Scarface (The Movie) essays

Scarface (The Movie) essays Stars: Al Picino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia Al Pacino gives an unforgettable performance as Tony Montana, one of the most ruthless gangsters ever portrayed on film. Scarface follows the violent career of a small-time Cuban gangster who guns his way to the top of Miami's cocaine empire. It follows his rise to criminal wealth and thousands of immigrants arriving in Florida in the 1980s. Pacino, whose intelligence, guts, and ambition help him rise to the top of a criminal world but his paranoia and over protective desire to protect his kid sister, played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, prove to be his reasons for falling to the bottom, leading to his eventual murder. The films brutal violence and lack of positive characters still make it controversial and disliked by certain critics, especially make in the early 1980s when movies of such violence were rare. Michelle Pfeiffer plays Tonys coke-addicted trophy wife, and Steven Bauer is his concerned friend. F. Murray Abraham, Robert Loggia, and Paul Shenar are some of Tonys sl eazy business partners and potential killers. This movie shows the decade's drug of choice, and is very much a film of the 1980s in its portrayal of unstoppable ego-centrism. Genre of the Movie: Drama and Crime/Gangster Special Cinematic Techniques: I thought there were many well used cinematic techniques. A couple of the things that I noticed were how well the camera angles caught the action. There were plenty of fighting scenes in Scarface and I thought they captured them very well. The special effects were very good, especially for a movie in the early 1980s. I think that this movie was very well done from all aspects. Scarface magnificently captured the gruesome ...

Active Voice vs. Passive Voice Which is Best

Active Voice vs. Passive Voice Which is Best Active Voice vs. Passive Voice: Which is Best? You may have heard the terms â€Å"active voice† and â€Å"passive voice† before, but many people struggle with what they mean. More importantly, many are also unsure about when to use these grammatical voices in academic writing. However, since sorting out tricky grammar problems is what we do best, we’ve decided to set things straight with this (fairly) easy-to-follow explanation. Transitive Verbs We’ll start out with explaining what a transitive verb is, as these are the only verbs that can be used with the passive voice. Put simply, a transitive verb is one that takes an object. A sentence with a transitive verb typically takes the form of subject + verb + object: Subject Verb Object Keith†¦ †¦plays†¦ †¦the guitar. Here, â€Å"Keith† is the subject (i.e., the person acting), â€Å"plays† is the verb (i.e., the action being carried out) and â€Å"guitar† is the object (i.e., the thing Keith is playing). Some say he has been playing since the beginning of time. Active and Passive Sentences â€Å"Keith plays the guitar† is an active sentence, since it foregrounds the person performing the action. Most of the sentences we use in daily life are similarly constructed. The active voice is therefore useful when you want to emphasize the person (or thing) carrying out the action in a sentence. To make a passive sentence, we make the object the subject of the sentence instead, with the person performing the action identified by a prepositional phrase at the end: Subject Verb Prepositional Phrase The guitar†¦ †¦was played†¦ †¦by Keith. The passive voice even allows us to omit the subject of a sentence altogether, if required: Object Verb The guitar†¦ †¦was played. But who played this guitar? A passive sentence leaves the question unanswered. This is useful if you’re trying to create suspense by withholding information or distance yourself from your actions (such as when politicians say â€Å"Mistakes were made.†) Relations with that woman were not had. Active Voice or Passive Voice? So, which is best? The short answer is neither: Both active and passive voice sentences have a role to play in formal writing. The key is knowing when to use them. Some people discourage use of the active voice in academic writing since it sometimes involves using the first person (e.g., â€Å"I† or â€Å"we†), which can draw focus away from the subject matter. Using the passive voice can therefore give your work a more objective tone. If you were describing an experiment, for instance, you could use the active voice to say: Active Voice: I compared the results with those from a control group. However, you could also remove the â€Å"I† from this sentence by using the passive voice: Passive Voice: The results were compared to those from the control group. The second option here is usually better in an academic context. On other occasions, the active voice is better, since it’s typically clearer and more concise. It’s also worth noting that the passive voice isn’t the only way to eliminate the first person from your work. The following active, first-person sentence, for example: Active Voice: I conclude that the findings contradict the initial hypothesis. Could be changed to the passive voice to remove reference to the subject: Passive Voice: The initial hypothesis is contradicted by the findings. But you could achieve the same results by simply using â€Å"the findings† as the subject of an active sentence: Active Voice: The findings contradict the initial hypotheses. This preserves the objectivity of a passive sentence, but avoids the complicated sentence constructions that may result from using the passive voice too often.