The Oscar Winners

Here are the winners, (they're in bold. sorry if i didn't include the other nominees. I'm too lazy to type.)

Best Picture:

Winner: The King's Speech (still unsure about that)
Dark Horse(check out my new vocabulary): The Social Network
My pick(s): 127 Hours, Black Swan...somewhat. It was good.

Best Actor:

Win: COLIN FIRTH (he deserves one), and Jeff Bridges won last year, so slim chance of him getting another one.
no dark horse (Well, Jesse Eisenberg?)
My Pick(s): JAMES FRANCO
*and how did Leonardo DiCaprio NOT get nominated, damn Academy*
it's going to be tough. I love Colin Firth and James Franco. I want them both to win -.-

Best Actress:

Win: Natalie Portman
-If she doesn't win, I'm going to be PISSED.

Best Supporting Actor:

Win: Christian Bale
Dark Horse: Mark Ruffalo
My Pick(s): Geoffrey Rush
*And yet again, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is left out of this, another Inception actor...seriously Academy? AND you leave Christopher Nolan out of the running for Best Director? *facepalm* *

Best Supporting Actress:

Win: Melissa Leo (unsure)
Dark Horse: Hailee Steinfeld (SHE'S 14)
My Pick(s): Helena Bonham Carter, no surprise if Hailee Steinfeld's name gets called. She got to work with Josh Brolin. COME ON.

Best Animated Feature:

Toy Story 3 is going to win. Hands down. If it doesn't, someone's going to be angry.

These are the important ones. Just Google the others.

The new Superman

Henry Cavill (The Tudors) is going to play Superman. D:

(He looks better as Batman...just saying. But they got that part already)

Rebuttal To Amber Chan

A rebuttal to Amber Chan's Opening Statement:

Amber's claim was that child actors should be seen as role models to people their age. She includes a couple of examples, including David Henrie and Lindsay Lohan. She said that what they did was passable to many of the young audiences that look up to them (or in Lohan's case, used to).

Child actors should not be seen as role models to people their age. Sure, they make mistakes, but that doesn't make up for the fact that they did something bad that would be looked down upon fans of that person.

When David Henrie was caught drinking in Puerto Rico, many people argued that drinking in Puerto Rico is perfectly legal, and he was just having fun. It was legal alright, and I'm pretty sure he had fun. but many of his young fans, the parents of his young fans see David Henrie as another Disney Star living 'under the influence.' Schools now actually teach their students that the effects of alcohol is bad, so when they see their favorite stars getting drunk, they know it's bad and they could have thought about what they were doing before they actually did it.

Oh, the Lindsay Lohan mess. At first she was this amazing innocent child star that everyone loved, especially her performance in The Parent Trap. But then she started going crazy with DUI's and drug charges just rolling down her path.

Amber's view on the Lohan case:

"Younger audiences might think that driving under the influence, using drugs (like cocaine, which Lohan uses), or reckless driving is perfectly fine, because even if they do it and get arrested for it, they won't get into much trouble, since they may think that they won't need to serve the full sentence like Lohan did."

Well, it wouldn't be 'perfectly fine' for the younger audiences to drive recklessly and use drugs, because they will get in trouble, whether or not it's with the police or their parents. Yup, parents. Lindsay Lohan did not really get the support from her dad did she? If the younger audiences were to do what Lohan did, they would need to serve the full time, even if they're not a big star like Lohan.

Child actors should not be role models to people their age because when/if they mess up, they will be looked down at by many people.

Squealer and Napoleon

The pigs in George Orwell's Animal Farm have assumed the leadership roles that they should not have taken. Those pigs, meaning Napoleon and Squealer, take advantage of the animal's weaknesses.

Napoleon, is described as this in the book:

"Is a larger, rather fierce-looking Berkshire bear, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way," (35).

This description of him fits perfectly with what he does in the book.  Napoleon has always seemed to be the quiet one, and 'getting his own way' means that even though he is quiet, he knows what he is going to do and what is best for him. The animals are frightened of Napoleon and since they know better than to speak up for themselves, they have no other choice but to do as he says.

The first time Squealer is mentioned, it is when the other animals question the pigs about the missing milk. This point in the book already shows that the pigs are getting more food than what they deserve.

Squealer is described as this in the book:

"He was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tale which was somehow very persuasive. The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white.” (16)

Squealer is persuasive. That's about right, except that he is Napoleon's right hand pig. Squealer tends to use the word 'comrades' everytime he addresses the animals. By using this word, the animals start to think that Squealer is on their side, and he's not. That's just another part of his persuasive side. This is effective with the animals because it makes them think that Squealer will always know what is right or wrong with the happenings of the farm.

By making the animals think that what he is going to say will benefit all of them, it is only benefiting the pigs:

"It was also more suited to the dignity of the Leader (for of late he had taken to speaking of Napoleon under the title of "Leader") to live in a house than in a mere sty. Nevertheless, some of the animals were disturbed when they heard that the pigs not only took their meals in the kitchen and used the drawing-room as a recreation room, but also slept in the beds." (56)

 While at first, Napoleon and Squealer only took advantage of the food that the animals had, this quote shows that they have gone too far with being 'leaders'. Squealer went from being the right hand pig of Napoleon to his 'mouth.' Meaning that Squealer, instead of being his usual persuasive self, is now just saying what Napoleon wants him to say.

Napoleon, on the other hand, has begun to forget about the actual Commandments, what Old Major had said in his speech, and also what the Revolution has taught them to do, which includes the use of the house and sleeping in the beds.

Every time the animals question the matter, they check the Commandments, which has rules against what they wonder about. But, when they do check, it seems as though the Commandments have changed so that it actually does prove that what the pigs are doing is okay.

Towards the end of the book, Squealer and Napoleon have begun to walk on two legs, and carry whips, which frightens the animals because now, Squealer and Napoleon have assumed an authority that no animal wants to fight against.

“No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” (117)

This quote at the end of the book implies that Napoleon and Squealer have changed from pigs to real mean, and the 'lower animals' see it.

Debate: Should child actors be role models to people their age?

Oh, kids shows these days. I wouldn't say that they're kids shows though, it's more like teen actors in a show aimed towards little kids. While many of the kids who watch those shows look up to those teen actors as role models, should the teens their age look up to them as role models also? Child actors should not be considered as role models to people their age because, most of them end up doing things that are not seen as 'right' and it will only damage the image they have to the younger audiences that look up to them.

Many of the young actors seem to have a knack of getting noticed. For example, Miley Cyrus, that sweet, innocent, fresh face that we all came to know on Disney's Hannah Montana. NOT. She supposedly wanted to get away from her 'image' and switch from pop songs to something 'edgier'. (check it out here). When she got caught with Nickelodeon star Avan Jogia (here), the fans only wanted to see Miley, not Avan. Half of them probably even said: "Who the hell is Avan Jogia?" It seems that most of the people who saw the picture only cared that Miley Cyrus was the one in the picture, and did not give a second-thought about Avan Jogia.

Nowadays, many actors that we see in the shows marketed to young audiences are much older than we expect them to be, most of them are even in their 20's.

I was looking up for the latest Superman/Flash rumors, and stumbled upon this article on Parade:

'Okay, I'm at a certain point in my life now where I only want to play this guy or that guy.' When Glee was casting, I thought, 'I'm too old to be a student. I need to stop playing high-school kids.' 

Many of the teen actors are over the legal age, some of them even younger, and they are caught doing things they shouldn't be doing. Even if most of them claim it's because they want to step away from the image they had before, it doesn't change the way that people will look at them even if they are doing those things.

Vegetarianism

Over the past two years, I have met extremely wonderful people who don't eat meat. I also just found out that David, is a vegan. I was surprised to hear that.

I honestly considered becoming vegetarian for the past few years. I met people at my program, Eureka that are vegetarian and they explained to me why they made the change. My friend Patrina was eating this dish that I thought was chicken, and she told me that it was 'fake meat' and she liked it better than the real thing.

Then I came to ASTI, and met some of my really good friends, like Annie that is vegetarian.

Over the past few years, I have received so many vegetarian, I wouldn't say brochure, but something along that line, uhm magazines(?). And when I went to DC for Close Up and our group stumbled upon the gay parade, there was a whole tent filled with anything you wanted to know about being a vegetarian.

For me, being a Filipino and all, my family owns a pig farm. They treat them kindly, but still, they kill them. And they send us videos depicting it. When I first watched them, it was gruesome. But I still ate meat because there was no other choice.

Filipino foods, almost all of them have meat in them. The worst of them all, dinuguan. It's all pork, and it is cooked in pork blood.

I eat meat on a daily basis. Even though I know it's not good for my health, and I know what they do to those animals.

George Orwell

These days, power seems to provide the opportunity for people to let their true colors show. Once a person has power, they can either use it for good or bad.

So, in my opinion, yes, political power does corrupt the people who attain it. In Animal Farm by George Orwell, he has a quote that also happens to tie in to one of the seven commandments that the animals, pigs, have made up themselves:

"All animals are created equal." (43)

This, in the book, means that no animal on the farm can be the ultimate leader. Each animal has an equal amount of power to be used. That went awfully wrong. Soon, the pigs were in power, and everything went to them. They abused their power.

This reminds me of that one guy, Ferdinard Marcos. He had seemed like a good leader at first, but then became a dictator. Sure, he didn't kill people, but he definitely abused his power, he even killed his opponent who was running against him for the supposed 'presidency.' Okay, so he did kill a few people.

I still don't get why he was buried in Arlington Cemetery for a while.

If George Orwell were to read this post right now, I think he would agree with what I am saying, and I have absolutely no idea what I am saying. Orwell wrote this book to show the Communism that was happening in Russia, or so, that's what many people think. I believe that he wrote the book, not just to point our the Communism happening in Russia, but to sort of show what would happen, if the same events were to happen again.