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Goodbye to Film Studies

I have enjoyed this class so much this semester. Especially as someone so interested in writing, I found analyzing the construction of the plot and language alongside the cinematic choices to be really educational. I've learned to look at what's going on "behind-the-scenes" a lot more, which I didn't used to do for a movie unless I really, really loved it. From learning about Orson Welles's complete control over Citizen Kane  at such a young age to Aaron Sorkin's open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, I've realized that my understanding of a movie and it's subtext and messaging and purpose can be a lot clearer if I do some digging after watching the movie. I hate going into movies knowing anything about them, though, so I'm glad we didn't talk too much about the context of the movies we watched in class until afterwards.  I'm really glad I learned about all the aspects of the moving camera this semester. There's so much there that a...
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The Social Network Analysis

1. One lawsuit was from the Winklevoss twins because they felt like Mark stole their idea for a college social network, and the other lawsuit was from Eduardo because he got screwed out of the company after Mark diluted his shares in the company and then kicked him out. I'm pretty sure the lawsuits were happening about 6 years after this, but I guess that wouldn't make sense that it would take that long for the lawsuits to happen. Erica is in the movie to serve as a "before success" reminder that forces him to reflect on the people he's plowed over and the relationships he's destroyed in order to reach the success his company has reached. The undercuts Sean as a coward when he flinches at Eduardo's fake-punch, depicting him as a scaredy cat who hides behind his fame and money to seem tougher than he is. There's also the part in his house when the cops show up and he says "that's not mine" and has to panic-call Mark from the police statio...
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The Future of the Film Industry

1.  What are some specific ideas you have about how this coronavirus pandemic might impact the film industry... in 6 months?  in a year?  in 2-5 years?  longer?    Obviously since all production is shut down, there's going to be a big delay in movies actually going through the theaters. This will hurt the theaters, especially smaller independent ones like the Tivoli, because they won't have people coming in to see the new movies released.  I think that it's going to take a long time for people to feel comfortable going back to movie theaters again. I personally love seeing movies in the theaters and always prefer it to streaming -- I probably go 10+ times per year -- and I really can't see myself going back to the theater any time soon, even once the stay-at-home order is technically lifted. I also think that movies being filmed in locations around the world are going to have trouble reopening production, since international travel is going to be s...
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FORMAL FILM STUDY: FINAL POST: Wes Anderson

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SYNTHESIZING THE THREE MOST HIGHLY RATED FILMS DIRECTED BY WES ANDERSON (THAT I HAVEN'T SEEN) PER ROTTEN TOMATOES Bottle Rocket (85%),  Isle of Dogs  (90%), and  The Grand Budapest Hotel  (91%) As I mentioned in my FFS introductory post, there are a few core characteristics/themes that seem to make their way into every Wes Anderson movie and, whether they are intended to or not, define both the movie and his directorial and writing style. These include themes of childhood/maturity/their tricky intersections, subtle humor, characters intensely committed to a strange obsession of theirs, an elaborate, impractical, risky plan proposed by the obsessed character and supported by the others, vibrant color palettes, careful composition of each frame, and subdivisions of the story into chapters or "parts."  It's funny, but when I sat down to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel with my dad the other night, the first scene had hardly begun before he said, "you can al...
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