Review

Instructions:

1) Select a movie: For this assignment, you will need to select one movie.  Even if it is a movie you have seen before, you need to re-watch the movie with a critical eye towards the social construction of reality and illustrations of other sociological/cultural concepts.  

 

Suggested Movie Options:

Hotel Rwanda

Brazil

Million Dollar Baby

Office Space

Gandhi

Boys Don’t Cry

The Village

Cape Fear (deNiro version)

Mystic River

Last Samurai

Mothman Prophecies

Traffic

The Wall

Glory

Stepford Wives

Pretty in Pink

Hoop Dreams

The Terminal

The Breakfast Club

It’s a Wonderful Life

Bowling for Columbine

Grapes of Wrath

Pretty Woman

The Hours

To Kill a Mockingbird

Citizen Kane

Cabin Fever

Clockwork Orange

Fight Club

Radio

Crash

Nosferatu

Titanic

The Gods Must be Crazy

Taxi Driver

Coming to America

American History X

Roger & Me

Fight Club

Inherit the Wind

Dead Poet’s Society

Mona Lisa’s Smile

Bullworth

Life is Beautiful

American Beauty

Lord of the Flies

The Truman Show

The Matrix

With Honors

Affluenza

Erin Brokovich

Working Girl

Risky Business

Baby Boom

Rain Man

Philadelphia

Dogma

Chocolat

Parenthood

Shawshank Redemption

Last Castle

Witness

Meet Joe Black

 

 

 

2) Analyze the movie: After watching the movie, you will write a 4-6 page review, consisting of:

a) intro paragraph noting the relevance of the movie to the course

b) one page description/summary of the contents of the film

-How was the story presented?
-------i.e. flashbacks, sequential, from a particular character's point of view, etc.

-What was the intention of the film and/or filmmaker?
-------Was this intention fulfilled or met?

-Did the way the movie was produced and presented affect the content?

-Were there specific scenes or occurrences, which stood out as being essential to the development of the story and/or to your understanding of it?

-Major substantive points of the movie?

-Any secondary points made?

-Any 'unintentional' results of the movie?

c) 0.5-1 page in which you discuss how popular culture themes were constructed in the movie use at least 3 examples

d) 1-2 pages in which you use at least 4 sociological/pop cultural concepts covered in this course to analyze the movie (cite class materials as you do so)

e) Analyze which issues emerged as the strongest...as the weakest?

f) Briefly compare the popular culture themes in the movie you watched for this assignment to another movie you have previously seen that had similar themes.

The paper should be typed, double-spaced, 12-point font, 1” margins