The main character of this movie is a character named Happy Gilmore. The movie begins with Happy describing his past life and how he is into hockey. He also talks about how his father is also obsessed with hockey, how his mother left them because of that, and how his father died by getting hit in...

American BeautyAmerican Beauty is a movie that exposes preconceived notions about living in suburban America. This movie also becomes a commentary on the human condition while exposing the raw truth of a dysfunctional family. The Burnhams Lester, Carolyn, and Jane start out as the typical middle-cl...

The Movie, The Patriot, starts out with most of the colonists angered. This part of the movie caught my attention at the very beginning and kept it throughout the entire movie. I enjoyed especially the action and war scenes in the movie, but the storyline was very good as well. To understand this ...

In the movie Whale Rider, the characterization of Pai is an importantcomponent of both the movement of the story and an important insight intodirector Niki Caro's vision for the theme and meaning of the film. Pai'spoised and gentle assurance gives the viewer with an understanding that sheis t...

A review of American Beauty American Beauty challenges every aspect of human existence and makes you question every value you believe to be true. Each character in the movie has a unique personality. The mixture of different personalities makes the story interesting and fills the story line with...

AMERICAN BEAUTY: LIFE THROUGH A CHILDS EYE "The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm" (qtd. In Elibron). These are the words spoken by world-renowned author Aldous Huxley, whose ...

I watched the movie "Spanglish" about the cultural groups of the Mexicans coming to America and a single parent's experience of 'becoming' American. I choose this movie for two main reasons, first being that a friend recommended it, and second I wanted to watch it for pur...

Prisoner of The PastGrowing up in what today is considered a dysfunctional family, Pat Conroy took advantage of this opportunity to write some of the most intriguing stories of his past that capture the attention of his readers. In the movie "Prince of Tides" that was based on his life, Pat Conroy ...

American History X David McKenna wrote the book and the story was awesome! I think that every one should read the book rather than see the movie. It makes one think about the way people act toward and treat other people based upon their beliefs. I now understand that there are different paths that a...

A Child's Wish Leads to FMLA Picture it, April 1, 1992, there was a beautiful, young peasant girl with a serious medical condition. Her family is so poor that they cannot afford all of her medical expenses by themselves. Her father is thankful that he has medical insurance th...

The films Daughters of the Dust and Fire each address the cultural passage from tradition to modernity. On one hand are duties, obligations, and traditions. On the other are needs, desires, and freedom. Wars between these two antagonistic camps have been fought through the ages across many societie...

"Home Burial" and The Closure of Gaps While reading "Home Burial" I encountered many gaps. These smaller gaps seemed to lead me to one main gap, which I picked to concentrate on. The gap was, what did the man do to upset his wife, and how was the man and wife's relation...

Stereotype of the Typical North American Teenager Sullen, disrespectful and cynical, these are character traits North Americans generate when they reflect of what a typical teenager is. Are these adjectives appropriate for describing an average adolescent, one of which one was themselves? In...

Not So Pleasant (ville)"(A) Nuclear family was where people could try to satisfy their long-pent-up desires for a more stable marriage, a decent home, and a chance to really enjoy their children" (Coontz, 59). What makes a family ideal or popularly called "nuclear"? In the movie Pleasantville, the...

Tom Wingfield the narrator and a character in The Glass Menagerie felt torn between the loyalty to his mother and sister or finding his own identity. He was forced at a young age to be the man of the house and was expected to help support the family. They lived in an overcrowded lower mid-class ar...

We Are Dysfunctional FamilyWho is to say what is normal or dysfunctional in today's society, a society in which almost nothing can seem to surprise? However, having watched The Lion in Winter, directed by Anthony Harvey, there exists no question in my mind as to the dysfunctional nature of the roya...

In society today, it would be quite hard to live without being influenced by someone or some type of experience during life. Life is full of influences that you choose and pick which one you're going to use for the better or worst. Not only are there positive influences but there are negative i...

Michael Vs. Sonny At a first glance Michael and Sonny appear to be quite different. Upon further observation, however, they have some similarities. Although they are different in areas of personality, values, and their tempers, they are similar in areas of loyalty, their respect for their father,...

A little boy is always being violently beaten up by he's drunken dad. He uses he's dog's barking as a warning device to tell him if he's dad is coming home drunk. In this story, injustice can be seen from three different points of views. The boy's, the mother's and the ...

In director Lasse Hallstrom's film, What's Eating Gilbert Grapeshowcases the exceptionality of the mentally handicapped within the contextof a family situation. The clearly non-traditional and dysfunctionalfamily struggles to care for their mentally handicapped son, Arne, and yetmanage to sho...

Many Americans think of racism as something of the past, something back when Abraham Lincoln was president. Actually, racism will remain an issue in this world until the sun stops shining and the sound of people's voices no longer linger in the air. Since the beginning of time, human beings h...

In the short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the main character is the grandmother. Flannery O'Connor, the author, lets the reader find out who the grandmother is by her conversations and reactions to the other characters in the story. The grandmother is the most important charac...

Love, to most people means the showing of affection to someone or something. In the instance of my first piece of text, which is my literary text called "daddy's love" it is about a girl who lost her father whilst he was trying to rescue people during the terror strike on the twin to...

In the seven-scene play The Glass Menagerie written by Tennessee Williams, Amanda longs for her children to fulfill their dreams in life. I believe that this is partly because her husband left her and her family without any money and expected her to tend and care for her family by her self. She do...

In the early 1950s, the American dream was a dream shared by the entire nation. The stereotypical family included a mother, father, two children and a pet, all living in suburbia, USA. Every day the father would leave for work in the morning, and mother stayed home, cooked, and cared for the kids. E...