"Once Upon A Time" Directed by JODI GILLUM

Plot
I would completely delete the beginning of the story where the narrator is thinking about how she doesn't want to write a children's story. I would start with the happy family which appear to lead the perfect life. After they are introduced, there would be a scene in which they hear someone screaming outside, and it was their neighbor who had just been stabbed. This would cause their desire for the highest security. I would keep the rest of the story the same for the most part, but illuminate how they neglect their son, while they are supposed to be thinking about his safety. This would show how they are the type of people who do things more for appearance than because they actually want to do it. I would make the grandma appear in the movie, instead of just hearing about her in the movie.

Point of View
I would keep it in the third person point of view, because I want the narration to be stated matter-of-factly. The audience would get their only understanding of them from their dialogue. I would have an omniscient narrator so that the audience would be able to see all of the characters separately. That way, we would be able to see things the son did when his parents weren't paying attention.

Characterization
I would cast Cameron Diaz as the mother, Brad Pitt as the father, Spencer List as the son, and Kirstie Allie as the grandmother. I put a lot of thought into my character choice. Diaz and Pitt would be the ideal family with their darling little son. Doris Roberts would be the witch grandmother with good intentions. They would all have similar attitudes as in the story, but we would be able to see them better because of their individual behaviors. The parents would constantly be worrying about their image, trying to be as up to date as possible. The grandmother would play the same overprotective and overbearing role as Ray's mother in everybody loves Raymond, but when it comes down to it, she is just trying to help. However, the son would show how he was upset by the way his parents neglected him, and would get really excited anytime they would pay attention to him. He would have a dog like in the story, and the dog would be his best friend.


Setting
I would set my film in Miami, because I want the weather to always be nice. They would live in a top scale suburban neighborhood where each house is competing with the next, but all of the neighbors put on nice faces and act like they liked each other. It would take place in the present day so that people can kind of relate.

Theme
The theme of this film would differ from the story. The theme of the story is about the walls we put up in our lives that can keep us isolated from the outside world. In my film, the theme would be that one should focus on the important things of life, instead of getting caught up in superficial things. There is a common theme that I could kind of see: one may miss out on things if they are too focused on one thing.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" MOVIE

Plot
The plot in the story and the movie hardly anything at all in common, except for the fact that he ages backwards in both. The only other comparison I can make is the fact that his father is disgusted by him in the beginning, but in the movie, unlike the story, the father puts him on the stairs of someone's house, which brings the whole new plotline into play. In the movie, the audience gets to know Benjamin better, because we see actual events take place that helped shape his life and make him the man (or baby?) that he turned out to be. Benjamin accepts the fact that he is different, but in the movie, he shows more alarm about what will happen to the people in his life as he grows younger. This difference makes Benjamin more personable; therefore, people can relate to him more. I think the way the movie expands the events in his life makes it more entertaining and enjoyable than the story.

Point of View
Unlike the story, most of the movie is told in first person point of view, although Caroline is reading it from his diary. Since Benjamin is telling the story, we are able to see how he feels during the different points in his life, which allows us to empathize with him. It seems as though he grows weaker with the age reversal, especially at the point where he is no longer able to tell his own story and Queenie has to take over. It shows how he becomes more dependent. I think it would have been quite interesting to hear his feelings as he was about and going through dimensia, because we just saw him get really upset and angry about forgetting things. His incompetence and vulnerability shine through at from this point forward, which make me, for one, feel bad for him. I guess that in "regular" growth, become become more feeble towards the end of their lives as well. I think that hearing the story in the first person point of view makes the story more relatable for people.

Characterization
Once again, there are four main characters, but they are not the same as the story, in exception to Benjamin, of course, and his father. In my opinion, the characters that play the most important roles in his life are Queenie and Daisy. Queenie is Benjamin's mother figure in the movie. Contradicting the story where Benjamin has only a father figure that we hear about, in the movie, we only hear about his mother figure. You can see Benjamin's love and obedience in his relationship with his mother. I think that his relationship with Daisy is the one that is most relatable for the audience. Just like every romantic relationship, theirs is difficult, but in a special way, because they are so far apart in age for the majority of their lives. They have a connection from the beginning, which captures the audience's attention, because it is so peculiar to see a young girl and an old man playing in a tent made up of sheets telling secrets. Benjamin's relationship with his father shows his forgiving side, because when his father reveals to him that he is actually his father, Benjamin surely has the right to be upset, but accepts this trespass made against him. I think the movie makes it easier for us to better understand the characters, just because of the length difference.

Setting
Once again, nothing is the same... about the setting this time. It is set in New Orleans, Louisiana several years after the story. The Civil War was a conflict in the story, while Benjamin is involved in WWII in the movie and the woman that raises him is a black woman. I think that the setting changed to New Orleans to make it more up to date and understandable for people. Also, New Orleans is a crazy place, where something strange like a baby born as an old man seems more likely than in Baltimore, Maryland. At the beginning of the movie, we are shown a clock that is built where the hands go backwards instead of forward like a regular clock. This clock symbolizes the life of Benjamin, and ironically breaks and is taken down right around the time when Benjamin dies.

Theme
The theme of the movie and the story are basically opposites: trying to fit in vs. accepting your differences. From the very beginning of the movie, Queenie knows that Benjamin is different and does not treat him differently than any other person. She raises him knowing that it is okay to be different, so Benjamin accepts it. There is a comparison in a different theme I could make though, nothing lasts forever. In both, the movie and the story, Benjamin is faced with the difficult struggle of realizing that he cannot keep many friends for long, because the age difference separates them. However, in the movie, he is able to stay close with Queenie until she dies, and Daisy until he dies.

"Popular Mechanics" Raymond Carver

The final sentence of the story says that "the issue was decided." Ironically, the issue that is the decided is who gets custody of the baby. In their selfish attempt of taking the baby for themselves, they both take equal part in killing the baby; therefore, nobody gets the baby. It reminds me of the story in the Bible where Solomon tells two women that are fighting over a baby, each saying that he is her own baby, to cut it in half and both take a half. The woman who was really the mother said that the other woman could just have the baby, because she didn't want it to be harmed, which Solomon knew would happen all along. Sadly, in this story, both of the parents were too concerned with their own desires to beat the other that they did not pay attention to the baby, and consequently killed it. It shows that they truly weren't concerned with the child and just wanted to have it so that the other couldn't.

"Your're Ugly, Too" Lorrie Moore

Zoe's many eccentricities cause people think she is strange, such as her students and men she dates. She doesn't seem to care what people think about her when she is doing these odd things, but then she often focuses on her lonelyness. I found it interesting that the only two men that she ever pays attention to were her postman and taxi driver. She tips them and talks to them in a friendly manner. I wonder if it is because she knows that these are just formal relationships and there isn't a chance that they will get together in her mind. I think that is a possiblity because she seems to get nervous when she is with possible candidates for a mate. For example, when she meets Earl, and they are chatting for the first time on the balcony, she imagines their whole life together, which ends in a custody battle for the kids. She makes up things about herself, which is also odd. She is obviously a cinic of love, which is what I think prevents her from falling in love. Her negativity is a great hinderance in her relationships with people in general.

"The Drunkard" Frank O'Connor

This story is ironic in different ways. The reversal of roles between the son and the father is ironic, because usually it is the father that is drunk and making a fool of himself and the son that has to walk him home. Instead, in this occurance, the son is drunk and yelling at the women on the street that are laughing at this amusing sight while the father is just trying to get him home. It is also ironic when the people tell the mother that the father got the son drunk to entertain himself, when really the son ruined his night. But I think the biggest irony of all is how the mother praises the son for getting drunk, because it distracted the father which made it impossible for him to get drunk himself. Usually a mother would scold her son or at least be concerned with the fact that her child got drunk, instead she says that he is his father's guardian angel and God sent him there. I thought it was strange that the biggest concern of the mother was that the father wouldn't go to work the next day so he wouldn't be making money that day when he was out getting drunk and acting foolish while she was at home.

"The Lottery" Shirley Jackson

In this story, we have a third person omniscient narrator. The story is told in the objective point of view where the narrator does not judge, interpret, or attatch any feelings toward events in the story. It is important to have this type of narration for "The Lottery," because the narrator represents the town and they way that they respond to this primitive ritual. They don't question it, but just accept it, because, frankly, that's the way it has always been. I find it odd that not one character seeks morality and tries to stop it, but if one did it would change the whole plot of the story. Back to my point, the narrator's dispassionate, matter-of-fact attitude can be seen throughout the entire story. It particularly stuck out to me when she said, "The children had stones already, and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles." First of all, it is sick and wrong that a young child, too young to even open up his own paper, is given pebbles to stone his own mother to death. Second of all, this displays the normality of the ritual and how even the children are involved.