Hi there! My name is Lexi Cocolas, and I’m currently a high school student who recently completed a course on film and fiction. Growing up, I always watched movies that were terribly cliché, lacking any knowledge whatsoever of what a truly good film was. I don’t regret this, but sometimes I do wish I’d been more interested in thought provoking films. Upon seeing movies that left me thinking, I realized that I loved to talk to other people about them and ask them what they had thought, and find their opinions of what happened in the film. The first movie that I can remember doing this for me was “Inception”, directed by Christopher Nolan. The plot was unpredictable and woven into a confusing piece at first, but after closer examination turned out to be an amazing story. His film “Memento” was another puzzling masterpiece, giving the audience just enough to come to their own conclusions. This style was a change for me, and broadened my view just a bit. Another movie is responsible for drawing me in a bit more, and that is “Pride and Prejudice”, released in 2005 and directed by Joe Wright. I am a devoted fan of Jane Austen and her most well-known novel, so I was already familiar with the story line when I saw it. What made me love this particular adaptation was the way that the director used different techniques to tell you about the characters. This was another entirely new concept to me- telling the story without using words. The camera told it all, giving me new insights to the characters by the way it used different angles and motions. And finally, we have Hitchcock. From a simplistic era in film, he used the bare minimum to create masterpieces. This raised my standards for films and had me thinking that if Hitchcock could create great films like this decades ago, people should be doing even better now. Overall, this class in film has truly broadened my scope on the art of the film industry and pushed me to explore those films that I would not have typically done before.
My three favorite pieces from this year are:
Film review of The King's Speech
Reviewing the Reviewers: Silver Linings Playbook
2001 A Space Odyssey Reflections