Matt Foster's blog: March 2010

Friday, 26 March 2010

Heroes (postmodernist text)

Heroes is a postmodernist text firstly, because it is hyperreal with the use of superhuman abilities which i reality no-one possesses. It is also quite quite self referential as it shows the negatives of having these abilities where a lot of the audience wishes that they had a superpower and wanted to be a hero. Heroes sometimes works on the borderline of reality and hyperreality, because those with the powers are normal individuals who live normal lives and display the human side of their 'identity'. This differs from normal superhero texts where they display the extraordinary side of their personality a lot more often than their normal human side as they try to escape their normal lives and use their powers in order to be someone special. It also plays on the fear factor as one of the characters (called Sylar) begins killing other people with abilities in order to steal their powers. This is evidence of the importance of possessions and the crime that usually is committed is to steal other people's possessions, such as wallets or handbags but in Heroes, Sylar wishes to possess powers and it represents our sometimes hunger for our possessions like our computer and mobile phones and it can be ahunger that we may not be able to control if push came to shove.

Thursday, 25 March 2010

Reservoir Dogs

This was Tarantino's debut film and was made in 1992. It had a budget of $1.2million and had a gross revenue of $2.8 million. It is about the events before and after a failed jewel heist. Like a lot of Tarantino's other films such as Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino starred in the film as well. It recieved substantial criticism for the violence and language that were used and censorship was not as big an issue.

Quentin Tarantino film festival

This takes place in Austin, Texas and Tarantino screens some of his favourite films using the prints that he owns. Themes include 80s horror and 70s Italian crime they have all been inspirations for him when he was making his own films. There have been six festivals so far and Tarantino introduces all of the films himself, shows trailers for all film genres and discusses films with the fans who have paid to come to the festival.

Coen Brothers filmography

Year
Film
Director credit
Academy Award Nominations
Academy Award Wins
Golden Globe Nominations
Golden Globe Wins
BAFTA Nominations
BAFTA Wins
1984
Blood Simple
Joel
1987
Raising Arizona
1990
Miller's Crossing
1991
Barton Fink
3
1
1994
The Hudsucker Proxy
1996
Fargo
7
2
4
6
1
1998
The Big Lebowski
2000
O Brother,Where Art Thou?
2
2
1
5
2001
The Man Who Wasn't There
1
3
1
1
2003
Intolerable Cruelty
2004
The Ladykillers
Joel & Ethan
2007
No Country for Old Men
8
4
4
2
9
3
2008
Burn After Reading
2
3
2009
A Serious Man
2
1
1
2010
True Grit
Total
23
6
17
3
20
5

Quentin tarantino stats

Inglrious basterds trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOMKloOEKcU

Inglorious Basterds advertising

Wednesday, 24 March 2010

Inglorious Basterds

From watching this film in class I have been able to pick up key elements of the film, such as the audience reaction due to the self refernetial way that it depicts the Nazi hunting of the Jews and the ruthlessness of the Nazi party. Another way that representation works is the way tha Brad Pitt is depicted. He is depcited in the eyes of the American public at least as a hero and do not stop to think whether he is truly the good guy as he and the rest of the inglorious basterds commit violent acts that can be seen as similar to the acts of the Nazi troops. It is also interesting that a number of key themes from previous Quentin Tarantino films remain in this film. The Soundtrack at times sounds similar to Kill Bill and it maintains the heavy violence seens form both Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction. Especially Pulp Fiction as this opened everyones eyes when they first saw it.

Monday, 22 March 2010

Trailer for the new series of Doctor Who

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbmMhNe6aA
I chose to uploa this link as Doctor Who is a good example of a postmodern text and the key concepts of hyppereality which are also featured.

Friday, 19 March 2010

The Wire

The Wire uses realism elements, such as filming on location in Baltimore. It tackles several key issues , such as drug abuse and problems with bureaucracy. The target of the show is to show how american cities function and how everyone gets on with each other. It is written around the experiences of co-write Ed Burns who was a former homicide detective such as the frustrations he suffered of the ineffectiveness of the beaureaucracy of the police department so there are a lot of political elements featured in the Wire.
The Wire is postmodern, because it is based around true events which shows that the structure of the narrative is less creative as ideas for the narrative already exist that can be used to construct the plot for the series. It also is postmodern as it hits out at the weaknesses of the police department. This in the past would have been too risky to attempt to do, but nowadays writers of TV programmes aren't for example afraid to break the fourth wall. Also most of characters involved are based on real life Baltimore figures. Also some important events occur off camera and flashbacks are common so another postmodern element is the growing emphasis on technology on media products. This is just like the A2 media projects which now depend more on technology such as recorded evaluations.

Monday, 15 March 2010

Last lesson

Last lesson we related soap doc to real media texts like the office. Extras is also a good example. It is designed to be a comedy but has plenty of drama elements as well like you'd find in a soap like coronation street. We also watched a number of films relating to postmodernism such as '500 days of summer' and 'pulp fiction' and dissected those texts and pulled out key elements and themes, such as 500 days of summer's slogan 'its a story about love not a love story' and the very heavy violence of pulp fiction.

Friday, 5 March 2010

How does your project relate to real media texts ?

One of the key existing media conventions that my project relates to is the work of Joseph Campbell. One of the most useful of Campbell’s texts to relate to is the book: ‘Hero of a thousand faces’. It gives a postmodernist twist on the concept of a hero as he structured the journey of the hero around a concept called monomyth. It takes in the trials and tasks that a hero must face. The hero starts in an ordinary world and is called to a strange new world with strange powers and events and also links to the concept of ‘fight or flight’. This refers to whether a hero will step up to the plate and make the effort to reach his target or fail and be doomed to misery and failure. The structure of the narrative that Joseph Campbell uses is postmodern, because there is also a strong presence of mythology which comes with ‘the journey of a hero’. As some myths often differ in the approaches that need to be taken, especially in terms of the order that they need to be taken. These ideas crucially link back to my own project, because the structure of the narrative of my project is one of the main concepts that is aimed at being brought forward as the hero of the film Miles is starting his journey after leaving home and going in search of his hero. He is pictured in my project performing many tasks, such as hitchhiking and looking to others for help and guidance. This shows the structure of the narrative of my project and also the order in which events unfold which is what Joseph Campbell tries to do with the concept of mythology and how a hero completes the tasks and trials and the way he completes them.
There is evidence to show that George Lucas used the ideas of Joseph Campbell and monomyth to create the Star wars films with the structure of the different episodes of the star wars films and the trials and tribulations of Luke Skywalker becoming a Jedi throughout the Star Wars trilogy with the clear order of events of the trilogy of flms.

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