Film Log Robert Redford’s film The Milagro Beanfield War (1988) The movie was based on a tiny town called Milagro that is located in New Mexico, where water is a significantly important resource. In Milagro, a man named Devine, the developer of Miracle Valley Resort plans to build a major new resort development which will drain off all the water from the neighboring crop fields.
Numerous screenwriters and directors have often dealt in their films with the theme of borders, whether literal and officially recognised, like military ranks or state frontiers, or abstract and metaphorical, like those of morality, justice, race, and gender, along with several others. As a consequence, as John Gibbs points out, one could assemble these movies, especially those taking place on the confines between Mexico and United States, under the label of ‘border films’ (2002: 27); thus contextualising them in a very specific tradition, which includes pictures such as Touch of Evil (Orson Welles 1958) or The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones 2005). Accordingly, another notable movie belonging to the ‘border film tradition’ is Lone Star: an acclaimed 1996 hybrid of western and mystery film conventions, directed and written by independent filmmaker John Sayles. The picture recounts the story of a murder investigation, which leads the main character, Sheriff Sam
In “The Day the Cisco Kid Shot John Wayne” by Nash Candelaria, it portrays examples on how hegemony is being used in this story. In the beginning of the story, we see that Junior’s father wants to move into town so that Junior can get better schooling and learn more English since “He’ll have to live in the English-speaking world.” (Candelaria 8). We see hegemony here because English is used throughout the whole country and knowing this language can mean intelligence and educated. Those who spoke another language other than English, was to be seen as not educated and not accepted by others.
The three movies – Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and The Green Berets – are all movies based on the same historical event – the Vietnam war and US’s involvement in it. Yet, they all presented us with different and narrative point of view and authority figures in order to paint their individual values. The movies’ most obvious differences lie within the choice of their narrative point of view. The Green Beret, the earliest one, was directed by John Wayne and he also starred in the leading role. Wayne’s authority and influence in the 1960s was similar to the influence of Tom Hanks in the 21st Century.
Writer Sherman Alexie has a knack of intertwining his own problematic biographical experience with his unique stories and no more than “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” demonstrates that. Alexie laced a story about an Indian man living in Spokane who reflects back on his struggles in life from a previous relationship, alcoholism, racism and even the isolation he’s dealt with by living off the reservation. Alexie has the ability to use symbolism throughout his tale by associating the title’s infamy of two different ethnic characters and interlinking it with the narrator experience between trying to fit into a more society apart from his own cultural background. However, within the words themselves, Alexie has created themes that surround despair around his character however he illuminates on resilience and alcoholism throughout this tale.
O Brother Where Art Thou? is a film that will take you on a perilous journey with Ulysses Everett McGill and his simpleminded cohorts. This film may be set amidst the early 1930’s Great Depression era, but it still has a Homer’s Odyssey feel to it. Down in the dusty and highly racial south, Everett recruits a couple of dimwitted convicts, Pete Hogwallop and Delmar O’Donnell, to help him retrieve his lost treasure and make it back home before his wife marries another suitor.
Districting the New Segregation? Education has been a major influence on government policy and social standards concerning American youth. With hard work and education, one can better themselves and open up more opportunities for financial and social success. Waiting for Superman directed by Oscar winner, Davis Guggenheim, counters that the current education system is failing students by limiting their upward mobility, particularly among minority and low income groups. The documentary advocates for a radical change in the modern education system, modeled after charter school curriculums.
The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History, written by Joseph M. Marshall III, recounts the awe inspiring life of the legendary Lakota warrior, Crazy Horse, and his never ending struggle against the whites. His humble beginning on the path of the warrior began with the making of his bow. “Shaping a stave into a bow was the story of any boy’s journey on the path to becoming a warrior” (Marshall 21). Thus, the imagery and process of creating his bow mirrors that of Crazy Horse’s maturation from a naïve young boy into an accomplished and renowned warrior and leader.
In the film adaptation of the novel, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, some of the original aspects that make the novel so timeless are not included in the movie. However, due to the vastly different medium that film is and the abstractness of the novel, it makes sense why some things would have to change in order for the story to transfer to the screen successfully. While many die-hard fans of the novel denounce the film version of their beloved story, others celebrate the presence of Adams’ wit in the movie especially through the cartoon representations of the guide entries. First of all, the Hitchhiker’s Guide is pictured much differently in the movie than in the novel.
Once European men stepped foot onto what is now known as North America, the lives of the Native Americans were forever changed. The Indians suffered centuries of torment and ridicule from the settlers in America. Despite the reservations made for the Natives, there are still cultural issues occurring within America. In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the tragic lives of Native Americans in modern society are depicted in a collection of short stories taking place in the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. Throughout the collection, a prominent and reoccurring melancholic theme of racism against Native Americans and their struggle to cope with such behavior from their counterpart in this modern day and age is shown.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is a book written by Sherman Alexie depicting many stories regarding life on the Spokane Indian Reservation. These stories tell of many serious problems the modern Native Americans are faced with today. Problems like poverty, racism, limited education opportunities, and alcoholism just to name a few. The book incorporates many different characters, including Victor Joseph, Thomas Builds-the-Fire, and Norma Many-Horses. These characters along with many other characters show what life was and still is like on some Indian Reservations.
No Country for Old Men (2007) is an American film based on a novel written by Cormac McCarthy. No Country for Old Men is a Crime Thriller that will leave you on the edge of your seat from the beginning to end of the film, the climax of the film will make you want more of the mysterious assassin, Anton Chigurh. Javier Bardem’s performance of Anton Chigurh in this film is excellent, every scene he is in is suspenseful and will leave you with a sense of dread. The way that the movie does not use music gives you the sense of the eerie silence of the desert. This is a movie that was interesting from the beginning to the end and it did not lose me, it held me tight, and in fact kept me on the edge of my seat.
Gender and Race in Film from a Feminist Analysis Representation of women and people of color in the film industry remains mostly divisive issue due to the heightened attention to diversity in recent years. Based on this observation, the current paper analyzes the state of representation in this industry focusing on the film “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” Star Wars: The Last Jedi “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is a film written and directed by Rian Johnson that was initially released on the 9th of December 2017. Produced by Lucasfilm, the film served as the eighth main installment of the hugely successful Star Wars franchise. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributed the film.
The show Band of Brothers was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks who, at the time, recently had success with a World War II film entitled Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg and Hanks used their expertise on war films to craft the exceptional television series Band of Brothers which originally aired on HBO in 2001. The show follows “Easy” Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, of the 101st Airborne Division, from the moment they begin their training to the moment their deployment ends. Throughout the show we see the men of “Easy” Company mature a thousand times over. The men experience love, loss, and death at rate that is inconceivable to someone that has never experienced the theatre of war.
The film “Argo”, directed by Ben Affleck, re-enacted the events of the Canadian Caper during the Iranian Hostage Crisis (1979-1981) in Tehran, Iran. Not all 53 hostages were captured as six American diplomats escaped and were taken into the care of Ken Taylor, the Canadian Prime Minister at the time, in the Canadian embassy. Taylor and the Canadian government created a plan to help the diplomats escape, however, they needed an intelligence force to back them up, which they didn’t have. The C.I.A was contacted to help Canada get the diplomats back to Canada safely with fake Canadian passports. The C.I.A created the fake movie called “Argo” as well as a fake studio and script.
