Film Analysis: Under The Same Moon

The Graduate, a film directed by Mike Nichols in 1976, is a film that has influenced the way I view the world. It is a story of a college graduate, Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman), who finds himself trapped in the superficial or “plastic” world around him. Because of this, he feels trapped, depressed, and insecure about his future. This makes him an easy target for Mrs. Robinson (played by Anne Bancroft), the middle-aged cougar and wife of his father’s business partner. At Ben’s Graduation party, Mrs. Robinson manipulates Ben into driving her home and coming into her daughter’s bedroom, supposedly to look at her daughter’s picture, where she appears before him naked offering herself to him. Ben refuses her at first, but when Ben feels like he cannot escape the pressure of his future, he decides to start an affair with Mrs. Robinson as a way to mentally escape. Ben continues to meet Mrs. Robinson at night until he realizes

The movie, Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna), was a story about a Hispanic mother named Rosario and her son named Carlitos. Rosario and Carlitos have been separated since he was five years old. Rosario left Mexico four years ago to look for a better life in Los Angeles. Rosario made the difficult decision to leave her son with her mother while she illegally immigrated to the United States to work, sent money to her mother for Carlitos, and called her son every Sunday at 10:00 A.M. on the payphone every week. Life as an illegal immigrant was hard. Money was very difficult to come by with Rosario's background, so she had to work two different jobs just so that she could put a little bit money aside. She sent money back home to keep her son fed, clothed and educated. At the workplace, she was always discriminated and treated as second class citizens. She had trouble keeping a job at times, and getting paid for her work. One of her employers began taunting her illegal status when Rosario asked to get paid. I guess knowing that she was an illegal immigrant, employers felt that it wasn't really necessary to

Barry Jenkins’s 2016 film, Moonlight, is a work that is characterized by its silences, both in what is unsaid, as well as the unresolved nature of many of its central tensions. In the film, silence functions to emphasize the interiority of the film’s subject, and to make the audience aware of itself. Such strategic use of absence recalls John Cage's groundbreaking composition, 4'33; a work that is distinguished by its lack of any audible musical accompaniment. For many, the piece is reflective of Cage's sexual identity as a gay man; the silence functioning as a metaphor for the “closet” (Katz 241). The scholar Jonathan Katz has pushed against such a totalizing reading of Cage's oeuvre, by noting that silence was part of his larger aesthetic and religious practices, and thusly cannot be considered as simply an aural manifestation of the closet (242). Katz argues that, "Silence was much more than conventionally unmusical; it provided a route toward an active challenge of the assumptions and prejudices that gave rise to homophobic oppression in the first place. For Cage, silence was an ideal form of resistance, carefully attuned to the requirements of the cold war consensus, at least in its originary social-historical context." (241).

The film Moonlight was released October 21, 2016. Moonlight is all African American cast, and was awarded over 25 awards including the Academy Award for best picture. This film is a coming of age story that follows the dramatic ups and downs of the life of Chiron, a young Africa American man growing up in Miami. The plot begins from the time he is in elementary school to the time he reaches adulthood. The plot is structured in three stages of the life of Chiron and touches on the topics of the struggle of dysfunctional households via socialization, sexuality and sexual identity, physical and emotion abuse, and the process of accepting ones self.

This is a criticism of Moonlight, a film directed by Barry Jenkins. It is a coming-of-age story, telling the journey of a young gay black man named Chiron. Through linear character development the film follows a young Chiron from adolescence into adulthood while growing up with alpha males in Miamis black ghettos. The Story is told in three parts, with a different actor playing the lead role in each section: a young Chiron named “Little”, as a teen named “Chiron”, and an adult named “Black”. Despite a compelling lead performance by Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris, and its great soundtrack, Moonlight falls flat and never gets out of the shadow of its typical cliche plot, all the while, the film continued to never overcome the obstacle of

One Night the Moon (Rachel Perkins) is a marvellous portrayal of the conflict between the white settler and the Indigenous Australian, at the heart of which, is their attitude to the land and what it represents. The film demonstrates the conflict created through opposing views of land ownership due to misunderstanding and stubbornness over opinions, and highlights the mistreatment the Indigenous people have suffered over this confusion. The film follows a white settler, Jim Ryan, and an indigenous police officer, Albert, and their actions surrounding the disappearance of Jim’s daughter, Emily. The film depicts the conflict caused by their opposing attitudes towards the land, particularly Jim’s territorial view towards ‘his’ land. Perkins attempts to bring the similarity between their conflict in the 1930s and our society now to the fore by subtly hinting at the subconscious of the audience to cause them to consider their own ideas and values.

When you educate a young girl, she has fewer children, she takes better care of her children, she marries at an older age, and she also contributes to her country's economy. Therefore, why is the education of women so greatly underestimated in many parts of the world? This is a question that has caused many individuals to take action against the act of prohibiting a woman the right of receiving an education. To begin with, education enables parents, and the rest of society, to see the value of a girl. As stated in the film Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, "Educate a girl, and she can change the world around her." Education acts as a safe haven for many young women and as an opportunity of having an advancement

Based off Charles Webb’s 1963 novel by the same name, The Graduate is an American romantic comedy/drama released in the United States on December 21, 1967 starring Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, and William Daniels. The film was directed by Mike Nichols, produced by Lawrence Turman and the screenplay written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham. The film was produced by Lawrence Turman/Mike Nichols productions starting in March of 1967. Mike Nichols has also directed other well known films such as Catch-22 (1970), Working Girl (1988), and more recently Closer (2004). The film was distributed by AVCO Embassy Pictures nationally and United Artists internationally. AVCO Embassy Pictures studio, founded by Joseph E. Levine, the films executive producer, also claims production/distribution for other hit films such as Godzilla, King of Monsters! (1956), The Fog (1980), and Prom Night (1980). The movie was well received due to its $104 million dollar box office opening tab. The score was produced by Dave Grusin and the songs written by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.

Five Easy Pieces was released in 1970, Robert “Bobby” Eroica Dupea plays as the main character in the film, he plays a role as an oil rigger that has turned his back in pursuing a career in music in which he is talented at and becomes a blue-collar worker for 20 years. During these years he builds up a selfish, mean, vulgar, and lack of ambition kind of personality. In the late 1960s and early 1970s many historical events were occurring in which the film has gone into some detail with. After doing some research on Film Reviews and what other websites thought about the film many did not go into detail about the film being about discrimination on women. During the era of the film women were still fighting for their rights. I personally believe that this film showed how women were just objects to men. Bobby had disrespected mainly all the women he came across. When they were at a diner he spilled all of the drinks on the waitress just because they did not have what he wanted on their menu. He had five different women in which he would have intercourse with and talked to them in a very demanding manner, each of those five women still had sex with him because they feared he would leave

Moonlight is a movie that follows the life of Chiron as he grows up. Starting from an abusive childhood at his mother’s house, and through his struggle filled highschool years, Chiron ultimately ends up an independent adult. From the beginning of the film, Chiron face abuse at the hands of his mother as well as from bullies at his school, which leads him to find Juan, who acts as a type of mentor to him as he grows up. Juan’s girlfriend Teresa also acts as a mentoring figure through Chiron’s youth and adult life, while Chiron’s own mother slips into drug use and prostitution. In Chiron’s younger years, he befriends Kevin, who remains significant throughout the film as his love interest. While in school, Chiron must battle with bullies, while growing up in a rough home situation. This constant struggle for physical safety and well as safety in his sexuality causes high tension throughout the film. As he discovers himself, Chiron looks to Juan and Teresa for guidance, but eventually lashes out at the violent bullies in his life.

Sixteen candles was written by John Hughes, this movie was his first 1980s teen movies. Hughes was inspired by Molly Ringwald, to write the screenplay. As, he was finishing up writing the screenplay for Mr. Mom and National Lampoon’s Vacation, Hughes' agents at ICM gave him a stack of photos of young actors. When he was going through the stack he noticed Molly Ringwald, then began write the screenplay for the Sixteen Candles. John Hughes finished the script over a single Fourth of July weekend. Hughes also was so impressed with Anthony Michael Hall's performance in National Lampoon's Vacation that he created the role of Ted “The Geek” just for him. Michael Schoeffling got the role of Jake Ryan, as the leading male because of his good

From the moment you turn on a Wes Anderson movie, you can easily recognize it’s his due to the unique style. Moonrise Kingdom is one of his most popular and stylized films to date. One scene in particular I want to look into is the scene when Scout Master Ward and the other scouts are introduced. (5:31- 8:39) This scene is important to setting up the rest of the movie. It introduces us to the antagonists for the first part of the film as well as showing that Sam ran away from the camp.

The Serial is an interesting audio podcast that is hosted by a journalist named Sarah Koenig. Sarah tells the story in a form of a reporter, in which she explains the murder case that occurred in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1999, Hae Min Lee, a popular high-school senior, was disappeared after school one day. After six weeks, a jury convicted Adnan Syed, Hae’s ex-boyfriend, for her murder. Adnan stands firm on the fact that he is innocent and he has nothing to do with Hae’s murder case. Due to the lack of true evidence people are starting to question whether Adnan was falsely accused of the murder. I personally think Adnan is innocent.

The text, or more so the movie about the text, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, does a good job of portraying race, class and gender. During the setting of the book, many people looked at white Americans to be superior to the Black, African American race. With this being said, the successful white families hired in the African American women to cook, clean, and in most cases, take care of the children. They were known as the help. Throughout both the book and the movie, the African American women experienced many forms of gender, race and class inequality.

Throughout this class, various discussions and blogs have been used to analyze the different elements of films such as theme, cinematic techniques and genre. It is time to bring all of these separate elements together in the analysis of one specific film, according to class text, “analyzing levels of meaning below the surface story can greatly enhance enjoyment as well as understanding of a film” (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014. p. 10.03). There are several different approaches to film analysis including formalist, auteurist, and generic or any combination thereof. Utilizing a genre theory lens, the 1956 film The Searchers will be analyzed addressing contextual information, story/plot, aesthetic choices, social/personal impact and how these areas come together to develop the film.