Light Movie Reviews Samples For Students

Philosophy of “Rashomon”

“Rashomon” by Akira Kurosawa is a Japanese drama shot in 1950. Based on the two novels by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa ("Rashomon" and "In a Grove"), the film depicts several stories of the same incident. The name of the film is the name of the city gate in Kyoto. It is the point where the film begins and where the woodcutter and the priest tell their incredible story to the commoner. The release of the Japanese movie was a real breakthrough – among its awards, it won the Golden Lion and the Academy Honorary Award.
The film aims to demonstrate the controversial picture ...

Movie Review “I'm in love with a church girl”

Biographical and a Cultural Criticism
The movie shows Miles Montego trying too hard to change his lifestyle within a short period. Having been a major drug dealer for a while, and while still maintaining strong contacts with his former colleagues the conversion to Christianity is a tall order for Miles. He is in love with a strict church girl, has just gone through a traumatic loss of mother, faces criminal challenges from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and has to handle the accident of his girlfriend Vanessa. Miles’s conversion to Christianity ends up not being a climax or a wholly convincing biography.
The film features interracial ...

English

The 2005 film “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is one of the epic fantasy series which turned out to be highly successful at the box office. The lighting used in every scene was able to capture the emotion and beauty of the setting in New Zealand and South Island. The viewers were able to appreciate the scenes even more with the use of key light, fill light, soft light and backlight. In the scene wherein Lucy meets the White Witch, or the Queen of Narnia used a key light to give the characters full ...

Film studies:

In An Education it is 1961 in London. We meet a sixteen year old girl who plays the cello called Jenny. After one of her practice sessions it starts raining and she is standing at the bus stop getting rained on. A fancy looking car soon pulls up next to her and the car’s window rolls down. The driver introduces himself. His name is David and claims to share a mutual attraction towards the cello with Jenny. He proceeds to offer Jenny’s cello a ride and claims to be of the notion that Jenny would probably not agree to riding ...

The way one’s mind interprets sensation is the referred to as perception of the world around them. With advanced technology as well as improved study of the human anatomy, doctors can now restore the sight of blind person. However, there is a major problem that is more likely to be experienced. Upon restoration of the eye sight, the person who was initially blind now interprets the world around them in a way that is different from the way they interpreted the world before losing the sight.
Sensation refers to the process through which sensory receptor’s stimulation produces neural ...

Maureen O’Hara’s role as Judy O’Brien as an aspiring ballerina in a dance troupe in Dorothy Arzner’s film Dance, Girl, Dance is a prime example of a dancer who has to compete with another dancer for her place in the spotlight and for the male lead. The other dancer is Bubbles/Tiger Lily White, who is played by Lucille Ball and the male lead James ‘Jimmy’ Harris Jr. is played by Louis Hayward.
Judy and Bubbles are good friends who are both dancers. While Judy is the better dancer of the two, Bubbles is better looking and using ...

Sequence Analysis in Pride and Prejudice (2005)
Pride and Prejudice (2005) was Joe Wright's debut as a director of a feature film. It was a tough choice for the studio, because he had no real experience and didn't even read a Jane Austen's novel. But in the end it was the best candidate, because Wright managed to explore his nature talent and was later inspired to direct his other movies like Atonement or Anna Karenina. Pride and Prejudice was the first romantic film he worked on, but later he was admired for his work and the film was welcomed very warmly by ...

The movie “Birdman”, filmed by the Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu in 2014, created a furor in the cinematography. This film uses a lot of unusual cinematic techniques, which we are going to analyze in our paper.
     Let us start with the camera work done by Emmanuel Lubezki, who used quite interesting techniques when shooting. First of all, you need to say about the angles of the shots. Emmanuel Lubezki filmed shots from low angles. These pictures give the impression that the subject is of great importance, and has certain strength. These shots make the viewers feel ...

In DeMille’s “The Cheat”

The art is a magical invention of the mankind, although it is possible to say that the art has invented a human being in some strange way too – that human with a delicate vision of the beauty and with fascinating creative abilities. The cinematography is one of the greatest arts. However, it is important to note the fact that the modern cinematography has turned into a huge commercial business (but not the whole, of course).
It is difficult to impress a contemporary representative of our consumer society because he is surrounded by the entertainment business everywhere. However, the movies ...

The following analysis of Persona and Solaris reveals how movies from unlike countries and of different genres portray the development of opposite human personalities while losing or gaining humanity under the external influences and internal self-recognition. The attempts to create a fine movie about internal and external of human life do not often impress much, especially nowadays when we experience an endless flow of visual images. Probably, it inspires people to look back at the classic works that not only represent the unusual transformations in the forms of self but also produce extraordinary rhythms in the scenes (Tarkovsky 113). ...

The genre of film noir is an expansion of the classic Hollywood genre of film known as the crime film. The crime film persists as one of the most popular and enduring of all types of Hollywood films - ever since the sound era, it has remained a particularly potent and popular genre (Leitch 1). As the years have progressed, the noir film has been replaced with the neo-noir - a modern film genre which takes the trappings of noir and places them outside of its typical comfort zone. In the case of 2010's Winter's Bone, the typical film noir detective ...

The subject of image 1 -, is the layout of the environment al scenery and its immediate features. Principles of a good design are the devices that artists or rather designers use in developing an efficient composition/design. The principles used herein includes but not limited to; equilibrium, movement, recurrence, accent, simplicity, distinction, proportion, space and finally unity. At particular times, a design may either be said to be weak or even strong. This is dependent based on the artist’s expertise on the principles of design and the how best he/she applies the skills. From the above image, the artist has ...

Following the devastation which was brought about by the Hurricane Katrina and the consequent unsteady response that it was accorded by different agencies, the roles of the federal government come up as extremely pivotal in averting national crises such as the latter and even the September 11th attacks. It is in this light that the following article will present a discussion on the benefits of federalism and how it might constrain federal outreach, as well as, too much power. This also comes up in light of the public’s dissatisfaction with the manner in which the government responded to ...

Citizen Kane (1941) Film Viewing Assignment

Director: Orson Welles
Film Editor: Robert Wise
The one major and the three main supporting actors and their character names: Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane, a rich and successful publisher of newspapers

Joseph Cotten as Jedediah Leland

Dorothy Comingore as Susan Alexander Kane
Everett Sloane as Mr. Bernstein
Let us consider the cult film “Citizen Kane” shot by young Orson Welles in 1941. The film is based on the script of the same Orson Welles in a duet with Herman Jacob Mankiewicz. The leading role in the film played Orson Welles himself as Charles Foster Kane, a ...

Introduction

Were one to attempt and define the general element in all films by Yasujiro Ozu, he/she would realize that this star had an eye for the human tales about everyday life. In deciding to capture this quality, he used various genres and their dialogues to highlight the specific points that he was trying to put across. Although perceived by some as being a filmmaker with a weakness for slow moving, conservatively lensed films, the certainty proves to be far dissimilar. Whereas it is true that he has mainly made dramas, in the “Good Morning” film, Ozu demonstrates that he is a skilled ...

In the summer of 1974 a then 26 year old Steven Spielberg is going about his business of making sure that his movie about a shark that had overshot the expected $3.5 million budget does not sink his career in Hollywood. Everything that could go wrong had already gone wrong and it was hard to see the light at the end of this very dark tunnel. The movie he was making was Jaws, a movie that is today classed as a master piece in many circles and topping many greatest films lists while being one of the most commercially successful films in movie ...

Film Studies

Films have been something that has been part of man’s society ever since they were created. In this course there have been many films that were watched and assessed. Some stood out more than other and some were even worse or better than other. Many things were learned such as the art that goes into these movies and not to mention other elements such the dialogue, cinematography and sound. Of course, the actors cannot be overlooked because without them, there is not movie. With that said, the researches have picked three films to raise questions, trace motifs, and ...

The Coen Brothers have, one may say created an absolute masterpiece of a movie, which some may say is an amalgamation of the Wild West movies of old and a horror story. “The wide open plains, cowboys, Texas, guns and horses but has the syntax of a film noir even sometimes a horror movie. There is a murderer, one could even call him an unstoppable force, he kills without mercy and with a semi-novelty killing device. It deals with a man who finds a loot of money and must escape his pursuers who are a bunch of dirty business men, corrupted by greed and the lust for power ...

“Bringing Up Baby” is a classic screwball comedy which stars Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. The story revolves around a heiress, Susan Vance (Hepburn), who has a pet leopard and a paleontologist David Huxley (Grant). The major highlights of the movie centers on the search for the missing bone, the upcoming marriage of David with his fiancée Alice, the probable one million dollars donation for David’s project and the search for the leopard. The two characters meet at a golf outing for the possible benefactors of David’s museum. It is in this meeting that Susan gets attracted to David and decides ...

Mean Streets (1973) Martin Scorsese

Introduction

A film is a story or an event that is a set of moving images or motion pictures and is shown in theater or on television. Films always portray different messages in them depending on the subject topic. The message they portray or carry mainly depend on the plot, setting of the movie and the role the different characters take up in the film or movie. The intent of the film is always in the main theme and this is always the beneficial part of the film to the viewers or the consumers (Merritt ...

Both Fargo and Mr. Robot have been discussed in the media spotlight as two television shows being ground-breaking, not only for their storytelling and scriptwriting, but due to the sophisticated cinematography and sound that they incorporate. These elements add a dramatic flair to the shows, which infuses them with meaningful depth. In order to emphasize the importance of these characteristics, the current paper explores the cinematography and sound design present in both Fargo and Mr. Robot.
Considering the plot of the show, it is worth stating that the protagonist of it is a young technical engineer, responsible for cyber ...

In 2013 a new and updated version of The Great Gatsby was directed by Baz Luhrmann, starting Leonardo De Caprio, and designed to be a faster, and brighter version of an age old story. One of the most visually and thematically interesting scenes in the film is the “epic party scene” as it is known, at which time the audience is first introduced to not only the Gatsby character, but also his over the top lifestyle. As such, the scene is expressly interesting to dissect as it relates to the way it characterizes certain individuals and sets the scene ...

There is a saying that silence is gold and evidence of it one may observe while watching masterpieces from Silent Era. One cannot help but notice how loud silent films are. Absence of sound is substituted by magnificent way of narration, director`s technique and acting capacity. I Was Born, but (1932) directed by Yasujiro Ozu is a Japanese representative of silent pieces of art. Skillfully and subtly Ozu presents adult problems, tough struggle in earning money, interpretation of social positions and adjustment and all these things come from children`s perspective. Through the eyes of pure and vulnerable ...

Introduction The Odd Couple is a film written by Neil Simon. It is an American comedy with a unique theme. The film stars two divorced men, Felix (Jack Lemmon), a clean freak and perfectionist, and Oscar (Walter Matthau), crude, disorganized divorced man whose life can be likened to slob. The two men decide to co-habit despite their different personalities, and the results are disastrous.Plot Oscar feels incomplete without his wife and kids. He misses them and wishes he could have been more supportive (by making his alimony payments) than he was. Felix also wallows in self pity when he is free because ...

J.J. Abrams’ serialized television drama LOST follows the stories of a group of survivors of a violent airplane crash on a deserted island, stuck without any hope of rescue and beholden to the mysterious forces that govern their new home. In its pilot episode, the filmmakers of LOST firmly establish the recurring theme of good vs. evil that establishes the characters’ journeys in their island setting. This is done through a combination of visual motifs, symbolism, and character moments juxtaposed through flashbacks and editing. Throughout the course of the pilot, the flaws, alignments and attitudes of the characters are weighed against a sense of ...

In the film “Different but Equal”, Basil Davidson introduces Africa with an Afro-centric view of history and colonial oppression. Different but equal, Basil studies African cultures in the early days. Notably, the information presented in the film is based on artifacts and art from caves, pyramids, and tombs from Meroe and Egypt in ancient Sudan. His main focus is Meroe. He begins by demystifying the fabled notions of the stereotyped continent. He identifies certain historical credentials fabricated by Western philosophers and explorers. Basil stresses that these individuals from Europe did not understand Africa at all. Instead, they made assumptions ...

Film analysis of "Alain Resnais - Night and Fog (1956)" and "Jean Luc Godard - Breathless (1959)"
Each movie is a small story. Each movie carries its own information. Each movie opens the whole world to the viewer, no matter if it is full-length film or a short film or even a documentary. Still, it gives a chance to make own decisions about some particular moments. Another question is how ideal the information was given – did the director in his or her picture manage to cover all the needed aspects. It is not only related to the script. A visual point plays a ...

A Soldier’s Story’s is a film that was produced in America in 1984 by an American drama film directed Norman Jewison. The film was developed from Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize-winning, A Soldier’s Play. The story’s main themes are racism as well as segregation for a black United States Army battalion with white officers. A black army officer, Howard Rollins, is tasked with the role of investigating the killing of a sergeant Waters based in Louisiana towards the final bit of the Second World War. The case takes place in the interior of Jim Crow South at a time when a ...

Introduction

The film “crash” is directed by Paul Haggis. He brings out the issue of divergence in characters and race. It illustrates the level by which characters crash. The movie implicates knit stories based on whites, blacks, Koreans, Iranians, the rich and the poor, cops and criminals. Many of the actors found in the film “crash” performed racist action. The actors’ personality, background and skill let to a completely believable impression.
The movie shows difference in racial characteristics in clear dimensions. The white characters portray possession of comfortable positions. The blacks, including the television director play a cold role. The main ...

Psychological thrillers have had a long and storied history in film; the ability to capture stories about the deranged and the psychotic, whatever their diagnosis, has led to many intriguing and critically acclaimed films. Two of these are Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 thriller Psycho, in which mother-obsessed serial killer Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) stalks and murders women who check into his hotel, and the 1980 Stanley Kubrick chiller The Shining, where Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) goes insane over a harsh winter in a disturbing hotel he must oversee for the winter. Both films exercise wonderful filmic techniques to convey the shock and terror ...

For André Bazin, the famous film critic and theorist from France, cinemas were a realist medium. This is why majority of film theorists would perhaps argue that that if he got a look at the computer-animated film WALL·E (2008) by Disney/Pixar, he would turn over in his grave. His theories revolved around the notion that there is always a mummy complex underlying the origin of any form of art, including cinema. Bazin’s notion suggests that art struggles to immortalize the mortal, to preserve the physical existence on screen. According to Bazin, the medium that eliminates most of the distance between ...

Simon Schama’s The Power of Art portrays the quintessence of various artists, one being Caravaggio, and the painful scorn and incomprehension the artists faced during their lifetime. The episode portraying Caravaggio in the television serious by the BBC chronicles the several interesting aspects of the artist’s works.
In the opening episode of the series, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s impeccability of ‘transgression’ is portrayed. The artist had paramount ability to portray scenes from Biblical history expressing the divine infusion of God’s grace. The Pope and the cardinals of the Roman catholic Church found these pieces ...

Film/novel; Winter's Bone/Winter's Bone Daniel Woodrell/Debra Granik

‘Hope” is the beauty and the very essence of life. A day follows a night, every sunset is followed by sunrise, light at the end of the tunnel – you can ramble on and on so forth. Art in any form, be it a painting, a literary work or a movie is supposed to celebrate the gift of life and most of the time it does. Every fairy tale has a happy ending, a lovely piece of melody fills us with joy of living and a beautiful painting reminds us about the existence of God.
But novels and movies cannot always be preaching how good conquers ...

“What happens when wrong feels right and right feels wrong? When situations that appear to be black and white turn out to be gray?” (The Literary Analyst).The bygone philosophy of novelists writing what they desire stands firm. For me, a director holds the same status when it comes to films, in fact all artists irrespective of their desired form of art should have the liberty to think and make people do the same. This perfectly sounds true of Ben Affleck’s triumphant and remarkable debut in Gone Baby Gone (2007), which is an adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s heavily ...

1. The 2004 documentary Born Into Brothels follows documentarian Zana Briski's time spent among the prostitutes of Calcutta. She interviews these prostitutes, as well as their children, whom she teaches photography (and gives disposable cameras with which to take pictures). In this time, not only does she follow the trials and tribulations of prostitutes and women in Indian culture, but she also reveals new insights about the children of these prostitutes and how small their prospects for betterment are.2. I chose this documentary because I knew little about Indian culture, or how systemic the problem of prostitution was. I ...

In Ridley Scott’s 1982 science-fiction film Blade Runner, the detailed world that provides the film with its setting is created and filmed in a unique and interesting way. The setting is Los Angeles in the far-flung future of 2019, where corporations rule the world and synthetic humans called replicants have been outlawed. The film follows bounty hunter Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) as he is ordered to hunt down several replicants who have escaped to Earth. The care taken in the creation of the world of Blade Runner, in combination with the abstract, breathtaking story, creates a visual and cultural futurist’ ...

The archeologist studied the life of a farmer in the San Juan, Mexico to understand how the manufacture and trade of matateos and menois in the ancient city of Copan was carried out. The study of Filemeno Gabriel’s way of life shed light to how and why the farmers in ancient city of Copan manufactured the matateos and menois. It was noted that Gabriel made matateos in his spare time so as to supplement his budget. This was because as a farmer Gabriel could only produce what was enough for him, his family and the domestic animals he owned.
...

Beautiful, thought provoking, or horrifying; there are many way to describe Lief Hall’s work. However, boring will never be among them, unless perhaps a negating term is also included. Lief Hall’s film combines intermedia effects including rainbow light, mirrored and merged images that call to mind everything from peaceful ocean sunrises to skeletal faces to intimate female body parts. Backed by synthesized electro-pop music Leif Hall spins an artistic cyclone of lyrics that range from softly chanted to screeching. This effect is further enhanced by Hall’s skillful use of mixed media incorporating: light, sound, and computer enhanced ...

This paper focuses on the family and issues related to the role of family as far as the society is concerned. Man is a social animal. This means that the life of each and every family member is directly or indirectly dependent on the other members. This is mainly so because of the perpetual interactions in such social groupings (Scot, P. 2004). Therefore, in order to shed more light on this topic, I would like to use the 2008 Mexican launched In the Name of Love.
In the name of love is as cited, a Mexican original film that was ...

The 2005 film, Constantine explores the ideas of heaven and hell and their impact on the day to day lives of the people on Earth. In terms of its success, the film was, financially, a big one and took a total of $230,884,728 at the box office. However, it was greeted by a mixed reaction from critics and audiences alike – this was largely due to the film being based on a popular comic book series entitled Hellblazer. The film tells the story of John Constantine, a man who is able to see demons and angels at work on Earth and takes on ...

INTRODUCTION

In the 1982 science-fiction film Blade Runner, director Ridley Scott takes great care to fashion a detailed, unique dystopian world for the characters to inhabit. The setting is Los Angeles in the (at the time of production) dystopian future of 2019, where corporations rule the world and synthetic humans called replicants have been outlawed. The film follows bounty hunter Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) as he is tasked to hunt down several replicants who have escaped to Earth. The care taken in the creation of the world of Blade Runner, in combination with the dreamlike, meandering story, creates a visual and cultural ...

Stories about journalists investigating scandals have always been popular topics for films. First and foremost it can be explained by a desire of a human being to rummage in the staff of other people, to take the skeleton out of a cupboard and learn all the ins and outs of another person. Journalists are similar to sleuthhounds, which are poking their nose into affairs of others, making a sensation out of it. And when it comes to political scandals, their interest is boosted even more.

The film, directed by Alan J. Pakula All the President’s Men, is a paragon of a film, where journalists ...