Raymond Carver Movie

After watching the short story movie of Carver stories, I thought that it was a bit anticlimactic.  The ending didn't really bring things together, it left some questions unanswered and there some parts that didn't have much character development.  There were other parts where things did happen but they weren't explained well enough for one that didn't read the short stories, for example, the helicopters in the beginning were a mystery to me, I had no idea how they factored into the stories and weren't explained very well.

Depiction of the short stories were there, like "Jerry and Molly and Sam" and "A small good thing" were easily seen in the movie and the story ideas were followed quite well.  In the Jerry and molly and sam story-line, the guy left the dog and was having an affair, but in the end he actually gets the dog back and he was a police officer.  In the A small good thing, boy gets hit, goes into a coma then dies, and the parents eat with the baker, but there is also the grandfather that comes and visits, which is not in the original story.  I don't know about the other story-lines though because I did not read them, and judging by how sad the two that I did, I don't plan on reading them in the future.

Besides that, I don't know what else to talk about about the movie, nothing interesting really happened that caught my attention.

Jerry and Molly and Sam

After reading Jerry and Molly and Sam, I felt a combination of sadness, confusion, anger and pity but thought it was a good overall story.  The plot and was really interesting because I thought that the main character resembled me in some instances.  I know what it feels like to be annoyed with someone or something and you just want to get away from them, but after going without that person around, you start regretting what you have done and all you want to do is beg for that person to take you back.

I felt so much sadness and for the dog, I could not believe that the guy just leaves the family dog in a neighborhood.   Even though a dog may be annoying and destructive, it's still a part of your family.  Abandoning a dog is like dropping off your kids in a bad neighborhood.  When Al dropped the dog of, I actually felt like crying.

I was confused on why Carver named the story "Jerry and Molly and Sam", you only read about those three character's once.  Sam is apparently some old neighbor, Jerry is the bartender, and Molly is someone that Al meets in the bar.  They are the least mentioned characters in the story and don't really help with the development of the story.  It is this type of title that makes me think.

I also felt anger against Al because he was a terrible person.  This guy drinks (it doesn't specify if he drinks allot), he has affairs with other women other than his wife, and lies so much.  I think that he deserves for the dog to not take his back.  Also how dare he tell his wife everything will be fine, even though he is lying.

Overall though, I liked the story, it kept me interested.

Tomorrow movie

I thought that the movie adaptation of Tomorrow was not that well.  I thought that Duvall forced his accent to much and I don't know why he thought that Tomorrow was his best performance.  I thought that the only slight redeeming quality was the fact that it was in black and white, which added something, I don't really know what.  I also didn't like how it went back and forth between the uncle narrating and just showing Fentry's life, that made it hard to follow.  I also thought that it was just a boring story that just showed a guys life over a period of months, he didn't really even do anything interesting, even the ending, which was supposed to bring everything together was not as good as it could have been.  I really don't know what else to say about the movie.  

The Sky is Grey

Overall, I thought that the Sky is Grey by Ernest Gaines was very interesting because of the way it was written.  It was hard to understand at first because the narrator is a poor child that suffered through segregation and the narration stayed in character.  Even though it was hard to follow at first, you get used to it as you read on.  The language and dialect was different and kept me interested, in fact if the language was like a typical story, I wouldn't have been as interested.

Another interesting thing I noticed about the story that I thought was interesting is the repetition of words and phrases.  I don't know why it caught my attention, maybe its because of the rhetorical devices we have gone over in class so much or something else.  I think that the purpose of this repetition is to show emphasis on what others are saying because it seems that the repetition occurs more around when others are speaking.  I don't really know the significance but I think that there is something about repetition that adds to this story.

Another interesting thing that I found interesting were all the references to color.  One reference to color is the difference in skin color, since it takes place when the segregation was at its height.  Another reference to color are the environmental surroundings in the story.  This women and this boy at the dentist's shop argue what the color of the grass, the women says its green and the boy says its black.  The boy also says that there is "pink in the air" and I was confused on what he meant by this.  The title even references color, "The Sky is Grey".  There are alot of color references in the story.

This story also got me thinking about how unfair and stupid segregation and racism is and was.  I love those types of stories that are written to bring out flaws in some people, so we can work on those flaws so they dont't become any more of a problem in the future.

Overall, I thought this was a good story to read for many reasons, I thought it was what I need to read after reading Tomorrow.

Tomorrow

I really didn't like this story.  I thought that it was hard to follow and not that interesting.  It was hard to follow because of all the different places and names explained in the story, it was hard to figure who was talking and who was who.  There was no real detail of the characters accept for the occasional weird detail.  One example that comes to mind was Fentry's mustache being as white as skim milk.  Another that thing that was hard to follow was that at times, I didn't know if he was talking in the past tense of if it was the present, that was very annoying.  For example In the beginning the author talks about his uncle in the past and then later he somehow jumps to the present, and that got me all confused.  The parts that I could follow were not interesting, I felt like quite reading, but I continued.

Because I had trouble following, I cannot give much more of a response because I felt the author was all over the place, in the present, in the past, in the kids eyes, and in his uncles eyes.  All that I can say is that I'm not much of a big fan of this story. 

Memento Adaptation

I thought that the adaptation of the movie was different but just as good as the original story.  There were some similarities like the alternating scenes and the stories in those scenes.  It had the same idea as the story, where a guy with a memory problem is trying to avenge his wife's death by killing her murderer.  The way he trained himself to remember were also the same in both versions, where the wrote notes on post-its and took pictures of things.  There were also similarities in the way that the main character would and other people would mess with him.  For example, in the story, Bart bought himself a bell so later on he would wander why he has a bell.  In the movie, Leonard made up his own illusion of who killed his wife.  Overall, I could see the resemblance between the story and movie are evident.

The one thing that was different in the movie from the story that I liked was that the story progressed backwards, where the first thing that you saw in one scene was the last thing you saw in the next, it kept you thinking.  Another interesting thing about the movie was the surprising ending, it made you think that everything that Leonard went through was made up and he won't even know the difference.  I also found it interesting how Natalie used Leonard to get rid of Dodd and Teddy, and Leonard didn't even know that he was being used.

I liked the movie, I think that it is one of those types of movies that you need to watch over and over again to catch and analyze everything.  This is my fifth or sixth time watching the movie and every time, I see new things.  One new thing I got from watching this time was that I felt like Natalie knew Leonard was friends with Teddy and found a way to kill Teddy, who is the person that Natalie thinks killed Jimmy, but in reality it was Leonard who killed him.  This is one of my favorite movies.

Memento Mori

Overall I thought that Memento Mori was very good.  I found the layout of the story very different and it added to the story.  I liked it how the story was broken into two different types of writing that alternated throughout the story.  The "letter" part of the story was interesting because it just seemed to be out there but at the same time contributed greatly to the overall story.  The actual story was interesting because there some parts left out making you figure the rest out.   I think the reason why I liked this story so much was because it was nothing I've ever read, however if this was how all stories were written I would not have liked it.  This story is so different.

The letters that this anonymuos writer was writing were really intriguing.  I have been wandering all the time who this guy is, like is it the guy who killed his wife?  I think that it is funny how the guy pokes fun at Earl's handicapped, playing with his mind since he cannot make new memories and then ultimately play with your mind as you read.  The writer also pulls up good but funny points.  One thing I thought was cool was in chapter five, the guy talks about how teachers in elementary school train you to make notes to not forget things and then tells Earl that he has become that "product".

I thought that the actual story part of the story was interesting because even though it was a story, it was different, it made you think.  I like it how there was no real dialect or conversation, The description of the setting and writing on the post its explained everything.  I also liked how every beginning of the story was a new setting, and they did not directly tell you where Earl was but you had to figure where he was.  I also thought that it was ingenious how Earl developed ways to remember things like using post its and getting tattoos on his body.  I also thought it was cool how the theme of the story was time being put out of perspective.  Most of the time you don't know the time even though they tell you the time every scene, but you don't know how much time has elapsed between scenes.

Overall, I liked the story because it was different and made you think about what was going on.