Movie of the
Week
Yes Man:
I picked this film because it made me question a few things. The film
revolves around Carl Allen (played by Jim Carrey) who doesn’t get out much, if
not at all, and has secluded himself from the outside world, saying no to
everything because he just cannot be bothered, which makes sense after his wife
divorced him. This film shows just what can happen if you get up and get out
and about a bit more, see the world and have fun doing so. You just never know
what might be around the next corner. And that is what I questioned when the
credits started to roll.
The common phrase states that good things comes to those who wait,
but, be that as it may, you still have to get the snowball rolling before you
can wait for it to reach the bottom several times bigger than when it started
its descent. You have to say yes more often to get out and do things, meet new
people, explore new places, then you can sit back at the end of the day and
wait for things to happen during the next day, and the day after that, and so
on until you’re happy and content.
However, as well as teaching you that you need to say yes more
often, you don’t have to say yes to everything. You can always have too much of
a good thing. Say no when you don’t want to do something, you have the right to
do that. Carl Allen found out that by saying yes to everything, he lost everything
that he worked towards, including the strong relationship with Allison (played
by Zooey Deschanel). That relationship only started because he said yes to
drive a man home where he ran out of the fuel in the middle of nowhere. As he
was heading towards the petrol station, he was ranting and raving about how
saying yes lead him to this unwanted predicament. And then he met Allison and
his night changed, and so did his life. So, you can see how saying yes more
often can help you get things going, but saying yes all the time can lead you
in the wrong direction, and that is a strong and complicated message to
portray, which is why I love this film because it does just that without
missing a beat.
I may have given away too much of what the film has to offer, but
I hope that it has intrigued your enough to watch it.
The link to
the IMDB page is here:
TV Episode of the Week
Smallville –
Season 4 – Episode 12: Blank:
This
episode revolves around Clark Kent losing his memory and his friend, Chloe Sullivan
helping him retrieve it back. Now, I know, that storyline has been used so
many times across TV and film for years now that it is wearing a bit thin. But,
this episode sheds some new light on the topic by throwing in a few new
elements that are the reason for why I have made this my choice for TV show of
the week. The first element focuses on a high level of dramatic irony – where
we know something a character doesn’t. This is played out via Chloe knowing
about Clarks secret but Clark doesn’t know that she knows. There have been many
wonderful instances from episodes prior to this that shows how strong
dramatic irony can really be. This element sets up the ending, which I will get
to later on. The second element is character development and how far certain
friendships have evolved over time.
The scene that steals the show for me is where Clark and Chloe are discussing Clark’s powers, and Clark is in disbelief that he had just bent a crowbar as if it were made out ofplaydough. It then goes on to Chloe explaining that Clark is another victim of the meteor shower that struck their home town several years ago. Although she doesn’t know that Clark is an alien yet, this scene does highlight just how accepting Chloe really is to the truth about Clark Kent having powers. One of the main reasons for Clark not wanting to show his secret is because he is afraid of what people might thing, especially his friends, but this shows that he needn’t worry so much, and that is a beautiful thing. The third element focuses on Clark going on the journey to get his memories back, and accompanied with his powers that he has to adjust to once more, it becomes a pretty funny episode.
Now, I said that I would get back to dramatic irony element of the episode and so here it is. The ending of this episode is like every other episode when someone gets all their memories back: They have no clue as to what happened when they were blank. Clark, not knowing that Chloe knows asks her if he did anything questionable, and Chloeresponds with three simple, yet powerful words…
‘You
trusted me.’
Here is the
link to the IMBD page:
Game of the Week
The
Beginner’s Guide:
This game is something else entirely. I’ve picked this
game because of its incredible effect it had on me. This game was made by
the same developer as the Stanley Parable, so I knew instantly that it was
another huge hit. And then stuff got real (and when you either play it or
watch it, you will know that I’m not saying, ‘real’ lightly. When I watched the
trailer and read the synopsis, I thought that this isn’t really a game that I
would play, but that didn’t matter whether I played it or not for when I sat
down and watched a video of it, the effect was amazing nonetheless.
Over the years, there has been a continuous debate on
whether games are art, and I feel that this game is a strong contender to
putting that age-old debate to bed for this game is truly art, for it inspires,
makes you feel, makes you see the bigger picture. It’s simple and effective, in
a way that it only gives you just enough information for you mind to run with
and fill in the gaps, and that is how it is able to pass on such an important
message and make you ask some deep questions.
I don’t want to get into some existential stuff, but
this game shows you the fundamentals of life. It shows you that your teachers
are just as scared as you are, or you will come across a particularly
difficult problem that makes you over-think and worry, stressing yourself
out over, but by putting a metaphorical bridge over it and walking to the
other side, the problem goes away just like that. I really don’t want to spoil
anything so I’ll just say that you need to go and play it right now. I can
guarantee that you will go on an incredible journey. However, if you do enjoy
playing games to wind down from a hard day, this isn’t the game for you, but if
you do want to know what it is about, I can recommend a video of someone
playing it and going on the same journey as you will, save from a few
perspectives due to difference experiences.
I talked about Jacksepticeye in my last
article, and although I could easily put his video of him playing the
Beginner’s Guide in the ‘Video of the Week’ section, I feel that having two of
his videos in a row, although does highlight how good his videos are, is a bit
much, so I have another video lined up for that part, instead. Jacksepticeye’s
video is two hours long, but once you’ve gotten yourself lost in it, that
doesn’t matter one bit. As well as you going on a journey that makes you ask
important questions, so is he, and with his level of connectivity throughout,
you can share in the experience, and enjoy the video to the full.
You can find
the link to the game and the video here:
Game:
Video:
Video of the Week
To Scale:
The Solar System:
‘As we got farther and farther away, the Earth
diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most
beautiful marble you can imagine… Seeing this has to change a man.’
James Irwin, Apollo 15.
When you look up at the night sky and see the full
moon, it doesn’t look that far away –especially when it’s in its gigantic
phrase, making it look like it’s going to crash into the Earth any minute now –
but in actuality, it’s rather far away. About 384,400KM away. The same
goes for the sun, the biggest thing in the solar system, yet is so far away that
the light coming from it, as fast as light travels, which is 299,792KM per
second, takes eight whole minutes to arrive here on Earth, allowing us to see
it in all its glory. That is mind boggling to say the least, knowing
that something that appears so close is so far away. And to get an accurate
representation of the size of our solar system is very hard indeed. No picture
on the Internet or in a book can give you that level of precision. ‘The only
way to see a scale model of the Solar System is to build one.’ And that is
exactly what they do in this video. They go out to a dry lakebed in Nevada and
build a scale model of the Solar System. Of course, it needs to be shrunk
down so that it is able to fit on planet Earth, so they base the dimensions on
a marble, but even then the model is still seven miles in diameter, and that
just goes to show how massive the Solar System we all live in really is when
taking the actual dimensions of the planets, our sun and the space between into
account.
You can find
the link to the video here:
Thanks for reading
Antony Hudson
(TonyHadNouns)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Hi, I hope you enjoyed reading my blog. Here, you can comment on what you liked about it or what changes you feel will best suit bettering your experience.