Kirjoittajan arkistot:henriikka

Tietoja henriikka

English teacher at Porin lukio

Why Honey?

Julkaistu , kirjoittanut
Vastaa

We got this assignment with different variations and I
chose to read short story Why, Honey? by Raymond Carver
from our English text book. I decided to pick this one
because I enjoy reading this kind of mysterious stories
which let the reader use his/her imagination at intervals.
The story is written as letter from a mother to some man
who asks about her son. In the letter mother tells her and
her son’s story how they got apart.
The mother thinks that everything beganat her son’s
roughly 15th Independence Day when their cat, named
Trudy, got lost. Their neighbors told her that some boys
brutally tormented Trudy at nearby field and they were
pretty sure that one of the boys were her son. The son did
act caring but after he was neutral about Trudy.
This event was just the beginning of his odd behavior.
The mother isn’t able to understand why he had to lie about
everyday things like his earnings. This lying thing continued.
Mom got permission ask for field trip from the school, but
weird thing was that last day son had told her how amazing
things he saw at field trip that day.
As son grew up, so did distance between mom and son.
He bought a car and started hunting. One night son didn’t
appear back home from hunting trip. Mom spent whole
night worrying and finally at the morning he came back. But
he didn’t answer exactly where he had been, just laughed
at his mom’s worry. Mom decided to check son’s car trunk
while he was in the shower. She found hunting stuff from
the trunk, but bloody t-shirt made it impossible to keep
questions inside her. She couldn’t sleep for couple of nights.
One night she went to son’s room, but answer was furious.
Son blamed her on stalking etc. and next day he left the
apartment.
Rest of the letter tells how mother didn’t see her son ever
again. She just heard how he had continued his life, became

marine, got married and also got into politics. She became
scared of him which made her change her name, move, get
unknown phone number. Mother never got to know what
she did wrong and what made son hate her so much. She just
keeps wondering; ”Why, honey, why?”

Written by Robert

The Last Spin

Julkaistu , kirjoittanut
Vastaa

The last spin is a short story written by Evan Hunter.

The story tells about two young guys, Tigo and Danny. They are from different clubs so they are supposed to be enemies. Their clubs have some things to settle, so Tigo and Danny need to play Russian roulette. That is a good way to settle problems because that doesn’t cause any law trouble or street fights. Danny and Tigo were picked up for this by accident; therefore they didn’t even know each other before this meeting. Tigo and Danny don’t have anything personal against each other.

Tigo and Danny meet in the basement. Tigo put one cartridge into the cylinder, twirled it and then the game began. Tigo said that he can start so that Danny could have a break. But actually Tigo seems to be as nervous as Danny. By turns they twirled the gun and fired it but they are lucky and nothing happens. Tigo added extra bullets to the gun because he wanted to end the game like his club told him.

During the game they have a conversation about their future, guns and their family. They also talk about their clubs. Tigo tells Danny that he doesn’t like his club members very much and Danny feels the same way about his own club. They realize that they have many things in common. For example they are both in their clubs just because they live in that area and they both like guns (and they know much about guns) and they would like to join the Army.

The game goes on and nothing happens. Tigo and Danny get to know each other better and they start liking each other. Now it’s harder for them to continue the game. Tigo suggests that they could stop the game. No matter what the club says. He wants to choose his friends by personality. Danny agreed and they decide to spin the gun for the last time. Before the spin they planned to go on the lake with their girlfriends next Sunday. Earlier they couldn’t think about the future because they didn’t know witch one is going to die. They were both excited about that they met by accident and now they have become friends. Finally a reliable friend outside the club.

Neither of them was scared about the last spin. They were so sure that nothing will happen that they didn’t even think about it. But they weren’t so lucky anymore. The gun fired the bullet at the last spin. Their friendship was over before it was even properly started.

All in all, the story was very good. At the beginning of the story Danny didn’t dare to close his eyes while pulling the trigger because Tigo was staring at him and Danny was scared that Tigo would do something to him. That’s kind of ironic because Danny should scare more the gun which was in his temple. I think Togo and Danny has joined their clubs because they didn’t have other options. Maybe they thought that if they don’t join the club, the members start molest them.

The language was quite colloquial and sometimes hard to understand. For example ‘’without a big street diddlebop, you dig?’’. But that style fit very well to the text. It would sound funny if those club members would speak a standard language. Language brings more credibility to the text. Writer has also use unusual words like club and piece instead of the better known gang and gun.

It was interesting and exciting to read the text and guess what’s going to happen next. The end of the story was surprising and sad.

written by meow

The Last Spin

Julkaistu , kirjoittanut
Vastaa

I read Evan Hunter’s short story The Last Spin. I chose it because of the story’s set-up, two rival gangs, two members of those gangs and some good old-fashioned Russian roulette in a basement. 

Two guys sit on the table opposite each other. Our main character is called Danny and the man sitting against him is called Tigo. The Russian roulette is a way to settle differences between the two gangs, to avoid fighting in the streets and getting busted by police, Danny and Tigo were only chosen by coincidence and that’s what Tigo keeps telling to Danny, that there’s nothing personal between them. Danny is new on the block and that’s why Tigo doesn’t recognize him. Danny comes from Bronx so it seems that the story is located in New York, although Bronx is quite known as a place all around the world. The boys begin the roulette and meanwhile start to talk about some really personal stuff, like girlfriends and family. The roulette goes on and on without the gun firing a bullet, when Tigo decides to add another cartridge to the chamber of the gun. Danny is kind of surprised by Tigo’s decision especially after their conversation but Tigo simply explains his action by that the gangs won’t be happy until one of them is ”capped”. The roulette continues without either of the men getting killed. Then Tigo decides to add another bullet to the chamber. Guys talk about taking a boat trip with their girlfriends next weekend and they decide to escape the whole gang situation if Danny survives from the next pull of the trigger. Even though the guys have got to know each other there’s still a small trust issue because Danny doesn’t want to close his eyes during the last shot cause he’s afraid that Tigo might do something to him.

I like the narration and the use of gang-related terms, although the word ”piece” is used a bit too much, how about using ”gun” sometimes? At some points the text gets a bit repetitive when the guys are just passing the gun to each other. Things start to get interesting when Tigo adds another bullet to the chamber, that’s the moment when the characters really start to have some depth and character when the tension rises to a whole new level. Narration describes the scene very well and every emotion is well described.

 Written by aseilori4

Homer and Bart

Julkaistu , kirjoittanut
Vastaa

One day on 20th century Homer and his son, Bart were going to local Pizza Hut to eat. On the way to Pizza Hut they saw an old man on side of the street screaming some unknown  words. Homer and Bart were disturbed by this and went to ask the man, what bothers him. Man told them that he was homeless and needs help. Homer and Bart ingnored this and continued their trip to Pizza Hut, but the man remained on the street yellying .

After eating Homer and Bart went to home, and because it already was night they went to sleep. At night Homer wakes up to a loud beating of door, he wakes up and opens door where is the same old man who was yelling at the street at afternoon. Man demanded Homer to let him in and give him some food since he was starving to death and Homer left him without food earlier but Homer shut the door.

24 hours later, There was same knock again and once again Homer went angry open the door but suddenly there wasn’t the old man but a pile on horsepoo. Homer stared the pile confused, why was the pile there?, and why his garden? Homer got his answer soon as the pile turned into bart’s face and swallowed him. Nothing was heard about homer after that.

Later that night Bart was sleeping on his room, when he heard a knock on his door and wondering about that he went to open the door. And he saw homer, but he was not normal, there was something smelly and brown about him. Bart just said ”Go sleep old man” and closed the door, but Homer came throught the door and streched his neck and tied it which killed Bart.

The End

Written by LindaK

Pulp Fiction

Julkaistu , kirjoittanut
2

Pulp Fiction is a crime film released in 1994 and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film is known for its brilliant dialogues, ironic humor, violence, nonlinear storyline and pop culture references. Pulp Fiction was nominated for seven Oscars.
The film connects the interesting storylines of different crime related people of Los Angeles. Considerable screen time is devoted to monologues and conversations between the characters that reveal their senses of humor and perspectives on life. The film’s title refers to the crime comics and novelty of early 20th century. All the events in the film relate to each other and they aren’t shown in chronological order, for example in the beginning of the film Vega and Winnfield walk into a bar wearing clothes they got from Winnfield’s friend Jimmie at the end of the film. Viewer has to be alert for the whole film or the storyline might seem a little strange. Pulp Fiction displays a lot of brutal violence and drug use and drug overdosing and a scene where mob boss Marcellus gets raped by two guys and Butch, who was also captured by the same guys, returns to save him by slicing the other guy open with a Katana-sword.
Main characters in this movie are hired hitmen Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) who work for the mob boss Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), Marcellus’ wife Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) and a boxer called Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis). Casting in this film is spot on, I would give special credit to Rhames and Jackson for their unbelievable performances. Tarantino has a few actors that he likes to use in his films who also feature in Pulp Fiction, for example Tim Roth, who also played in the Reservoir Dogs (1992), Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs), Uma Thurman, who played the leading role in the Kill Bill-movies. Tarantino usually has a small role in his own movies, in Pulp Fiction he played Jimmie, Jules’ innocent friend who helped The Wolf (Keitel), Vincent and Jules to clear mess caused by Vincent’s accidental shooting.
Like every Tarantino movie, Pulp Fiction has an amazing soundtrack. Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” plays during the opening credits. Tarantino chose surf music as the basic musical style for the film, but not for it’s association with surf culture as he has later said. The soundtrack album, “Music from the Motion Picture Pulp Fiction”, was released along with the film in 1994. The album peaked on the Billboard 200-chart at number 21.
Pulp Fiction quickly became regarded as one of the most significant films of it’s era and has become a legend in pop culture ever since.

Written by aseilori4

Ice Age

Julkaistu , kirjoittanut
1

Ice Age is a animated movie released on march 15, 2002.

The film is directed by Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha, the screenplay of film is done by Michael Berg and the story is written by Michael J. Wilson.

The most successful voice actors of the film are, Ray Romano (Manfred), Jogn Leguizamo (Sid), Denis Leary (Diego), Goran Visnjic (Soto) and Jack Black (Zeke). Best voiceplay is in my opinion made by Denis Leary.

Ice Age’s theme is surprisingly set on during the ice age, where a sloth named Sid, a woolly mammoth named Manny, and a saber-toothed tiger named Diego are forced to become unlikely heroes. The three reluctantly come together when they have to return a human child to its father while braving the deadly elements of the impending Ice Age.

Characters of the movie are as said above, Sid: a clumsy, annoying, slow moving, fast-talking and unpopular sloth. Diego who is a sarcastic sabretooth tiger who makes everyone watching the film smile. Manfred ”Manny” is a woolly mammoth who can be serious and emotional, but is otherwise caring and friendly.Scrat is a saber-toothed squirrel who is obsessed with collecting acorns, constantly putting his life in danger to obtain and defend them. He has his own stories in the film, independent of the main plot, which are parallel with the journeys of the other main characters, causing them to interact with him at times.

The films soundtrack is called ”Send Me on My Way” is written by Liz Berlin, John Buynak, Jim DiSpirito, Jim Donovan, Michael Glabicki, Patrick Norman and Jenn Wertz. The soundtrack is performed by band ”Rusted Root” which is in courtesy of ”The Island Def Jam Music Group”. The soundtrack is quite awesome fitting to the movie. It’s kind of country stylish on beginning of the movie, but on end it gets bit of sad.

Ice Age become a huge success right after it’s release which by years has leaded it to get four sequel’s and will in future, most likely get more of them.

Written by Linda

Why Honey? short story analysis

Julkaistu , kirjoittanut
Vastaa

”Why, Honey?” –novel has been written by Raymond Carver. It is a quite short novel that tells about a mom who is worry about her son. The son acts weird and the mom thinks that he conceal something.

The mom of the story is worried about her son, because he begins to behave particularly. Among other things, the proof is that she found her son’s bloody shirt and in addition, the son vanishes sometimes and he also seems to be hiding things. Moreover, the neighbor says that he saw two boys kill hers cat and one of the kids was her son. The boy also resigned from the job without telling her mom and the boy bought a shotgun and a hunting knife.

I think that the mom´s evidence are a pretty convincing, because they are occurring so much and so often. Sometimes the son acts also threateningly. The evidences are quite clear.

The final paragraph of the letter that the narrator wrote tells about her. She suggests that she is possibly very distressed and she is missing her son. She says that she has been praying to get answers. She seems to be very dubious what has happened. The narrator wrote this letter to response for a letter that is unknown and it´s writer is the unknown person for the reader.

I think that the narrator is reliable, because she is telling about her son. Even she tells some bad and alarming things about the boy, she still apologize him. It is however possible that the narrator downplays her own role in the incidents that she has written in her letter.

The writer of that novel has written very simply and easily readable text. He doesn´t describe hardly at all. The text is nevertheless progressing smoothly and clearly. The novel awakens interestingness because the writer leaves the end open.

Written by toivonenn

Christmas story

Julkaistu , kirjoittanut
2

Now you can believe in Santa Claus!

Joulutarina (Christmas Story) is a finnish film, which tells the orugin and life of Santa Claus. A film is directed by Juha Wuolijoki and written by Marko Leino. The film is released in 2007.

The story begins when Santa’s (whose name is Nikolas) parents and his sister died in an accident. Nikolas (Otto Gustavsson) started an orphan child’s life. Every family taking him for a one year and then moving him on to the next family. Nikolas starts whittiling toys out of wood as a gift for the children, whose home he has lived. The last year none of the families can not take him to home the next year. The villages hermit Iisakki (Kari Väänänen) take him to his home. Iisakki doesn’t like Nikolas. After many years Iisakki grows to love Nikolas as his own son. Nikolas makes toys out of wood every year more and more. He grows old and he becomes the figure know as Santa Claus (Hannu-Pekka Björkman).

The film is touching and wonderful. Especially the
film is suitable for children. If you do not need action, that film is right for you!

Written by Krista

Mamma Mia!

Julkaistu , kirjoittanut
Vastaa

“Mamma Mia!” is a musical film and romantic comedy. It was released in 2008 and it’s adapted from a Broadway musical of the same name. The film is based on the songs of Swedish singing group ABBA. It was directed by Phyllida Lloyd and producer by Judy Cramer & Gary Goetzman. Movie was filmed in the Greek island Skopelos.

Plot

Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) is a young woman who lives in Kalokairi with her mother Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep). Donna is a single mother and owner of the old hotel. Sophie is about to get married but first she needs to find out who is her father. Sophie reads Donna’s diary and finds out that she has three possible fathers: Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), Bill Andersson (Stellan Skarsgård) and Harry Bright (Colin Firth). Sophie invites all the father candidates to her wedding ( without telling her mother) because Sophie is convinced that she will know which man is her real father as soon as she sees them.

All three men arrive on the island before the wedding. Sophie starts spending time with them and realise that she doesn’t have any idea which man is her real father. Sophie is trying to hide all three men, but it doesn’t work very well and Donna sees them. At the same time other wedding quests, like Donna’s best friends Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski) arrive to the hotel and Donna starts to figure out why all the men are on the island.

Soundtrack

The film genre is musical so it is obvious that there are many songs. Overall the actors sing about twenty different ABBA’s song during the film. Many of the actors are not professional singers but most songs still sound good (Especially when Amanda Seyfried and/or Meryl Streep are singing.) Unfortunately all men weren’t so good singers.

The plot is not that amazing but on the whole Mamma Mia is very bubbly and refreshing movie. I recommend it for those who like ABBA’s songs and those who just want to watch some happy and cheerful movie.

Written by MM

Breaking Bad

Julkaistu , kirjoittanut
1

The plot

Breaking Bad tells about middle-aged chemistry teacher, Walter ”Walt” White, and his family’s road through Walter’s cancer diagnosis to the state’s leading drug factory.

After diagnosis Walter, as responsible husband and father, tries to find way to provide his family after his death, which he thinks is unavoidable thing in the future. He ends up manufacturing methamphetamine, also known as ”meth”, with his former pupil Jesse Pinkman. Jesse is from middle-class family, but has ended up to living the life of drug abuser to his aunt’s old house. At the high school Jesse was hopeless at chemistry, but knows very much about ”streets’ laws” and dealing, so when he and Walt do combine their knowledge about chemistry and drug dealing, they become state’s greatest drug manufactor. But road to there isn’t that easy, it includes alot of blood because life of drug dealer is not dream. It takes alot energy from Walt to try keep drugs as secret from family because it requires endless amount of explanations for absences, which causes divorce. And finally drug manufacturing dawns to his wife, Skyler. Skyler has to join the keepers of secret for help Walt to avoid prison. Keeping secret isn’t easy, especially when Skyler’s sister’s Marie’s husband, Walt’s brother-in-law, Hank, is a DEA agent. At this point the fifth season of series is on the break and Walt’s alter ego’s, Heisenberg’s drug factory is about to reveal to Hank.

There was the main points of story’s plot. Story includes many people as smaller roles, for example Skyler’s sister Marie, drug people, Walt’s and Jesse’s lawyer Saul Goodman, Jesse’s girlfriend Jane etc.

Characters

  • Walter ”Walt” ”Heisenberg” White is played Bryan Cranston. Walt is 50-year-old chemistry teacher who has diagnosed with lung cancer. He becomes great ”Heisenberg”, who scares everyone and makes best meth of the state.
  • Jesse Pinkman is played by Aaron Paul. Young man from middle-class family who has ended up being drug dealer. Creates drug manufacturing duo with Walt, which doesn’t avoid necessary killing of dangerous people.
  • Skyler White is played by Anna Gunn. She is Walter’s pregnant wife. They divorce but end up living together. Their baby girl’s Holly’s, who borns during series, role has no matter. Skyler also runs car washing company for laundry their drug money.
  • Walter ”Floyd” White, Jr. is played by RJ Mitte. Floyd is Walter’s and Skyler’s teenager son. He has been diagnosed with CP, disease, which causes difficulties with speech and moving. He uses crutches.
  • Hank Schrader is played by Dean Norris. Hank is a DEA agent, who takes that ”new drug king” thing to under his special investigate.
  • Marie Schrader is played Betsy Brandt. Skyler’s sister, Hank’s wife, Walter’s sister-in-law. Affects on Hank’s and Skyler’s decisions with her never-ending nagging. Causes problems for Skyler by giving her present which is stealed.
  • Saul Goodman is played by Bob Odenkirk. Saul is lawyer of criminals. His clients are mostly drug abusers and other down-and-outs. Helps characters with lawyer tricks.
  • Gustavo ”Gus” Fring is played by Giancarlo Esposito. Gus is great drug boss and member of Mexican Juarez Cartel. Like Walt does, Gus lives two-faced life and runs fried chicken restaurant chain and does charity for avoid suspicions. Got killed by Walt.
  • Mike Ehrmantraut is played  by Jonathan Banks. Mike is ex-police who works for Gus as ”security guard”. Does mostly murders for money. Got also killed by Walt.
  • The Salamancas are drug family from Mexico. Connects to the cartel.
  • Badger and Skinny Pete are Jesse’s old mates from drug circles.

Written by Robert