Pulp Fiction Summary and Rating

The movie Pulp Fiction doesn’t follow a “traditional” plot line.  To summarize the movie, it started out with two characters in a diner talking about how people rob banks.  They themselves are robbers; however they normally rob liquor stores, which they decide they don’t want to do anymore.  They explain how it would be easier to rob a bank but they don’t want to kill anyone.  From there, they discuss that they should rob restaurants because they wouldn’t expect to get robbed.  As they are eating their breakfast, they agree to rob the diner on the spot and pull out their guns.  The scene ends.

                Next, the movie jumps to the characters Vince and Jules driving in a car.  Their conversation revolves around the legalities of marijuana in Amsterdam in contrast to the United States.  They continue to discuss other differences, for instance Mcdonald’s.  In the U.S. we call it a “quarter pounder with cheese” whereas in Europe they would order a “royale with cheese.”  When they park at their destination, they go into the trunk and retrieve weapons.  Vince and Jules are now discussing Mia Wallace, who is Marcellus Wallace’s (their boss) wife and how she used to be an actress for a “pilot television series”.  Their conversation switches to talking about Antwan, who got thrown out of a building for giving Mia a foot massage, so they assume.  They arrive at an apartment door at 7:22am, and said they still had a few minutes yet so they continued their conversation about how giving a foot massage would be considered cheating.  The reason they are discussing what happened to Antwan was because later that evening, Vince is taking Mia out for Marcellus.

                Once they enter the apartment a few minutes later, there are three young men, who are Marcellus’ business partners.  After listening to the long dialect, I assumed they were hiding/keeping something that belonged to Marcellus which is why Vince and Jules were sent there.  Both Vince and Jules shoot the 3 men, at which time that scene ends.

                Moving to the next scene, we now the character Butch, who is a fighter.  He is talking to Marcellus in a bar about how he is supposed to purposely lose a fight later that evening.  Marcellus hands him money and explains he is to “throw” the fight in the 5^th round and not to let his pride get to him.  Vince and Jules show up at the same bar, wearing different clothes than previously seen.  This made me believe something else had happened.  Vince goes to the bar for a drink, at which point the bartender teases him about taking out Mia later.  Jules went to hand Marcellus the brief case, which was retrieved at the young men’s apartment.

                Next, the scene bounces to Vince at his drug dealer’s house where he buys 3 grams of heroin in which he shoots some into his arm.  From here, it is now night time and Vince is driving to Mia Wallace’s house to pick her up.  When he arrives, she lets him in and speaks to him via an intercom system to let him know she isn’t ready yet.  She then snorts a few lines of cocaine.  Now they are driving to a restaurant for diner and discussing “uncomfortable silences.”  They have long dialect and then Mia decides she wants to dance in a “twist” contest to win the trophy.

                Mia and Vince return to the Wallace’s home and she invites him to come inside for another drink.  He excuses himself to the restroom while she puts on some music and sits on the sofa to smoke a cigarette.  She is wearing Vince’s jacket and reaches into the pocket to find a lighter where she also finds the heroine.  She thought it was cocaine and snorted a line.  At this point, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her nose started bleeding.  By the time Vincent came out of the restroom, she was on the floor foaming at the mouth.  He put her into the car and drove onto the yard of his drug dealer’s house.  The drug dealer wanted Vince to take her to the hospital, however if he would have done that Marcellus would have found out.  After bringing her inside, they stab her in the chest with a giant syringe filled with adrenaline.  At which, she popped up immediately, still having the needle stuck in her chest.  Vince then drops her back off to her house and they agree to not tell Marcellus. 

                The movie now goes to the scene titled “The Gold Watch” which consists of Vince knocking on a door to where Marcellus was inside talking about finding someone.  The next screen jumps to Butch in a taxi after the fight.  The driver takes him to a pay phone where he makes a phone call to a friend.  He took the money Marcellus gave him to throw the fight but he didn’t throw the fight so now he is trying to get out of town.  The driver takes him to a motel where his girlfriend is there waiting for him.  They spend the night and plan to leave in the morning.  When morning comes, Butch asks if she packed everything he had asked, however she didn’t pack his father’s gold watch which has sentimental value.  He then decides to leave her there and try to sneak back into his apartment, knowing Marcellus’ men will be looking for him.

                When he arrives at his apartment, it seems no one is there.  He finds the watch and heads to the kitchen to get something to eat.  When he does this, he notices a gun on the kitchen counter then hears the toilet flush.  He picks up the gun and when the door opens Vince is standing there.  Butch shoots him.  He then leaves the apartment and heads back to his car.

                Feeling proud and accomplished, Butch drives toward the motel.  When he is stopped at the light, Marcellus walks right in front of the car and sees its Butch.  Butch runs Marcellus over and then runs into another car himself.  Marcellus got up, and took out his gun and shot butch in the leg.  Butch tries to run away, Marcellus following closely behind.  Butch hides in a pawn shop but Marcellus finds him.  They begin to fight in the store; however the owner breaks it up by holding a shotgun at them.  The owner makes sure they are both knocked out and calls “Zed.”  When the two regain consciousness, they are tied up in the basement of the store where they are assaulted.  Butch breaks free and instead of leaving, he goes back to help Marcellus.  Marcellus and Butch decide that there are no more problems between the two of them as long as Butch leaves by that evening and never comes back. 

                The movie now jumps back to the previous day when Jules and Vincent are at the young men’s apartment; however now we see there is another guy hiding in the bathroom with a gun.  The guy comes out and starts shooting but miraculously misses both Jules and Vincent.  They both end up shooting the 4^th guy and Jules has an epiphany and no longer wants to work for Marcellus. 

                After a few more unimportant scenes, Jules and Vincent end up in the diner for breakfast.  This now ties back into the 1^st scene of the robbers.  Jules ends up pulling a gun on the male robber when he tries to take the brief case that belongs to Marcellus.  After dialogue between him and the robbers, he ends up giving them the cash that’s in his wallet and making them leave. This concludes the movie summary.

                I found this movie somewhat hard to follow. The time I was watching, I was confused as to where the plot was going and it didn’t make sense to me.  Once I was watching the last scene, everything started to make sense and come together.  Having the scenes sequenced like this gave the movie texture and kept me continuing to watch the movie.  I believe that had the movie been set up in a more traditional sequence, I would have turned it off because it would have made the movie worse.  I give the movie a C rating.  I was not a fan of the dialogue or the sequence.  Had I not had to watch this movie for an assignment I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing it at all.

Unusual Article-"Scold's Bridle"

Reading the unusual article, “ Scold’s Bridle” on Wikipedia’s page, was quite entertaining.  The article  explained what a scold bridle is.  Also known as a “brank’s bridle”, the contraption was used as an instrument of punishment, usually for women.  It could also be deemed a device for torture or humiliation.  To describe the brank, it was a muzzle made of iron that surrounded the entire head and a bit, about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide, that was forced into the mouth  and pressed down on the tongue.  The bit was likely surrounded by spikes.  This was to ensure that whomever wore the brank, if the attempted to speak, they would cause major pain to their tongue.  Mainly, the types of people to be forced to wear this device, were wives considered to be witches, hags and nags. 

            The origin of the brank, comes from Scotland in 1567.  However, they were also used in England but it wasn’t a legal form of punishment.  The courts in Scotland mostly inflicted this device on offenders who were female.  To be considered for this punishment, all a female would have had to do was be a common nag.  Branks were mostly used to be a major punishment for women of lower classes who would gossip or were bothersome.  They were also used for women or were thought to be involved in witchcraft.  The purpose was to keep them from talking.  The brank was also used for  corporal punishment, usually for female workhouse inmates.  These devices were used in addition to public humiliation  and being beaten.
           After reading this article, I learned something completely new.  This was the first time I was learning about a bridle being used for punishment.  I know what a bridle is, however I was unaware that it was ever used a form of humiliation and torture.  Also, I was surprised to hear it was mostly used on women.  To think that you could be tortured by this contraption just for “nagging” is unthinkable. 
          The information I read is not really useful.  Use of the “brank” in today’s time would be considered cruel and unusual.  Physically and emotionally harming someone in this way isn’t tolerated anymore.  Therefore, it isn’t useful to know because there is no way this will ever happen again. 
          I believe this article earned a page through Wikipedia because it is extremely unusual.  I do however believe that it would be easy to find more research on this topic on other websites.  It is something that happened in history but not something that is so farfetched that it can only be found on this Wikipedia page. 

Comparing AM and FM Radio-Blog #4

During a break today I listened to 20 minutes each of station 660 (20/20 Sports) AM radio and Q102.1 FM radio.  To my surprise, while calculating how long all of the commercial breaks were for each station, I found that AM had 33.5% and FM had 35.6%.  I assumed FM would have had a larger percentage.  I do feel AM radio had better more informative commercials compared to the FM station.

To describe station 660 of AM radio, it was very dry and boring to me.  I didn't hear the name of the station until about 10 minutes into listening, however I guessed it was an all sports station because they were talking about baseball.  I also only heard the station name once during the entire 20 minutes.  I learned about a baseball player named Jose Batista who had 54 home runs last season and is also being called a "premier slugger."  They explained he may be becoming a "free agent" and in recent negotiations he comes across as a "jerk" because he says exactly how much money he wants regardless of budgets.  This is because he knows how valuable he is.  The man speaking about this topic seemed conflicted about how he felt.  He wasn't sure if Jose's demand was "insane or reasonable."  They also talked about how popular of a player Jose is and that statistically he is the best player.  After this story, the station started their commercials.  I heard about the Ram 1500 truck, skiing in the Pocono's, Blackforest Ham (Boar's Head), shredding documents company, Limitless (tv show on CBS), Newbiotics (free trial for gas and bloating - you might not be fat you may just be bloated), Silverstar motors, Autozone, and high speed internet.  After all of the commercial, the same gentleman started on a new topic about Greg Bird and having sympathy for his recent injury right before the 20 minutes ended.

Next I am going to discuss the 20 minutes spent listening to FM radio.  It was more entertaining than AM.  I found myself singing to most of the songs that played.  When I first turned to Q102.1 Same Old Love was playing by Selena Gomez.  After that song there was an ad (about 12 seconds) on how to win free tickets to meet Troy.  Sad to say I am unaware of who Troy is.  Another song played next called Sugar Sugar, which I am almost positive it is a remake of a song when I was younger.  I didn't like that song then and I'm not fond of it now either.  After that song, the said the name of their station and what songs were coming up next after the break.  I found these commercials less interesting.  I learned about the Blowup Blow Dry Bar for 30% off a blowout and a free massage, getting your taxes done with Jackson Hewitt, and annoying teenage girl talking and ended with her dad buying her a Chevy Malibu (very strange), Xfinity X1 challenge, Entenmann's snack bites, Einstein Medical Center Montgomery, Ellen (tv show-one of the best in my opinion), switching to FIOS if you have slow internet and the piercing pagoda fine jewelry.  They also briefly mentioned the weather in Philly.

After those commercials they talked about the Elvis Duran in the morning show, which I listen to you on occasion as it can be quiet entertaining.  They started playing music again playing the songs Stressed Out, Down and Hideaway before the 20 minutes concluded.  I also counted how many times they said Q102 and it was between 10-12 times during the entire listening period.

I learned more from the AM radio station in regards to a person who I may never have heard about before.  I hope he does do well in the MLB and gets a contract seeming as though he is a talented baseball player.  I didn't learn anything from FM radio other than where I can get a blowout and a massage.

Reflection on pondering prof. blog

I agree with the professor's blog about social media.  I myself have been active on Facebook, however I am not interested in joining any other sites.  The only reason I continue my Facebook account is mostly to keep in touch with close friends and family.  I personally do not like certain aspects of the increasing changes in social media and technology because I feel it takes away from the important need of human contact.  However, I do see both sides to the coin.  Technology and social media do have many benefits including keeping in contact with people and reconnecting with people you've lost touch with over the years as well as an unlimited amount of information immediately ready and accessible at the click of a button.

Me, Myself and I - An Introduction

My name is Amy.  I am currently a junior and an Accounting major.  I worked as a finance manager at a car dealership for a few years which is the reason I am interested in accounting and business.  I luckily had firsthand experience with basic accounting, customer service and team work.  I was very fortunate to meet numerous people and get to know them.  The most rewarding part of my job was the many people I could help in financing their vehicles.  After I had my son, Alex, I chose to be a stay at home mom and return to school.  Having a child truly opened my eyes and heart to many new experiences.  Alex is my motivation every day to try and be the best person I can possibly be.  Although some days are very difficult with a soon to be two year old, I can't imagine my life without him.  I am currently in the process of planning is second birthday party, which is a nice distraction from school work.  He is definitely the highlight of my life thus far.   My goal is to finish my degree and take the CPA exam before he starts school in 3 years.  I also plan to have purchased a house shortly after graduation upon finding a job.  I am hoping to find a job within Berks County, Pa because I would like to stay close to my family.    My hobbies include spending time with my very active toddler, reading (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series is my favorite), going to any kind of movie, crafts and spending time with my friends and family.