User:Dee Sayhepaid

Mr. Dee Sayhepaid
AP English Language

Units
Education

Film and Television
Slippin': Ten Years with the Bloods. Dir. Tommy Sowrds and Joachim Schroeder. Perf. Former gang members. KINO, 2005. DVD.

"Slippin'" is the only gang documentary I've ever seen with a true story from the hood. Most of the other gang doc's I've seen just show fragmented sections of gang life without a linear story like the one in "Slippin'". "Slippin'" is the only doc that really allows a viewer to meet a few gangmembers giving one the feeling as if you know them well by the end of the movie. Sowards and Schroeder have delivered a documentary well worth watching. It's not a piece about violence, but it's a piece about young kids suppressing their anger in a world full of violence. It's a story about true friendships and a story about friendships being tested. It's a documentary about hope and the possibility of change. The music is used well--not over powering the visuals, but enhancing the mood of the pictures on screen. Their style of long takes without quick music video cuts really pulls the viewer into what it's really like living in South Central as a gangmember. It's an excellent piece of work and I hope others receive it as well as I did.

Nonfiction - Books
Fisher, Antwone Q. Finding Fish. New York: HarperTorch, 2001. Print

Born in prison to a single mother and raised as a ward of Cleveland's foster care system, the author relates how he resisted the lure of drugs and crime to build a successful life for himself. Fiding Fish is a true story of a man's journey from abandonment and abuse to success. He faced molestation, mental abuse, and physical abuse. He was headed down the wrong path and when it seemed all hope was lost, he joined the Navy and turned his life around. Fiding Fish shows that people can achieve great things no matter what they've gone through.

"For the first six years of my life i waited on an island of uncertainty, confused about I'd become shipwrecked there in the first place."

"The world at night when you're without shelter feels like the Twilight Zone, another dimension, another planet, where the normal laws of time and space don't apply."