Gran Torino

I believe looking at the cover of the movie Gran Torino; you get the impression of a very serious film, maybe even boring as well. In fact that's not right at all. Clint Eastwood, who's playing the main character in Gran Torino, as the old veteran from the war in Korea, is playing his role as a genius. There are a lot of good actors and probably others suited for this part, but not many could have done this particular role as well as Eastwood did it.

The story starts when Walt Kowalski’s (Clint Eastwood) wife dies and we get to see the ceremony and the dinner afterwards. Already from the start we get to see that Mr. Kowalski is a lonely man, he's in sorrow and he would very much be left alone. However what Kowalski were about to notice was that he was getting some new neighbors, whose Hmong people, which is a people from the mountains. In this part of the movie I really feel that we get the idea of which challenges immigrants meet when they move to a new place. From Mr. Kowalski they receive nothing more than despite and it actually shows how prejudice and intolerable people in general can be towards each other, even though they don't even know one another.

Walt Kowalski is presented as an old war vet from Korea, what many would characterize as a stereotype of old American hotheads. In addition to being a war vet Walt also used to work at the old Ford factory, building cars including the 1972 Ford Gran Torino, which he became a proud owner of. However one night the boy next-door tried to steal his precious diamond and afterwards got caught. This lead to a lot of anger from Mr. Kowalski, but they agreed that Thao, the neighbor’s son would work for Walt to pay for his actions. After a while when Thao has worked for him quite a while, Kowalski starts to see that the boy actually is a decent boy despite his bad behavior earlier. If you ask me, this is probably the biggest turning point in the movie, not just because he starts to become nicer, but because Walt finally starts to accept another people with a different racial background, and also he becomes soft when he lets Thao become a part of his life.

Further on Walt and Thao becomes great friends and the neighbors are getting along perfect, except for a group of Hmong boys that controls most of the Hmong people in the area. Throughout the movie Walt tries his best to protect Thao from the gang and he tries to clear out the gang when he goes out to reform his neighborhood. In the movie I feel that they have drawn a clear line between the black people, the Hmong people and the Americans in the neighborhood. Also in the movie we get to hear the old grandma from the Hmong's house say that she wishes Kowalski would move since all the other Americans have disappeared from the streets in the area. I believe this really shows how people are shown in stereotypes in movies from Hollywood.

I really liked the film. I thought it was both funny and serious and really enjoyed Clint Eastwood in the part as Walt Kowalski. He is truly a good actor, with that little extra spark. I don't think he's the type of actor to play many different parts, but I believe that he chooses the parts that he's really suited for and it seems to me that he's playing himself all along. A great movie which I recommend.

I have posted a link to the tralier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Z2n534q1Q

"Illusions" by Richard Bach

I have recently started on my book in International English. I've chosen to read a book by the famous author Richard Bach, who probably is most known for his book: "Jonathan Livingston Seagull", called Illusions. Earlier I have read his first book, which I found pleasant and exciting to read. Richard writes in a way that makes you think a lot, and you really need to reflect upon the things he writes, because they usually have a double meaning. I really felt his first book appealed to me and it made sense in my life. Therefore I wanted to read his sequel which is, as well, a book of life, to become greater and the meaning of living.

I have now read five chapters in the book: Illusions. Some parts where the author jumps in between dreams and real life I was a bit confused, but by experience I know that Richard Bach's books are much more appealing and clear the second time you read it. So far we have been introduced to a man called Richard, which I believe is because the author really writes about his own life, except he has woven his own story into a fictional story. Also we have met a man called Donald Shimoda, also known as Don. Don is presented as a wiser man than Richard himself and he's elevated as a sort of messiah to him.

The book is really about how to develop yourself, how to exceed your own expectations and how you may use the people around you as teachers to get the knowledge you need and to get self-realization. These things are really the underline of the book and the story is more of a metaphor to express the real message that the author wants to deliver. This is probably why Richard Bach's books are so popular. Since the theme of his books, at least the two I am almost finished with, are self-realization and how to exceed you, everyone can identify themselves with his books and really understand them differently. So far I have mixed feelings about the book, I was as I said earlier a bit confused by some aspects at this point, but I really feel that I get the main point and I am looking forward to reading more of the book.

Megacities and population growth!

Growth of the urban population

As the world population is frequently increasing, the bigger and the smaller cities are growing accordingly. Do to the urbanization in the world we can see that more and more of the world's population are situated in the cities, creating megacities like Tokyo, New York and Delhi for example. Looking at some of the graphs that have been presented for these specific changes we can see that the percentage of people moving to the cities has grown exponentially since the 19th century, when only 2 percent of the total population was living in the cities. After two hundred years the urban population grew to 47 %, which is a lot. Even though this is a notable alteration, I think we will face an even bigger change in the years between 2015 and 2030. I believe this because we have predicted that 52 % will be living in the urban areas already in 2015 and that it is going to increase to about 60 % by year 2030. This means an increase of 8 percentage points in 15 years which is a lot more than for example the 28 percentage points from year 1800 to year 1950.


Population in regions of the world

The statistics shown on the population in the regions of the world are very different from each other. In the areas we call "the west" I can see that the urban populations are growing while the rural districts are decreasing consequently, which to me seems like the people from the countryside's are moving towards the cities. In the East on the other hand, in Asia and Africa the urban areas are getting bigger as well, but the odd thing is that the rural districts are growing in similar size. This I believe could only mean that the populations in these continents are increasing fast and that the moving of the population doesn't have that much to say, rather than the increase of the people as a total.


Megacities

As the world's population seems to be headed towards the city areas we are creating what we call megacities. A megacity needs to have a population larger than 10 million inhabitants and also have a population density of at least 2000 people per square kilometer. When talking about megacities we also have expressions like metropolitan areas, which is the definition of a megacity. A megacity can be one metropolitan or two metropolitans converging. The biggest metropolitans we have today are cities like New York, Mumbai, Delhi, Tokyo and Mexico City.

The apartheid system in South Africa(1948-1994)

After the election in 1948 the Afrikaner Nationalist Party won the election creating the first Apartheid-system. The system was made to maintain the rights of the white minority in the country and to suppress the rest of the society, who were divided into three different groups, as for example the blacks. The discrimination of black women and men were different from each other, because the women had no right to own property and were taken away the opportunity of education, while black men weren't. The system was all about dividing the society in favor of the white people, even though they were the minority of South Africa.

In 1994, when apartheid was on its way out of the country, Nelson Mandela was elected and became the president of South Africa. At this time a lot of the people in his country found it difficult to trust each other, and blacks and whites didn't go along well at first. Nelson Mandela was enforcing forgiveness to everyone and he wanted everyone in his country to exceed their potential so they one day could create a greater South Africa where everyone could live together in peace. The entire idea of blacks and whites to reunite, to create equality needed a lot of adaption from everyone. When Mandela became president he had an enormous positive affect on the segregation between blacks and whites and he stood up against the apartheid system as the strict opposite. In a short period of time he became a symbol of peace, acceptance, freedom and new times for South Africa. He changed the way of how people of South Africa communicated with each other, and he made everyone feel visible to him and one another.

Mandela once expressed himself on this matter by saying: "instead of showing anger and fear of the others we should surprise them and show compassion, so we can prove them wrong of what they thought of us at first."I believe these are strong words coming from a man who was suppressed by the system, spending 27 years of his life in prison. This really shows how great Mandela is and how he truly is one of the biggest reasons for why the apartheid system was removed at last. Before the South African people became a united nation they needed to be forced to work and talk to one another. After Nelson Mandela saved his nation the system was totally changed and blacks and whites approved of each other. He stepped forward and set the example and the nation followed him; Incredible.

9/11 - The documentary

A couple of months before the terrorist attack on New York City on 9/11-2001, two brothers from France, Jules and Gedeon Naudet, came to the city to make a documentary about a FDNY rookie firefighter. They choose to follow Tony Benetatos, the probationary firefighter who was working at Ladder 1, fire department.

Through Tony's probation the French brothers followed him every day at work, filming how he was welcomed by the crew, what assignments he was given and his thoughts on the job. Tony was what the firefighters liked to call a white cloud, which meant whenever he was on duty there were no fires. Since there were little action around Tony, Jules and Gedeon went to film a rater normal gas leak nearby World Trade Center. While filming and documenting the routine check an unnormal incident of a low flying plane crossing just above their heads occurred. During this everyone looked to the sky, witnessing what was going to be the worst terrorist attack in history. The first plane hit tower number two and at first people thought it was an accident. A few minutes later a second plane crashed into the remaining tower.

What was supposed to be a documentary about a rookie firefighter ended up being a live movie of the tragedies of 9/11. Further the brothers did a stunning work on filming everything that happened in the hours and days after the attack. Even though they were scared and ignorant on how many that had died or survived the tragedy, they kept on filming the ruins, people covered in dust, blood and tears, getting the true story and action of every moment during the awful incident. Happily Ladder 1 didn't lose any of their heroic firefighters who went into the burning buildings to save as many people as possible, but there were still thousands of people remaining in the skyscrapers that died this very sad day in September.


Actually I was not aware of that anyone had documented while being in the middle of the attacks during 9/11, before we saw it at school. This was the first time I saw and heard about this particular film and I must admit it was hard to watch, I even think I was gaping at some points just because of the incredible vicinity that the makers had to the disaster. I thought the movie was sad, but also a very good movie, the brothers have done an amazing job on catching every moment on tape and I just could not believe how affected I felt during the movie. Seeing the incident from the perspective of the film really made me angry, it made me feel for everyone involved in 9/11, it made me think of the morning I woke up and saw this on TV and it made me approve more of the war in Iraq.

Narnia - C.S. Lewis

Right before Christmas we watched the movie Narnia. Although it’s a type of movie that I don't really favor, with the war and the long story, I thought it was pretty good.

The movie is originally based on a series of seven fantasy novels for children, written by Clive Staples Lewis in the period from 1949 to 1954.

Similar to the books, the film is also fantasy, and good fantasy is probably the main cause to why C.S.Lewis wrote these books which later were to be made into a movie. The story is about four siblings, two girls and two boys, who are sent to London during the Second World War where they are living in a huge house which they happily like to discover by playing hide and seek and explore every corner and hiding place in the house. This is where Lewis has brought some of his own childhood into the story of Narnia.

When C.S. Lewis was little, he and his brother liked to build houses of blankets and pretend that they were in another world. Lucy, one of the sisters from the movie, discovers the closet when she's about to hide from her brother during hide and seek. Inside the closet is where she finds the secret door to the fantasyland of Narnia, where the siblings later on are crowned to kings and queens after defeating the evil witch who tries to gain power over the fantasyland.

Clive was born in Belfast, Ireland 29th of November 1898. He wrote The Chronicles of Narnia in addition to "The Screwtape Letters" and "The Space Trilogy". He has sold over a 100 million copies all over the world and Narnia is I considered a classic among children’s books.

One of Clive's best friends through his education at Oxford university was the other great writer John Ronald Reuel Tolkien or also known as J.R.R Tolkien. Tolkien helped Lewis become a christian and Clive helped John write even better fictional texts. Although the two friends had a good relationship they also had their disagreements. Tolkien for instance crtisized Clive for having too clear symbols of christ and the christian faith in his writing. In addition to being a book which pushed the limits of creativity it was to many fictional events and he meant it could be confusing.

Clive on the other hand thought his friends religious believes was extremely old school and to orthodox. I believe if you look away from all of their differences and disagreements, they were acctually a very good help for each other and I think they both benefited a lot from the friendship that ended after Lewis got married.

Even though I usually don't like movies with great kings, wars and heroic battles I consider this film a very good one. I like the story and the fact that the children are in the center of everything. It is undoubtedly a great Christmas movie.

Joachim

THE LAST MONTH OF THE YEAR

Its Christmas here in town and people are getting excited,
When we celebrate at school everyone's invited.
They have put up a Christmas tree and served us gingerbread,
But the local baker came and gave us a huge cake instead.


Were at the lake ice skating wanting Christmas to come fast,
Everyone's waiting for Santa Claus to come at last.
The last month of the year is about the love we share together,
Children show it by playing in the winter weather.


With Christmas comes snow, we make fires in the stove;
The decorations are at place, were leaving no empty space.
The cold is reaching under our jackets when we are going out,
Therefore a lot of people celebrate Christmas further south.


When Christmas at the edge of end and Santa has been there at last,
People lay awake at night thinking about the past.
The Christmas come and go so fast but we always have expectations,
From now on out we can look forward to next year’s Christmas vacation.