Final blog post

OK, remember the deal -- you're watching a film from one of these directors: The Coen Brothers, Mira Nair, or Wes Anderson. We're not going to get to all of The Royal Tenenbaums in class, so if you want to watch that one, go for it.

As far was what you're supposed to do with your blog post, this post should give you some idea. Read at least the first section, through the photo of the old-school cyclist taken by Jacques Henri Lartigue.

Thinks to take note of: 1) the link to the review of Rushmore by David Edelstein. Note how Dessem, the author of the post, puts the review into context, setting up the debate over Wes Anderson that many people have had with friends or inside their heads; 2) the stills taken from the film that -- and here's the important part -- aren't just there as window dressing. The images illustrate points the writer makes in the text. Note, for example, how Dessem refers to the image of the French Club shot, mentioning how the horizontal line at the bottom of the frame is actually distorted by the wide-angle lens. The intersection of Dessem's text and his employment of Anderson's image help make for an interesting insight into the director's visual style; 3) related to the previous point, he makes some observations about how Rushmore relates to Anderson's work as a whole.

So to review: 1) find an interesting review/essay/article online about your film or the director's work as a whole. Link to it and discuss its relevance; 2) Find an image (could be a still image like in this post, or could be a YouTube clip if you can find the right one) and put it in your blog post, making sure it relates specifically to your discussion of the film/director's work as a whole: 3) make sure that you tie the film you watched to the director's other films -- it could be in terms of characters, dialogue, theme, cinematography, music, etc.

Good luck! Have some fun with this -- remember, you're not bound to essay-style writing here.

Almost forgot -- as far as finding the right images to use, it's likely you'll have to go beyond looking on the internet. For the most part, it's just publicity photos out there. So you'll probably have to use your computer's DVD player and capture images that way. If you don't know how to use it, fear not -- here's where the internet comes in. Just do a Google search on "video frame capture" and whatever your DVD player software is called. Or use the "help" function of your DVD player software. Somehow, you should be able to figure it out. If nothing's working, let me know.

Do your Coen Brothers blog post ... friend-o

First of all, I wanted to say thanks to everyone for two days of very illuminating discussion on No Country for Old Men. Many of you brought up observations and ideas that I had never thought of or hadn't been able to express properly. In case you haven't had enough discussion of the film, I'll point you to a few other places: Here is Jim Emerson's blog -- Emerson, a film critic and editor of Roger Ebert's website, has written extensively on the film and went frame-by-frame through it with an audience at the Conference of World Affairs in Boulder, Colorado recently. Secondly, here's one of the few repositories of intelligent discussion on the Internet Movie Database. Normally, these boards are cluttered with the Commenters of the Damned, but someone has been nice enough to sift through all the garbage and compile a thread that includes insightful discussion for some of the most frequently asked questions about the film. I highly suggest checking these out -- if not now, hopefully later when you're not No Countried-out.

"Traffic was a bitch" is not an excuse for not doing your Altman blog on time. I will not say "It's OK with me" or "It don't worry me."

Just a note of caution: if you are going to write about Nashville and criticize it, that's fine -- several established critics have over the years, including Jonathan Rosenbaum, who's quoted in your reading packet. But ... use what you've learned this year to build a basis for your arguments. Remember, you can stay stuff like "That movie sucked" if you're talking about Meet the Epic Movies or whatever and no one will bat an eye, but if you say an established classic "sucked," your audience will expect a reasoned argument. Is that totally fair? Not really -- you should always try to come up with a reasoned argument for why you like or dislike something.

Toshiro Mifune is considering what to write for his Kurosawa blog post

As a reminder, here are the guidelines for blogging:

o Discuss/analyze an important scene
o Expand on a discussion question from class, whether from a film or a reading
o Make a connection to the real world/current events
o Discuss/analyze an aspect of cinematic style important to the film(s)
o Discuss/analyze a topic or theme important to the film(s)
o Relate it to another film, either from class or personal viewing
o Discuss ideas for future viewing inspired by the film(s)

Note that you can write about one film or all three if you want. The only real rules are:

1) Write about something related to Kurosawa

2) Be interesting

Don't forget -- comments on at least three different blogs are due Friday!

Why can't we be (Netflix) friends?

This is a cool feature of Netflix Dan A. pointed out to me. If you have Netflix, click here to get started. Choose the option on the right to paste the link on your blog. Put it on your blog, and other people can see what movies you're watching, your ratings of them, lists, etc.

Seth Rogen as Cary Grant?

Vanity Fair has recreated famous scenes and images from Hitchcock's movies.

My favorite is pictured here.

Don't forget to leave at least one comment on each of your group member's blogs about the first film you watched as part of your director study. Those are due Tuesday.

Director blog assignment

OK, here we go. Click here to get to the list(s) of directors you can choose from. Feel free to choose from the "More Great Directors" list if you'd like. Don't forget to have one person in your group comment on this post, and leave the following information: The names of everyone in your group, and your top three directors you'd like to study for this project, listed in order of preference.

As soon as I let you know which director you're studying, you'll need to get crackin', because your first post is due Feb. 14. Good luck!

Also: If your blog is not linked in the appropriate class list to the right, make sure to leave your URL (blog address) along with your name and class period in a comment on this post.