On the sidewalk bleeding

On the sidewalk bleeding

In this story a young man is stabbed in the ribcage and is left to die in his own pool of blood. The rain meanwhile is teeming down mixing the blood with an array of water and dirt. The opposed gang members that had done the damage are long gone. Andy can feel his life starting to drain away. The reason he had been stabbed was because he was in an opposing gang, The Royals. His life, his possessions, his personality meant nothing. The only thing that mattered was that he was in another gang. I believe that this is saying, what right do we have to choose when we end a life and show that we are better. Andy didn’t get a choice in this apart from the choice that that night if it would be a good idea to wear his ‘Royals’ jacket that night.

As he realised that this was going to be his final breathes all he wanted to do was get rid of the jacket that was bestowed upon him because this jacket had got him here in the first place and when he left this world he wanted to be remembered as Andy, the person, not some dangerous gang thug. This was his final wish and as he finally managed to escape the jackets grasp he let go of his life. I believe that here in is part of everyday life because there are a lot of people that have “nicknames” given as part of their trait instead of their real names. For example as the dropkick with no potential, the drunken garbage man that with no soul or even the grumpy old lady next door. These are titles not names and too often are people dishing out these titles to innocent people that are, quite frankly, not always what meets the eye. This really brings the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” into a little bit more context.

All together I enjoyed this short story because it really made me think about life and other people’s life because people aren’t always what they seem and sometimes they can be the complete opposite of the person that they appear to be.

Quest for fire

In the Quest for Fire the director, J.J Annaud has made the movie an extraordinaire in its time. With the many great film techniques used and with no dialogue apart from the occasional grunt made it a quite different movie from any other film. In this passage I am going to outline some of the best film techniques in the movie and tell u why they were so effective.

When the film begins as the camera pans across a huge, barren hillside with no real light, very little colour and as if it, the hillside, was trying to look as dull as it could, until the panning finally comes across one tiny light, a fire. At the time of the panning the background music is really daunting and you can here wolves growling and the wind howling and all combined together it makes the land seem very eerie. But when the panning comes across to the fire the music lightens slightly as if this fire is important. I find that this is an excellent start to a film because it really gives you a good idea of the scenery and showing how big the land is and how tiny that fire is. It makes it look as if that fire is the only true bright light in the world. As we find out in the movie that to the caveman it’s not just a bright light, its their life.

After Naoh has stolen the fire from the cannibals and is quite badly injured, they are surrounded by the cannibals with no likely chance of escape, when from behind them a loud grunt pierces the air. Naoh and his men slowly turn to see that they are looking straight into the eyes of a small herd of the planets biggest land mammal ever, the mammoth. They are completely frozen in fear but Naoh realizes that to get past the cannibals they will have to use the mammoths to their advantage so he slowly approaches the mammoths with a handful of grass. His whole body is trembling with fear. When he finally gets to the lead animal he puts the grass out for it to it. The mammoth sniffs it cautiously and eventually accepts the offering to Naoh’s’ delight. Throughout the exchange between the two the director has made it look as if the camera is looking directly up at the mammoth making it look very big. And it the camera is almost directly above Naoh making him look very small. The way the high angle shots and low angle really shows the difference in Naoh and the mammoth really showing who the dominant beast was. I believe that in this scene the director is showing the start of animal domestication and this might have been the time that the cavemen realized that animals aren’t just hunks of meat, they are much, much more.

After Naoh is captured by the homo-sapiens he is shown how to make fire. One of the humans take him to a cave dug into a rocky outcrop sits Naoh down next to a pile of twigs and logs. The homo-sapien then sits down and begins to rub a stick end on into a log. Naoh has a puzzled expression sown across his face but the human continues to rub. In the background a soft piece of music is being played. Soon a faint wisp of smoke begins to protrude from where the stick is rubbing and Naoh begins to show a slight bit of understanding. The music in the background begins to get louder.  When the small ember turns into a flame Naoh is flabbergasted and his face is like a bowl of emotion. The music has now turned into a huge crescendo. The way the music does this makes me believe that this is an important part of the movie so the music is really showing this. This information of how to start a fire has really brought the cavemen’s predicament down a bit.

I feel that this film is very powerful. With the lack of dialogue it was surprisingly easy to follow. This movie proves that you don’t always need words to make a message because this movie certainly had some very powerful messages in it.  

Skullduggery Pleasant

Skullduggery Pleasant

Written by Derek Landy

 

What is Skullduggery Pleasant you may ask, well Skullduggery Pleasant is a wise, joke cracking and tough kinda guy, he goes on journeys to defeat gods and save the planet, and the most amazing thing about him he's dead.

 

When he was fighting in the war a long time ago his family was killed in front of his eyes and then he was then killed himself. He was brought back from the grave to take vengeance on the man that killed his family. He successfully killed him and was then expecting to go back to the grave but he stayed alive in the same form, a skeleton. This part in the story is a cool addition to the book because it is almost like an extra story to the main plot. I enjoyed knowing this extra bit because even though I knew it was a fictional book skulduggery had some very normal traits, for example in this bit the loss of his family obviously traumatised him completely and I know coming back from the grave was a little iffy but he did it for the love of his family and what kind of guy wouldn’t want that.

 

So that was the background of the story and we find our other main character Stephanie Edgeley at her Uncle Gordon’s graveside. Stephanie is a teenage girl in the middle of high school. She is a bit of a loner and seems a bit of a dreamer. Her Uncle is a famous writer and writes fantasy horrors which everyone believes that is make believe but turns out to just be a real account of the magical affairs.  I couldn’t help thinking when I got told this bit in the book what magical books out there could really be real but done behind us humans backs. Even this very book could be the same. This start to the book almost made it a conspiracy theory because no one knew, everyone had a right to know and everyone had probably seen evidence of it happening but either took no notice or was brain washed of some sort.

 

Stephanie finds out about Skulduggery’s magic and he takes her under his wing and teaches her the basics of crime fighting. But Stephanie wants to start learning magic and it doesn't work unless you are a descendant of a magic user. Stephanie starts to unravel her family tree and finds that she is a direct descendant of the most powerful gods in history.  Finally Stephanie had her chance to prove that she was ready to get into the big-time of the crime fighting regime. This made me happy because know Stephanie was able to help out and I had a feeling she certainly would.

 

While Skullduggery and Stephanie are touring the country, fighting the bad guys, they came across rumours saying that the Sceptre of Ancients is going to be stolen. It is a powerful weapon with capability to bring back the evil gods and destroy the world. So Skullduggery and Stephanie set out on a quest to find the bad guys and destroy the Sceptre to stop it from being used in the future.  Finally the plot had started to thicken. After all the training here was the twist that the book had been leading into, finally Stephanie’s chance to prove herself.

I found the entire book really interesting and thought provoking because the whole book is set out in the present and completely behind the entire country's back. Normal humans don't even know it is happening. The writer also captures the full emotions of people and puts in great detail and puts in heaps of great action. This is what all good books need, to capture peoples emotion and actually make it part of the book and I believe Derek Landy did it perfect in this one.

The Quest for Fire(The Cave)

The Quest for Fire (The Cave)

The Cave is a chapter in the book "The Quest for Fire." In this passage the three heroes Nam, Gaw and of course the leader Naoh, are searching for the fire after another clan put out theirs and with their fire gone it meant that that the clan had no way of keeping warm, cooking food or keeping out predators, which in this time is their one real life course because everything can be done or solved by fire. So the three men had gone on a quest to find fire and to save their clan from certain death.

 

Whilst in their journey they come to a cave and hide out for the night. Gaw keeps watch and he alerts the rest of the group that a large bear is ambling towards them heading straight towards the cave. There is really no chance of escape seeing as there is no time to get out of the cave without the bear seeing them. So their only option is to block the bear out. I couldn’t help but think that there could have been another option but I guess in this case no one will get hurt which is a wise idea because this bear could do some serious damage to a human.

 

As the bear came closer and closer I could almost sense the fear in the men. Something that big and that deadly that could rip a horse in half with its bare hands almost gives me nightmares just thinking about it. I guess in this time we aren’t really faced with these moments. We’re either expecting it to happen or we want it to happen in the instance of hunters and wildlife workers. These situations only seem to happen when it’s our fault and really it’s not the animal to blame. We are either disturbing them, in there territory or just plain teasing them. Technology has brought the barrier between humans and animals up so big that we are in two completely different worlds.

I felt a little hope when the bear failed to break through the solid wall. I honestly thought the men had some hope. But then the raging animal broke through and I believed they were dead for sure. Especially when the animal took Gaw in his powerful arms I thought it was all over. But Noah was quick to respond and was able to club the beast and when the rest of the men started helping out I knew they would win. They sleighed the beast. I felt a feeling of rejoice and sadness at once. Sadness because a beast that big and powerful beast can be sleighed by something as puny as a human being. I also was happy that the heroes made it out alive of course.

 

I thought The Cave was a great chapter in the book because it gave the chapter a lot of feeling and it really got the reader involved in the book. It gave me a bit of a heart stopping phrases and I learnt a little bit along the way.

My Favourite School Subject

My favourite subject of all the subjects without a doubt would have to be lunchtime. We get it five times a week and we get to do a whole lot of fun things. We try different food, we play different games and we meet new people all in the one subject. it is a very popular subject with all my pairs and I thinkeven the teachers enjoy it as well. It is a common subject throughout all schools in the world. No matter what language or what country, lunch time will be there. This subject has also had some major influences to all kinds of people. Think do you really think Daniel Carter would have gotten where he is today without the aid and support of lunchtime or even Albert Einstein would he have become that smart without all the brain foods he gets for lunch. I think not!!!!!:)