The Shawshank Redemption

During the first two years of his incarceration, Andy works in the prison laundry. He attracts attention from "the Sisters", a group of prisoners who sexually assault other prisoners, and their leader Bogs. Though he persistently resists, Andy is beaten and raped on a regular basis. Later, he overhears Hadley complain about having to pay taxes on a forthcoming inheritance. After explaining a legal loophole to Hadley, Andy is reassigned to assist the prison librarian, elderly inmate Brooks, a pretext to allow Andy to work on financial requests full time. Andy's financial advice is soon sought by other guards at Shawshank and by visiting guards from nearby prisons. Hadley delivers a crippling beating to Bogs, after his gang's brutal assault puts Andy in the infirmary. Andy is left alone by the gang from then on.

Andy helps to expand the prison library by writing weekly letters to the state government for funds. When one donation to the library provides him with a recording of The Marriage of Figaro, he plays an excerpt over the public address system, well aware he will receive solitary confinement for doing so. Warden Norton develops a scheme that uses prison labor for public works, undercutting the cost of skilled labor and receiving kickbacks. Norton has Andy launder the money under the false identity of "Randall Stevens", in exchange for allowing Andy to keep his private cell and to continue maintaining the library. Brooks is freed on parole and moves into a halfway house. Unable to adjust to the outside world, he hangs himself. Andy dedicates the expanded library to him.

In 1965, Tommy joins Andy and Red's circle of friends, and Andy assists him in getting his GED. When he hears the details of Andy's case, Tommy reveals that an inmate at another prison, Elmo Blatch, claimed to have committed a nearly identical murder, suggesting Andy's innocence. Norton, fearing Andy might tell of his corruption if released, refuses to cooperate. After they argue, he throws Andy into solitary confinement for two months. Norton has Hadley kill Tommy, claiming he was attempting an escape. Andy returns to his regular cell block and tells Red of his dream of living in Zihuatanejo, a Mexican Pacific coastal town, and setting up a hotel with boat rides for his customers. While Red shrugs it off as unrealistic, Andy instructs him, should he ever be freed, to visit a specific hayfield near Buxton to retrieve a package.

The next day at roll call, Andy's cell is empty. When Norton, angry at Andy's disappearance, throws one of Andy's rocks at the poster of Raquel Welch, the rock tears through the poster, revealing a tunnel that Andy has dug with the rock hammer over the last two decades. The night before, Andy switches Norton's ledger with his prison-issue Bible. Taking the ledger, his chess set, and one of the warden's suits, he escapes through the tunnel and a narrow sewage drain during a thunderstorm. After escaping, Andy poses as Randall Stevens to withdraw most of the corruption money from several banks, then sends evidence of Norton's corruption and murder of Tommy to a local newspaper. The police arrive at the prison, and Hadley is arrested, but Norton commits suicide to evade arrest.

Red receives parole after serving 40 years and is allocated the apartment where Brooks committed suicide, and works at the same grocery store. Red begins to feel fear of the outside world, just like Brooks. Red remembers Andy's advice and visits Buxton. There, he finds a cache of money and a note left by Andy, telling him to get to Zihuatanejo. Red violates his parole and travels to Fort Hancock, Texas to skip the border to Mexico. The two are happily reunited on the beach to begin a new life.

The good the bad and the ugly

Blondie and Tuco have an agreement to "capture" Tuco and turn him into the authorites for the bounty then shoots the hangman's noose before Tuco dies in the gallows.  Blondie, weary of Tuco's incessant complaints about the dividing of the profits from their scheme, abandons him in the desert, keeping all of the money. A livid Tuco manages to make it to another town and rearm himself with a revolver. Some time later in another town, Tuco enlists three outlaws to come with him to kill Blondie. As the three men break into Blondie's room, Blondie shoots and kills all three of them, but to Blondie's surprise Tuco climbs up through his back window and aims his gun at Blondie and captures him while a skirmish between Union and Confederate troops rages on outside. As Tuco prepares to kill Blondie by fashioning a noose and forcing Blondie to put it around his neck, a cannonball hits the hotel and demolishes the room, allowing Blondie to escape.
Following a relentless search, Tuco captures Blondie using the same scheme with another partner (Tuco doesn't allow Blondie to shoot the rope this time and the unfortunate "Shorty" is hanged) and marches him across the harsh desert. When Blondie finally collapses from dehydration and heatstroke, Tuco prepares to kill him but pauses when a runaway ambulance carriage appears on the horizon heading their way. Inside, while looting the dead soldiers, Tuco discovers a dying Bill Carson, who reveals that $200,000 in stolen Confederate gold is buried in a grave in Sad Hill cemetery but falls unconscious before naming the grave. When Tuco returns with water, he discovers Carson dead and Blondie slumped against the carriage beside Carson's body. Before passing out, Blondie says that Carson told him the name on the grave, so now Tuco and Blondie know half of the secret of the location but neither can get the gold without the help of the other. Tuco takes Blondie (both disguised as Confederate soldiers) to a Catholic mission run by Tuco's older brother Father Pablo. Tuco nurses Blondie back to health, and the two leave, still disguised. They inadvertently encounter a force of Union soldiers (whom they take for Confederates due to thick coatings of grey dust on their uniforms). They are captured and marched to a Union prison camp.
Angel Eyes has Wallace beat and tortured Tuco into revealing Sad Hill Cemetery as the location of the gold, but Tuco also confesses that only Blondie knows the name on the grave. Convinced that Blondie would not be easily broken, Angel Eyes offers to take Tuco's place in the partnership to recover the gold. Blondie agrees and rides out with Angel Eyes and his posse. Meanwhile, Tuco escapes while being transported by train to his execution, killing Corporal Wallace in the process.
We next see Blondie, Angel Eyes and Angel Eyes' gang arriving in a town that's rapidly being evacuated due to heavy artillery fire. Blondie finds Tuco and tells him of Angel Eyes's involvement. The two resume their old partnership, stalking through the wrecked town and killing Angel Eyes' henchmen before discovering that Angel Eyes has escaped and left an insulting note for them.
Tuco and Blondie find their way to Sad Hill Cemetery, but it is blocked by large Union and Confederate forces who are separated only by a narrow bridge. Each side is preparing to fight for it, but apparently both sides have been ordered not to destroy the bridge. Reasoning that if the bridge were destroyed "these idiots would go somewhere else to fight", Blondie and Tuco wire the bridge with dynamite. During the process, the two trade information, Tuco revealing Sad Hill Cemetery as the gold's location and Blondie saying that the name on the grave is Arch Stanton. The two then take cover as the bridge blows up and the two armies resume their battle. The next morning, the Confederate and Union soldiers have gone. Tuco abandons Blondie (who has stopped to tend to a dying young Confederate soldier) to retrieve the gold for himself at the cemetery. Frantically searching the sea of make-shift tombstones and grave markers, Tuco finally locates Arch Stanton's grave. As he digs, Blondie appears (now clad in his trademark poncho) and tosses him a shovel. A second later, the two are surprised by Angel Eyes, who holds them at gunpoint. Blondie kicks open Stanton's grave to reveal just a skeleton. Declaring that only he knows the real name of the grave, Blondie writes it on a rock in the middle of the graveyard and tells Tuco and Angel Eyes that "two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. We're going to have to earn it."
The three then walk in a giant circle and have a standoff in which Angel Eyes dies at Blondie's gunshot. The Tuco and Blondie split the money but Blondie makes Tuco put his head into a noose hanging off a nearby tree and then Blondie rides away and shoots the noose. 

Order of Films

1. V for Vendetta
2. Friday Night Lights
3. Shawshank Redemption
4. The Great Debators
5. The Good the Bad and the Ugly
6. Cinema Paradiso
7. The Graduate
8. Ben Hur
9. Psycho
10. Gone with the Wind
11. The Simpsons Movie
12. Citizen Kane

V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta was directed by James McTeigue and starring Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, and Stephan Rea was about the world as a dystopia in the 2030’s. London is run by a dictatorship and everyone has a curfew. Evey goes out after curfew to visit a male friend and is almost raped by authority figures. A mysterious man known as V comes to Evey’s rescue and kills the three men. He then takes her to see him blow up a building.

London’s dictator tries to explain away the incident as a controlled demolition, claiming the building was no longer structurally sound, but V takes over the state television broadcast the same day, exposing the lie. He urges the people of Britain to rise up against the oppressive government and meet him in one year, on 5 November, outside the Houses of Parliament, which he promises to destroy. Evey helps V to escape, but is knocked out in the process.  V takes Evey to his lair where she is kept for a few weeks before escaping from V during one of his “escapades” in which she agreed to help. Evey is captured again and tortured for days for information about V. She finds solace in notes written by another prisoner, an actress who was arrested for being homosexual. Finally, Evey is told that she will be executed immediately unless she reveals V's location. An exhausted but defiant Evey says she would rather die, and is released. Evey discovers that she has been in V's lair all along, and that her imprisonment was staged to free her from her fears.  The notes were real, but they were passed by Valerie to V years earlier when he was similarly imprisoned. Although Evey initially hates V for what he did to her, she realizes she now feels stronger and free in spirit. She leaves him with a promise to return before the 5th of November.

Evey then helps V to blow up the Houses of Parliament on November 5^th. V dies in the process but now London is back to normal.

I give this movie a 10 out of 10

It was a great movie that made one think about virtue and question their own virtue.

The Great Debaters

The Great Debaters is a drama about a black debate team in the south in 1932. Shot in 2007 by Denzel Washington. Starring Denzel Washington, Denzel Whitaker and Forest Whitaker, based on a true story of a temperamental debate coach who molded the students of a small East Texas college into a formidable team that gave even Harvard's elite squad a run for their money.

Convinced that they could invoke great change if given the confidence and tools needed to do so, Tolson implores his students to take responsibility for the future while furtively attempting to protect them from his clandestine role as an organizer for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Chief among Tolson's promising young students is a 14-year-old prodigy named James Farmer, Jr. (Denzel Whitaker).  James Jr. has seen the raving effects of racism all around him, and longs to live in a future where no one must be in fear simply because of the color of their skin. Other talented debaters on Tolson's team include fiercely independent student Henry Lowe, and Samantha Brooke, the first ever female ever to join the Wiley College debate team. While most educators may not have recognized the remarkable potential of assembling such a disparate team, Tolson's unique vision truly set him apart from the pack as the team begins to experience a series of consecutive victories on their road to challenging Harvard at the National Championships.

Psycho

Psycho is a horror film shot in 1960 by the famous Alfred Hitchcock. Starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins this film grossed over 32 million dollars. The film begins with Marion (Leigh) having a fight with her boyfriend Samand stealing money from her work and leaving with it. She gets a room at a roadside motel ran by Norman Bates (Perkins). Bates seems to live at home with his sick mother who doesn't like other girls recieving any attention from Bates. In her room, Marion resolves to bring back the money and apologize, she goes into the bathroom to take a shower and a shadowy figure sneaks into her room with a butchers knife and stabs her to death.          
Marion's sister notices that Marion is gone and raises it to the attention of the local police. The sheriff goes to Bates' house to investigate and walks up the stairs where a figure that looks like an elderly woman stabs him and he falls down the stairs. Marion's sister Lila and Sam decide to investigate on their own. When they arrive at the Bates Hotel, Sam distracts Norman while Lila walks up to Bates' house, she goes downstairs where she finds the skeleton of Norman's mother. Norman, having overpowered Sam, rushes in with the knife that has already taken two peoples' lives. But before he lunges at Lila, Sam subdues Norman. Noman is arrested and taken to jail.

In his cell, Norman is thinking minacle thoughts to himself as his mother. The movie ends with Norman thinking that he will trick the policemen that he isn't a danger to others and that he won't even hit a fly.
I give this movie a 9 out of 10 (10 being high)

                                                  (Left to Right) Madison, Me, Randy
                                                                      Seniors Baby!

                                                         Mascot of Perham High School

                                              My first car, a 2002 canary yellow Chevy Cavalier
          I'm on top of the car and some of my friends James and Madison are goofing off on the inside

Where I spend most of my time during fall and spring for girls and boys tennis