Tag Archives: movies

What makes a great movie quote great?

There’s been a discussion going on via my local movie theater’s Facebook page about people’s favorite movie quotes.  I gave a lot of thought to the question before making my post.  I’m not like those folks who cheat and put … Continue reading

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Movie Images of the Twin Towers

Before 9/11, the silhouette of the twin towers of the World Trade Center were one of the quickest ways movie makers had of establishing that we were looking at the NYC skyline.  Here’s a beautiful collection of WTC skylines edited by … Continue reading

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Link Ch. 8 – Why should we care about 3D movies?

Why do we care about how 3D movies are made? Because movies that are shot in 3D from the beginning can look pretty good.  Beyond the obvious example of Avatar, I would  argue that the TRON remake was a gorgeous (if somewhat empty) 3D … Continue reading

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‘Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince’ as a Comedy Trailer

Suppose for a minute that Warner Brothers wanted to promote Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as screwball teen comedy.  The trailer might look something like this: Thanks eBookNewser! And here’s the actual trailer:

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Link Ch. 3 – How Walt Disney Cartoons are Made – 1939

Here is a fun old RKO short on how the Walt Disney studio produced cartoons back in the 1930s.  A great look at old-school animation.  Thanks to /Film for the link. (Pay attention to the narration.  The inking work is … Continue reading

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West Bank Story

My commentary students viewed the Oscar-winning short film West Bank Story as part of a reviewing assignment. It’s a fun little film that runs about 20 minutes and is a great choice for a review assignment.  It’s short enough to … Continue reading

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Reviewing The Movies

My JMC 406 commentary class is going to be talking about writing critical reviews over the next week or two.  Here are several readings and great talk by movie critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert for my students.  But for … Continue reading

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Link Ch. 8 – Great Bollywood Example

UPDATE – New version of clip with good subtitles. I showed a great clip from the Bollywood musical Mohabbatein today in class.  It’s a wonderful way to get across the idea of what the masala or “spice” movies are like. … Continue reading

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You talkin’ to me? 150 great movie lines & catch-phrases

/Film posted a great collection of movie lines and catch-phrases today.  Quotable quotes ranging from Apocalypse Now (“I love the smell of napalm in the morning….” to Zombieland (“Time to nut up or shut up.”)  You can read the complete … Continue reading

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Oscars, the day after

An array of links, inspired by last night’s Academy Awards: Pete Docter’s student film Winter An art-school animated film from Pete Docter, director of last year’s Best Animated Film Up. (/Film) A short story not actually by James Franco about … Continue reading

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