R.E.M.
marked the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock. When
their first single, "Radio Free Europe," was released in 1981, it
sparked a back-to-the-garage movement in the American underground. While
there were a number of hardcore and punk bands in the U.S. during the
early '80s, R.E.M.
brought guitar pop back into the underground lexicon. Combining ringing
guitar hooks with mumbled, cryptic lyrics and a D.I.Y. aesthetic
borrowed from post-punk, the band simultaneously sounded traditional and
modern. Though there were no overt innovations in their music, R.E.M.
had an identity and sense of purpose that transformed the American
underground. Throughout the '80s, they worked relentlessly, releasing
records every year and touring constantly, playing both theaters and
backwoods dives. Along the way, they inspired countless bands, from the
legions of jangle pop groups in the mid-'80s to scores of alternative
pop groups in the '90s, who admired their slow climb to stardom.
Review of the song
Righting themselves
via their long-awaited return to rock Accelerate, R.E.M. regrouped and
rediscovered their core strengths as a band, strengths they build upon
on its 2011 sequel, Collapse into Now. Cautiously moving forward from
Accelerate’s Life's Rich Pageant blueprint, R.E.M. steer themselves
toward the pastoral, acoustic moments of Out of Time and Automatic for
the People without quite leaving behind the tight, punchy rockers that
fueled Accelerate’s race to the end zone. This broadening of the palette
is as deliberate as Accelerate’s reduction of R.E.M. to ringing
Rickenbackers, and while it occasionally feels as if the bandmembers
sifted through their past to find appropriate blueprints for new songs,
there is merit to their madness. R.E.M. embrace their past to the extent
that they disdain the modern, reveling in their comfortable middle age
even if they sometimes slip into geezerhood, with Michael Stipe spending
more than one song wondering about kids these days. He’s not griping;
he’s merely accepting his age, which is kind of what R.E.M. do as a band
here, too. Over a tight 41 minutes, they touch upon all the hallmarks
from when Bill Berry still anchored the band, perhaps easing up on the
jangle but devoting plenty of space to rough-hewn acoustics and
mandolin, rushing rock & roll, and wide-open, eerie mood pieces that
sound like rewrites of “E-Bow the Letter.” Any slight element of
recycling is offset by craft so skilled it almost seems casual. This may
impart a lack of urgency to Collapse into Now but it also means that it
delivers R.E.M. sounding like R.E.M., something that has been in short
supply since the departure of Berry. Every Day is Yours to Win is the
6th track of this album.
Own review of the song
My point of view is that this song is about self-estime and that if you want something, you're the only one who can struggle for it. This song is all about reach for your purpose and that the only one who can succed them is you. But there is always someone who is here to support you and help you if you need it with "bridges" or other things. If people want to become heroes, they are the one who can change it. Every day is a new day and we have the cards in our hands to do what we want to do. We have to fight if we want to fulfill our dreams or purpose and we are the one we can change what we want to change in our lives.
Short interpretation of the video
The video is made of several home-made videos. Videos of people who wanted to show or to share something with the others, to feel a bit more heroic. Those people have done something special because they feel special and they wanted to show what they are abble to do when they try. Also, all these videos are made by young people so that it shows that if you want to make a change or to do something important or special, don't wait until it's too late.
" Assault on Wall Street " is a movie by Uwe Boll made in 2013. This movie is about a blue-collar new yorker called Jim Baxford who lives with his wife, Rosie Baxford, in a standard district of New York. Because of Rosie's illness, Jim decided to put all their savings in stock exchange and the man who is in charge of his money tells him that he would made 10 per cent of benefice every month but suddenly the economy crashes so as Jim lost all his money. Rosie thought that she was a burden for Jim so she killed herself, she commited a suicide. Jim lost everything, including his family. He is so angered that he decided to kill all the man who are implicated in what happened to him, he follows his needs of revenge.
This movie deals with the notion of power and more specificly with the economical power and how people are dependent of money. Also it shows who are responsible of the crisis because, saving the personal life of Jim which is fictitious, all the characters implicated in the economy and working in Wall Street in the movie are real people who are really implicated in the crisis. We learn in this movie that all the money is invented, as long as stock exchange exist, money is moving from one place to another one but when the stock exchange crashes when there is no longer money to give, people lose everything they had. Banks are the culprits of the crisis because they invent money. Let's take the exemple of a loan. You ask for a certain sum of money to buy a house and banks give it to you and you have to pay it off with some interest. But if you can't pay off your debt, what symbolize it is your house so your bank will take it as a garanty but the money as billets you will never saw it because it does not exist. This is only one example of the economic power in our society.
I really like this movie because the message which is transmited is true and more important, it is a current issue and we do not all know why is there a crisis or who is responsible and all that. But it stills be a Hollywood production which is always full of action but the message is important so we have to forget about the production and only focus on the message.
Redacted is a movie written and directed by Brian de Plama in 2007. It deals with the Irak war and its consequences. It relates the story of a group of american soldiers and their differents point of view. This movie is based on real events and it's filming as if an american soldier was filming with his own camera wich makes the story more intense for the viewer. During the Irak war, the censorship is omnipresent and the film shows what was hidden during years. The extreme violence and the horrible things that the american soldiers did make us realize that americans abused their power in Irak and they did terrible things to the iraki specially by raping women and killing inocent people. This movie is related with the notion of power beacause of the censorship and the control of the media. Also, the military power because United-States tok advantage on their powerful army.
Synopsis (IMDb):
This film is about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers with shocking images that will leave some viewers in tears.
Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, it spares the audience no brutality to get its message across.
Made in a deliberately episodic form, Redacted tells various stories about the war in Iraq, ostensibly from different viewpoints. One film portion by a French filmmaker tells the story of U.S. soldiers watching over checkpoints. In another episode, a superior soldier makes a casual mistake dealing with garbage that was set out in a road and is blown to bits. It's all leading to the pivotal rape and murder of the pretty girl who is discovered by the soldiers on a raid of an Iraqi house in order to find evidence. One night, the drunken and mostly morally lost U.S. soldiers discuss going back for the "skank" whom they saw in the house they raided. One soldier straps a camera to his helmet, and the footage of the girl's rape is secured.
The rest of the film mostly deals with measures taken by the army against the criminals. A final scene has a soldier from the criminals' unit confessing to his friends a war story that he will never forget: the plundering and murder of the Iraqi girl.
Review (All Movie Guide):
In the years following the start of the second Iraq war, numerous filmmakers tried to grapple with the thorny issues at play there. But few made quite so clinical an approach as Brian De Palma in Redacted. Since many of those films were considered misfires, a different approach might not be such abad thing. De Palma presents an array of media -- a French documentary, an al-Qaeda website, a blog by a soldier's wife -- as if stockpiling evidence for a trial designed to determine some kind of universal truth. The story's backbone is the amateur footage shot by a soldier named Angel (Izzy Diaz), who hopes to parlay his observations into acceptance at film school after returning home. Through this we meet the five central characters. All of this is fictitious, of course, leaving Redacted in the category of "fictional documentary." The results can feel simplistic and on the nose, but that's partly intentional. De Palma's scenario is constructed specifically to have an every-soldier feel to it, dealing primarily with the brutal rape of an Iraqi teenager and the killing of her family. In this way, De Palmaindicts all American soldiers in all wars (accusations of such behavior ran rampant in Vietnam), and even the very mentality engendered by invasions and occupations, regardless of who's doing the invading/occupying. Nor does he let the locals off the hook, intimating that they look the other way when roadside bombs kill American soldiers. De Palma's serious purpose doesn't mean he's overcome by sobriety, however. Some of the camaraderie among soldiers is disturbing, but some is downright funny. In all, the cast of unknowns convinces us they're real grunts just caught up in a cycle far bigger than they are, one that has repeated down through the decades, where no one is really innocent.
It can go in the notion of progress because the video is about new technology and how far it goes. This is a caricature of how people can be interested in new technology this relates to the notion myths and heroes because Steve Jobs is seen as a sort of hero. This video can also go in the notion of forms of power beacause it is against the war in Irak.
When we think about new technology what come first in mind are the bad aspects of it. It is true that people are now addicted to new technology we cannot live without a phone, we almost live in a virtual world. But new technoly have also good aspects.
We have to be realist, without new technology this is much more complicated to keep contact with our family and friends. Now that we have all those social networks and other web sites, life began more simple. We can find everything we want on the Internet, we can watch movies, listening to music, watching the evening news, well almost erverything is possible. The progress of technology affects also the progress of science and research. It is true that since the end of the XX° century we have seen medical progress and so on.
Medical industry invreased a lot through the last fifty years. Now, almost all the disease are known and we know how to cure them or at least anticipate or ditect them and master them as long as possible. The average life expectancy increased because of those progress. People's lives changed and now we are less scared to be sick because we know that scientists and doctors care about us and they do their possible for us to be safe.
We do not have to forget that new technology have downsides and that we have to be careful with all those web sites and be vigilent about what you post or publish on the Internet because once it is on the Internet, we can not delete it, it is saved. But we also have to know that, thanks to the new technology, science and medicine progressed a lot and help people to survive in front of the disease.
The video is structured around two main narative voices and a character illustrating what the voice-over says while a singer often merely/simply repeats what's just been said.
The setting is a Christian home and chuch, so this particular context is particularly meaningful. We can see notice on various occasions that the main character is addicted to high-tech products, mostly smartphones.
He is shown as a family man unable to intercat/communicate with his wife, except through texting. He is also shown as a church-goer insapable of attending worship without alll his phones vibrating all the time, making him look like he's full of the holy spirit. Finally, he is depicted/described as a computer geek/guru whose lifa has become extremely complicated instead of having been simplified.
Basically, this video means that high technology has become a religion for many people, even Christians who are not supposed to be materialistic. Then, in a Christian lifestyle, quite a few church-goers and believers tend to focus more on materialistic issues than on spiritual ones. We can add that technology reigns supreme for many people who revere/venrate it as a God enlightening his followers.
The question is: is this real progress for humankind/humanity?
When technology is missing
Two people are stuck on an escalator in a place that seems literally empty/deserted. The man looks upset/annoyed. He might be an office worker walking to his job. The woman claims that she is already late, this is the last straw (that breaks the camel's back).
At one point, she is about to cry and begs/asks for a phone yells/screams for help. In shorts, two of them look helpless, dueless, powerless, even hopeless.
We can relate this situation to a fairly common one in real life: getting stuck in/on an elevator. The difference is, however, that in this situation people have a right to feel panicky/panic/freak out whereas on on escalator, ther is no reason whatsoever/at all to panic/to be scared.
The video points out the increasing/dependence of human beings on technology. If it goes missing, it is as if a crutch had been taken away, so these two people cannot even climb/walk up the escalator, which would be the normal thing to do. We could also think that technology progress makes humans lazy or at least less prone to/inclined to take initiatives/make efforts/think by themselves.
This is a cartoon published in the International Herald Tribune and drawn by Chappatte. there is no infirmation about the publication's date. It is a much debated topic because the theme of pirating movies is treated. Like it's shows in the cartoon, people used to consider pirating as normal thing even if it's illegal. At first sight we can see three main characters and the man with the " @ " t-shirt catches the eye because he is talking, there is a ballon. The middle part illustartes the three characters and at the top there is other characters and photographs. The cartoonist aims to become aware of the fact that the Internet becomes an advantage but also a disadvantage. This is clearly a caricature and a critic. He wants to show that the Internet is not always a good idea. The message put across by the author is that pirating stills. The document is carefully thought-out. The document is not useless and the argument is persuasive but the people are not convinced about the message, they understad it but they just don't care. The document does not convice the viewers. I do, i approve of the document and the issue it raises. I totally agree with the author.
