Dan Duffy
ENG 100 Assignment #3 Film Based Argument In Slumdog Millionaire, screenwriter Simon Beaufoy shares the story of Jamal, a boy who grew up in the slum neighborhoods of India and managed to gain a spot on the gameshow, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Throughout the film, Jamal is shown as a person who must overcome many obstacles to survive, including an experience of torture when we provides the correct answers to too many gameshow questions. The people who host the show are all wondering how in the world a kid from the slums is getting all of these answers correct, so they torture him. Jamal’s torture does not reveal the confession his torturers are seeking because Jamal is telling the truth. Torture has been a controversial topic across the world and in America in particular. Jamal is about to win millions of dollars, but throughout the entire gameshow he hardly smiles. Wealth isn’t what brings Jamal happiness, but it’s what brings Salim happiness and that’s how the two brothers are completely different people. Jamal and Salim both lose their mother at a young age and have to go live on their own, only with each other. Salim is the older brother and Jamal always listens to him and follows him. Even at such a young age you could tell that wealth brought Salim happiness, but for Jamal not so much. Early on you can tell that the two brothers both have their own unique style to themselves. Salim is always looking for some way to provide money for the two so they can survive since they lost their mother. When Latika comes along Salim doesn’t bother to really care for her, but Jamal on the other hand just found his best friend, and the third person they needed to become the Three Musketeers. Once they get picked up by the group of men that turn kids into slaves, they can tell that Salim is a tough kid and they have him in charge of certain things. When the leader has Jamal to come sing for him, Salim saves his life and they escape, but Latika doesn’t make it because she let go of Jamal’s hand. Salim keeps telling Jamal throughout the film to just forget about her because she doesn’t bring him happiness, but she’s the only thing on Jamal’s mind. After they start ripping people off at the Taj Mahal, Jamal wants to get a regular job so he can find the love of his life, Latika. One day, Jamal runs into a blind boy singing and the boy recognizes Jamal by touching and feeling him and tells Jamal where Latika is after being given a crisp $100 bill. Salim still doesn’t care to finding her and still is telling Jamal to give up on her, but he doesn’t know that Latika is what brings Jamal true happiness, not just money as it does for Salim. Once they get to where Latika is being held, they get caught by Mamahan and Salim shoots him dead and they get away with Latika and the money. Jamal is finally happy to be reunited with her, but Salim has other plans. After going to the gangster that wanted Mamahan dead, Salim is given a job to work for him in the crime business and is about to start making serious money, and that is all he cares for. He puts a gun to Jamal’s head and kicks him out of the hotel room so Salim can do whatever he wants with Latika. It’s now clear that Salim doesn’t care about anything other then crime and money, which is what brings him happiness. Jamal can’t do anything about it and again he loses the one thing that truly brings him happiness. After years of not seeing each other, Jamal finds Salim and goes to him and the first thing he asks is where Latika is and he can’t believe that Jamal is still so hung up on her and says she’s gone, but that doesn’t stop Jamal from doing anything he can to find her. Throughout the film the only thing Jamal truly cares about is Latika, he doesn’t even recognize his own brother because all Salim cares about is getting rich and being able to do whatever he wants. In the end of the movie Salim finally realizes that Latika is what will bring his brother happiness as they sit and watch him on the show, so while the boss is out of the room he gives Latika his car keys and slips her out the back door. I think in that moment when he lets her go and then locks himself in the bathroom with all of the money with a gun waiting for the boss and all his troops to come in and kill him, he realizes that all along wealth isn’t the one thing that will bring him happiness. When Jamal uses his lifeline on the last question and Latika answers a huge smile erupts on his face, and at that point he doesn’t care if he gets the last question right or wrong because wealth isn’t what will bring him happiness, but Latika, who he’s been searching for the entire movie will because he never stopped loving her.
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Slumdog Millionaire had a very unique story to it. It started in Mumbai 2006 when Jamal and Salim were still children. They watched their own mother die right in front of them, and from then on they knew they only had each other. One night it was rainy they were sleeping under some shelter when Latika arrived and Salim didn't want to let her in, but Jamal had a heart and let her in and that's when they became the Three Musketeers. After that they are on their own trying to find food; anything. Then comes along a nice man at the time posing as orphanage people, but in reality they were turning kids into slaves basically. They have little kids sing for their master and Salim watches them take chloroform to his eyes and takes them out. Next up is Jamal to sing. They start having Jamal sing for the master and Salim knowing what they will do to them saves his life and they escape, as they are escaping Latika has Jamal's hand and lets go and stays behind. The only thing Jamal is thinking about during this entire film is finding their third musketeer; Latika. After they get away Salim and Jamal start stealing food and selling it to make money to live off of, but in one encounter they are caught and fall off the train at the Taj Mahal. They start ripping people off pretending they are tour guiders getting paid good money. After that they sneak into an orchestra and steal wallets and purses from under the bleachers. After that Jamal realizes he just wants a normal life and gets a regular job, but his main focus is still finding Latika. While Jamal is walking the roads he runs into one of the children that have gotten their eyes taken out and he gives the kid $100 to find out Latika's location. Salim and Jamal go to save Latika and run into the people that kidnapped them and tried making them into children slaves. Salim pulls out a gun and kills him. After that Salim becomes a gangster because he goes to the guy that wanted that master dead. Latika says to Jamal "its their destiny to be together". Then all of a sudden Salim comes in puts a gun to Jamal's head and kicks him out of the room to have sex with Latika and to bring her into the sex trade with his new boss, but Jamal is still determined to find her. Jamal goes on the show Who Wants to be a Millionaire and he starts getting all the questions right from having flashbacks from when he was in the slums and gets all the answers right and they think he is cheating. They try torturing him in every single way possible, but Jamal can't lie he tells them "I just know the answers" and they don't believe him. They let him continue on the show and he gets every question right, the host even tried tricking him by writing the answer on the mirror but he went with the other answer and is correct. Salim is working for his boss still and the boss leaves the room and he lets Latika leave and take his car and phone so she can try being with Jamal even though it means that he is taking his own life in order to do so. Latika gets to go watch Jamal answer the last question and he asks to use his life line and just as their about to hangup the phone, Latika answers and you can tell just by the look on Jamal's face that he is filled with happiness because he knows Latika got away. At that point Jamal could care less if he wins the money or not because this entire movie he has just been chasing the love of his life; Latika and he knows he finally has her. Jamal ends up winning the show and then after that he goes to the station he told Latika he would wait for her everyday at 5 and she is there. Jamal finally gets the thing he has been chasing the entire movie; love with Latika.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010048/ For my movie I chose the movie Jamesy Boy which is on netflix. This movie is inspirational and teaches you a lot of life lessons. James starts off as a troubled kid that can't get into any schools because he's on house arrest and because everyone knows about who he is; just a bad kid. James meets Crystal and Drew after they rob a convience store, and after that he cuts off his house arrest band and goes on his own with Crystal and Drew to meet the guy they do runs for which his name is Roc. Roc is the kingpin you can call him. James starts working for him doing runs for him and becomes really close to Roc. He starts becoming Roc's second hand man doing all types of drug runs for him stuff he thinks he wants at the time, but in the long run he really doesnt want. Crystal the girl he thought loved him who really didn't love him turns her back on him because he wants to live a normal life with the girl he met that is a cashier at the convience store named Sarah who he is actually in love with.Then he goes to do a run for Roc and screws up and takes all these guns and tries to go sell them and then its a set up and he ends up getting caught and sent to jail. While in jail there's a asian gang that is trying to kill him and he gets in a fight with them to protect a new white kid that just got to prison. They go in the shower trying to stab James but the new kid ends up getting stabbed. James ends up going to the hole and meets a guy down there that gives him real life lessons and it really gets to James and he starts re-evaluating his life. After being in there for such a long time and after watching the white kid he was trying to protect hang himself James wants to turn his life around. Crystal wrote a 12 page statement blaming it all on him so she saves her own ass. James really develops as a person in there and changes and wants to be the man he always wanted to be. His parole hearing comes up and his mother wants him out so badly and when the parole hearing comes around he talks to them and convinces them that he is a changed man and wants to do better with his life and is released. Once released his old "homeboys" try getting him to get back into the game but he doesn't want it he wants to live a straight edge life. At the end he meets Sarah and finds out she's engaged and he reads her a poem about her and then after that he moves to NYC the place he's wanted to live his entire life and he gets a normal job and finds writing poetry a really good coping skill for him and he uses it to keep a straight edge life. This is all based on a true story. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1673734/
We could ask: 1. What made James make the decision to want to be apart of the drug game? 2. What different emotions does James experience while he's locked up? 3. What are the main influences that made James want to become the person he is today? To write my academic mindset project I worked with my older brother and his girlfriend. They are both in college and were able to give me good suggestions on how I could get out of the high school mindset of not doing much to get by. Seeing them have goals for their classes and their kids helped me realize that there is more to life than going out all the time and that I want better for myself in the long run. It was a really good choice to work with them and bounce ideas back and forth because they are always showing me that you have to push yourself harder than what you think you are capable of if you want more in life. I watch them go to work and take care of my nieces every day no matter how tired they are or how much they have on their plate and I saw that if they can do it then I really have no excuse to be a better student than I am right now. While writing my project I saw that both of them were attending classes and doing homework all while taking care of two young girls and it put into perspective for me that I know I can do it. I wrote most of my project at home but next time I do a project I will do most of it at school because it can get crazy at home with my nieces there. I chose to write about my topic because the more I make myself aware of how I need to improve the easier it is to remind myself of how I need to keep going and force myself to be a better student if I want to move forward with my degree.
For my next writing process I am going to make a list of all of my points that I want to make in paper so that way when I go to write the paper I have a list of what I want to write about. My brother taught me that if I do this then it will be easier to build my paper and then I can take the points that I wrote down and branch off of those ideas to make the paper more full and it will lead to a better grade because there will be more content. I think this idea is where I can make the most improvement because with other assignments I would just start writing and would start talking about things that didn’t have to do with the assignment because I would lose track of my topic and it would make me lose focus of the whole point of the paper. Self efficacy is described as someone’s ability to succeed in life and their drive to keep going when things aren’t going their way. This has always been a huge struggle for me especially when it came to schoolwork and staying focused on my classes. Growing up with five other siblings, I was never the smartest, quickest, or the one with the most motivation. For the most part I was content with just getting by in my classes because that was all that I really needed to do in order to play baseball, which was all that I really cared about. When I got injured during a game and couldn’t play as much as I used to, my drive to do well in school and my self-esteem was non-existent. By the time senior year rolled around, all of my friends were talking about where they were going to college and I knew that I was meant for more than just slugging myself around from class to class. I started looking into different careers and even though I’m not sure what I want to do yet, I knew that I could do better for myself and be a better student once I got to college. While my friends all went away to West Chester University and seemed to be partying all the time, I quickly learned that there was no way I could keep up in college if I did that and to keep myself on track I would write what I wanted to accomplish that week in the notes application on my phone. I try to make small goals for myself so that way I don’t get too overwhelmed because that usually leads to me backing out of all of my responsibilities. One thing that I’m trying to keep up with my self efficacy is getting to campus a little early so that I can start being in class on time and not come a half hour late. Another thing that I’ve been doing to motivate me to get my work done is that I set aside a block of time on Fridays to try getting all of my blogs done or get caught up on work that I’m behind on so I can reward myself by hanging out with friends that weekend. Even though I have a long way to go with my grades, I am improving my self efficacy and the way I view myself as a college student.
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