A soon-to-be impressive compendium of reflections and research in Genre Studies by high school students in NYC (with very short arms).
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Peer Editing Task List
Narrative Element | Example from the story | Connection to story’s theme |
Internal/External Conflict | | |
Resolution | | |
Setting | | |
Characterization | | |
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monsters film review
The movie starts off as one of those hand held camera movies, which I wasn’t crazy about. The camera belongs to someone on a military truck and is cut off when an explosion blows the truck (and camera) up. After that the movie switches between regular filming.
The remainder of the film follows two American’s trying to get back into America to escape an Alien invasion that have taken over most of Mexico. The Aliens reproduce in the trees so the large forest provides the perfect place for them. The main character Andrew is sent to pick up Samantha, the daughter of a wealthy businessman because she is engaged to be married. Even though he is just a photographer he agrees to bring her back. Unfortuantly, the two of them miss the last boat out of Mexico. The two decide to go through the forest with a small group of guides to try and cross into the U.S. by foot. After having several near death encounters with the aliens the two finally make it to the boarder, only to realize that it’s been destroyed and the aliens have moved into the United State. Once in the U.S. they take refuge in a gas station convenient store. By this time a love interest has sparked between the two so they’re sort of forgetting about the whole alien invasion causing them to walk right in between two very large aliens mating. They finally find a phone and call 911 who say they’re sending a military truck. Right afterwards Samantha tells Andrew she doesn’t want to go home to her fiancĂ© and they finally share an over dramatic kiss. Shortly afterwards the army picks them up and the screen fades.
Now I was very disappointed with the ending because I thought they had left me hanging for a sequel. Turns out the opening scene on the military truck is really them with the soldiers that picked them up and that they die along with the rest of the soldiers. So basically the whole movie is just how they came to be with the soldiers and die. If you like being confused and a bit disappointed I would definitely recommend this movie.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Twilight Parody
Twilight Book Review
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
What makes a good horror story?
So I'm starting my senior project and my genre it horror so just for fun I typed "what makes a good horror story" into google, and I found this link pretty helpful (and true according to the things I've read).
Monday, May 23, 2011
The Shining Movie Review
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Action Film: The Mechanic (SPOILER)
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Film Review 2 - Phone Booth
The movie that I have watched is Phone Booth. It is a mystery, suspense and a thriller movie. The film is about Stu Shepard, and what at first seems to be a normal day in his life. When the movie starts, he calls his girlfriend from a payphone, and a deliveryman tries to give Stu free pizza, which he declines. After hanging up, while Stu is still in the phone booth, he receives a call from a man. The man doesn’t tell Stu his name, only that he likes to watch him. Stu, thinks the same that I was, this is a prank call and hangs up. Moments later, Stu receives another call from the same man, and tells him not to hang up. He insists that Stu tells his two girlfriends tat he is cheating. Stu now knows that this caller knows about him, and is frightened.
The situation escalates when the man on the phone reveals that he has a sniper rifle, and he shoots a man that was harassing Stu, on Stu’s command. The police are on the scene, and Stu is the suspect for the shooting. The police demand that Stu gets off the phone, but the man tells him he cannot hang up. The police later go up to get the caller, when the caller tells Stu that he will kill him and his girlfriend Kelly now. Stu runs out the booth, with his gun when the cops shoot him, with rubber bullets. The police find the sniper rifle and a body. The body is the pizza deliverer. A man approaches Stu going into the ambulance, and tells him he is the sniper. I did not expect that the sniper will reveal himself. He tells Stu to be honest or he will hear from him again. The movie ends with another call, with a man answering saying “Hello?”
The film to me was packed with a lot of events happening at once. I did enjoy the movie, and it had a unique storyline. I did not think that the sniper would make it to the end of the movie, without being either arrested or killed by police. This movie made me think about payphones, and how I will never answer one that rings near me. I didn’t know you could call payphones until I’ve seen this movie. Also, throughout the whole movie until the end, you didn’t clearly see the caller, which really keeps the audience in suspense, because seeing a person’s face can change your opinion of them. The way that the film set the setting as mostly inside a small phone booth is difficult, using a small space for blocking until the end where the action takes place.Mulan 2: Film Review
To start their journey, Mulan bring three warriors that were on first film to help her, Yao, Ling and Chien-Po. On the way to the Qui Dong, the princesses and warriors fall in love creating tension between Mulan and General Shang because of their beliefs. On the top of that Mushu had already created tension by tricking Shang by making a show outside of Shang's tent which shows Mulan telling bad things about Shang to the princesses. You have to watch the movie to find out how it goes.
My favorite part of the movie is when Shang sacrifices his life for Mulan even though they were fighting before. Everything at this point seems to go wrong. I thought at one point Shang is gone and Mulan will remain single for the rest of her life.
Titanic
When A Stranger Calls: Film Review
When A Stranger Calls was a scary movie. This movie is about a babysitter. After she put the children to sleep, she got random, anonymous phone calls through out the night. The phone would ring and the person on the other end would say nothing except “Have you checked the children?”. She didn’t think much of the calls at first but she started to get nervous once they continuously came. When she finally checked on them, she found them murdered in the bed room with blood everywhere. The man that kept called murdered the children and haunted her from then on.
I think this film scared me mainly because I babysit a lot. For a while after I saw this movie I was scared to babysit alone. I was scared the events in the movie were actually going to happen to me. If a horror film scares you and stays with you for days after you see it, I think that’s how you know the film did its job.
The scariest part of this movie, along with the majority of the horror movies I’ve seen, was the music. The music was so powerful and aggressive it gave me chills. Before something scary was going to happen the music would intensify and get my heart racing. It would also build slowly making me even more frightened. I would recommend this movie if anyone is looking to get scared, but it wouldn’t be the best idea to watch it if you have to babysit soon after.
Carrie Film Review
Lord Of War
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Witness
The Shining Review
The Da Vinci Code
The movie begins with the Harvard professor, Robert Langdon, receiving a request to help solve the mystery behind the recent death of the art curator of the Louvre. Upon accepting this request, he learns of the involvement of the Priory of Sion and their secret. The Priory of Sion is an ancient brotherhood created for the purpose of protecting the Holy Grail. With this secret hidden within the works of the renowned Leonardo Da Vinci Langdon goes all over Paris finding hints in art, history, and religion.
Some of the mystery tropes that I saw in this movie were the friend did it, hidden in plain sight, confesses in confidence, and saying too much. There’s always that evil character that think they are so smart, that their plan will work out and no one will ever find out but the good guys always win because when the good guys are capture, the evil character will expose all that they have done.
This movie was okay, I liked it better because there weren’t as many deaths compared to Angels and Demons but then again all those deaths was what kept me at the edge of my couch waiting for the next big thing to happen.
Batman Begins Film Review
Lady and the Tramp Film Review
Pink Panther 2 Film Review
Pink Panther 2 is a sequel to Pink Panther and both of them are considered a comical mystery. I like the way the film started about with showing the missing historical pieces from around the world. This gives the audience an idea that this mystery is going to be related to finding the theft and the missing masterpieces. We also know this is a mystery because in the beginning, there were already hidden tape recorders and technology that detects these hidden machineries. Inspector Clouseau is a very silly detective but because of his unique way of thinking, he is able to solve the mystery. He is always asking why The Tornado would start stealing again after decades of inactiveness and make up ridiculous possibilities. This shows that even though it might seem ridiculous, Inspector Clouseau is not letting go any possibilities of the crime.
Inspector Clouseau said a quote that I think applies to all mystery “The crime scene is like a code, you decipher it and it will lead to the criminal.” This is why all detectives start investigating at the site of the crime to look for initial clues. Inspector Clouseau also uses a technique that is similar to what is commonly used which is to put himself in the shoes of the criminal retracing steps and seeing where they might leave a clue. However, since Inspector is somewhat silly he put himself in the shoes of the victim and retraced his steps instead.
Personally, I find this movie kind of boring because of the slow pace. The Inspector is funny but it does not seem like he is accomplishing much. He is always joking around, which is entertaining, but the mystery is being solved very slowly. He does make racial and stereotypical jokes like “that dumb blond” or the way he refers to the Japanese detective as “my yellow little friend.” At the end, thanks to one small observation, the mystery was solved.
2012
The movie 2012 goes on the basis of the Mayan calendar and prediction that the world is going to end on 2012. This movie is full of excitement and portrays the things that might happen that day. The adventure part is a bit more thrilling because the world is having climate changes and they need to go through those obstacles to get to where they need to be to live. Also this film is about the world but the movie is about a family that needs to get to safety to survive this day. Even though some of it is not entirely true, most things you can see happening in real life. International leaders from all over the world choose to make arks for a selected group of people, the actual number is 400,000, which the government sells tickets that are set at the price of 1 billion Euros each. The point to where they needed to get was the Himalayas where the ships were. Also many things help them throughout their journey like the weather which creates paths for them to walk through to other countries. . The main character is not a billionaire and is just a regular person. He and his family are not chosen to make this trip and also don’t have money for that. But they the father doesn’t want his family to die because they aren’t rich or weren’t chosen. When they get to the arcs there is trouble as many people go there but they don’t let them in. When the Arcs leaders see the people suffering and crying to get in, they let them all in because it’ll be unfair for just a certain group of people to be able to come in. So this movie shows more than just the action and adventure and, the big picture in my opinion is that everyone should have a chance of living no matter what.
The Dark Knight - Movie review
The Dark Knight is jammed with tricky underworld conspiracies, obscenely oversize tank-cars, and action scenes that teeter madly out of control, all blanketed by the psycho-anarchic musings of a villain so warped he turns crime into a contest of Can you top this? Batman, a snake-hiss-voiced vigilante who plays out the vengeful fantasies that Bruce Wayne can only dream about, has now gone a good way toward cleaning up Gotham City; he has even inspired copycat Batmen. The woman Bruce loves, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), has been driven away by his moonlight escapades; she's now the squeeze of the lantern-jawed, shining-knight DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). What's more, thanks to Batman's crime-fighting spree — which the honorable lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) winks at under the table — a void has opened up. Into that space steps the Joker (Heath Ledger), a sick puppy in smeary clown makeup who wants to make the world feel his pain.
Heath Ledger's mesmerizing, scary-funny performance begins with the creepiness of his image: the greasy long hair, the makeup that looks as if he'd drawn it on with crayons, then messed it with tears. That ghostly rotting paint job covers his scarred smile, and the disturbing feeling occurs when Ledger's Joker talks, with those ''Ehhh, what's up, Doc?'' vowels; he uses his attachment to those scars to fuel his sadistic whims. He turns slaughter into a punch-line; he's a homicidal comedian with an audience of one — himself.
It's also not a Joker story, despite all of the attention paid to Ledger's maniacal interpretation of Batman's soulless foe. The Joker is but one card in Nolan's very stacked deck. The Dark Knight is an amazing superhero-adventure movie.
Friday, May 20, 2011
No Strings Attached (movie review)
Thursday, May 19, 2011
The Secret Life of Bees
This movie is about a young girl named Lily who grew up with her father in the south. At the age of four, Lily began witnessing her father and mother fighting. This was a daily activity Lily had to endure. She found a gun on the floor during a fight and she tried to help her mother defeat her father, she pointed the gun and shot. Killing her mother by accident, Lily was forced to grow up with her abusive father who constantly reminded her of her mothers tragic death. During this time segregation was in play. Rosaleen is one of the main characters, her job was to clean the house and babysit Lily. One day they decide to run away after finding a honey jar with a black Woman on it. Lily feels as if she finds out who this person is, they can unlock the secrets of her mother’s life before her death. After many long nights, they reach their destination. The honey belongs to an elder woman named August. She has two sisters, May and June. They accept Lily and Rosaleen into their home. Rosaleen and Lily lie about who they are so they are provided shelter and a job. Later on in the movie Lily tells the truth about who she is and August tells her she already knew. Lily finds out that the reason her mother and her father were arguing the day of her mother’s death was because she wanted to leave Tj. He was controlling and abusive. August becomes a mother figure for Lily and she adopts her. The movie is beautiful and it's based on the book, the ending is a great one. This is one of my favorite movies because it’s inspiring for young children battling with abusive parents. As well as being brave and standing up for what is right.
Textuality Film Review
The Pink Panther film review
The Pink Panther 2’ kicks off with by-the-book Inspector Clouseau played by Steve Martin. This movie is a mystery that incorporates things not noticed by an untrained eye and humor. Things you wouldnt notice that would be right in your face the inspector notices it. Most of the time Steve ( clouseau) who was clinging to a speeding car, from which he is catapulted straight into the first of many hilarious sequences. The story, such as there isn’t, revolves around a ‘dream team’ of international detectives charged with capturing the thief of the Pink Panther diamond. Against his superior’s wishes Clouseau is assigned to the task and he figures it out because the movie was made so that the inspector of the good guys always win. But on the other hand i watched the ones before the remake and they were alot better. Some times like the example whenan American dialogue coach tries and fails to teach him to pronounce the word 'hamburger,' Martin wisely curbs the temptation to impersonate Sellers. But he also fails to offer anything new, any reason to recreat the character, beyond the desire to scare up a few laughs and, I guess. Martin's careful, at times funny, but utterly unnecessary rendering of Clouseau raises the question that haunts every remake. I personally feel he could have brought more of himself into the film instead of recreating movies multiple times. We already have an original we do not need a bootleg.