Hi MCOM 101 students.
This is a short week for our course. We will NOT be meeting as a class on Friday, March 25 (GOOD FRIDAY).
But we will be focusing Monday, March 21, and Wednesday, March 23, on chapter 7 “Movies: Picturing the Future.”
So be sure you’ve read this chapter by the start of our class on Wed., March 23, and that you can define/describe/explain the “Key Terms” near the top of the page at the end of the chapter on pg. 149.
Also, be able to answer the “Critical Questions” on that same page.
Okay. Let’s dive into movies.
Yes, we’ve all seen many movies, but could you correctly answer these questions about movies? Try your luck.
(I’ll reveal the correct answers later).
1. True or False? Sound was not introduced to the movies until the 1920s.
2. What famous movie (from early in the 20th century) is director D.W. Griffith associated with?
3. What state in the U.S. did much of the movie industry move to in the 1920s?
4. True or False? The movie rating or censorship system in the U.S. is state government mandated.
5. Name the first feature-length animated film produced by Walt Disney. Hint: the film was released in late 1937.
6. What did it mean for a movie employee to be “blacklisted” in the late 1940s?
7. True or False? Radio has been the biggest force—of all the branches of the mass media of communications— shaping the modern movie industry.
8. True or False? For a blockbuster movie, Titanic was a low-budget movie (meaning it cost relatively little to make compared to the revenue it brought in).
9. What are “ancillary rights” for a movie? Define/describe.
10. Why is it a challenge or hard for small theatres to convert to digital technology?
11. What is the MPAA?
12. What was the X rating for movies changed to?
13. Name one famous movie that was directed by Stephen Spielberg.
14. True or False? The movie “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (2009) was a bigger blockbuster than “Avatar” (2009).
15. Every movie begins with a story idea, and this idea comes from whom?
We’ll underscore in class the indisputable fact that movies are powerful forms of mass media of communication.
But think about that assertion for a moment.
What is it, exactly, that makes movies so powerful?
Could it be the content of a movie? The story line of a movie? The actors or stars of the movie? The costumes? The music or songs?
Perhaps it's about sitting in a darkened, air-conditioned cocoon (a movie theatre), and having your total attention (notwithstanding your arm being around your beloved) riveted on a motion picture. I believe we’d all agree movies have the power (as no other mass medium of communications does) to help define--or take us back to--the key emotional points (the highs and lows) of our lives. Remember who sat next to you or whom you were dating or what you were going through when you first saw one of your all-time favorite movies? My list includes “Jaws,” “ET,” “Titanic,” or the first “Rocky” or the first “Superman.”
What about your list? Where were you and who were you with (if anyone) when you saw your favorite movies? Bet the movie can re-kindle that memory.
Lastly (in terms of this blog post) it’s important in our study of movies to understand the concept of self-policing of the movie industry. The movie industry polices itself, not our government. Wonder why that’s the case that an industry is policing itself?
Enough for now about movies. More about them (and chapter 7) during our classes this week.
Oh yes. Here’s clip from one of my favorite films—about Vivien Thomas, a hero of the very first open-heart surgery in human history.
Have you or a member of your immediate or extended family had open heart surgery? (I had a double bypass in April 2008).
If so, you should get down on your knees and give thanks to African-American Vivien Thomas; he never went to college, let alone medical school. But starting out as a lab assistant for a noted surgeon, who became interested in doing heart surgery after researching the hearts of dogs, Thomas figured out how to solve the problem of "blue babies." He was right by the surgeon's side in the operating room at Johns Hopkins Hospital when that first open heart surgery was performed--on a blue baby in 1944.
The following clip is from the 2004 movie--"Something the Lord Made.” Turn your sound up and enjoy (and give thanks to Vivien Thomas!)
And then, on a funnier note, here's one more movie clip (also from one of my all-time favorite movies "Jerry McGuire"):
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