If you have only heard about La La Land, you may be wondering what all the song and dance is about. But if you have been tracing its trajectory for a while, you’ll know that song and dance is the whole idea. Winner of seven Golden Globes and six Academy Awards, the 2016 Hollywood blockbuster has got viewers leaving the cinema with a tear in their eye, a song in their heart and a clear six inches of thin air between the soles of their shoes and the pavement.
Written and directed by Damien Chazelle (Whiplash), La La Land has respect for movie tradition, in the sense that it references some of the best elements of the big studio musicals that were last in style in the 1960s – the kind with sun-drenched boulevards, sorbet-colored minidresses and
The film is dotted throughout with production numbers by Justin Hurwitz that are more than enough to qualify La La Land as a musical, but not so much that the characters are subordinated to the songs. There’s this essential mundaneness in the way they perform – it slows things in the best way and brings Seb and Mia down to human level. We’re not looking at spectacle. We’re looking at people expressing their feelings, joy, melancholy and desire. However, Chazelle’s highlighted accomplishment has to be the movie’s perfectly crafted finale which takes place five years after the main action. “It's not that I literally write the last scene first, but it's just nice to know what your destination is, and then just backtrack, or figure out what is the most elegant way to build to that.” – the director explained how he did it on an interview with Cinema Blend. The film switches to a dream ballet of everything we’ve seen up until that point, only with a few vital differences. In other words, we get to see our initial expectations play out, represented by dance sequences, shadow plays and home video-style recreations of the life not lived. Whether La La Land’s ending plays as sad or happy surprisingly comes down to how much faith we have in happy endings in the first place. It’s easy to think that dreams don’t come true, and that love only exists in motion pictures. But La La Land serves to remind us that movies can still be magical, and they provide a channel for us to see miracles in the world
Besides an initial voiceover narration introducing Ray Kinsella (Kevin Cosner), his beloved wife Annie (Amy Madigan), and their young daughter Karin, this is the first scene in Field of Dreams, released in 1989 and directed by Phil Alden. The voice-over establishes the expectation of the film as being a sensible story about a loving couple trying to run a family farm in Iowa, and the subsequent scene (pictured above) quickly deconstructs that expectation. While working in his field one night, Ray hears a voice whispering “If you build it, he will come.” From then on, there are no more misconceptions about Field of Dreams being anything but an unapologetic fantasy in which an Iowa farmer mows down his fields to build a baseball diamond where
Chicanos and Chicanas are often stereotyped by people based on crude and unfair assumptions but at the same time, these stereotypes are often based on the truth. Movie directors are no exception as they attempt to understand and give representation to entire Chicano/a and Latino/a culture in society. The trailer of the film, La Mission, Che seems to be happy with his life until he realizes his son, Jes, is gay. Che then finds himself in a struggle to accept the homosexuality of his son while at the same time, Jes is struggling to find his own identity and to fit into society. The trailer has distinct ways in how it represents and shows the intersection and issues of gender and sexuality, race and ethics, as well as class. The trailer represents
Gangs of New York mostly took place in the streets of Five Points and Paradise Square. Five Points was named for the points created by the intersections of Park, Worth and Baxter Streets. By the mid-1800s, Five Points was known as New York City’s most notorious slum neighborhood. It was home to an infamous, overcrowded tenement., which throughout the movie is portrayed as a very dangerous place. This is said to be true, Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend, “the Old Brewery, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years, until its demolition.” Five Points was also portrayed as a very
In 2008 the worst financial crisis since the great depression hit and left many people wondering who should be responsible. Many Americans supported the prosecution of Wall Street. To this day there have still not been any arrests of any executive on Wall Street for the financial collapse. Many analysts point out that greed of executives was one of the many factors in the crisis. I will talk about subprime loans, ill-intent, punishments, and white collar crime.
Sex, love, depression, guilt, trust, all are topics presented in this remarkably well written and performed drama. The Flick, a 2014 Pulitzer Prize winning drama by Annie Baker, serves to provide a social commentary which will leave the audience deep in thought well after the curtain closes. Emporia State Universities Production of this masterpiece was a masterpiece in itself, from the stunningly genuine portrayal of the characters of Avery and Rose, to the realism found within the set, every aspect of the production was superb.
In the documentary “Fed Up,” sugar is responsible for Americas rising obesity rate, which is happening even with the great stress that is set on exercise and portion control for those who are overweight. Fed Up is a film directed by Stephanie Soechtig, with Executive Producers Katie Couric and Laurie David. The filmmaker’s intent is mainly to inform people of the dangers of too much sugar, but it also talks about the fat’s in our diets and the food corporation shadiness. The filmmaker wants to educate the country on the effects of a poor diet and to open eyes to the obesity catastrophe in the United States. The main debate used is that sugar is the direct matter of obesity. Overall, I don’t believe the filmmaker’s debate was successful.
“There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn't good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! TALK!” (Sunset Boulevard). The film Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder focuses on a struggling screen writer who is hired to rewrite a silent film star’s script leading to a dysfunctional and fatal relationship. Sunset Boulevard is heavily influenced by the history of cinema starting from the 1930s to 1950 when the film was released.
The film Sunset Boulevard, presented in 1950 is a black and white film. The film is about Norma Desmond an old actress, who has issues accepting that she is becoming old. The main actor in the film is Gloria Swanson, who plays Norma Desmond, an older woman who believes she is still young. Desmond is not content with the fact that Hollywood has replaced her with younger actresses. The next actor Nancy Olson, plays Betty Schaffer who falls in love with Gillis despite being engaged to his friend. The third actor is William Holden who plays as Joe Gillis, who has financial problems and decides to turn himself into a gigolo to earn money. The dilemma with Joe is he does not want Betty to know about his job because he knows he might lose Betty as
African American representation in the film industry has always been a topic for discussion. Whether talking about character types and roles, the actors being cast or not cast, and the lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera. ‘The contemporary status of race in mainstream American culture is intimately bound to the process of representation within and through the mass media.’ (Rocchio, 2000, p. 4). Any role that was to be played by an African American kept in with the dominant stereotypes of the time of production; incompetent, child like, hyper-sexualised or criminal.
The noir style is showcased in Sunset Boulevard with its use of visually dark and uncomfortable settings and camera work, as well as its use of the traditional film noir characters. In addition, the overall tone and themes expressed in it tightly correspond to what many film noirs addressed. What made this film unique was its harsh criticism of the film industry itself, which some of Wilder’s peers saw as biting the hand that fed him. There is frequent commentary on the superficial state of Hollywood and its indifference to suffering, which is still a topic avoided by many in the film business today. However, Sunset Blvd. set a precedent for future film noirs, and is an inspiration for those who do not quite believe what they are being shown by Hollywood.
Where do dreams come from? Heaven? From the metaphorical corners of an individual’s heart? Perhaps both or neither, but in Hugo, a character named Georges Méliès opens his arms to his movie set and expresses jubilantly to “look around. This is where they’re made.” Hugo, an action-packed masterpiece directed by the all-time famous Martin Scorsese, truly captures the eminence of film history. With a most intricate plot, this film illustrates the art of movie-making, and further teaches an important life lesson regarding every individual in the existence of humanity. Flawless in all aspects of content, quality of filmmaking, and success in portraying the significant message intended for the viewers, Hugo makes its mark as a legend in the world
The film, Fruitvale Station, is based upon a true story of a young, unarmed African American male, Oscar, who was shot by a Caucasian BART police officer. The film displays the final twenty-fours of Oscar Grant’s lives going through his struggles, triumphs, and eager search to change his life around. There will be an analysis of the sociological aspects displayed throughout the movie that show racism, prejudice, and discrimination.
A League of Their Own (Marshall, 1992) explicitly characterizes an American era when a woman’s place was in the home. Even our modern perspective implicitly follows suit. Although women have gained rights and freedoms since the 1930’s, sexism remains prevalent in America. This film offers an illustration when men went to war and big business men utilized women as temporary replacements in factories, sports, and so on. Here, course concepts, such as gender socialization, gender expressions, role stereotypes, emotion expressions, and language, correspond to the film’s characters and themes.
The movie, “The Perfect Dictatorship” (“La Dictadura Perfecta”), directed and produced by Luis Estrada and released in 2014, is a political, satirical comedy story of two reporters attempting to repair the image of a corrupt governor after he signs a deal with the boss of their television company, Television Mexicana. That’s one way we could describe the plot of the movie. Another would be that the movie depicts the inherent corruption of the Mexican government and the lengths to which they will go to retain (or regain) their reputation. Equally, we could see the movie as a demonstration of the corruption of the Mexican media and the ways in which the media influences and effects politics. In fact, the
The importance of music in movies is highly regarded for manipulating the viewer’s emotions and helping them immerse into the story. Music is one of the prime elements in cinema. Without it a movie would feel dull and unexciting. There are three elements in a movie: one is acting, the second is picture, and the third one is music. It is a holy trinity; if incomplete, there would be a lack of sensation and excitement. Both acting and picture can stand independently from one another, but music is the one that makes the movie memorable.