Con Air Worldview :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When looking through many different movies, and lyrics I chose the movie Con Air, starring Nicolas Cage. Cage portrays Cameron Poe, an ex Army ranger who has just returned from the Gulf war. Right from the start Poe is faced with adversity. His return was not what he had hoped for. After he had spent time with his wife, Poe decided to call it a night, however a local gang decided to start a fight while they were leaving the parking lot. Poe easily wins the fight due to having such extent training in the military. After the brutal fight scene, he ended up killing one of the assailants on accident. This is where the movie takes a sudden turn for Poe. He is charged for that act, even though it was in self-defense. We next find Poe at a high-security prison where he is to spend the next 7 years. Throughout that time we learn about his new daughter Kaci who is Poe’s major purpose for getting out of jail. He gains a new friend in his cellmate Baby-O. After many years in prison, Poe learns that his pardon was granted; all that separates him from being with his family is one flight. Little did he know the plane would be filled with crazed convicts trying to overtake the plane.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  For the most part, the entire movie portrays a worldview similar to that of the Naturalist stance. Excluding Poe and Baby-O, the entire cast doesn’t even acknowledge God. Many times the two friends are faced with difficult situations. When Poe was about to leave prison, Baby-O asks who will watch his back Poe replies God will. In another scene, Baby-O is shot through a struggle on the plane. He then questions Poe about if there is a God. His answer, I’m going to show you that God does exist! These two take a very theistic view towards God, although they don’t admit to being a Christian, they do acknowledge â€Å"a† God of some form. The entire â€Å"gang† of convicts follows a naturalist worldview exactly. There is no God; they can altar their own destiny. This is very evident throughout the entire movie. The character that portrays the naturalist world best would be Cyrus Grissom, the leader of the renegade convicts. Cyrus feels that he has total control over every situation. God doesn’t exist; therefore humans act as supernatural beings.

Critique of Stuff Is Not Salvation

Valued Possessions vs. Insignificant Desires Anna Quindlen, a novelist, social critic, and journalist wrote an intriguing essay â€Å"Stuff is Not Salvation† about the addiction of Americans, who splurge on materialistic items that have no real meaning. The ability to obtain credit is one of the main reasons to blame for society’s consumption epidemic. However, Quindlen feels the economic decline due to credit card debt is insignificant compared to the underlying issues of American’s binging problems. Quindlen’s essay gives excellent points regarding the differences in America’s typical shopping habits. Additionally, she mentions how people acquire all this â€Å"stuff† but seem to never realize, â€Å"why did I get this? †(501). Quindlen makes her audience visualize a world where we acquire our needs versus our meaningless desires. Yet, she fails to mention people who could live a life of happiness through the possessions they acquire. In summary, Quindlen supports her point of view with examples of American spending habits in the past decades of depression compared to now. She mentions Black Friday and how people become enthralled by cheap bargains (Quindlen 500-501). In Quindlen’s essay, she refers to an accident in which a worker at Walmart was trampled to death by a mob of shoppers and despite the horrific incident people kept shopping (500). With the U. S. depression, Black Friday brings hopes of more money spent, therefore a rise in the markets. The dream of an uplifted economy became unrealistic as people began to realize they could not afford their desirables, not even at a low cost. Today, Americans have an exorbitant amount of credit debt so they can acquire items that they want, without actually paying for them outright, for example, the Chatty Cathy doll Quindlen wanted in her childhood compared to the orange her dad received that had to be paid for (500-501). According to Quindlen, a family having less means they can appreciate possessions more and what they possess therefore has real meaning (502). Quindlen’s essay gives strong points about America’s addiction to consumption, the economic decline, and the necessities of life. There are plenty of examples that Quindlen gives to make her point across, that American’s spend money unwisely. For instance, in one of the examples, she mentions how every 16 months a person replaces a cell phone because it’s not as new anymore, and how toys are forgotten that eventually end up being junk (501). Quindlen then states the obvious â€Å"stuff does not bring salvation† (501). However, she lacks examples of cases where people’s wants actually provide the happiness they usually expect. Rich people, for example, have an extra sense of security because the worry and stress that belong to the poor is something the rich don’t have and don’t want. Plus, who wouldn’t want to afford desires such as not living pay check to pay check or putting their kid(s) through college? Sometimes not being able to afford these items can bring on depression or verbal abuse into a home. The reader’s would have a better understanding of the essay if she included some of these situations. Overall, Quindlen portrays her idea of happiness not being the materialistic things in life, but by the things that have true meaning. By true meaning, I believe she means items such as photographs that have a significant memory attached to it. She jokingly states, â€Å"Ask people what they would grab if their house were on fire, the way our national house is on fire right now. No one ever says it’s the tricked-up microwave they got at Wal-Mart† (502). She brings her essay together nicely by asserting examples from her childhood, the U. S. depression, and a family that is happy with what little they have. The essay brings belief to the reader that in today’s society many people spend money on things that end up being junk and take for granted the needs they should possess. People make investments that they later come to realize have lost their value because they did not really need it. Even though she made some valuable points in her essay, more than likely America will still make unnecessary expenditures. Therefore, with Quindlen’s idea that â€Å"stuff is not salvation,† there needs to be more examples shown of people who can afford their wants and with that they are still able to obtain happiness (501). She does however prove her point that the items we possess should have more of a priceless value rather than items we could live without. If stuff is not salvation why do so many of us seek more income to possess more items? This question is simple to answer with more research on people that don’t have the worries of the less-fortunate. Again, while we shouldn’t be materialistic, we shouldn’t just settle for less, nor should we be greedy and keep wanting more. Quindlen’s views made me reevaluate my spending habits and hopefully the next time I purchase something I can answer the question â€Å"Why did I get this? †(501). Ultimately, Quindlen’s essay is interesting and worth the read. WORD COUNT: 865 Work Cited Quindlen, Anna. â€Å"Stuff is Not Salvation. † Perspectives on Contemporary Issues: Readings Across the Disciplines. 6th ed. Ed. Katherine Anne Ackley. Boston: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2012. 500-02. Print.

Analysis Of he Matrix By The Wachowski Brothers, And Its...

Analysis Of he Matrix By The Wachowski Brothers, And Its Exploration Of Christianity The Matrix, a 1999 film by the Wachowski Brothers, is a psychologically disturbing film that questions the reality of our existence. This film is a story with a moral plot, about a group of renegades fighting a noble battle for truth, and the liberation of the human race. The film revolves around a character called Thomas Anderson (also known online under the alias of Neo, a hacker) who appears to be completely normal - he has a normal, dull desk job by day, and at home he leads another life in front of his computer. However, everything changes when a person called Trinity - an apparently quite†¦show more content†¦These Agents kidnap Morpheus and attempt to break his spirit to make him tell them the codes into Zion. With the help of Trinity and the other renegades, it is Neos job to rescue Morpheus and in the process, discover his true powers and his ultimate destiny. The Matrix shows us the future that lies down the end of one of the trouser-legs of time - humankind has been over-powered by their own inventions and are now living in what they think is the real world, while their planet crumbles around them. The film portrays the illusory world in the Matrix as being almost identical to our real world today, increasing the impact of its unreality later, whilst the films portrayal of their real world is post-apocalyptic. It appears to be much like many portrayals of Hell or a similar Distopia, which Morpheus describes as the desert of the real. To us this reality seems too unreal and nightmarish. We as an audience feel slightly repulsed, as we dont think that this could possibly be our world in the future, but as the film progresses, we realise that this future may be a grim reality. Near the beginning of the film, many things hint to a sort of mix up between reality and a dream and as viewers, we experience real versus unreal. Even in the title sequence,