GLADIATOR MOVIE The movie is quite daring in its own way: it is a spectacle set in Ancient Rome in 180 AD,

a time when humans (being the inane creatures they are) more openly compensated for their inadequacies by watching other humans kill each other brutally. A time when tyrant emperors ruled and few would dare challenge them. The film is about one such person, Maximus (Russell Crowe), a General from Spain who fought and bled for Rome with much passion but is now a slave as a reward for his patriotism. This is a film that has been done several times and belongs to a kind, in my mind, that is fairly easy to do successfully. Everyone loves to watch the downtrodden good guy kick the smug and powerful bad guy's arse against all odds. The story begins with an opening scene that reminded me of the one in Saving Private Ryan. As I mentioned before, I am desensitised to watching fictional violence (yet completely sensitive to any real-world account) and was bored with the initial scene in Saving Private Ryan. While I experienced the same boredom here to a degree, the reason Gladiator succeeds where the other movie fails is that it provides an ulterior motivation for the battle. In the first ten minutes, we see how Maximus holds himself, how the ruling Caesar, Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris), views him, and how it illustrates the cowardice of Caesar's son, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). (Not to mention some amazingly violent and destructive scenes that puts the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan to shame, and all director Ridley Scott has at his disposal is "primitive" weaponry.) The Emperor is so pleased that he decides to crown Maximus the next Caesar. Commodus does not take this news kindly and orchestrates events such that in a short order, Maximus' wife and son are killed brutally and Maximus himself is broken and shackled as a slave. He is bought by Proximo (the late Oliver Reed who died about a year ago) and trained to fight as a gladiator. Slowly, Maximus uses his warring skills to win the popularity of those who come to cheer for his death, until he gains an appearance in the Colosseum before Commodus who has made himself the new Caesar. Instead of having Maximus killed off right away, Commodus slowly lets him woo the crowd of Rome as well, until the final battle between them. In the end, Maximus triumphs against unsurmountable odds, aided in part by Commodus' sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and the Roman Senator Gracchus (Derek Jacobi).

The set design and the film making are extravagant. The spectacles being staged, from the initial opening sequence to the gladiator fights, are grandiose. Scott, who gave us Alien and Blade Runner, has created a Rome that is to be marvelled at. The story itself is okay, but I had a hard time with most of the characters who simply seemed to be tacked on at the last minute to fill up an expansive set. There's nothing wrong with this (in fact, I almost prefer it given the black-andwhite story line), but one should keep in mind that in Gladiator, the spectacle is more important the characters (which is ironic given how Maximus rises to fame). The acting is generally very good, with Crowe doing an excellent job. A while ago, in my review Go, I was pondering the question of who would take over for the great action actors like Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. Crowe is definitely a strong contender. Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, and Richard Harris present solid performances. I was terribly unimpressed with Joaquin Phoenix's performance as a whiny Emperor. Truth be told, Gladiator is not my kind of a film, the primary reason being that I didn't derive very much (pseudo) intellectual value from it (and I generally do in the dumbest of movies). I still recommend checking it out on the big screen, for the dazzling epic that it is.

SOCIAl NETWORK MOVIE Nowadays, communication has become very profound and widespread through all our technological advances. It changes every second, yet people demand more from it. People thrive to communicate and express who they are. If in the old times, it was too difficulty or too hefty of a work, today, it has become easier and faster, not to mention, more accessible through the World Wide Web. The video mentioned about some of the leading companies like YouTube, Facebook, Digg, Flickr and myspace who turned the web into a two-way participatory democratic medium, controlled by no one and shaped by everyone. In other words, OUR medium. These companies made a revolutionary step to transform the Internet, from merely sharing information to transcending this function and connecting individuals or connecting individuals to information, as what Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO of YouTube said. This new wave of internet services made media possible and more accessible to EVERYONE, unlike in the old times when the traditional media company controls the gates of distribution. They gave everyone an opportunity to be heard and be exposed to the whole community, a community that extends to other parts of the world and surpasses geographical limitations. It made me realize that everyone wants to be heard. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook added that the social networking site that he developed is trying to map out all of these relationships that people have, trying to create an ultimate relationship engine; a clear statement that people wants to tie relationships even in the cyberspace. The web has become a two-way medium, where we are able to get information and respond to that information. The descendants of these websites (mp3, panic software, Winamp, napster) gave way to this radical change, especially Shawn Fannings Napster which revolutionized media distribution where it allowed a peer-to-peer system of networking and file sharing and distribution. Napster, in his time, had become so powerful that many companies have become threatened of the huge advances and opportunities it can make. I understand that Napster was bypassing the Copyrights law but I was a bit disappointed at how other people were not willing to accept that change. Maybe, they fear that they will be drowned by this new progress in file sharing and distribution. Or, maybe they are just too greedy that they do not want (by that time) to take part at an

experimental innovation and gamble their profits. They were not able to see the opportunity for the fear of being engulfed by this web transformation. Either way, Napster paved the foundation of creating new ideas on file sharing and distribution, as evidenced by the Apple creating iTunes and followed by other more. Maybe we havent noticed the impact of this event, not until now, when even I, as a consumer, crave for news, connection, file sharing, and liberty. Meeting us halfway through these new technological settings may have been impossible until the genuine web communities fed us with this need. They were able to turn their consumers or audience from passive recipients to active and engaged participants. It allows us to puts fantastic power on our hands, being able to set communication freely through the web. I believe everyone has a desire of grasping control over something, and the Web2.0 was able to give us that opportunity, where everyone can be an author of an article you see on the web or a director of a movie they posted in the web. With communication gone wild and file sharing and distribution going in haywire or should I say, expanding to a speed not accurately measurable in seconds, its alarming to think that these could completely take over our lives. Perhaps the real issue here is the free access, or drop the word access and take alone the word free and equate it to freedom. As the notion says, Total freedom is scary. This revolutionary change is like a blank piece of paper where the creator may do whatever he wants. And yes, this is just the start. Though these developers were trying to create limitations, people would want more and they would want to surpass these limitations. Its like playing God in the cyberspace. This new media surpasses control, which, if left unattended, becomes destructive of itself. For all we know, the internet provides us with much use and entertainment. But today, the internet not only provides us with these functions. It has more to offer, and yet, more to come in the coming years, or should I say, it changes now, as I am finishing this reaction paper. And John Helleman (host of the video) was right. We dont know how far the hell the internet would go. Well just have to wait and see.

21 MOVIE 21 is the fact-based story about six MIT students who were trained to become experts in card counting and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings. It is definitely the major film for the spring time, it has young hot actors, including an incredible academy award winner, Kevin Spacey, and another great actor who's head looks like it grew quite a bit bigger, Lawarence Fishburne. So it has all the key ingredients for a good movie, a decent plot, over all a good combination of actors, and looks like a well put together movie. So I saw it this weekend and I have to say that I was a little disappointed, I think this movie was more for the teenagers, with the actors and the rating, I think it should've been more adult. It was a typical rise and fall story with clich'd characters. Kevin Spacey, seriously my favorite actor, he's always a dead on hit with every role he takes on, but he seemed to just sleep his way through the film and didn't really care about it. He and new and hot up-comer, Jim Sturgess were not a bad couple on screen, but were not strong enough to hold the story into something original.

Basically we have Ben Campbell who needs $300,000 for Harvard Med. School, he's extremely gifted with numbers, so when his professor, Micky Rosa notices his gifts, he invites Ben with a group of his other students to go to Vegas and play 21. But there is a way to beat the game apparently, by counting cards. Ben promises up and down that it is just for school, but of course when he gets so hot, he takes it way further and ends up making a huge mistake and gets caught with some nasty security guards you don't wanna mess with. Now 21 has decent enough acting, the movie itself is decent, I didn't mind at all watching it. For the most part, it's the young group of students that keep the movie interesting and keeps your attention. My main problems are for example about the characters Ben and Jill hooking up, I seriously doubt that would happen for real, but for the movie, they want these two hotties to get together at least for the teenage audience's sake. Also supposedly the group says they have to stay on the down low in Vegas so they don't get caught, yet they go around Vegas buying all these new clothes, clubbing, drinking, etc. 21 is worth the watch, but to be honest, if you're reading this, wait for the rental, it's just a regular rise and fall story

AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH DEATH PENALTY

The death penalty, also referred to as capital punishment, has been abolished in Canada since 1976, but still exist in a few American States. The last execution in Canada took place in 1962. I disagree with the death penalty for several reasons. My first reason is that I find it extremely inhumane to take someone's life in order to demonstrate the power of the law. Another reason for my disapproval of the death penalty, is the amount of money that it takes to put someone to death, as it would cost the same to keep an inmate in jail for life, as it would to put that same inmate to death. My third and final reason, is the guilty conscience that is placed on everyone involved: the jury who convicted the accused to death; the witnesses to the execution; and the jail warden who must give out the execution; and the person who pulls the switch or induces the poison. Early societies were based on a simple code of law: "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". Today, now that our society has become more advanced, we do not function by this ancient code of punishment. For example, we do not rape the rapist's daughter; we do not kidnap the

kidnapper's children; but if the death penalty were permitted, we would " kill the killer". So why, as educated citizens, would we want to lower ourselves to this level? Do we feel that we need to show the power of the police force by killing the killers? The death penalty is extremely barbaric and is often botched in order to let the accused suffer for several minutes. Society by now must realize that two wrongs certainly do not make a right. You do not show society anything, by killing the killers, except your ignorance for human life and well being. Some thought has been that if you do "kill the killer", it will determine others from committing such a terrible crime. However, murder rates in Canada for instance, have remained the same and there is no significant difference when comparisons are to be considered. Therefore, i recommend countries which are practising death penalty should think twice before undergoing death penalty as one the country punishment for people who deserve it. For my own personal pooint of view I totally disagree wit death penalty.

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