Perhaps I’m the only one on this campus who is obsessed with movies. I crave the excitement, the suspense of the silver screen. A chill runs through me each time I insert a DVD into the Playstation I keep stealing from my suitemate. And don’t even get me started on aspect ratios.
But on the off chance that other people love movies too, I thought I’d put together this handy little guide.
1. Go to the movie theater. This one should be obvious. There is a theater in Central Park. Go there. …

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007)
The official website for Across the Universe proclaims in proper Beatles fashion that “all you need is love.” All this film needs is a more cohesive plot, proper character development, and greater depth. Oh, and perhaps a replacement for Eddie Izzard, who provokes a significantly greater amount of terror than laughter.
Jude, played by Jim Sturgess, leaves his Liverpool home for America in search of his father, who he’s never met. Once there, Jude stumbles across rebellious Princeton student Max (Joe Anderson) and his attractive younger sister Lucy …

UMW Bullet, Sept. 27
3:10 TO YUMA
I have a confession to make: I’ve never liked Westerns. It’s difficult to become emotionally attached to a genre that essentially consists of only one film. Poor miner/farmer/townsperson is terrorized by outlaw/neighbor/ruthless businessman. Insert crying wife/kids/saloon girls. Valiant but morally ambiguous stranger turns up just in time to save the day. Wife/kids/saloon girls stop crying and end credits are accompanied by joyful, feel-good music.
So you can understand my initial feeling, no doubt, that in seeing 3:10 to Yuma I was taking one for the team. …

My new film column, from this week’s Bullet. (Original version)
STARDUST, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE FAIRY TALE
Sick of the onslaught of new Harry Potter movies? Can’t watch Legolas flip his hair even one more time? Do you sometimes find yourself wondering what the world would be like if fantasy characters, instead of wasting wishes on true love, requested acting talent or better screenplays? In this age of inverse correlation between special effects and depth of plot, it’s refreshing to see at least one new movie …

When I first started working on this movie, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. A film about Web 2.0? How could I resist? Once I came up with an idea, I worked furiously on the screenplay. By the end of the process, I was even scriptwriting in my dreams. I finally started filming with exactly two weeks left to the due date. Didn’t really bother with sleep anymore, and my friends began to complain that I was never around. This has probably been one of the …

I can often be overheard declaring my passionate love for rack focus shots. (Why yes, I am a film geek.) But it wasn’t until recently that I really asked myself why. For those of you reading who may not know exactly what a rack focus shot is, I’ll explain it briefly. It’s basically a shot in which the camera focus shifts from one plane of the frame to another (i.e. foreground to background).

(images found here)
If you think about it, a rack focus actually imitates our natural perception of perspective in …

Just a shameless plug for my online portfolio :)
www.serenae.com

I’ve been meaning to blog this for quite a while now.

What does everyone else think of this video? I saw it (partially) as a statement on the media’s influence over us, but perhaps it’s also saying something about human nature. What makes it so sad? The very end, or everything leading up to it? (Or do you even think it is sad?) Just something to think about.

Just finished Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) and I feel like I need to watch it several more times just to catch everything that was in it. I’m not sure what I expected, but it was certainly more philosophical than I thought it would be. Some great lines, and the most extraordinary thing about it was that these amazing lines were just kind-of slipped in there. Not dressed up at all, not even much attention drawn to it. Just there to be breathed in by the audience. I …

Working on a new post, but in the meantime I thought I’d post something I wrote for International Cinema about The Vanishing. Comparing original French and Dutch film to American remake. Possible spoilers. All numbers in parentheses are page numbers in the book Dead Ringers: The Remake in Theory and Practice by Jennifer Forrest and Leonard Koos.