10 Must-See Movies

The Movies

I. Lady and the Tramp (1995)

Lady and the Tramp is a highly regarded love movie.  Who does not like to see cute dogs go through the similar struggles most people go through with love?  It is a renowned Walt Disney classic.  Like most of his movies, the morals and lesson are timeless.  Never give up.

II. Saw [the series] (starting in 2003)

Many people are put off by scary movies.  Not only a scary set of movies but it also has a lot of torture scenes.  As twisted as it is to have this in must-see movies, the plot is amazing.  The whole story and point of the movie has so many twists and turns that no one sees coming.  A true psychological horror movie. 

III. Planet of the Apes (1968)

The original of course is absolutely timeless.  A true journey through a world run by intelligent apes so discover the most plot twisting ending in movie history.  The special effect6s are killer for its time period as well as having a renowned actor, Charlton Heston.

IV. Wayne's World (1992)

As a musician this comedy gets even funnier because of the lack of musical talent Mike Meyers has.  Wayne's World is a highly quotable movie and really takes aim at a specific audience, people with a sense of humor.  It is a hilarious movie.

V. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

I do not even think anyone saw previews for this movie or heard anything about it, then it happened.  It turned into a phenomenon because of how pointless and unstructured the movie was.  It is so bad it is good and laugh-out-loud funny.  A must-see for someone who is alive.

VI. Billy Madison (1995)

Probably Adam Sandler at his best.  An alcoholic going back to school; it really does not get any funnier.  Everyone in that movie has at least one line that is funny.  Maybe one of the funniest movies of all time.

VII. Strangers (2008)

So my theory on scary movies is that movies are only scary to a person if they find the situation in the movie realistic and scary.  It has to be something that seems real to them.  Quite frankly, someone breaking into my house and terrorizing me seems pretty plausible.  I love scary movies and it takes a lot for movies to scare me, but this one takes the cake.
VIII. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

Clint Eastwood is a film genius.  Not only writing and directing the movie but he also starred in it.  The Man with No Name series, which this is in, is all spaghetti westerns and they are just timeless to watch and have a lot of action and reckless bandits.

IX. Zoolander (2001)

Ben Stiller and his father are both extremely slapstick funny.  But a very inconsiderate male model who is not that bright makes for the perfect recipe for a hilarious movie.  It kind of flys under the radar as a funny movie but everyone who has seen it knows it is funny.  I mean even Will Ferrell is in it.

X. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

Will Ferrell's best movie.  It is so funny that i get cramps from watching it sometimes.  The lines are so funny and he just knows how to play the character of an egotistical anchorman really well.  Plus that is just a funny character to have to play.

Themes

Time is forever.  This theme is controversial because it is positive but also has a very negative side to it.  The idea of continuously getting better as time moves on is significant to being a salesman.  Some people may be born with talent but others work for a while and hard to earn prestige.  However time turns on us as we get progressively older.  Willy Loman is experiencing that because he is getting old, losing his memory, his kids are older and distant and with age comes death.  

Women come second to men.  This may not ring true now but back in the 50's, when the play takes place, women are definitely viewed as lower class.  Willy constantly demands things from Linda, interrupts her and does not really listen or care about her opinion.  Plus he cheated on her which shows how little he cares.  Willy's actions reflect in his sons because they are both womanizers and do not really care about woman's feelings or thought.  Willy remains alpha-male along with most husbands from the time period.

There is constant mentioning of things falling apart in the house.  Willy's life is falling apart.  His kids are bums and are living in the house, Willy is not making enough money, and he is slowly going insane.  The refrigerator is broken, the car, the hot water and the ceiling.  Not only is it breaking hard enough, but more ironic is that he has to pay for all this but is not making enough money to do so.  The tough thing is to judge whether or not WIlly actually knows his life is falling apart.  I'd place my bet on yes.

Death of a Salesmen (Homework I)

Willy's biggest value is hard work and he really tries to instill that in Biff and Happy.  One really cannot just slack off and be successful, sure it is possible but it really is not as rewarding.  Willy also seems to focus on being well-liked.  Being well-liked will get you only as far as people are nice.

Hard work is more important to teach a son rather then being well-liked because if my father really only taught me to be well-liked we would probably have a better relationship.  Hard work is all he cares about but it makes sense because if you cannot work hard to get what you want you will really never get anything.  I would probably be like Willy though because you really cannot be a jerk because that really will not get you far either, but you cannot be friends with everyone, someone hates you.

Willy contradicts himself a lot but it may be because of his very bad memory.  It really is not his fault because he cannot control his poor memory.  It probably cannot all be to blame his memory either because he seems very indecisive which is a really bad attribute to have.  If you cannot make a decision and stick with it, no one will ever believe what you are saying.

It is not apparent if Linda is blind to his constant inconsistencies or just does not want to embarrass him.  This hurts Willy in the long run because he may not be aware of it when someone could be telling him.  Linda could probably tell him without him freaking out if she tells him the right way instead of just being very upfront about it.

Target

Lets be honest, we see the red bullseye or the Target dog pretty regularly.  I am semi-proud to be a part of the establishment, rather than with its foul competitors, Wal-Mart or K-Mart.  I could probably talk about Target all day but that is not the point of this blog.  Working at Target, I deal with the public.  Lets just start off by saying, the common man, Joe Shmo if you will, tends to be lazy, not the brightest bulb in the chandelier and rude. 

Now when I say lazy, I mean apathetic.  Half of the people who come into Target ask me a question about where something is, which I can understand because they may have never been there or they were mislead.  The other half do not bother looking.  They are three steps from what they want and they continue to ask me where it is.  The best example is when someone asks where a price scanner is and they can litterally touch it if they turn around.  So after I direct someone to an aisle, they usually walk right by it.  People are very oblivious to the aisle numbers.  Then, if they go to the right aisle, it is my fault when they cannot even find it in the aisle.  People are very rude.  I get some of the worst attitude from helping people find something then some people ever get in their lives.  Now I am not going to call the public dumb.  I think I will retract that comment but some people really get to you with the questions people ask.  "Whats duck-tape? I've only ever used duct-tape," or "If I drop this fishing rod in the ocean, will it float?" or the best question ever "Can you use this soccer ball for basketball?"  To which I tell them whatever sells the product.

Do not get me wrong, I deal with a lot of intellectual people who one-up me on products, correct me on locations -which does not happen frequently- or tell me I am lazy for not walking them to a product.  I do like my job and I like helping people, however it would be nice if people were not so snarky.

PMRC

So to roll with the topic of freedom of speech and such, there is no better example of a violation of this amendment then the Parents Music Resource Center.  This group, founded by Tipper Gore, seeks out to take control over the music we listen to, and stop all the songs the PMRC think are too inappropriate, specifically sexual and violence references, for younger listeners.  Tipper's main thought is that rock or any kind of music is infecting children with messages they do not understand.  This all lead to the infamous 'Tipper Sticker' or the Parental Advisory sticker.

Many artists went to court to refute the sticker to be put on albums.  I think it is obvious that Tipper wanted to benefit children but i think that should be left up for the parents decision.  This also drastically lowered record sales because people who are not kids, teenagers, could not and still cannot purchase albums with such a sticker on them.  Music is meant for a different interpretation for all different listeners.  Along with this, many songs are misinterpreted because what a song might say is not supposed to be taken to heart.  Many artists have a persona for which they right their songs and that also effects the content of the song.  Most notable of that are David Bowie and his alter-ego Ziggy Stardust, and even arguably bigger, Eminem and his violent person of Slim Shady.  At the beginning of Eminem's best Cd, in my opinion, The Slim Shady LP, he talks about the persona and how it should not be taken literally.  In yet many people accused him of being a psycho that beats woman and hates homosexuals.  None of which is the case.

Even with the obvious signs of censorship and a clear violation of the first amendment the Parental Advisory sticker remains and has become very common.  What i have noticed on the other hand, is the lack of editing done on albums with the sticker on them.  I have come across a few Cd's that the only word really edited is the F-Word.  There does not to seem like there will ever be a time where what we say can truly be free.  You cannot even say something about the president being killed without being investigated by the Secret Service.

The Wu

The Wu-Tang Clan is the most vicious and lyrically profound hip-hop crew in history.  People tend to mistakenly say that hip-hop is dead, "How can hip-hop be dead if Wu-Tang is forever," asks the producer and fellow lyricist the Abbott, or RZA.  Wu-Tang Clan is a nine man rap group originating from Queens, New York.  Method 'Tical' Man, GZA (the Genius), RZA (Abbott), Inspectah Deck (Rebel INS), Masta Killa, Raekwon the Chef, the late Ol' Dirty Bastard, U-God, and Ghostface Killa make up this group.  All of them have also become succesful as solo artists along with attaing much praise and recognition for shaping hip-hop. 

RZA has been thought of as one of the pioneers for hip-hop production.  He uses an MPC (http://bit.ly/byeHkc) in which he takes samples from other songs and makes the samples his own.  Once he has all his sounds he starts the beat.  RZA has produced a majority of the other members solo albums.  His mind has been set to hip-hop since a very young age.  He was an avid freestyler among his friends as a child and qui8ckly grew for the genre.  His laid back flow and complex vocabulary and rhyming schemes make it very easy to pick out his verses in the songs. 

Inspectah Deck, however, foils RZA.  He has a very 'in-your-face' kind of flow and his multiple syllable rhymes are very complicated and interesting to hear.  He is very fast when he raps and commonly freestyles a lot of his material.  The INS came from a musical family so his passion and drive is fueled by his mother.  He is the only artist from the group who when he went solo, had another producer other than RZA, this being the Alchemist.

657 Salem End Road

Salem refugee Sarah Clayes and her husband Peter, lived in the supposed haunted house on Salem End Road in Framingham or known then as Danforth Farms.  Just as a side note it has been proven that Abigail Williams was Peter Clayes niece.  Sarah fled Salem after being tried for witchcraft.  Both of her sisters were part of the 19 witches who were hanged in Salem in 1692.  This house now stands in the middle of a severely overgrown area and is is very poor shape, being that no one tends for it.  The house has frequently been used by teens to hangout.

My friends and I live off of Singletary which is off of Salem End and we live very close to the house.  We also have a friend who is the house right after this mysterious Witch House.  Walking by it frequently, we became very curious.  Soon the curiosity was too much to handle and we decided to see what the house was all about.  Entering in from the newest add-on to the house, it is an eerie feeling and the floor cracks and you can already tell it is old.  We scope the attic like room and realize that we have not even gotten to the good part yet.  We see doors to the main part of the house and we are very creeped out at this point.  We call it a day and head home.  Next day we venture again but this time walk past where we entered last time to see if there is an easier way to get inside because the doors inside were locked.  Around the back corner of the house we find a gaping hole in the house and I think to myself "This is it."  We all hop into the house and immediately all have second thoughts and begin convincing each other to leave.  We shine our flashlights in every which way, seeing that some rooms were exceptionally dark because of the doors.  Both entrances to the basement are faulty because the staris are broken on both.  We leave.  Next week we come back, this time for the upstairs.  We walk around upstairs very carefully after reading about how the floor was very soft.  We enter a room with only a fire alarm with no batteries.  Naturally in the silence of us taking in how we conquered the witch house, the fire alarm sounds.  It was easily the most scared I have ever been.  We ran out of there faster than Usain Bolt.  We have returned once but only a quick visit.  Sarah is definitely still there.

The most important point I am trying to make is that we should probably all know a little more about where we came from because people drive by that house all the time and never notice it.  It is one of those secret treasures that only few know about.  We probably should not let such a valuable peace of history go to waste.

Time.

Time is a thief.  This is the metaphor I came up with for our class literary term drawings.  I did not even begin to think about how true that is.  The only difference is that you can stop a thief, you cannot stop time.  It just keeps going on and on, with or without you.  I really had never realized how fast it moves either.  Nowadays time just flies by and leaves everyone is the dust. Everyday is just another day closer to the end, inevitably.

As a child, time is not even thought about and everyday is just as long as the day before.  You just live in the moment as a kid and do something crazy or eventful everyday and never get tired.  Growing up you begin to miss the days.  I hear people who always say that they 'love' sleeping and being in bed.  That is just a big waste of time because you could be doing something important or just those few more minutes you spend in bed in the morning you could spend with someone or a pet or eating a little earlier.  Regardless of how tired you are, getting out of bed to finish the days tasks ahead of schedule gets you more free time.  Think about that.

Imagine a genie gives you three wishes.  Money and fame are probably the biggest two someone would wish for.  What if you lengthened the days? Not even by a lot but just a couple of hours longer could make the world of a difference because you could do even more stuff.  It would people more time to do what they want.  More time to make music, more time to paint, more time for the military.  The list is endless because that is what people need more then money or any other tangible object like it.  Time has no regrets.

The American Dream

The American Dream is a blend of different goals, we Americans, have commonly understood.  Social and economic advancement, riches, home ownership and many more all contribute to this dream.  Many, if not all of them, effect my family.  I think it is the parents who try to make their kids try for the ultimate american dream,  whether or not they are aware of it.  The important thing is that, this american dream that our parents push for so hard for, is different for everyone.

Everyone has there main goal that they believe is the most important for attaining the american dream.  This important trait is hard work, in my family.  If you work hard for what you want and are a contributing member of society, you are, in my parents eyes, awesome.  Thats what they try to drill into their children.  Make an honest living and do not be a lazy bum who expects everything to be handed to them on a golden platter.


This is the blended side of my family and whats interesting is that my dad is all about hard work and found someone else who is as hardcore into hard work as him.  They are both workaholics and perfectionists.  "Take your time and do it right the first time," is a famous quote my father gives me.  He stresses me try my best, which I assume every parent does.  The American Dream pressures my parents to always work to the very best of their abilities, which he teaches me because thats what he was taught.