American Film

American film has been a main source of entertainment for the common American since the beginning of the Twentieth century. Even though film was created in Paris, America has dominated the film industry since World War One. When motion pictures first came out they were usually short silent clips. One of the first full length movies was The Great Train Robbery, this movie paved the path for future movies. After World War One short clips gave way to feature presentations usually lasting a couple of hours, these movies had developed characters and plots.
The film industry also under went some changes after the first war, like instead of having just one writer or editor, companies now had teams. Another big change was the film industry moving from the east coast to California, to a small town called Hollywood which would establish itself as the film capital of the world. It is interesting to see that when film first started out Hollywood was an unknown town but now when people think about the U.S. they think about Hollywood. Films also became an activity for everyone not just the rich, and film stars were known as celebrities world wide. The start of a new era was issued when in 1927 the first talkie came out, called The Jazz Singer. After World War Two more Americans went to movies than ever, but the declined with the invention of television. The film industry responded to this with special effects and spectacle films like Ben Hur, which would give audiences an experience they couldn't get at home. During the sixties many films went back to old genres such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Godfather and The Exorcist. In the eighties when video came out, this seemed like a threat but it actually made profit for the companies, allowing the viewers to see films multiple times. It seems now that the film industry is suffering because so many people download films illegally, but some directors like James Cameron have worked around it, making movies like Avatar in 3-d which could only be seen in theaters. the film industry will always be around like theater.

"American film." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/.

American Theater

American Theater was one of the main sources of entertainment for American citizens. Theater has always been around America but wasn't fully developed until after the Civil War and by the beginning of the twentieth century it was fully thriving and even though it became influential around the world many plays used ideas from other countries like Europe and Asia. After the American revolution theater grew dramatically, with the American company returning and being joined by other English troupes. I think that one of the reasons that Americans didn't like theater before the revolution because they wanted to be different from Britain and this reminded them of it. When America expanded west so did theater travelling west with the rest of the nation and performing shows along the way. As theater grew more popular theaters started using famous foreign actors to make more money than there competitors, this was very successful. Most actors were English for the first half of the 19th century, but American actors were rapidly increasing. The most performed play was "Uncle Tom's Cabin", which was first a novel then it became a play. After the Civil War theater leaned more towards reality, with plays about day to day events and real settings. Another important part of theater was Burlesque which was originally made for men, but then developed into vaudeville. Motion pictures were a huge competitor against theater and once they started featuring sound theater attendance dropped drastically. Recently a big part of theater became the growth of legitamate regional theater. The American Theater has survived and persevered through many hardships, it will be interesting to see what happens to theater when we develope new technologies and better entertainment.

"American theater." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 28 Jan. 2010. .

The Arts

the arts were what people back in the day did for entertainment. I am happy I got to research the arts, mainly because they interest me. I want to see how different they were back then and how much they have changedand how they have stayed the same. Art and entertainment has always interested me, what impact they have had on modern society. The arts now a days usually are movies or books, paintings or sports. Back then the arts were mainly carnivals, paintings, literature and plays. Movies were just starting to be made, but they were usually fake news reels to entertain the people. One of the reasons that i wanted the arts was that the topic is so broad and can be interpreted many ways.

State of the Union

Yesterday in Obama's speech he mention how the Democrats and the Republicans had something in common and that was their dislikes of banks. he only said this because he wants it to seem like both opposing parties are on the same team. Of course all of the democrats stood up and starting applauding, this would occur many times throughout his speech. It seemed that all of the democrats applause combined was longer than Obama's speech itself. Only a few times did the republicans stand up and join their counter parts. One of the first things Obama mentioned was how his goal when he became President was to bail out the banks and that it was accomplished. Then he moved on to what must be accomplished over the next year. He talked about fixing the economy, but was more focused on the United States of America becoming the number one country in the world. That there was no reason for the US to be behind China or India and that we should be second to none. But honestly that isn't America's biggest problem. I am fine sitting in third place out of over a hundred countries. We still are better than all other countries. You don't hear about people trying to sneak into China or India. America is the only country in the world is made up of many different cultures, back rounds and languages. I think that Obama has watched Talladega Nights, because "if your not first your last", but bigger crisis than not being first in the world is what's going to happen with Conan O'Brien. That was one of America's network NBC worst decision. Obama needs to fix the economy so that us Americans are allowed to watch CoCo again and his friend the self pleasuring bear. But in all seriousness, Obama's primary goal must be the economy because once that goes up, everything else will improve along with it. I am excited and nervous to see what is going to happen in the first year of the new decade.

That sandwich was really good