THE GREAT DEBATERS

The Great Debaters is a 2007 American film that was directed by Denzel Washington and produced by Oprah Winfrey Production Company which is Harpo Productions. This film is all based on the true story which is about equality. The plot revolves around the efforts of Melvin B. Tolson, a debater and professor of Wiley College who are trying to put his debate team on equal footing with whites in the American South during the early of 1930.

He has three great debaters in his team which are Samantha, Henry and James. Samantha Booke has just transferred to Wiley College and dreams of becoming the state’s third-ever black female lawyer. Henry Lowe is a man who struggles in order to balance his academic ideals while James Farmer, Jr. is the 14-year-old son of another Wiley professor who is eager to prove his intellectual worth to his demanding father. Together with their coach debate, Melvin they build up the school debate team to the highest national standards.

This movie contains lots of racism issue between the white and black people which happened at America. The black people always been suppressed by the white people just because their skin color until makes me felt pity with those people. It is quite similar with what happened in our country. For instance, people will isolate someone who has black as his/her skin colour. It has become a normal issue nowadays. However, still this movie manages to inspire me in debate. 

ADVENTUROUS MOVIE :THE ADVENTURE OF TINTIN

The Adventure of Tintin is an American 3D motion capture computer animated adventurous movie based on The Adventures of Tintin, a series of comic books . It was directed by famous director, Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson and was written by Steven Moffat.

This movie is all about a journalist named Tintin and his dog, Snowy who end up bought a model of three mastered  sailing ship known as ‘Unicorn’ with a cheaper price. At the same time, there were two men who interested to buy the ship but had been rejected by Tintin. Then, he swept up into an adventure to discover the secret of Unicorn. During his journey, he bumped into drunken Captain Archibald Haddock. Together, they went on an adventure to find out about the secret of Unicorn itself. This has leaded them to the Haddock’s ancestral treasures.

One of the scene in this movie

Overall, The Adventure of Tintin is a light movie but, yet it is very fun and interesting. At first, I thought this movie contains those ‘bored’ elements but it appears that I was wrong.  There are plenty of worthy jokes that made me and my friends non- stop laughing, for instance, the scene between hilarious Captain Archibald Haddock and Tintin. Besides, the graphic of this movie also work in a good way and made all characters looked like normal people. Visually, the film looks great and well-designed. It also has stimulates my mind since I have to think in depth when the characters was in the process of solving problems and the solutions of Unicorn.

One of the scene in this movie

One of the scene in this movie

THINKING FOLLY by ECKHART TOLLE

Eckhart Tolle is a well known author of the “The Power of Now “and “A New Earth” books which were written in English. He was born on 1948 and has become a German born Canadian resident. The excerpt entitled “Thinking Folly” which was written by Tolle was an exposition to the readers in what way our mind is working.

In this article, he has stated that we as a human do not even realize that our mind is controlling us all this time yet we use our brain in a wrong ways or did not use it at all because we often thought that ‘we are mind’. This is what we called as delusion. In other words, we have become a slave for our own mind.

Thinking creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that separates us from reality and the illusion that brings us to imagination. It can be seen that thinking and imagination is different.  Imagination was the one which lead to knowledge and make someone become creative. For example, a scientist was creative in inventing something but yet they can shake the world with their invention. So, it is essential for each human being to have an imagination rather than knowledge in this entire world.

As the conclusion, thinking is not as complicated as we thought actually. It is proven that imagination is more essential rather than knowledge. With imagination, someone can lead their own life in a happy way. You do not have to think critically or logically but you have to think creatively.

ANIMAL FARM REVIEW

        Last Tuesday, during my Critical Literacy class, I have watched a movie entitled “Animal Farm” which directed by George Orwell and was published in England on 17 August 1945. At first, I did not have any interested at all to watch this kind of movie since this movie was quite dull in the beginning. Furthermore, the pigs in this movie seem to be so tickle until made me felt like vomiting. However, after that, I became used to watch the movie that include the pigs, which can be considered as the main character, in it and started to understand about the storylines of it.

SYNOPSIS OF THE MOVIE

        The movie was about the animals that live in Mr Jones’s farm which trying to lead a happy life without being controlled by human being and in order to do that, they have to fight for their right. The animals in this movie include horse, dog, pig and many more. However, after they succeed to achieve what they want, they have been controlled by the pigs who claimed themselves as the leader.  As the time passes, the pigs became greedy and they just want to monopolize everything in their life. Napoleon, the greedy pig has chased the kind-hearted pig named Snowball from that farm and this making life harder for the other animals since Napoleon started to change the original Seven Commandments of Animalism.

One of the Seven Commandments of Animalism by Napoleon

        The whole story was aptly concluded by the last line, “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which”. But still, I felt unsatisfied with the ending since I did not have any clue on what happened to Napoleon at the end. Is it died? What I know is the other kind animals got their new owners and still I did not get clue on how these animals will be treated since they have new owners now. 

FICKLE FRIENDS by KIRSTEN WEIR

For this week, I decided to read an article entitled “Fickle Friends” which written by Kirsten Weir. Weir is a science writer and editor who has an experience writing for newspapers, magazines, websites, and books that covering on topics from evolution and neurobiology. In this excerpt, she has written about her point of view about type of friends that known as “frenemies” that exist in this worldwide. The exact meaning of word “frenemies” is those who can be your friends; however at the same time that friends also can be your enemy.

Kirsten Weir

Have you ever experience a friend who will help you when you have a trouble but later on that “friend” will talk or gossiping about you without you knowing about that? As for me, I have experience that kind of situation throughout my life before this. It is kind of painful and bitter memories ever. That is what we called as “frenemies” since they can be by our side when we have difficulty but at the same time they will betray us. However, this is what I called as circle of life. It has been the most common thing that happened in our life nowadays.

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

Human are an extremely social species. They thought it is important to have lots of friends than having good ones if they want to lead a happy life.For me, I think that the number of friends, on the other hand, had not given any significant effects towards human being.  What the use of having thousand of friends in your life, but yet it is hard for you to find friends that can be by your side when you were in trouble or not? But still, this sort of friends are very helpful for me in order to identify which one is the good and the bad friend ever throughout my life.

As conclusion, “frenemies” can be bad for your health but understanding these taxing relationships can make them less painful. It is all depends to us on how to manage these “frenemies”.

“No friendship is perfect, but frenemies are consistently imperfect”.

THE STEVE JOBS NOBODY KNEW by JEFF GOODELL

Steve Jobs was born on 24 February 1955 to Joanne Simpson and Abdul Fattah ‘John’ Jandali. He was an American businessman, inventor and designer. As we know, he had become a well known person due to his Apple products, iPad and iPhone that can be accepted by majority society all around the world. However, there is a second Steve Jobs that we do not know. This article entitled “The Steve Jobs Nobody Knew” which is written by Jeff Goodell will tell us who Steve Jobs is.

Steve Jobs

            In this article, Goodell has stated about Jobs ‘s attitude at his workplace. For instance, he treated his employees like puppets, an attitude that we cannot even imagine and expect came from this great man. As for me, eventhough he wanted his invention to be impeccable all the time, still this kind of attitude can be considered as inappropriate since Jobs was the best inventor ever. 

            From my point of view, maybe this bad attitude of Jobs was his real characteristic before he became the inventor of Apple. He just has to turn to new Jobs after he became a well known person so that he can gain trustworthy from others. Despite his bad side, Steve Jobs was the man who brought the human touch to our digital devices. Although he was died on 5 October, 2011 at the age of 56, everyone still remembered him as Apple’s founder and the great inventor ever.

“An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are NOT three separate devices! And we are calling it iPhone! Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. And here it is.”- STEVE JOBS-

"Much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented”-PRESIDENT OBAMA-

...MEN AND WOMEN ARE MERELY PLAYERS by ROBERT GREENE

Greene's book

This article comes from Robert Greene, an American author of well known books that discussed about power, seduction and strategy. A little brief about Greene is he was born on May 14, 1959 to a Jewish family in Los Angeles. Also, he has been graduated from University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in classical studies. His book entitled The 48 Laws of Power has been mentioned in certain songs by famous Jay-Z, Kanye West and others.

Robert Greene

                       Based on this excerpt, it can be seen that majority society made this temporary world as their stage by playing different characteristics from their true self in order to achieve highest power among them. Specific human being who hunger for power will become hypocrite in order to attain what they need in their life. As for me, I am totally agree with Greene's point of view regarding this topic.

           This world is not for the foolish people. If they want to obtain highest power within their life, they need to struggle on it.   A warning also has been given from the author for these genuinely innocent people to beware with specific general public that claim as non players because they might have lots of ways to obtain highest power within their life. For instance, they may act like innocent people in order to raise trustworthy from others to achieve highest position in one society. 

As the Great Machiavelli wrote " Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good".

                  In my opinion, this excerpt is such an interesting topic to be discussed about. Through this article, each individual can be alert of what happened in the worldwide. As for the strongest people, they will know that they still cannot manipulate certain people although they have pretended to be someone else in order to gain highest power because honesty is the best policy here. While, for the weakest people, they still can achieve power if they struggle more on it.