Position Paper 4 - Wild Card

The Best Movies of 2019 (so far).

I often mention how much I love movies, and I spend a lot of my time studying them, watching them, and doing research about them. Much of my love for film and television comes from my interest in writing and storytelling, which is why I'm such an avid writer in my free time, writing scripts for movies that won't ever exist.

My girlfriend and I try to have one date night a week and those nights usually consists of dinner and a movie. We usually decide what movie to watch at dinner, and this year, we've seen over 10 movies. Now as much as I am a big fan of the film industry, I'm also a (self-proclaimed) harsh movie critic. and most films are pretty mediocre. Very few films can satisfy my criteria for a 'good' movie, so I'm going to do a quick rundown of the best movies, so far, of 2019.

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

The How to Train Your Dragon series has taken a strange turn. I'm not quite sure if the original film's intention was to create a major franchise, but it did. The Hidden World is the best film in the series since the first movie. The film draws on precedents and plot elements brought along from the first two films and the Netflix series.

The film overall is beautiful. The animation quality has drastically increased since the first film in 2010 and the second film in 2014. The story follows Hiccup and Toothless once again as their stories come to an end in the final film of the franchise. There most certainly will continue to be spinoff films and series.

Hotel Mumbai

Hotel Mumbai is a biographical film about the 2008 Mumbai attacks. I actually didn't know anything about the attacks until I saw the film, as I was only nine years old at the time of the event. Following the film, I did quite a bit of research on the event and found that the film was very accurate to the actual occurrence.

The film is very gruesome, and Director Anthony Maras said that the film was not watered down explicitly to show that this was not a Hollywood action flick. The film is dark and violent, but a must watch.

Captain Marvel

The last film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel is a wonderful film. Set in the 1990's, the backdrop for Captain Marvel feels the most real out of any of the Marvel films.

Brie Larson does a spectacular job as Captain Marvel, and Samuel L. Jackson reprises his role as Nick Fury, only 25 years younger. Like most Marvel films, this is a must see.

Us

Jordan Peele has made it clear he's here to stay, especially as a director. The follow up to 2017's Get Out keeps the horror alive. Psychological horror is the new trend in the horror industry and Jordan Peele has made it clear he's a frontrunner.

There's not much to say about Us. Go watch it.

Avengers: Endgame

11 years in the making, Avengers: Endgame is the conclusion to 22 Marvel films and the end of the Infinity Saga. Endgame has shattered most of the box office weekend records, and will likely continue to do so.

I saw this movie on opening night in a sold out theater. It was an experience unlike any other. This is easily the best superhero film of all-time.

Position Paper 3 - Digital and Media Literacy

The Future is Online.

More people than ever rely on the internet for nearly everything, from shopping to paying bills. Personally, it's been years since I've gone more than three days without access to the internet and I personally don't think I could go very much longer than that before I snapped. My life is based online: my job, my classwork, vital data stored on online drives, and my social media footprint. I don't remember the last time I sat down to watch a show on television, maybe the Super Bowl, but even then I watched it through an app that got a free trial for (which I subsequently cancelled to avoid paying a fee).

The internet is often used as a teaching tool as well. There are places in the world that are obviously weaker on the education spectrum, whether that be to a lack of an online connection or just generally weaker teaching, or a lack of teaching. The advancement of computer technology is an apparent necessity to the world, or at least the United States. Even in our own state, Governor Asa Hutchinson has made it clear how important coding and computer science is to the future of the state.

My personal experience with the teaching tools of the internet is quite extensive. In my Junior year of high school, I took a computer math course rather than a standard math class. It counted as one of my math credits and as someone who is likely below average in math literacy, I took my blessing and ran.

In that computer math course, we used Khan Academy and Code Academy. As an avid internet user, I've learned that most questions I have can be answers with a simple Google search. That also goes for more complicated questions or tasks. I learned how to change a tire by looking at an online tutorial, then when the time came to use this skill, I was ready. Online tutorials, specifically through YouTube, have helped guide my way through life almost as much as my parents. Whether it be video game walkthroughs or how to be macho, the internet can answer almost any question you have.

I'm going to analyze YouTube and the spectrum for teaching and the advancement of digital literacy. I've already mentioned how you can find almost anything online, but YouTube in particular is a hub for tutorials. It's strange how specific some tutorials can get. Have you ever wanted to be popular in middle school? Do you know how to properly eat Ethiopian food? 

Other than just the weird tutorials you can find, there is genuinely important and valuable information that can be found online. Duolingo is language teaching app that is in the top 100 for the most used apps on the Apple App Store. I never had any interest in learning another language until college. After learning Russian, I used Duolingo to refine my skills over the summer. 

My younger brother uses Google Classroom to do his schoolwork whenever his school is out of session. The school even uses an app that allows for teachers to communicate directly to the parents of students, notifying them of grades, absences, and school events. Games are being incorporated into the classroom to with Kahoot!, a popular trivia game used as a teaching tool. We even played Kahoot! in my Biology class last semester.

Even as I'm writing this, a friend of mine, Patrick, is watching a video tutorial on how to do his physics homework. Teaching others was the basis of creation for Khan Academy, and though it may not have been an original idea of teaching others through online videos, it definitely was a stepping stone into the creation of the tutorial 'genre'.

Overall, the teaching spectrum on the internet platform is one of the most valuable tools available to all of human kind. Who knows what the future holds for teaching tools, especially for third-world countries that need it more than ever. If there is this much use for these tools now, we can only imagine what's available in the future.

Position Paper 2 - International Media Trends

England: The precursor to popular American television.

Television, though a slowing industry due to the popularity of streaming and online content-creator based services such as YouTube, still has a market, but it's shrinking. There are a select group of individuals who still sit in front of the TV every night to watch whatever program is on for the night, but that is slowly becoming a rarity. Shows like "The Walking Dead" and "Game of Thrones" routinely dominate the ratings for weekly television viewers and the dedicated audiences for these shows often watch on live TV as the online upload for these shows takes a few hours to their respective streaming service.

Despite the dying art of television, new shows are coming out every quarter on major networks, chomping at the bit to find a hit series to drive the ratings up to what they once were. Every network is looking for the new "Breaking Bad" or "Sons of Anarchy", a show that enthralls audiences week by week and the numbers will skyrocket during the tense finales. Most networks never find that show, and it seems likes the new 'settling for' is game shows, usually involving some major product placement, like the game show "Beat Shazam" or shows that offers branded prizes. The ratings for the show might not be high, but the network can still rake in some cash for advertising.

Something that has always interested me is British television. Now, the reigns on what's allowed on British television has been tightened a little in the past few years, but their programs are still very modest. Nudity and vulgarity are a common feature, but they aren't necessarily looked down on. In fact, some of the most popular shows involve these characteristics such as "Skins", "Top Gear", when it was on the air, and "Peaky Blinders".

Something I would like to examine are British TV shows that have made their way to America, whether it be via remake or just a straight transfer, and examine how these shows performed.

Firstly, the show "The Office". Today, "The Office" is the most watched program on Netflix, outdoing popular series on the platform "Orange is the New Black", "The Walking Dead", and countless other series. "The Office" originally aired in the UK from 2001 to 2003 with a British-led cast including Ricky Gervais and Martin Freeman. The show was not very popular, only lasting two seasons on television. However, the show was rebooted in America under the same name with a different cast including Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Rainn Wilson, and Jenna Fischer. The show ran for nine seasons from 2005 to 2013 with major success on NBC. However, the ratings for the show weren't at their highest until the show was added to Netflix where it has become a phenomenon. The show became so popular that at one point when a rumor began stirring that "The Office" would be removed from Netflix, social media caught on fire with threats of users leaving Netflix. Eventually, Netflix put the rumors to rest but there was still a worldwide stir.

The U.S. has also stolen some reality TV shows from Britain, including popular shows such as "Cash Cab", "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", and "The Weakest Link". All of these shows started as British shows, but they each grew into very popular shows in America, very much so for "Cash Cab" and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?".

Probably my favorite show taken from U.K. television is "Hell's Kitchen". The show pits amateur chefs into a high stakes, fast paced kitchen with renowned chef Gordon Ramsay. I find it very ironic that the show started in the U.K., but when it moved to the U.S., it was set in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan. The theme song still occasionally gets stuck in my head.

The cast of 'The Office'. (U.K left, U.S right)

The popular British show "Skins" made its way to U.S. television to much disdain by American and British audiences. Aforementioned, British television is very gritty and not censored very much, so with the FCC involved on American television, British audiences were very upset with the censorship and the 'less gritty' feeling. American audiences however felt that the grittiness and roughness of the show, though heavily censored, was too much for American television. 

It's hard to think of any American shows that were transitioned to British television just off the top of my head, but it's very easy to think of British shows making their way to America.