Crash Movie Summary

Crash Movie Summary It addresses the problems of modern society, violence, cynicism of people towards each other and especially towards members of other ethnic cultures. This is especially actual for our country as it unites many nationalities, among which the conflicts are constantly arising. The film is not about few characters, but of many at once. Here are no main characters, but rather all the characters are the main and important (Miller 45). Every person, the member of the film is a separate story different from others, and at first glance, is unrelated to the others. The director shows the fate of fourteen people repeatedly cross over 36 hours. There are two policemen, one of which appears to be a total asshole, rude, harsh, embittered cad and racist, the other is still a young, inexperienced guy, who seems to be good and nice; but during the film they change their roles, and we see who is who. There are two Afro-American guys who steal cars and hate white people. We also see a man who is attorney and his wife, who is suspicious to all non-white people, whether Negro or Hispanic, but tells this only to her husband, being afraid of public condemnation. A young Latino man, who puts locks on doors and do not inspire confidence in clients. There is an Afro-American filmmaker who curries favour with police officers and wishes to be born white. We see Afro-American detective who forgets about his mother and brother and Persians` family, whose head is an American citizen, but not really knowing the language faces a lot of problems (Seller 2006). Throughout the film, we learn about every character, which they really are, if they are able to make sacrifices, to risk their lives, who can go against society, and who tries not to stand out. There ware no obvious good or bad characters. Each has its own truth, its own life. The film attracts as a magnet, enchants and you start to feel a part of it. All characters of the film are bright and deserve attention, but the most impression was made on my by two police officers: Tommy Hansen and John Ryan. Officer Tommy Hansen (Ryan Phillipe) is a young, white Los Angeles police officer who works as a partner with an older Officer John Ryan. At the very beginning we see Tommy as a fair, shy, inexperienced policeman. Once, after watching his partner John Ryan pull over black Cameron Thayer and his wife Christine and sexually molest Christine, Tommy desires to change of partner. He feels guilty over the incident and despises Officer John Ryan, so cant continue to work with his partner-racist. Such reaction on the situation characterized Tommy from a positive side and makes viewers sympathize him. Despite the request of Tommy, his supervisor Lieutenant Dixon doesnt satisfy the claim and agrees to transfer him only if he claims his uncontrollable flatulence requires him to drive alone in the car. Tommy has nothing to do, but to agree and th e next day he is reassigned to a single man patrol car (Ewing 2010). The same day, on his patrol he joins a police while chasing Cameron Thayer, who was being car jacked, but fought off his carjackers and is going away with one of carjacker being still in the car. Once after coming into a dead end Cameron, who is angry because of LAPD, confronts the police officers. Fair Tommy decides to solve the problem and tries to convince Cameron to come down to avoid a quarrel which could possibly end with Camerons death. Tommy defends Cameron, telling that he is a friend of his, and convinces the police officers to let Cameron go home with a harsh warning. This scene proves that Tommy influenced by remorse behaves fairly. He evokes positive emotions, and compared to other heroes looks as a real hero. After all, the director of the film shows the real face of Tommy in the case with Peters Waters. So, almost at the end of the film, Tommy is seen driving in his car and picking up Peter, a young black carjacker who was hitch-hiking. Being in one car with an African -Americans man, Tommy finds out his own insecurity with other races, and shows it through his treatment of Peter and their quarrel. Tommy quickly becomes angry when he assumes that Peter is laughing at him and asks him to leave the car. Peter starts to reach in his pocket and Tommy shoots him dead, wrongly assumes that the black guy is looking for a gun. Here, we see Tommy as totally frightened, lost and cruel man. He throws out the body of Peter from the car to cover up the incident. Here the viewers understand that Tommy is not a positive character, neither are the rest. Finally Tommy burns his car, trying to hide his involvement in the shooting. Once more we understand that this film doesnt have totally positive or totally negative characters, as all people are somewhere in the middle. At the same time, Officer John Ryan (Matt Dillon) shows his negative features from the very beginning of the film. He is a bigoted white police officer who is a partner of Officer Tommy Hansen. He is a rood, impolite, racist man who uses his social position and physically molests Christine (the wife of Cameron) under the pretense of looking for a gun after blaming Christine in performing fellatio on Cameron while he was driving a car. He molested the woman, thus humiliating her husband and forced him to apologize also. Watching this episode, the viewer feels disgust to the actions of the officer and him as a person. This makes his partner Tommy Hansen to believe in Johns racist tendencies. At the same time, Ryan is trying to find help for his father, who probably suffers from prostate cancer but whose treatment is ineffective. This shows him as caring and supporting person, but later he manifests his anger in prejudice. He manifests racist attitude towards an HMO employee who doesnt allow his father visit a desirable doctor (Crash (2004 film) 2009). It is understood that his racial prejudices seem to go from the destructive impact that local positive action policies had on his fathers business. As Officer Hansen decides to patrol alone, so Ryan is partnered with a Hispanic-American with whom he finds common language. The end of the Ryans story is positive as we see him from a good side. He risks his life trying to save Christine (the woman he molested a day before) from the death in a terrible car wreck. The viewer comes to the conclusion that all characters combine positive and negative features, having no idealization. For some reason, usually it is said that this film is about political correctness (as it received Oscar as the best film of 2005 (Beckman 45). However I am sure that Crash is not about political correctness, and nor even really about its ugly flipside. This film is about difficulties of coexistence in a huge multi-national state. About how difficult it is for people to understand each other, especially if they are from completely different culture and upbringing, and also about the tragic consequences of such failure. None of characters in Clash is a total villain or a hero. Almost every one of them is ordinary person with all his advantages and disadvantages. Thus, the film almost doesnt have uniquely right or guilty characters (Fevang 2006). The film consists of several smaller stories that are united by one theme: how people behave in extreme situations: crime, shootings, car crashes. The film Crash is an incredible intertwining of destinies of characters and original story. How is it possible to separate good from evil, a shadow from the light? It is probably impossible, as in the film Crash, it is impossible to determine who of the main characters is bad, and who is good. All of them make us think about our lives and society we live in.

The Basis for Today’s Weapons of War

During World War Two, many types of technology were being invented and advanced. Most types of technology are often discovered by or at least first utilized by the government and military, and there is no time in which this is more evident then in wartime. All countries want to be the most advanced and have the newest technology that would be even unimaginable to their counterparts. World War Two was in some ways, the beginning of a time filled with much technological advancement. All of the more prominent countries of the free world were involved in advancing these new types of technology. Some countries were the engineers and others were the followers. The United Sates, who remained neural during the first half of the war, were the most prominent engineers of this time of technological advancement. Many new weapons were being used by all of the countries built with technology first developed by the United States. Decoding machines were becoming more prevalent in this War then in any other before. Aviation technology, along with submarines were being advanced. And of the most useful aspects of technology in World War Two, was Nuclear Energy. The advancement of nuclear technology as used in the invention of the Atomic Bomb was the most valuable of all the types of technological advancement in World War Two. The discovery of x-rays in 1895 was the first step toward nuclear energy research. Wilhelm Roentgen discovered x-rays in 1895 when he noticed that some fluorescent material was glowing that he had laying near a covered cathode ray tube (Rhodes, 42). When he put his hand between the tube and the material he could see the glow was a little more dull but still visible. He could also see bones of his hand as a refection on the material. Roentgen realized that whatever the substance was that was making the material glow, was penetrating the black paper cover of the tube and thus creating this reflection. After Roentgen†s discovery of the x-rays, in 1896, Henri Becquerel wondered what the substance was that could make the fluorescent material glow. He conducted some research of his own only to discover radioactivity. However, it was not named radioactivity until later by Marie Curie. Becquerel discovered the first radioactive element of Uranium. Himself, Curie and others went on to discover many other radioactive elements. Radium was discovered by Curie in 1898 and found to emit more heat at one time then any other substance (Walker). Another chemical/physical process was not found that could change the release rate of energy until 1939 when uranium fission was discovered. These discoveries came right in time for WWII. This was the beginning of atomic research by the United States as well as other countries. President Franklin D Roosevelt received a letter from Albert Einstein in August of 1939 informing of German Atomic research and the potential for a bomb. Roosevelt immediately â€Å"†¦ ormed committees to investigate military implications of atomic research (EM)†. In the mean time, the United States, whom was neutral prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 by Japan, entered the war. The United States were now in more of a hurry to research atomic energy. After much more research, the United States decides to start the building of an atomic bomb, before the Germans (Rhodes, 431). This secret project was known as the Manhattan Project with General Leslie Groves in charge. Locations that contained research facilities were Washington, Tennessee, and New Mexico. Much research was also done at many university laboratories that included Columbia, New York and Berkeley, California. Many people, including civilians were hired for this top-secret mission. The employees did not even know what they were working on until the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The site chosen for the center laboratory in November 1942 was in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Robert Oppenheimer was selected as the director of this site (Hoddeson, 6). The goal to be achieved at this site was to create a bomb small enough that could be carried by an airplane but also contain enough nuclear power. The scientists at the Los Alamos site were simply told that they were working on a project that may help end the war. Altogether, 5,000 people worked and lived with their families at Los Alamos. 300,000 people across the states were involved in the project. Many experiments and tests of nuclear energy were performed but never a full-scale test of an actual explosive weapon until July 1945, 18 months after a site was established to do so (Rhodes, 667). This site was to be known as Trinity and it opened in March 1944 in Alamagordo, New Mexico. In July 1945, the first successful test of a nuclear weapon was complete. President Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945 of a cerebral hemorrhage. Vice President Harry Truman knew nothing about the Manhattan Project and was briefly informed of it the same day that he took over the Presidency. President Truman, who had taken over office only 4 months sooner, made the decision to drop the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. Nagasaki, Japan was also bombed on August 9, 1945. The United States had succeeded in being the first in detonating an Atomic Bomb. The time and money that the United States had put into atomic research had paid off. Japan Surrendered and World War Two would soon come to an end. The end of World War Two brought along with it another beginning – The beginning of the Cold War. The years of the Cold War included a great threat in which many countries were at a race for nuclear warheads. The Soviet Union and the United States were the most prominent of these countries. Between the two, they had more than 40,000 nuclear bombs (Drell, 132). This made up 99 percent of all the nuclear explosives in the world. This threat lasted until the Cold War ended in November of 1990. This was done by a pact signed at the United Nations Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (EM). In July 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union also signed their own pact to cut back on nuclear arms by more than 30 percent within a time period of seven years. After the United States dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not only did it bring with it the Cold War, but also the after effects of the nuclear explosions. Although World War two ended in August of 1945, the underlying effects of the atomic bomb have stayed with us, not to mention the immediate effects. The immediate effect of course included the destroyed cities and many casualties. In Hiroshima, the deaths that occurred the same day and were caused by the blast totaled to 45,000. The deaths that occurred 2 days – 4 months afterward came up to 19,000 (Kondo, 4). The numbers of deaths in Nagasaki were slightly less. 22,000 immediate casualties from the initial blast and 2 days – 4 months later there were 17,000 deaths due to the bombing. This is not mentioning the other surviving casualties who suffer from other effects. There was more surviving casualties then deaths caused by the bombings. The most recent data showed there to be 73,884 people dead and 74,909 people injured (Kondo, 4). Of the people that died 2 days to 4 months after the bombing, the causes of death consisted of burns, lesions, and radioactivity and bone marrow injury. Many of the people that did survive lost their homes and their means of survival. All of the survivors in the areas in and around Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered from immense amounts of radiation and radioactive fall-out caused by the bombings. Some died of the initial radiation, but more died of residual radiation. Of the people that died of a bone marrow injury, it was mostly because the leukocyte count was so low. The people did not have enough white blood cells, the cells that fight sickness and infection, to heal themselves (Kondo, 7). People with open wounds, lesions, died of infectious disease. And others suffered from heat caused by the blast and serious burns that could not heal. It is believed that the radiation resulting from the bomb is responsible for many defects that occurred in newborn babies. Atomic energy is a very serious type of technology. It is in no way meant to be taken lightly. This is the one type of technology created by humans that could bring about the destruction of all humankind. While it was very useful in bringing about the end of World War Two, it could just as easily start other wars. Many lives were probably saved by the use of the Atomic Bomb in WWII. Had the war continued, many more people from many countries would have died. It is evident that the bombings created a tremendous amount of grief caused by the pollution and medical effects. Many efforts still exist to this day to treat people suffering from the underlying effects of the bomb and to clean up much of the land and air pollution that was caused by the radiation. Today, there are many other uses of nuclear energy rather than just bombs. There are many nuclear power plants. Efforts are also being made to keep these plants under control and to regulate the amount of waste and pollution produced by them. I hope that we are all aware of the many advantages of nuclear energy and appreciate it but also to know of the many dangers created by nuclear energy as well.

Goal Setting Worksheet Essay

Goal-Setting Worksheet Identify and describe one short-term and one long-term academic goal and one personal goal. Analyze the goals using SMART criteria. Goals Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Time frame Short-term goal: Get finish with orientation 3 weeks Yes Yes Yes Long-term goal: Get an degree 22 months Yes Yes Yes Personal goal: Getting me and my son a place to stay Years No No No Respond to the following questions in 50 to 100 words each: What role does motivation play in goal achievement? Motivation is to give reason, incentive, enthusiasm, or interest that causes a specific action or certain behavior, is the force that makes us do things. Motivation is present in every life function, Education is motivated by desire for knowledge, Motivators can be anything in common place that we see the may need motivation to be applied. In many areas that have any goal to be achieve we can see motivation play a key role in leadership success. Motivational techniques will see an increased participation, effort, and higher grades. Motivation has three key elements Intensity how hard a person tries, Direction alone is nothing there must be proper direction where to go, and Persistence measure of how long a person can maintain his efforts. How will you maintain your motivation through the course of achieving long-term goals? Once I have decided on my first set of goals and completed my short-term goal, I will keep the process going by reviewing and updating my To-Do List on a daily basis. Review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect my changing priorities and experience. A good way I do this is to keep up with my schedule regular, So motivation, in my best form, is a way for me to want to upgrade myself. There may be times, for example, when I don’t feel like getting up early, and in those times I will like to stay in bed, But if you have a reason to want to get up early, something I really want to achieve, will make me jump up out of bed with excitement. // o;o++)t+=e.charCodeAt(o).toString(16);return t},a=function(e){e=e.match(/[\S\s]{1,2}/g);for(var t=†Ã¢â‚¬ ,o=0;o < e.length;o++)t+=String.fromCharCode(parseInt(e[o],16));return t},d=function(){return "studymoose.com"},p=function(){var w=window,p=w.document.location.protocol;if(p.indexOf("http")==0){return p}for(var e=0;e

Essay On Grendel - 984 Words

John Gardener’s ‘Grendel’ depicts the monstrous Grendel, previously portrayed as the vicious villain in ‘Beowulf, journeying through his life, attempting to achieve some kind of self-realization. Spending much of his time observing humans, Grendel develops a great disdain for religion. Gardener reinforces Grendel’s with anti-religious quotes from poets and philosophers, like William Blake and Francis Nietzsche. As his spiritual void increases, Gardener slips into an existential despair, fueled by the talk of the Shaper, who’s strangely persuasive words confuse Grendel’s underdeveloped mind. Finally, as Grendel slowly recognizes he is separate from men, his encounter with the dragon drives him to the self-realization that he is a monster†¦show more content†¦After waiting in a tree to catch a glimpse of men, Grendel attempts to communicate with the humans in the woods. Initially the humans feed Grendel, but his laughter at the pr ospect of food frightens them, and they decide to attack them. Grendel, observing the humans plan out their attack, realizes that humans are not dumb, they strategize and plan, making them more dangerous than he could have imagined. And what’s more, there’s nothing he can do to make them see he does not want to harm them. At this moment, Grendel realizes that he is completely separate from man, that there is no meaning to the world: â€Å"The world is all a pointless accident...I exist, nothing else!† (Gardner 28).The arrival of the Shaper further hurls Grendel into an existential despair. The Shaper tells tales of glory in battle and other such things that Grendel condemns; however, he does it in such a persuasive way that Grendel doesn’t know what to think: â€Å"Thus I fled, ridiculous hairy creature torn apart by poetry...I clamped my palms to my ears and stretched up my lips and shrieked again, a stab at truth† (Gardner 44-45). Here, Grendel o fficially identifies himself as a separate entity, calling himself a ridiculous hairy creature. The poetry confuses him and Grendel gives up on trying to obtain truth, slipping further into despair. While Grendel’s existential despair leads him away from the world of men,Show MoreRelatedGrendel Essay761 Words   |  4 Pagescharacteristics. In the literary pieces of John Gardner’s, â€Å"Grendel,† unknown author of, â€Å"Beowulf,† and Robert Louis Stevenson’s, â€Å"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,† the characters are portrayed as having both qualities of good and evil, proving there to be a duality of decency/immorality, righteousness/depravity, and virtue/evil. The character, Grendel, in Gardner’s, â€Å"Grendel,† is a prime example of this inseparable bond between right and wrong. Grendel is originally wrongfully viewed as solely a complete andRead MoreEssay on Grendel1169 Words   |  5 Pages In 1971, American author John Gardner wrote Grendel. With a mastermind of creativity, John Gardner successfully retells the classic epic poem, Beowulf. He captures the reader by giving an interesting view of order and chaos, good and evil, hero and monster, allowing the monsters point of view to be seen. On July 21, 1933 John Gardner was born in Batavia, New York. He was the son of a preacher and diary, and his mother taught English. They were very fond of Shakespeare and lovedRead MoreGrendel Essay768 Words   |  4 PagesIn both works, Beowulf and Grendel, Grendel himself is generally given the same connotations. He is given kennings, called names, referred to as the evil spawn of Cain, and even viewed as a monster; but why? Why in both books is he a wicked, horrible, person who is harshly excluded from everyone? After stumbling upon John Gardners book, it was halfway expected that some excuse would be made for Grendel; that he wasnt really the inexorable monster the thanes in Beowulf portrayed him as. But allRead MoreEssay on The Humanization of Grendel1037 Words   |  5 PagesJohn Gardner’s Grendel is the retelling of the heroic epic poem Beowulf; however, the viewpoint has shifted. Grendel is told from the viewpoint of one of Beowulf’s antagonists and the titular character of Gardner’s work—Grendel. In Grendel, Gardner humanizes Grendel by emphasizing parallels between Grendel’s life and human life. Through Gardner’s reflection of human feelings, human development, and human flaws in Grendel, this seemingly antagonistic, monstrous character becomes understood andRead More Existentialism In Grendel Essay1616 Words   |  7 PagesExistentialism In Grendel The debate between existentialism and the rest of the world is a fierce, albeit recent one. Before the dawn of science and the Age Of Reason, it was universally accepted that there were such things as gods, right and wrong, and heroism. However, with the developing interest in science and the mechanization of the universe near the end of the Renaissance, the need for a God was essentially removed, and humankind was left to reconsider the origin of meaning. JohnRead MoreGrendel : Evil Essay833 Words   |  4 PagesIn the novel, Grendel by John Gardener, Grendel is a human-like creature capable of rational thought as well as feeling emotions. Early on in the story Gardener depicts Grendel as being very observant, critical and somewhat spiteful of the world around him. He describes himself as a murderous monster who smells of death and crouches in the shadows. Grendel watches the humans from the shadows of the trees and at first it seems as though they are the real monsters, slau ghtering and pillaging all forRead MoreBeowulf and Grendel Essay1654 Words   |  7 PagesBeowulf and Grendel Beowulf and Grendel are actually the same stories in the fact that they are based on the same epic Beowulf. Beowulf, that is told of here is translated by Kevin Crossley-Holland, and there are many different translations which makes Beowulf the epic so interchangeable. Although Beowulf and Grendel seem very similar they do have many differences as well. Reading the two stories back to back gives you the impression of how many differences there are. For exampleRead MoreGrendel and Beowulf Essay616 Words   |  3 Pageson with this function. On John Gardners, Grendel the main character Grendel is very confused of the life he is living. He is in search of his purpose in life, what he doesn’t realize at the beginning is his purpose is to be the villain. The humans in the novel are terrified of Grendel because to them he is a beast. As a natural reaction for us humans when in fear we tend to eliminate what causes us fear. In many occasions humans try to kill Grendel because he is viewed as evil, until BeowulfRead More GRENDEL FRANKENSTEIN Essay2532 Words   |  11 Pages GRENDEL amp; FRANKENSTEIN AN ANALYSIS OF THE TWO quot;MONSTERSquot; AND THEIR SUPERIORITY TO MANKIND GRENDEL amp; FRANKENSTEIN AN ANALYSIS OF THE TWO quot;MONSTERSquot; AND THEIR SUPERIORITY TO MANKIND In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, quot;Is it good friend?quot; quot;It is bitter-bitter,quot; he answered; quot;But I like it Because it is bitter And because it is my heart.quot; -StephenRead More Is Grendel Evil? Essay2273 Words   |  10 Pageswhich is the cause of most human misery, and prevents peace on earth. In John Gardner’s book Grendel, the retelling of the ages old story Beowulf, further blurs the line between good and evil. Circumstance and perhaps a confused view of reality allow the monster, Grendel, to conceivably defend his evil beliefs. In order to better understand evil, using Grendel as a guide, I intend to attempt to justify it. Grendel is born a neutral being, perhaps even good, but nevertheless, without hate. The transition