Monday, April 28, 2008

Empire of the Sun: Basie!

Empire of the Sun was an ok movie. It wasn’t actually what I expected, but I give it a 4 stars. One of my absolute favorite characters would be Basie. Although I dislike him so much he just cool like that. In the beginning it is obvious that Basie was only there for himself. His relationship with Jim didn’t matter to him at all. Poor Jim was just one of his many pets. One of his other many pets, Frank, was attached to Basie like a lost puppy. Basie had a lack of respect towards Frank. For example, when Frank first brought Jim to Basie, Basie let Jim eat Frank’s rice first. This showed bad quality of friendship from Basie, by making his hungry partner give up his only rice to Jim, which Basie just met.
This bad quality of friendship was shown again when Basie was chosen to move to another camp. Unfortunately, Jim was not chosen and was going to be left behind. As Jim called out for Basie, Basie just completely ignored him. That was real cold if you ask me. How you going to leave the one boy behind that helped you out by running you little errands around like a paper boy or something. Jim risked his life for one of Basie’s stupid tasks at the airfield camp. You would think that he would be worried, because Jim was trying to sneak into the American building, but no. Basie brilliant self decided to take bets on whether he would live or not.
Basie acts like the big bad tough guy, but he’s actually not. This is shown when the Japanese Sergeant beat Basie up. Basie just stood there like a coward. He is like one of those people that talk a lot of non sense and when it’s time to take action they cower away. He tries to show his peers that he’s the big boss, but actually he’s just a little mouse trapped in a maze created by the Japanese.
I believe that Basie is just a little kid that’s scared to show his true emotions. He’s probably really caring in the inside, but shadows it in the outside. Basie is so cool, because he makes people believe something that he’s really not. That’s talent right there. He’s like a Master Magician hypnotizing his audience, which consists of Jim, Frank, and his other American buddies. Too bad for him, because the Japanese army already know that trick and don’t fall for it. The Japanese sergeant is the only one that sees Basie’s true colors.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Service Learning Meeting 1

During service learning we talked about how to make the library more accessible to the students. We came up with ideas such as, referencing the books, taking old books that we don't want to McCall, and making signs for people to come in the library. This week we're are still going to come up with ideas and try to take action.