Hitchcock Challenge!

Composition

Since we're heading into our unit on Alfred Hitchcock this week, here's a little challenge for everyone: Come to class with one fact about Alfred Hitchcock (and the source where you got that fact). The winner will be the one to come up with the most interesting fact from a reliable source. Good luck!

Critical Concerns

Cinema Criticism Writing

This past week we spent some time discussing the pros and cons of movie reviews in traditional media (magazines, newspapers) vs. movie reviews in new media (blogs, etc.). At first, the conversation was very much in favor of new media. The feeling in the room was that its informality and diversity give it a major advantage. But then I asked if we lose anything if movie reviews in old media go away. At that point, there was a sort of collective shift. The authority of those reviews, based on the critics' experience and knowledge base, was seen as valuable. We didn't even get into the issue that movie reviews in new media may not be especially independent. It's easier for a movie studio to influence an underpaid (or unpaid) blogger than it is for the studio to influence a reputable reviewer from the NY Times, say, or Roger Ebert. I think the class still might prefer the critics on new media, but we have to acknowledge that the issue is more complex than it may at first appear.

Movie of the Year (So Far)

John Goodman (L), Alan Arkin and Ben Affleck in Argo

For me, the movie of the year (so far) is Argo, which is like a cross between a satire (Wag the Dog, say) and a thriller (like the old Mission: Impossible TV show, not so much the film series). The hero of the mostly true story is a secret agent-type (Ben Affleck) who attempts to extract six Americans hiding in Iran by pretending they are filmmakers. But the real hero is Hollywood itself. That's because two old Hollywood hands, played by the great Alan Arkin and John Goodman, make the escape possible by concocting the phony movie that those pretend filmmakers are supposedly making. The whole film is a tribute to Hollywood because it says that movie people are totally willing and able to come to the rescue of their country BECAUSE they are incorrigible dreamers and effective liars. In a weird and unexpected way, the film is actually TOUCHING. How will academy voters be able to resist giving Argo their best-picture Oscar?

Schedule Change

Expository Writing

I'm changing the schedule slightly. We'll talk about the details in class, but for now here's a heads up:

10/31. Paper 3 due. Paper 4 (alienation) assigned. Discuss alienation. Discuss A Night at the Opera & Dr. Strangelove. Exercise: Sensuous sentences. Lecture: Reading assignments.

11/7. Intro to Lost in Translation. View Lost in Translation (2003, 104 min.). Final paper conferences begin.

11/14. Paper 4 due. Final paper proposal due. Workshop papers. Discuss Lost in Translation. Exercise: self-editing. Final paper conferences continue.

11/21. OFF (Thanksgiving)

11/28. Final paper due. Goodbyes.

12/5: FINAL EXAM WEEK.

Talking Points: Sleeper

Honors Comedy

1) How are some of the targets of subversion in Sleeper different from the targets in the other films we've looked at this semester?
2) How are some of them similar to the targets in other movies we've seen?
3) What jokes or gags didn't you get?
4) How would you describe the film's distinctive visuals?

Be Prepared

Composition

Here's a reminder to the music majors and anyone else who missed class last week: We're going to be spending a lot of time this week discussing "Juno," so be sure to see it before class this week. If you can't find the film anywhere else, you can find a copy on reserve in Olin Library, which you can view in the library. (You can't take it out.) Also, be sure to read pages 236-259 in your text because we'll be talking about that, too.  See you in class!

Talking Points: Dr. Strangelove

Expository Writing

1) Who is the "I" of the title?
2) What do you make of the characters' names?
3) What off-screen event kicks off the story?
4) Why is this movie called "Dr. Strangelove"?

Talking Points: A Mighty Wind

Cinema Criticism Writing


1) What is this movie saying?
2) How do you feel about the way the music is integrated into the story?
3) Which of the several major characters is the most like a "normal" person?
4) Does the structure of the film present any special challenges for a reviewer?

Talking Points: M*A*S*H

Honors Comedy

Sorry to post this so late, but there were unavoidable technical difficulties.

Some questions to think about:
1) What annoys you (or strikes you as odd) about this movie?
2) What do you think of the shower scene?
3) What do you think of the ending?
4) What are the targets of the movie's subversiveness?

Talking Points: Young Frankenstein

Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher

Composition

1) Why is this 1974 movie in black and white?
2) What's your favorite scene? Why?
3) Remember the scene, early in the film, in which Dr. Frankenstein keeps hitting a thin, old man as part of a classroom demonstration? Did you find this scene funny? Why?
4) What do you make of the way the horses always react when the name "Frau Blucher" is spoken?

Pro or Con?

Expository Writing

One of the surprises of this particular group of students is how reluctant they are to express their opinions, especially negative opinions, about the films we're watching. I wonder if they have the same problem outside of class or if it's just the formal classroom setting that makes them so shy about this sort of thing. Maybe it's because, in the context of this class, any opinion has to be backed up, as opposed to, say, posting an unsupported snarky comment on a message board. In any case, we clearly have to work on this.

Talking Points: Diner

Cinema Criticism Writing

1) How would you classify this film?
2) Which character is your favorite?
3) What does the ending mean? Why is it in slo-mo?
4) What's the point of the scene where Fenwick (Kevin Bacon) watches "College Bowl"?

Talking Points: Dr. Strangelove

Honors Comedy

1) Who is the "I" of the title?
2) What do you make of the characters' names?
3) What off-screen event kicks off the story?
4) How do you interpret the on-screen disclaimer at the beginning of the film?

Final Papers

Cinema Criticism Writing

It's hard to believe we're more than halfway through the semester already. Last week, I think we made a lot of progress and covered a lot of territory. This week, it's time to start focusing of final paper topics. Questions to consider:

1) What belongs in a "profile" article?
2) What belongs in a "trend" piece?
3) What does it mean to write a "profile" or "trend" piece from a critic's perspective?
4) What sort of film or filmmaker really interests you, personally?

Fun Facts: Some Like It Hot

George Raft

Honors Comedy

In Some Like It Hot, the actor who plays Spats Columbo is George Raft, who was famous for playing gangsters in other, usually more serious movies. Some Like It Hot contains a couple of jokes involving him that the audience of time (1959) would have recognized. When playing gangsters, notably in Scarface (1932), Raft's signature move was to flip a coin. So when Spats encounters another gangster who's flipping a coin in Some Like It Hot, Spats is annoyed. Another actor who played a lot of gangsters was James Cagney. In one film, The Public Enemy (1931), Cagney's character pushes half a grapefruit into the face of a woman played by Mae Clarke. In Some Like It Hot, there's a little tribute to Cagney in which Spats threatens to shove half a grapefruit into the face of a henchman.

Are You Kidding Me?

Phoenix in The Master

A couple of years ago, Joaquin Phoenix starred in and co-wrote I'm Still Here, a sort-of documentary about his fake attempt to give up acting to become a rapper, all the while seeming to slide into self-destruction. I wish I could say that his latest film, The Master, is also a hoax of some kind, but I'm afraid it isn't. Pretentious, pointless and thoroughly enervating, it's directed and written by Paul Thomas Anderson, a filmmaker of great talent and genuine accomplishments like Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love. But The Master is purest folly; the raves it's received in some circles tell us more about the sorry, insecure state of contemporary film criticism than they do about the movie itself. Phoenix's performance as a cult hanger-on is the best thing about The Master, and that, believe me, is not saying much.