Moonrise Kingdom

This week my lecturer has decided to let us watch a movie called Moonrise Kingdom which is directed by Wes Anderson. I've never heard of Moonrise Kingdom before, but I recognized Wes Anderson from the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox. I didn't like the movie itself, but it sure has some unique style and characteristics in it. From what I've heard, if you watch a Wes Anderson movie, you will be able to tell that it's by him, and I was excited to watch the movie.

Moonrise Kingdom is a simple love story between two very young kids in a small isolated island. The story itself is not fantastic, but the way Wes Anderson tells the story is what makes it a great movie. Throughout the film, audiences are directed to see from the main character's perspective which is a twelve year old boy. Every element in the movie including the characters were perceived from the young boy's eyes. Combined with Wes Anderson's distinctive art style, this has made Moonrise Kingdom such a unique movie. Despite of how the movie look, I still think it still be considered as a post-modernism film. Released alongside The Avengers, Battleships, and Men In Black 3, Moonrise Kingdom definitely stood out from other movies that were released around that time.

Modernism and Postmodernism in Films

From what I have learned before, modernism in the arts is a movement that breaks classic and traditional forms. It was known as avant-garde until later on was finally named as modernism movement. And postmodernism is the era that came after modernism. It often has sceptical interpretation of the current society. In actuality, postmodernism itself is more complex than that. In order to understand what postmodernism truly means, we must understand what modernism is about. Just like modernism, postmodernism also reflects the avant-garde idea which is futuristic and unconventional. One distinctive difference between them is postmodernism seems easier for the people to relate with. It breaks boundaries between cultures, classes, genres, and even time and place as it creates a space where past, present and future are tangled. Creating an illusion which people may perceive as reality.

In films, this aspect can be seen clearly in The Matrix which tells us that the world that we are living is actually a simulated space created by machines. It has generated some thoughts, ideas, and even conspiracies around the movie. And I think this is how a postmodernism movie should be like. It's not just narratively mind-blowing, but also creates and promotes the audiences to think and see the world from a different perspective.


Image source:http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/phild/files/2013/01/margritti-this-is-not-a-pipe.jpeg
Reading materials:http://idea.ro/revista/?q=en/node/41&articol=213
                          :http://voices.yahoo.com/reality-within-mask-scorsese-postmodernism-205620.html

Ask Not What Your Country Can do for You.

Before continuing the discussion of the essay topic, I would like to talk about something that my classmates and I did this week. We were split into four groups with four members in each team to give a presentation about one of four great speeches. My group was assigned to do John F. Kennedy's inauguration speech,  "Ask not what your country can do for you". I have heard about that quote, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." before, but I knew very little about the speech itself.

Even though we had the speech transcript, we were suggested to find and watch the video to see if we could find any additional information about the speech. In the video my teammates and I found that John F. Kennedy has succeed bringing the whole nation and the world together in unity to fight against war, poverty, and social issues. He promoted the Peace Corps movement, US space project to go to the moon, and has made many great political decisions such as dealing with the Cuban missile crisis. Unfortunately, he was assassinated and died as the youngest president to date. Many has considered him as a hero based on his action, and decisions that he has made during the time he led the United States. To me the brave decisions that he has made eventhough the people around him disagreed and the sacrifices that he has made for the country deserved him to be called a hero.


Image source: http://www.wbur.org/files/2012/01/0124_jfk-624x409.jpg
Reading material: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/11/23/chris-matthews-on-why-jfk-was-a-hero
http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/jfk/section3.rhtml

Hello!

This blog will be dedicated for my upcoming essay assignment. Along with the assignment brief, my classmates and I were given six questions to chose from as the topic for our essays. Among the six topics, the one that interests me the most is essay question number 2 which is "Explore the ideas of modernism and postmodernism in superhero films made in the last thirty years. By textually analysing your chosen films discuss how the ideas are presented and understood by the audience." By looking at the question, There are a couple things that I'm going to need to break down before I can start researching and writing the essay. First of all is the definition of modernism and postmodernism and the difference between them. First thing that came to my mind was the modern and postmodern art movements, but the topic is talking about modernism and postmodernism in film industry. Given a different context, I'm expecting a different meaning as well, but I wouldn't be surprised if they actually are just a reference to a point in time.

Next up is "in the last thirty years". Thirty years is a long time, but in the film industry it has been a long long journey. We're looking at Robocop, Supergirl, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right now. Compared to what we have in the cinemas right now, it is a huge difference. The technology advancement for the past thirty years has been remarkable, and it also affects the film industry. Especially in terms of video quality and special effects which could give a big impact to the overall presentation of the film  All in all, I think it would be an interesting topic to discuss and analyse and I am looking forward to share things that I discover and learn on this blog.

Image source:http://imgur.com/a/B1OK7#1