What Just Happened: Harden Dealt

What Just Happened: Harden Dealt

The Oklahoma City Thunder have traded James Harden, Cole Aldrich, Daequan Cook, and Lazar Hayward to the Rockets for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, 2 first rounders and 2 second rounders. That much we know. But why? What does it mean? How will OKC compensate for the loss of facial hair? The Sideline Scoop reacts...

A National Shock

A National Shock

Heartbreak does not come about very easily in baseball. Sure, teams may lose key games, favorite players may get traded, and stars may get injured. But that is only disappointment. Heartbreak is when your team allows four runs in the last inning, after leading by as much as six. It’s when a record-setting crowd falls dead silent as the other team celebrates on the field. It’s when a team invigorates a city, only to see themselves ousted from the playoffs in the most devastating fashion possible. It’s what happened at Nationals Park on a very late Friday night.,,

To read more, visit this link to the Sideline Scoop

Same Love

Same Love



Few things make my dad's eyes water. But this video did. "Same Love", by Macklemore, is a song dedicated to the support of gay marriage, and the video chronicles the story of a man who grows up confused and angry, and struggles to accept his identity. He falls in love with another man, and they get married and grow old together, holding hands until their last breath. The video itself is masterful, and the vocals and lyrics are thoughtful and pleasant. But the most important aspect of this video is the message.

Man and man, woman and woman, man and woman, it is all the same love. There is no need for people to hate and spew dark words when a man holds hands with another man. Yet, many in today's society still reject the idea of gay love, and cannot even imagine the concept of gay marriage. Pop culture has inserted the word "gay" into our vocabulary as a synonym for lame, or stupid. High schoolers drop derogatory remarks without a second thought as to what they are actually saying. It's been subconsciously ingrained within many young minds that gay is bad. This mindless hate leads kids to despise themselves, for merely being who they are. And sadly, even if they find the immense courage to come out as gay, they may not even have the ability to get married to another person of the same sex. Barred in most states, same sex marriage has emerged as one of the most polarizing issues in our society today. But the legalization of it, as suggested in this song, is necessary. Marriage is a declaration of love and companionship, but same sex couples cannot marry unless they live in the minority of states that allow it. Shut out, they are treated as unequal members of our society. We look down on discrimination based on skin color, but turn a blind eye to people discriminated against for loving who they want to love, for holding hands with another man. For wanting to marry someone they are infatuated with. It may not be traditional, but it is not immoral, or something to be ashamed of. Legalization of gay marriage wouldn't abolish all traces of gay hate. But, as Macklemore states, "it would be a damn good start". Marriage is a union between two people that love each other. It is all the same love.

Dystopian Trailer Sounds

For the sound and music portion of our dystopian trailer, I found two sounds in particular that I think we could put to use. One is an air raid siren, and the other is a clip of classical music. I chose the air raid siren because it gives a sort of ominous tone to whatever scene is going on, but also one of slight chaos, which will definitely occur at some point in our trailer. When heard in movies and TV shows and whatnot, the viewer generally gets the feel that something bad is going on, and this is a mood we are hoping to create in our trailer. 

I chose the classical music piece, "Ave verum corpus", because it could be used as an interesting juxtaposition to the chaos and action occurring on screen. Sometimes in movies, you'll see fighting or action on screen, and classical music in the background. It makes the clip seem even more effective, because it sort adds a calm to the movement happening. Also, it could be used during scenes which display the "upper class", because it gives an air of sophistication to the scene. 

We could find some other sounds of yelling, perhaps, or maybe a simple police siren, and include them in our trailer. We could use the yelling if we have a scene of social unrest, and the police siren could be used when the authorities are rushing over to arrest the protagonist. They would undoubtedly add another level of quality to our trailer. 

Book of Eli Trailer

  Book of Eli .  Albert and Allen Hughes .  R .  2010

The United States as we know it has been destroyed for 30 years now, replaced by a society in which looting and murders run rampant. One man, known simply as Eli (Denzel Washington), has been traversing the country since the war, determined to complete his task of getting the last Bible in the world into safe hands.

The trailer uses a multitude of effective techniques which create an exemplary  post-apocalyptic dystopia trailer. Among these techniques are background music, lighting, color, setting, and voiceover. The trailer opens in a dark forest, as ominous music pumps through the background. The music beats quicker and quicker until finally it hits a crescendo, in which the screen switches to a wide shot of a solitary man, walking across a dry wasteland. This small sequence encompasses music, color, and setting to create the dystopian feel. The music sets a serious and tension-filled mood, and when combined with the black and gray color of the forest, viewers immediately realize that this movie will center around something dangerous and dark. In the wide shot that follows, setting is utilized to further make clear that something has gone very wrong with this society. The setting depicts two highway overpasses with rubble and other miscellaneous metals strewn beneath them. The inclusion of the overpasses makes it clear that at one point, civilization flourished, but the rubble and overall disrepair makes it clear that such a society has not existed in a long, long time. As the trailer continues quick shots are shown which display Eli looking over a wasteland and fighting with insane looking men. In both of these shots, lighting is used to further the setting of a post-apocalyptic world. The light casts shadows over his face as he surveys the land, and when he's fighting, the lighting is dark to show the danger of this world. Throughout the trailer, intense and fast-paced music flows, which only support even more the dystopia, and a voiceover of Eli plays constantly, which explains what his task is, and how truly dangerous it is. Our trailer will use voiceover, setting, and background music to portray our own dystopia, and this trailer is an excellent example of those techniques.

Connected Learning

In a nutshell, "Preparing Students To Learn Without Us" by Will Richardson states that customized learning has already been proven to work,  and that it's the issue of changing teachers teaching methods that will hold the concept back. Many students, including the author's own son, have found success with a personalized lesson plan that centers around a passion of theirs. It takes a specialized kind of teacher to aid the student in their learning, however, and the style necessary is fairly unorthodox compared to the rigid learning and testing standards that are commonplace now.

 One part of this article that struck me as surprising was that, as the author says, "personalization is an expectation" in education these days. At least in my schooling experience, there has not been a large amount of flexibility in the way we learn, besides division into advanced groups. Hopefully, in this media class, we get to do a little bit more of this, perhaps by having a good amount of freedom in our projects. Certainly, we need guidelines, but instead of laying out a very specific objective, we could receive a broader one and in the process, enjoy it more.

 We could also use these blogs to keep track of our own passions, and share them with others. For example, I love sports writing and sports journalism, so I could find blogs or sites that discuss this and follow them. Here is a link to my Diigo page.

"The Expendables 2" Movie Review

Emma Yeager, author of the review "The Expendables 2 is spent", was not enthralled by "The Expendables 2". The review, which can be found on Silver Chips Online, had very little positive things to say about the film, and from the get go, made it clear that the film was both "dull" and "dated".

The review began by outlining the plot, setting, and characters in the film, and after introducing the gist of the film, begins sharing her opinions on it. First, she comments on how women are portrayed by the writers, and then goes on to critique the acting, in particular, the acting of Sylvester Stallone. Before she concludes the article, she does give out a rare compliment to the film, saying that some of the the pure action scenes, are in fact, fairly entertaining.

Yeager's main problem with the film seemed to be the general theme of it. After all, the concept of American action heroes saving the world from a Russian super-villain is hardly an original one. The incessant violence in the film also seems to have left a bad taste in her mouth, as she several times referenced back to it being "ceaseless", and "gory". Surprisingly, for a review of an action movie, very little time was spent evaluating the editing and special effects of the film, something that had to undoubtedly be a strength of "The Expendables 2". Perhaps this was because she wanted to paint a negative picture of the film, but whatever reason, more than two lines should have been spent on it. Luckily for the readers, she does not reveal anything too spoiler-like in the review, but does give ample information to know what it is for the most part about.

The quarterly movie assignment should give us a considerable amount of freedom, as CAP kids do best when not restricted to a tight set of guidelines. That is not to say that we should have no guidelines, though. Having a base set of questions that need to be answered would be mutually beneficial, as the students would not become sidetracked into an entirely different project, and the teacher's could actually  have something to grade. However, it is key that we are given more freedom than we were last year, both in terms of what movie to watch and how to review it, as they could get to be a chore instead of actually watching and enjoying a film.

Here's the link to my annotated review:

http://diigo.com/0sv3u