...Final Film Critique: Crash (2004) Jay Dennis ENG 225 Introduction to Film Instructor: Cicely Young April 13, 2014 Final Film Critique Draft: Crash (2004) There are many different critical elements and artistic aspects to examine when analyzing and critiquing any film. In 2004 Paul Haggis wrote and directed the award winning drama Crash about various intertwining experiences involving racial relations and the socioeconomic status levels of the diverse cast of characters. This film addresses how humans being deal with real life circumstances and addresses how racial stereotypes and prejudices impact our society by causing a separation of customs, ignoring human and civil rights, and demonstrating how racism can cause moral, cultural and economical suffering. This detailed essay will address the cinematic elements employed throughout the movie, and provide a critical analysis on the various components and techniques used to create this compelling and powerful film. Crash is a movie that involves several different stories and plots that all manage to somehow connect the characters to each other in a series of events that take place during two days in California. America’s ever-growing melting pot is distinctly represented in the film as the audience is introduced to a black LAPD detective, two black mischievous car thieves, a white district attorney and his prejudice wife, a white racist beat cop and his neophyte partner, a black Hollywood director and his wife, an...
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...After Earth Final Critique Margie McLeod Class ENG 255 Instructor: Patricia Vineski Date October 14, 2014 Film Title: After Earth Actors: Will Smith Jayden Smith, Sophie Okonedo. Writers: Will Smith Director: M, Night Shyamalan Released date; June, 2013 Cinematographer: Peter Suschitzky In his post apocalyptic sci-fi film is set 1,000 years after human leave earth, a quest is set for a young boy to locate a beacon to signal for help; save his injured father on an unknown planet and face its’ inhabitants. The genre films are usually easily recognizable as a certain genre. This is because they tend to use familiar story formulas charterers types and settings, for this film the genre is sci-fi. The sub genre would go into a more narrow definition this movie a post apocalyptic title would describe what to expect from this movie even before seeing it. Seeing this film gave me a sense of a deeper meaning to this film, take away the green screens and aliens you are left with the movie’s core. Which is overcoming your fears to save your love one and even yourself from danger? Watching after Earth for yourself will change your definition of what is fear and how to adapt, when you’re in danger. The plot of a movie and the story is different and also helpful to know the difference. The story is the sequence of events and the plot is the summary of the movie told to create a screenplay, then a script thereafter. The plot; after crash landing on a now unfamiliar...
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...Thao Nguyen Research Review & Film Critique “ Crash” The movie “Crash” is crime drama film. It is produced, written and directed by Paul Haggis. It released to public on may 5th 2005 in United States. It has the budget of 6.5 million dollars. It won the Best Picture Oscar at the 78th Academic Award. The film run 112 minutes long and it is about the tension of racism in Los Angeles. “Crash” was inspired by the author’s real life when he got carjacked in front of a video store in 1991. It won the Best Picture Oscar in 78th Academic Award. The movie briefly indicated the racism, the insight of ethnicity, caste. Characters in the movies included blacks, whites, Asians, Latinos, Iranians and each characters has different story that all connected nicely. There were cops, attorney, criminals, the rich, the poor, hurt and sadness. The movie reflex the life of Immigrants and incidents that happen in real life in the Los Angeles that many people might not be able to see it or might look at it as it isn’t important. But if we pay a little more attention to the movie, we could see that it teach people to become better and not being racist. The movie began with two black men named Peter and Anthony. They were talking about how the waitress in the restaurant was being racist to them because they are black. They also discussing about their feeling living in the central of Los Angeles and surrounded by all white people. On the next scene, a white couple walks on the street_...
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...Critique: BTTF Mathew Peppersack ENG 225 Introduction to Film Professor Ryan Ogrodnik March 2, 2015 Critique: BTTF To critique a film is to analyze the substance of what makes up the movie. The story and its plot, characters, technical choices for scenes, and the overall production that the film shown to give the audience a final product. The number of people who visited the movie theater to watch it does not determine greatness of the film; or the amount of money the movie studio made after the budget was settled. A movie is great if it reached a large percentage of the population and that population determined through criticism and good reviews that the movie is worthy to be seen for a second, third, or fourth time. Another justification of greatness is if the film warrants purchasing the film on Blu-ray disc or a digitally copy to put on your computers hard drive. I will be critiquing the 1985 film Back to the Future starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Thomas F. Wilson. These are the main characters of the film for which the story revolves around. Michal J. Fox plays the main character, Marty McFly, who travels back in time in a Delorean time machine invented by Christopher Lloyd’s character, Dr. Emmett Brown. Lea Thompson plays Lorraine McFly, Marty’s mother, Crispin Glover plays George McFly, Marty’s father. Thomas F. Wilson is the antagonist as Biff Tannen. There are plenty of supporting roles throughout the film but...
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...Film Critique: STEALTH Cheri Adams ENG225 Instructor: Matthew Norsworthy May 15, 2011 Film Critique: Stealth Stealth was made in 2005 and is presented by Columbia Pictures, directed by Rob Cohen, Produced by Mike Medavoy. The Executive Producer was Arnold Messer. The movie starts out with wording and music, similar to Star Wars, giving the prologue of the movie. I feel that the Director’s vision is that he is trying to warn us about what the future is capable of happening, if we put “brains” in computers. In this thesis I will be telling you about the movie so you will be able to understand what is happening. I will also be telling you who is in the movie and what their roles are, the style and directing of the movie. I will also Critique the film regarding the flaws that was done, the editing to the style and the acting. The Original music was done by BT. Music plays throughout the movie; the colors are neutral at the beginning of the movie with certain key items showing full color, in one scene a United States flag is flying on a building. Dean Semler does the Cinematography’s work. His work includes Secretariat (2010) and Mad Max: Fury Road (pre-production) (2012). Stephen Rivhin did the film editing. His most recent work was Avatar (2009), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006). Making a movie is a genuinely collaborative effort...
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...CRASHING IN OUR OWN ZONE The film Crash (2005) directed by Paul Haggis takes place in the city of Los Angeles’ and focuses on the ethnically diverse population of the city. It puts a spotlight on the high degree of alienation amongst the groups where meaningful human contact only occurs if individuals literally ‘crash’ into one another. The Los Angeles metropolitan area has a population of 3.8 million (Census, 2005); it is home to more poor people than any other urban area in the US. Approximately 20% of residents, including one of every three children, live in poverty (Census, 2005). The city is home as well to extravagant displays of wealth, mainly associated with the entertainment industry, making income inequality the most disheartening part of the Los Angeles region today. In addition to this vast social polarization there is a large immigrant population that struggles with integration, poverty and alienation. The movie is filmed as a series of vignettes focusing on the lives of several characters over a two-day period in post-9/11 America. Haggis’ characters exemplify various substantive birth cohorts and vast differences in gender, age, and class relations. These include characters of Caucasian, African American, Persian, Mexican, Korean, and Hispanic decent. He depicts these characters as forming harmful prejudices from a combination of impressions and individual beliefs toward each other as well as using stereotypes to define each other. The concepts and theoretical...
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...community. Less than five years after publication, the novel had been translated into English, and the first of many films in the American Planet of the Apes media franchise debuted as "loose adaptations" of Boulle's work. Today, this science fiction powerhouse continues to create popular film adaptations, however as time continues, the derivation from Boulle's original French novel escalates. By looking at a handful of the many films, one can see how each of the different versions distances further from the original intent of the novel, becoming nearly unrecognizable from the 1963 French novel. Despite Boulle willingly signing over the rights to his work, having been credited and compensated accordingly, and even writing new material for a movie sequel, the Planet of the Apes franchise's continual derivation from the original work is a disservice to Boulle's creation and legacy, leaving the author almost forgotten. On the contrary, the modifications to the original allowed Boulle's creative thoughts to reach entire audiences that he never thought possible. The author himself spoke minimal English and lived his whole life in France, but Planet of the Apes and the concept behind it is now a household name in the United States. While this is a strong counter-argument regarding artistic liberties and the benefit of adaptations for reaching greater audiences, the fact still remains that Planet of the Apes as of today is unrecognizable from the French brainchild of Pierre...
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...with the sentence, "Everyone thought he was dead." It refers to a silent film comedian named Hector Mann who just disappeared one day back in 1929, but it could just as easily refer to the protagonist of the story, David Zimmer, a literature professor at a liberal arts college in Vermont. David's life came to an end the day his wife and sons were killed in a plane crash. That disaster sent him diving headlong into drink and depression and he lived in an almost catatonic state in front of the television every day. He saw no purpose to living, but he was also unable to take his own life. He divorced society, quit his job, and broke off all contact with the people in his former life. One day, a spark of life emerged while he watched a short clip of a Hector Mann movie on the television. He laughed. That moment of laughter made him realize that there was still something inside him that wanted to live, and he realized he needed a purpose, something to occupy his mind and to get him through every day. David decided to write a book about Hector Mann and his movies. He had previously written several books of literary critique and he applied the same thorough research methods of his academic career to find out all he could about Hector Mann. The only copies of the 12 silent movies Hector Mann ever made were distributed among different film museums around the world, so he traveled to all of them and watched all the movies repeatedly until he had them memorized. Paul Auster does a wonderful...
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...The ‘American Dream’ has existed since the funding of the United States. Typically, the dreamer chooses to rise from being poor to being wealthy, while accumulating things such as love, status, wealth, and power. The dream has grown through the years and time periods, even though it was based on freedom, self-reliance and the desire to be something greater. In the past the dream was for someone to go out west for land and to start a family. It has turned into a very materialistic vision of a big house, nice car, and living the easy life. As represented in the novel The Great Gatsby and Baz Luhrmann’s, The Great Gatsby, the American Dream was more focused on instant gratification of material things and needing material things as an indication of success. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby and Baz Luhrmann’s, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a renaissance man; a man who has it all but started out with nothing. His plan was to achieve his dream. He was so blinded by his possessions, in front of him, that he could not see that money could not buy love or happiness. Fitzgerald demonstrated how a dream can be corrupted by one’s focus on accruing wealth, power, and expensive things. Gatsby’s dream was “ambiguous, contradictory, romantic in nature, and undeniably beautiful while at the same time grotesquely flawed” (Hearne 189). His American Dream had become tarnished and corrupted by the culture of money and opulence that surrounded him. Gatsby was ‘new money’, and...
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...Day 1: Had my first day today and it was very interesting. First I had an orientation where we went over general guidelines for interns at Viacom and then we signed some paperwork. Played some icebreaker games and got a crash course in all the entities that Viacom owns such as MTV, MTV2, VH1, Comedy Central, CMT, BET. After I met with JC, one of the research analysts for MTV and I got a tour of where I was working and met fellow employees and met my supervisor Mitchell. I then attended a meeting with the research, programming and creative insight teams where we discussed millennials (people aged 15-30) and their media consumption. We watched clips about certain shows that were going to be aired and whether or not millennials would watch these shows. We also discussed other areas regarding media consumption. Day 2: I arrived early to work to start learning. The more the better in my opinion. I got acclimated at my desk and started learning the basics. I got a crash course in MTV and ratings since I am in intern in the research and strategic insights department. Then I attended a focus group regarding upcoming MTV events and gave input regarding the specific topics. Got acclimated with startrak, the system in which MTV/MTV 2 pulls ratings. Day 3: got acclimated with startrak even more. Learned some of the more difficult tasks associated with it. I learned how to pull the ratings for MTV and checked ratings that my supervisors JC, Cara, and Mitchell create. Basically its just...
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...of the Hollywood Studio System 195 The Studio System’s Golden Age 205 The Transformation of the Studio System 209 The Economics of the Movie Business 215 Popular Movies and Democracy In every generation, a film is made that changes the movie industry. In 1941, that film was Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane. Welles produced, directed, wrote, and starred in the movie at age twenty-five, playing a newspaper magnate from a young man to old age. While the movie was not a commercial success initially (powerful newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose life was the inspiration for the movie, tried to suppress it), it was critically praised for its acting, story, and directing. Citizen Kane’s dramatic camera angles, striking film noir–style lighting, nonlinear storytelling, montages, and long deep-focus shots were considered technically innovative for the era. Over time, Citizen Kane became revered as a masterpiece, and in 1997 the American Film Institute named it the Greatest American Movie of All Time. “Citizen Kane is more than a great movie; it is a gathering of all the lessons of the emerging era of sound,” film critic Roger Ebert wrote.1 CHAPTER 6 ○ MOVIES 185 (c) Bedford/St. Martin's bedfordstmartins.com 1-457-62096-0 / 978-1-457-62096-6 MOVIES A generation later, the space epic Star Wars (1977) changed the culture of the movie industry. Star Wars, produced, written, and directed by George Lucas, departed from the personal filmmaking of the early 1970s and spawned...
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...FROM LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT TO SOUL MATE: ROMANTIC IDEALS IN POPULAR FILMS AND THEIR ASSOCIATION WITH YOUNG PEOPLE‘S BELIEFS ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS BY VERONICA HEFNER DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Speech Communication in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Barbara J. Wilson, Chair Associate Professor John P. Caughlin Associate Professor Kristen Harrison Associate Professor Travis L. Dixon ABSTRACT Romantic comedy films have been popular since motion pictures first entered the media world. Scholars have speculated why these movies remain appealing to viewers and have argued for several reasons. These movies might foster hope about real-life romance (Galician, 2004), or demonstrate that that there are no limits to how love may manifest itself (Harvey, 1998). Despite this speculation, few studies have systematically investigated the content of these movies or the effects they may have on viewers. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate that potential. In particular, I conducted two studies that explored the nature of romantic ideals in romantic comedy films and their influence on viewer endorsement of romantic beliefs. The first study was a content analysis of the themes or romantic ideals embedded in romantic comedies. The second study was a survey designed to explore whether exposure to such...
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...Abstract Brands rushed into social media, viewing social networks, video sharing, online communities, and microblogging sites as the panacea to diminishing returns for traditional brand building routes. But as more branding activity moves to the Web, marketers are confronted with the stark realization that social media was made for people, not for brands. In this article, we explore the emergent cultural landscape of open source branding, and identify marketing strategies directed at the hunt for consumer engagement on the People’s Web. These strategies present a paradox, for to gain coveted resonance, the brand must relinquish control. We discuss how Webbased power struggles between marketers and consumer brand authors challenge accepted branding truths and paradigms: where short-term brands can trump longterm icons; where marketing looks more like public relations; where brand building gives way to brand protection; and brand value is driven by risk, not returns. # 2011 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved. 1. The party crashers: Marketers and the Social Web Brands today claim hundreds of thousands of Facebook friends, Twitter followers, online community members, and YouTube fans; yet, it is a lonely, scary time to be a brand manager. Despite marketers’ desires to leverage Web 2.0 technologies to their advantage, a stark truth presents itself: the Web was created not to sell branded products, but to link people together in collective conversational...
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...Toyota (Chapter 1) Overview. This case concerns the systems used by Toyota to become the third largest automobile manufacturer in the world. The case illustrates how this organization strives to serve customers and achieve a profit. The case intentionally emphasizes features of Toyota's manufacturing system, rather than its marketing strategies per se, to show how the whole organization is focused on serving customer wants and needs, not just the marketing department. Suggestions for Discussion Questions 1. In what ways is Toyota's new-product development system designed to serve customers? There are a number of features to this system that make it customer oriented. The Toyota system responds more quickly than competitors, allowing the company to correct any mistakes and react to market trends faster than competitors. The system has a chief engineer responsible for the product from design to marketing. This may allow consumer research to function as a direct input into engineering specifications rather than become a secondary concern after the product is designed. Since the corporate philosophy is to serve customers, consumer inputs are more likely to be used develop better new products. 2. In what ways is Toyota's manufacturing system designed to serve customers? There are a number of features in Toyota's manufacturing systems that are designed to serve customers, including the following features. Employees, even on the assembly line, are trained to consider their...
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...Business Horizons (2011) 54, 193—207 www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor The uninvited brand Susan Fournier a,*, Jill Avery b a b Boston University School of Management, 595 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, U.S.A. Simmons School of Management, 300 The Fenway, M-336, Boston, MA 02115, U.S.A. KEYWORDS Branding; Brand management; Social media; Web 2.0; Co-creation Abstract Brands rushed into social media, viewing social networks, video sharing, online communities, and microblogging sites as the panacea to diminishing returns for traditional brand building routes. But as more branding activity moves to the Web, marketers are confronted with the stark realization that social media was made for people, not for brands. In this article, we explore the emergent cultural landscape of open source branding, and identify marketing strategies directed at the hunt for consumer engagement on the People’s Web. These strategies present a paradox, for to gain coveted resonance, the brand must relinquish control. We discuss how Webbased power struggles between marketers and consumer brand authors challenge accepted branding truths and paradigms: where short-term brands can trump longterm icons; where marketing looks more like public relations; where brand building gives way to brand protection; and brand value is driven by risk, not returns. # 2011 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved. 1. The party crashers: Marketers and the Social Web Brands...
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