Movie Review: A Time To Kill :: essays research papers

Movie Review: A Time To Kill I never read A Time To Kill by John Grisham because the book bored me. But I wonder why it did bore me because the movie was engrossing and entertaining. Maybe it is because Akiva Goldsman took out most of the boring parts. I usually love Grisham, but this book was just too slow. However, another thing that made the movie more entertaining is the actors. The movie begins with the rape scene that you have probably heard about. If you haven't, it's a quick-edited scene so it doesn't show much, but still makes your stomach churn. Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) describes it graphically in his summation. Anyway, what makes the scene so shocking is that it is a 10 year old girl being raped. The two men are captured and while ascending a staircase for their preliminary trial, the girl's father, Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson), runs out of a closet with a gun and shoots the two men and a cop. The two men die and the cop has his leg amputated. This sets off the main plot of the story. Hailey gets Brigance to defend him for virtually nothing. During a courtroom scene, Eileen Roarke (Sandra Bullock, in a surprisingly small role for having top billing) helps Brigance to get the trial moved to another town. Unfortunately, the judge (Patrick McGoohan) decides against moving the trial. Brigance needs to get a jury of young, married men with children. What does he get? A jury of women and old men. So Brigance has his work cut out for him, especially when he is up against the cruel and cheating Rufus Buckley (Kevin Spacey). The film moves along quickly, which I wasn't expecting. The movie is 145 minutes long, but it seems shorter than this. The book is over 500 pages, so Goldsman had his work cut out for him. But he did a great job and made the movie more entertaining than the book. As I said, the actors must have had something to do with it as well. Matthew McConaughey is superb as Brigance. This is his first movie and it will probably make him famous. His summation is one of the best parts of the movie. He says it with great emotion that, not only can the jury relate with, but so can the audience. Samuel L. Jackson is always good and there is one particular scene where he gives a small talk to Brigance. It is powerful, even if it is short. That's how good Jackson is.

Pay for Performance Essay

Traditionally, all incentive plans are â€Å"pay-for-performance† plans. They pay all employees based on the employee’s performance (Dessler). Compensation is a primary motivator for employees. People look for jobs that not only suit their creativity and talents, but compensate them both in terms of salary and other benefits accordingly. Compensation is also one of the fastest changing fields in Human Resources, as companies continue to investigate various ways of rewarding employees for performance. It is very important for organizations to make sure that the incentive plans are well structured to need the needs of the employee and in return make the organization profitable. Giving incentive pay to employees that has not earned them destroys the motivation and moral of employees which leads to less productivity. Thanks to public outcry, shareholder outrage, and increased government scrutiny, companies are making some adjustments to their executive incentive programs. At the very least, it gives the appearance of linking pay to performance. Most managers get short-term bonuses and long-term incentives in addition to salary.50 For firms offering short-term incentive plans, virtually all 96% provide those incentives in cash. For those offering long-term incentive plans, about 48% offer stock options. These aim to motivate and reward management for long-term corporate growth in shareholder value. The size of the bonus (in terms of percentage of salary) is usually greater for top-level executives (Dessler). Often times top level management incentives are just a bit too much. They are given large stock options, cash bonuses, and other high price incentives and often times they take advantage of the situation. Enron executives are a great example of taking advantage of a good thing. This is just one down fall of the incentive program, another issue would be employee moral decrease because they often times feels like management should not receive such large rewards when they the employee feels like they are going all the work. Enron officials manipulated information to protect their interests and to deceive the public, although the extent of their deception is still to be determined. Both executives and board members claim that they weren’t aware of the company’s off-the-books partnerships and shaky financial standing. However, both Skilling and Lay were warned that the firm’s accounting tactics were suspect, and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations concluded, â€Å"Much that was wrong with Enron was known to the board.† Enron’s leaders acted irresponsibly by failing to take needed action, failing to exercise proper oversight, and failing to shoulder responsibility for the ethical miscues of their organization. Enron officials put loyalty to themselves above loyalty to everyone else with a stake in the company’s fate-stockholders, business partners, ratepayers, local communities, and foreign governments. They also abused the trust of those who worked for them. Employees felt betrayed, in addition to losing their jobs and retirement savings. America has an ethical issue because knowledge and techniques has been used to manipulate people unethically as well as to help them develop their potential. People who lack respect for the basic dignity of the human being could learn organizational behavior ideas and use them for selfish ends. Merit pay is a plan that most state agencies use. As times have changed and budgets are tight state government has cut back on merit play. The state merit programs were used to compensate employees for exceeding their work expectations. It has been over eight years since the state has given out merit pay. Employee’s moral is very low because top level management has found ways to get their friends pay raises. Another misuse of the merit system is when an employee has performed above the call of duty and is over looked and an increase is given to a person that has been less productive but is good friends with the boss. When times are tough economically, it is more important than ever for companies to clearly communicate their commitment to employees,† said Rich Sperling, a senior consultant with Hay Group. â€Å"Employers can leverage a variety of financial and nonfinancial rewards to engage employees through tough times when budgets are tight, but communicating and reinforcing those messages through a variety of channels is critical.†(HR Focus). How do you keep an employee motivated when there is nothing extra to give them for doing a job well done? Often times just a simple recognition of a job well done will keep an employee motivated. In my office we use to have a program called â€Å"Shout Outs†. Being that funding was tight and there were no pay raises being given out due to budget cuts our Deputy Director came up with this program. Giving employee’s recognition for going above and beyond to get a job done. It was amazing how the employees reacted to this program because so many people were never given credit for a job well done. What I found out through this program was that when people are given credit for going a great job they are willing to go that extra mile above and beyond to make sure they job is done and it is quality work that is produced. Often time managers would take the credit for a job they did not perform and were given incentives and they ones that had really done the job was left in the cold. Organizations have to make sure that when incentives are given out that they people receiving the incentives are the ones that deserve them. When an employee feels appreciated they are more willing to go without the incentive pay and get the job done it’s when they feel like the organization does not value them is when they start to look for employment with a company that appreciate them and make them feel like they are valuable to the organization. In conclusion incentives are environmental factors that are established for the purpose of motivating a person. Individual incentive programs give performance-based pay to individual employees. Team-based incentives of course aim to incentivize work teams. Variable pay refers to group pay plans that tie payments to productivity or to some other measure of the firm’s profitability. Incentives play an important part in motivating employees to do a good job. When an employee feels like the organizations appreciate them rather it is with bonus pay, paid time off, recognition, family leave, or good health benefits that are more willing to go that extra mile to make sure quality service is provided. Benefits and incentives pay also helps to motivate employees they call in sick less are healthier happier people all because they feel more appreciated!!

Marxism Revolutionaries - 1981 Words

Marxism is a term used to describe, the political and economical theories of Karl Marx; which was later developed, into the foundation for, communism. Karl Marx was a world renowned philosopher, who once said â€Å"capitalism destroyed man†. His criticism of the practice of capitalism has been praised for centuries and is still alive today, prominently in Cuba. The idea of Marxism brought out social change throughout the world and has caused a lot of turbulence worldwide. The views of Capitalism and Marxism sparked controversy and wars between people and countries that shared the opposing view. One of many people, who praised Marxism for its authenticity and change, was Fidel Castro. Fidel was the President of Cuba, from 1959, until 2008; when†¦show more content†¦His face became a sign of change and hope, which left a big legacy in Cuba. (Duetschmann,p.) The third most important figure of the Cuban revolution was, Fulgencio Batsista. Batista was born on January 16, 1901, in Banes Cuba. As he grew older he got an interest into the army, and traveled to Havana to join the army there; where he was promoted sergeant and then a union leader. In 1933, he led a coup that eradicated the government of Gerado Mercado. In 1940, he was elected president, when he won presidency, he instated, the 1940 constitution of Cuba. The constitution gave, Cubans a lot of freedoms, like the right to vote and many other individual rights. The constitution was acclaimed and Batista was praised throughout his political career by many. (1) After finishing his first presidential term, he ran for president again in 1952: and that was when everything started turning. After winning presidency again, Batista eradicated many rights given by the 1940 Constitution of Cuba; freedoms like the right to strike were stripped away from the people of Cuba. He then made a concu rrence with the wealthy farm workers, which resulted, in an economical gap between the rich and the poor. Unfortunately, the American government was in support, of his dictatorship, prominently because their relationship with Cuba was going well. Inevitably, the people of Cuba became upset and started to riot,Show MoreRelatedLenins Contribution to Marxism up to 1905 and the Consequences1247 Words   |  5 PagesLenins Contribution to Marxism up to 1905 and the Consequences Karl Marx was a German philosopher who wrote the Communist Manifesto, which encouraged workers to unite and seize power by revolution. His views became known as Marxism and influenced the thinking of socialists throughout Europe in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Marx believed that history was evolving in a series of stages towards a perfect state - Communism. 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