COM/WRI 212 - Blog #8

The film Memento is a psychological thriller film, which was released in 2001. It follows Leonard Shelby who lives his life through photographs, notes, and tattoos due to his anterograde amnesia. This disease makes it impossible for Leonard to store recent memories. The amnesia is the result of being attacked by two men who raped and killed his wife. Since this is the last moments Leonard can remember, he makes it his mission to find the second man, who’s name is John or Jimmy, involved in the innocent and make him pay for what he did. Memento is shot in a sequence of black and white as well as color shots. The series in black-and-white are shown chronologically and a series of color sequences shown in reverse order.

            In Memento timeline, Leonard gets a tattoo, based on instructions given to himself, of the license plate of John G. After finding a note on his person, he meets Natalie, a bartender who dislikes Leonard since he is wearing the clothes and drives the car of her boyfriend, Jimmy. After finding out about his condition, she uses it to her advantage. She get Leonard to drive a man named Dodd out of town and offers to run the license plate to help his investigation. During this time, Leonard meets with a contact named Teddy. Teddy helps with Dodd but warns him about Natalie. However, Leonard doesn’t believe him and has a photo of Teddy with the saying that he is not to be trusted. Natalie gives Leonard information about the driver's license.

The owner of the license is a John Edward Gammell, which is Teddy's full name. Confirming Leonard's information on "John G" and his warnings, Leonard meets Teddy and drives him to an abandoned building, killing him as shown in the opening of the movie. In the end, it is found out that “John G” was actually killed a year ago. Since “John G” is such a common name and Leonard always forgets memories, he always will continue his search. Leonard doesn’t believe Teddy and writes down Teddy’s license plate number, which leads to the events that happened in the beginning of the movie.  Memento is a movie full of plot twist and sequences I had no idea they were coming.

My reaction when I finally understood the movie!

            The way the movie is presented is confusing at first but makes for a really excited as well as psychological joy ride of a movie. I feel like if the movie was played out in a more “traditional” way it wouldn’t have been as good. The movie displays the life of somebody with amnesia very well to the point where it convinced me to think a certain way. While I was confused in the beginning of the movie, everything became very clear in the middle of the movie and the end of the film blew me away by the events I just watched. I would grade the film an A because it kept my attention from start to finish even if I was confused for a little part of the movie. I enjoy movies that make you think and use your mind. I believe it deserves all of the awards it has received for being such a great movie. Memento is a great movie but I recommend to watch it when you are not half asleep from your Easter brunch because it make your brain think when all your brain is thinking about is nap time.

COM/WRI 212 - Blog #7

For my unusual article, I decided to something close to home. The ghost town of Centralia, Pennsylvania has been almost entirely abandoned due to the never ending mine fire underneath the entire the city. Centralia is apart of the Columbia County.

The town was established in 1841 where it became a mining hot spot for Anthracite coal. The town officially became part of the borough in 1866. The town went through its ups and down during the early years of its creation. The town founder was found murdered by members of Molly Maguires. The Molly Maguires also committed many other murders and acts of arson during the late 1800s. The city was most populated in the 1890s with a booming population of 2,761. This allowed for the coal business to mighty well until World War 1 when the majority of young miners enlisted. When the stock market crashed and coal factories were forced to shut down Centralia branches, bootleg mines started appearing. These bootleg mines collapsed due to miners pillar robbing.

In the 1960’s, the Centralia council acquired the rights to all of the coal beneath the city and began mining once more. Two years later, a fire started underneath the town. While the specific detailed of how the fire was triggered, most people agree it was to people not following through with things and being a little lazy. People of Centralia went about their own business although there was fire running all underneath their city. Deadly carbon monoxide levels and sinkholes began appearing all around town. Members of the community did not want to leave the city until 1984.   A few years later, the governor of PA invoked eminent domain over the buildings in Centralia.  In the early 2000s, the U.S Postal Service revoked the zip code of the city.

During that year, U.S Congress offered buyouts to the residents of Centralia. While the majority of people accepted them and moved to neighboring towns, others stayed despite several warnings from Pennsylvania officials.

There are very few homes still left standing in Centralia today. The members of the community still go to church every Sunday and have town hall meetings. The remaining residents of the city have been in a legal battle for the past 20 years to determine the rights they have as Centralia residents. Finally 2013, the last eight residents settled their lawsuit to allow them to stay in their homes for as long as they live. After the last resident of Centralia passes away, the state of Pennsylvania will own the rights to all of the ghost town.

The story of Centralia is something I heard about many of times since we learn just a few hours away from the city. I also have some friends who went up to the ghost town to see it first hand. I never knew there were so many stories behind the city of Centralia. I knew the town had a fire burning underneath it but I did not know how it was started nor did I know the town did not have a zip code anymore. I also didn’t know the residents of the town were in a twenty year lawsuit with the state of PA to allow them to stay, I thought they were just allowed to stay there. The fire underneath Centralia due to the coal surrounding and under the city will burn for at least 250 years. I also learned that the city was inspiration for many books and video games such as Silent Hill and Vampire Hell due to its appearances of Hell. After reading the article, I defiantly think it was a great unusual Wikipedia page. The information of extremely helpful since it allowed me to click on items I didn’t know about like the Molly Maguires as well as whole article on just the fire.  While I could find this information anywhere because there are several books on the town, I felt like the Wikipedia information allowed me to search of information that I might not be able to learn all about within a book.

COM/WRI 212 - Blog #6

Arrested Development’s “Motherboy XXX” is the episode I watched to see product placement in a non-animated sitcom first hand. Arrested Development follows a fictional family called the Bluths. The Bluths are wealthy, dysfunctional family who lost everything and one son, Michael Bluth, was force to keep his family together.  “Motherboy XXX” is about the aftermath of Buster's losing his hand from a “loose seal” as well as Tobias looking for work in the acting field. Embarrassed by her son’s missing hand, Lucille recruits George Michael, Michael’s son, to compete in the 30th annual "Motherboy" contest with her. On the other side of the town, Tobias meets with acting coach, Carl Weathers to talk about possible acting jobs for him. The episode “Motherboy XXX” only had two product placements but they were two huge product placements.

            The first product placement is VERY obvious! Tobias meets Carl Weathers in a Burger King. They talked about how great the fast food restaurant is and how they are getting money for shooting a scene from their television show. Arrested Development is known for having running jokes throughout the show as well as tongue in cheek humor so this direct line of product placement while obvious still makes a jab at people who take product placement deals. Tobias comes back to Carl Weathers in the Burger King and true to Arrested Development nature their product placement hilarious. A sign for Burger King’s Angus Burger is in the background of the shot and with the way the shot is the “g” in Angus seems to be blocked. This makes burger not so appealing but still calls for laughs. Later within the episode, Michael, George Michael, and Buster are shown drinking out of Burger King cups just to round out the Burger King product placement. While everything is happening in Burger King for Tobias, Lucille and George Michael head off to Motherboy 30 (XXX) where another product placement is placed.

            Lucille and George Michael walk into the hotel where Motherboy is being held and see another mother son combo in sailor outfits. This causes Lucille to rent a room so they can change their outfits. While checking into the room, Lucille states her purpose for staying was Motherboy and this is where the second product placement. The hotel receptionist states that it is the mother son competition instead of the 70’s rock band with the same title. The Narrator also comments that the show is legally obligated to make a distinction between the band and the pageant. I thought when I watched the episode, Motherboy was real but after watching the episode multiple times I realized that one of the band members looks oddly familiar. I did some researching and it turned out that the band Motherboy does not exist. This scene from the episode was just a product placement on the show itself. During the pitching of the series, a band with the same name of the show sued the producers for copyright infringement. This is Arrested Development’s way talking about the issue and saying how they got through it in a funny way.

            This leads to the final but indirect product placement, which is the show’s title. When googling the name of the show, you will get multiple sources. One will be for the show but they other will be for the band with the same name. This allows for the band or the show to get more people to get more popularity because they googled “Arrested Development” and wanted to see the difference between the two.