Jamie Lammers
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The Importance of Likable Characters: Bohemian Rhapsody vs. Rocketman
This article was originally published to the movie reviewing app Stardust. Now that the app is officially shutting down, I figured it was time to move the articles I wrote for them onto this page. Here is the first of four of my articles for Stardust.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
How The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Demonstrates Mrs. Maisel is Truly Hilarious
This article was originally published in the summer of 2019 to the movie reviewing app Stardust. Now that the app is officially shutting down, I figured it was time to move the articles I wrote for them onto this page. Here is the third of the four articles I wrote for them.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
Doc Martin Has Gone Downhill. Here's Why.
This article was originally published in the summer of 2019 to the movie reviewing app Stardust. Now that the app is officially shutting down, I figured it was time to move the articles I wrote for them onto this page. Here is the final of the four articles I wrote for them.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
Armed Robbery
God, please don't shoot. Please, please, please don't shoot. That's the only thought running through my mind as I feel the cold barrel of the pistol against my temple. I can't help but try to look out of the corner of my eye to see the expression of my aggressor, turning my head as much as I can to actually see him. The veins of the grey-hooded figure are popping out of his neck, his forehead is covered in sweat, his teeth are bared. Neither of us is moving a muscle, just breathing in and out heavily as we absorb the gravity of this situation.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Criminal
How A Fertilizer Salesman Created One Of The Worst Movies of All Time... And How It Found An Audience
Harold P. Warren had no experience making films. He was a salesman of fertilizer and insurance, and he’d never so much as created an outline for a film script before. He’d written some books and plays, but he’d never attempted to shoot a feature film. His friend, Stirling Silliphant, however, had actual script-writing experience. He has writing or co-writing credits on dozens of films, including The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and In The Heat of the Night. In fact, In The Heat of the Night won him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He also worked on various TV programs, including the hit show Route 66, where he met Warren as he was scouting locations for an episode.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in FYI
How The Work, and Thus The Legacy, of Kathleen Collins Resurfaced
One afternoon in 2013, Dennis Doros received a call. The call was from a young woman wanting to pitch a movie of her mother’s to Milestone Films. Dennis, along with Amy Heller, co-founded the distribution company in 1990 and became world-renowned for their efforts. At first, the call didn’t particularly excite Dennis. However, as the woman explained what the film was, he realized they had just found the cinematic equivalent of gold.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in FYI
The History of the Oreo
In 1882, entrepreneur Jacob Loose bought a company that would eventually be known as Sunshine Biscuits. The company specialized in biscuits and candies and in 1908, it released a biscuit sandwich called Hydrox. The name was intended to remind consumers of hydrogen and oxygen and to be reminiscent of the sunlight of its company’s name. While the floral design of the cookie was revolutionary for its time, the name, unfortunately, reminded people of hydrogen peroxide instead of hydrogen and oxygen. It didn’t help that the coincidentally-named Hydrox Chemical Company, which sold hydrogen peroxide, was caught in a lawsuit because the term “hydrox” was used for coolers, sodas, and even ice cream brands. Meanwhile, in 1898, several baking companies merged to form the National Biscuit Company, which would later come to be known as simply Nabisco. In 1912, four years after the original Hydrox was released, Nabisco debuted their version of the Hydrox, which they named the Oreo. Food scientist Sam Porcello, an employee at Nabisco, developed the chocolate-covered and the white-chocolate covered Oreo, along with inventing the “stuf” in the Double-Stuf Oreo. In fact, he held five patents related to Oreos before his death in 2012 at the age of 76 and was so involved in the development of the cookie that people gave him the moniker “Mr. Oreo”. Around this time, Nabisco also debuted two other biscuits, the Goose and the Veronese, both of which have been lost to history.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in FYI
The Message of The Gift of the Magi
“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry is a very simple short story that contains a very important message. The message is perfect for the story that O. Henry is trying to tell, a story about an incredibly poor couple who sells their most important possessions in order to buy a perfect gift. The message in this story could not have been delivered in a better way; the message is also the entire theme of the story, and it is interwoven into the plot of the story and the actions of the characters. The mentions of the Magi are not even part of the most important message that the author is trying to get across; they are just there to make the real point of the story stronger. The real point and theme of this story are that it is not the value of a gift that matters, but rather the thought behind it that really makes it special.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
Characteristics of Chris McCandless
Into the Wild author Jon Krakauer mentions in the book how he tried to find his purpose in life by climbing the Devil’s Thumb in Alaska (Krakauer, 133-156). In his book, he documents the trip of 23-year old man Chris McCandless, otherwise known as Alexander (or Alex) Supertramp, across the United States. He eventually settles in an abandoned Alaskan bus for 16 weeks and passes away after eating a large amount of slightly poisonous seeds. This journey into Alaska in order to find a purpose is eerily similar to Krakauer’s journey. Knowing what he wanted to do in order to find his purpose in life, Chris was successful in that mission; the book mentions how his purpose finally feels fulfilled after travelling the entire country, and that at the end of his life, he writes a note saying “I have had a happy life and thank the lord. Goodbye and may god bless all” (199)! In order to find meaning, however, Chris had to have certain characteristics in order to survive travelling cross-country and eventually settling in the barren-cold wilderness of the Frontier State. Chris McCandless was a determined, compassionate, and resourceful man, and without these characteristics, he would not have been able to go as far as he did.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
Conflict in The Most Dangerous Game
“The Most Dangerous Game,” the most famous story by Richard Connell, was originally published in 1924 by the American magazine Collier’s. The plot focuses on the main character, Rainsford, finding himself trapped on an island with an insane general who loves hunting, and finds the new thrill of hunting people after hunting begins to bore him. The story is enthralling, gripping, and intense, keeping your attention throughout the entire plot and making you wonder what the outcome will be. Part of the quality of the story involves the conflicts brought upon the characters throughout the story. These conflicts develop our characters, especially Rainsford, giving them motivation for their actions and making the reader want their stories to be resolved. Of these conflicts, “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell illustrates three main ones: man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. self.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
Love Will Prevail: Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet, written by the one and only William Shakespeare, is widely considered one of the greatest love stories of all time. The play centers around Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, children of two different families, who meet each other at a party and fall in love, despite the fact that the families that they come from have been in a bitter rivalry for many decades. They soon figure out that they come from these different families, but even despite this, they go against what their families have always believed and profess their love for each other. The theme that William Shakespeare is trying to get across is that love conquers all; even in the worst circumstances possible for two people to fall in love, they fall in love anyway, and are willing to do anything for each other in order to stay together. Romeo and Juliet couldn’t care less that they come from different families; they still want to be together and promise to love each other until the very end. This theme of “love conquers all” is prevalent throughout the entire play, showing the lengths that two people are willing to go through to stay together, how even two incredibly different people that should be bitter rivals can love each other for eternity, and how said love could even end a long-time rivalry between two families when the families realize that they cared not about the fact that they came from two different families, but about being together until the very end.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Education