Person Of The Year

             My candidate for "Person Of The Year" is Christopher Nolan. Paul Thomas Anderson, the Wachowskis, David Fincher, Darren Aronofsky, and other directors who made breakthrough films at the end of the 1990s have managed to win either popular or critical success, and sometimes both. None, though, has had as a meteoric career as Christopher Nolan.His films have earned $3.3 billion at the global box office, and the total is still swelling. On IMDB’s Top 250 list, as populist a measure as we can find, The Dark Knight is ranked number 8 with over 750,000 votes, while Inception, at number 14, earned nearly 600,000. The Dark Knight Rises, on release for less than a month, is already ranked at number 18. Remarkably, many critics have lined up as well, embracing both Nolan’s more offbeat productions, like Memento and The Prestige, and his blockbusters. Nolan is now routinely considered one of the most accomplished living filmmakers.How can a filmmaker innovate? I see four primary ways. First you can innovate by tackling new subject matter. This is a common strategy of documentary cinema, which often shows us a slice of our world we haven’t seen or even known about before from Spellbound to Vernon, Florida.Second, you can also innovate by developing new themes. The 1950s “liberal Westerns” substituted a brotherhood-of-man theme for the Manifest-Destiny theme that had driven earlier Western movies. The subject matter, the conquest of the West by white settlers and a national government, was given a different thematic coloring which of course varied from film to film. Science fiction films were once dominated by conceptions of future technology as sleek and clean, but after Alien, we saw that the future might be just as dilapidated as the present.Third, apart from subject or theme, you can innovate by trying out new formal strategies. This option is evident in fictional narrative cinema, where plot structure or narration can be treated in fresh ways. Many entries on this blog have charted possible formal innovations, such as having a house narrate the story action, or arranging the plot so as to create contradictory chains of events. Documentaries have experimented with a film’s overall form as well, of course, as The Thin Blue Line and Man with a Movie Camera. Stan Brakhage’s creation of “lyrical cinema” would be an example of formal innovation in avant-garde cinema.Finally, you can innovate at the level of style the patterning of film technique, the audiovisual texture of the movie. A clear example would be Godard’s jump cuts in A Bout de souffle, but new techniques of shooting, staging, framing, lighting, color design, and sound work would also count. In Cloverfield and Chronicle, the first-person camera technique is applied, in different ways, to a science-fiction tale. Often, technological changes trigger stylistic innovation, as with the Dolby ATMOS system now encouraging filmmakers to create sound effects that seem to be occurring above our heads.In conclusion Christopher Nolan is an innovate, successful director and deserves to be "Person Of The Year".



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Free Reflection 2 - Media-beauty reflection

             Media effects the concept of beauty considerably. Because media defines

what beauty is or not in the world. We see beautiful models, actresses, singers etc.

everyday. They are gorgeous, desirable, fit and flawless. But in real all of ordinary

people don't look like them. They can be in different sizes, looks and colours, they

can be fatter or not white as these people are, this is normal. But instead of

accepting and loving themselves as they are, people try to fit in that beauty

definition of the media. They pay lots of money, gives a lot of effort, have plastic

surgeries to look like them. With such surgeries they are given chance to have

double eyelid, a fit body with liposuction, bigger breasts, small and lifted nose,

bigger and plumber lips, pushed up butt ect. The real question is "Are these

operations really necessary?". Just in Turkey, every year, around fifty thousand

people have these operations just to look like the people which the media present

us. Most of them do this to be desirable and acceptable. For men see those women

in media and those of whom are operated, their aspect toward women has changed

too. They want more beautiful, well-groomed, good looking women like we see on

TV and films. So that women feel as if they have to be like them. So taking into

account all of these, we can say media has a great impact on the concept of beauty

and we can't say that it is in a good way.

Free Reflection- Film Reflection

                The film called "The Man From Earth" is about the world of a man who was sent over a

mental hospital. This man R.P Mc Murphy attracs attention with his different behaviours and the

dialogues with other patients. In his hospital days, he thinks about escaping from there and he has

many problems with the nurse of the hospital who is Mildred Ratched, because of his tendency to

freedom and relax behaviours in therapies. First, basketball scene affected me a lot . In this part, Mc

Murphy was trying to teach a deaf man, Chief, how to play basketball and put the ball into basket.

After teaching, Mc wanted Chief to do what he shows him to Chief but Chief could only put his arms

up but he didn't try to put the ball into the basket. The most important thing in this scene was the self-

sacrifice, patience and helpfulness of Mc Murphy. He helped Chief to be happy and aware of

succeeding in something. Mc helped Chief who was known a damn man in the hospital and tried to

communicate with him in a way. Secondly, the vote which was made to watch the World Series at

the hospital made me impressed. In this scene we see that Mc Murphy's effort to make an usual

activity there. At least once he wants the people there to feel as if a normal man by watching matches

as any other man in the world. Third, the part which they escaped from hospital and went to fishing

Mc made them feel as a normal person again and made them feel happy and free. We saw that with

such activities those mental patients can feel better and that the real treatment for these people is not

to keep them in hospital as if prisoner, instead, to let them be human and have fun just like any other

people in the world. Fourth, there was a really dramatic scene which a young guy in the prison ,Billy,

kills himself just because he is scared because he is threathened by the nurse, Mildred Ratched, to

say his mother that he slept a woman. Trying to keep authority by frightening and threatening is

never a solution, it just harm people and as we see in this movie this harm become even death. To

conclude, this film is an excellent film which makes you see the life from a completely different

aspect and I definitely recommend everyone to watch this film.

Film Reflection

The film called "The Man From Earth" was directed by Richard Schenman and written by

Jerome Birby in 2007, USA. It's a science-fiction film. David Lee Smith, William Katt and Richard

Riehle take important roles in this film. The film is about mysterious life of a man, John Oldman. A

goodbye party for Proffesor John Olaman becomes a mysterious interrogation after retiring scgolar

reveals to his collegues that he never gets older and has walked the earth for 14.000 years. Firstly,

the scene which John and Sandy were sitting on a carand talking to each other affected me a lot

because Sandy explained her love to John and the answer of John was so emotional. He said : "I will

not get older but you and our children will. I will se your death and I will not be able to anything

only I will watch." These sentences made me feel bad because I felt love between them. The

sutiations that John was an obstacle for them and they wouldn't be able to live together were

dramatic. Secondly, the scene which a gun was turned to John by Fred who was a pyschiatrist made

me excited. Fred's wife was suffering from cancer and Fred was thinking that John was stealing

people's life to live forever so he tried to kill John but couldn't. Another part which made me

suprised was about Buddha. John said that he met Buddha and lived in East for centuries as a student

of Buddha. Although this story was science-fiction the opinion of meeting Buddha was affective.

Fourtly, John explained that the painting of Van Gogh was original and he had a friendship with Van

Gogh. This explanation made me excited because I really love Van Gogh and his paintings. Lastly,

the last part, the end of film, involves a great intelligence and made me suprised. In this part John

said to Fred's lost father and Fred was caught a heart attack and died. This scene was praiseworthy

and couldn't be predicted. Two things I don't like about the film was the lack of proofs and I think

that John shouldn't say that the story wasn true or not it should be mysterious and be left to audience

to believe or not.

Social Networking Sites

Social Networking Sites

According to Jure Klepic  everything that you share, say or involve  in Twitter stays somewhere

that you don't know and they can't be erased. I agree to Jure Klepic about this idea. Whatever we do

in social media websites are far from being temporary. First, because the social media is a field that

everyone can reach, all the things you do can be seen by people you don't even know. They can be

downloaded and stored by anyone else. Even you want to erase what you said or share, they can be

in another website, another social account, another computer or another electronic device. So erasing

something you shared is not only up to you.  Second, even if no one pay attention and store what you

did at the social media, they are stored in internet database automatically. Not only your sharings

which are available for everyone, but also every private message and conversation you have with

your friends, family or anyone are kept by the internet. In conclusion I definitely agree with this

quote of Jure Klepic because of the posibility of which the things you shared can be stored by

someone else and the fact that they are stored by internet automatically. The once you share

something on the internet , it can't be erased as easily as we think so be careful about your sharings

in social fields.


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METU

    The reasons that I choose METU FLE department is actually that I had choosen foreign language section because I was good at English lessons at high school and love English a lot and that I knew that METU is successful in foreign language education compared to any other universities are. I came to Metu just with knowing this but then when I get the campus I saw that METU is not only gives high quality education to the students but also supplies a lot of facilities in the field of entertainment ,sport ,art et cetera... Also it has a huge and gorgeous campus which includes restaurants ,spor complexes, shopping centers and also natural beauty (forests,Lake Eymir). Without going out of campus it is possible to live here because we can find almost anything we need and want. I am really happy to be here and really love METU. I say to myself "Thanks God I am here and I have a chance to spend 5 years in this great place." doubtless.
    My expectations from my department just like any other student's not to be pushed a lot not to be given lots of tasks and not to have absenteeism problem but I know these are just a dream. Beyond these I really want to have a good education about my field I want to improve my English and use it effectively in accordance with my purposes. And I think in education that both of learner's and teacher's being comfortable and happy during lessons is the most important rule otherwise it's impossible to have a feedback. But I don't think that we will have a problem because the teachers whom I met so far were all professional and cheerful.
   Challenges that I think I need to meet my department are especially reading lessons and speaking. I am not good at reading because I have concentration problem and I am a person who can't study even for an hour although I know being successful at reading lessons is hard without making practice. So I will try to do more practice to overcome this issue. And because we are not educated listenig and speaking oriented in our previous schools it is a kind of hard for me to speak English fluently. Thanks to prep school I coped with this problem even if just a tad. I hope I will be successful in overcoming these challenges.
   In 5 years' time, 4 of them I see myself here in university :) In these 4 years and for later I want to learn other languages as far as I can and I want to be a translator after I graduate.
   So these are what means to me to be a university student at METU.
                                                             
                                                                                                                         Ayşe Begüm Çimen