Rai Convery November 3, 2008 Lead- Woolever Film Review The Great Debaters The film the Great Debaters was a wonderful true story on the debate team of Wiley College in Texas. Wiley college was an all black college and the movie was set in 1935(Robert Eisele.) The main characters include Melvin Thompson, the coach, Samantha, the only female ever to be on the team, Henry, and James, a 14 year old genius. Professor Thompson (Denzel Washington) recruits these 3 from tryouts; they are what he considers the best. The movie continues with a small romance and a firsthand realization of racism.
Oscar Del Rio APUSH 05/17/10 Period 3 “GLORY ROAD” “Glory Road" was based on a true story of Texas Western's Coach Don Haskins, leading the first all-black starting lineup team to the 1966 NCAA national basketball championship title. Coach Haskins has a lot going against him: first, Texas Western has a poor basketball program, and second, he cannot recruit good white players to the team. Coach Haskins goes to the Northern cities from Gary, Indiana to the Bronx in order to recruit talented black players from the streets to play for his team. At the time there were no black players playing Division 1 basketball in the South this included the ACC, SEC, and SWC leagues. Seven blacks and five whites made up the legendary 1965-66 Texas Western Miners.
Remember the Titans” a movie about a high teamwork and cooperation between races. This movie is very interesting because it gives awareness to us. Coach Boone who is the new coach for a football team who replaced Coach Yoast settles down at new area which is having a problem with skin colours. Coach Yoast then became Coach Boone assistant. At first, the local citizen did not agree with the replacement because Coach Boone is a black man and he is not a citizen of that area.
To Kill a Mockingbird deals with many basic lessons in human nature. The movie exposes many issues that affect most people throughout their lives such as poverty, discrimination and prejudice. It tells the story of Atticus Finch, a lawyer appointed to defend a black man accused of raping a white young woman, and his two children Scout and Jem. It is set in Maycomb county Georgia during the Great Depression. Both of the films have recurring subjects of racial prejudice and stereotyping, during the first five minutes of Crash, a white woman is disrespectful to a Chinese woman, blaming her driving for a fender bender.
Blacky’s determination to attend Dumby’s funeral marks a turning point. He knows his actions will put an end to his friendship with Cathy. He does get to the funeral and the experience gives him the courage to make a further stand and he also stands up to his father over borrowing the paint, even though he knew it would bring the full weight of his father’s rage upon him. It is clear when he and his siblings paint over the ‘BOONGS PISS OFF’ graffiti, how much he has matured. He is standing up for something important.
But by the conclusion of the film, his friendship and respect for Coach Boone helps not only the team win, but helps the community to overcome racist attitudes towards Coach Boone. At a pivotal match where the umpires deliberately make bad calls towards the Titans so that Coach Boone would lose the match and his job. Coach Yoast threatens to expose the match rigging and in doing so his dreams of being inducted into the hall of fame are destroyed. However even though this was important to Coach Yoast and he did want his job back. Coach Yoast is a man of integrity and his actions had a big impact in turning the white community around.
The recent film The Great Debaters boasts a superb spectrum of characters, loosely based on historical counterparts. The movie propels the viewer into the South of the 1930s, taking place at the small, wholly-black Wiley College; it centers on the fervid Melvin Tolson, professor, and his desire to distinguish his debate team in the hope of setting a ground of equality for black and white students. The world of The Great Debaters is most emphatically and lucidly seen through the eyes of the teenage James Farmer, Jr. – an extremely intelligent youth who holds the status of college freshman at the ripe old age of fourteen. His interest in the debate team is aroused initially due to the feelings he develops for hopeful Samantha Booke; but following his admittance into the team, his ambitions escalate. The ongoing discrimination against African Americans ignites ardent sentiments within the hearts of the Wiley debaters, a passion which manifests in their debates.
The Dynamics When it comes to gangs people may have the image of just people looking to cause trouble and violence but there is a sense of family and protection for the members, if you take a closer look. In Stacey Peralta’s documentary Bloods and Crips: Made in America released in 2008; Peralta is an American director and is also known for his career as a professional skateboarder and surfer. Peralta examines the conditions that have lead to years and years of devastating violence between young blacks in South Los Angeles. The film raises the question for me, how did these people get to this point?. Peralta argues that the life of the Bloods and Crips is a life a despair running through the family and is all in order to survive; he argues that gangs are a doomed to fail route in life.
“I have right like you, I have right to buy guy,” screams an angry man when attempting to buy a gun. “Not in my store,” demands the owner. “Ya you’re ignorant.” “Oh ya, I’m ignorant. You’re liberating my country and I’m flying 747s into your mud huts and incinerating your friends.” In one of the opening scenes in Crash, a Muslim man and daughter are trying to buy a gun when predetermined stereotypes interfere causing this exchange to be rude, discriminatory and definitely uncalled for. Throughout the movie Crash, instances like these where stereotyping and prejudice is a common source of conflict, reinforces how society constantly pins certain ethnic and racial minorities to prior historical events to determine a preconceived notion of them.
Yet what makes this speech powerful is it has the ability to relate to and possibly persuade the audience in an effective manner. This aspect grants him the power to fulfill his life’s purpose which is to educate the audience of the evil of indifference and to learn from past mistakes. Elie Wiesel was a victim of the Nazi hatred toward the Jews in World War II. He was sent to a ghetto and then to several concentration camps. He survived the horror and was liberated by American soldiers, but he has been changed forever.