Ethan Lang's blog

 When it comes to structure many, (and I mean MANY) stories can be seen as similar or almost identical. The good ol' protagonist living his life, until something bad happens, and then he gets rid of the bad thing and lives happily after ever plot never ceases to fail. Stories and movies are, at this point, practically formulaic with their writing. These storylines can be seen as predictable and boring by some. But if that's the case then why is the movie industry still as popular as it is today? To answer this, let's first take a look at a popular trend in the movie industry: sequels. Why have so many movies received sequels? Like seriously, why in God's name have their been almost 10 different Fast and Furious movies??? If people have already seen this certain cast of characters take down some villain and have their happy ending once, why would they want to see it 9 different times?! The answer is, because people tend to enjoy it when the movies they watch are familiar...

 While reading The Stranger, I couldn't help but notice the lack of likable characters throughout these chapters so far. For example with Raymond, even though Mersault sees him as a "friend", it is clear that  Raymond just uses him whenever he needs help, and is an awful person in general who abuses his girlfriend. Salamano, is not as bad as Raymond because he manages to show some affection for dog when he disappears but still abuses his dog and doesn't take proper care of him. And with Mersault I am very indifferent because I know he has the chance to be someone good but doesn't really do much to show it. The only character who I do think has admirable traits is Marie. Unlike Mersault's two pals, she is actually not an abuser in any way. She actually loves Mersault despite possibly being insulted by his emotionless personality. Despite being told quite literally by Mersault that he doesn't really love her she still wants to get married to him, which is a ...

      In the movie, "Miss Little Sunshine" the Hoover family goes through many challenges throughout the trip, which ultimately helps them grow. They overcome the many obstacles to get Olive to the beauty pageant and learn throughout it. However, Richard's development as a person stood out the most to me. In the beginning, the movie does a good (and I mean GOOD) job of portraying Richard as a very dislikable character. I mean every chance he got, Richard would just interrupt a conversation with some stupid side comment about his winner and loser concept. He comes off as annoying and arrogant, trying to constantly pressure Olive to be a winner to the point where she ends up crying to her Grandpa. These sort of acts gave me the assumption that he would stay the same throughout the movie and was just there to annoy me. But in the end he ended up being an ok guy. He went through a lot of stress in the family's road trip, which I didn't really pay too much attention to...

      During this long pandemic, it is clear that the Corona virus has taken its toll on people. It has affected people's daily lives and activities, especially students. With the new online zoom classes, schools have seen drops in both attendance and grades in all classes except one. Gym class performance has absolutely sky rocketed in most schools in our area. With the gym class's new innovative "turn off your camera to go running and then tell the teacher what your mile time is" technology, every single student has somehow beaten their past mile times. One student in particular has completely shattered his school's running records. Owen, A.K.A "The 400 Pound Machine" has gone from a 40 minute mile time last year, to running a mile in 2 minutes! He now holds the record time for his school, receiving countless medals for this feat. Owen is making headlines, getting countless interviews from the news and recognition from athletes around the world. When a...