathers. The idea of a family is a great thing. Much love is given and revieved inside of a family unit. A family is one of the strongest relationships in the world today. In the film The Incredibles the director portrays the idea of a family quite well. In the Incredible family there is a mother, a father, a son and a daughter. However, this family is much different than normal families because all of the members of the family have super powers. The love of a family is very much so prevalent though. In the beginning of the movie Mr. Incredible secretly begins to do superhero work again. He does not tell his wife or kids. This is a downside of the family chemistry. He wants to hide it from his family so they aren't upset and also so it protects them. However, very quickly the family learns about the lie and is upset and also in danger. At this point the family could either break apart or come close together. They end up coming very close together and working as a family to defeat the enemy.

Mega Mind

Mega Mind was an excellent movie. I had a great time going with the class and just hanging out and watching a quality film. I definitely had some great laughs from it. The main reason behinds these many laughs of course was Will Ferrell, you just have to love that guy. Down side of the experience was the fact that there was a little 6 year old boy sitting next to me who was crying because his dad went to go get snacks and wasn't back when the movie started. He shortly returned, but I sure did feel bad for this weeping kid. Besides that small little incident everything about the movie was fantastic. I like the part how we all thought the Brad Pitt had died, however he came back near the end of the movie. That was pretty sweet. I also enjoyed the rivalry between the two throughout the first part of the movie. It was kind of disappointing to see that the bad guy won the battle. And then after he had won, he turned good because he was just too good to be bad. It was a little bit lame, how he turned from bad to good, but it ended up working out quite fine. My favorite part was probably at the end of the movie when Will Ferrell used his transforming power to look like Brad Pitt. Everybody believed that Brad Pitt had come back from the dead to save the day. When really Will Ferrell just took his look. This scene added quite a twist on the film and made it end with a bang. Overall Mega Mind was a quality work of art and I recommend to anyone with a sense of humor of all ages.

Double Consciousness

Double consciousness is the state in which a person sees themselves as they believe others see them. For example, if a boy were to think that other people think he is weak, that boy would then believe that, no matter how true of false it may be. Double consciousness can also be used in the study of super heroes. In some ways a  super hero such as spider-man has a mind of double consciousness. Spider-man, Peter Parker, sees himself through Mary Jane's eyes and sees a loser. Now, in the beginning of the movie this is very much so true. Peter really doesn't have many friends. However, even after Peter gets bitten by a spider, he still believes that Mary Jane thinks he is a loser. He acts according to how he thinks she feels. Whether or not she thought that Peter Parker was a loser, Peter still believes that she thinks he does. It's not until later in the movie that Mary Jane starts to fall in love with him. Then Peter thinks that she thinks that he is awesome and handsome, and so then he starts to believe it and is more confident. Confidence can easily go hand in hand with this. If someone is to think that someone thinks that they are lame, then they lose confidence and think they are lame. However if someone think that someone thinks they are cool then they gain confidence and think they are cool!

Allegory of the cave

The allegory of the cave by Plato is a scenario set inside a cave with people chained up against the back wall of the cave. facing the wall with a fire behind them. When the fire illuminates their back sides they can see shadows or themselves and other people or things on the wall. The shadows that they see is what they know to be true. No body in the cave knows that what they know to be true is really not true at all. However, when the people break free from their chains and get outside the cave they experience the real truth. They then realize that what they have known all along has been a lie. I believe that it is better to be inside of the cave. Although sometimes many people would like to know the truth about everything, I believe that it is better sometimes to just live by faith. Let whatever happens, happen. In the end you really don't have any control over what happens. If you were to know the truth about everything how could that benefit you? Sometimes it is best to be kept in the dark about certain things. So overall even though sometimes it would be nice to know the truth about things, I think it would be best to be inside the cave.

V for Vendetta Intro

In the film V for Vendetta the power of the mask is used to a great extent. When someone sees a mask it is sometimes hard for people to look beyond the simple answer, to hide their identity. However, a mask can also be used to signify something great than the person behind it. V wears a mask to hide his identity, and also to state that he stands for something greater than himself, and through this process his identity became that of the mask.

AD!!

http://notaniche.com/outrageous-ads/698/

In this here ad, the company Nike, is persuading people to follow their motto "Just do it." In this case there is a young black boy in what looks like a very poor community. Nike has posted their ad on the side of a cement wall along side of a dirt road or alley filled with trash. This young boy has taken the "Just do it" phrase and has followed the instructions. This boy needed to piddle and when he saw this ad he must have said to himself "why not?" So there he urinated, right on the very ad that had told him to "Just do it." Nike probably did not have this in mind when they came up with this phrase but some people take things to extremes. The other possibility in this is that this boy does not like the company Nike for some reason. Maybe they did not send him the shoes he wanted, which give reason to why he is barefoot. Or maybe he likes the brand Adidas better than Nike. Whatever the case may be, the action remains the same. For some reason this young black boy is urinating on an ad for Nike. I sure hope this little dog doesn't go and lick up this boy's pee after this. 

Gospel According to Spiderman

In the Gospel According to Spider-man Niall Richardson compares Spider-man and other super heroes to Christianity and Jesus. He often uses the quote from the movie Spider-man which says "With great power comes  great responsibility." This compares to the previous reading about privilege because power is a definite privilege. It is a great privilege to be able to have super natural abilities and Uncle Ben realizes this and tries to get Peter Parker to understand as well. Throughout the movie this quote is repeated because in order to be a real superhero Spider-man needs to realize that he has great responsibility. He can no longer just look out for himself, he has to look out for the city, the world. Being a superhero means that he must be a savior in a sense. He must save the people from the evil one. Throughout the movie there are numerous ways that one can compare spider-man to Jesus, and has been done. One can also compare the green goblin to Satan, which is also done. Because Spider-man has the strength and the ability to defeat the villain, who has been hurting many people of which spider-man might or might not know, he has the responsibility to defeat him.

Privilege

A privilege is something that you have that other people are denied. Such as skin color, gender, sexual orientation or many other things. Now I'm not trying to offend anyone, but I think most people would agree with me in saying that males are generally more athletically inclined. This is a privilege. Not all males have this privilege  either. I am, for the most part athletically inclined, therefore I am privileged in this aspect. It's a privilege that I don't always see as something special, when in fact it's pretty special. I mean what if I were to get in some sort of accident and end up paralyzed, or with a broken leg. Even with a broken leg I would  be able to realize how much of a privilege it is to be able to use that leg. Being paralyzed would be much worse and much easier to realize that it is indeed a privilege to be physically capable. So what I guess I'm trying to say is that each individual has so many privileges that many others do not have. Sometimes what it takes to realize this is to lose that privilege. Like the saying goes "You don't really know what you have until it is gone."

All about Me!

First off, my name is Derik Schmidt and I am a freshman at Azusa Pacific University for the 2010 school year. I absolutely love soccer. Playing, or watching, if soccer is involved I love it. I grew up in Atascadero, California, a small city north of San Luis Obispo. In other words, the Central Coast of California. I love it there. The weather is beautiful and everything is just splendid. Growing up on the Central Coast i'm am very much in love with the beach. I would go there very often as a child and even as a teenager. Although I never really learned how to surf, I love to just go and mess around and go boogie boarding. Another thing I love to do is go to the snow. I never tried to learn how to snowboard because I love skiing so much. Going down the slopes is one of the greatest things to do. I am somewhat of a sporty guy. I love to watch sports, play sports, and talk sports. I've tried many sports including: cross country, track, baseball, tennis, basketball, and soccer. As well as other sports but I just played those for fun, and not on an organized team or program. I hope this little post has shown you a little bit more about me!