Fireproof....life changing...literally

I know I have written about specific movies for the past few weeks but I am going to ask you to bear with me because I am going to write about one specific movie again this week. For one, I really truly enjoyed this movie and two because I am completely out of ideas otherwise and I need one more week to brainstorm. Sorry! I apologize in advance to you guys reading this week's blog because this is truly more of a "chic flick" than any of my other picks so far.

So yesterday, I watched Fireproof with Stephen and we both decided that it is a great movie, as long as you can survive the slightly cheesy acting sprinkled throughout it.

Caleb Holt (Kirk Cameron) is a heroic fire captain cherishes service to others and dedication above and beyond everything. As a firefighter, he knows that you never leave your partner behind, but the most significant partner in his life, his wife Cathryn, played by Erin Bethea, is beginning to spark with what promises to turn into destructive, hate-filled flames. Caleb's father however, is determined to help his son find his way back to Jesus and back to loving and cherishing his wife like he did when they were first married. He sends his son "The Love Dare" which is a 40 day "activity/book" that gives the reader a task and verse for each day. The reader must attempt each task and do so with their whole heart in order for the dare to be successfull. It's a challenging, trying task that really tests the readers heart and motives, especially in the first twenty days. Caleb finds Jesus, his love and his forgiveness on day 21 and from there he truly wants to prove to his wife that he still loves her and wants to be with her and he goes at the remaining 18 days with all his heart. He succeeds but not without thinking he was too late to win back his wifes trust and love. His father, and mother, brought him and his wife back to the faith and to each other.

You cannot give love away to someone that you do not have yourself.

SPRING BREAK BABY!!

Seeing as how this coming week is Spring Break for the universities, it is only appropriate to write about a couple of romantic comedies that occur during Spring Break vacations. While I have never done ANYTHING, let alone anything exciting or adventurous, for Spring Break, I've heard some wild tales and thought up some pretty fantastic and even some outrageous plans. Most movies about Spring Break are horror, based on true stories, or comedies, I have found a few that are considered to be romantic, even if they are documentaries or somewhat of a horror film.


The Real Cancun, made in 2003, was designed to be the first true reality feature film. It stars Brittany Brown-Hart, Benjamin Fletcher, Nicole Frilot, and 13 other American college students all portraying themselves during an adventure of a life time. After being cast from auditions all across the country, these 16 students ventured south to experience first-hand what Spring Break is "all about." They were followed to Cancun, Mexico by 6 camera crews who filmed their exploits as they immersed and indulged themselves in the Spring Break activities.The students were filmed 24-hours a day for a week it shows planned group activities, intimate interviews, and spontaneous individual exploits.
While I've never seen this film, I wouldn't be so quick to judge until viewed. You never know what you might discover...

The next film I found is Girl Happy. Produced in 1965, this is one of the Elvis heart-throb films that, while not known for being wonderful works of cinematic masterpieces, it was a huge box-office hit. Girls lined up around city blocks for hours to get in to see Elvis and his thrusting, gyrating hips, and hear his sweet, serenading voice. Elvis and his band and friends are singing on the beach with throngs of girls all around in their beach attire jumping up and down and swaying off his every word and move. There's also a scene where Elvis and his buddies are in two convertables and they're weaving in and out. Now, the songs may not be memorable, but hey, who doesn't love an Elvis film I mean come on?! He is the King afterall!

Murph's Picks

So far, I've written mostly about the industry or the processes of the industry. This week however, I just want to talk about a few of my favorite films and the reasons why they are my favorites.

I am a fan of movies in general and I like the action and comedies just as much as the love stories. The top three of my favorite romantic comedies go as follows (from 1-3):

*Nights in Rodanthe
*Sweet Home Alabama
*Bringing Down the House

Nights In Rodanthe is the movie version of Nicholas Sparks' book Nights In Rodanthe. The two main roles of Adrienne Willis and Dr. Paul Flanner are played by Diane Lane and Richard Gere. The chemistry those two actors have on screen bring the movie to life. Adrienne, a separated mother of two, escapes for a weekend to a friend's inn in the town of Rodanthe on the outer coastal region of North Carolina to watch the inn and to figure out if she wants to take her cheating husband back or get out of the choatic relationship once and forall. The day she arrives, a major coastal storm is forcast for the weekend and she goes to town to buy supplies and catch up with a few old friends. Shortly after she returns to the inn, the weekends only guest for the weekend, Dr. Paul Flanning arrives. He is there to confront his own inner issues and to find a way to reconnect with his estranged son. Since they are the only two at the inn, their meals and free time is spent with each other and the romance of a lifetime errupts with beauty and passion that turns their worlds inside-out as they ride out the costal storm and the storm of life together. I suggest having your hubby, boyfriend, junkfood, favorite blankets, and PLENTY of tissue on-hand for this tear-jerking movie.

Sweet Home Alabama is DEFINITELY one of my favorite romantic comedies. Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, and Peter Dempsey couldn't have portrayed they're characters any better. They were perfectly cast in this film as their characters Melanie Smooter (Witherspoon), Jake Perry (Lucas), and Andrew Hennings (Dempsey). Melanie leaves her husband, family, friends, and life in Alabama and sneaks off the New York City to fullfil her dream of being a high-end fashion designer. In her five years there, she meets, courts and becomes engaged to the mayor's son, Andrew Hennings, and has to sneak back to Alabama to force Jake to sign the papers for their divorce. Once she's back in the south however, she realizes that the life she thought she was too good for so many years ago, was actually the life she wanted all along. I love this movie because it is the perfect example of how you can run all your life from true love and your past but eventually, your destiney takes control and you are taken over by what is meant for you.

Bringing Down the House with Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, and Eugene Levy is hilarious! Queen Latifah, Charlene Morton, is wrongfully convicted of a bank robbery and seeks the help of Steve Martin, Peter Sanderson-a hoity toity lawyer, and his assistant Eugene Levy, Howie Rottman to reopen her case and prove her innocent. Peter "highers" Charlene to "nanny" his two children so that she is safe and so they can work on the case. With Charlene, an African American tossed into the high-life white society class, Peters personal and professional life goes through a series of changes and events that are both comical and life-changing. They end up teaching each other more than is expected and become life-long friends. It's a great story about society and life's funny way of teaching us its lessons.

*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP* The Following is An Important Announcement

Broadcasting reports are written in a much different form than any other written work. They are written in a very simple, to-the-point manner. The broadcasting scripts contain: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. There might be a few quotes or added details thrown into the report but nothing too much until the exact, full story is known. The viewers do not see what is written down so the report does not need to be complete sentences complete correct spelling. The two most important factors of the broadcast are clarity and brevity. Clarity is self-explanatory, it means that the information is clear and concise. Brevity means that the length is brief.

One way to make the information clear and a quick read is by following the Pronunciation Guide for Announcers. This is a way of making the pronunciations of words easier to observe and say by making the sounds of the consonants and vowels more obvious. A few examples include:

~using AY for a long A as in "gate"
~using EYE for I as in "chime"
~using Z for hard S as in "disease"
~using J for soft G as in "general"

The only reason that punctuation is used is to help the announcer annotate the report. The use of other symbols ( %, &, #, etc) are prohibited. They only marks allowed in the printed copies are commas, periods, question marks, dots, dashes and quotation marks. The only reason to use hyphens is when letters are to be spelled out and not read as a word.

Broadcasting reports are used for talk shows, news on call, news conferences, news releases, video news releases, and multimedia news releases. The structure is universal for every one of these different media releases. Even though they are the same for each media type, the messages can contain differing details depending on the sources of information.

Production Companies

Production companies are the backbone of the movie business. They are the names on the cases and film rolls when you buy a DVD or purchase a theater ticket. Their multi-building complexes are where the built movie sets are put together and maintained, where filming takes place, and where they are edited and made into the final piece which we, the audiences, see after months of the first scene shoot. They are a large source, if not the main source, of the money which goes into the films many aspects.

The "Big Six" film production companies include: Fox Entertainment Group (News Corporation), Paramount Motion Pictures Group (Viacom), Sony Pictures Entertainment (Sony), NBC Universal (General Electric & Vivendi), Time Warner (Time Warner Inc.), and Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group (The Walt Disney Company). The names in the parenthesis are who owns the film production companies. Under each one of these companies, there are smaller divisions and other companies that they may have acquired by trade or buying them out.

Because of the amount of involvement of the production companies throughout the movie-making process, they receive a healthy amount from the success of the movie; not only in monetary reward but also the publicity and or/praise. Although publicity can often hurt a company, it does not usually hurt them enough to effect their income or their reputation. Every company has a plunker at every now and then and it is not their fault. The success of a film is in the hands of the audiences. What the audience likes and what the audience wants is what the audience likes and what the audience wants. If a company misses a small aspect once in a while, it results in a not-so-popular film. But the companies are resilient and bounce back quickly and smoothly. Their resiliency is outstanding and will continue for many years to come.

Knowing How To Write....PrOpErLy

Anyone can write a sentence but it takes an educated person to properly construct a sentence and make the paragraphs, papers, books, or press releases they are intricate pieces of. The three most important components of sentences are: grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If one of these crucial elements is missing, the person writing or speaking the piece will sound utterly uneducated. In today's society, unfortunately, this is becoming a frequently more common occurrence. The English language is despairingly being reduced to slang and grunts. Not many people are taught to appreciate the grace and elegance of a purely spoken language, English or not. A purely spoken language can be moving, convincing, romantic, and even harsh.

The only people who presently make sure that they speak or write correctly are those who are writing or giving speeches or books. Half the time, grievously, they don't succeed. It is one of my pet peeves when people do not speak correctly or write poorly. My father was an English teacher for three years before he started teaching Social Studies, Geography, Psychology, and Economics. He drilled it into my two younger brothers and me growing up. It stuck with me more so than my younger siblings.

As an example of those who speak poorly, one of my favorites is, sorry to those of you who like(d) her, Alaskan Governor: Sarah Palin. Senator John McCain chose her as his running mate for last years' presidential election. If a member of the public listened to any one of her speeches, they would understand why it irritated me to so much to have to listen to her butcher the English language. It bothered my father as well; we had great many-a-joke about her and her education and speech skills.

All three of the components that are critical to proper speech and/or writing are constantly screwed up. I am not saying that I am perfect in these categories by any means, however, I do what I can to make sure that I am as close to "perfect" as possible.

All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players...or observers

"Angelina! Ms. Jolie! Angenlina Jolie! Let me say that dress is STUNNING! What did you do to prepare for this role? What attracted you to this caracter or this particular script?" Those are questions and statements you can hear shouted at ANYONE of the numerous movie celebs starring in films these days at non-other, than the infamous Hollywood Movie Premiers. Before a movie can be released to the masses of viewers world wide, it has to be "premiered." That means that all of the stars of Hollywood and the producers, agents, families, and friends get to view it first and have a red carpet enterence and parties afterward. There are premiers every week, every day in Hollywood and all over the world, but still, sometimes, companies go ALL OUT for the premiere of their movies. Making them larger-than-life and throwing away millions for just a few hours of before and after activities...plus the screening of course. There are circus performers, singers, bands, artists, and so much more along the walks towards the enterance of the theater. But reguardless of whether or not the premier is overblown, the actors and actresses get all dolled up in Emy-worthy gowns, accessories, and tuxedos.

Only few lucky people get to experience a real premiere in their lifetime. I think it'd be a great experience. See the "stars" up close and personal, see a movie before anyone else, be treated like they do for once. People go to extreme lengths to experience even just a day of what celebreties events are like.

After the premier, the critics get to screen it and publish their thoughts, feelings, and takes on the film. The more the critics approve of the art piece, the more the audience sees and spends on the movie. If a movie makes a killing in the box office, then the actors, directors, producers and everyone else involved in the production of the film get a "little" extra spending money in their pockets. However, if it dies in the box office, it can still make sales off of the DVD release.