CopyRight Troubles

Fox seemed to block my review due to using their movie clips. Try these versions:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Week 5?

Just One More!

Hi, readers!

Sorry, I am a little behind on schedule with my movie reviews because they have taken way longer than before. I have already watched my final movie, Airplane!, but now I just need to write a review for it. But I will get it done by my TED Talk Wednesday, no doubt! I am almost completed with my “Da Comedy Critic” website. Since I am almost halfway through with my Web Design class with in M hall, I have lots of knowledge on HTML and CSS. This is why I coded the website myself and didn’t take the easy way out by using website makers. All I need to do is finish the Parody review and put that on my website, and I will be all set to show you guys during my TED Talk. If you are curious to see what my website looks like, here is a sneak peak of my Character Comedy page:

The movie review that is  posted below is Home Alone, one of my favorite movies. When I watched it, it was as if I was watching it through a whole new perspective. I really learned something new about Kevin, the main character, and his development throughout the movie. At first I thought he was just a clever, funny kid. But now, on top of that, I learned something deeper about him. He was a boy with a desire to be on top and to overcome, despite society pushing him to the bottom. Despite having some independence for a few days, living the lifestyle of an adult, he realizes that he still is only a kid and is not ready to be at that level of maturation. I really love movie review, it is making me see these old characters that I have known all my life, and putting new life into them, new stories, new people. I think that there is something to be learned here in life as well. If we should try to experience the repetitive things in life in a different way every time we experience it (if that makes sense). Don’t be in a routine, doing the same boring old thing over and over again, try to change it up a bit every time you do it. It will give you a different perspective on one event. We should never experience the same thing in the say way.

Well, here is my movie review for Home Alone:

Click here to see the notes I took while watching Home Alone (spoilers).

I really focused on the acting and truthfulness to genre. These are the two main components of movie reviews, especially in Siskel’s and Ebert’s movie reviews. I tried to cut out the unnecessary components that I reviewed in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. This is because a real movie review wouldn’t focus on music, colors, and analysis. I made around a 70-30 review-analysis split because I still needed some analysis. I did much better this week than last leek on my review. It is shorter and has more review than my original . I really enjoyed doing a review for Home Alone way more than Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.

If you take notice, I have a fresh cut and I am wearing a t-shirt. You cannot see this but a I am also wearing shorts in that video. I am so ready for the spring. Why did it have to snow on the first day of spring? Seriously? Hopefully the weather will start to be consistently in the 60s.

Comments

Jacob Kaffey
Mohammed Rashid
Arslan Amir

Vlog

If you can't access this video through Blogger, click here.

Week 4

Progress Is Picking Up

Wow. Writing a movie review is very tough and more time consuming than I realized. It took me the whole week to do one movie, working on it about three hours a day. I was expecting for the movies to take less time to watch and the review part to take more time, but it was the other way around. While watching Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, after every scene I would have to stop and write my notes on the different components of that part, like music, color scheme, and analysis. It was so slow that I watched twenty-thirty minutes of the movie in a 2-3 hour time frame. By the end, I had taken a little more than 10 pages of notes. Here is my review on Pee Wee's Big Adventure

If you can't access this video through Blogger, click here.

Looking back at this review, I have come up with some things that I want to improve for my next movie reviews:

• First, I want to have more personality. I felt that I completely lacked it in this movie review. Having personality will make my movie reviews more interesting and they would represent me the best.
• Second, I want to have better transitions. I thought that my review was really choppy due to a lack of transitional words and ideas.
• Third, as I was looking more into the two greatest movie reviewers, Siskel and Ebert, I noticed that their reviews had a split of around 30% analysis and 70% criticism. I did not mean to do this, but in my movie review, it was about 50-50. So for my next movie review, I am going to make sure that I focus more on the critical part of movie reviewing than the analytical.
• The three bullets above are general improvements that I need to make on all of my movie reviews. But I want to specialize in different components in each movie review, then in my last movie review, compile them all. For my next few reviews, I want to focus on:
• Quality of Acting- Acting performance is a huge part in what makes movies great. A bad cast can lead to a movie that is awkward, boring, and/or a movie so bad that it is hilarious (Sharknado...). Siskel and Ebert seem to talk about if the actor/actress fit their role in the movie.
  

  

  How is this a movie

  
  

And for the few reviews after that, I want to focus on:

• Comedy Aspect- One of the main focuses in this project is to focus on comedy movies. The big question is, does the movie fit its genre? I want to focus on what makes good and true comedy, which is more than if it is funny or not.

I believe that by focusing on these two key components in a movie review, I can become advanced in detecting how they come into play in movies. Focusing on a specific aspect of a movie will help me improve at writing reviews more than trying to do them all at once in each movie. It will be like...what’s that idiom? Something with having too many eggs in a basket? Ya, well, all in all, I don’t want to be juggling too many things at once.

I am now on a roll with movie reviews. I went into reviewing Pee Wee’s Big Adventure with just research and no experience but now, I will be able to review more movies in less time so I can get back on track with my goal. With my method of having one component to focus on, I can learn faster, and in less time. Time is money, and I am frugal.
(Click here to see the notes that I took for Pee Wee's Big Adventure. THERE ARE SPOILERS)

Week 3 Comments

Nathan Leung (VeryLoudCloud)
Sam Klugherz (Longboarding)
Abby Butt (Hurdling)

Week 3

Key Points in a Movie Review

I know nothing about being a movie critic so before I start watching movies, I need to do some research on the key components of writing a general movie review. I want my reviews to be as great as the movie critics’ reviews on my last post, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. It would be nice to be the one of the most renowned movie critics in history and have my own TV show. Plus, I would get to watch movies, with style. Many have asked me if knowing what movie critics know will ruin my experience as a devout movie watcher. But as Disney said I would get to watch movies in "a whole new world. A new fantastic point of view."

GIF from Disnney's Aladdin

Without further ado, here is what I have been researching this past cycle

on writing a good movie review:

• Break the actual movie down into different parts
• Paying attention to the plotline. Every single movie has a main character. He/she is the hero in the story. There is always a problem (the problem could be a person, object, or even a situation) that prevents this hero from reaching a certain goal. How does the hero interact with the problem? How do these interactions move the plotline forwards? What are the hero’s and problem’s goals? Also, I have to consider if the events that unfold are predictable. If I know what’s going to happen next, then the movie is not very good. In general, I need to pay attention to all of the characters’ interactions and their importance to the story.
• Paying attention to the colors being used. To make a deeper understanding of the movies, many movie producers use different colors. Movies that are well put together use a color scheme to convey emotions and character development. The colors can be in the setting, clothes of the characters, and anything on the screen. Here is a list of colors and what they can mean in movies:

	Positive/Neutral	Negative
Red	Passion, love, desire, desire, strength	Anger, danger
Pink	Love, innocence, romance, femininess	N/A
Yellow	Wisdom, joy, optimism, imagination, hope	Dishonesty, cowardice, betrayal, jealousy
Orange	Humor, warmth, enthusiasm	N/A
Green	Healing, good luck, renewal, youth	Pride, jealousy, envy
Blue	Faith, loyalty, calmness, unity, trust	Coldness, depression
Purple	Royalty, mysteriousness, change	Cruelty, arrogance, mourning
Brown	Earthliness, reliability, comfort, stability	Materialism
Black (dark)	Power, elegance, wealth	Mystery (the unknown), fear, unhappiness, evilness, sadness
White (light)	Protection (angel-like), love, purity, peace, innocence	Coldness
Silver	Riches, natural, sleek, elegant, high-tech	Greed
Gold	Riches, preciousness, warmth, prosperity	Greed

Most of these colors have their positive and negative representations so I have to pay close attention to what a color in a movie could represent. To do this, I have to pay attention to reappearances of colors and the consistency of the moods and plot during the appearances of these colors. [DISCLAIMER: This skill is not useful in real life. If you see someone wearing white, it does not mean that they are your guardian angel trying to protect you.]

• Paying attention to music. Like colors, the music used in movies can help convey the character’s mood and development. A good movie is not going to have a joyful song during a sad scene. Although, in comedy, the music can create an atmosphere that is different than what is being portrayed, but that is just to add some humor. If i am amused by the music in a comedy movie, then the movie writer was successful.
• Write the emotions you feel. The emotions that the movie gives me is also an important component of movie criticism, so I need to write them down. In the case of comedy movies, they should make me feel happy and they should make you laugh.
• Pay attention to the acting. Acting is important in any movie. If the actors or actresses are bad, then we, as an audience, are not convinced that their roles are remotely real. This is why it is important to have a good cast.
• Include a short summary. Sum up the movie in a few sentences WITHOUT any spoiler alerts.
• Include an analysis. Analyze the movie critically. Include ideas like themes and plot.  
• Rate. At the end, I want to rate it, whether it is a scale from 1-10, a 5 star system, or a thumbs up/ thumbs down system. When I start to rate movies, I am going to use the 5 star system.

All of these key components should be specific to comedy movies, which are meant to make the audience laugh. It seems like the end of the world when you pick a bad comedy movie when you are ghanging out with friends. Here are some of the main components to a good comedy movie:

• Funny characters. Whether the movie is character comedy or not, the characters in the movie have to be funny. Their jokes and silliness are what will entertain the audience.
• Timing of the jokes. It is important for the jokes in a comedy to be said at the right time. This will result in more laughs and less awkwardness. Once, I was having dinner with friends and we were talking about one of our favorite movies. Then, when we started talking about a different subject, I made a joke about the movie that we just talking about. The table just became really silent and awkward in an instant. Characters in comedy movies cannot pull a Matt. They need to tell jokes at the right place and right time to be funny.
• Staying true to the genre. The three genres, or sub-genres, of comedy that I will be watching are character comedy, slapstick comedy, and parody. Each movie that I watch should be true to the genre. For example, if I am watching a character comedy, it better be a character comedy. It better have a plot line revolving around a hilarious character based on stereotypes [as I explained in a previous post]. If I am watching a slapstick comedy, there better be exaggerated physical activity used in a creative and funny way. If I am watching a parody, it better make lots of jokes about the movie(s) it is based on.

  

  Slapstick comedy at its finest