The Last Spin by Evan Hunter, Analysis

The last spin is short story written by Evan Hunter, it tells a story of Danny and Tigo who are part of two rival gangs, or ”clubs” as they call them. In the beginning Danny see’s Tigo as his enemy, but as the story goes along they share their thoughts and start to be come friends.

It is kind of ironic thing that two people who are supposed to hate each other just because of the neighbourhoods they live in decide to call it a rest but since they wanted to start a friendship from a clean table Danny had to do one more round of Russian roulette, wich was at the same time beginning and ending of a friendship.

The language of the story is quite easy to read and understand with only exeption on the gun spesifications.

When Danny gathers up his dignity and asks Tigo to join him to the lake on sunday it shows how he breaks the rules and boundaries of a ”club” member.  Like he says that hes part of the club just because of the place he lives in and he doesnt even like the other people in his club.

The last question for the story in our book is ”Why do you think the two characters joined their gangs.” I find the sentence a bit misleading since they did not join the gangs together even though they would propably have wanted to if the story would have not ended. They would propably have left their gangs in the end but since misfortunate ending of Danny they could not make the difference in ganglife.

The story was good even though it felt a bit short and maybe at parts it was repetitive. The tense moments when Danny and Tigo were about to pull the trigger were well described. In conclusion the story was good And worth reading.

Coach Carter

Coach Carter is a truly inspirational movie based on a true story about a high school basketball coach Ken Carter. Samuel L. Jackson, who is a perhaps one of the most recognized actors in Hollywood today, does one of his best roles as Ken Carter. The movie is directed by Thomas Carter and is written by Mark Schwahn and John Gatins

Plot:

In the beginning of the movie Ken receives a job from his old high school Richmond as a basketball coach for the schools basketball team ”Richmond Oilers”. With his strict rules coach Carter manages to get his players to thrive on the basketball court without any losses. When Carter realized that all of his players aren’t doing well in school he makes a contract for his players to sign wich stated that they must maintain all of their grades above C+ things start to go wrong. Most of the players in team do not manage to keep their grades up as agreed, coach Carter locks down the school gym creating a scandal in the little town of Richmond where basketball is everything.

Characters:

The movies main role is played by Samuel L. Jackson who is also the only highly recognized actor in the movie, with the exception of maybe Channing Tatum and pop-star Ashanti. It is hard to describe other characters in the movie than Jacksons since the movie tells very little about the backgrounds of the basketball teams players, so i can pretty much only tell about Ken Carter. Coach Carter is a middle-aged man with a warm heart, from the very beginning he truly cares about the players in his team, and he really wants them to succeed not only on the hardwood but in life also. Ken Carter is relentless workaholic who has questionable ways to teach ”his boys” how to survive in life.

Genre:

On Internet movie database Coach Carter is listed in the genres category as a sports-drama. Due to its quite happy ending i would not list it as a drama, but since it’s not really an action movie or comedy it cant be described with other genres.

Camerawork:

Since the movie sets in the late 1990’s the cameras are used with some kind of soft sepia filter, wich gives the viewer a feel that the movie was really filmed in the same era as it sets.

In conclusion the movie describes the story of Ken Carter and Richmond Oilers very well. And after a bit research i found out that the real Ken Carter was on every set of the movie when it was in the making. I would also call it one of Samuel L. Jacksons finest work.