Youth Movie Reviews Samples For Students

The movie ‘second hand lions’ revolves around the life of a shy young boy, Walter. It is set in the countryside of Texas in the year in the year 1962. It reflects upon the growth and development of the boy as he tries to adapt to changing lifestyles, norms and cultures at different phases of his life. The movie is directed by Tim McCanlies and focusing on this young boy who is brought by his mother to live with his two great uncles Hub and Garth who have recently come back home after a forty year absence. These two old ...

"Grave of the fireflies" is an animated movie that depicts the life in Japan towards the end of the Second World War. American bombers have just dropped canisters bombs that wrecks havoc across the Japanese cities. It tells the story of a young teenager and his sister in their struggle to survive after the death of their mother. The film is tragic and elicits a lot of emotions and compassion. The bombing event shapes the plot of the entire movie.
Seita, the young teenager and his sister Setsuko have a father who works with the navy. After the death of their ...

Introduction

Careful examination of a person’s behavior can sometimes be the most challenging part. People may not open up about what they are going through or what they are experiencing. It is upon an individual who has proper counseling skills to look at a person and come up with the correct diagnosis of the problem in question. Not all the time would one come up with the correct diagnosis, but the essence is to develop a plan of action with respect to the disability of the individual. The movie ‘Towelhead’ provides a challenge of conceptualization (Ball, 2008). The movie provides a broad converse over ...

First M. Lastname

Educational Institution
Morgan Spurlock wanted to answer the question of “What would happen if someone ate McDonald’s food for every meal of every day for a month?” in light of criminal suits leveled against the fast food giant. Throughout the documentary, he highlights the philosophic dilemma at the center of the litigation: Where does the responsibility of the obesity epidemic fall? On one hand, you could ask, “Shouldn’t a person know not to eat fast food too often and that it’s harmful for them? If they eat too much, then that’s their fault.” And, on the ...

The movie “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring” starts with showing a small Buddhist temple on the river. In the temple, there were both old and young Buddhist monks. Leafy trees and clear spring weather evoke peaceful background of this movie. To gather medical herbs and to get into land, two monks have to take a small boat. A young monk teases small animals like frogs, snakes, and fish by suspending stones to them with his innocent smile; at the same time, the old monk observes young monk without any comments. That night an old monk suspends rock to young monk ...

Film Studies

The movie “The Social Network” was shown in 2010 and gives a detailed story on how Mark Zuckerberg transformed the social networking site “Facebook” to become a global phenomenon. It presents a simple story of how a young student from Harvard University in the person of Zuckerberg was able to create a campus website which was named “Facemash” and made him the second youngest billionaire in the world. The story begins when Zuckerberg was dumped by his girlfriend, Erica causing him to create a blog which was intended to insult her. This prompted him to create a website known as “Facemash” which gave the opportunity for ...

Introduction

Easy Rider is one of the hallmark films of Hollywood. It defines a cultural period as this important film established filmmaking styles and attitudes. Aside from its cinematography, it also launched a guerilla style of independent filmmaking with very controlled and smooth studio film cinematography. Principally, this film featured a very remarkable soundtrack. Easy Rider was one of the first films that used the popular music during that period. The film also featured musicians such as Steppenwolf, The Byrds and Jimi Hendrix. The rock and roll background gave a more enriched narration and storytelling. The musical pieces featured by the film also made ...

Spring and summer

What is contained in the movies?
The spring movie surrounds a young Buddhist apprentice who happens to stay with his master on a floating monastery going round the lake in a mountainous forest of Korea. The master plays a great role in nurturing the young apprentice with respect to Korean ethics and morals. On the other hand, the summer movie which is a continuation of the spring movie brings back the apprentice who is now in his teenage. In this encounter, he meets a mother and her daughter walking along the forest. The daughter happens to be sick and she is being brought to ...

The story happens in Harlem in 1943. Two sisters, Elizabeth, Bess and Quilly live together in Bess' apartment. The population in Harlem is African-American. They are happy to be living in such a community because it seems peaceful. There are many conflicts between the sisters. They are always quarreling even without a particular reason. Quilly is angry with Bess for renting a room to a young man and Bess is unhappy with her life in general, which makes her very sensitive and vulnerable.
We can see the sisters talk to each other harshly numerous times. The first time is when they enter ...

After watching the videos, I do agree with Druckenmiller's idea that today's youth are being robbed by retirees. This is so because entitlement spending is stealing opportunities from the youth of America. This concept of generational theft is based on the fact that opportunities for the youth are extremely important and the entitlement spending or the money spent by the government in retirement fund can be better utilized for the purpose of building job opportunities for the youth. In present times of recession, it becomes even more important to build these opportunities.
It is important to divert the ...

"I wanna be Like Mike documentary"

This documentary presents the idea of shift in the perception of opportunity among parents and young people in America. I agree that education in the United States was traditionally treated as being an important pipeline to well-paying jobs and a better life. However, this supposition has slowly been dissolved as the idea of drafting into the NBA has become engrained into the US cultural framework. The American society seems to have little concern about education. Parents and young people have embraced the idea that you do not have to necessarily be educated to be in a position to make large amounts ...

Directed, produced and written by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, 'Miss Representation' is an American Documentary film that brings out the farcical reality of women empowerment with only 17% women as elected officials in Congress and 7% as directors in Hollywood movies. The mainstream media projects women as a showpiece who needs to fit into certain parameters to look beautiful and sexy and the image of women thus created breeds an overpowering notion in the minds of young women and men that the value and power of a woman lay in her sensuality, youth and beauty and not in her ability to be a ...

The whole idea of a woman’s body being used as an object and how the advertisers use it to market their products is shocking. It is sad that we enjoy such adverts and not really understanding what they imply. Some of the sections that stood out is trying to replace the attraction that men have towards women to the products being advertised. Realizing that sex and passion are one of the main things that men look for in men, sexually erosive parts have been used and replaced with products such as beer and cars. This definitely diminishes the role ...

Finding Forrester, Gus Van Sant's 2000 follow-up to his critically acclaimed film Good Will Hunting, follows a young black youth named Jamal (Rob Brown) whose entrance into a well-respected private high school coincides with his befriending of an eccentric, reclusive Salinger-like fiction writer (Sean Connery), who teaches him to cultivate his writing skills. The film centers around this mentor-mentee relationship, as Forrester befriends someone for the first time in decades, while Jamal finds someone who believes in the things he is actually passionate about. Finding Forrester is a sentimental, treacly yet fairly effective movie that touches on ideas of anti-intellectualism, racism, inner-city ...

In Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 documentary Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens), the Nazi propaganda was often very subtle rather than simply crude, clumsy and heavy-handed and was designed to make Nazism look appealing. Her boss in this endeavor was Dr. Josef Goebbels who became Reich Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment after the Nazis took power in 1933. He had rapidly brought the mass media, radio, filmmaking, theater, book publishing and the arts under its control. All Jews and persons deemed politically unreliable were expelled from these professions, while writers, artists and journalists who cooperated with the ...

There is no movie with a greater effect than one in possession of a rebellious teenager for a protagonist, who finds himself at odds with his peers at a new school, who meets a girl, stands up for what he believes is right, even though it may be in conflict with what society perceives as right, thus disobeying not only his parents but the law as well, all in an attempt to make a potent social commentary about the American youth. Such a movie is Rebel Without a Cause. The film’s enormous success has not only its story, but also its stars to thank for: heartthrob ...

Produced by Caitlin McNally and directed by Dretzin and John Maggio, the film, Growing up Online shows a clear difference between the virtual world and the real life of emotions with regard to teenagers and young people. From the film, young people have made the internet part of their social and academic life. The film agrees that the internet is today a way of life and the young IT generation of today are influenced by the internet in many ways. The web shapes how the youth behave, learn, interact and share information. Therefore it becomes a crucial tool for learning. However, virtual ...

Q.1
In the film, A face in the crowd, Griffith plays the anti-hero role. He plays as the protagonist who does not have the qualities to make him a true hero. He is a stumbling block to himself; a fact proved through the series of events in his life. Larry Rhodes gets discovered by Marcia Jeffries on a radio talk show run at a station called KGRK. Rhodes soon rises to fame as a country boy. He has a strong charm and folksy sense of humor, which endears him to the masses. Soon enough, he lands a job to host his own show in Tennessee. The talk ...

Oliver Parker’s version of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ is a witty horror movie that captures subtlety of Oscar Wilde’s writing. The movie is somewhat different from previous attempts of screening the story about a young and handsome Dorian Gray.

The setting of the movie takes place in 19th century London. Dorian Gray (Ben Barnes), an extraordinarily beautiful and pleasant man, moves to this big city after the death of his grandfather. Dorian starts to enjoy a life of wealthy London Victorian society, as he inherited great deal of money from his relative. Soon he meets two of the people, ...

In many ways the US system is inherently flawed in that it does not offer equal opportunities to all. In the South where education is still something of an issue, there is still de facto segregation in certain areas which is definitely not seen in China or Finland for example. Children from poorer backgrounds and from different ethnic communities obviously suffer to integrate themselves into the white community and this means that the language barrier for Hispanics is something of a problem when it comes to this fast growing section of the population.
However when it comes to college ...

Musical Style List

1. Demonic
2. Metal
3. Rock

Composers

1. Low Shoulder
2. Panic at the Disco

Plot Summary

The story revolves on the two girls who were also best friends. They became best friends when they were in secondary school. One night, Jennifer and Anita entered a club where a live band performs. After the show, the members of the band started to seduce Jennifer. Jennifer on the other hand likes one of the guys from the band so after thinking twice about it, she left her friend Anita and headed on to the woods with the guys despite being asked by ...

Gender is an incredibly broad topic, and one that is growing in popularity in terms of discussion. How someone identifies with regards to their gender certainly changes everything, from the way their view the world to how other people in the world view them as a person.

Many schools are guilty of perpetrating gender stereotypes. As Amanda Chapman states, “Sitting in the same classroom, reading the same textbook, listening to the same teacher, boys and girls receive very different educations” (Chapman). For example, some schools offer football only to boys and hockey only to girls. This type of separation creates ...

The Merchants of Cool is a PBS documentary which deals with how young people are completely influenced by the material culture which surrounds them every day. The principal problem Rushkoff presents is the fact that young people are extremely gullible and will do anything to look cool and please their peers with the resultant fact that they end up purchasing things and gadgets which they do not really need.
Under the Radar marketing is continually practiced by several firms who make use of sophisticated marketing techniques to enquire what young people deem to be cool thus then passing on ...

Introduction

The film Last Vegas, directed by Jon Turteltaub, was released in 2013. It stars cinematic heavyweights like Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Kline. Some of these actors, like Kline and Douglas, have faded into general obscurity in recent years, but still have managed to maintain relative clout with their reputations, making this film seem like it was going to be one to remember. Unfortunately, most will probably remember it as one they wish they could forget. The storyline is boring, the jokes are stale, and the material is dull. There are a few redeeming qualities about ...

The mysterious growth of the Chinese economy today had diverse effects on the social well-being of the country. The economic growth in the country failed to portray equal social development among the citizens. This fantastic colossal growth of the economy has impacted negatively on the social lives of the people in the country. Through globalization, today cultural crashes and the need to embrace the changes continuously affect the national development in a country (Williams, 2008). In the case of China, a communist country is trying to adapt to the capitalist world to sustain its development. With the integration of ...

Stop-and-Frisk policy is not an effective model of urban policing especially the way it is being implemented in New York City. Reports show that only 6% of those frisked lead to an arrest and 1.2% turn up a weapon. The effectiveness of the policy in identifying criminal elements is questionable given that most of the people stopped to be frisked are innocent citizens. The video on NYPD's Stop-and-Frisk clearly shows that this strategy is nothing more than racial profiling based on an unproven premise that most victims of crime report that their attackers were men of color (NYPD's Stop-and-Frisk: ...

ABSTRACT

During the last decade, Asian horror cinema has seen a surge in popularity throughout the world, especially in western countries. Traditionally, Japan has dominated the Asian horror cinema, but recently Hong Kong and South Korea have emerged as major powerhouses in the genre. Majority of these movies have enjoyed international success. Moreover, many of these movies have been adapted and remade by Hollywood. As the genre continues to grow, there is a need to understand the social conditions, cultural values, and cinematic traditions which influence the horror movies from Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore. In particular, ...

Japanese horror films through the years had made astounding contribution to the movie industry and to the horror genre in particular. One of the notable directors of great Japanese horror flicks is Kurosawa Kiyoshi who is often compared to Andrei Tarkovsky and Stanley Kubrick in terms of directing style and influence. Most of his films are focused on ho a general society affects an individual and how the society also reacts to adverse irrational and disintegrated social mechanisms. Japanese horror movies are not typical to the usual western made fright movies. As observed from many western horrors movies, they incorporate ...

Shot in 2003, the documentary film Lost Boys of Sudan by Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk follows the challenges the Sudanese young men faced while surviving the civil war in their country and reaching the United States searching for the better life. The documentary got a critical acclaim and the love of the audience due to the overview it gives on one of the disturbing chapters in the history of humanity.
David Mayom’s description of his experiences as a lost boy and life afterward may seem surrealistic for the person living in the developed country. It is truly ...

Jane Doe

Abstract
In the documentary film, “Fed Up,” there is a frightening look inside America’s health crisis involving obesity. The lack of real food in American diets is to blame. The entities behind creating this problem are the big corporations in America that manufacture these foods. These “foods” are processed foods, with high sugar content that can lead to numerous health problems including heart disease and diabetes. Advertisers are marketing processed foods made of high sugar content to young children and putting sugar into the formulas to get them while they’re young. They have people hooked on sugar, ...

Movie director Oliver Stone’s 1989 film “Born on the Fourth of July” is a vivid screen adaptation of antiwar activist Ron Kovic’s autobiographical account of his idealistic dreams of war to becoming the damaged bitter war veteran. This film review follows Stone’s story line of portraying the evolution of Kovic from a young boy playing war with his friends in 1950s Massapequa, Long Island, to his eventual recognition and acceptance as an articulate and respected antiwar activist. For many of the people today, references to the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s are little-known history because this generation wasn’ ...

Introduction

The film, The Graduate, is Mike Nichol’s 1967 comedy-drama adaptation of Charles Webb’s novel of the same title. The story follows Benjamin Braddock, a 21 years old recent college graduate who has no well-defined aims in life. In his idleness, Benjamin gets seduced by an older woman, the family friend Mrs. Robinson. But things get even more heated when he falls in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine.
It explores, among others, the theme of family and becomes a good portrayal of just how delicate the family can be, how the dynamics of factors, often subtle in ...

SYNOPSIS OF THE MOVIE

In the late 1960s and the beginning of 1970s, Steve Prefontaine was a distinctive and unique personality. He was an athlete who revolutionized his running career and managed to bring his sport in the headlines. The movie majorly focuses on Prefontaine aggressive personality and his constant refusal to pace himself. The only way Prefontaine was interested in winning was by “flat-out leading” in the whole race. He was undefeated in the US and acquired all of the American records between 2000-10000 meters. At the Munich Olympics, he ran one of the most memorable races. Prefontaine was greatly favoured to attain ...

Often touted as an ‘unfilmable’ novel, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi told the story of a young Indian boy named Pi who, over the course of the story, finds himself on a small life raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with only a dangerous Bengal Tiger (whom he names Richard Parker) to accompany him. Here, he goes on a hazardous journey of survival, during which he explores his spirituality and is taken to the depths of his understanding of life itself. Ang Lee’s 2012 film masterfully adapts these themes into an elegant, fairytale-like story that is alternatingly presentational and ...

Asian horror, as a genre, carries with it a generous mix of scathing subtext and grotesque images. Whether witnessing the wrath of an uncanny ghost girl, seeing people murdered in mountains of gore, or the many subtle avenues in between, many of the best Asian horror films combine shocking sights with potent messages in order to convey an anxiety present in that society at the time. "Setting aside the moral ramifications of such manifest extremities, we can identify the current boom enjoyed by Asian horror and extreme cinema and discern a complex nexus of local, regional and global relationships in play" (Choi ...

Taking Woodstock

The inaugural Woodstock Music and Art Fair took place in August 1969 (Roughton 83). It comprised a music and art festival that attracted numerous people and was the subject of Taking Woodstock, a 2009 film. The film is largely adapted from the book, “Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, A Concert, and A Life” (Roughton 84). Taking Woodstock was screened during the Cannes Film Festival in August 2009. This paper reflects on Taking Woodstock as well as the dynamic relationship it has with the film Brokeback Mountain.
Taking Woodstock is widely based on the real-life experiences of ...

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 ...

Summary

Fireproof is a 2008 Christian movie directed by Alex Kendrick that revolves around conflict resolution in marriage. A young girl who has always dreamt of being married to a man like her father gets the shock of her life when she is married to a man who seems to care less about her needs. The man, a firefighter, is skillful in his work and could sacrifice anything to ensure his work is done well. He even advices his colleagues on the importance of working together and ensuring that no victim perishes in the fire. The dedication that he shows towards his work is ...

Introduction

Christians have been the radicals at the forefront of the abortion debate that has undoubtedly raged on in a sea of opinions for ages. People are differently opinioned when it comes to the sensitive subject that ignites a lot of medical, moral, and legal debates. The Christians still maintain a negative force towards abortion, which they identify as being against the doctrines of biblical teachings and morality. Christians maintain that an abortion amounts to the murder of an innocent person, and cite this together with other immorality arguments. In a country like the USA today, half of the pregnancies formed, especially among young ...

South Africa in the 20th century had many words to describe it but none were flattering. Words like hate, suffering, anguish, separation, ignorance and apartheid. Apartheid is best described as government institutionalized racism and is Afrikaans for apartness. The South African government disfranchised black voters and non-white citizens. An American example that is similar is the Jim Crow laws in the south While there was wide spread racism in South Africa for several years before that, it was made into law in 1948. It took the resolve of Nelson Mandela to guide the country in a new direction.
Nelson ...

Death defying stunts, combat aerobatics and epic matchups are just some of the notable features comprising a martial arts movie. People who are unaware or disinterested in this genre would often argue that these movies just advocate violence and killing. However, this conceptualization of martial arts films had been refurbished and reinvented by one man as his work ethic, ideology, acting, directing, and way of the fist exemplified that there is more to martial arts films than just pure violence and conflict. Many people – from artists, martial arts practitioners to fans – would hail this man as an indispensable foundation to ...

Takashi Miike's 1999 film Audition is an artful yet horrifying tale of a mild-mannered widower (Ryo Ishibashi) who, in his attempts to find a new wife, falls for a young woman Asami Yamasaki) who is far more than meets the eye. Miike's signature dreamlike mise-en-scene, complete with moody and atmospheric cinematography and strong, vulnerable performances from both leads, creates a twisted romance/revenge film that strongly addresses issues of gender roles and divisions within relationships, particularly as they are applied to Japanese culture. The film explores and critiques notions of romanticism normally found in modern romantic dramas, as the representation of relationships and sexuality in ...

Final Film Critique: American Psycho

The film, American Psycho (Harron, 2000) is based on the book of the same name, written by Bret Easton Ellis and is fundamentally preoccupied with the idea of wealth, sex and success as being significant drives behind human behaviour. Its central protagonist, Patrick Bateman is a mass-murdering psychopath whose actions are driven almost singularly by his desire to be the best: the richest, the most successful, the most popular and somewhat bizarrely, the man with the best business card. Set in 1980s New York, the film is a discussion of yuppie culture taken to its absolute extreme and is hugely successful ...

Final Film Critique: American Psycho

The 2000 film, American Psycho is based on the book of the same name, written by Bret Easton Ellis and is fundamentally preoccupied with the idea of wealth, sex and success as being significant drives behind human behaviour. Its central protagonist, Patrick Bateman is a mass-murdering psychopath whose actions are driven almost singularly by his desire to be the best: the richest, the most successful, the most popular and somewhat bizarrely, the man with the best business card. Set in 1980s New York, the film is a discussion of yuppie culture taken to its absolute extreme and is hugely successful in ...

Throughout history, Bollywood films have illustrated a representation of women in India in various forms. Arguably, it is certain that Bollywood films comprise of gender-based stereotypes. The female characters, situations, and plots concerning women in Indian films have been steered by stereotypical ideologies. Across the globe, extensive research had indicated that Indian films top the list of undermining women. Moreover, a sample survey established that Indian females, for an extended period of time, have portrayed females in sexualized roles. It is well-known that the notion of objectifying women on the screen has been a conspicuous issue that the films ...

The film Citizen Kane was produced on September 5th 1941. The lead actors were Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton and Dorothy Comingore. The film was directed by Orson Welles who was also the lead actor in the film. The head of cinematography was Gregg Toland. Charles, the lead actor in the film, is depicted as a man who is so engulfed in his search for material things that he loses his humanity and soul and becomes a greedy man . The plot of the film is developed through the eyes of the young Charles, giving the audience a window into the ...

I love Lucy is one of the pioneer sitcom comedies shot in front of a live audience in the US. The setting of the sitcom is in New York with the show following the life of Lucy Ricardo and her husband Ricky Ricardo, who is a professional singer. The show also includes the couple's friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz. The show follows the life of Lucy, who is naïve in her ambitions to become a star in the big city. Together, the cast gets into various hilarious situations that are brought about by the actions of Lucy in ...

We would like to analyze the American film, directed by Antoine Fuqua in 2001. The film is called “Training Day”. In that there are starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. The exact genre of the film is very difficult to define. We would attribute it directly to the symbiosis of the three genres namely, a thriller, a drama and crime ("Training Day (2001)", n.d.).
We will briefly convey the essence of the movie, and then we would like to research how the film demonstrates leadership and influence. And so, it is the the first day at service for a ...

The point of many movies lies in the fact of illustrating social problems. Global and domestic issues, issues of consciousness and symbolism – all of those aspects are shown in the three movies, which will be discussed in this paper. Avant-garde filmmakers have produced tons of works and it is essential to reveal at least some of them.
Powerful experiments with theatrical forms are introduced by Robert Lepage in his masterpiece, called “Le Confessionnal”. He is known as a director of game cinema and released four pictures during eight years in different countries of the world. His unique film "Confessional" ...

The Great Gatsby

Movies are often a reflection of the political and social changes that are occurring at the time of their creation. Movies typically reflect the views and attitudes of society and do so in a way that is dramatic and captivating. This holds true for The Great Gatsby, both during the time period in which it was written as well as during the 1970s when the motion picture was released. Written by F. Scotts Fitzgerald, the story takes place during the Roaring Twenties, a time in history many refer to as a period of great transformation and wealth. Following World ...

Analysis of John Stossel video: Free Market Medicine

Analysis of John Stossel video: Free Market Medicine

Abstract

John Stossel argues that free market medical care is the solution to America’s healthcare. He is opposed to the government intervention in the provision of medical care which to the citizen seems free but in the long run not sustainable. The paper also evaluates the changes that have been done and those that could be improved to solve some of the healthcare problems. The affordable care act has some insurance companies especially those that specialized in child-only insurance leave the business due to the mandatory requirement to provide cover to ...

Produced in 1984, Yellow Earth was the first film directed by Chen Kaige, a graduate of the Beijing Film Academy. The film is a period piece, taking place against the backdrop of China when World War II broke out. The film focuses on a communist soldier who comes to a village to collect folk songs to serve as morale-raising communist propaganda for the Eighth Route Army. During his visit to the rural village, the young soldier stays with a family, motherless but with a father, a young boy, and two sisters. The elder sister has already been "married off" in an arranged marriage, and the 14-year-old ...

Watching the film offers inspiration and enlightenment on doing something within set personal goals. The setting is at Welton Academy located in Vermont. The school presents a traditional set-up of a boy’s preparatory school. The film represents events that took place in 1959. During the period, the school has not received external pressure to admit young black students. Further, it represents the perceptions of young white scholars who have access to a vast wealth. The film revolves around an alumnus of the institution and seeks to return as an English teacher. His style shakes up the institution due to the enthusiasm ...

The Personals

The movie was shot in 1998 by Chen Kou-Fu. The next year the movie was presented at the Cannes Festival. The story described in the movie, in my opinion, is rather banal. There is a woman who is rather busy and does not have time for her personal life. However, she is at that very age when everybody around her has a family. She decided to solve the problem with a partner by simply posting an ad in a newspaper. Soon she gets more than a hundred calls. The “potential” partners are rather strange: beginning with a restaurant manager who adores shoes and ending with a ...

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 ...

Introduction

The Hunger Games, based on the series of novels by Suzanne Collin’s, is about a televised competition in which two teenagers are chosen at random to fight to the death. The film is “directed by Gary Ross, with a screenplay by Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins and Billy Ray, and produced by Nina Jacobson’s Color Force in tandem with producer Jon Kilik” (Hunger Games). The story follows the struggle of one girl, Katness Everdeen, who graciously takes the place of her younger sibling in the games. Thus, The Hunger Games is extraordinarily packed with deep sociological concepts and ideas within ‘ ...

Pocahontas is a Disney animated feature that follows the story of a Native American Motoaka. She is the daughter of the Powhatan Confederacy chief in the early 17th century. It is the 33rd film in the Walt Disney Animated Classic series following known hits like Beauty and the Beast, Alladin and The Lion King. It was released in theaters in 1995 and is the first film based on a known historical character. However, it did not follow the actual historical account of the Native American’s encounter with the British settler John Smith who had sailed in search of gold in the “ ...

Movie Review: The Reader

The Reader, directed by Stephen Daldry and starring Ralph Fiennes as Michael Berg, David Kross as young Michael Berg, and Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz, is an unusual film because unlike most pieces that tackle the touchy subject of the Holocaust, it deals mostly with the lives of ordinary Germans at the time. Additionally, it brings the film into the modern day, showing the effects on German lives almost half a century after the time of the atrocities.
The movie’s form is that of a retrospect. It opens in Berlin in 1995 with Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes), a lawyer, admitting ...

Michelle Williams becomes Marilyn Monroe in the film My Week With Marilyn. It is obvious that Williams spent hours studying both movie and news footage of Monroe. Williams perfectly portrays Monroe’s voice, body language, and facial expressions. This film gives viewers a glimpse into Monroe’s fragile ego. Monroe’s low self-esteem causes her to be late on the movie set and influences who she chooses to have in her inner circle.
The story is told from the perspective of the young Colin Clark. Clark was only twenty-three years old when he landed his first job in filmmaking ...

Control Room

The feature-length documentary, Control Room is a gritty and realistic presentation of the media’s role in modern warfare. The film’s premise is to demonstrate the contrast between the perception of the Al Jazeera news network in comparison with its reality. Released in 2004, Control Room was filmed, on the ground, during the American 2003 invasion of Iraq in an attempt to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime and liberate the Iraqi people. The complaint regularly made by western broadcasters and indeed, the U.S. government and military, is that Al Jazeera is sympathetic to the causes of men like Osama ...