What's in a Hero?

I've Never Actually Thought of This...

And it did catch my eye when we were doing our prompts, but I didn't think I could articulate the words very well.

PROMPT: Our society uses the word hero in many different ways.

How do you define hero, and who is a hero in your life?

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Being my hero. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc. You know all of them. THEY'RE HEROS! Who are our real heroes though? Who are those people you don't see on the cover of a comic book every now and then? Who are the real heroes? Who are the hidden heroes?

I think personally, anybody can be a hero! We're all heroes! When I think of a hero, I think of someone who saves others and maybe that's just from comic books, but that's what I think. I think this is someone I can look up to, someone who has saved me! That's a hero! For many, their hero can be someone as simple as their best friend to someone who really does save the day everyday like a fireman. Admiration towards this person for their heroic actions is key to who your hero is. Why do you look up to this person? How did they save you? What would have happened if you hadn't been saved? And it's not just near death kind of saving, it's mental saving, emotional saving, saving someone from themselves. I mean there are so many ways you can save someone, but we always think a hero is someone who is great at saving people physically. "He saved me from dying! He's my hero!" We can look at this as someone who almost died of natural causes or someone who so mentally unstable they wanted to die and someone helped them through it. That is why heroes can be very different.

Every hero comes in different shapes/sizes, you know the common saying. Even I am a hero. You guys reading this are heroes. We're all heroes. We may not be aware of it, but we are all heroes.

Who is a hero in my life? Perhaps, everyone I've ever crossed paths with! Considering a lot of those people haven't affected my life, that's highly unlikely, but maybe they saved me from feeling alone in this void. That's what they did. Someone who I utterly hate is my hero. Yes, it's possible! Even if you hate them, imagine where all this hate comes from. Why exactly do you hate them? To me, I imagine, that if someone I hated was my hero, the only thing they'd have saved me from was from hating myself. Hating someone else allows you to love yourself. ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY THINK THEY'RE BETTER THAN YOU!!!! Haha, but that example was sort of wacky I think. Let me tell you who I think my real hero is.

I think my hero is my mom. She's always been there for me and has always looked out for me in my 15 years of life. Who else is going to do that for you? Who else wants to do that for you? She has helped me through so many things and given me very good advice and she supports my decisions. She does things others can't do and I talk to her very easily and that's why she's my hero. She saved me from feeling very alone in this world. With her, I never feel too bad. So a hero doesn't have to always save you physically, because in this case my mom saved me emotionally, and I am forever grateful to her for that.

So, who's your hero?

Breaking Promises

As You Saw in the Last Post (Or Not)...

I was going to be posting my thoughts on all the writing prompts I had to choose from (even if they weren't necessarily the one I chose to do it on). Well,  you'll understand possibly by the end of this post why I didn't really want to do any of the others. It wasn't because they were hard, it's just because I couldn't really connect to it.

Prompt: Most of us have been in a situation where we made a promise that for one reason or another we were unable to keep.

When were you disappointed because someone made you a promise that they failed to keep? Or when did you break a promise that you made to someone else?

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What does this even mean to me? I'm the kind of person who rarely ever picks up on the fact that you're betraying her on some stupid promise you made. I don't know if having no regrets means having no dignity, but I could care less if you told someone some big secret about me that I didn't really want others to know. I mean the fact that I told you already made it not a secret. What hurts is when you tell someone something personal and they make fun of you for it by telling other people and making that personal thing negative. That's so much more different. No, that's never happened to me (fortunately), but I guess--and it's not really a big deal and it could never be--is I have been disappointed when people promise me something and they never do. This always happens. It's basically my life and I'm very used to it, but it seems like everything I want dearly always ends up with the person in said situation promising me this thing and then bailing out on me. It really isn't fair on my end, but I realize there are circumstances (and sometimes there aren't) so I don't sweat it. Of course, it doesn't mean I don't feel bad about this stuff, but what can I do about it? Absolutely nothing. I just have to kind of deal with it.

I don't think I can remember a time when I broke a promise. Perhaps, being somewhere on time, but that's about it. I try as hard as I possibly can to avoid making promises.  It does you no good to make a promise you aren't going to keep or try your hardest to keep. There is obvious effort when you make a promise and then don't come through. If you obviously tried then you know what, it's okay, but when you didn't, that's just being an asshole. You can't do that. This is why I refrain from making promises and the ones I do make are usually very minimal and have no effect on me if for some reason I cannot fulfill this promise.

Work In Progress

We All Are...

Here is my personal experience that I had to elaborate on in English class. I'd like to add to you valuable readers that ever since I started my English Honors class, sophomore year I have been very happy. I have found an environment where I am not afraid to share my feelings on a piece of paper (of course, it fears me to think about the teacher reading such things/having to talk about them with my writing group). I think a lot of that has to do with what I am talking about in today's writing prompt.

Note: I will be posting five more of these prompts in the coming hours, so please enjoy reading the other five prompts as well. Thank you. Now onward, to the prompt that caught my eye the most!~

PROMPT: All of us are works in progress with a long way to go before we reach our full potential.

In what skill or area are you still working to make progress?

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I think I am still a work in progress, but in what area, I am unsure. Towards the end of middle school to the beginning of freshmen year, I began finding myself. Who was I really? I knew I was not like other people in my age group. We don't like the same things at all and I thought I was really strange for that. My weird taste in things I chose to like/be interested in never stopped (and won't stop). I wouldn't say it was like a coming-of-age sort of thing where I somehow discover the truth to being a teen, but it was more like a journey into the center of my mind. I was more aware of the things happening around me and I could finally have my own opinion on it. I was finally realizing it was okay to have an opposite opinion from the rest of the world. It's not like I wasn't opinionated before this, because I was, but now I'm not afraid to speak m mind no matter how shocking my opinion on a subject may be. What did any of this even have to do with progress though? I simply found myself and am still doing so now and probably for the rest of my life. Do you see that? It's a continuous cycle. Progress is a continuous cycle. Even after making progress, there's still more to be done. There's still more for me to find. I'm still not fully aware of who I truly am and I never will be. Sure, I can say now, I'm a smart, somewhat funny, weird, etc. teen, but is that who I'm going to be tomorrow? Next week? Next month? Next year? I'll never know.

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club is a 1985 coming-of-age, comedy-drama about five teens who all meet up for detention one day. They start off not liking each other, but by the end of the day all five of their different personalities end up liking each other and as the poster says "it changed their life forever." I think this is the kind of movie where you can't take someone else's opinion on it *cough* I think mine is pretty much good *cough*

The following review was written as I was watching the film, so it's all reaction-based as I was watching it (Very authentic lol):

Ok, I'm writing this review as I'm watching it, but I've already formulated an opinion on it from the first ten minutes.

This movie is so shitty. I hate this. It's for impressionable teens who think this movie is a true representation of themselves. They think the movie "understands" them, but do you know why? They picked the five most common people you'll meet in high school. The popular, "pretty" (Molly Ringwald is so ew) girl, the athlete, the bad boy, the nerd, and the weirdo. Everyone can usually identify as one or more of these. Then people wath it and they think "Oh my gosh *character that is like them* totally gets me!" No, they don't. It's a general stereotype and you fit it and you think it's the most profound thing ever.

The scene where the weird girl is biting her nails, I just don't understand. Then the nerd does something else, I think he was putting his pen in his mouth and the whole time this is happening I'm just like, "This is so totally socially unacceptable. This wouldn't even happen in real life." The acting and the stereotypes are so over-exaggerated it makes me want to throw up.

The whole having to do an essay thing is so stupid. It's so predictable that by the end of the movie they're going to "find themselves" and write an awesome essay.

Why does Mr. Vernon have time to watch over five students on a Saturday?

"Omg these kids are so cool" is what the movie tries to make you think. No one is this overly stereotypical in real life and that's why it's not believable at all.

Allison has problems. When Claire was talking about her family problems and she yells "Ha" I don't even think weirdos would do that. Mental people would do that. People with problems. Like, what is wrong with this movie?!

They try to make Bender such a profound asshole and he's not. It's just so overdone. I'm sorry, I can't take this and I'm barely on minute 28.

Claire has sushi for lunch. Kill me. Who brings sushi for school lunch...in America...in the 80s?! Andy has a super huge lunch...again no? They're not even going to be there for a super long time. No one actually eats the way Allison does in public. Allison is just an attention seeker.

I just found the best part of the movie guys. When Bender is asking Brian if his mom married Mr. Rogers and Brian replies, "No Mr. Johnson." Best fucking part lol.

How does Mr. Vernon not hear any of the shit they say when they're talking super loud/making loud noise if he's in the next room?!

The weed scene is so lame, especially the part where Andy is dancing around.

Allison says, "I'm a nymphomaniac...the only person I've told is my shrink" and Andy asks her, "What did he do when you told him?" and Allison replies, "He nailed me." Ew. No. This is not even right?! I hate her. Haha, I thought I would hate Molly Ringwald's character more, but I hate Allsion way more than Claire. Then Allison says, "I'm not a nymphomaniac, I'm a compulsive liar." Ugh, fuck this. I have 26 minutes left of this shit.

When they're all telling these stories. I just don't get it. How do you connect to someone so easily in one day and tell them all this personal stuff?!

"When you grow up, your heart dies." Nice. I bet this was supposed to be one of the best lines in the film, but no, it wasn't.

Omg my mom is watching it with me and see they're all crying right now and she said, "Aww...this movie has become so stupid."

How did they go from crying to laughing. This is so dumb. They're playing music super loud in the library, umm, Mr. Vernon, again, how do you not hear this shit?!

The ending is so stupid...How did two relationships form in one day?! I don't think this is how high school is at all!!! 

The only character I fully liked was Brian until the end of the film around minute 45???, when he started to totally suck.

I understand why people like this film. I guess it's very coming-of-age, but I think there are so many better coming-of-age movies. This is a really bad representation of high school. It's just very general, yet unbelievable/too stereotypical at the same time.

Btw, why are they even called the Breakfast Club? Is it some profound meaning I was unable to find? There is no breakfast in this movie...at all.

Barbarella

Barbarella is a 1968 French-Italian (not in french or italian, it's in english) sci-fi film based on the comic by Jean-Claude Forest.

The movie starts with Barbarella being assigned a mission to find a human being, Durand Durand, on another planet who had created a weapon for evil. In the future, where this movie is set, Earth has been at constant peace and has never needed weaponry, so Barbarella must go and find Durand Durand and his invention to bring them back to Earth. Basically, throughout the film we see Barbarella going through complications on her way to find Durand Durand.

This movie is sex without sex. There are sex scenes, but you know those scenes where you just ASSUME they had sex or they say they had "the best time of their life." It's that kind of sex. The women characters all have sexy outfits or have their breasts exposed. You don't see Barbarella's breasts that much, but she's constantly in sexy outfits and being viewed as a sexual object, because they see her as this amazing object from the planet Earth. "The ultimate pleasure."

Jane Fonda as Barbarella (she's so pretty!)
Anita Pallenberg as The Great Tyrant (also very pretty!)
Milo O'Shea as Durand Durand (half of the time I was thinking about Duran Duran)
John Phillip Law as Pygar, the angel. ("An angel doesn't make love, an angel IS love."

Honestly...this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I only watched it because Jane Fonda was in it, but this was horrible. The acting was horrible, like it was totally obvious they were acting!!! The effects were horrible, but you know it was 1968 so...whatever, still didn't help make it any better. The only saving grace was Jane Fonda's beauty throughout the whole movie. It was a great concept, but it wasn't well executed sadly. I wouldn't even want to read the comics after watching this movie.

Btw, run time is 1 hour and 38 minutes, so idk maybe someone else will find this movie amazing. It's like a cult classic (you either hate it or love it XD)

Here's the trailer:

Peter Schaffer's Amadeus

Note: I watched the Director's Cut so I got 20 extra minutes that you may or may not get depending on whether you get the Director's Cut or not. Also, it was my first time watching this movie, so I never saw the original.

Amadeus is an American historical period/biographical drama made in 1984 and adapted from Peter Schaffer's stage play of the same name. This movie is about, you guessed it, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It talks about his life through the eyes of Antonio Salieri, the man who was extremely jealous of him (even considered to have killed him, as depicted in the film).

You really can't summarize a movie about someone's life, but here goes. If you know a lot about Mozart, then you'll know of the stuff that happened in his life that was taken out of the movie. I thought every detail they did mention though was necessary and made the movie absolutely great.

Basically the movie starts off with Salieri killing himself, because of the guilt he has towards killing Mozart. He then tells us a little about how HE wanted to get into music and then meeting Mozart. From there we see more into Mozart's life, his personality, his wife, his father, his father's death, his debt, his opera's (which were totally insane for the time period), his relationship with Salieri, his drinking problems, his illness, and of course, his death. This is all in the time frame of about two hours and a half, nearly three hours if you watch the director's cut.

Absolute perfection. 10/10. I loved this film. I love Mozart, so you know I had high expectations. I wanted it to be perfect, and it was. I really enjoyed it. There was not one dull moment and the suspense at the end when we near Mozart's death, beautiful and frightening. No wonder it won 8 Academy Awards!!! This movie made me feel so many emotions, it was truly an art. I felt like I was there. Like I knew these people.

And the acting. Now that was exceptional!

F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri (You really do sense he hates Mozart. I mean just great acting. The make-up for him as an older man, wow!)
Tom Hulce as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Great actor. He portrayed Mozart very well. His laugh in the movie. You will either love it or hate it. I loved it.)

Elizabeth Berridge as Constanze Mozart (I actually know very little about Mozart's wife. I did, however, know her description. She fit the description perfectly.)

There are many more actors. All very well, too, but these three are the main ones.

Also, might I mention. The costumes and soundtrack (Mozart, duh) were awesome. The costumes totally looked believable and the soundtrack, well they played each of those songs at the perfect time. Especially the ending. Every aspect of this movie put together made it a complete masterpiece.

Here's the trailer:

When You're Strange

When You're Strange is a 2009 documentary about the Doors with photographs and footage of the band. It is narrated by Johnny Depp.

The documentary is mainly about Jim Morrison, but it does talk about the Doors as well as how the Doors worked around Jim's alcoholism and his performances (which were getting more and more outrageous, because of the alcohol). Not only that it also showcases the free love movement and other events that occurred during the 60's. We really get a feel for who Jim was in this movie. We see past Jim the rock star and more into Jim the poet.

Here's the movie. I couldn't find another one for free, so you'll just have to bear with the spanish subtitles. Enjoy. It's very short 1 hour and a half. You won't even notice.