ParaNorman's Movie Review

(ParaNorman, 2012)

Today I am going to discuss about another film, which is 'ParaNorman', that is also using the theory of Postmodernism. Postmodernism has the tendency of anti-modernism. It posses the pessimistic skepticism on modernism and constituting critical analysis on gender, structuralism, ideology. It promotes reflective stands from political, social, cultural agendas and resonance.

Synopsis:

The story is about the protagonist, Norman was a boy who talk to the dead. He was bullied by other kids in the school due to his abnormal. When they were rehearsing the school play for the 300th Anniversary of Witch's Execution, he saw the vision of the town's past. On the same day, Norman met his uncle, Mr. Prenderghast who tell him that he needs to be responsible for the town's safety. During the official school play, Norman had another vision of town's past which was people were hunting for the witch in the woods, then he yelled what he saw causing himself grounded by his father. The next day, Mr. Prenderghast's spirit found Norman and told him to read the book before sunset. After Norman promised him, Mr. Prenderghast's spirit gone disappeared. After all the hesitation, Norman finally decided to take the responsibility. Finally, He and his companions overcame all the problems and his family accepted as who he was.(Butler & Fell, 2012)

Analysis:

The theory of Postmodernism is refer to anti-modernism, that has oppose to the universals, meta-narrative, generality, and critical of enlightenment. There is no history progression in postmodernism. There is also no 'Truth, even if there is a 'Truth', but there will be no any 'foundations' for it.

The genre bending is one of the characteristic for Postmodernism. It means bending the classification of film, integrating two or more genre in the film. The bend of genre in the film 'ParaNorman' is very obvious.

The unnatural horror genre is clearly displayed in the film as the protagonist of the film, Norman, would speak with the dead. He could see and talk with the ghost. Normally, the horror genre that falls under the category of unnatural could be having the characteristic of threat to the normalcy or bodily mutilations and mutations. The film has the characteristic of threat to normalcy, the threats that are presented in film were from both the internal and the external forces threatening the civilians. For the internal threat, it could be the residents of the town. When the zombies were appeared in the town, they started to use weapons and other stuffs that was nearby them to attack the zombies. At the end, the town was destroyed by the residents themselves. As for the external threat, it could be the zombies who had back from the death and invaded the town where Norman was living.

Another genre that is also can be found obviously in the film is the teen genre. The teen genre refers to the films that are targeting specific audience, which is the teenager. Most of the teen film's setting will be in the high school or universities, at the mall and sometimes in the house of the characters. The location of the locker is the most common scene for the teen film.(isabella_milne, 2013) There are some scenes that shown the protagonist was bullied by his classmate, Alvin, at the locker of the high school. There are also some scenes was shown that the protagonist was talking with his family in his house. There are also some teen issues involved in the film. When Neil, friend of Norman asked him came out to play, but Norman had an issue of whether to go the graveyard or not. Neil heard him but suggested Norman not to go in order to ensure his safety. Norman thought that Neil did not know what he was dealing so he told Neil to just go back home.
Besides, comedy is also one of the genre that is being shown in the film. Comedies are the films that are designed to draw laughter out of audience. It normally revisit and poke fun of daily social and cultural frustrations. There was a scene that Norman was awakened by his alarm with the sound of zombies roaring, then scared by the models, posters and slippers that is placed in his room. Due to all those things were Norman's collection, when the audience saw Norman was scared by his own collection, it looks funny in the scenes. Another scene was Neil went to Norman's house to ask him if he want to play. At first, Neil was wearing a hockey mask, this scared Norman out. Then, when Neil lifted up the mask, then only Norman felt relieved. Due to the contrast of the mask and Neil, this will makes audience laugh at it.

Action genre is also included in the film too. It contains continuous high energy physical stunts and activities. The chase scenes, fights and escapes can be included as action too. When Neil, Mitch and Courtney found Norman, Norman told them to drive the car away immediately as there were zombies chased after him. Mitch immediately drove his car away, but one of the zombies success to jump up to the car. To get rid of the zombies, they decided to go Town Hall to find out where was the witch being buried. On their way to the Town Hall, they were chased by the traffic police due to the speeding. There was also another scene that described the action genre very well. It was the scene when Norman tried to talk to the witch, but the witch did not welcome him. In order to let Norman quit, the witch used trick like the spikes appeared to block the way of Norman. Norman avoided them and finally went to a closer place to the witch.

Conclusion:

I had do some research on the specific genre, teen film. It targeted specific audience, which is the teenagers, so the film contents are more about what kind of situations might be happened on a teenager. Usually there are some stereotypical characters will always appeared in the scene, such as nerd, cheerleader, jock and so on.

Finally, this film 'ParaNorman' not only bring laughter to us, but also had lead us to think deep about the nature of human. From the scene that Norman's classmate bullied him to the scene that the villagers attacked the zombies violently without thinking what was even happening, we can see that the nature of human by bullying others can be small to bully verbally until big to bully violently. This will be a problem that we need to consider.

References:

Butler, C., & Fell, S. (Directors). (2012). ParaNorman


isabella _milne. (2013, August 11). Codes and conventions of the teen genre. Retrieved February 28, 2017, from SlideShare, https://www.slideshare.net/isabella_milne/codes-and-conventions-of-the-teen-genre

Zombieland's Movie Review 2

(Zombieland, 2009)

I decided to redo my Zombieland's movie review as the movie review that I did last week was not my lecturer expected. Today I would like to discuss about another theory, which is Postmodernism as it is more suitable for the film that I need to study, Zombieland. Postmodernism appears as a theory during the sixties and fully incorporated and applied during the seventies till now. It is a theory that have the tendency to be anti-modernism. It posses pessimistic skepticism on modernism and constituting critical analysis on gender, structuralism, ideology. It promotes reflective stands from political, social, cultural agendas and resonance.

Synopsis:

The story had describe that the whole America had became a zombieland as the mutation of mad cow disease. The protagonist was a student and was going to Columbus from Austin to visit his parents. He had a set of rules in order to let him survive. On his way to Columbus, he met Tallahassee who gave him a ride. The protagonist soon found out Tallahassee had a weakness which is Twinkies. They went to a grocery shop and met Wichita who was along with her sister. Wichita and Little Rock had cheated them by taking away all their weapons and Tallahassee's car. They later met the other two again and undergo some problems later. Finally, Columbus found out what he really wants.

Analysis:

The character of Postmodernism includes prefabrication and simulation.

In postmodernism film, images or parts of scenes were fabricated from the earlier film are selected to placed into the new work. In facts, a new film can be made up with previously fabricated footage. The prefabrication can also be separated into two sections too, intertextuality and bricolage. Intertextuality refers to a relation of two or more texts are referenced from one main text. While bricolage was creating a new form of art from the existing resources by genre bending and hybrid genrre. Intertextuality can be seen when Tallahassee was obsessed with Twinkies which has the same personality as one of the character in the film 'Ghostbuster'.

As for the bricolage, from the film we can found out there are more than one genre is existing, such as action, horror, comedy, romance, sci-fi and road film. For the action genre, previously the action film has too many film that the hero has macho posturing of 'one-man-army' like the character Tallahassee who can wipe out the entire population of zombies in the film, and overwhelming special effects, and insane stunts. By the 1980s, the action film became higher cost, more hyperkinetic and violent to produce. So many of the films have morphed into other genre areas. Since then, many films have started to incorporate the action genre into their respective genres by allowing the action film to morph into other genres. There are other kinds of hero were invented in order to morph into respective genres. Columbus is the modern type of hero that uses brain to fight which his character is nerdy, scrawny, smart and coward. In order to let him survive in the zombieland, he had set a list of strategic rules, by having one of the rules 'double tapping' to make sure the zombie is dead. Wichita is a femme fatale, female hero that used her sexuality and intellect to survive in zombieland. She had cheated Columbus and Tallahassee by taking away their weapons and cars. Little Rock is a small little girl that is cunning. She would use her innocence to cheat people for her own goal, like she had cheated Columbus and Tallahassee with Wichita. There are also some scenes can be counted as action genre, such as the opening of the film, the double tap rule set by Columbus, the kill of the week that Columbus and Tallahassee discussed, the chasing scene and the fight scene appears almost every time they met zombies.

For the horror genre, it refers to the film has the purpose of frightening the audience who watch the film. There is some subgenres for the horror which are unnatural, psychological and massacre or slasher flicks. Zombieland hadd used the subgenre of unnatural which included the zombies. Under the category of unnatural the elements in this film is obviously the zombies and the bloody scene which contain not only blood but also gore that go along with the mad cow disease as the external threat in the film. We can see the element of frightening from the scene when the protagonist wanted to go toilet at the gas station, the zombie suddenly rushed out from the toilet. Another scene for the horror genre is that when Columbus woke up and found out that his neighbor, 406 had been zombified after he let her in to his room, the chasing scene then happened.

For the sci-fi genre, it is a genre of a speculative fiction, typically dealing with the imaginatives concept of futuristic science and technology, time travel, parallel universe, etc. Sci-fi genre always has the concept of dystopia, an imaginary placed or state is under unpleasant situation and typically the environment is degraded, which the film has the same concept too. The film also consists of post apocalyptic by the mutation of human into zombie, which means the viral outbreak. It also is a genre that inclined to male skepticism which often describe feminism threatening patriarchy. This we can refer to the scenes where Wichita and Little Rock cheated others in order to survive.

For the comedy genre, it is the film that is designed to bring laughter to the audience. It normally revisit and poke the fun of daily social and cultural frustrations. Sometimes, the political commentary is also embedded in the films as a joke too. This gives some form of escape. The types of comedy genre that used in this film is the black or dark comedy. Black comedy usually are something that is so wrong but you just find it is really funny. We can refer this to the scene that Tallahassee and Columbus just arrived the Pacific Playland to rescue Wichita and Little Rock. When they first arrived, Tallahassee shot the zombies and then later used the car ran over the bodies of the zombies due to make sure that zombies were dead.

For the romance genre, it is the love story or the affair of heart that centers on emotion, passion and the romantic, involvement of affectionate between the main characters. Many romantic films did not have fairy tale, wistful thinking and happy ending, although loves serves a shield to the harshness of the real world. (“Romance films,” 2017) Usually the scenario would be 'the boy meets the girl', such as Columbus first meet Wichita at the grocery shop and he thought she was another marriageable woman to take back to visit his parents. Characters end up in their separate way due to arguments and disagreements, such as Wichita said she and her sister will do everything to survive and the next day she drove the car away without letting Tallahassee and Columbus know. Finally they both reunite, when Columbus went to rescue Wichita at the Pacific Playland and happily ever after like any romance film (94, 2011).

For the road film, normally it has been a staple of American films from the very start. The thing in common for the road films are usually an episodic journey or quest on the open road, to search escape or to engage in a quest for some goals. Road films are usually a testing ground or proving ground for the main characters. (“Road films,” 2017) The road film scene in the film had shown us the bonding between the four main characters was gradually became stronger. The scene when they were heading to the Pacific Playland, they were taking turns to drove the car and during that period they were talking freely to others. Besides, Columbus felt free even though they were still suffering.

The simulation can be separated into two sections which are parody and pastiche. Parody is a new work is born out of previous work with different style, in an attempt to mock. While pastiche is a new work that is born out an imitation of previous work, in an attempt to respect. The movie has applied the parody by having the scene that Wichita, Tallahassee and Bill Murray were playing the roles of the characters in 'Ghostbuster'.

Conclusion:

As a conclusion, the film 'Zombieland' had used the theory of post modernism by having the intertextuality, having the reference of 'Ghostbuster', bricolage, having various kinds of genre in it, including horror, comedy, action, romance, sci-fi and road film, and parody, having the scene that characters played the role of the characters in 'Ghostbuster'.

This film is quite interesting to watch as it is not pure horror movie but also contain comedy, let the film not so scary. In the time giving us the element of scary, but also bringing laughter to us. This kind of film is quite popular due to it has a larger segment of customers as it can include the customers who want to watch comedy, the customers who want to watch horror and also the customers who want to watch horror but scare.

References:

Hayward, S. (2012). Cinema studies: The key concepts (4th ed.). New York: Taylor & Francis.

Romance films. (2017). Retrieved February 20, 2017, from film site, http://www.filmsite.org/romancefilms.html

94, suji. (2011, January 17). Typical conventions of romance. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from SlideShare, http://www.slideshare.net/suji94/typical-conventions-of-romance

Road films. (2017). Retrieved February 20, 2017, from film site, http://www.filmsite.org/roadfilms.html

Reitman, I. (Director). (1990). Ghostbusters (1984) - synopsis

Zombieland's movie review

(Zombieland, 2009)

Today, I am going to discuss about the theory that always used in the film, which is the tonal montage. Tonal montage refers to editing decisions made to establish the emotional character of a scene, which may change in the course of the scene. Tone or mood is used as a guideline for interpreting tonal montage, and although the theory begins to sound intellectual, it is no different from editing is akin to music, the playing of the emotional of the different scenes. Emotions change, and so too can the tone of the scene.(Dancyger & Dancyger, 2014) The reason why I discuss this theory is because of I found out this theory apply in Zombieland very frequently and it is kind of interested me.

Synopsis:

The story is about United States had became a Zombieland. The main character was all on his way back to Columbus from Austin. On his way back, he first met a crazy zombie killer who was also a Twinkies lover and took a ride with him. Then the pair met the sisters who had cheated their weapons and cars when they were in a grocery shop. Then they went to Hollywood, Tallahassee directed them to Bill Murray's Mansion. The main character accidentally shot Bill Murray because he thought that he was infected and became a zombie. Later, the main character and Tallahassee went to the Pacific Playland to rescue the sisters. At last, the main character found out that they had became a family like he always wanted to have.

 Analysis:

From the beginning, the main character, who called as Columbus, had narrated his situation and was hoping that he could met his family once more when the United States had became the zombieland. It does not had any strong emotion when Columbus first mentioned his family as he thought that it was because of his parents causing him to have phobia in almost everything. So when he said he wanted to have a marriageable woman to bring back to let his parents know, he rather want the marriageable woman took him back to let her parents know.

When Columbus and Tallahassee was finding for Twinkies in the grocery shop, they met Wichita and Little Rock. Wichita and her little sister had cheated Columbus and Tallahassee and took away all their weapons and Tallahassee's car. Later, the scene became Columbus and Tallahassee were walking down the empty street and talking about the zombie kill of the week.

While Columbus and Tallahassee were talking, Tallahassee found another great car as their transport. Then Columbus went to check the backseat and found out there are plenty of big guns and bullets for it. They drove the car. On the halfway, they saw Tallahassee's car that was taken away by Wichita and Little Rock was stopped there. Later, they met Wichita and Little Rock again and then the car that drove by Columbus was once again took away by Wichita and her little sister.

On the car along the way, Columbus and Tallahassee found out where were Wichita and Little Rock going, Pacific Playland. In the car, Columbus also had asked Wichita about how was the state of Columbus's situation. Wichita said the truth out that the state of Columbus was no more existed. When Columbus heard about the truth where the state his family live was affected by the zombie too, he felt sad and did not know his direction anymore. His first purpose of going to Columbus was to visit his family and now he realized that from now on he had no any family even though he wants to pretend that he still have a family.

At night, Columbus and Wichita saw a car was stopped at the roadside, Wichita told him to drove it to the state of Columbus to find out the situation. Columbus thought about what he really want and finally he knew that it was not that he had no place to go but was where Wichita goes he just wanted to be with her.

The scene that shows Columbus knew that his family was gone, it came with the sorrow background music to lead the audience more to the feeling of the character. Other than that, the scene is kind of like using close up shot to shoot the facial expression of the character to let the audience know that his feeling for that moment was bad.

Tonal montage is all about the editing decisions made to establish the emotion of the character. Music is counted in the area of editing, the sorrow background music that appeared when Columbus knew his family was gone was one of the editing decision that made to establish the character was feeling sad. The camera shot is also counted as the editing, so the close up shot had showed all the facial expression of the character to audience.

Conclusion:

The summary of my movie review is that tonal montage is used widely in films and television works, as nowadays most of the films and television works are having genre bending. Most of the tonal montage theory was used to represent sorrow scenes with the cope of sad music background and the films and television works will be having sorrow part.

Reference page:

Dancyger, K., & Dancyger, P. K. (2014). The technique of film and video editing: History, theory, and practice (4th ed.). Amsterdam: Focal Press.

Requiem for A Dream's Movie Review

(Requiem for A Dream, 2000)

I have not seen this movie before my lecturer let us watch this movie, named 'Requiem for A Dream'. When the movie had started to play, at first I thought it was an horror movie, but after a few minutes later, I recognized it was not an horror movie but a movie that describes about drug addiction.

Synopsis:
The story starts with Sara Goldfarb's television set was took away by her son, Harry to exchange for money. Harry, Tyrone and Marion were drug addicts, in order to support themselves they decided to enter the drug trade. Meanwhile, Sara got a call that said she had won the prize and was able to get on television. From then on, she was obsessed to lose her weight for the purpose of wearing the red dress. After all the incidents,  they finally meet their own tragic ending.

The scene that I like the most:

There are two related scene that I think it was the most touching part in the movie, but not I like the most. The scene describes that Harry went back to visit Sara and wanted to tell her that he had bought a new television set for her. While he was about to tell Sara about he had bought her a brand new television set, Sara had interrupted him for a few time and this cause Harry felt that his mother was weird that day. After Harry told Sara the purpose of why he came back home, he heard his mother was grinding her teeth. Then Harry started to ask Sara, she told him that after taking the green pill that gave by the doctor the grinding sound will be disappear. Now Harry knew that Sara was addicted to the pills too, he told his mother to stop taking pills and told his mother that taking pills was no good for her. Sara then argued that there is a reason why she was taking the pills and she felt more happy. Harry felt helpless and later he was crying when he was on his way back to the apartment.

When Harry was walking down from the cab, it was a long shot, but when he had completely walked down from the cab, the camera shot move from long shot to close up shot, it is to tell us that Sara had recognized that was Harry. After telling us that Sara recognized him, then the shot become medium close up to show us that how happy Sara was. This scenes said that how happy a mother saw her son come back to visit her.

Then when both of them were in Sara's apartment, most of the shot are medium close up shot to show the facial expression of the actors and often change to medium long shot to show Sara moving back and forth between the dining table and the kitchen. When Harry found out that Sara was on diet by having diet pills, he told her not to take the diet pills as he knew she had addicted to it.

When Harry said that he needed to leave, the camera shot become medium long shot to show the body movement of Harry and Sara. Harry hugged his mother and then left the apartment, while Sara remained standing and putting her arm on a chair. The hand that Sara's arm putting on the chair shows the feeling of Sara. When Harry still in the apartment, Sara's hand was like holding a fist, but when Harry was out of Sara's sight, her hand became powerless. It shows that Sara was still happy when her son visited her, but after her son left she felt lonely again.

The scene then cut to Harry was in a cab going to Manhattan, it was a medium close up shot. At first, he felt sad after visiting his mother due to she did not want to listen his advice that she will still having the diet pills and she said that she was lonely. Then the scene became the shots of having the meanings that he injected drugs into himself, then Harry became emotionless.


The scene that I dislike the most:

The scene that I dislike the most is when Tyrone and his girlfriend were having sexual intercourse. This scene looks like even if the movie does not have this scene will also be indifferent. This scene is actually related to the scene that Tyrone was opening and closing the mirror repeatedly as behind the mirror has the money that Tyrone and Harry saved. While Tyrone was opening and closing the mirror repeatedly, his girlfriend was lying on the bed naked and was calling him. From this scene, we already can know what they wanted to do next.

Besides, the scene i dislike the most is because of the way of presenting this scene. The scene was shot by whirling the camera from above to show both Tyrone and his girlfriend whole body. The whirling camera shot makes me feel dizzy and disgust as the scene keeps whirling.

Just to share:

In this movie, the director had used the method of soviet montage. The method of soviet montage is to shoot the shots separately and then combine them in the sequence that you want your audience to know what is the meaning of having those shots. There are some shot that using mouth to open something, cells become bigger, using a lighter, water boiling, water was sucked into the syringe, pupils enlarged, something dropped into a can of water, water was sucked into a cotton, water injected out from the syringe and the cells moving in the veins. All of this shot added together in this sequence let us know that they were injecting drug into themselves.

This method is used frequently in this movie as there are many scenes that show they were having drugs. This method also had used when presenting Sara was having the diet pills and having coffee.

There are also many scenes that are using the method of accelerated montage to accelerate the timeline that used to shoot the scenes. There is a scene that Sara was doing the house chore after she had the diet pill to present that she was too active.
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