Cam Collins
Maddox
Pan's Labyrinth Review
11 May 2010
The movie "Pan's Labyrinth", directed by famous Guillermo del Toro, began with a prolepsis. The prolepsis consisted of a young latin american girl dying on the ground. This unusual beginning to the film allowed for curiosity to flow through the audience's mind and attract their interest.
After the prolepsis ended, the film's setting transferred to a forest where car was winding away on a dirt path. The car then stopped, and a woman came out screaming because of her child birth pains. Immediately, a young girl, Ofelia, also called princess, escaped from the group of people and went over to the side of the road. She picked up a rock, and then went further into the woods. She then placed this rock in a hole in a stone statue. Following her notion, a small fairy came out of a hole in the statue. Ofelia then went back to the car, with her aching mother, and they drove off. The fairy that came out of the stone statue followed the carriage to its destination.
Once the group arrived at the destination, which was located in Spain during the war amongst the nationalists and the republicans, General Vidal was presented to the audience. Vidal was a cold-blooded commander that wasn't afraid to kill anyone in his path. He was married to Ofelia's pregnant mother. After she transported all of her luggage into the house, Ofelia went outside. She then saw the fairy that she saw previously in the stone statue. The fairy told Ofelia to follow it and the fairy led Ofelia to a labyrinth deep into the forest. She went to a spot in the middle of the forest, and then went down a closed chamber with the fairy. When Ofelia reached the bottom, she met another mysterious creature, called a faun, that informed her of a special rose that would allow Ofelia to possess immortality. The faun also said that she had to complete three tasks before a full moon in order to obtain immortality.
The first task that Ofelia completed was obtaining a key from this ugly monster underground. The next deed that she fulfilled was when she obtained the dagger, and was almost caught by a being with its inner flesh as skin. She completed the last task when she took the newborn baby from General Vidal and carried it to the labyrinth. While this happened, the general who was not fully to his senses because Ofelia drugged him, followed Ofelia to the Labyrinth with a gun in hand to try and kill her. Once both reached the labyrinth, the faun told Ofelia that a drop of blood from the baby was needed in order to open the portal. However, Ofelia would not give up the baby, and right after, Vidal came up to her and shot her.
Ofelia then awoke in what looked like a heaven of some sort. The faun was there and the person seated on the throne told her that she had completed the three tasks. The man on the throne told Ofelia that she would be rewarded because of her sacrifice to her baby brother. It was time for Ofelia to be united with her real father because of her state of immortality that she had just achieved.
"Pan's Labyrinth" is a fictional movie that deals with various themes such as the quest for immortality, mystery, and the searching for one to find themselves through adventure. The fairies are motifs throughout the movie and they symbolize the world of the supernatural conflicting with the world of natural. This is an excellent movie for those who like to imagine themselves in a world of adventure and fantasy.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Cam Collins
Maddox
New Post
8 May 2010
So far, my sophomore year has been a very successful year athletically. Although I did not reach my goals in cross country, it was still a great season and I got to meet many new people and bond with others. Even though in life many times things don't go your way, as long as you are developing friendships, there is always something to remember.
However, during basketball season I met most of my goals, and it was a very successful season in gaining lots of experience. My first goal was to make the varsity; second was to start; third was to make the team better with my contributions. I achieved all of these goals through hard work and God's blessing. This year, I also wanted to make the all region team, but I will just have to get it next year. Basketball is the sport I want to play in college, so it was very satisfying to me that I got to start as a sophomore and gain experience for the future.
Starting right after I finished basketball, I began track. It was discouraging at first because I had to get back in distance-running shape, which takes at least two or three weeks. After that, I had to get into track shape, which is fast running for long periods of time. My first meet a week after starting to run again was a success though, because I got first place and a personal record for the 800. That really pumped me up, but it also allowed me to think I was already better than everyone else, which I was by far not. My second meet of the year directly following spring break made me snap back into reality. I ran the mile and got second, running a 4:54, which was slower than last year, and then right after that I got third in the 800, losing to two people on my team that had never beat me before. I knew then that it was time for me to get my act together, start working hard, and improving. Since then I have lowered my times greatly, in which I have qualified for state in the 4by4, 800, and 1600. My goal is to win state in one event and place very high in the other two. Nonetheless, I am thankful for the position God has put me in and I will run the race in honor of his glory.
Maddox
New Post
8 May 2010
So far, my sophomore year has been a very successful year athletically. Although I did not reach my goals in cross country, it was still a great season and I got to meet many new people and bond with others. Even though in life many times things don't go your way, as long as you are developing friendships, there is always something to remember.
However, during basketball season I met most of my goals, and it was a very successful season in gaining lots of experience. My first goal was to make the varsity; second was to start; third was to make the team better with my contributions. I achieved all of these goals through hard work and God's blessing. This year, I also wanted to make the all region team, but I will just have to get it next year. Basketball is the sport I want to play in college, so it was very satisfying to me that I got to start as a sophomore and gain experience for the future.
Starting right after I finished basketball, I began track. It was discouraging at first because I had to get back in distance-running shape, which takes at least two or three weeks. After that, I had to get into track shape, which is fast running for long periods of time. My first meet a week after starting to run again was a success though, because I got first place and a personal record for the 800. That really pumped me up, but it also allowed me to think I was already better than everyone else, which I was by far not. My second meet of the year directly following spring break made me snap back into reality. I ran the mile and got second, running a 4:54, which was slower than last year, and then right after that I got third in the 800, losing to two people on my team that had never beat me before. I knew then that it was time for me to get my act together, start working hard, and improving. Since then I have lowered my times greatly, in which I have qualified for state in the 4by4, 800, and 1600. My goal is to win state in one event and place very high in the other two. Nonetheless, I am thankful for the position God has put me in and I will run the race in honor of his glory.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Summary : "Of Love and Other Demons"
Cam Collins
Maddox
Summary
2 May 2010
In the beginning of the novel, a girl of twelve years of age, Sierva Maria, gets bitten by a dog and contracts rabies. Sierva Maria is a girl living in a royal house, her father the Marquis, and her mother a woman named Bernarda. Bernarda lies in her room all day everyday bathing and taking cacao tablets. She smells like soap from her six bathings a day. The Marquis also usually resides in the house. Both parents do not care much for Sierva Maria until she is bitten and diagnosed with rabies.
After Sierva Maria has been bit by the dog, the Marquis visits Abrenuncio, the well-known physician around the city. At the same time, Sierva Maria has been acting very strange, laying sprawled on the floor panting and weeping day and night. Abrenuncio informs the Marquis that Sierva Maria has rabies and that no one has ever survived rabies so she does not have that much longer to live.
Immediately after his confrontation with Abrenuncio, the Marquis goes to the Bishop to get his opinion of what to do with Sierva Maria. The Bishop holds that Sierva Maria should be taken to the Convent of Santa Clara because her strange actions at home are very similar to the actions of one who is possessed by demons. He then decides that he will take Sierva Maria to the convent and dresses her beautifly, takes her valise, and they are off.
The Bishop's assistant, Cayetano Delaura, is asked to take over the exorcism of Sierva Maria. He is reluctant to accept this mission, feeling that he is not worthy to take the job. In his first meeting with Sierva Maria, Delaura is unsuccessful. He continues to come back, giving her pastries from the arcades. They grow with one another, and over time fall in love. He is thirty-six and she is twelve. Will their love relationship prosper? Will she be cured of her demons? Read the rest and find out.
Maddox
Summary
2 May 2010
In the beginning of the novel, a girl of twelve years of age, Sierva Maria, gets bitten by a dog and contracts rabies. Sierva Maria is a girl living in a royal house, her father the Marquis, and her mother a woman named Bernarda. Bernarda lies in her room all day everyday bathing and taking cacao tablets. She smells like soap from her six bathings a day. The Marquis also usually resides in the house. Both parents do not care much for Sierva Maria until she is bitten and diagnosed with rabies.
After Sierva Maria has been bit by the dog, the Marquis visits Abrenuncio, the well-known physician around the city. At the same time, Sierva Maria has been acting very strange, laying sprawled on the floor panting and weeping day and night. Abrenuncio informs the Marquis that Sierva Maria has rabies and that no one has ever survived rabies so she does not have that much longer to live.
Immediately after his confrontation with Abrenuncio, the Marquis goes to the Bishop to get his opinion of what to do with Sierva Maria. The Bishop holds that Sierva Maria should be taken to the Convent of Santa Clara because her strange actions at home are very similar to the actions of one who is possessed by demons. He then decides that he will take Sierva Maria to the convent and dresses her beautifly, takes her valise, and they are off.
The Bishop's assistant, Cayetano Delaura, is asked to take over the exorcism of Sierva Maria. He is reluctant to accept this mission, feeling that he is not worthy to take the job. In his first meeting with Sierva Maria, Delaura is unsuccessful. He continues to come back, giving her pastries from the arcades. They grow with one another, and over time fall in love. He is thirty-six and she is twelve. Will their love relationship prosper? Will she be cured of her demons? Read the rest and find out.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Magical Story
Cam Collins
Magical Story
Maddox
18 April 2009
Tito and the Dragon
Everyday since I was a child I have gone out to the sea after my schooling to look for the mysterious dragon. Most Chinese call this dragon a myth or a legend, but my great grandfather, Confucius, told me that this dragon was real, and that he had seen it himself. I am twenty-five years old now, and a part of me seems missing because I have not seen the dragon.
People call me crazy because I am the only one who believes in this dragon. My grandfather revealed to me that the dragon was two hundred feet in height, and he breathed fire over all of our people over a thousand years ago, and destroyed our city and brought the Qing dynasty to an end. I wish the dragon would come back and show me his great stature and might, because the emperor of my country now has none of these things.
One day I went out to the sea. It was a very odd day. The sky was ominous yet the sun was still out, and the wind was gusting over thirty miles per hour. I could hardly stand up. It was in the middle of summer so a tornado was not likely. This day I vision something happening. Maybe, maybe, it is just so peculiar.
I hear the emergency siren go off, a typhoon is on its way. Rain is starting to pour heavily. My shirt and pants are drenched so I decide to take them off. Who cares if I am naked, no one comes out here in these conditions. The waves start to rush and shatter on the shore. At once, out of the deep sea, a massive structure appears bursting from the waves. It is massive and its scales are a fiery red. Right after, tons of water are thrown all over my city. I have now seen the dragon. It starts to breathe fire. There is nothing I can do now. I have come to not like this dragon. Life as I know it has now ended.
Magical Story
Maddox
18 April 2009
Tito and the Dragon
Everyday since I was a child I have gone out to the sea after my schooling to look for the mysterious dragon. Most Chinese call this dragon a myth or a legend, but my great grandfather, Confucius, told me that this dragon was real, and that he had seen it himself. I am twenty-five years old now, and a part of me seems missing because I have not seen the dragon.
People call me crazy because I am the only one who believes in this dragon. My grandfather revealed to me that the dragon was two hundred feet in height, and he breathed fire over all of our people over a thousand years ago, and destroyed our city and brought the Qing dynasty to an end. I wish the dragon would come back and show me his great stature and might, because the emperor of my country now has none of these things.
One day I went out to the sea. It was a very odd day. The sky was ominous yet the sun was still out, and the wind was gusting over thirty miles per hour. I could hardly stand up. It was in the middle of summer so a tornado was not likely. This day I vision something happening. Maybe, maybe, it is just so peculiar.
I hear the emergency siren go off, a typhoon is on its way. Rain is starting to pour heavily. My shirt and pants are drenched so I decide to take them off. Who cares if I am naked, no one comes out here in these conditions. The waves start to rush and shatter on the shore. At once, out of the deep sea, a massive structure appears bursting from the waves. It is massive and its scales are a fiery red. Right after, tons of water are thrown all over my city. I have now seen the dragon. It starts to breathe fire. There is nothing I can do now. I have come to not like this dragon. Life as I know it has now ended.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Cam Collins
Maddox
Poems
17 March 2010
Imagism Poem
A crowded movie
theatre
With the smell
of popcorn
The audience
laughing
Comedy
flowing
Image Poem #2
I am a beast
the fastest creature alive
I will never fail
my pride is overwhelming
Sprinters look at my back
while I finish the race
I am like an animal
faster than a leopard
My biceps are straining
My legs are cramping
I see the crowd
all chanting my name
9.69 is on the clock
with my name corresponding in first place
I am a god
the epitomy of speed
I am insane
I am Usain
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Hollow Men
Cam Collins
Maddox
The Hollow Men Essay
21 February 2010
The poem The Hollow Men relates to Heart Of Darkness in many different and distinct ways. In paragraph one of the poem, the theme is that Kurtz's people are hollow men and morally stagnant. However, this poem contasts with Kurtz because he is not a hollow man. This passage in Heart of Darkness relates to this theme, "It was impossible to know him and not to admire him (Conrad 113)." There is a comparison here because both works hint that Kurtz is a remarkable and astounding man. In the poem, Eliot compares the hollow men to being scarecrows with nothing inside them. Kurtz was not a scarecrow, but a hero figure that lost his way by living in the most savage place on earth. Heart of Darkness describes this theme in the passage above.
The river is also a correlation between both works. Eliot in his poem says,
"In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river (The Hollow Men 2)
This quote in Eliot's poem describes the river as a place in hell, or a pyschological barrier that keeps the people from crossing into heaven or hell. The meaning behind this quote is that the natives live in the land of the dead and they are just stuck on that shore forever. In Apocalypse Now, which is telling almost the same story as Heart Of Darkness, Captain river describes the river and the native's home as, "the worst place on earth." This concretely relates to Eliot's description of the, "tumid river."
In the second part of Eliot's The Hollow Men, he describes the home of the natives as, "death's dream kingdom (1)." He infers that the natives are people with no purpose who live in a desolate wasteland. This quote from the novel relates heavily to Eliot's statement, "When we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet, nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies..... they shouted periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language"(101). Again, this passage indicates that these people are lost and will never find their way. They are foreign to the human race, and cannot survive without Kurtz. They are a group of insane creatures that live in the most savage and terrifying place in the world.
The society that exists on the other side of the world is a land of loss and failure, a place of darkness. In The Hollow Men, Eliot says,
"Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men." (1)
This means that these people will be remembered as people who have done nothing. They are all failures. In Heart of Darkness this passage relates to the one above, "His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines" (104). This is the main similarity between both works. Both describe the jungle as a setting of true, cold, unstoppable darkness that will never change and the people that inhabit this God-forsaken place will always be the most unpurposeful and forgot-about people in world.
Maddox
The Hollow Men Essay
21 February 2010
The poem The Hollow Men relates to Heart Of Darkness in many different and distinct ways. In paragraph one of the poem, the theme is that Kurtz's people are hollow men and morally stagnant. However, this poem contasts with Kurtz because he is not a hollow man. This passage in Heart of Darkness relates to this theme, "It was impossible to know him and not to admire him (Conrad 113)." There is a comparison here because both works hint that Kurtz is a remarkable and astounding man. In the poem, Eliot compares the hollow men to being scarecrows with nothing inside them. Kurtz was not a scarecrow, but a hero figure that lost his way by living in the most savage place on earth. Heart of Darkness describes this theme in the passage above.
The river is also a correlation between both works. Eliot in his poem says,
"In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river (The Hollow Men 2)
This quote in Eliot's poem describes the river as a place in hell, or a pyschological barrier that keeps the people from crossing into heaven or hell. The meaning behind this quote is that the natives live in the land of the dead and they are just stuck on that shore forever. In Apocalypse Now, which is telling almost the same story as Heart Of Darkness, Captain river describes the river and the native's home as, "the worst place on earth." This concretely relates to Eliot's description of the, "tumid river."
In the second part of Eliot's The Hollow Men, he describes the home of the natives as, "death's dream kingdom (1)." He infers that the natives are people with no purpose who live in a desolate wasteland. This quote from the novel relates heavily to Eliot's statement, "When we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet, nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies..... they shouted periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language"(101). Again, this passage indicates that these people are lost and will never find their way. They are foreign to the human race, and cannot survive without Kurtz. They are a group of insane creatures that live in the most savage and terrifying place in the world.
The society that exists on the other side of the world is a land of loss and failure, a place of darkness. In The Hollow Men, Eliot says,
"Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men." (1)
This means that these people will be remembered as people who have done nothing. They are all failures. In Heart of Darkness this passage relates to the one above, "His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines" (104). This is the main similarity between both works. Both describe the jungle as a setting of true, cold, unstoppable darkness that will never change and the people that inhabit this God-forsaken place will always be the most unpurposeful and forgot-about people in world.
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