McCay Blog Prompt for Casablanca

Apply the Political Expediency Theory to one scene in Casablanca, and do a mise-en-scene analysis to support your application of the theory.

Cooper The Social Network

The film The Social Network, directed by David Fincher and with a screen play by Aaron Sorkin, tells the story of the beginnings Facebook, the world's number one multi-billion dollar social-networking website. At first the plot line to this movie doesn't seem too enthralling, but in reality this film captivates the viewer through its intense scenes of drama off set with a little bit of comedy, and its unique way of story telling. It predominantly tells the story through the use of flashbacks between flipping from one lawsuit back to the other. All the flashbacks have low lighting providing the film with a much more dark presentation, and these flashbacks emphasize key-points in the creation of Facebook and someone can create the world's most popular social network, but at the same time not have friends.
One of the strengths of the movie was its young cast. Jesse Eisenberg does a phenomenal job playing Mark Zuckerberg. He made you hate how Mark Zuckerberg was an asshole who deserved to lose his friends, but at the same time made us appreciate him. His best friend and co-founder of Facebook, who is suing Zuckerberg throughout the movie, is played by Andrew Garfield who also does a stellar job. My personal favorite role in the movie was Justin Timberlake who plays the scumbag – Sean Parker. Sean Parker is the creator of the Napster, which was a music file-sharing(stealing) program. It has been awhile since I've hated a character so much in a movie, and thats a huge compliment to the ex-NSYNC member Justin Timberlake.
In conlusion, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and would definitly see it again. The acting was well done, the script was well written, the plot was intense, and the movie kept it going throughout the entire time.

Slan-The Social Network

Social Network had all the goods to be a entertaining film. One, it told a story and two it possessed dramatic comedy. In order for any film to be a success it must tell a story. The story of the Social Network is the brieft history of Facebook. It gives viewers the beginning of the multibillion dollar site and the turmoil that came after its creation.

The acting in the Social Network was fitting to this film. You have the right age group of actors and each one was able to fulfill their roles well. Justin Timberlake, Sean Parker, played the role well. He made the conflicts in the film rise to another level. The rising action started when his characted was introduced. He portrayed the ass hole very well. Andrew Garfield, Eduardo Saverin, did some great acting. He applied the right emotions and gave the audience the victim feeling. The key actor that made the film real excellent was Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg. I have never read much or hear much about the Facebook founder but Jesses showed me enough. If the real Zuckerberg is anything like he was portrayed, well I hope the billions he has makes him happy. Jesse's performance was stellar and no one could of pulled it off like he did. He made you love him and hate him in an all-in-one package. They make the story that a lot of people didn't know about feel like it wasn't a movie.

The way the film was set up with flashbacks and present scenes was great. The cuts were performed well and the whole film flowed smoothly. Also, the conflict was very entertaining and interesting. The story really filled in missing pieces behind Facebook.

The dramatic comedy in the film was evident in the films humor. Facebook has evolutionized the world and to learn its genesis was entertaining. This film had the right amount of seriousness and comedy to make it a great story.

Now, one of the most distinctive points of the movie was the lighting. All of the flasback scenes lighting were dark. The flashbacks probaly were dark to give the film a ominous feeling. All the flashbacks were revealing the story of Facebook and were part of the lawsuit litagations he was facing. When you shifted to the present the light became bright. The lawsuit litagations were all bright. I guess they appeared this way to signify importance and do be distinctive from the dark flashbacks. The lighting illustrated the distinction between the present and the flashbacks. Only one flashback that was bright was the Facebook headquarters when they hit one million memebers. The lighting was bright in this scene because it was a important day in Facebook history.

Overall, the film was entertaining and it was informational as well.

Kehoe: Editing in "Let Me In"

I recently viewed the film Let Me In, which is about a young boy who is ignored at home and bullied at school but befriends a mysterious girl who turns out to be a vampire. The film’s use of editing is excellent and apparent from the first scene, which opens upon a man jumping to his death out of his hospital window in the dead of night, nurses and police rush into the room only to find a broken window and the mysterious message “I’m sorry Abbey” written on a pad of paper. The next scene is in bright daylight with the subtitle “one week earlier.” The film’s editors had good reason to begin the film with the hospital scene and then flashback a week in the next scene. This flashback technique acts as a hook to grab the audience’s interest. In the first scene, the audience does not know who Abbey is, or why the man jumps to his death; all the audience is given is the assurance that these questions will be answered by viewing the events of the previous seven days.
Another notable editing technique is the angle and proximity of the camera in the scenes with Owen and his mother. Owen is the film’s protagonist, and is the constant target of bullying at school. In the scenes where Owen is talking to his mother, the camera is placed in such a way to make Owen’s mother blurry and out of focus. This is to represent how his mother is neglectful of Owen and his problems.

Kehoe-Social Network

The Social Network is a docudrama about Internet entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of his website, facebook. Although the film’s focus is the creation of the facebook website, the film is also a critique of the Internet as a whole, especially in terms of anonymity and privacy on the web. The film comments on this theme in many ways though most directly and effectively through its story structure. There are many points in the film where accusations are made against a character, such as when Zuckerberg’s lawyer brings up the charges of animal cruelty that Saverin was accused of while still at Harvard. Saverin’s lawyers immediately begin to question Saverin about the incident, and if he thinks that Zuckerberg planted the story in the Harvard newspaper in order to push Saverin out of the business more easily.
The next scene flashes back to the time of the incident, when the newspaper article was released. Here, Saverin immediately begins accusing the Winklevoss twins of planting the story in an attempt to damage the websites reputation. These scenes highlight the fact that on the Internet, anyone can write anything about anyone and be totally anonymous. No one ever finds out the source of the article or how much of the article is factually accurate, but it does not matter, Severin was accused of animal cruelty and, whether true or false, damaged his reputation. By switching back and forth between present and past the audience can contrast the two scenes and how this anonymity creates paranoia. Sean Parker, the creator of napster, personifies this paranoia; Parker is so paranoid that he warns Zuckerberg that his competition will start bugging his phone and spying on his everyday activities.
The use of lighting in the film is effective in communicating mood. Through out the film, the lighting is often dim and gloomy. This technique communicates the mood and environment of someone sitting alone in a dark room lit only by the glow of a computer screen.

Hales, The Social Network

The best aspect of The Social Network was definitely Aaron Sorkin’s screen adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s book. I’ll admit that in the first scene I sighed from exhaustion and thought, ‘This film is going to wear me out.' But thankfully, what was annoying in the first scene (with Mark Zuckerburg and Erica Albright constantly bickering, bantering, and generally talking over each other,) proved to be charming and compelling throughout the remainder of the film. In the conference room during his two trials, Zuckerburg practically humiliates most everyone else in the room. However, the shining star of Sorkin’s biting dialogue is given to the president of Harvard when he is approached by the Winklevoss twins. He basically tears them a new one and sends them packing, yet in the most sophisticated and eloquent way imaginable. The only problem with such brilliant wit being doled out to most characters in the film is believability. Everyone knows that Harvard is an amazing school, but viewers cannot be expected to believe that everyone who ever came into contact with the university is blessed with such a caustic and almost Mensa-level manner of speaking.

In fact, there were many instances in which I couldn't help but wonder mid-scene, "Did that really happen?" Some of their behavior was just so bizarre, such as Sean Parker's complete disregard for humanity in general (speaking of, Justin Timberlake did a wonderful job portraying him, he went from charming to despicable in the span of two scenes.) But of course, this is a movie, and not meant to be an accurate historical representation of factual events. Yet I do hate when a film is set up in a way that I find myself straying from the film and thinking of real life instead. 

Eduardo Saverin was the most likeable character for me. He seemed to go about everything in an honorable way, and gave Zuckerburg the benefit of the doubt until absolutely proved other wise. When it was obvious that he had been screwed over, he went about protecting himself in the most mature and gentlemanly way. It was refreshing to see him lose his composure every now and then too. My favorite quote from the film is when Saverin gets fed up with Zuckerburg at a hearing and says, "Sorry, my Prada is at the cleaners, along with my hoodie and my 'fuck you' flip-flops, you pretentious douche bag!"

 Another interesting aspect of the film is the use of editing in the law suit scenes. It kept it exciting to have the instant change from one conference room to another. At first, when the viewer isn’t yet aware of what’s going on, one only wonders why Zuckerburg is wearing a different outfit when the scene cuts from the Winklevoss to the Saverin scenes. This is especially effective in keeping the momentum going in a two hour film. There were certainly a few things that could have been cut down, such as party scenes. But everything moved so quickly, I didn’t mind sitting around for 30 minutes over standard feature lendgth time. 

Quentin, Jackass 3D

My friends and I went to see Jackass 3D over the break because there was a big fuzz about it and lots of my friends advised me to go see it. It ended up being really disappointing because most of the things the actors/stunt men do is related to nasty things. People getting hurt is funny to watch but people bungee jumping in a portable toilet full of crap is just too much. This movie is part of a trilogy and to me, it was the worst of all. The use of 3D was not very helpful in enhancing the quality of the movie.

I thought some parts of it were hilarious such as the part when Johny Knoxville, the most famous character of all runs away from a dog and tries to climb a pole and gets his butt chewed on. I think that what makes this a good movie to the audience is that the director did a great job editing. All in all, the movie is just made of many shots taken of the casting doing crazy stunts and those are simple shots just taken from the ground or from different angle around the character at eye level. In order to make people laugh even more and really enjoy each scenes, the director slow motioned every scenes where someone is about to get hurt or crash into something and we can really observe everything such as the face expressions and the motion of the body after being hit. Even though the grossness of the movie really made me dislike it, I think that they did a great job editing the film. The directors said in an interview that they were able to do this thanks to the new technology that they got in filming. The use of angle shots and lights were also well placed along the film. Jackass started as a TV show and is now one of the biggest box office. I do not know what is wrong with our generation. We enjoy watching people getting hurt, and getting covered in crap just for our entertainment. I really think that cinema is changing with time. Back then, this kind of movie would have been banned and prohibited from being released. I guess the tables have turned.