Movie Review of The Stepford Wives

Joanna Eberhart, a successful president of a TV station, is trapped by her own creation, several ultra feministic programs. Fired and frustrated, she, together with her family, moves to a town, called Stepford, where she puts her effort to adapt to and to make up her defects in order to save her marriage. However, as time goes by, she discovers that the entire women in the town are behaving weirdly, and she will be “perfected” into that form, too. After destroying the horrible scheme of changing all the women and men into robots by a foremost brain surgeon and gene engineer, Joanna, finally, gets the point that “perfect doesn’t work” and retrieves her marriage.

“I can do better.” When such words shouted out from an intelligent and talented woman, Joanna, somewhat a perfect leader at her work area, I can figure out that she is a super feminist without needing the slightest effort. She is a workaholic who focuses too much on her career, while cares little about her family and marriage. When at the lowest point of her career, she comes to understand the importance of family and love. At Stepford, her bravery and smartness impress me very much, which should be one factor of the victory that she and her husband unfold the secret of Stepford and destroy the scheme. Moreover, it’s also her personality that brings her back to her position and behaving herself in the end.

There is one scene I remember pretty clear. When having done something shouldn’t, Joanna isn’t supposed to stay at the TV station any longer. A series of her odd and unnatural expressions reflect what is going on in her mind when gets the news from her boss that she is fired. First she tries to understand what the boss is saying, then feels unbelievable when gets the boss’s idea, finally forces herself to be magnanimous and take it well like nothing has happened. Out of the office, she seems to be the last one in the station to know that she is out. At this moment she is still behaving and acting normally. However, the desperate roar in the elevator gives away all her pretence-she can’t tolerate it at all.

At the beginning of the movie, Joanna, a legend in the television industry, is brilliant and to some extent extreme. Contrastingly, in the end, she is still a success in her career, while much humbler and plainer. She suffers a lot when she is at Stepford, yet she learns a great deal there. In my opinion, people can realize what aspect of their deed is undesirable and they can change it into a desirable way. Every single person can make a difference if only he or she learns from the experiences and puts an effort. At times the consciousness may come in a bitter way that only if one suffers from it, he or she can wake up and get the point. However, in most of these cases people can think deeper and change completer.

One more thing I should point out is that never do things without measure. The TV programs created by Joanna are obviously over and egregious. Therefore most people certainly can’t bear it and will never touch it. Moreover, such extreme actions and views can surely offend someone, who will stand out and do something to stop it. In the movie, Joanna is kicked out by the sharers, who even do this on the single and simple purpose of self-protection, because they have already got the point that what she does is quite feverish and rather dangerous. So please think it again before setting about doing something. This deed is always better than taking some actions first and then patching up the holes and defects.

Conflicts in a Team

Conflicts often arise between individuals and organizations they belong to. What are some common causes of such conflicts and how might these be managed? Use one specific organization for illustration.

Working in a team can provide lots of opportunities to improve a variety of skills, including interpersonal skills, stress management, problem solving and so on. However, working with other people can also be a great challenge. Conflicts may arise between individuals, resulting in some serious problems.
First of all, some communication problems may exist among team members. Conflicts arise when team members cannot speak in the same languages. For instance, a person whose mother tongue is French may have difficulties in communicating with British or American people, because his English is not fluent enough or he totally does not understand English. Secondly, different personality types are another common cause of the conflicts in a team. Conflicts may arise when two people who have strong personalities cannot get on well with each other or are not comfortable with the way that the other one makes job done. This situation frequently takes place when two high D persons cannot work well with each other. (“DISC assessment”, Wikipedia) Without effective communication, everything gets stuck or at least slowed down.
In order to settle these problems, emotional intelligence plays an important role. By emotional intelligence, every member of the team will adjust themselves to better adapt to the team environment. For instance, if the environment requires that every member should be calm, rational and cooperative, emotional intelligence will help and drive them to behave as what they are supposed to. Also, by taking advantage of some team activities, for example, playing basketball, attending a party or having a picnic, members can enhance the bonding of the team and know each other better among themselves. To a large extent, through those activities, they can eliminate or at lease minimize the obstacles in their communication. They will know the background and personality type of others. Thus, they will develop a common and effective way to communicate with each other. Team membership is just like friendship, which is built on numerous time and activities together. Besides, the deeper they know each other, the easier they will get job done together.
To conclude, conflicts often arise between individuals in a team; however, emotion intelligence can help us to manage better so as to avoid those conflicts.

Movie Review-----The War of the Worlds

No one would have believed in the early years of the twenty first century that our world was being watched by intelligences greater than our own (clever than us??), which observed and studied our human beings. However, one day, the aliens invade the Earth by burying and waking up some tripod machines containing their soldiers, who control some far more advanced weapons based on a superior technology. Driven by this condition, an unsuccessful father, Ray, takes his two children to escape from the fatal disaster. In the end, Ray is able to survive from the extermination, which is defeated by the germs, slightest and trifling life-form on this planet. Besides, he wins back the firm family relationship.

In the movie, the main character, Ray, is introduced to us as a divorced father, who takes care of two children. The relationship between them is unpleasant initially, but he is trying his best to become a good father. He is quick-reacted that when aliens start to invade the Earth and kill people madly, he gets a truck and starts to escape together with his children. He is also brave and responsible that when heading to Boston in order to meet his ex-wife there, he takes as good care as he can of his children. Finally, he is smart. It is him who discovers the weakness of the machines and saves lot of people’s lives in an indirect way.

From the movie, the aliens are high evolved living creatures, who master highly developed technologies and incomparably advanced weapons. To human beings, the aliens are unbeatable. To the aggression, that humankind pulls out all stops to counterattack and beat back is like kicking against the pricks, useless at all. However, the aliens are completely routed by the germs in the end. The germs come to be the heroes. Compared with some life-forms, people tend to ignore the slight objects, say germs. However, the unexpected result of the story reminds me of the importance of the germs that they do a lot of good to us human beings; for example, Escherichia coli help us to digest vegetables. There is also a lesson for us to learn is that no matter how tiny or insignificant one thing may be, it can turn out to make a big difference.

One scene in the movie impresses me very much. Ray finds that Harlan Ogilvy, the ambulance driver, is completely desperate and acts in crazy way, somewhat a potential threat to all of them. In order to protect himself, and his daughter, especially, he kills Harlan without better choices. Under such extremely high stress, Ray takes it much better than Harlan, who cannot bear it and behaves in an insane way. To some extent, I believe that Ray kills Harlan because of his rational view that sacrificing Harlan can save him and his daughter both. On the other hand, I also hold the view that it is a little bit selfish for Ray to act in that way - however, it is a living life.

In comparison, the movie is much better than the story I have read, the simplified edition, which shrinks too many details and descriptions, making it appear pale and much too plain to read. The setting of the movie is the contemporary US, which I am far more familiar with than the one of England, some 200 years ago. The plot is more complicated and moving. Thanks to the narrator’s words both in the beginning and the end, it comes pretty clear about the theme of the movie. However, the movie still does not get a better ending of the story, which comes in a sudden and curtness. Even though, the movie is worth watching, especially for the ones who have not read the original version of the story.

http://www.waroftheworlds.com/

Self-control

Self-control is a very important trait for a fulfilling life. According to Wikipedia, self- control is described as the exertion of one’s own will on their personal self – their behaviors, actions and thought processes. All so often, people find that they are in the situation where a number of things will stimulate them to do something that may be inappropriate or undesirable. If they really take actions without considering it properly, the consequences might be very serious. An old Chinese proverb says: Impulsion is the devil. It blinds one’s mind and consciousness, and releases people’s emotions too wildly, letting it flood all over. However, self-control can help to let people calm down, stay patient and think again. Self-control works like a cushion or spring, letting strong emotions better settle down. It earns sufficient time for people to reconsider the situation before any actions are taken. Furthermore, self-control is based on self-awareness and self-acknowledgment, thus it lets people have a better idea about what they want and in what ways they can achieve their goals. Since self-control helps people to know their emotions and how to handle strong emotions, it is of great importance in a fulfilling life.

Meaning of Life

Meaning of life, this is huge. To tell the truth, I have seldom considered about this kind of question in all my life. However, as a matter of fact, I have read a lot of articles about the meaning of life. For example, some people say that the meaning of life is to push yourself to the limit and achieve the greatest goal; that to devote all your life and contribute all you have to make society and the world more harmonic and peaceful; that to come up with the most sophisticated idea or theory to explain all the mysteries around the universe; and that just simply to serve your family, being a respectful wife or husband. Nevertheless, none of these is the one that I am thinking of; they are not yet. I am still young; my perspective will change as my experience grows. Right now, the meaning of my life is to live it alive. Life never tells about tomorrow, we all know that. We can’t see or predict what will happen next. There is too much we don’t know or know about. Uncertainty is alike the shadow, following us all along. Since we are totally blind about the future, why don’t we appreciate what we have right now? If the destiny about people’s life is true, then there is far less what we can do about it, for our fates are already fixed. So don’t look far away into the future, take a look around you. So many things we can do now to make our life colorful. Do whatever we enjoy or entertain us, and do to make full of ourselves. Perhaps there might be a small voice coming from somewhere, saying that this is not responsible for our future; we are too addicted to the current situation. Ignore this; we don’t have to care about it. I am not doing any free-will thing; I just seize every opportunity to live my life alive. Besides, future is the foregoing way of where I am standing now. I am not stepping still; I am stepping forward. Living my life alive, I am making my steps light and joyful.