Step Brothers And American Pie: Movie Analysis

How many 40-year-old unemployed slackers do you know? Now imagine 2 of them under the same roof obnoxiously fighting about childish things. Step Brothers from start to finish is exactly this displaying 2 outrageously comical actors in Will Ferrell and John C Reilly bickering back and forth trying to learn how to cope with one another. The glory of this film comes from the constant one liners that make no sense but fit the film perfectly, the childish behavior, and the elementary school comebacks mixed in with the adult language which adds a different but great comical sense that few movies have been able to portray before. Such as when Ferrell refers to Reilly as a “Big, fat, curly-headed f***”. This line had me rolling on the floor due to the seriousness of Ferrell and the reaction of Reilly and the fact that it is a simple 3rd grade insult with an F-bomb thrown in there that just makes it all that more funny. Although Talladega Nights and the Anchorman trilogy had better storylines none compare to the pure comedy that Step Brothers provides. Step Brothers is Will Ferrell’s most entertaining movie made to date, and is one that can be watched over and over without losing its humor.

Lewis uses lighting to dramatize the opening scene of the film and characterize the protagonist of the story. The most noticeable utilization of film noir lighting is in the beginning

Film has revolutionized the world as we know it. In the current day and age film is quite advanced. You can watch movies with special effects and insane resolution there were never thought possible before. But film has not always been this way. Over the decades since around the 1900s when the first film was made there been amazing advances in technology and in acting. An examination of the past hundred or so years will show the amazing advances film has taken to come to what we know of it today.

The movie Step Brothers, directed by Adam McKay in 2008 displays the true meaning of comedy which will have the audience’s attention from the very first scene due to the one thing they have in common, which is being forty-year-old stepbrothers who still live at home with mom and dad. However, the American Culture finds the forty-year-old step brother extremely funny due to the way they act, and live their life. When it comes to comedy movies, Step Brothers is ranked highly on the leaderboards of the funniest movies of all time.

The image is brighter and sharper in the film. The contrast of the film really affects the mood. Since the contrast is so bright the viewer is bound to stay focused and aware because everything is so catchy and noticeable. Also, the exposure changes throughout the film. At the very beginning the film starts in black and white and changed to color as the story progressed. The filmmaker uses a lot of Long Takes, each shot of Dorothy meeting someone new is pretty lengthy.

The world of film has changed dramatically over the last fifty years, both in technology and perceptions on how the industry should work and how it is viewed by the public. The ending of the production code in Hollywood started the cultural change in the industry. With this restrictive institution gone, many directors chose to take advantage of this in many different ways. My favorite of these is Mel Brooks; he chose to break and push boundaries both socially and comedically. Brooks’ style often includes crude humor inlaid with deeper jokes and meaning, many fourth wall breaking moments such as the “We’re in now now” scene of Spaceballs, to stand out in the world of comedy. His masterpiece, Blazing Saddles, is one such film that did just that. Through its new found sense of humor in the post production code era and its twists on common genre tropes of the time, Blazing Saddles was able to find its place into the New Hollywood Cinema.

To my understanding, the movie Home for the Holidays not only reveals a lot of potential family conflicts, but also reflects a lot of different communication approaches of the various family members. As a foreigner, I have never experienced Thanksgiving homecoming dinner before, so I may cannot understand some of the holiday customs in the movie, but I found out that their family interactions are interesting indeed.

In the early 1900’s silent films amazed audiences with images, later talkies impressed with sound, today we have 3D. As technology continues to evolve so too will film genres. Genres, while having some shared characteristics, also differ in terms of stylistic devices used. For instance, the dramatic film “The Notebook” effectively uses color to reinforce theme and has plausible performers as the two main protagonists.

The use of lighting in this film was very pretentious and was used to add good aspects to Citizen Kane. The lighting changed based off what the mood corresponded-for example, some scenes had a copacetic or pleasant mood. In the beginning, the scene was a very formidable scene. The lighting was dark which portrayed fear towards the audience. The mood was implying fear and almost an alarming mood for the viewers-the lighting helped entail this by giving dark, hair raising lighting.

For starters, there is a huge difference between Movies/Actors/Actresses in the years of 1996 and 2016. During the year 1996, When we were kings was one of the most praised films in that year and it was a documentary film. While in the year 2016, Zootopia was a critical acclaim and it is an animated film. The female perspective of Actors have become different. Geoffrey Rush was a very successful actor in 1996. In contrast to 2016, Chris Evans is a highly affluent actor. Men’s outlook on actresses has changed as well. Renee Zellweger was one of the most acclaim actresses during the year of 1996, while Jami Gertz is considered one of the most popular actresses of 2016. All-inclusive, to movie genres and people’s ideal actor/ actress, there’s definitely an alter in the theatre art department.

Before jumping in to the two films mentioned prior, it is crucial to discuss the Hollywood’s figure-lighting strategy. The lighting effect evolved from art to still photography, and finally to cinematography. First introduced by a Dutch painter Rembrandt, the Rembrandt lighting is a type of a lighting setup where “the camera [is positioned] facing the light source…the result is a light outlining the sitter’s profile, similar to a Hollywood backlight” (Keating, 91). It is also majorly seen in the art world: when painting a portrait, the painter used certain color techniques to emphasize the contrast between a male and a female. For instance, when portraying a female figure, the artist used a natural lighting to create a gentle graduation,

The movie, The Breakfast Club, is a movie about five students who get Saturday school and become friends as a result of it. The characters were: Allison, the quiet girl who would sit in the back and refuse to talk; John, the troublemaker who always talked back to the teachers; Claire, the popular girl who always got what she wanted; Brian, the nerdy student who only cared about having good grades; Andrew, the wrestler who was only focused impressing his father. While watching the movie, I mainly related to Brian. He is pressured to have good grades by his parents and is labeled as the nerd because of it. I am also pressured to have good grades; however, I am labeled as the smart kid in many different classes, but I’m not classified as a nerd.

The lighting in "The Godfather," is very dim and is often said to be compared with a Rembrant. The lighting suggest many things throughout the film like a painting. The light scenes in the movie are to portray the Corleone family as good people, someone you could relate to not look down upon.

Modernism was a 20th-century literary movement that depicted a period of uncertainty and disillusion in the United States. The literary movement was marked by various culture shock caused by events such as both World Wars and the Vietnam War. Because of such shock, American culture and societal values changed as society began to focus more on the self and forgo the traditional Victorian values and virtues of the preceding Romantic era. During this movement, writer sought to write in a way that better suited the modern world and thus chose to focus on the decay of values and growing alienation of the individual. Writers and poets began using techniques such as streams of consciousness and writing with a sense of ambiguity. There was also the poetic movement, imagism during the Modernism era where poets became increasingly concerned with presenting a simple, clear image to their readers. Due to his use of modernist techniques and poetic devices such as the adoption of the stream of consciousness writing style, the use imagery, allusions, and symbolism, Don McLean’s song, “American Pie,” can be considered a work of modernist poetry. By way of his literary techniques and poetic devices, McLean is able to take his listeners through a pivotal decade in American history in just eight and a half minutes; however, it is what makes his lyrics a song that helps build “American Pie’s” tone and further develop the theme of a generation’s early loss of innocence, culture, and values that

Film Industry has been expansively affected by the changes in technology. The mechanical and digital innovations give cause to the influence of equipment, distribution and the way in which films are made and consumed. New trends shape directors and filmmakers to expand creatively towards telling stories in motions. The film industry has developed to one of the most important tools of communication, it's cause so powerful affecting the way individuals and societies think, act and behave. Among the new Era approaching film, and seeing celluloid film fade is that of the Digital Era and a camera that saw celluloid films passing hastened.