Million Dollar Baby Essay examples -- Movie Film Movies Essays

Million Dollar Baby Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood’s latest movie as a director has been getting more and more positive reviews recently and it is even better than Mystic River. At first glance, the film looks like another boxing-movie clichà ©. However, Eastwood has succeeded in creating a compelling and moving story about the intricate world of human relationships, the price of success and the realization of dreams. The movie explores many different subject matters. Million Dollar Baby is about friendship and respect. It is about love and it is about dreams. The main theme of the movie is the boxing career of Maggie Fitzgerald (played by Hilary Swank) - a 30-year old waitress who lives alone and barely gets by. However, she is strongly determined to become a professional boxer and this is why she seeks the help of Frankie Dunn (played by Clint Eastwood), a boxing trainer and an owner of a gym. Initially, Frankie is unwilling to train her because she is female and too old to have any chance of achieving significant accomplishments in professional boxing. However, Frankie’s friend and associate Eddie Dupris (played by Morgan Freeman), really believes in Maggie and lets her train in a corner of the gym. As time passes, Maggie’s persistence and Eddie’s pushiness finally change Frankie’s mind. This is when the true story begins. Maggie’s determination and strong will to fulfill her dream, combined with Frankie’s excellent training skills launch both of them into the professional boxing orbit where the y gloriously win battle after battle. Although the story seems like a big clichà ©, in truth, the world of Million Dollar Baby involves much more than boxing and success. Clint Eastwood treats such subject matters as love, f... ...she is happy. In general, all the actors in the movie make the audience feel what they are feeling and this is essential for the movie as the plot is deeply emotionally charged. As reviewer Sean O’Connell notes in his column at Filmcritic.com, Million Dollar Baby was expected to be â€Å"a half-baked, rushed-into-awards-season castoff by a respected filmmaker still basking in the glow of his last well-received piece†. Fortuitously, the movie has turned out to be one of the best motion pictures of the year. Once again Clint Eastwood surprises us all with his work as a film director. He gives the audience a chance to consider life from another viewpoint. The movie makes one think about what he or she has achieved in life and Maggie shows us that it is never too late to have a dream fulfilled. After all, this is why we are actually born and live: to fulfill our dreams.

Kobe Bryant Essay -- essays research papers

Could you imagine being nineteen years old and making five million dollars a year? Kobe Bryant, the son of former NBA player Joe "Jellybean" Bryant, jumped directly from high school to the pros in 1996 and enjoyed an impressive rookie season with the Los Angeles Lakers. He also won the Nestle Crunch slam-dunk contest, and was the leading scorer in the Rookie Game during the NBA all-stars Weekend. Kobe Bryant could very well become one of the best basketball players to ever step on a basketball court. Kobe's parents named him after a type of steak (Kobe) seen on a restaurant menu prior to his birth. This type of steak is very popular in Japan. Bryant is also fluent in Italian. Even though Bryant plays in the NBA, he is still a kid at heart and makes time for playing video games. He has two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya. Bryant was the all-time leading scorer in Southeastern Pennsylvania history with 2,883 points, breaking the marks of NBA legend and Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain (2,359 points) and former St. Joseph's player Carlin Warley (2,441 points). Bryant led his high school team to a 77-13 record in last three seasons and was a four-year starter. His father, Joe, played eight NBA seasons for the Philadelphia 76ers, San Diego Clippers and Houston Rockets, and is a former assistant coach at La Salle. As a senior at Lower Merion High School, USA Today and Parade Magazine selected Bryant as the National High School Player of the Year. He was also named Naismi...

Reading Written Works And Watching TV Essay

Books are known as the first medium bearing the function of conveying information to people; they were invented about 5000 years ago. If books can be considered as the traditional medium, television is the modern one. In fact, it was first introduced in public in the late 1920s and soon became a significant part of the daily life. Both of these media provide people with information, news as well as knowledge, but each kind has some distinct features. The similarities as well as the differences between reading books and watching TV vary, but they can be divided into three main aspects: the activity factor, entertainment and social interaction. The first critical aspect differentiating reading written works and watching television is the activity factor. The activeness of mental activity between reading and watching TV is significantly different. While reading book, one can readily imagine the scene of the book in his or her mind and decode what the author means, which can help one imp rove his or her imagination. see more:tv is better than books In contrast, watching TV makes one receive images passively, which means his or her imagination is controlled by others. Ordway (2010) states that compared to reading books, watching TV is noticeably less strenuous. In addition, when reading, one can control his or her time and activated more effectively than watching TV. For instance, one can either increase or reduce his or her reading speech, re-read pages or chapters he or she likes, all of which one cannot do while watching TV. However, both reading printed works and watching TV are involved in little physical activities. Secondly, the similarities and differences between reading and watching TV can be demonstrated through the entertainment. In general, the target that both reading and watching TV aim at is to entertain people. People often either read books or watch TV when they have free time or want to relax after a hard working day. However, the levels of entertainment are not the same. Reading books requires one more power and time to transfer words into images; thus, one is more likely to keep in his or her mind the content of the books. As a result, it can be said that reading a deeper level of entertainment. However, every stick has two ends; certain kinds of entertainment may not be available in books such as live sports, news, etc. Meanwhile, one can watch a live football march or a performance on TV.  Through watching TV, one can relax and enjoy many kinds of entertainment with fewer attempts (Rubenoff, 2012). In short, watching TV has greater variety of entertainment. The last aspect displaying the similarities and differences between reading and watching TV is: social interaction. Both of them can be used as conversation starters. The information shown on TV or books can be a favorite subject for everyone to discuss with each other. Moreover, reading book and watching TV are activities that can ease the sense of isolation. When being home alone, one can lie in bed and watch TV or read books. The sound and images on the screen or books can distract one’s attention from the loneliness and the negative thinking. However, one is more likely to get addicted to watching TV; he or she may spend much time watching TV, become a couch potato and not feel like communicating with others. On the other hand, reading books is different. One can also enjoy a book himself or herself so much that he or she â€Å"gets lost† in it. â€Å"In other words, his brain simulates real experiences, just as if he were living them himself† (Hilary, 2012). However, unlike those who watch TV, readers are less likely to get addicted; when their eyes get tired, they can put the books down and go out for a walk or talk with friends. As a result, readers may interact with society better than viewers. To sum up, reading written works and watching TV have both similarities and differences in the activity factor, entertainment and social interaction. Through reading, one can extend the boundary of his or her imagination and relax without being afraid of getting addicted to it. In comparison, watching TV requires less thinking and is easier to become addicted to, but it can supply one with various kinds of entertainment. Taking everything into account, we can say that both reading and watching TV have pros and cons; the point is that we need to know how to balance between them and benefit from them the most. References Hilary, F. (2012, August 25). Getting lost in a good book can help you keep healthy. Retrieved August 19, 2014, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2193496/Getting-lost-good-book-help-healthy.html Ordway, H. (2010, Jan 17). Reading Versus Television: Which is better? Retrieved August 18, 2014 from http://www.hieropraxis.com/2010/01/reading-versus-television-which-is-better/ Rubenoff, T. (2012, October 23). Television vs. Book? Retrieved August 16, 2014 from http://tomrubenoff.hubpages.com/hub/Television-or-Book

Area of knowledge Essay

It can certainly be argued that though language and emotion play vital roles within any area of knowledge, it is within history that it manifests itself the clearest. History as an area of knowledge presents an opportunity to explore the implications of both language and emotion, and their effect on interpreting history. The understanding of such information is integral to resolving one of the key knowledge issues regarding history: the question of whether it is possible to attain or communicate knowledge through history that is free from filters and biases. The answer to this question is crucial to the further comprehension of what is history as a whole. But before examining language and emotion in the context of history, it is important to define what exactly these words are describing, and understand the values and limitations of both of these ways of knowing separately. Language is defined as a rule-governed, intended form of communication and is one of the main ways of attaining information of the external. It is useful for conveying concepts that are intangible, such as that of history. However, it is merely a tool, a vehicle by which information can travel, and is subject to ambiguity, vagueness, and bias. Emotion as a way of knowing is often defined as a mechanism which gives intuition and helps decision making, but is also commonly cited as an obstruction to knowledge. These two ways of knowing have a great impact upon the acquisition of knowledge in history. One could argue that without language, there would be no history or historical knowledge. Such a bold statement can be made for a variety of reasons, one being primarily that unlike emotion and sense perception, two others way of knowing, language is the most ‘able’ tool in the transfer of knowledge across time. And unlike reason, language can qualitatively describe as well as outline the experiences of individuals in a way that reason cannot fully emulate. One does not need to be (or rather, cannot be) at the decisive Battle of Iwo Jima to know there was an Allied victory, knowledge that sense perception and emotion could not derive. The utility of language is that it enables us acquire knowledge of the external efficiently. This is not to say that language is the perfect mechanism for knowledge transfer in history. As stated above, language is a tool that, once interpreted, will lead to biases as both the sender and receiver’s paradigm will contribute to a certain predisposition regarding any topic spoken. It allows us to label and generalize, to set up a conceptual framework based on relativity. Arbitrary time frames can be set up within history, such as Before Common Era, which when considered seem quite useful in that it allows for quick citation, but is also perplexing. How exactly did people define the ‘Common Era’? To refer to a date in relation to the death of one man allows us to further question why this particular man was chosen. Again this ties into the bias with language, as anyone referencing BCE is undoubtedly predisposed towards Western thinking. Even I retain these biases as well, always confused momentarily whenever I am exposed to the time frame established in Thai culture, such as 2553 (which is coincidentally also referenced to the death of another man). It appears that although language can and does lead to historical knowledge in methods that other ways of knowing cannot, language can never lead to truly objective information precisely for the same reason that it is useful: it is all relative to the paradigm which one is under. The impact of labeling and generalizations also touches upon the realm of emotion and its effects upon history. The age-old adage proclaims that â€Å"history is written by the victors†1 and the victors will more often than not think positively about themselves but not of their opponents. For example, during my Thai history class, my teacher will go at great lengths to explain the courageous nature of the Thai people and the savagery of the Burmese for invading our land, and yet do a complete about face and call the occupation of Malaysia and Cambodia as a noble conquest. This invocation of pride and patriotism is a variety of emotion known as nationalism. And it is this nationalism, or a similar emotional feeling of loyalty, that has fueled much of current history. If language is the tool with which we talk about history, emotion is what caused us to talk about it in the first place. The statement that is being suggested is that the course of human civilization for the past ten thousand years can be charted with the emotions, on the basis that humans are not perfectly rational. Emotional attachments to kingdoms, countries, or governments caused many to go to war; scientific advances were fueled by the undying joy associated with innovation; Adam Smith proposed capitalism to compensate for the inherent greed within us all. Indeed, a more specific event would be the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001AD. The attack upon the US caused uproar, an escalation of foreign policy security, and a worsening of relations with the Middle East. The many religious motives for such an event leave no doubt that it was based off of emotion, but it remains unclear what the main cause was for. Again, it appears that to mark history as objective facts becomes increasingly hard as the subjective emotions that one has muddle the cause for events. One cannot state that a certain event in history occurred because of another singular event; rather, one must say that it was the amalgamation of these that caused any event. In essence, it appears that emotion and language both play a key role in history, one for it and one about it. However, it seems that these two ways of knowing interact with history in such a way as to make the objective deduction of historical knowledge difficult. Though one can argue that the imposition of conceptual frameworks and the emotionally fuelled decisions are not mutually exclusive with an objective history, it remains that within any human society there will exist a paradigm, a filter, a bias. And in these items will lay prejudice. A quote by Friedrich Nietzche summarizes this: â€Å"To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world.† We may pride ourselves on being more civilized than animals and for having language, but it is foolish to assume that with only these tools that we have gained any knowledge of the world apart from our own.

The advantages and disadvantages of a business plan

Entering the world of business is not that easy. When starting a new venture, one should never come unprepared. If you started a new venture without planning anything first, chances are, you will end up going wherever the wind takes you. That is why a business plan is a necessity for someone who is interested in starting a new venture. In the world of business, a business plan is treated like a bible for it lets investors and lenders know about the business you are trying to put up. It also serves as a manual for suppliers and other stakeholders of the business. A business plan may have its advantages but it also have its disadvantages. In this part of the paper, we shall look at the strong and weak points of developing a business plan for a new venture. However, a business plan is supposed to be an advantage to the business that is why the advantages, as expected, outnumber the disadvantages. Advantages One advantage of developing a business plan for a new venture is that it identifies what the consumer really wants. Of course, a business plan is all about making your target market patronize the product or service you are offering in your new business. Before you can make profits, you must first identify your target market and know what they really need or want. This is one important advantage of a business plan especially for those who are new in the business scenario. Once you identify what your target market really wants, you are most probably headed to indentifying the demand for the service or product you intend to offer. Identifying the demand for the product is also very important in launching a new venture because from this, you will know whether the service or product you are to offer is needed by the people. Of course, you cannot just think about your supplies and your suppliers. Those things will come after you determine the demand for your product. Aside from identifying the target market and the demand for the product or service, the advantages of a business plan also include assistance in designing your product that are appealing to the senses of the consumers. Since your purpose in developing a new venture is to make profit, the consumers’ senses are your main target. Designing your product is very important. It includes the packaging of the product and other advertising tools to make the people buy the product. This is also an important aspect of the business plan for it contributes a lot to the success of the business. Of course, if you are developing a â€Å"for-profit† business, making profit and paying debts will have to be included in your business plan. Aside from paying debts, your plan should also include measures on how to generate daily income. In this aspect, a business plan is very helpful because you already have your plans on how to manage the financial aspects of the business (which is one of the most important aspects). If you know exactly the financial path of what you are venturing, you are most likely to succeed in terms of profit. Another advantage of a business plan is that it makes the proprietor identify his competitors. When you have the knowledge about your competitors, you will be able to identify your competitive advantage over the competitor’s firm. Since you are developing a new business, it is important that you know exactly your edge in the business scenario over the others. If you have planned beforehand about your competitive advantage over the competitors, chances are, there will be product differentiation in the market. That is actually a good thing because it lessens competition within simi8lar firms. By analyzing your competitors, you will be able to create strategies that are effective even if there are many competitors in the market. A business plan is also advantageous because it enables us to indentify new product and service areas, and new or potential customers. In business, it is not only important to find the customers for some of them will not be loyal to your firm. It is hard to find new customers when you are just developing a new venture but it is much harder to retain them. The good thing about a business plan is that it helps the owner of the firm to identify potential customers. If it is hard for the owner to retain his customers, it would be very helpful to identify new or potential customers. In that way, at least, you will have your next resort. Lastly, an advantage of a business plan is that it allows the business owner to evaluate his business strategies and if his strategies are giving the desired results. What is good about a business plan is that it enables the owner to assess whether his strategies are effective or not. If he found out that his strategies are not effective enough to make the business succeed, he can immediately formulate new strategies to make the business succeed. As we all know, business strategies are very important, be it human resource, financial, etc. The business plan serves as a test for the formulated strategies and also serves as way to make room for improvement. If the owner finds out that there is something wrong with his first strategies, he will be able to change it right away and save his business from falling apart or incurring losses. Disadvantages Although we mentioned a lot of advantages in making business plans, it also has its drawbacks. If the owner is new in the world of business, he may not have all the business skills that a new venture requires. If he happens to be the one making his business plans, the business plan can be one way of identifying his weaknesses in dealing with business. If the owner is not used to making business plans, people who will look to it will find out the weaknesses of his business skills. Suppliers, investors, and lenders will most likely not to participate in the business when they find out that the person they are dealing with is not that skilled in business. Also, if the other stakeholders of the business find out that the person they are making arrangements with is not as skilled as they thought, they might not trust him with the success of the business. They might even plan to use his weaknesses or his business plan against him since they know that he is not a skillful businessman. Another disadvantage of a business plan is when it is not properly thought of. If the data in a business plan is not properly analyze, it may result to improper marketing decisions which will eventually have a bad effect on the business itself. Although a business plan helps a lot in making the business successful, it may also make the business fail if not done correctly. What makes it hard for a business to succeed is the impulsiveness of the business owners when it comes to decision making. Sometimes, the data in business plans are not analyzed properly that is why decisions are also made incorrectly. If the one who made the business plan is not a professional business consultant or is not really familiar with making a business plan, information can be interpreted incorrectly. The faulty interpretation of information can result to unrealistic financial projections. In a business, financial matters are very important that is why if financial statements are understated or overstated, it could greatly affect the business. If the information in the business plan is interpreted incorrectly, wrong decisions can be made. The owner can also make unrealistic projections about the financial aspects of the business which can cause further problems. This would greatly affect the future of the business. Since the business plan somewhat includes the mission and vision of the business, it would be a great problem if the business plan fails to make correct projections for the firm. If the business owner is not familiar with making business plans, he may opt to hire a business plan consultant. It is very advantageous actually since they offer quality service and they have been making business plans for many successful businesses. The disadvantage is that the service of these consultants is very expensive. Although they offer good service, it would cost you a lot. The money that can be added to your investment in the business will just go to the payment for the business consultant. If the business owner happens to be saving up for his new venture, he can resort to hiring an inexpensive business consultant which is not always good for the business. Sometimes, inexpensive consultants are not as good as the expensive ones. There are also some which uses software that makes business plans. They will just ask the owner of the business certain questions and then enter the information in the software they use. This will eventually lead to improper analysis of data and information in the business plan which will not do the business any good. Assessment of the Biz Air Plan Just by taking a look at the business plan’s executive summary, we can already have an idea that the financial projections are overstated. With only 6 aircrafts, their projected revenues were  £17.4 million. What I am trying to point out here is that what they are trying to build is an airline company and not just a convenient store or a clothing company. There were statements in the executive summary that seem to understate the losses in the first year. They even projected that there would be a 12% improvement in profits in the company’s second year and a long term 16% of sales in the third, fourth, and fifth year. Aside from wrong financial projections, I find the business plan full of assumptions.   For example, in the part where in they conducted customer analysis, they chose to conduct the study during lunchtime and interviewed people who dress like a business person. In other words, they just assumed that if a person is in corporate attire, he or she could be a potential customer since they assumed that he or she is a businessperson. There is also a part in the paper in which it is stated that â€Å"as long as the flights are not delayed, the post experience evaluation should be favourable.† I find this very assuming because it is not only the delay of the flight that affects on whether the customer will or will not like the new airline company. The satisfaction of the customer does not rest solely on the factor that their flight is on time. Factors such as cleanliness, safety, or the friendliness of the staff also affect the satisfaction of the customer. It is also mentioned in the business plan that through satisfying customers (that is in terms of not delaying their flights), they will serve as salesmen for the airline company who will try to suggest the company’s service to other people. I find this a little idealistic for business does not just go that way. Business does not only succeed through word of mouth. When they said that the customers will serve as the salesmen for the airline company, it gave me the impression that they were already assuming that the delay of the flight solely determines customer satisfaction which would later on result to advertising the company. It is very idealistic since they were sort of assuming that all the satisfied customers will endorse their company. Another thing that I found very disturbing about the paper is its being overconfident about the services it offers. Of course it is very important that you have confidence in the business that you are putting up but not to the point that you will sound boasting about your business that has not even tried by the people. You can see this in the part where in they discuss the advertising of the service. They mentioned that they are just going to advertise through newspapers and billboards near airports. I have nothing against that idea, actually. But you don’t have to say that you do not have to advertise in televisions because you are sure that once the news broke, there would be much television publicity that will come out. I think it will seem very unprofessional for those who will take a look at the business plan. Potential investors will have the impression that they are dealing with unprofessional people. Lastly, there are several faulty analysis and incorrect financial projections which can be the main cause of the failure of the business. Reference: 2004. Creating Your Business Plan. [Online]. Available: http://www.nvbdi.org/howto/biz_plan.php.   [29 July 2007] BELLIS, M. 2007. Creating A Marketing Plan for the Independent Inventor. [Online]. Available: http://inventors.about.com/od/licensingmarketing/a/tutor_marketing.htm. [29 July 2007] 2001. Approaches to Writing A Business Plan. [Online]. Available: http://www.caycon.com/plan_options.php. [28

Aviation System Safety Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Aviation System Safety - Assignment Example In the past we had been getting complaints of malfunctioning air conditioning unit on our Boeing 737 series. Six out of 10 air crafts have such problems much to our ignominy. Because of this problem we have lost many of our frequent flyers. Some of the Pilots have refused to fly the plane. The paucity of apt spare parts simply adds fuel to the fire. But after such a pandemic problem of mal functioning of the A.C units, I along with board members had decided to completely replace the critical components of the A.C units on all our jets. The results of our move were truly remarkable as we no longer faced any problem related to the A.C units. None of our planes after the replacement have been grounded due to inaction of the A.C. later that year we also earned ourselves a reputation of being a five star air line in terms of safety. Today we face stiff competition from all corners. Our rival airlines get the spares from Boeing earlier; our planes are late because of sloth of air traffic controller leading to delayed flights. These problems only compound to further delaying of our flights. Unfortunately we are blamed for it. All our efforts seem to go in vain. The vast majority (80%+) of incidents & accidents are caused by human error. Error is a natural condition of being human! It is a primary function of personal development. We are all error prone, even the most experienced engineers and managers including myself. Management should not be surprised when Human Error occurs! But they should be surprised if systems of work are not robust enough to contain that error.

Critically Eexamine the Importance of Ensuring the Race, Ethnicity, Essay

Critically Eexamine the Importance of Ensuring the Race, Ethnicity, Social Class And Gender of Pupils Are Valued And Supported Within the Education System - Essay Example This project declares that the social class of the students affects performance in terms of the quality of life. If a student has access to the basic needs, health care and social amenities then they are more likely to perform better in school. Research has shown that students who come from low-income households have slower development of academic skills that those coming from higher income households. This is because of the different environments and exposures of these two groups. For example, a child from a well to do family may be more technologically advanced that another from a low-income household. This is because this student is exposed to all the latest gadgets and other devices because the family can be able to afford them. This paper makes a conclusion that tahe one for the under privileged student has to be detailed as the assumption made is there are things that the students has not been able to access and experience because of their social standing. Families that have low income are less likely to provide the necessary materials required in the learning process. In conclusion, all the above areas have to be considered in the formulation of an educational policy to make sure that all that parties involved have adequate representation and no group is left behind in educational progression. Education is a basic human right and the least we can do is to make sure that it is accessible by all and that it is comprehensive enough for all parties involved.