Realism Movie Reviews Samples For Students

“Winter’s Bone”, directed by Debra Granik, and released in 2010, is the story of a young family struggling to survive in the Ozarks. Ree, played by Jennifer Lawrence, desperately clings to the hope that her father will return from one of his many benders as she attempts to juggle caring for her mother and younger siblings while still attending school. Eventually, she learns that her father has become involved in meth and has himself become a drug dealer. The movie follows Ree, as she traverses challenging social terrain in the Ozark community, trying to find her father, while learning about ...

1. PERSEPOLIS (2007) & GONE WITH THE WIND (1939).
*How does the theme of survival and having a female protagonist relate in these two films?
In the film gone with the wind, Scarlet O’Hara, the daughter of Gerald O’Hara is the major character, and she carries most of the burden of the characters, who are related to her in one way or the other. Scarlet struggles with marriage throughout the film since she cannot find her ideal man. In the beginning, she is surrounded by many admirers. On the contrary, she is not interested in these men ...

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 ...

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 ...

The issue of feminism in the film industry is a common topic for controversial discussions. Many writers are more popular than others because of the ways in which feminism surfaces as the driving force behind their presentations. Feminism can be classified as a social movement that has created an enormous impact on culture of film, the theories of films and the critical reviews of films. A number of films represent the myths that reveal ideas on women and their femininity. In addition, there are films that speak to men and their masculinity. The issues of representation and spectatorship form ...

Introduction

The understanding of mental health issues is impacted significantly by the images portrayed in various sources such as printed media, news media, film and drama as well as real-life experiences. The movie “Snake Pit” by Anatole Litvak brings about images of poor psychiatric care in a State Mental Institution. The movie is based in the 1940s and provides a closer view of the dire state of mental treatment at state facilities. The story is told from the perspective of de Havilland, a young writer who is taken to Juniper Hill State mental facility by her husband (The snake pit, 1948). One of ...

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 ...

‘Angels in America’ a play that has become a success story in the mainstream drama in America acts. The play’s setting is both political and religious in nature as it was down played in the backdrop of politics in 1980s that was characterized by religious believes that defined the American culture. Gay – a disparate group were made to lead the plays (Kushner, 1992). This group of people is however a serious threat of contracting Aids forcing them to straight- face the specter through teaching themselves on better ways to support themselves. The play is divided into two part with ‘Millennium Approaches’ being ...

Introduction

In 1998, Steven Spielberg directed a World War 2 film showing the events that happened during the Normandy invasion. The film was called “saving Private Ryan” and was based in Normandy and some parts of France. Screen play for the film was done by Rodat Robert with main actors being Tom Hanks as Captain John Miller, Tom Sizemore as Mike Hovarth, Barry Pepper as Daniel Jackson, Adam Goldberg as Stanley ‘Fish’ Mellish, Vin Diesel as Adrian Carpazo, Giovanni Ribisi as Irwin Wade, Jeremy Davis as Timothy Upham, and Matt Damon as Private James Rayan. The movie was produced to depict a ...

What is the true subject, or theme of the film, and what kind of statement, if any, does the film make about the subject? Which elements and which scenes contribute most to addressing the theme of the film?
I think the true subject, or theme of the film is sensationalism and corruption. This film takes aim at the way celebrity court cases are portrayed in the media, and the kind of impact that level of attention can have on the individual on trial. It also highlights corruption within the entertainment industry, portraying it as a seedy world where injustice ...

Psychology

Summary
The Stanford Prison experiment was a psychological study conducted at Stanford University to determine how becoming a guard or a prisoner in a prison environment affected the behavior of a participant. The rationale of the experiment was to critique the ‘dispositional hypothesis’, which maintained that prisoners and guards behave in typical fashions because of their inherent nature (McGreal, 2013).
On August 14, 1971, Zimbardo laid down the ground rules for the guards. He made it clear that the guards could not hit the prisoners. However, they could instill feelings of boredom, frustration amongst the prisoners. The prisoners would be under constant ...

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 ...

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Introduction

The film The Great Gatsby is based on the fictional novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was one of the major writers of “The Jazz Age” and the roaring twenties. It is set in the 1920’s, a time of economic success and new cultural styles. The novel is considered one of the greatest American novels ever written and has been made into a movie four times. The most recent version, made in 2011, was shot in 3D, with a running time of 143 minutes.

Summary

The main character is Jay Gatsby, a mysterious and wealthy man who lives in a Mansion. He ...

View and analyze the film "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" portraying a person with a disability. Write a meaningful critique of the film

Description of how the person's disability is portrayed within the contexts of family and community (Have an in depth analysis and discussion of the extent to which the film appears to be a reflection of life and is grounded in current "state of knowledge". Give appropriate evidences from the film to support each point)
Analysis onto what extent does this film address characteristics and effects of the cultural and environmental milieu of the individual with disabilities (Have an in depth ...

On April the 19, 2014, I saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, Colorado. It was a dramatic musical wherein the cast gave there all to the performance. Everything came together in a culmination of brilliance in an effort to put on a truly extraordinary play. Aside from a few glitches, the play was fantastic.
The actors used the original script. The playwright was Tim Rice. Rice also acted as the lyricist for the musical numbers. The composer was the famed Andrew Lloyd Webber. The genres were multiple, listed as a musical, a comedy, and a religious ...

The history of American Latino films in the United States is generally considered to begin with Luis Valdez 1981’s Zoot Suit. Since that time, a large number of dedicated screenwriters and directors have embarked on the production of such films, some through Hollywood and others through independent routes.
One distinct characteristic that has been conspicuous in most of the American films has been the use of stereotypes and comedy to explore the culture of different Latino groups and also deal with the issue of immigration from Central and South American nations into the United States (Barrera 45). Most ...

Epic is an animated film by Blue Sky Studios that is loosely based on William Joyce’s book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs (2013; 2001). The movie was created after a discussion between Joyce and the director, Chris Wedge, about how they should place a story in a detailed forest inhabited by something like fairies (Sarto, 2013). The movie took about eleven years to be made from the time of that discussion and involved a huge number of decisions. Because the movie was animated, the creators could control literally every detail about how movie finally looked, which is not the ...

English 225 Introduction To Film

The film “The Elephant Man” is an iconic and powerful humanistic filmmaking endeavor. Released in 1980, the film relates the story of Joseph Carey Merrick, the real-life figure who was born with a horrible deformity and had to deal with issues of humanity and discrimination in 19th century London. Through the use of compelling performances, assured and minimalistic direction, and a stark, Victorian Gothic aesthetic, director David Lynch forces the horrors and sadness of deformity onto the audience in a way that leaves the viewer tear choked with sadness and sympathy. Most people who watch the film are touched in a way that ...

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 ...

Towson University is regarded to be the safest public institution in Maryland, which is associated with the lowest crime rate. Towson is a safe campus thanks to concerned people’s commitment to personal protection. In order to protect the innocent, Matthew Heimbach decided to found a group called the White Student Union (WSU) in 2012. Although this group is not officially organized, it maintains some crucial ideas. The founder of the WSU advocates for European people to be superior, insisting on their culture being unique. The central idea he pursues in the media is that it is essential to ...

A short film “Ghost Recon: Alpha” is the background to the game “Ghost Recon: Future Soldier”, released in 2012 (Alaux et al.). The French company, engaged in the video games production, Ubisoft performed the adaptation of the given film. After a bad start of the game Prince of Persia on the big screen, Ubisoft came to a more serious approach to this issue. Ubisoft decided to perform shootings of the acclaimed video game series “Assassin's Sreed” through its own efforts and at its own expense, thereby fully preserving copyright movies. Such a move is quite expected, as this will ...

In Susan Hayward’s summary of David Bordwell in “Classical Hollywood Cinema,” the author relates how the dominant ideology of American culture in the 1930s and 1940s was often conveyed in the films of the era. This particular genre of film follows a narrative tendency towards literalism and dramatic formula over nuance and complexity: “The narrative of [classical Hollywood cinema] reposes upon the triad ‘order/disorder/order-restored,’ also known as disruption/resolution” (Hayward 82). Through these styles of filmmaking, a consistent, accessible reality is created in which to impart the dominant ideology of the time. In the case of The Best Years of Our ...

Great works of literature are usually attempted to be adapted to the movie screens, as they are a wonderful source for a captivating plot, and the 1925 novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is not an exception. The novel is widely recognized as one of the best novels not only of its time, but also of the 20th century. No wonder that there are at least 5 known film adaptations of the work, but two of them, namely The Great Gatsby of 1974 shot by Jack Clayton and The Great Gatsby of 2013 by Baz Luhrmann are the ...

The film Full Metal Jacket was directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1987 (IMDB), 20 years after the events described in the movie. It depicts several crucial moments of the Vietnam War, the Battle in Hue and the Tet Offensive, and trainings before. First of all, soldiers’ training does not seem to be realistic because of its cruelty and sarcasm from Hartman, the Senior Drill Instructor. Hartman treats soldiers in a way that hardly can be called humane. Yet the main aim of these episodes is to show that training is not a holiday and that soldiers should be prepared to all ...

Adapting a play to film involves a great deal of preparation and selective adaptation - there are unique and distinct differences in format that must be taken into consideration, including elements of style, look and performance. Of no exception is the film version of The Sound of Music, directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer; the movie deviates substantially from the source material, restaging and reinterpreting events to make them more palatable for a moviegoing audience. While these changes result in a substantially different story, it is nonetheless an admirable and spectacle-filled adaptation of the work that widens the ...

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 ...

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 movie talks about a young girl named Dorothy who is lostin the land of OZ. The girl had been swept by cyclones from her original home within Kansas. The only help the girl can acquire in returning back home is looking for a wizard. Dorothy lived with her uncle and auntie who did not give her enough attention. The lack of attention from the relatives made the girl wish to get to a land where she would find peace. The arrival of Dorothy in the land of OZ is marked with tragedy because of the killing of the witch of the ...

The movie 42 is about the heartwarming life story of Jackie Robinson, a baseball legend who made history when he signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers. The movie shows the challenges that Robinson faced, particularly the racial discrimination he experienced among his fellow baseball players, his team’s opponents, the umpires and even baseball fans. The major theme of the movie is about racial discrimination and how it was eventually conquered by Robinson. The setting of the movie is between 1945 to 1947 in Brooklyn.
The protagonist in the story is Jackie Robinson as portrayed by Chadwick Boseman. He ...

What is the title of the film? What is it about?

The title of the film is Food, Inc. The film features agricultural content in the United States. If highlights the agribusiness across the United States. The paper relates corporate affairs and agriculture. It also provides an insight on the negativity of production on the society. The film comes with a conclusion that production of food via the agribusiness leads to the production of unhealthy foods. Additionally, the food is environmental friendly to both humans and animals. The film uses interviews from people to justify its objectives and claims.

Why did you choose this documentary to view? What did you expect to learn or experience from this film?

The reason for choosing this documentary is the fact that it addresses ...

The 1968 film The Green Berets, starring and co-directed by John Wayne, presents a very pro-American and jingoistic view of the Vietnam War, sugarcoating the more violent and abhorrent aspects of the US Army’s activities during the war in favor of a more benevolent, patriotic mindset. The film follows Colonel Mike Kirby, leader of a Green Beret Unit, as he fights in South Vietnam and defends his men against actions taken by the North Vietnamese. In this essay, several aspects of the film will be critiqued, comparing the viewpoint explored in the film with the truth of US Army actions during ...