The movie I chose for my presentation is Hoop Dreams. This movie was produced in 1994 by Steve James, Fred Marx and Peter Gilbert. Hoop Dreams is an excellent three hour documentary about two black boys growing up in the inner city of Chicago, Illinois with aspirations of playing basketball in the NBA. The movie starts out when William Gates and Arthur Agee are going to enter high school. William and Arthur both are recruited by Earl Smith a talent scout to attend the famous private school St. Joseph. St. Joseph High School is a predominantly white-suburban private High School in Illinois similar to Detroit Country Day High School in Michigan. They both receive a half scholarship to attend Isiah…
In the film, Glory, the director made specific choices in editing the scenes in how we are meant to see it. He wanted for us to understand and capture what he was trying to accomplish in said scenes. Music and sound is used to capture our attention and focus on the scene that is currently being shown. The director made choices to place music and sound in specific moments when there is dialog or without. Music and sound is to help us as viewers to understand truly what is going on and how we are to take from the scene. The techniques weren’t anything new or special like other films such as Citizen Kane but the director made a huge impact with simple cinematography.…
Conrad Jarrett is the protagonist of this film. He is a teenage boy who has just came back home after staying in a psychiatric hospital for a few months. He was placed in said psychiatric hospital because he had wanted to commit suicide. Now that he is back home, Conrad feels distant from his friends and family members. We find out later in the film that Conrad is actually dealing with post-traumatic stress which was brought on by a sailing accident that took his own brother’s life.…
Ronald Joffe, the director the The Killing Fields, including various scenes of children in the film to create compassion in the viewer for the struggles Cambodians had to endure.…
The exceptionally engaging film, Hoop Dreams goes deep into the life that surrounds basketball. To make it, a player has to be something more then just a good player. They need to be belligerent, well trained, surpass academically, and unaware of anything that doesn't include basketball. The highly thought out, and heartrending film closely records the lives of two Chicago teenagers as we watch their struggle of basketball, to become the best.…
In this trimester, I have studied Paradigm II at Mahidol University International College, which is a core course for the social science division. This course learns about the major paradigms in social sciences during the twentieth century. In the past few months, a lecturer, Eugene Jones, opened a documentary film named Bowling for Columbine. In this film, a filmmaker, Michael Moore, try to find the reason of butchery in the United States. After I watched this film, I had learned that there are numerous reasons why Americans are so violent.…
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah and The Inevitable defeat of Mister and Pete written by Michael Starrbury and directed by George Tillman Jr. show similarities in poverty and family but also differences. Poverty is represented by food, shelter and money. In the book and the movie, family is something that keeps the main characters going. A memoir and a fictional film are similar but different in certain ways.…
Biographically themed movie productions continue to envelop the Hollywood landscape – serving as a means to reenact and interpret a majority of history’s most memorable moments (for better or worse). In the last month alone, depictions of Bobby Fisher (Pawn Sacrifice) and Whitey Bulger (Black Mass) are just two examples of cinematic incarnations that have served to entertain and semi-education observers.…
Sister James and Sister Aloysius play a very important role in John Patrick Shanley’s movie Doubt, which is about the mistrust that takes place in a school directed by the church on priest Flynn command. There, sister Aloysius is the principal, so she is in charge of the student’s rights and responsibilities. On the other hand Sister James is a history teacher. Both characters are important for their way of handling the doubt.…
The feeling of connectedness to the world will bring happiness on any journey. In the movie “The Way” Tom gains meaningful companions on his pilgrimage journey. The unity of Tom, Joost, Sarah, and Jack taught me the importance of companionship and building relationships that are powerful enough to get through any hardship.…
This essay will take an in-depth look at the history of Hollywood during the late 60s and early 70s. This period of time is considered to have been a renaissance for American cinema, and was titled the ‘New Hollywood’ by cotemporary critics of the time. In order to understand the changes that Hollywood went through the late ‘60s, you first have to examine the preceding era of Hollywood filmmaking during the 30s and 40s. This was a period that is commonly referred to as Hollywood’s Golden Age; when the dream factories were in full swing and the audiences were in regular attendance. This period of time could be defined by a number of social, political or economic contexts, but it’s the filmmaking practices that were employed at the time which…
I'm A Mitvah and the importance of friendship I'm A Mitvah is a short dark comedy film about a man who goes to Mexico with his friend, where his friend unexpectedly passes away. The film is written and directed by Ben Berman. In the beginning of the film, David, the main character finds himself in Mexico with his friends body.…
"Lights! Camera! Action!" the dramatic yet traditional prompt associated with Hollywood and the pictures. Hollywood appears to be this extraordinary glamorous world; however, in reality is it? Many people dream of being in the limelight of Hollywood; where there is an endless amount of money, power, and fame. Society fails to examine what's behind fame; the dark, twisted, and the ugly truths hiding within those exact words. Billy Wilder explores and divulges the dark yet unknown, harsh realities of fame, following Hollywood's transition from silent pictures to talkies; with his film Sunset Boulevard.…
The Reality of College Life The Hunting Grounds, was created to expos the rape crimes among the college campus in the U.S. This film was produced by Amy Ziering and directed by Kirby Dick, they were able to depict the hard reality of being at college and how unsafe some of them were. In the reviews of The Hunting Grounds, Michael Philips and Thomas Lee could not deny the impact the film had on their emotions and the epidemic that was occurring. To begin, in Thomas Lee’s review he was able to grasp the emotional appeal that was being displayed.…
Video Free-Write Freedom Summer In the documentary film Freedom Summer we get to hear the experience of many brave civil rights activists who were part of the fight to challenge racism in Mississippi during 1964. Civil rights groups launched Freedom Summer where thousands of volunteers from out of state traveled to Mississippi to help register voters and set up freedom schools. I see a connection between “Is Racism Over Yet?”…