The Movie Pitch of "Regret"

The Movie Pitch of “Regret”

Christian Joseph, who is now a divorcee, walks into his apartment. Through the window, he sees the colorless world; a city of grey. He, standing in the middle of the living room and watching the grayish sunset, takes out his 9mm pistol from the right pocket of his trench coat. He then brings the mouth of his pistol to his head. His pistol, shaking eagerly to eat his head, approaches slowly and steadily to his head, inch-by-inch. Now only 4 inches left, his pistol stops but still shaking. His forefinger now fumbles to search for the trigger, and when it finally touches, it firmly twines the trigger. After few seconds, his forefinger pulls the trigger. The bullet moves forward to Joseph’s head, but gradually time slows down and so does the bullet. When the bullet finally touches Joseph’s head, it stops. All becomes dark at sudden.

He, frustrated by the unexpected situation, tries to move, but his effort is vain. Somehow his consciousness thinks of situation as a lock in a door. And when he thinks of the image of ‘key’, all becomes white at sudden.

When his eyes finally adapts to the light, he is floating in the ceiling of a room in the hospital. There he sees the doctors and the nurses all standing around a women, who tries to give birth to her little baby. Along the doctors, he sees a familiar face; his dad. He now realizes that this is the moment of his birth. He is then sucked into the flesh of baby, and all becomes dark again.

When he blinks his eye, he is now 17 years old, standing in the aisle of his high school. There he sees his first-love, but she is in blurred image. All, even the color of tile, is lucid but her face is dim. He then acts as he did in the past: being so shy to confront her. He always tries to see her face but when the chance comes and she looks at him, he turns his head.

When he blinks again, he now is in the cafeteria with a girl who later becomes his wife. He then enjoys wonderful time dating with her. Everything seems so bright when he is with her.

A sheet of paper slapping his face, he blinks his eyes again. At first he doesn’t realize what is going on, but not long after, he realizes that it’s the time of his divorce. He and his wife now have married and have a daughter and a son. They had a wonderful time until his business went wrong and they are on the huge debt. Sick of paying debts penny-by-penny and hiding from creditors, his wife finally declare a divorce. He is astonished and frustrated. With his eyes out of focus, he signs the sheet and leaves the house.

Finally it comes to the present where he enters his apartment. He grabs the knob of the door. Before he turns the knob, he once again thinks of his life. He now regrets his attempt to suicide. But this regret was the ‘key’ to his door. He tries to change his destiny, but he still turns the knob and goes into his apartment. Being irresistible, his face is now distorted by the fear and the regret. But still he can’t change anything. He takes out his gun and aim at his head. He yells but it’s no use. It only echoes in his mind. His forefinger now grabs and pulls the trigger. This time, time doesn’t slow down. The bullet finally penetrates his head.

By the reaction of the gun, he falls to the left. Then he looks at the window again. Everything becomes colorful, and there he sees the red sunset burning the sky with zeal.

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Brainstorming!

Recently, we, students who take English Composition class from Mr. Garrioch, got an assignment to write a story that is depicted in three different perspectives.

After getting this assignment, I really had to think deeply about the situation of the story that I'm going to write about which should be possible to be described in three different perspectives.

Love triangle was the first thing that I thought of, but that really seemed dull. Furthermore, I didn't have the confidence to write a masterpiece that could shake up the previous works  done about this topic. I was also so shy.

So, this is what I finally brought as the summary of my story. I'm going to write about a man who has a cancer and inevitably has to face his death. He can only live up to 5 days at maximum. The doctor of this guy knows this fact but hides this from the patient, because counting D-day to die would be disastrous to him. He but then tells this fact to the family of this patient, because they at least have to prepare for his death and his funeral.

I'll write the perspectives from this three characters, the patient, the doctor, and the family member (probably wife). However, if this was all, it would be banal, having no difference from other people. So, I'll use a twist; the patient knew that he was going to die after all!

So, the order of my story will go like this. First, it will be written in the perspective of the doctor as the third-person narrative form. Doctor will tell the family of the patient that 'bad news', will eventually see the grief in this family. He then will have to face a dilemma whether he have to tell his patient this news or not.

A family member of the patient (probably wife), will at first be shocked. She(/he) will then cluster one's mind and tries to act normally. Smiling in front of this patient and planning what they will going to do after the one recovers will burden this one a lot.

Twist will happen at here, when the story starts to be described in the perspective of the patient in first person narrative form. He accidentally had heard what the doctor said to his family member. First he will get upset, couldn't accept his destiny, but as soon as he sees his family members trying to ensure him by acting normal, he feels great gratitude and feel sorry to his family for leaving them so soon. He until the end hides the fact that he actually knows his death, because he thinks that this is what they want and is what it should be.

The Direction of the Anti Wal-Mart Movement: Right Arrow in the Wrong Direction (revised)

The Direction of the Anti Wal-Mart Movement:

Right Arrow in the Wrong Direction

There are packs of files of information that tell you about the harms of Wal-Mart. As can be seen in the documentary, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” Wal-Mart does both illegal and legal policies in order to lower their prices. For instance, they hire their employees with low wage and insufficient health insurance, block the establishment of labor unions, and commit discrimination of labor fee to female workers over male workers. Because of those actions, the anti Wal-Mart movement is quite popular all over the world. In addition, considering the harmful effect Wal-Mart brings into local society by forcing small markets to shut down while increasing the rate of unemployment, it seems inevitable to aim at Wal-Mart with “an arrow of anger.” However, we have to be careful in pulling off the bowstring. We have to consider whom we are really aiming at, and how we are going to proceed before we shoot our arrow.

The anti Wal-Mart movement itself is a nice adage to the anti movement of monopoly and corrupted capitalism, but the way that this movement proceeds makes my head shake. From my personal view, the current Anti Wal-Mart movement focuses on the less important issues, and the way it moves forward seems to be just aimed at “killing Wal-Mart.” “Killing Wal-Mart” is not the absolute solution we have. Even if we kill Wal-Mart for now, other disastrous big companies can still emerge in the future which will eventually become another “Wal-Mart.” Thus, the anti Wal-Mart movement should not just stop at stopping Wal-Mart, but should reach further, so that we can prevent greed-driven companies similar to Wal-Mart from ever emerging again in the future. In order to do so, I want to focus on three main problems within the anti Wal-Mart movement to think and discuss.

 My first question is, who are the ones that are crucified by Wal-Mart the most, and thus have to be saved in the first place? No doubt that Wal-Mart’s employees are the urgent ones, but are they really the worst treated people related to Wal-Mart? Most people, at first glance, might think that the problem with employee treatment is only limited to those who are directly employed by Wal-Mart itself. And that is what is going now on the anti Wal-Mart movement; taking most of its focus at increasing welfare of direct employees of Wal-Mart. However, this employment and payment problem rests more deeply and involves more people. Given its network of suppliers and contractors, Wal-Mart's influence is far-reaching in driving down wages in its manufacturers and service suppliers across our nation and the world (Newman). In order to lower the price, Wal-Mart squeezes its subcontractors. If the one cannot satisfy the demand of Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart ceases its trade with that company and looks for a new one which can satisfy its greed. Gradually, trying not to lose their work, subcontractors supply until the price is so low that they earn zero-profit. Thus, employees of Wal-Mart subcontractors are the most vulnerable ones that are in the worst condition. But watching the mainstream media of the anti Wal-Mart movement, it seems that the problem with subcontractors is only raised within minority people. Considering the harsh conditions that subcontractors are in, the anti Wal-Mart movement should broaden its path to include more urgent issues like this one.

Secondly, there is a certain ideology that we have to challenge in order to prevent big companies like Wal-Mart from ever existing; consumerism. Consumerism, by its definition, means the social and economic order based on fostering a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. In other words, consumerism is the ideology that puts consumers’ desire as the first thing to consider in the market. The reason why consumerism is important is because it is the way Wal-Mart behaves; Wal-Mart puts its best focus on satisfying consumers. As a way to do that, they chose lower prices. Basically, Wal-Mart could not have grown huge like this if it weren’t popular among consumers. Wal-Mart doesn’t hold a gun to your head (Reason TV). They have gotten bigger because of us. While we criticize Wal-Mart for its mistreatment of producers, we, as a consumer, welcome Wal-Mart. This is the problem. This is well touched on by Steve Dobbins, president of thread maker Carolina Mills, who said "We want clean air, clear water, good living conditions, the best health care in the world--yet we aren't willing to pay for anything manufactured under those restrictions" (Fishman, Charles). In order to solve Wal-Mart problems from the base, we have to change the way we consume. We should not consume goods only based on the price, but also based on the information of how that good was made. If change in the consuming behavior does not occur, we cannot prevent big companies from abusing monopoly power based on squeezing the producers. Furthermore, we will not have to right to criticize them since they are the creation of our consuming behavior.

The third point that I’d like to bring up is that the “arrow of anger” should be aimed at government, not at specific corporations. In other words, the responsibility of current issue is on the government, not on those corporations. This can be effectively explained by this question: “Did corporations end slavery, or did the government end slavery?” (Reason TV). Because corporations are made to satisfy private interest, we cannot just expect them to behave according to ethics. In addition, that is the reason why government exists: to mediate conflict between the two companies working for its own private interests, since they cannot (and don’t have to) regulate their interests themselves. So, if a corporation like Wal-Mart has done legal activity and it had still harmed people, it is the government’s problem for not establishing the right regulations. Accordingly, if a corporation has committed illegal activity, it is still the government’s problem because the government failed to prevent and control illegal activity.

The anti Wal-Mart movement is not just a movement that is against a certain company called Wal-Mart. Rather, what it symbolizes (and should symbolize) is an anti movement towards monopoly and corrupted capitalism. To keep cutting the stems of weeds is a wasteful activity. To prevent weeds from ever growing, we have to pull them up from the root. This applies similarly to anti company movements. Anti company movements focused on killing a specific company are wasteful. Rather, we have to find a solution that can cut the root of the problems. To sum up, the direction of the anti Wal-Mart movement, I insist, should be reorganized and must contain these three points: more focus on subcontractors, demand in change of our consuming behavior, and demand for government regulation.



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Works Cited

Reason TV. "Peter Schiff at Occupy Wall Street: Wal-mart Doesn’t Hold a Gun to Your Head!” Reason TV, 27 Oct. 2011. Web. 04 Mar. 2012.

Newman, Nathan. "Taking on Wal-Mart and its Subcontractors." 01 June 2004. Web. 5 Mar. 2012.

Fishman, Charles. “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know” 19 Dec. 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2012 

Critical Analysis of "Catfish"

* This analysis may contain some spoilers about the movie "Truman Show" & "Catfish"!



The first movie I thought after clustering my mind was the "Truman Show."

It is the movie of the protagonist named "Truman" living an artificial life that was shaped and carved by other people. His life was taken by camera to every people. His life was involuntarily devoted to the audiences of the TV series of his life. The place where he lives is a gigantic dome made as a stage for his life. All of his near-by people were actors and actresses, even his wife and his family. All, even climate, surrounding him was controlled.

This movie, "Truman Show", FRUSTRATED me. I came to doubt everything that seemed real in the idea that all could be unreal, like the "Truman Show". However, I escaped this terrible idea very quickly since this movie was not based on the real incident, but on just HYPOTHETICAL thinking. The fact that this movie was not based on the reality soothed me a lot.

However, this movie "Catfish" is shaking me more than what the "Truman Show" did. Now the fact (although some say it's not fact) that this movie is true distorts my mind. The Maginot Line that kept me sane is collapsed now. It's total confusion for me now.

However, despite the matter whether this movie is true or not, I think this movie had done wonderful job in asking this question, "Can you be sure in anything that it's true?" Not the summary of the movie but the movie itself is raising this issue! In this part, they SURE got me!

Lie! Deceit! Malice!

"Truman Show" was telling me that ALL around you was fake, and that was the reason why I was not terrified a lot (because it was less convincing for me compared to "Catfish"). "Catfish" now tells me that some part of my life can be fake and this seems more possible and more believable to me. Less the scale of lie is, more believable it is. But continuing this idea, I found out that my horror is for no such thing. We are fooled by some lies (some small, some big) everyday. We all are sometimes fooled and get angry to liars, but why are we not shocked a lot by those small lies? Maybe it's because it destroys only small part of our life.

So, I came up with the conclusion that the shock we feel from lies are proportional to their scale. This seems pretty obvious but this conclusion gave me an idea which was obscure to me: We are so much dependent of our backgrounds. Some might call this view materialism, but no matter what they call and what they criticize this idea for, I strongly believe in this idea after taking a look at my natural horror when suddenly all my surroundings seemed to collapse. Maybe we are only the reflection of our surroundings. Maybe we are only the reaction of our surrounding actions. Maybe we are only the mirror.
I came to understand what Aristotle said: Man is by nature a social animal.

Having this understanding, I came to love everything that was surrounding me. My family, my friends, my school KMLA, teachers I know, things I have. They were so usual to me like the air, that I got used to them and forgot their values. They were desperately needed for me every time like the air. Some who lack those that l have may be zealous about me for having those. The bad part is, I don't get to feel their importance since they are right next to me. We always forget importance of our near-by things before we lose them. But this time, I, without losing anything, felt importance of things that I have. In this part, this movie sure became 'catfish'.

Summing up, the movie "Catfish" really became 'catfish' in my life in the aspect that it woke me up the importance of things and people that I have near by. Angela, as said by his husband Vince Pierce, was 'catfish' in the aspect for giving a shocking incident in Nev's boring life, whether in good way or bad way. So does this movie, "Catfish". It, whether it's true or not, or whether it has given me a good effect or bad effect, had been astonishing to me and gave me a chance to look back my life and feel the importance of my surroundings and myself.