Brick Screening Report

Rian Johnson's Brick is a neo-film noir film in the atypical high school setting. This puts a twist on the common aspects of the genre. The fact that such a grave and serious tale is set in a high school is a very interesting and deliberate choice that Rian Johnson made to make the audience think about how age and perspective go hand in hand. When looking back on high school, everything seems trivial. But while you are actually in high school, any issue is of the utmost importance at the time. Mixing the very real and grim aspect of murder with the immaturity of high school adolescence creates an interesting dynamic which I have never seen in another film before.

Miller's Crossing Screening Report

Miller's Crossing, like a typical mob movie, makes the mob groups out to be family units. The difference between Miller's Crossing and any typical mob movie is that it looks much closer at the personal relationships between the characters rather than focusing most on the crimes committed by one mob family or another.

This movie is also packed with symbolism, when most mobster movies convey the majority of their meanings directly through dialogue. The recurring symbol of the fedora symbolizes the quintessential gangster and his connection to something bigger than himself. We can see this through Tommy's attachment and need for the hat that evolves in his dream of his hat being blown off by the wind and him leaving it behind saying, "There's nothing more foolish than a man chasing his hat".

Research Paper Proposal

I plan to write my film research paper on Luc Besson's film Leon:The Professional. It was my favorite movie for years before I saw what is now my favorite movie, Brick. I also think that it has a lot of interesting points to track and study for analysis, such as sexuality in adolescents vs. adults, justification of crime, following the evolution of Leon as a character, variations on love throughout the film, and many more. I don't think that it will be difficult to find information and critical pieces on the film because it was made in 1994 and received a lot of attention from critics at the time that it was made.