...Film Review of ”About a Boy” Cast: Hugh Grant, Rachel Weisz, Toni Collette and Nicholas Hoult Director: Chris and Paul Weitz Novel written by: Nick Hornby Script writer: Peter Hedges, Chris and Paul Weitz Rating: PG-13 Genre: Romance, Comedy and Drama Running time: 105min. Review: The movie is mainly about 36 year old Will Freeman and 12 year old Marcus Brewer. Will is a so called island which means that he wants nothing to do with family related things; all he really wants is relationships without any form of commitment, he therefore goes to a club for single parents called S.P.A.T. There he meets a woman that he likes, but to be with her he makes up that he has a two-year old son named Ted. When he revels that it was a lie to get close to her, she immediately breaks up with him. Will's keeps on courting and the woman (Suzie) takes him to one of the group's picnics where he meets Marcus the son of Suzie's friend, Fiona. At the picnic, Marcus accidentally kills a duck with piece of bread while he is trying to feed it. When a park ranger asks him about it, Will defends Marcus by saying that the bird was already dead. Afterward, when Will and Suzie take Marcus home, they find Fiona, his mother, in the living room, on a pill-overdose trying to commit suicide. Marcus gets uncomfortable with being at home with his mother; therefore he tries to get Will to date her. After only one date this plan fails so Marcus starts following Will around and discovers that Will...
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...Jenny Smith November 28, 2011 Dr. Min Young Lee English 121 sec 28 The Coming of Age of the Male Characters in About a Boy About a boy is a contemporary novel written by the British author Nick Hornby. It incorporates constructs of post-modern writing by bringing into focus the artists, and styles, and prose of the vernacular. The setting of the novel takes place in London in the mid 1990s. About a boy gives a unique perspective of a coming of age story. It follows the coming of age of two boys of two very different ages; Will Freeman 36 years old and Marcus 12. This novel shows the contrast between consumerism and materialism with real interpersonal connections. Will Freeman made the decision to pursue materialism rather than personal friendships, and to live in self-imposed isolation. Will had the ability to buy “cool” clothes, and sunglasses and sneakers, and so was never at a loss for acquaintances. Marcus, on the other hand, felt isolation due to a lack of materialism. Marcus was an outsider in his school in London since he could not have the best “coolest” clothes, shoes, and haircuts and thus was always the target of bullying. However, as the plot progresses, Marcus and Will undergo transformational experiences together to become more connected to the people around them. The transformational experiences of Fiona’s suicide, falling in love, and Marcus’ arrest all culminate in the maturation of Will and Marcus’ and the genesis of interpersonal connections between...
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...Name: Joel Sanguinetti Title: All About Eve Year: 1950 Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck Three Performers: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders Costume/Wardrobe: Edith Head, Charles LE Maire, Sam Benson, Josephine Brown, Ann Landers, Merle Williams Hair and Make-up: Ben Nye, Bunny Gardel, Franz Prehoda, Kay Reed, Gene Roemer, Gladys Witten Set and Stage Design: Thomas Little, Walter M. Scott Musical Score Composer: Alfred Newman Cinematographer/Photographer: Milton R. Krasner Screenplay: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Original Novel, Play, or Story: Mary Orr – The Wisdom of Eve Academy Awards (Oscars) Won: 1. Best Actor in a Supporting Role – George Sanders 2. Best Costume Design, Black-and-White – Edith Head & Charles LE Maire 3. Best Director – Joseph L. Mankiewicz 4. Best Picture – 20th Century Fox 5. Best Sound, Recording – 20th Century-Fox Sound Dept. 6. Best Writing, Screenplay – Joseph L. Mankiewicz Joel Sanguinetti Mr. Skillings English 101-B4N December 19, 2011 All About Theatre Theatre has evolved in many ways throughout history. Theatre goes back to the 6th century BCE and develops its origins from Greece. Around 1750, theatre was introduced to New York, and eventually became what we now know as Broadway theatre. All About Eve, directed and written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, is a movie based on the novel The Wisdom of Eve, written by Mary Orr. All About Eve is a movie about Broadway theatre and the harsh...
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...of my patients. Streams of people are constantly flooding into our hospital, their legs and necks covered in swollen bumps that blacken within hours; goose bumps rise upon their skin as they shiver with exceedingly high fevers, and many are violently throwing up blood. Nurses are madly dashing around from person to person, trying to aid them as much as possible, while our top doctors are desperately racing against time to find some sort of remedy; the hospital is in mass chaos I tell you, mass chaos! I just can’t take it anymore, seeing so many faces that were once smiling and laughing all of twenty-four hours ago to now being masked with such desolate fear and misery. I want to leave this place, just like Dr. Kamish and Dr. Maveroh and about ten more of our staff members that deserted our hospital did. It would be better than hiding in this old closet that I’m in now, which reeks of must and unused cleaning supplies. Although, the stench of dirt and Windex couldn’t possibly smell as bad as the vile odor of the sick and decaying people outside; I don’t want to go out there. I’m petrified. If I go back out there, I could get sick myself, and leave behind my husband and kids. But I can’t stay in here. It’s wrong. I’m going to go out there right now and try to do my best to help the people that have fallen ill during this grave time, the grimmest time of my life. -Sue * * * Dear Journal March 20, 1348 Yesterday at work was one of the most horrifying sights...
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...is Home? In Joan Didion’s essay “On Going Home” she writes about leading a double life. She feels like one person when she’s with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles, and a completely different person when back “home” surrounded by her childhood family in the Central Valley of California. During this particular trip, she begins to reflect on her life in Los Angeles. Didion contemplates the fact that she often feels uneasy around her husband, just like he feels uneasy being around her family. At a crossroad, she must decide not only who she is, and the life she wants, but also the kind of life she wants for her daughter. Her life in Los Angeles has cleansed her from her youth—one that was dusty and full of useless trinkets. She ponders the time her husband wrote the word “D-U-S-T” on those useless trinkets and she remembers her feelings of sadness and indignation. She says, “We live in dusty houses…filled with mementos quite without value to him” (139-40). The dust-covered trinkets signify what is important to her, or what needs to be addressed in her marriage. Yet, these objects just lay there waiting for someone to see them—for someone to dust them off and care for them—not unlike how Didion wishes her husband would see her and nurture her in their marriage. Didion wonders which of her two homes is normal or if they are both flawed. When she and her husband are with her family, he becomes apprehensive about her behavior, “…because once there I fall into their ways, which...
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...My colleague presented a case to me involving a man named “Bob”. The patient “Bob” is an only child that grew up in a religious household. His father was a warm and kind man that worked all the time. Bob only saw his father on the weekends when he was a child due to his father’s work schedule. Bob’s father died about a year ago. Bob’s mother was the disciplinarian and she was very strict. She worked as a janitor initially at his Elementary School and then she became his high school librarian. Bob seems to have a strained relationship with his mother. Bob attended college and studied psychology. He worked as a psych tech for 14 years. Bob seems cooperative at the session and admits to having no medical problems, but drinks occasionally with...
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... Bob, was an extremely wealthy man in his early forties, just won another million dollars from the state lotto. Bob was on a hot streak winning almost every ticket. Bob also like to bet on the horses. Bob has an addiction. One day bob lost, Bob was mad, He lost a lot of money on a sure fire horse.. Bob bet everything on this horse, The horse broke its leg out of the gate, Game over. Bob was broke, he had no money, just his car and nice house. Bob sold his house and his car, he bought a old ugly beater car. He again bet everything on another horse, and he lost again. Bob lives in his car, Bob is now in this fifties and still living in his car, Bob never reached out for help. Would you of helped Bob if he asked? Gambling is very addictive, there should be more publicly known programs, like AA, to help the people who have an addiction. The lotto should be harder to get tickets. More than a million adolescents are already addicted to gambling, starting at a young age (Grey). People with gambling addictions have problems, But it’s their own problems, They need to better manage their money, and not make everyone else feel bad for their mistakes. In stores and gas stations all around the united states there are machines just sitting there, filled with instant scratch off lotto tickets, All you do is put money in and pick the ticket you want. In gas stations where you have to ask the clerk to grab your ticket, have lower sales than the machines, The machines are convenient, you're...
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...Major Themes in 'Much Ado About Nothing' Shakespeare’s treatment of love in Much Ado About Nothing differs from his other romantic comedies. Sure, it shares the same stagy plot, which finishes with the lovers finally getting back together, but Shakespeare also mocks the conventions of courtly love which was popular at the time. Although Claudio and Hero’s courtly marriage is central to the plot, their relationship is the least interesting thing in the play. Instead, our attention is drawn to Benedick and Beatrice’s unromantic backbiting – it is this relationship that seems more believable and enduring. By contrasting these two different types of love, Shakespeare manages to poke fun at the conventions of courtly, romantic love. Claudio uses highly contrived language when speaking of love, which is undermined by Benedick and Beatrice’s banter: “Can the world buy such a Jewel?” says Claudio of Hero. “My dear Lady disdain! Are you yet living?” says Benedick of Beatrice. As an audience, we are supposed to share Benedick’s frustration with Claudio’s transparent, pompous rhetoric of love: “He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier … His words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes.” Deception As the title suggests, there is a lot of fuss over very little in the play – after all, if Claudio wasn’t so impetuous, Don John’s rather weak plan wouldn’t have worked at all! What makes the plot so intricate is the use of deception...
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...“Much Ado About Nothing” are the victims of deception, and because they’ve been deceived is the reason they act in the ways that they do. Even though the central deception is directed against Claudio in an attempt to destroy his relationship with Hero, it is the deception pertaining to Beatrice and Benedick which is the play's main focus. Almost every character in the play at some point has to make interpretations from what he or she sees, has been told or overheard. At the same time, nearly every character in the play at some point plays a part of consciously pretending to be what they are not. (Act I, Scene I) ”Thou wilt be like a lover presently and tire the hearer with a book of words. If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it, and I will break with her and with her father, and thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?” Here is when Don Pedro tries to put a spin on words making it sound like if Claudio really wants to be with Hero, they should first trick her into believing that Don Pedro is actually Claudio. They go on forward with the idea and as Don Pedro is swooning Hero with his words and charm at the masked ball and Claudio is actually eavesdropping near-by trying to make sure everything is going according to plan. Deception is one of the focal themes throughout the play which grows out of the love game. Deceit is not evil in nature; it can be used for the purpose good or bad outcomes. “In Much Ado About Nothing” the...
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...The No Fear Shakespeare line by line translation offers a plaintive point of view of Shakespeare’s Othello. It has improved my understanding of the play as a whole and provided me with a new perspective. The most outstanding difference between the original play and the No Fear Shakespeare (NFS) text is the removal and simplification of the dialogue. Shakespeare uses a syntax that is sometimes difficult to understand, often putting the subject of a sentence after the verb. He also employs various types of figurative language such as metaphors, puns, and allusions. One benefit of reading the NFS is that it rearranges the original sentence structure to be more coherent. However, some of Shakespeare’s best work is lost in translation. While the...
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...“Much Ado About Nothing” is a comical play centered around scandals, love, and witty jokes. The antagonist of the play, Don John, schemes to make other characters suffer because of his on mishaps of being a bastard. As for the other characters, they play matchmaker to create happy relationships.Although “Much Ado About Nothing is depicted as a comical play, aspects of star-crossed lovers and deception reveal relevance to the moral of the story. In “Much Ado About Nothing,” deception, with the inherently evil connotation, reveals to have both negative and positive outcomes. Don Pedro disguises as Claudio in Act I and confesses his love to Hero at the mask ball because he feels that the two would make a perfect couple. Don John decides to...
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...In William Shakespeare’s comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, he uses the dialogue to show the transition of Benedick and his feelings toward Beatrice and marriage in general. Shakespeare uses the dialogue to show the reader the progression of Benedick’s outlooks on life go from hating Beatrice and the whole idea of marriage to then loving Beatrice and asking her to marry him. This kind of transition is very large and it can only be down by a great writer, such as William Shakespeare. Throughout the whole story Benedick shows very strong feelings toward both marriage and Beatrice, both good and bad, but in the end his true feelings are shown. In the very beginning of the book, after the war ended, Benedick and his fellow soldiers stay at a friend of Don Pedro’s house named Leonato. Leonato’s niece is named Beatrice, whom has a strong dislike of Benedick and vice versa. Benedick dislikes her so much that he states, “I will fetch you a toothpick from the furthest inch of Asia . . . do you any embassage to the pigmies, rather than hold three words’ conference...
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...MAAN: Love, what is it good for? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines love as “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties;” Throughout the play, Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare, there is never really a love connection between the characters Benedick and Beatrice. In the beginning of the play, they despise one another and made witty comments about one another; not only that, but they also question why the other one loved them after overhearing the conversation between their friends. By this definition Beatrice and Benedick can't truly be in love, because of words spoken by their friends. At the start of the play, when Benedick first arrived in Messina, the first thing they did was make witty comments about...
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...MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Title As a title, Much Ado About Nothing fits neatly with those of Shakespeare’s other plays written around the same time: the titles seem whimsical and even flippant. Twelfth Night was alternatively titled What You Will, and As You Like It seems a much less informative title than, say, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Still, the capricious titles are actually as reflective of their content as any history or tragedy title. The plot of Much Ado About Nothing centers on a lot of hubbub over little misunderstandings; there’s a whole lot of fuss about stuff that ultimately isn’t that important. For the bigger issues in the play, though, we turn to the fact that, in Shakespeare’s day, "nothing" was often pronounced the same way as "noting." The play is built around the process of "noting," which has myriad meanings. It can mean "to take notice of" something, to eavesdrop, to observe, or to write something down – but these notings aren’t necessarily accurate. A person can misunderstand a meaning, or mishear, or misreport something, in the process of noting too. The foibles that result from noting (and misnoting) are central to keeping the play spinning. If that wasn’t interesting enough for you, you might want to note that "nothing" was also an Elizabethan slang term for the vagina. "Much Ado About Vagina" makes sense as a title, right? After all, the highs and lows of the play revolve around men and their relationships with, suspicion of, and...
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...Beatrice is a strong-willed, independent woman. How far do you agree with this statement? I would agree for the most part with this statement. Beatrice is indeed strong-willed, but her independence has its limitations. As with many Shakespearean characters, appearance can be deceptive, and what we see is only a facade, a mask to hide their true character or feelings. I believe that Beatrice uses her cleverness and quick wit to hide her real feelings, and that although she is independent to a certain extent, she is aware that she has limitations because of her gender. Although Beatrice states ‘I would rather hear my dog bark at a crow than hear a man swear he loves me’ she is ultimately fooled into believing that Benedick loves her. The fact that she is tricked so easily, and subsequently admits her reciprocal love, tells us that she views marriage in a more favourable light than she had previously led us to believe. Whether she gave in to the ‘social construct’ demanded by the patriarchal society in which she lived is questionable. What we do know is that Shakespeare has presented her as a wilful, self-confident, autonomous woman who appears to revel in her single status. In contrast we have Hero, the antithesis of Beatrice. She is meek, obedient and completely dominated by the men in her life. She is the perfect foil for Beatrice, her willingness to please further enhancing Beatrice’s character. It is clear from the start of the play that Beatrice is not an...
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