It's Only Homework =P

Well, that’s what I hope it will be called – in time. Avatar, James Cameron’s sci-fi epic is slowly rising to that 1.8 billion dollar mark. This is a huge milestone for any movie. Heck, 1 billion dollars is a huge milestone for a movie. Yet, Avatar achieved that in only 20 days, the fastest in movie history. But why is Avatar making so much money? Since it only made 70 million its opening weekend, it’d be safe to say the movie has just had amazing word-of-mouth. Even beyond that, it keeps bringing people back for second or third helpings. Maybe people are just attracted to what 500 million dollars brings to the screen.

In reality, the movie only cost 237 million, the rest was just advertising and the like. This makes the movie fall short of ‘the most expensive movie ever made.’ So, it definitely couldn’t be the money that draws the crowds. Avatar is certainly cliche. It features your typical protagonist going on that typical journey the protagonist usually goes on. He finds love, and he finds himself along the way. Sounds predictable, right? Well, it is. But it is predictable in such an amazing way. The things you wanted to happen – did happen – and when they happened – you were happy. The journey of the protagonist was executed in such an interesting way, in such a different way, that this movie sets itself apart from every cliche before it. It is the ‘new’ cliche, per se.

The incredible special effects definitely help too. Everything in the world of Pandora looks so lush and fantastic – there is never a moment in the movie where you will think, “Gosh, that looked fake.” The environment is very believable. Another great thing about the movie, is the depth of the characters, and their relations with other characters. Typically, I puke over sappy-romance flicks. But I found myself actually caring about these characters in Avatar…Which confused me. It was a refreshing change though, and I sat there intently for 2 and a half hours waiting to see what everyone would do next. Yes, two and a half hours is a long time to sit and watch a movie – but when you plan on making a movie that long you need to pace it. This movie does a wonderful job pacing, as I never got bored once. Now, here’s hoping Avatar can pull out another 200 million, and take the number 1 spot for highest grossing movie of all time.

Our society is crazy at holiday time because…because why? What drives that hidden Christmas spirit in all of us? That dormant, sleeping spur of excitement that just explodes out every orifice as soon as that first snow flake marks the beginning of the holidays – disgusting as it may sound, what really causes this? Christmas is certainly the most celebrated holiday of the month. Most partake, and then again some do not (be it for religious reasons or just being one of the poor souls whose potential Christmas energy never takes into motion, and just stays sleeping throughout eternity…)

One could argue that everything is set into action by the price steals around the holidays. The time is now and the prices are low. Pull out the shopping cart and get your grab-hand ready. Families with children are even more in sync with their holiday feeling, typically. With more faces to please with presents in hand, even more shopping is to be had. Parents are out shopping more than anyone else.

Is there room for darkness during this joyous time, though? Is this power-energy-feeling inside actually dangerous if it explodes maturely? Perhaps. This is where the crazy comes from. Husband and wife out picking up the gifts for the coveted Christmas day ahead, and one guy (who just woke to his winter holiday energy too late) comes rushing into the store without any regard for the people around him. He crashes into a clothes rack, which triggers a series of horrific fate-leading events that end in the husband and wife buried beneath 5 tons of sweaters. Seen it happen a million times. If only things like this could be avoided. If only we could all wake to our Christmas spirit before it’s too late.

Hello. This is my first ever blog post on this site. It may only be homework, but I’ll be sure to put some feeling into these as well. Today’s lesson is about writing fiction. This is an amazing ability to have. To write fiction, you simply need a creative thought process and the ability to distinguish letters and words. Personally I think fiction is much greater than non-fiction, because non-fiction has many boundaries, while fiction does not.

These boundaries I’m talking about are all restricted to physical actions though (I would say so, anyways). Even while writing non-fiction, it’s very easy to explain mental processing of characters or these visions that people would never see otherwise. However, you’d never explain how someone blasted doors down with a ray beam from the tip of their finger in a non-fiction story; such an outstanding feat would only be possible in the realm of fiction writing. Some people believe that non-fiction is better though, according to this article. I think the only reason people would be drawn away from fiction would be because of news-type writing. People of today like to know about news and what’s happening in society. Of course, the only way to portray this is usually through non-fiction explanation.

There are a couple of different ways to begin writing fiction. Some people like to brainstorm characters, ideas, plots, etc. and bring it all together at the end. Or, you can simply make stuff up as you go – which is a huge benefit of fiction. It’s boundary free and allows you to do things like that. Personally, I begin a project without hardly thinking about it and then stop shortly into my work; I think about everything so far – if I like it, I give it more though; if I don’t like it, I just scrap the entire idea. When everything can explode at once like that, without any time to stop and think about what you’re putting on paper, you can actually come up with some pretty interesting stuff.

Fiction > Non-fiction. This guy presents a valid argument to the whole thing as well though.