Another Passing Movie Hero
Many know him from his leading role of Planet of the Apes or the highly acclaimed classics Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandmants. He was the burely hero with a chiseled chin, and a firey attitude. He was a hero to movie buffs worldwide, a man who called himself Charlton Heston. Heston died tonight with his wife in their home in Beverely Hills.
Charlton Heston in 1993
This is almost to much, just a fresh two months after Jaws’ protagonist Roy Shieder passes away, Charlton Heston follows him. Many called him a ‘screen legend’, and starred in many movies that later proved to shape the minds of generations that followed.
Charlton Heston is best known for his role in Ben-Hur, which won 11 academy awards upon its 1959 release, almost sixty years ago. Heston also played in lots of flims taking place during biblical times. Some examples are his role as Moses in The Ten Commandmants and John the Baptist in The Greatest
Story Ever Told, and Julius Ceaser. Some other great movies that he played in were the Naked Jungle, the first of which that I had ever seen, and the classic Three Musketeers.
Heston on the set of Planet of the Apes
Throughout his life, Charlton Heston was a headstrong must-be-heard man, who made his first movies straight out of college with an independant company. His acting skills however launched him into the acting world, and would today have him remembered as one of the most famous actors to ever hit the silver screen. In 1998, Heston had assumed the presidential office of the National Rifle Association (NRA) saying to the current US president Bill Clinton, ”America doesn’t trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don’t trust you with our guns.”
Heston as President of the NRA
In 2002, Heston had announced that he had begun to contract Alzeimers Disease, a sad disease that slowly eats away the infectant’s memory. This depressing event would only worsen and soon be the suspect of his recent death that occurred only a few hours ago.
In the memory of this great man of the theater, I propose that we dedicate him to our memory as the great actor that he was by watching some of the movies that he played in. The funnest of these movies is probably the original Planet of the Apes, always a great ride. But there are quite a few of them, including one of the best in movie history…Ben-Hur. I have never seen it myself, but vow to watch it in his memory.
Below is the filmography of Charlton Heston with direct links to Wikipedia
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
It’s been almost twenty long years since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade hit the screens finishing up an epic trilogy of the best action-adventure hero of all time. But now, coming to all theaters soon on Memorial Day Weekend 2008, the long awaited fourth installment of the epic Indiana Jones saga is going to break free. Only Lucas and Spielberg could perform such a grand comeback. This is going to be bigger than the return of the Star Wars movies, which everyone had been expecting after seeing the fourth, fifth, and sixth installments.
All my life I have been an Indiana Jones mega-fan, ever since I watched the quaint Temple of Doom when I was really young. I own all of the Indy movies and all of the books written by Rob McGregor, Max McCoy, and Martin Caiden, all great authors. I even own my very own bull whip which I practiced with on a dead tree in my backyard. (And no, I did not whip it to death).
Being the great and enthusiastic fan of Indiana Jones that I am, I also couldn’t wait for this great new movie coming up just over the horizon! I have actually been waiting for this movie since I read the first rumors abut it in 2002. But after seeing the final result of the second and third star Wars movies, I hoped that the new Indiana Jones wasn’t going to be a colossal mistake that would ruin the series. But Spielberg is directing this, and he has denied script after script for this film since 1992 before he finally accepted this one, so there’s no way that it can be bad. Spielberg is a directing genius! There is nothing to fear.
Above that, the original actress, who played Marion Ravenwood, from Raiders of the Lost Ark is coming back for a glorious return, along with Shia LaBeouf, who will be playing Indy’s young, lively companion.
I am glad to say that I have never met a person that did not like Indiana Jones, it is one of the true masterpieces in movie history. I was utterly shocked when I found out that my friend Parker Steichen had never seen any of them before. That threw me so much that I made the first necessary arrangements of having him over to my house and watching the first two movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Temple of Doom. That was about a year ago, then just last week, I found out that my other friend, Niki Liu, had never seen the movies either! This had me go crazy! How could both of my closest friends have not seen any of them, when I was an absolute freak about the trilogy? Well, it didn’t take me long to resolve THAT problem and had Niki watch them also when I went over to his house. And he loved them! Parker did too, I am now officially an Indiana Jones missionary!
All in all, I think that we can expect some great things from this movie, hitting theaters on May 22, 2008. I’ve already planned a van party with Parker and Niki to go and see the much awaited fourth movie, but I just hope that the movie will be as good as I hope it will be. As long as the movie keeps to the qualities that make a movie an excellent film, I don’t think that there’s anything to worry about. I don’t think that I could suffer the shame of seeing my favorite hero of all time go downhill.
Xbox 360 vs The Wii
One of the biggest questions since the next generation video game consoles broke loose amongst the public is, which is the best console? Of course, we are all entitled to our own opinions and not being the current owner of any nex-gen console I have no side to take in this debate. However, I feel that this should be released in the air. For there have been two consoles that have been having a battle of wits for the last two years…they are the Microsoft Xbox 360, which was released in November of 2005, and its heavy competitor, the Nintendo Wii which followed the 360′s release nearly a year later.
I am sorry to report that I will not be mentioning or including the Sony Playstation 3 into this competition because, even though the Playstation 3 has kick-ass graphics and plays the sadly seldom used Blu-Ray disks, it has no competition with the 360 and the Wii. The Playstation 3 was a whopping economic failure for the Sony corporation loosing them approximately $300 for every one that was manufactured, and still weighing in at a hefty $500-$700 retail price! Yikes!
Let us begin with price. Both the Wii and the Xbox come in at a fair price that is approximately half to a third of the price of the Playstation 3. The Wii, however has the Xbox here, having a thirty dollar lower retail then the Core Model Xbox, (279.99). The Core model of the 360, however, does not come with something very helpful to every gamer, memory. Without a memory stick, which costs somewhere between thirty to one hundred dollars depending on how much you want, you can’t save your games. The Xbox Premium model already comes with the memory installed but skyrockets the Wii’s retail at a steeper $379.99 compared to the Wii’s seldom $249.99, and this usually comes with 30 GB of memory for your 360, a whopping sum for most heavy players.
But is price really everything? To most gamers who were forced from getting the much awaited Playstation 3, price is a huge factor. The Wii defiantly racks in points for being the less expensive and also for being the most widely sold game console internationally, according to both TIMES magazine and the SEQUIM GAZETTE. As a matter of fact, the Wii actually sold more consoles than the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 combined. But to many people it’s not the quantity, its the quality. Xbox 360 has graphics that the cheaper Nintendo Wii just can’t owe up to. In fact, many Nintendo fans have complained about the lack of evolution that the Wii’s graphics has seen since its predecessor the Nintendo GameCube.
The Wii, while having the Xbox on sales and consumer-friendly retail prices also has the Xbox on remote sensitivity. Players on the Wii actually have controls that you move around to simulate the exact same move on the character that you are playing on the screen. This attribute is said to make people unused to playing video games have an easier time learning how to play. But others, dislike the Wii’s revolutionary controls, stating that their difficult to learn and get used to. The Xbox’s controls, however, are nearly exactly the same as the Original Xbox, witch stacked the shelves in 2001.
Both the Wii and the 360 have online playing that allows players to play massive online games with one another. And both of these consoles are compatible with their predecessors the Nintendo GameCube and the original Xbox. But once again, the Wii’s got the Xbox at playing even older games. With something called Wii Points, Wii owners are able to purchase their favorite classic games from the original Nintendo systems and the Nintendo 64. The a convenience of saving these games straight to your Wii, however, come at a price, as most convenience does. It costs approximately $10 worth of Wii points to buy a game that you could probably pick up from anywhere from $.50 to $3. To me that’s kind of a rip off.
Now, throughout the whole of this debate I have been favoring the Wii and its great, revolutionary methods that have never stepped in the world of gaming before. But now its time to bring out the Wii’s biggest fault. The Wii has an extremely low abundance of games favorable of older audiences. Whenever I talk to my friends at school, primarily my friend Niki Liu, they only game they usually play is Super Smash Brothers Brawl. There are also lots of fans of Zelda, but that about finishes the list!
Now the Xbox 360 one the other hand has a wide variety of games ranging from Halo 3, a segment of one of the highest selling video game sagas in history, and loaded with First Person Shooters, like Black 2 and BlackSite: Area 51, that keep the games flying off the shelves. The only probably with these games that keep the Xbox public happy, is that their all violent bloody shooters. Non-violent games can be found on the Xbox consoles, but they are a forever abundance in the Wii’s young children collection of games. Nintendo’s most violent games are Metriod Prime and Call of Duty 3, but under those two, the most violent games are Mario and StarFox, where conveniently everyone is immortal. This non-violent universe of the Nintendo, however, is much healthier for younger audiences, but is not as appealing to the older. The Xbox also has the convienence of playing both DVD’s and CD’s on its console, the Nintendo Wii can not.
That about covers the debate covering these heavy competitors from Nintendo and Microsoft. I’m sure that we can see further competition from these two opponents in the proceeding generations coming to us on the horizon. The Wii has broken the barrier of virtual reality in video games and that defiantly deserves a plus. But its lack of interesting games is a major minus in the minds of nearly all videogamers worldwide. Maybe we’re just a really messed up species that the majority of us find more enjoyment in shooting people, blowing up buildings, stealing cars, and hacking limbs off of enemies then a carefree music-filled room of dodging lava pits and squashing mushrooms. But it is defiantly clear that each console has its pros and cons, and which is the better is strictly in the eye of the beholder.
Working on “Still In Tenth Grade”
Yesterday, just before Niki’s great prarie fire behind his house, I came up with a great idea about writing a song about Mrs. Reichner’s class for my second Independant Writing Project. I have decided to entitle it “Still in Tenth Grade because of the repetive lyric “I’m Still in Tenth grade in my Mind-”
My friend Niki and I are going to be working on my first draft of the craft song which will look something like this when it is finished…
Do note that the “MIND”s will be dragged out during the chorus !)
STILL IN TENTH GRADE
Got me a desk in the Reichner room
And felt like I was in Vietnam
I walked into a different world
The past was forever gone
I could have gone to Canada
Or I could have dropped out of school
But I was brought up differently
I couldn’t break the rules
Eleven months and fifteen days
The last ones were the worst
One minute I’d kneel down and pray
And the next I’d stand and curse No place to run to
Where I did not feel the stress
When I got home I stayed alone
And checked behind each door
Cuz I’m still in tenth grade
Still in tenth grade
I am still in tenth grade
In my mind
The desk at home was covered in work
And I was covered in sweat
My younger brother calls me a whimp
But Mrs. Reichner he has yet to met
I’m still in Tenth Grade
Still in Tenth Grade
I am still in Tenth Grade
In my mind
Every weekend when it rains
I smell the lead, I hear the screams
I can’t tell no one, I feel ashamed
Afraid some day I’ll go insane
All the sounds of that one class
Will be forever in my head
Mingled with the wounded cries
And the silence of the dread
‘Cuz I’m still in Tenth Grade
Still in Tenth Grade
I am still in Tenth Grade
In my mind
I am still in Tenth Grade
I am still in Tenth Grade
Yes, I’m still in Tenth Grade
In my mind
All Quiet on the Western Front
On Monday, with our third person, Parker, taking a much deserved break in tropical Hawaii, I took a little trip over to my friend Niki’s house so that we can prepare our History Day project for the State contest coming up in a few weeks. However, little did it occur to me before that our Honors’ English teacher, Mrs. Reichner, would have drained us of life and will with her hellish Revolutionary Project. The first twenty hours of my stay at Niki’s house was spent working on that essay, along with breaks that included Wii play and watching Indiana Jones, with much to be obliged.
Working at Niki’s computer, the two of us just conversing about things varying from girls to trekking the world after graduation, I noticed Niki’s dad beginning to dispose of yard waste by the means of a small fire. The only problem that I saw with that was that it was in the corner of a vast field of light, golden, hay-like grass about two and a half feet high. No sooner did I say “Hey, Niki, do you think that he should be burning that stuff there?” did it suddenly triple in size, quickly gaining ground.
I didn’t know if he was doing that purposely, or if the fire had suddenly escaped all control. But Niki’s mom frantically racing towards the house solved that question for me. Before, she had come back to the house, Niki and I had already found our shoes on our feet and out in the yard with buckets from the garage.
The fire was growing at a tremendous rate and mowing down the dead grass towards a large, dry shrub. Niki only took one or two buckets of water to the prospering blaze before he began attacking the outer most flag with a damp towel. Meanwhile, I continued to take bucket after bucket to hell and back before I began to use my expert foot-stomping techniques and smothering the flames close to the bush before they could overwhelm it, if this had happened, stopping it would have only become worse.
With great haste, Niki’s dad and I tore at a mess of knotted hose in hopes of untangling the mass of rubber and to bring it over to the spreading flame. I never thought that I could untangle something so fast…(probably from lots of practice of undoing infinite messes of AC cords and adapter cables). Finally, the hose was undone and I raced to the fire only to find that the water was struggling to come forward. But by then, it didn’t matter. Nicki, beating the pleading flames like it was a disobedient child, had it under control, the fire was receding back to the pile of dry foliage that was originally supposed to be burned, leaving behind a mass area of about twenty by twenty feet of charcoal black field.
The excitement had exhausted everyone, but did not stop Niki from grabbing his camera afterwards and taking photographic proof of the catastrophe that nearly desecrated our humble town…
I also want to add that Niki is a natural born firefighter with an interestingly massive aggression against the blaze even after it was nearly dead (The disobedient child). Good Work Niki, Smokey would be proud!
