'Nuff Said?

I'm officially on break until May 14, when the summer term begins. I have a light course load during the summer, but I'll still post on this blog from time to time. In fact, I'll probably do at least some minimal posting before that. I know I'll have something to say about The Avengers, for instance. Years ago, I worked for Marvel Comics in NY. Stan Lee still came in for meetings in those days. For a while, I shared an office with his younger brother, Larry Lieber.  I could almost do a whole blog about that.

Powerful Combination

Writing About the Movies
Well, I guess that's it. My last class of the semester was earlier this evening. We've always had a lot of fun in this class. The students would kid each other (in good spirits), and I would kid back and forth with them. Tonight, we went around the room and each one talked about his or her final paper. One student said that she wrote about A Mighty Wind and two other improv comedies (Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show) because she loved A Mighty Wind and was a little ticked off that some of the other students didn't like it. "So then you wrote your paper out of spite?" I said. She said she did. I told her spite was a great motivator, and I really believe that it is. But, of course, without her love for the film, there would have been no paper. So, really, it was written out of  love and spite. Powerful combination.

Winding Down

American Film Comedy
At our final meeting on Monday, the evening of the last day of classes before exams, I sensed a certain impatience in some of the students -- at first, anyway. They wanted to get on with studying for those exams, I think, and there they were, stuck talking about movies. But this was a polite group and they warmed up as the evening progressed. (Or maybe they just surrendered to the reality that there was no escape.) In any case, we had a great round-robin discussion about their final papers. Insights into films. Personal insights. Laughs. I will definitely miss this class. Now, about reading those final papers...

Monkey-Wrench

Writing About the Movies
Jane Goodall, the famous primate expert, was speaking on campus on the night of our class, which made parking tough for my students. A couple of them arrived late and one of them messaged me to say that, ultimately, she gave up and went home without getting to class. So there was that plus Fox Day plus the night with the loud music right outside our window. Sometimes, it's been like trying to hold class on a traffic island during rush hour. Yet, we persevered and even managed to figure out a few things about The Purple Rose of Cairo, our final film of the semester. Maybe we should have watched Gorillas in the Mist.

Musical Chairs

Adaptation
This class ended this week, too. For the final session, I moved the students to a room in which it was possible to arrange our chairs in a circle so that we could discuss their final papers Woodstock-style. But it turned out the room that I picked had some sort of special session scheduled not long after we moved there. So then we moved to another room, but we only had about 50 minutes there. So then we had to go back to our original room for the final 20 minutes or so. Kind of a bumpy ride, but at least we all got a little exercise.

Good Times

Cinema Criticism Writing

This week, we had the last session of this class. What was great about this class was that, somehow, it really became a team. The students were willing to share their thoughts, critical and otherwise, with each other. They spoke from the heart about film and writing. Plus, all of them have at least some writing talent, and most of them have more than just some talent. This sort of thing doesn't happen all that often.

Burn After Reading, After Pizza

American Film Comedy
We had our Pizza Party this week. The entertainment was that everyone told jokes. Lots of fun!!! Then we watched Burn After Reading, a hilarious Coen brothers film with a nearly all-star cast (George Clooney, Brad Pitt [sooo funny!], John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, J.K. Simmons [also sooo funny!], Richard Jenkins), that was criminally underrated when it opened, possibly because it came out just after the Coens' Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men (which, BTW, I didn't love). The class reaction to Burn was amazing. It started slow, with just the occasional titter, and then built until, by the end, the class was reacting loudly to everything. There are a lot of ways to talk about this film. I'm going to try a character-oriented approach next week and see what happens.

Short & Bittersweet

Writing About the Movies
This week, we watched The Purple Rose of Cairo, which I hadn't seen since it opened way back in 1985. It holds up. In fact, it's still one of my favorite Woody Allen movies. (And I believe it's Allen's favorite movie among the ones he's made.) So funny at times, and yet so sad at others. I didn't remember that it's only 82 minutes. Allen packs a lot in there, yet it doesn't feel rushed in the least. I love the ending. Just a prolonged shot of Mia Farrow's face as she watches an Astaire-Rogers musical. She's entranced, and yet this simple shot is heartbreaking after what has preceded it. It's the last film that we're seeing in this class and a great way to go out.

Arnold Strong

Adaptation
Read my post about this week's Cinema Criticism Writing Class before you read this post because something similar happened in this class. This week we discussed The Long Goodbye with Elliott Gould, directed by Robert Altman. One scene late in the film features Arnold Schwarzenegger as one of a gangster's hired thugs. It's a very minor role and Arnold filmed it long before anyone outside of the bodybuilding community had any idea who he was. In fact, he's billed as Arnold Strong in the film. Yet, there were at least a couple of students who couldn't seem to understand that he was not cast for his star appeal because, at the time, he didn't have any. I guess I have to acknowledge that in certain extreme cases a star's image can work retroactively.

Dude!

Cinema Criticism Writing
Last week, we watched Dangerous Liaisons with its all-star cast: Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer, John Malkovich, Uma Thurman, Swoosie Kurtz and, in a fairly minor role, Keanu Reeves. The film came out in 1988, before the Matrix movies and the Bill & Ted movies and Speed and all the other films that made Keanu Reeves who he is. But even so, in our discussion this week, a lot of the students simply could not get past his current image enough to accept him in as a credible character in 18th century France. One student said that, as an actor, Reeves ranges from Dude to Surfer Dude.  Bogus!

What to Do?

American Film Comedy

Just a one-hour class this week because we spent a lot of time on individual conferences about the final papers. These conferences aren't long. Usually they run just five to 10 minutes apiece. But they're surprisingly effective in terms of connecting with students and resolving issues. I wish more students would drop by during my office hours, especially early in the semester, but that's a lot to ask and I don't want to make it a requirement. What to do?

Behind Bars

Writing About the Movies
I tried to explain how Alfred Hitchcock uses visuals to state his themes in Strangers on a Train, but I'm happy to report that the students were often ahead of me. There is, for example, the evening scene in which the two main characters discuss a murder. In each shot, at least one of the men is shown with the bars of a gate in front of him, or at least the shadow of those bars. The point is that the threat of prison hangs over the men, the murder and the entire conversation. The minute I started showing that scene in class, at least some of the students seemed to know what was going. What can I say? Very cool!

Birds, Cars and The Long Goodbye

Adaptation
We've moved into the period in my classes when we're focusing on final papers. That means I'm having individual conferences with all my students, which cuts into class time a bit. In this week's class, for example, we only had time for several students to share some of their favorite passages from Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye, which we'll discuss at length next week. One student pointed out the importance of car imagery in the novel; another noticed the bird imagery. For such a short class period, I'd say we accomplished a lot.

Art Film

Cinema Criticism Writing
Dangerous Liaisons, which we watched in class this week, is one of those movies that has what can pretty fairly be called an all-star cast: Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman, Keanu Reeves and Swoosie Kurtz. Some of them are bigger stars now than they were in 1988, when the movie opened; some perhaps not quite so big. And yet it's still a bit surprising to see them all assembled in one movie, especially a costume picture set in 18th century France. It's a little like going to an art museum and spotting movie-star faces in a painting by Watteau.

Pick Flick

American Film Comedy


Even though Election opened 13 years ago, it feels like it belongs to the present. It's in color and it features stars (Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick) that the students know very well. Also, it was made in an atmosphere of freedom (in terms of content) that closely resembles that of today. As a result, the class seemed to respond to it more freely and directly than other movies we've watched together. Plus, the movie's world is the world of a school -- specifically a high school, which my students likely remember pretty well. Next week is our class party, but the week after that we'll discuss Election. Should be fun.

Scary Scene

Writing About the Movies

It was Fox Day at Rollins, which means that my class was unexpectedly cut short by a half hour. There wasn't time to do much more than show Strangers on a Train, one of my favorite Hitchcock films. It's also a good one to show students because Hitchcock's use of visuals to state his themes is so clear. Also, there's an exciting merry-go-round scene at the end that was, of course, filmed without today's CGI camera tricks. After filming it, Hitchcock is said to have vowed that he'd never do anything so dangerous again.

Higher Noon

Cinema Criticism Writing
Possibly, I've been too hasty in revising my opinion of High Noon downward. It really seemed to connect with most of the students in this class, even though it's in b&w and is, in some ways, old-fashioned. They liked the formality of its style and the clarity of the action scenes (in contrast to the incoherent  action scenes in some films today). Plus, the film's me-against-the-world theme may have spoken to the twenty-something psyche. Anyway, I like High Noon better after hearing the discussion and reading the students' papers. Once again, I somehow seem to have learned something.

Slapstick?

American Film Comedy

Evidently, Sleeper was a big hit with this class. Lots of positive feedback during the discussion. Even the somewhat dated parts of the film (i.e., where there are topical references to "things" like, say, Howard Cosell) somehow didn't matter. Reading the students' papers, however, revealed that some students really seemed to like the movie's slapstick humor (which they compared to that of Buster Keaton), while others didn't care for that aspect of the film. Still, I'd say that as of 2012, Woody Allen is still relevant.

Love & Hate

Writing About the Movies
I can't believe it's been more than a week since I've posted an entry on this blog. But, then again, I CAN believe it because I've been spending so much time reading student papers lately. Which isn't such a bad thing: Some of those paper have been amazing! Of course it's possible I've just been stunned by the polarizing effect that showing A Mighty Wind has had on this class. Some students liked the film. Make that LOVED the film. But others really, really HATED it. When we discussed it in class, the responses were fascinating. The students who loved it were clearly disheartened that the others didn't share their affection for it. Meanwhile, some of the students who hated it weren't curious enough to want to find out what other people loved about it. I guess I was counting on a little more curiosity...