Film Class Midterm (Quiz)

We have a midterm exam or quiz if you will in 13 days. This included with your homework accounts for 50% of your grade. This is what you should prepare. First, know the meanings of following words or expressions. I will provide the words and definitions. You just need to match.

1. Pay homage to

2. Misanthrope

3. Bird's eye view

4. Conformity

5. Cookie cutter neighborhood or school

6. Clique

7. Myth

8. Noble Savage

9. Angst

10. Match cut

11. Misogyny 

12. Genre

13. Tracking shot

14. Opening credits

15. Pulp fiction

16. Chronological

17. Washed up

18. Tracking shot (2X)

19. Nerd/dork

20. Basket case

21. Foreshadow

I will also ask some questions about what happened in the movies.

If you came to every class, this won't be a problem for you. I will

have a paragraph question as well. In my opinion, a paragraph is

five or move sentences.

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Gen X

People born between 1965 and 1980. It’s my generation. People say it is the rudest and most intolerant generation which worries a lot about conformity or being the same as everybody else.

You can see it her, when they call her strange. They don’t trust people who are unique.

They will return to their cliques on Monday and pretend they don’t know each other.

Next two genres: western (cowboy) and war

Terms to think about:

1.   Misanthrope: somebody (usually highly intelligent) who hates other people and humans in general

2.   Misogyny: hatred and bullying of women (usually by men)

3.   Narrator: person who speaks to explain the plot (but you don’t see them). This person is normally a character in the movie.

4.   Foreshadow: when we are given hints / clues about what will happen later

I want you to write down the first voice over (what the narrator says) because I think it is a good example of foreshadowing.

5.   Soundtrack is written by the guy from Radiohead, but it is not like Radiohead at all. They won the Oscar for the music.

All four main actors and actresses were nominated for an Oscar too.

6.   Homoerotic: subtle gay or lesbian themes

7.   Every time the brother talks about Bronco Henry, the other brother ignores him. Why?

8.   In the story, the misanthropic brother majored in Classics at Yale University and graduated first in his class. Romulus and Remus: it is the story of the founding or start of Rome. It is a myth. Stories we use to explain when we don’t have or understand science.

Why Are They Called the Breakfast Club?

 

Please look up the idea “fragment” for writing.

Want to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast. Every sentence needs a

S. V. O. The best sentence is the simple sentence. I have corrected a lot of fragments in this class.

Chronological order.

1.    Butch is a little boy. A soldier who served with his dad in the Vietnam War brings him a wristwatch.   The plot structure is bookends. The diner starts and ends the movie, with the stories in between.

Genre: Drama, dark humor (comedy), coming of age

Themes

Conformity: when the society forces you to be the same as other people; David Bowie is the opposite of conformity: “Turn and face the strange.” People conform because they are afraid of being noticed.

Cookie cutter: everything looks the same and built the same; this is a metaphor for a cookie cutter we use for cooking

Cliques: the different groups in a school (power)

The narrator is talking about cliques.

1.    Jocks: good at sports: athlete

2.    Nerd/Dorks: not strong, but good at studying (often bullied)

3.    Skaters or punks; rebels; criminal

4.    Cheerleaders: prom queen; princess

5.    Rockers or headbangers

6.    Weirdos? Basket case

Theme: Adults who don’t understand

Theme: Power tripping teachers who want respect but have not earned it

Opening Credits

Why is the student punished for giving an opinion and asking a question? The teacher asks: “Does anyone have questions?” When Bender then asks a question, he is punished.

Idiom: “You mess with the bull, you get the horns.”

In literature, the theme: “The myth of the noble savage.” When someone from a rich, industrial country meets someone from a poor, non-technological place and assumes they know more about things. Actually, the latter person might have wisdom which leads to asking questions that cannot be answered.

Notice how the janitor responds to Bender’s irony and questions compared to the teacher.

One of These Days / Cameo

 

Cameo

A famous person in a movie for a short scene, maybe a couple of minutes. Christopher Walken won the Oscar for his role in Deer Hunter, a movie about the Vietnam War. America invaded Vietnam in the 1960s. We said we invaded to stop Communism (the political system in China or Russia, etc.).

This game is called Russian Roulette.

The director Tarantino has Walken doing a cameo about the Vietnam War.

Please put Pulp Fiction into chronological order. This is actually the first scene with Butch, the boxer, as a little boy.

The time order is mixed up in this movie. The watch is important to the boxer Butch. The watch is a symbol of organization in this messed up time order of the movie.

Gimp is a rude way to call disabled people.

She is playing hooky.

Hillbilly: poor and uneducated white people in North America.

Chopper

This chopper scene is an homage to Easy Rider.

The director didn’t go to university. He worked in movie video store.

He knows movies like the back of his hand.

Conformity and cliques in school. The Breakfast Club. Coming of age movie.

Dorks or geeks.

Country bumpkin.

Pulp Fiction: Class Notes March 2023

 Film: Pulp Fiction

Attendance: I give everyone 10% for this. Every hour you miss, I subtract 1%. If you miss nine hours, you fail. Pulp Fiction works similarly to TV or when people go to the movies to watch crap like Marvel. They want to rest and not think.

Pulp is the flesh of an orange. Fiction means not true.

Genre is dark humor or comedy. Funny, but evil.

Trivia: they say f%$k 255 times. John Travolta, perhaps the most famous actor of the 1970s, was washed up. That means not famous or good anymore. He couldn’t get roles in the 1980s. He made a comeback in this movie. Travolta in the

1970s. Opening credits.

1994: Tarantino wrote and directed it. He wrote it while

drinking coffee in the diner which is at the start of the movie.

This movie is not in chronological order. It opens at the end.

Your assignment is to write a sentence to describe each

scene. Then put the sentences in chronological order and

give me.

Vincent (Travolta) says he doesn’t watch TV, implying that it is too stupid for him. But he loves to read pulp fiction = contradiction.

What does 666 represent? It is the sign of the beast

(devil). Tarantino is also paying homage to Stanley

Kubrick. When you copy a famous scene from another

movie to show respect.

1. We have a myth or superstition. You can make a deal

with the devil. He will give you whatever you want,

but he gets his soul. If you want to make this deal,

go to the crossroads.

If we say you are “square” it means not a cool person.

SShe says she is going to powder her nose. 

A cameo is when a famous actor goes in a movie for just

a few minutes.