Homework 1: Film Review
Write a film review of a film of your choice.
400 words
Due 12 Spetember
Use this to help you http://www.dailywritingtips.com/7-tips-for-writing-a-film-review/
400 words
Due 12 Spetember
Use this to help you http://www.dailywritingtips.com/7-tips-for-writing-a-film-review/
Where recent tear-jerking movies have come in, following a similar route to Miss You Already (2015), Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s Me, Earl and the Dying Girl breaks away from the typical romance storyline and brings forth the memoirs of social outcast, Greg (Thomas Mann) and his compelled friendship with Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a classmate recently diagnosed with stage IV leukaemia. Following their mismatched friendship in company with Rachel’s gradual deterioration, Greg’s hardship of befriending Rachel becomes more of an emotionally centred friendship.
ReplyDeleteDespite his name being in the title, the character Earl (RJ Cyler) does not contribute greatly in the film. His character is developed contextually as a life-long friend of Greg’s, however with his lack of speech he mainly pulls along Greg throughout the story. The character of Earl is a representation of the brotherly bond made between the two boys who have maintained a long term friendship. Earl pushes away the “black male” stereotypes even though he lives in the suburbs with his stereotypical brother.
Following Greg’s continuous voiceover, the audience is faced with a constant reminder that Me, Earl and the Dying Girl is not a story of Greg and Rachel’s romantic venture. Andrews and Gomez-Rejon team up in screenplay and direction to toy with the audience by including “if this were a romance story” alternative moments between the two protagonists, consisting of short romantic and stereotypical motifs which quickly cut back and bring the audience back to the true reality and direction of their companionship. Building a hope within the audience that at some point within this emotionally teasing film that there will be a romantic turn in their relationship.
With the book-based screenplay written by Jesse Andrews himself, the film adaptation of his 2012 novel brings justice to the book compared to other miscarried book to film adaptations such as the Percy Jackson series. Me, Earl and the Dying Girl breaks the generic cycle of romance within troublesome story lines. Torturing its audience with alternative views on what could happen if it were romantic, and through it all bringing in comedic features during some of the most foreboding scenes, brings together a perfectly balanced combination of emotions within the audience.
A good film review that balances the plot description nicely with opinion. Good job. You could have given this a 4 out of 5 roses instead of a star rating!
DeleteZootopia is an upbeat family film, set in an alternative universe where humans do not exist and all animals’ live together, the predators have bred out their “savage” ways. The film focuses on the main character Judy Hopps voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin. Judy the bunny is a smart little bunny with big dreams of being the first bunny to become a cop. Although Hopps is the top of her class she is still seen as a “dumb bunny”, in desperation to prove that she can be a real cop she takes on the case to find a missing otter, one of the 14 predators to go missing in the past two weeks. With only 48 hours to solve the case officer Hopps teams up with an unlikely partner, Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman), A fox. Nick happens to be the only one who can help Judy and they form an unlikely friendship between a fox and a bunny.
ReplyDeleteDespite the films fun and child based story there are several adult jokes that do not involve sexual humour. During the film, we see a lab filled with blue flowers (the layout similar to a marijuana farm) while a ram called Woolter (a play on the word, as the main characters in breaking bad, are called Walter and Jesse) is working.
Also earlier in the film there is a godfather reference. There is a scene in which Wilde and Hopps end up and the organized crime leader’s house. Mr. Big, the Artic shrew is the American-Italian mob boss. Both of these references will go unnoticed by children but is the perfect way to keep adults happy, without sexual jokes.
On the surface, Zootopia looks like a society where prey and predators live in peace, however as the film goes on we see the divide between them.
Lines in the film such as “a bunny can call another bunny cute but when another animal does it’s…” this is the first main time we see the theme of racism appear within the film. Later in the film there is the talk of how it is only predators turning savage, as it in their biology, saying that prey could never go “savage”. Another quote from the film about racism would be “you’re not that kind of predator”.
Disney has been successful in exploring the theme of racism, as they have not tried to get any kind of animal to be a certain race. They have managed to muddle all of the racial stereotypes and have them come out of the mouth of cute animals in a child-friendly way.
A very aware and broad review covering more than just narrative looking at the context. Well done.
ReplyDeleteJames Cameron Avatar was a stunningly beautiful movie with Top CGI work and magnificent actors. As someone who has watched the film I have little criticism towards it making it one of my most favourite movies of all time. The main reason they are on the planet is because they are trying to obtain a material that it rare and highly profitable. As the story progressed you felt a connection towards the characters like Jake (the main character) who started off as someone who just wanted the money to pay for an operation that would restore his mobility to walk again. At the start people might have felt sorry for him and all he has been through (His brother dying) but then thought that with him getting and avatar it would all be great for him and it was but when he went on his first mission he just seems like a gun bearing maniac with little intelligence. When he meets Neytiri and starts to interact more with the navi his point of view about them change from savages to this is their home. He gets taught how to ride a banshee and soon starts to feel as though he belongs with them, as one of their own. Grace the head researcher on the navi is welcomed to their tribe with open hearts and loved by them but she too is only a controlling a puppet to learn more about them. Grace had no intention in trying to move the navi out of their home she just wanted to protect them but when Grace got shot and passed it left me feeling depressed, one of the most sadist deaths I have seen in a movie. Towards the end jack helps fight the with the navi to protect their land but during the fight the commander of the army hunts down Jake’s link pod and kill him but Neytiri does everything in her power to prevent that and kills the commander and Jack and Neytiri meet face to face for the first time. The end of the movie shows Jake being taken to the home tree of Awa to be reborn as a navi (be placed in his puppet) and ends with him opening his eyes leaving a feel of suspense.
ReplyDeleteSam Kirke
ReplyDeleteThe film that I will be reviewing is the 2001 movie “enemy at the gates” what depicts the horrific of the Second World War eastern front battle of Stalingrad. This film was based on a book of the same name what tells the story of Vassili played by Jude Law who is a young soviet soldier you comes to fame among the army for killing many German officers. Due to the damage inflicted on the German officers the Wehrmacht sends their own crack shot sniper Major Erwin König played by Ed Harris to hunt down Vassili to stop the killing of German officers and so the cat and mouse game of the film comes into play. The first half of the film is truly epic and is my favourite part it shows in the best way I have ever seen the brutal butchering that summed the fighting of the eastern front. It uses a mix of a massive amount of extras, brilliant props and amazing special effects what had never been done so well before in my opinion and the only film since this to hold a candle at it is the 2015 film “Fury” but even that does not show insane aspects of the war with political officers of the soviets who shoot their own men for not being communist enough and the enormous amount of Russian soldiers mown down by German machine gunners.
But now I must talk about the second half of the film the worst part by far mainly due to the fact that the tension that is meant to be between the two snipers is not there and it ends up falling very flat. Another thing that makes it worse is the forced relationship between Vassili and Rachel Weisz character (whose name I can’t remember due to the fact the relationship is so stale and forced I almost fall asleep at this part of the film) really slows this half of the film down and makes it fell much longer than it should for a film about snipers attempting to outwit each other should do. All in all this film is quite good but does suffer from the many tropes and stereotypes that all war films have be that heel clicking Nazis or brutal Russian in efficiency I would though still recommend it to anyone interested in the period to give this film a try.
Charlie Brett
ReplyDeleteSuicide Squad is filled with humour and action engaging with a variety of fans. In this film we see 8 evil masterminds use their powers for the sake of saving their society rather than destroying it. This film was competing for views after Batman V Superman which in its self didn’t live up to the expectations it gave out caused many DC fans have doubts about its release. After being released, 9/10 critics who have currently seen this film have agreed that it has been one of the worst DC films released. I have to admit that one common thing noticed was like Batman V Superman some of the editing appeared to look quite choppy at times; however, overall I personally have to disagree with this and state that it is the best movie that has been released since another personal favourite “Batman the dark knight rises”. Since “the dark knight rises” many actors struggle to live up to playing the award winning heath ledger as the iconic joker, however Jared Leto almost succeed playing a different psychotic version of him although he didn’t appear to be in much of the film. He did this alongside Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn who together made the film a sensation. This including Cara Delavigne’s stunning performance of the witch which was played to an unbeatable extent. The only criticism to make is to most viewers that do use their spare time to read comics, may be unable to follow why some of the characters act the way they do, this is mainly due to some getting a brief introduction and others getting a flashback. However, other than this small negative comment, I think that this movie is unrated and deserves more credit for the amount of effort put in.
Charlie Brett
ReplyDeleteSuicide Squad is filled with humour and action engaging with a variety of fans. In this film we see 8 evil masterminds use their powers for the sake of saving their society rather than destroying it. This film was competing for views after Batman V Superman which in its self didn’t live up to the expectations it gave out caused many DC fans have doubts about its release. After being released, 9/10 critics who have currently seen this film have agreed that it has been one of the worst DC films released. I have to admit that one common thing noticed was like Batman V Superman some of the editing appeared to look quite choppy at times; however, overall I personally have to disagree with this and state that it is the best movie that has been released since another personal favourite “Batman the dark knight rises”. Since “the dark knight rises” many actors struggle to live up to playing the award winning heath ledger as the iconic joker, however Jared Leto almost succeed playing a different psychotic version of him although he didn’t appear to be in much of the film. He did this alongside Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn who together made the film a sensation. This including Cara Delavigne’s stunning performance of the witch which was played to an unbeatable extent. The only criticism to make is to most viewers that do use their spare time to read comics, may be unable to follow why some of the characters act the way they do, this is mainly due to some getting a brief introduction and others getting a flashback. However, other than this small negative comment, I think that this movie is unrated and deserves more credit for the amount of effort put in.