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Showing posts from November, 2025

Laughter, whats that?

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The other day, I caught myself scrolling through my camera roll, looking at old videos and pictures to simply pass the time. Out of nowhere, I stumbled across a video from my 8th-grade DC trip where my friends and I were exploring one of the museums. Suddenly, I burst into laughter. Not because anything shocking happened, as I've seen the video before, heck, I took the video, but because somehow my brain still doesn't expect things to go the way they do. That's when I realized almost everything that has made me laugh has the same main ingredient: the unexpected. The funniest moments in my life are never the planned ones, but they're the ones completely unhinged and off-script. It's the "this was NOT supposed to happen" moments that always get me. For example, the other day I was playing Fortnite. I was in a normal box fight, something I have done hundreds, if not thousands of times. I was in the perfect position, ready to blast my friend in our battle, but...

Three Timelines, One Story: The Structure of Dunkirk

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       One of my favorite all-time films is Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan. Although the film seems nothing more than another war movie, the structure makes it feel like something completely new. I was immediately drawn in by how there were multiple elements used to tell the story being land, air, and finally sea. Each move at a different pace, and with the lack of dialogue during the movie, it was complicated to follow at first, but as the story continues, each element is used together to build up to the final climax.  To set up the rising action, we are first introduced to the land element, where thousands of soldiers are trapped at Dunkirk, hoping for an escape back to the UK. Nolan uses this perspective to make time feel slow and gurgling, showing close and intimate danger while also creating a sense of desperation. Then we move to the sea, where we see a group of civilians trying to sail from the UK to Dunkirk to hopefully save at least some soldiers. This jo...