Animated Movies

            Animated type movies are becoming more common to watch. These can also be called cartoons. There are animated movies and then anime derives from Japanese shows/movies, but basically it’s just drawings and with someone giving them voices. Anyway, a lot of movies that people like to watch are anime type movies. One cartoon type movie that I enjoy is Ratatouille which is about some rat that is some fabulous cook; though that sounds weird and I wonder how anyone came up with the idea of a rat cooking…It’s a pretty great movie. A lot of movies though are cartoon or anime based today.

            I actually love a lot of shows that derive from anime type shows, but have the Japanese translated to English; these shows are like Pokemon and Digimon for just two examples. But even anime type of movies that were just made in Japan are really good like the movies the Grudge are extremely scary and though they aren’t cartoons or drawings they are seriously really scary. Japanese movies are usually scarier than American based movies, only problem is to understand what’s going on if you don’t speak Japanese is having English subtitles which usually takes away from the scary happenings that occur.

            Another movie that is like this is Frozen which they draw instead of having actors or actresses. I think I like when movies are just drawings because think of all the time spent creating that. A lot of old Disney movies do drawings instead of the whole having actors and actresses, but lately more movies have actor and actresses in them instead of the drawings. I think that more movies should be like Frozen and the Lion King and all the other movies that are cartoons. One movie that comes to mind is Garfield where they turned the cartoon into a realistic movie; which I thought was okay, but would have been amazing if they had created it like the show.

            Finding Nemo is one movie that was created by Pixar that was about a fish lost in the big blue ocean and was just overall a great movie. Though this movie came out awhile ago it is still a favorite for people these days. Usually, when these movies come out they are really popular, so more movies should be like this.

            I think that a ton of people like movies like these, one reason might be because you don’t have to worry about looking at people because a lot of the time these animated movies are about animals instead of people. Which I love movies about animals. But overall this blog post is just about my love for animated movies. 

Blogging

            Blogging is one of the most pointless things to do. Every week we have to blog three blog posts and have it at 400 words each and have it relate to a specific topic. This is different from the way the Ap Lang class operated a couple of years ago; it used to operate where they didn’t have to put it on the internet and they could talk about whatever they wanted. I think that at least if we are made to blog we should be able to talk about different themes than what we chose at the beginning of the year.

            So I honestly don’t care for blogging all that much, but every week I blog because I know that it’s a part of my grade and honestly for typing only about 1,200 words a week it sounds like a good deal for me to get an A in terms of blogging. Blogging is worth about 20% of our grade, so if we don’t blog at all the highest grade we would get for the term would be 80% (yeah, I’m a magician at math). So of course no one really wants to blog (if you do, you need to get out because you’re irrelevant in my discussion about blogging). But I feel like each week I’m wasting my time blogging about pointless blog posts that I know for a fact no one cares about, not even me. Now I think if it was something education it might be worth my while, and I know there is the choice of doing that, but if I have the choice to blog about something fun or educational…Trust me I’m going to be blogging about fun type subjects.

            I think that if we were allowed to blog about any topic and not have to try to relate it back to our subject that I would have so much more fun blogging, but instead I see it as a chore for school. Though we can change our blog post topic if we ask, I for one just like to talk about whatever comes to my mind and not have to try to relate it to a topic. I think that Movies and Books is a pretty fun topic compared to what some people blog about, but it gets very repetitive and then I just run out of ideas of what to blog about. I chose this topic (Books and Movies) because over the years I have read many books and watched plenty of movies that I thought I can just pick any and write a blog post about it, but it’s not that easy…I have to try to come up with a way to get to 400 words with every post I do.

            So why do I think blogging is pointless? Because I already practice my writing skills in all my classes when they require us to write essays, but I think that essay writing is pretty boring because usually it’s voiceless (no tone) while as on here I just kind of type like how I speak. So really is requiring us to do blog posts all the time really helping us? I know it helps us ‘practice’ writing, but other than that it is rather pointless for me to do. Besides who really cares about movie and book reviews? 

Why don't we read dictionaries?

            Why I don’t read dictionaries in my free time? So teachers are always saying how us students and kids of this generation need to expand our vocabulary because we don’t know squat. Well, there is a reason I don’t read dictionaries in my free time, and I feel like this isn’t just me, but also is the same for other kids around my age.

            My first reason for not reading dictionaries is ain’t nobody got time for dat! Like the amount of homework we get in classes each day is ridiculous! It’s like teachers think that we can function with no food, no sleep, and no social life. I don’t know about anybody else (I’m guessing it’s the same with other people too, since humans don’t like to be alone), but I would go insane without social contact! Like I’ll start talking to my cat if I don’t talk to anyone for a really long amount of time, and I’m not just meaning like texting someone, I mean face to face interaction. Which while I’m on the topic of having a social life it is also equally ridiculous when you try talking to friends during class and your teacher is like socializing is for other time. Oh please, you tell me what other time since during passing time you have to quickly get to class, during lunch you’re eating, and then all the time outside of school is dedicated to sports and homework. But anyway back to my original point, I don’t have time to  read the dictionary and expand my vocabulary because if I were to do that I’d be like the walking dead (well, I kind of already look like the walking dead with the lack of sleep I get…). So my solution to this dilemma is for teachers to give us some words that we don’t know so we can actually expand our vocabulary because were supposedly at school to learn, so we should be learning vocabulary!

            Second reason I don’t read dictionaries. Have you ever actually tried to read a dictionary? It makes no sense! It’s like I’m trying to read a different language because none of it processes in my head. Oh, what’s hilarious is when you look up the word for a word you don’t know and then it gives you a definition that is another word you don’t know. You just got to love when that happens, not.  So anyway, dictionaries are boring, and it’s really thick too! You know how many words are in the English language? A LOT! I don’t exactly know the ‘exact’ number, but I just know it’s a number I wouldn’t care to know (if that makes any sense at all?)

            Lastly, I’ll give one more reason why I don’t read dictionaries in my free time. I just really don’t care too much to actually expand my vocabulary. I mean it’s not like I’m the one bitching about needing to expand my vocab. I think I talk very rad, and it makes me, me. By learning new words it would change my view on the world, because knowledge is the key to life, and I’d rather live in my fantasy world and just be myself. So dictionaries…..Read them or don’t. And if you really want to expand your vocabulary I suggest using a thesaurus, I feel like it would be so much more useful. 

Uglies

            Uglies is a book by Scott Westerfeld that is all about plastic surgery and living in a conformed society. In regards to my last blog post, Mean Girls, this blog post is going to be centered on the same idea of beauty/ugliness.

            So all the way back in 7^th grade (wow, four years ago, I’m getting old) I read a book for my language arts class called Uglies. I actually chose to read this book because it was back when the language arts teachers I had let us read what we wanted that wasn’t made only in the 19^th century. So the goal of the class was to read this 425 page book; which I had already wanted to read it, so I finished it all over the weekend and began to read the next book in the series. So this series actually has four books in it the first is called Uglies, the second Pretties, the third Specials, and the fourth Extras. I have read all four of the books, my opinion the fourth book isn’t all that great, but the series as a whole is a rather simple to comprehend and has a well established story line going.

            So now to actually talk about the book and not just tell my own personal narrative of how/why/when I read the book (oh, I forgot to add I had wanted to read it because my sister had read it before). I’m not going to lie, I hardly remember the exact details of this series because I’ve read so many series that sometimes I mess up names and details from one series into another, but considering I have the book sitting right next to me as I’m blogging this blog post….I can tell you that the main character is Tally and she has a friend named Shay who is quite rebellious. Anyway, the main thing to get from this story (at least the first book) is that society shouldn’t be conformed in the way that you have to get plastic surgery to be controlled by the government.

Now that I’m thinking of the series as a whole I feel like if I reread the series I would probably understand the concepts better than I did when I was in 7^th grade….But I really do think this series teaches a lot about loving who you are and you don’t need to be ‘pretty’. At the beginning of the book that’s all that Tally could hope for is becoming pretty, but really prettiness is all a matter of perspective and if Tally and all the other people in the book would have just realized they already are pretty than the government would never have been controlling them. I just think that this was a very fulfilling series to read, and though I don’t remember a lot of it, I remember the main ideas and think that this is an amazing book for middle schoolers and even some high schoolers to read because it’s all about accepting yourself (and being a rebel!)

Mean Girls

            Mean Girls came out ten years ago starting on Wednesday. The ‘anniversary’ of Mean Girls is April 30^th and that happens to be this Wednesday (always wear pink on Wednesdays.)Why is Mean Girls still popular and people still make references from this movie if it came out ten years ago?

            So the first to know about Mean Girls is it centers on the cliques of high school like the whole plastics, nerds, potheads, and all those different labels. For about the past month different pictures have been making references to Mean Girls by different rules from the movie like the wearing pink on Wednesdays, only wearing your hair up once a week, and no sweatpants. Also of course Twitter, Tumblr, and all the different social networking sites have been making quotes from the movie that are just hilarious (which I won’t share if your that curious either watch the movie or look it up).

            We come back to the question, why is this movie popular? Well first thing this movie is hilarious it has all the drama in high school, romance, bitchy fake girls, and just the way they talk is humorous, totally talk more valley girl than I do. Another reason that this movie is popular is it like I said in the former sentence it has romance and fighting over who will end up getting the cute guy in the movie, Aaron. The movie portrays some pretty hilarious scenarios/situations of Regina and Cady fighting for Aaron.

            The reason my friends and I seem to like this movie is because though it seems to over exaggerate the situation of cliques and girls being mean it honestly couldn’t be closer to the truth. In high school people get made fun of all the time for their appearance and not how they are as a person. It seems that usually the ‘plastics’ or popular people are so focused on their appearance that nothing else about themselves matter. I feel like that is kind of how it is in high school, so many girls are so focused on their appearance, so they can have that cute guy in their class to notice them. Women totally subject themselves to men and making themselves is what they think guys want and if that means getting a nose job like Regina in Mean Girls than girls will look into it.

            Mean Girls is a comedy, but the movie definitely has truth in the dialogue. Girls (even some guys) talk behind each other’s backs and gossip to try to fit in and it’s kind of just human nature to want to talk about yourself and other people because we all love to compare ourselves to others. I think that’s why Mean Girls is still popular to this day, because there is truth in how girls treat one another and if girls can just open their eyes and not start rumors about others maybe, just maybe, high school wouldn’t seem too bad.

                                                        

Spelling

            Spelling in life doesn’t seem like it would be all that important, I mean we start spelling tests and everything as soon as we learn to write. But that’s the thing, no one really seems to know how to spell anything. So why are people unable to spell simple words anymore?

            The major thing is that people will talk face to face and use that as a form of communication. The other big thing is more people text, tweet, email, and communicate through electronics. Now that’s the thing you think that since people would be using these devices that it would increase their ability to actually spell words correctly, but it doesn’t. Spell check is used widely now usually before you send something via electronically then you’ll spell check it if it’s an important email or in cases of texting you’ll use texting lingo which usually no one uses correct punctuation, grammar, or even spell words correctly since no one wants to take the few extra seconds to actually type on their keyboard correctly. This was very common in some of the first cell phones since spell check wasn’t a real big thing a couple of years back, but now with cell phones like the iphone it automatically corrects your spelling errors, so that there is no need to know how to spell. Honestly, it’s pretty pathetic if you get some people to try to spell simple words and they just can’t do it! It’s like they never learned the rules to grammar and keep an e in a word that you’re supposed to drop off the e and just add ing.

            But if you go on Twitter or Facebook or any other websites (maybe even possibly blogging) people are spelling words incorrectly and it’s getting to the point where it’s just incredibly sad since some people are in college and high school and they can’t even spell words like management correctly. Texting and texting lingo has completely altered the way people write papers even during class. For example a teacher tells a student to handwrite a paper and the student will want to type it on the computer since there is no spell check when you handwrite a paper. I think it would be very interesting to see the differences between a paper typed up on the computer and a handwritten paper to see how many words people spell wrong. Even in books now in days, it’s really easy to find errors in books, publication companies need to hirer better people to check for grammatical errors and spelling errors all throughout the book because many books I’ve read before have errors.

            Overall, in high school language arts teachers should start with spelling tests again because it’s pretty pathetic if people are spelling even simple words incorrectly, just look at what some people have posted online, it makes absolutely no sense!

The Role Music Plays

            Imagine a movie without any music in it, pretty quiet right? Music plays an essential role in how you are supposed to feel during a movie. For instance think of any movie you have ever watched; was there music there to make you feel a certain way? If so then you probably see where I'm coming from when I say music is everything.

            I’m a big listener of music, it’s actually quite sad how much time I spend listening to music. I listen to music during passing time, while doing homework, when I’m taking a shower, in the car, and just about all the time! I think on average I listen to about 5 or more hours of music PER day. But how does this relate to putting music into movies? When going through the movie the director (or honestly whichever job gets the role of music) goes through the movie and adds in music in a certain spot to make you feel a certain emotion. For example, during a horror film the instrumental music is usually used to make you feel more frightened because you end up anticipating something bad is going to happen and then boom, you jump a little. What makes up a great horror film is definitely having music in the correct spots. So next time you’re watching a horror film think of how it would be without the music.

            Music doesn’t just have to be in horror films, it’s in every type of movies like romantic, sci-fi, action, comedies, and of course musicals. But what makes them determine what music to use? Well, first off if they want the movie to sell, usually they’ll end up using music that people like. Obviously not everyone likes the same genres of music, but usually theirs a majority that like a certain type for this day in age I would probably guess it being rap, pop, or dub-step (which I consider to be electronica, but others look at me like I’m crazy when I say that). But if they had music that people found annoy they might end up reinforcing the idea of annoying music and this movie and then end up hating movies like that.

            Another thing is music can get people to actually watch the movie. I like a lot of different types of genres, but if I see a commercial on the telly with a song I love or by an artist I love then I might watch that movie just because of the music it played. This happened with the Great Gatsby to be honest, I love Nero, and I think their music is great, so since I liked that artist I decided to watch the Great Gatsby. I’m not saying that will happen to everyone, I’m just giving an example of when it occurred for me. Also music at the beginning of the movie might influence what you think of the movie. I love the Fast and the Furious movies, and the 6^th movie that came out had the song We Own It at the beginning and I thought it was catchy, which influenced what I thought of the overall movie.

            Music is all around us. I mean you can try to cut music from your life, but it’s in shows, movies, commercials, on the radio, and just everywhere. So whether you like certain genres it is true that music will affect how you react to a movie because it will make anticipate a certain moment, or emphasis that moment.