Writing a Movie Review: Writer's Workshop for Middle and High School Grades 8-10

Incorporating Movies into English Language Arts and Writing Instruction

Unlock English mastery! Transform your classroom with
engaging movie reviews that boost language skills, critical thinking,
and student participation.

Movies are more than just an engaging way to pass the time. They are an amalgamation of storytelling, characterization, themes, and visual representation, which offer a vibrant medium to teach English language arts and writing instruction. Imagine this — your class of young, energetic middle or high schoolers analyzing, discussing, and reviewing movies while learning and honing their English skills. Not only is it fun and engaging, but it also provides an interactive way to understand complex language structures, themes, and concepts.

What's Included?

1. Teacher's Note for Using this Resource in the English and Writing Classroom: A helpful guide to ensure you get the most out of the resources provided.

2. Do's and Don'ts Anchor Chart: A visual guide to direct students on what to include and what to avoid in their movie review.

3. Fillable Movie Information Sheet for Before, During, and After Viewing: This allows students to track key information and impressions throughout the viewing experience, which helps build their review later.

4. Extended Written Response, Movie Quotes Double Entry Journal, Parts of a Movie Review Graphic Organizer: These tools support and scaffold students' writing, thinking, and reflection processes.

5. 3 Exit Ticket Strategies for Formative Assessment: These will help you gauge student understanding and progress at the end of each lesson.

6. Movie Review Skills Assessment, 4-Point Grading Rubric, Student-Facing Checklist, and Grading Sheet: These tools help students self-assess their work and aid teachers in providing clear, fair, and consistent grading.

7. 5-Star Rating and Rough Draft Starter: This provides students a starting point for their review and a simple, familiar way to give their overall rating.

Incorporating movie analysis into your curriculum can be a dynamic way to inspire student engagement and improve their English language and writing skills. By combining entertainment and education, you're teaching them language and skills like critical thinking, analysis, and self-expression.

Related Products

To further extend your resources, consider other products from Stones of Erasmus:

✰ Growing Humanities Bundle for Middle and High School 

✰ Myth Unit for Middle and High School (40+ Days of Content!) 

✰ "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor: Short Story Discussion 

✰ Diagnostic English Language Learner Exams and Essay for Middle and High School

✰ Making Timelines and Recalling Events for Writing in English Language Arts

✰ Integrating Quotations: Writing Activity for the English Language Arts Classroom

Join me on this educational journey. Your feedback, comments, and insights are always welcome. Visit my website at stonesoferasmus.com for more resources and ideas.

© 2022-2023 Stones of Erasmus.

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The Ineluctable Bond of Two Boys Broken: Movie Review of Close (2022)

In this post, I write a spoiler-y review of the 2022 Belgian film Close. This review is meant for after viewing the film.

Image Credit: Diaphana Films

Close Garners Accolades on the Film Prize Circuit

Have you recently watched the Belgian film Close (2022), directed by Lukas Dhont and starring two incredible young actors, Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele? The movie was highly acclaimed, nominated for an Academy Award, and won the prestigious Grand Prix at the Cannes film festival. The story is a tragic one about two boys. Having read multiple stories of queer, questioning, and gay young people killed or dying of unsuspecting causes, I went into the film with skepticism. For example, I loved the novel Absolute Brightness by James Lecesne — but, again, it is a story of a young, bright, young person who dies because of hatred and homophobia. But I digress — in this story of two young boys who live in a small Flemish town near the flower fields of Brabant, the story is more about adolescent male friendship than anything else. 

I Did Harbor Some Assumptions (I Confess)

        After watching the trailer, I confess I assumed that the blonde-haired boy, Leo (played by Dambrine), was the more fragile of the two. He appears smaller, in contrast, to Remi (played by De Wael), even though in real life, the former is several years older than the latter, and during filming, De Wael had to wear platform shoes to appear taller than Dambrine. And in an interesting backstory, Lukas Dhont discovered Dambrine on a train, conversing with friends, and asked him to audition for the part — which he did. All of this to say, while my original assumption was wrong, the film is very much about the character of Leo, both in his friendship with Remi, which only takes up less than half the film, and the micro-steps that follow the boys' breakup.

The Exposition of a Boys' Friendship 

       The movie portrays two thirteen-year-old boys with an unbreakable bond. They are kindred spirits, and their connection is unexplainable. A beautiful scene sets up the friends' bond where Leo, as they both cannot sleep on a summer evening, tells Remi a story about a gecko and its colors. Remi lights up as Leo tells the story, and the camera is positioned intimately close to the two. Film trumps other forms of narrative works where the body, the face, can tell a story, and I was drawn into the ease of their facial expressions and how comfortable the two adolescents are in each other's presence. Leo, in this scene, is portrayed as a poetic and sensitive soul, and his monologue foreshadows what will come. I thought Remi would reject Leo, but it was the reverse. 

        Their friendship is exposed to the public eye of their peers. Once they start going to a new school, the other kids make note of the boys' friendship and ask if they are a couple. Despite their kindred and beautiful connection, the question "Are you together?" is enough to put a blunt edge between the two kids' bond. In my head, I thought Leo took it to heart and had a more difficult time dealing with that. But actually, in the movie, Leo is more riled up about the accusation and pushes Remi, the other boy, away. The two boys detonate internally, each in their own unique way, and a gulf begins to split between them. It is in this splitting apart that the film attempts to explore.

An Inexplicable Event Happens. 

         There is a field trip, and Remi is not there. The kids go to the ocean and return, and Leo discovers that Remi has committed suicide. Leo runs frantically, heaving, and arrives at Remi's house, but no one is home, and he sees the door to the bathroom has been busted open. And he knows. In a scene earlier in the movie, Remi was in the bathroom and wouldn't come out, and the mother kept banging on the door. It was after Leo and Remi had a fight. It is evident now. As Leo stares into the window of the empty house, Remi is no longer here. And this is where the story becomes not one of a beautiful friendship but a story of a piece missing, of Leo's tortured journey. And Remi's mother — it was the mother who discovered her son. And when Leo discovers that Remi was in the bathroom when he committed suicide, he internalizes it as his fault.

         Leo goes through the motions. He silently attends his friend's funeral. Leo's emotional journey is acute and raw as he tries to find solace in his older brother and silently deals with his feelings at hockey practice and in class. Leo's guilt and sense of responsibility for Remi's death are palpable, and it is painful to watch a child suffer in such a way. He has to listen as other kids talk superficially about Remi. One boy mentions that Remi seemed happy, but Leo breaks the silence and questions whether the boy really knew. "Was he happy? did you know?" Leo asks and storms out of the room. A counselor comes to talk to the middle school class, but the guilt on Leo takes a toll on him. He befriends another boy on his hockey team, but their friendship differs from his friendship with Remi. Leo finds ways to confront or be with Remi's mother, who is also obviously dealing with her grief. And in this part, the story feels fragile and raw — because, as a viewer, I did not know who would break first, Leo or the mother.

The Question of "Why?"

        The film raises several questions, such as why Leo was not kinder to Remi, why Remi did not seek help from his loving parents, and why it all ended horrifically. Leo is so shaken by it viscerally, but he is still so young that he cannot verbalize his feelings. Remi is dead, and that reality is painful enough, but Leo also holds on to this feeling that he is responsible for his friend's death. A child should not have to go through this type of suffering, right? However, the director slowly turns the viewer's attention to Leo and his struggle to deal with his friend's death without providing easy answers to the "why" of it. The film culminates in an inevitable confrontation between Remi's mother and Leo, which provides a sense of closure, but not resolution. The scene is in the woods, the trees serving as a backdrop of both characters' pain — a place set away from the real world of school, family, and home. Without giving away too many details, this is how the film ends.

Closing Remarks

        The movie's personal and emotional performance from the cast is remarkable, and the actors spent a lot of time together processing the story's magnitude. The film's title, "Close," hits home, portraying the story of two boys who cling to each other. I could identify with the boys — as I, too, had close friendships growing up, and I think this is a phenomenon that many young men experience. Leo and Remi express their feelings about society's bias about close male friendships when girls at lunch call out the boys' friendship, but they first retort, "Well, what about girls? You can have a girly friendship," and no one says anything. The worst crime a society can commit is snuffing out love between two people. I felt like Leo and Remi hold an ineluctable bond that is intense, loving, and special. It is not a gay story, specifically, but one of love, friendship, and the dissolution of those bonds. And it is that dissolution that cries out to heaven for justice.

       I finished the movie visibly shaken. I had not felt this emotionally challenged by a movie about love and connections lost since the 2017 film Call Me By Your Name. As a viewer, one can bring their own emotions and experiences to the film, and "Close" explores the complexities of friendship, guilt, and grief, especially among young boys. It sheds light on toxic masculinity, its impact on society, and the intensity of friendships at a young age. Overall, "Close" is a poignant film that leaves a lasting impact and is a deserving nominee for an Academy Award.

Stray Observations

• The film boasts the debut of the two actors Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele.
• The working title was "We Two Boys Together Clinging," which is the title of a poem by Walt Whitman, which inspired the work of artist David Hockney.
• The film reflects Belgium's linguistic diversity, with French and Flemish spoken due to the country's small size and the presence of Dutch, Flemish, French, English, and German in daily conversation.
• The small Flemish town where the film is shot is called Wetteren in East Flanders.
• I lived in Belgium for over a year as a student at K.U.L. in Leuven.

Close (2022)

Diaphana Distribution

Directed by Lukas Dhont

Starring Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele, Léa Drucker, and Émilie Dequenne

Original Screenplay by Lukas Dhont and Angelo Tijssens.

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Hollywood Movies from the Nineties: Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead (1991)

Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead, a fantastic Hollywood movie from the 1990s,  just might be one of the best movies ever made about faking it until you make it.

Christina Applegate in Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead © 1991

Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead is a movie about transformations. 

Her boss tells her to say, "I'm right on top of that, Rose!" whenever she is doing a task for her. She says cheerily, "Don't feel overwhelmed, just do one thing at a time." The movie captures the era of big shoulders and women in the workplace trying to make their mark. Sue Ellen works her way up the corporate ladder, getting that Q.E.D. Report done by some cool delegation — to the ire of one of her co-workers, played by Jayne Brook, who is catching on to Sue Ellen's ruse. But Rose thinks Sue Ellen is just the best. "You're a paragon!" she beams! But Sue Ellen, the newest hire at General Apparel West, is really just a kid. The big conceit of the movie is that Christina Applegate is not really a fashion mogul.

"I'm Right On Top Of That, Rose!"

If you don't know the plot, it's ostensibly a story about every teenager's dream — to have the house entirely to yourself, no rules, no boundaries. See. Mom (played by Concetta Tomei) has gone to Australia and left the kids, played by Christina Applegate, Keith Coogan, Robert Hy Gorman, Danielle Harris, and Christopher Pettiet, with an evil-eyed, petty authoritarian (played by Eda Reiss Merin) named Mrs. Sturak. Even the name connotes fear. But the thing is — the movie is not about navigating the conflicts brought on by a mean babysitter. Mrs. Sturak dies twenty minutes into the movie. And Christina Applegate's character suddenly finds herself having to take on the head of the household. In a wild stretch of the imagination, she manages to land a job for a fashion company by stitching together a fake résumé —which hilariously causes her to take on the daily grind, getting up before dawn, to get dressed, prepare breakfast, and beat the downtown Los Angeles traffic to get to work on time. The oldest brother is a deadbeat (Coogan's character) — and the three other kids are treacly sweet, just the way most pre-teen kids are in Hollywood movies from the late 1980s and 1990s. But Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead is no John Hughes flick. Directed by Stephen Herek, the same guy who brought us Critters and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, the movie takes on a plucky pull-yourself-up-from-the-bootstrap narrative.

Surprisingly Inspiring Movie That Could Otherwise Be Dreck!

The joy of the movie is watching the kids take on adult responsibilities. And the reality is that in the 1990s, many kids were latchkey kids — without parental supervision after school. Like the kids in the movie, learning to take care of yourself, prepping for a meal, setting the alarm on your clock, getting the laundry done, and all of that mundane task that can make life a drudgery were self-taught — this was before "Helicopter Parents." But like I said — the movie is about transformations. The sulky teen girl finds purpose (who isn't rooting for Sue Ellen!). The deadbeat older brother finds purpose in catering! The young kids figure out how to clean the house, take on responsibility, and just be cute in a Hollywood movie. It's been about thirty years since this movie came out — and a lot has changed about everything. The film has aged well, though. The movie is pumped with an optimistic premise — that left to their own devices, kids will take on identities and responsibility and win us over with their aplomb and finesse. Don't underestimate 'em.

What other movies have you seen that show dramatic transformations in teen characters? Let us know in the comments.

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Short Film Review: Broke (2017)

The Short Film "Broke" - 2017 (35 minutes, in Norwegian with English subtitles)
Norwegian Filmmakers Make Another Short Film About Something Not Quite Right in Norway’s Affluent Suburbs

Filmmaker Bjørn Erik Pihlmann Sørensen and screenwriter Einar Sverdrup have teamed up and made a new short that serves as another installment in what looks to be a series of movies about the hidden underbelly of Norwegian suburban society. I reviewed the duo’s short film Reckless in June. It’s a troubling film about responsibility, desire, and sexual exploration gone awry. You can read my review here. I don’t want to play a game of compare and contrast. I will write about Broke using a more or less reader-response approach to interpreting a work of art. What I will do is look at the film as it stands, first, and what I think it is trying to say. Then — if I am so inclined I can make stray observations that lend itself more to how it opens a dialogue with its predecessor Reckless.
Here is my review of Broke:
Broke is a story of how a rather well-to-do upper-middle-class family deals with the prospect of going bankrupt. That is how the movie has been packaged — and it is the expectation I had going into watching it. Full disclosure: I was able to view the film by way of the filmmakers (since the movie has not yet been made available for full release). Mr. Philman sent me a screener (for which I am very grateful). Broke is still making its presence known at festivals and in special screenings around the world; It will debut in New York at Cinema Village and run from August 16-22. As many independently funded projects go — the movie is hoping to get picked up for a wider release.

The Anticipation that Something Bad is Going to Happen
Sometimes a movie wants desperately for you to think something awful is about to happen. And Broke is a movie just like that. Someone puts a weapon in a backpack. But it is not revealed who. A married couple fight in their bedroom thinly keeping their row secret from the kids who are supposedly sleeping down the hall. I expected violence to ensue in just the first few minutes of watching this movie. It begins taut and on edge. And I must say the movie freaked me out because for the majority of its storytelling it hugs close to a school shooting narrative (a horrifying series of hells Americans have been facing since Columbine).I had this sense of foreboding since a large chunk of the story follows young adolescent Pia (Sofie Albertine Foss) as she goes about her school day — a little uneasily. In fact, everyone in this movie seems very much ill at ease. No one is enjoying their current dispensation. Pia is enormously bright but chooses to hide her gifts and gives off the appearance of a wallflower. She is an observer, watching Daniel (Marcus Rix), a hunky boy, a bully who taunts a smaller boy, Jonas (Arthur Hakalahti). Daniel belittles Jonas with impunity, and in one unsettling moment physically harasses him in the school swimming pool. The film presents us with long shots of Pia, Daniel, and Jonas — and other kids and adults who inhabit this school. I did not pick up much joy; the blasé nature of adolescent Je ne sais quoi seemed grossly disproportionate here. The kids in this film are candidates for something very bad about to happen. But we don’t know what. Or how. The film teases us a bit; the Checkhov gun is literally a gun but we don’t know how it will turn up and what character will possess it or use it or whether someone will cause harm with it.

    We do eventually get the answers to these question (sort of) — what work the film does before it reveals its hands is to get us to know these three disparate teenagers a little better. Pia shows a need to withdraw (as, for example, when she tells her teacher she does not have her swimming suit with her). She sits in the bleachers instead and watches events transpire. Jonah is the picked-on kid. The pariah. Pia shows concern for Jonas; Daniel is all masculine bravado and “I don’t give a f***.” However, Pia is drawn to Daniel like a moth to a flame. And here is where the film pivots.

An Aggressive Sexual Encounter Holds the Middle of the Film
Pia joins Daniel after school; first, berating him for being a bully, and actively standing up for Jonas. But Pia takes the bait and follows Daniel to his house, and we and the camera are made witness to an awkward sexual detente between the two characters. But is it really? When Pia tries to put a stop to Daniel’s advances, he turns on her. And Pia leaves, angry and frustrated. Daniel cannot stand to be rebuffed; his retaliation is to call Pia “a slut.” Watching this interaction between the two characters I was taken aback. Where is the story taking me (us)? Daniel is aggressive and he outrightly makes a move on Pia; he is physical and rough and he exposes his body to Pia and to the camera, wanting her to perform oral sex on him. The camera does not turn away. I was relieved when Pia, deciding not to have sex, leaves Daniel’s bedroom. She makes a choice — and then the movie changes directions again. Hints are dropped throughout the movie that it is Pia’s family who has been hit with a financial blow. Her father has lost a significant amount of money (presumably through bad investments) and is forced to have to shed his assets and move his family to a different city to survive. Pia is shattered by this revelation and she is processing what this means for her. I do not want to reveal the ending because I think this is a film that deserves to be watched from beginning to end. I will tell you that I found the climax to be teeth-grinding; I had to turn my head away from the camera. Something awful does happen in this movie, but something is also restored. But it takes a lot of pain and pent-up frustration to get there. Checkhov’s gun is revealed in the end — but the gun does not end up being quite what one thought it would be. The movie ends with deep sadness.

What is Broke Trying to Say?
A key to the movie’s inner logic, I will say this as a closing, comes earlier in the film — when the kids are in class and the teacher is proceeding to dole out an ostensibly boring lesson on the fall of the Roman Empire. The teacher asks his class, “What would you do if you had no money?”. His question falls on deaf ears because the kids in his class do not know what it means to be truly broke. They are blithe in their privilege and I get the sense, watching the film, there is a lost ability to deeply care. I am a teacher so I get bored high school students. And suffice it to say — the teacher doe not try hard to entertain his classroom. But that is the point. He plays the part of the Cassandra of the film; he lays bare what happens when a society has a fiscal collapse. It turns in on itself. And it is then, watching the movie a second time, I realized what the final scene is meant to explore. What happens when society itself “runs out”?

Stray Observations

• Pia’s relationship with her little sister is similar to Mads’s relationship with his sister in Reckless.
• I leave out considerable plot points in my review because I feel like it is best to let the reader make the narrative connections. The movie has a twist and I do not want to reveal it. 
• Both Broke and Reckless are beautifully shot works of art. I liked the aesthetics of Reckless better - because I noticed the use of bright color was effective against the backdrop of the dram. The color scheme in Broke is much more muted and somber. 
• Both short films serve as a kind of “Public Service Announcement”; and that is not necessarily a bad thing. 
• The classroom scene was notable for me. As I mentioned in the review the students are incredibly bored. However, I don’t think the lack of affect in the teenagers is a direct criticism of Norway’s educational system; I think it is a conceit drawn up by the filmmakers to heighten the sense of dread the film is meant to evoke. 
• One of Pia’s classmates, Mikkel, reads like the most emotionally distant character in the film; his performance in Pia’s history class is very characteristic of teenager crying out for help.
• Guns are a controversial topic; unchecked violence in society has attempted to unmoor the stability of our cities and people are on edge. This movie plays on that uncertainty and looks at it from a unique perspective.

“Broke” is screening at Cinema Village from Friday, August 16 to Thursday, August 22.

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Movie Review: Dolan's Mommy Opens Screens

Antoine-Olivier Pilon (as Steve) opens the frame in Mommy (2014) - A review of Xavier Dolan's 2014 film Mommy, a movie that explores the relationship between a troubled adolescent boy with his mother and a neighbor who becomes an unexpected ally.

There is a moment in Xavier Dolan's film, Mommy (2014), where Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon), a troubled teenager who has been dispatched to several group homes and is now living with his mother after he caught fire to the cafeteria and seriously injured another boy, breaks open the screen. It's an interesting moment.

Movie Review: "Desert of Forbidden Art" (2010)

At Cinema Village in Manhattan, 
Desert of Forbidden Art (2010) 
is screening: 
      The documentary, filmed on location in Karapalpakistan (in Uzbekistan) a formerly held area of the Soviet Union, unveils the mystery behind why in Nukus, an otherwise barren town in the desert, is home to thousands of pieces of Soviet Avant-Garde art. 
The answer lies in the life of artist Igor Savitsky. 
      Igor Savitsky was born from aristocratic Bolshevik roots; he became a worker to convince the new Soviet government that he had shed his aristocratic past. Desirous of the artist's life, he got a job drawing desert landscapes. He tried to become an artist but failed. Dispirited he moved to the desert city of Nukus. Unable to make it as an artist, Savitsky conjures up an idea to start a museum in the desert of Karapalpakistan to save revolutionary art from the censoring eyes of Soviet control. Artists who escape the gulag, or who come out of the gulag scarred, sought refuge in the desert to continue their work in secret. 
Savitsky Created a Secret Museum of Art in the Desert
      Savitsky is the collector who saves their pieces in his museum. Using state money, fooling officials about the content of the art, Savitsky was able to save pieces of art that spoke of the torture of the gulags and a pointing finger at the state-approved art that depicted the Soviet regime as growing and prosperous. The film is visually stunning. The filmmakers carefully construct the story about one man's fight against fascism but the film is also a document of the works themselves. The best part was the art itself, stunningly recaptured on film, the colors used by the artists is far from daubery. When I saw the film last weekend the film makes were there to speak about the movie. They spoke about the remote village of Nukus. It seems Uzbekistan does not care about the preservation of its Avant-Garde art. 
The Future of the Museum's Avant-Garde Art Collection
      The museum does not want to sell its collection, nor does the state government seem interested in persevering the art. In fact, as of this writing, the pieces are not displayed and seem to be destined for the trash heap if people do not stand up against the annihilation of art that Stavistky fought so hard to prevent. The documentary is timely because it speaks about a past censorship but seems to also be a call to action that art matters. 

Check out the trailer:
Desert of Forbidden Art

Directors: 

Tchavdar Georgiev, Amanda Pope

Writers: 

Amanda Pope, Tchavdar Georgiev

Stars:

 Edward Asner, Sally Field, and Ben Kingsley

More info from imdb.com

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Movie Review: Kaboom!

A Crisp, Sci-Fi sexcapade ushers in the apocalypse.
Kaboom! Directed by Greg Araki Starring: Haley Bennett, Thomas Dekker, James Duval, Chris Zylka, Brennan Mejia — Running time: 1 hour and 26 minutes

Movies are metaphors for dreams. Or, better still, movies can slip between reality and dream effortlessly. The movie dream is a cinematic exhibition of fantasy. I think David Lynch's fantasy mindbenders attest to film's obsession with dream sequences mirroring reality in strange, bombastic ways. Kaboom! is no different. Just less serious.

Araki's Kaboom! testifies to the surrealistic, dream-like aspect of film with a brief nod to Bunūel's Un Chien Andalou. A shot of a razor blade slicing through a human eyeball sends the message that the movie is a movie about film. Or a movie about film's obsession with dream-like fantastic images. Among other things. I'm not sure what to make of Kaboom!.

Characters eat lunch at a café called, "Ontological Void." Am I supposed to infer something here? What is the void? And how can a void be ontological? Am I supposed to applaud Araki for being both clever and blithely cynical? The protagonist, Smith, (Thomas Dekker) a film student at an unnamed California liberal arts college, pines for his hunky roomie Thor (Chris Zylka), spends a huge amount of quality of time analyzing his dreams, pals around with his Lesbian hottie gal pal Stella (Haley Bennett), experiments with lots of sex (with both boys and girls), and in a zany twist becomes caught up in a cultic conspiracy hurtling towards an end-of-the -world finale which will leave most viewers scratching their heads asking, "huh?"

Considering Araki's most recent films, Mysterious Skin, and his teen apocalyptic trilogy, one thing is for sure: Araki presents teenage sexuality (replete with young writhing bodies) as a domain of searching for self-identity in witty, culturally sophisticated tones. Even though everyone in this movie is crisply gorgeous, sans fault, and indulge in lots of sex, the overall sense I get from the movie is witty intelligence rather than visceral explosion. Just like Mysterious Skin's Cheerios sex scene, Araki films sex to avert the viewer's eye from the hormonal to the cerebral. I'm sure the Kaboom! in the title alludes to both orgasm and epiphany. The Kaboom! as in the comic arts Kaboom! Pow! and the kaboom of explosion, all's well that ends well.

I loved the ending. Kaboom! That's it. The movie is fun solely because it's ending is so self-deprecating. Araki's clean shot scenes of ultra modern college cafeterias and blue-lit dorm rooms all enclose an interesting plot replete with voodoo, magic cookies, witches, cult leaders, men in animal masks, lines like, "it's a vagina, not spaghetti," or "that's nuttier than squirrel shit," or, "Of course. And does Mel Gibson hate Jews?" At the end of the movie all is revealed and it's a satisfying nihilistic romp. It's not supposed to mean anything. Like a nihilistic fantasy, it's an ontological void. Am I supposed to love this movie because it takes nothing seriously? Or am I supposed to feel embarrassed because I just don't get it?

The movie is a fantasy stemming from Smith's over-active imagination. The opening shot is a dream sequence. The movie is a fantasy of what any good looking college boy embarking on sexual awakening would want: sex with no strings attached, unbarred adulation, sex with hot hunky, married men, an orgy, and in the end, the promise of a boyfriend. Or so it seems. You want Smith to find romance. The romantic plot is subterfuged*, however, by Araki's knee jerk reaction to take the film beyond genre and rest in the "meta" of metanarrative.

Araki overlays the typical college narrative with American Pie humor: Smith gets caught watching porn, and his gal pal quips, "You don't think I can't hear your porn through these thin walls?" Or, London in a sex scene tells a boy how to eat her out while reminding him of the Kinsey's loose interpretation of sexuality which leads both London, Smith, and the boy Rex having a Britney Spears 1-2-3. Smith calls his mom while she's having sex with her masseuse and she answers, "I'm in a meeting. I can't talk right now."

Add the myth of the absent father, the bitchy mother, the desire to annihilate reality, and the deep adolescent urge to live in a fantasy world, then you have Araki's new film.

Beware: the sex is not as titillating as watching "witch girl" evaporate in writhing pain, or close up shots of mac and cheese, snack vending machine turning out chips, or laugh-out-loud special effects more humorous than an Ed Wood flick - but just as corny as John Waters.

Sure to be a cult classic.
* N.B. I am aware that subterfuge is traditionally used as a noun; however, here, I use it as a verb.

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Billy Elliot, Anatomy of a Scene: "You Can't Take That Out on a Junior Ticket"

In this blog post, I take apart one scene from the Stephen Daldry film Billy Elliot.

Stones of Erasmus
TpT Store

     Stephen Daldry directed Billy Elliot (2000), written by Lee Hall, now a Broadway Musical, about a young boy's persistent desire to be a dancer despite the disapproval of his overbearing, but in-the-end loving father (Gary Lewis). Sped on by his indomitable, but cranky teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson (Julie Walters) Billy deals with the death of his mother and the stark reality of living in an oppressed coal mining town in England circa 1984.
     The film is set during the coal miner's strike when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sought to cripple the colliery unions that were seen as a roadblock to a conservative economic strategy. The film is filled with stark images of life with police barricades and protest riots. However, the film chooses not to depict Billy's life as completely bleak. The scenes are shot in bright tones which seems to protest against the otherwise somber historical background of the coal miner riots.

Movie Jot: A Vincent Gallo Film You Most Likely Won't Finish

The Brown Bunny (2003) 

A paean to the road trip, bad fellatio, and gross men is enough to make you stop watching this brilliant, albeit disturbing, film directed by Vincent Gallo and starring Vincent Gallo, with Chloë Sevigny.

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Movie Review: In Juno (2007) Jason Reitman Attempts to Make Us Feel Genuine Emotion

Juno
(starring Ellen Page and Michael Cera)

Maybe it was director Jason Reitman's sleight of hand that actually got to me rather than genuine sentiment, but I have begun to distrust how a film makes me feel. I have acquired an impervious lamella toward film; I had seen Juno back in 2007 and found this review that I had never posted. Literature to me has become false emotional catharsis (probably comes from reading way too much film theory) but it probably actually has more to do with the fact that most films really SUCK at pulling off true human emotion. Probably the last great American movie of genuine, gut-wrench sentiment was Ordinary People. But, for the most part, American movies are saccharine sweet and two-dimensional.

After that scathing report on American Cinema, I will not actually talk about Juno
I have to admit, though, the first ten minutes did not reel me in as I thought it would, based on the Ebert review I did in fact read. The film too much reminded me of Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tennenbaums, that I was afraid that the film would never rise about the artifice of clever dialogue and impeccable mise-en-scene. A Wes Anderson flick is so obsessive compulsive in set design, that it is as if the props were meant to be fetishistic totems rather than set pieces.

Jennifer Garner's character Vanessa aspires to be the mother
of the child of a pregnant teenager (played by Ellen Page) 

I thought I was getting way too deep into the Anderson kitsch with this film, especially when the titular character (Ellen Page), a newly impregnated teen, her adolescent tummy bulging deliberately to smack the viewer in the face, chugs a cheery load of Sunny D and lashes out smart-ass comebacks to the convenience store clerk (a great cameo by Rainn Wilson). Wilson spouts out snappy one-liners when the knocked-up teen shows up to buy a home pregnancy test: “That ain't no Etch-A-Sketch. This is one doodle that can't be un-did, Homeskillet. ” Those lines alone should be placed on the Hollywood walk of fame or something.
Not to ruin anything, there are no spoilers here, but I thought the most affecting scene in the entire film is Jennifer Garner, the would-be mother, placing her head to Juno’s belly to hear the baby move. That to me made the film. Oh, if every film had such a moment of sheer beauty, I will want to embrace cinema again and perhaps re-love catharsis.

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Movie Review: Why I Liked the Film "Julie and Julia"

Meryl Streep portrays TV chef Julia Child

Tonight I went with my friend Glenn to see Julie and Julia.

Afterward, I was imitating Julia Child's voice on the way home. "Ooooh, I loved the movie so much!"

Julie and Julia (2009) directed by Nora Ephron stars Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie Powell. The story is about how Julia's Child cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking inspires a New Yorker to cook each recipe in one year.

I loved the film.

No, I have never read Child's cookbook or even glanced at her TV show. I had not read Julie Powell's book either.

The film's narrative goes back and forth between 1950s France and 2002 Queens, New York. The viewer watches as Child in 1949 goes from barely able to boil an egg, to developing, collaborating, and eventually writing a French cookbook for Americans to Julie Powell, a beleaguered government employee fielding calls from relatives of 9/11 victims who one day decides to cook her way through Child's masterpiece and blog about it.

I thought Streep captured the playfulness and persistence of Child. In one scene, learning her sister has had a child, Streep captures the joy of a woman learning her sister is pregnant, but also the stabbing reality that she herself has not had children. The humor of Child's dogged determination to "do something" is married with her love of food. "It's good isn't it?" she asks her husband, played by Stanley Tucci, offering him a taste of her latest creation. I never followed Child, being too young to be interested in her on TV, but I was struck by her equal parts of childlikeness and almost cold-hearted aspiration. As her husband coyly notes, she was able to make the most snooty Parisian smile.

Adams can certainly not top Streep's performance. Streep evoked a benign Child completely enamored by her craft, giving "no apologies." Adams is a more difficult character to like. She is woefully insecure and feels overshadowed by her more successful friends. Her "sainted husband," played by the super handsome Chris Messina, carries the relationship and endears himself to the audience. I liked him the best.

So, go watch Julie and Julia. You will be motivated to write a blog (which is why I am writing this entry).

Jon: I was hoping you could be with me. :-)

N.B. The image of Merly Streep is taken from Buzznet.

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Movie Review: Imaginary Heroes (2004)

In this blog post, I write a movie review about the angsty indie film Imaginary Heroes starring Emile Hirsch.

Emile Hirsch is an actor in Dan Harris's film Imaginary Heroes

It may seem redundant that there is another film out there about the dark underbelly of suburbia, but Dan Harris (who wrote and directed the film at the age of 24) proves that you cannot get too much of a good thing with the independent film, Imaginary Heroes.