Journal #5: Their Rating

The biggest thing that sports enthusiasts want to know about is the stats.  If they cant analyze and compare players then it isn't as fun.  Most sports this is pretty easy to accomplish.  In baseball you can look at a pitchers ERA or a batters hitting average but what can be done for football?  That is the exact question this article brings up.  They create a way of grading players by what they have done in their first five years in the NFL.  This makes it so that we can see what athletes to that point have had a more successful career.  It is not a for sure way of grading them but it is close enough to a statistical way.  The article also goes into showing the best and worst player at the position over the last decade which is interesting to see.  If you want to see how they calculate this or are just interested in the best and worst players click here to view.

Journal #4: The Social Network

The scene that I have chosen from the movie The Social Network to discuss is when the three Harvard students that originally had the idea to create "Facebook" find out that their idea has been stolen.  Mark who is the main character in the film has taken it and used them for the money in order to get it up and running.  By the time that they figure out he has taken their idea Mark has made Facebook into a growing network for college students.  The scene in discussion specifically is in the Winklevoss' room and they are talking about what kind of actions to take place.  They involve getting a lawyer or hiring someone to kill Mark and his accomplices.  The setting of this room is very dark which makes the mood a little more intense and also gives the effect of how upset they really are at Mark.  The reason that this scene is really important I feel is because this really is the starting point of Mark's problems with Facebook as far as how he "scammed" the Winklevoss twins.  I also feel that the picture at the top of this page really sums up how Mark conducted himself in the movie.  He made himself extremely popular and also rich, but of course it did come with a price.  In the end this scene was a huge turning point in the video.

Journal #3: Movies

The movie National Treasure is truly a great movie that really can work your brain throughout the
movie as well as give you a few laughs here and there.  I am attracted to this movie for a couple of reasons the first being under the formal elements category.  This movie uses different camera positions very heavily in order to get the point across of how you are supposed to see something or interpret it.  A scene that really shows this is when they are using the tower's shadow to point them to the next clue.  There are multiple camera angles that help to show the different perspectives that can be taken from what is said.  Another thing that really catches my attention with this movie is what I would call a Cultural one.  There is not a specific scene but more less the whole movie that requires you to make assumptions of what will happen next.  These kind of movies really make you think and interact with what is going on which iswhy I am particularly fond of them.

Journal #2: The Real Man

The article "The Aging Tiger Woods" by Michael Weinreb is an article about not just Tiger Woods and his struggles over the last couple of years but also how this can relate to other people's lives. He creates a metaphor that the human is both a machine and a man. The man is Tiger himself and the machine is what the press turns him into. He mentions that the affair that Tiger had made people realize that he is still just a human and he is just like the rest of people but he is magnified because he is good at a sport. I really agreed with the way that the author went about describing Tiger's life and how he didn't do any criticizing of what Tiger has done. I also agreed very strongly with the way he made Tiger into just another human instead of putting him up on a pedestal. One thing that I do think Weinreb should have considered is that it is not an extremely common thing for people to have affairs that ruin their marriage. This is a big situation that had to bring Tiger back to a human in people's eyes. Over all this was a very good article and if you think it is one that you would be interested in click here and let me know what your thoughts are on Tiger.