True story

His wife Mary Jane (top left) and his three children Zach,
four (far right), Sadie, three (center), and two-year-old Madison 

This movie staring James Franco as Christian "Chris" Longo and Jonah Hill as Micheal "Mike" Finkel. This movie is based on a memoir called true story, it was writen by Mike about his inposter Chris and about Chris being accused of killing his wife and three children's. When he was found he was using the name Mike Finkel. Mike is a journalist from New York times.              
When Mike heard a murderer was using his name as a disguise, he wanted to know why,so he went to prison to meet Chris and he ended up leaving with more then he expected.  After killing his family, he fled to Mexico and that made him the prime suspect. During his trial march 2003  he pled to the death of his wife and youngest child but something was missing. He threw his son and daugther over a bridge with a pillow filled with rocks attached to there anckle so that they would drown. His wife and youngest were put in suitcases then he threw them over the brigde. Because his youngest daughter Madison was to small he filled her suitcase with all the things she loved to take up some room in the suitcase. I think it's horrible that someone could ever do that to their family, it makes me sick that he even tried to run from it because people that do things like that will get caught doesn't matter where they go. I think this movie was very interesting, it shows the reality of criminals and how their minds work. It's not just criminals, people in general can be evil and conniving. People will do whatever they have to do to make themselves happy. Mike liked Chris he thought he was innocent until he realised the truth behind Chris. Everyone has different personalities when there with different people and that's exactly how criminals do it, they make friend with gullible people so that when they get in a bad situation there will be someone to say that your a good person when your being judged in court. It's good to figure out someone true self before you start trusting them. Chris was found guilty april 2004 and put on death row.

Silk flowers and a sign saying 'Pray for Justice' adorn the Highway 34 bridge
on the edge of Alsea Bay in Waldport,
 Oregon, in a picture taken in October 2002

Micheal Finkel                                    Christian Longo

Links

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3044448/Man-murdered-family-boozy-mexico-trip-woman-speaks-jail-James-Franco-movie-life-released.html

http://www.biography.com/people/christian-longo

Coach Carter

This movie is about a coach who goes to coach the boys basketball team, but he ends up accomplishing so much more. Ken Carter was played by Samuel L Jackson. The coach owns a sporting good store, but he excepts a low paying job at
his old high where was on the basketball team and held several school records. At the beginning of the season he made the player's sign a contract saying they would keep a 2.3 GPA average, go to every class, and wear a jacket and tie on games days. When the contract was not followed he had to resort to unorthodox methods which the community frowned upon but it shaped those boys into men.  Sometimes you have to do the thing you love the least so that you can do the things you love the most. Coach Carter truly believed in these boys and pushed them so that they could see there potential and they did. They won 5 college scholarships and 6 of them went to college.  To be an athlete you have to be good in class and on the court, field or ice. The hard truth is, there's a fat chance that some of us will become pro athletes and that's ok because we will have are education to fall on but for those who truly believe it's what they will be doing for the rest of their lives and they don't need school. Well think again, what if you get badly injured or nobody wants you on their team, where are you going to go, most work  places like to see college or university degrees unless you plain on working for a fast food industry for the rest of your life. If you like movies about basketball and teamwork this movies is for you. A team is a group of people who will help you finish your suicides and push ups, and flip their clothes inside out and put them of backward just so you don't have to fix your pant after putting them on backwards. It's like a support group their there to pick you up when you fall. Without Coach Carter's help those guys would not have been the team they became. The year before they only won 4 games but with the coach help they managed to be undefeated and go to nationals.

 

Links

http://truesportsmovies.com/basketball/coach-carter/

127 Hours

Aron Ralston survived 6 days with his arm wedged beneath a rock. He was born October 27, 1975 in Marion, Ohio. When he was 11 years old his family moved to Colorado and that's when he started climbing mountains. He went to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,  finishing with degrees in mechanical engineering and French, with a minor in piano. On April 26, 2003, Aron Ralston  decided to go hiking through Blue John Canyon, in eastern Wayne County, Utah. He didn't tell anyone where he was going. When he was going through a tight spot an 800 pound boulder fell down and smooched his arm between the canyon wall and the boulder. With a shortage of  resources, he had to rely on determination and self-control. James Franco plays the role of Aron Ralston in the movie 127 hours. Being stuck all by yourself with nowhere to go gives you a lot of time to think and that's exactly what he did it. There's a lot of scenes where he looks back on his past and scenes where he hallucinates. Even thought this movie would be considered, not necessarily sad but emotional, they managed to put a tiny bit of humor in the beginning of the film. I recommend you watch this movie if you enjoy watching survival type film, but I do not recommend it if you are squeamish, there are scenes with a lot of blood. You have to be determined for everything and life not just when you're put in a dangerous situation but also in school and life, if you don't work hard you wont get what you want. It takes a lot of courage to do what he did, could you imagine how he felt when he realized the only way he would survive is to cut off his own arm and the pain he suffered. But you do what you have to survive. Did you know if an animal's leg or arm gets stuck in a trap their first instinct is to start chewing their limb off. But good thing for Aron he had a multi task tool. Make sure you always tell people where you are going so that if you ever get stuck someone will know where to find you sadly Aron did not do so and he will have to live with that decision forever.

 Links
http://ca.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/06/the-15-best-movies-inspired-by-true-events/127-hours

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/07/0724_030724_AronRalston.html http://www.kidzworld.com/article/28400-aron-ralston-bio
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0176851/bio

Temple Grandin

Temple Grandin was born August 29 1947, in Boston, Massachusetts.  Her parents are Richard Grandin and Eustacia Cutler. She was diagnosed with autism when she was young. At that time autisme was considered brain damage. After years of research Dr. Samuel Wang argues that damage to cerebellum while the child is in the womb can take part in the development of autism. " For a child known to have cerebellar injury at birth, the paper reports increased a relative risk for an ASD as equivalent to that  of a smoker developing lung cancer." Chris Spargo for Mail Online. .Her sense such as hearing and touch were oversensitive and she has a hard time to get her words out. When she was younger she created a squeezing machine that helped her to tolerate touch and calm her nerves. At the age of 21 and a 1/2 she attended a intervention that helped her overcome her handicap.

Temple pursued an education in animal science and psychology. She got a  B.A. in psychology, at Franklin Pierce College, 1970. She went to alcohol at Arizona State University and got a M.S. for animal science in  1975. In 1989 she got a Ph.D. in animal science from the University of Illinois. She's a successful autistic women that designs livestock equipment. You will see this in detail in the movie.  I think this film does a great job of displaying how you can get anything accomplished if you put your mind to it. Nobody believed Temple was capable of doing it but she proved them wrong after. She is very passionate  about perfecting ranch cattle handling and coral system.
Back then people believed that children with autism couldn't go to school to get an education but her mother strongly believed that she should have an education so she worked with her daughter to the point where she could do to college. When she put her mind to something she went through with it. she wanted to work with animals so she had the chance to work with cows, and she noticed things other people did not. When the cows were being sent to the slaughter house they would get anxious and they would trample each other and hurt themselves so she made it her mission to fix it. I think it's very important to set goals for yourself, because it gives you something to work towards and once your done something to be proud of.   Temple thought outside the box and didn't follow the rules, she was her own person and did what she thought was right even when other's didn't agree with her.

Links
http://www.biography.com/people/temple-grandin-38062#synopsis
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2747240/Has-cause-autism-finally-uncovered-Brain-injury-womb-early-child-s-growth-root-disorder.html
http://www.autism.com/advocacy_grandin

Patch Adam

This incredible film staring Robin William's is about a man who believed he could change people's lives for the better. He was born May 28, 1945, in Washington, United States. His full name is Hunter "Patch" Adams. His father fought all of World War 2 and the war in Korea. Patch, and his family lived on the army base. They spent their last 7 years with their father in Germany when he died in 1961. His father was not around a lot he did not have a good relationship with him making him feel like he didn't have a father. His mother was a schoolteacher and taught him to be the caring person he is today. After his father's death they returned to Virginia, where he was put in a school full of white people. He was hospitalized 3 times for standing up to racism. When he was 18 years old he realized he wants to help people through medicines. He received his medical degree at the Medical College of Virginia. Him and a group of friends started a place called Gesundheit Institute where they practiced for 12 years, their policy was "1) no charge 2) no health insurance reimbursement 3) no malpractice insurance 4) 3 to 4 hour initial interview with the patient 5) home as hospital 6) integration of all the healing arts 7) integration of medicine with performance arts, arts and crafts, nature, agriculture, education, recreation and social service 8) the health of the staff is as important as the health of the patient."-Patch Adams. Patch goes around the world clowning around to put smiles on everyone's face. 

I love this movie because it's very interesting and thoughtful. All he wants is to help other through some of the hardest times in their lives and lift some of the weight off their shoulders by putting a smile on their faces so that they can spend the rest of their days happy. Not everyone thinks about helping people in that way normally we think a doctor is there to treat the patient so that they can go home to their families, but there is so much more to it. When you're happy you forget about all the things in your life that aren't going as expected you forget about all the bad things and all you think about is the present and how happy you are nobody wants to die sad, miserable and in pain. I think what Patch is doing for people is very important and we need more people like him in the world.

Links

http://www.patchadams.org/patch-adams/

Million dollar arm$$$

This week I want to talk to you about a interesting movie called the million dollars arm. This movie talks about  sports agent how wants to save his job so he starts a contest called the Million dollars arm to find his next star Pitcher. He went to India and found to two boys her were increadible he brought them back to the United State and they practiced for several months at the end of they're training the got thr chance to try out in front of scouts so that they could have a chance  to play in the majeur baseball league. After Dinesh Patel contract ended he desided to go back home in Inida and help other boys to prepare themselves for the next million dollars arm. Rinku Singh is still playing but due to injurie, he had a operation called the Tommy John surgery. Acording to HowStuffWorks ''Tommy John surgery has since become commonplace among big league players -- especially pitchers. Whether you're throwing a baseball or a javelin, you put a great deal of stress on the elbow. Keep it up and the repetitious strain can lead to inflammation, microscopic tissue trauma and ultimately a tear in the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), also known as the medial collateral ligament (MCL)'' but he will be back out on the playing field in 2015. I thought this movie was very good there were some really funny parts and there was some sad part but a lot of movies are like that. I would defenetly watch this movie again it demonstrate hard work and dedication. This boys knew nothing about baseball and ended up getting the chance to play for a majeur baseball league. I think that the Million Dollar arm is a great idea because it gives the people the chance to acomplish things that they might not have been able to acomplsh on there own."The 'Million Dollar Arm' changed my life a lot. It solved my financial problems. I learned English and I got to learn baseball. It changed my personality'' said by Dinesh Patel.There a exemple of what the Million Dollars arm did for someone it's did'nt just help him acomplish something it also help him out of dept and helped his parents and sister. He received $5,000 from the competition. Neither of the boys won a million dollars. In order to win you had to pitch the ball 90mph or over and Rinku came close with 88mph. In the the Million dollars arm started as a comepetion to save someone job but in the end two people got the expirience of a life time, I hope they continue this competition around the world so that others can have there dreams come true too.


 

sports agent JB Bernstein and  Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel

Links
http://health.howstuffworks.com/medicine/modern-technology/surgery-change-baseball1.htm
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/05/20/one-of-the-million-dollar-arm-pitchers-just-had-tommy-john-surgery/
http://www.sportskeeda.com/baseball/men-with-million-dollar-arm-rinku-singh-dinesh-patel
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10935566/million-dollar-arm-remarkable-journeys-rinku-singh-dinesh-patel
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11063420/Million-Dollar-Arm-the-true-story.html

My sister's keeper

This week I decided to write about a very emotional story called My sister's keeper, it's about a young girl with cancer and her parents decide to have another child so that they can save they're daughter with cancer. By using in-vitro fertilization (IVF) which according to MNT "In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most common and most effective type of assisted reproductive technology (ART) to help women become pregnant.The procedure involves fertilizing an egg outside the body, in a laboratory dish, and then implanting it in a woman's uterus." (If anyone is interested on learning more about this subject I put a link at the bottom of the page and if you would just like to know the general idea I also put a video for you.) By using that method they were able to create a child that genetically matched they're other child so that she could donate organs to her sister so that she could live. In the film the oldest daughter Kate was sick and her younger sister Anna was her organ donor but in real life it was still the oldest child Molly Nash with cancer but instead it was her younger brother Adam Nash who was her organ donor. "We were doing the right thing for our family," Lisa Nash said. According to StarTribune/ LifeStyle "When their story first became public, reaction from around the globe ranged from astonishment to horror and helped fuel the backlash against embryonic research. Molly's doctor at the U, Dr. John Wagner, was accused of playing God". I think in one way it's ok and in another way I don't. It's good because you save the life of the child you love but in another way it's wrong because the kid that is born to save the other one doesn't have input in this situation and what if there life is in danger and they end up getting hurt or end up dying trying to save the other one." Molly is in most ways a typical 14-year-old who loves text messaging her friends and performing in the theater. "Molly lets me do the worrying. She knows what happened with her was a miracle, but she's now focused on being a teenager," her mom said." This was said by PR NEWWIRES.

 

 

 



Cast

Nash family

Links
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/262798.php
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/inspiration-for-my-sisters-keeper-speaks-out-61824287.html
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/103584799.html