Down and Out in Paris and Rome

Two films we have screened, Boudu Saved from Drowning, and Bicycle Thieves, portray the sometimes harsh life of those at the bottom of the economic ladder. How are the poor and homeless portrayed in both films (Boudu and Antonio Ricci) ? How are they similar and how different? Who or what is responsible for the character's poverty? Is there is a political message in either film?

Jay Gatsby vs. Charles Foster Kane

Most of us read The Great Gatsby in our junior English class. Both Gatsby and Citizen Kane, produced about twenty years apart, focus on a man who some might say is the epitome of success. What similarities and differences do you see? Are these works celebrations or critiques of these men, or somewhere in between? Or something else?

Rosebud

Rosebud is perhaps the most famous symbol in movie history. What is the significance of the name "rosebud?" What is the significance of the sled? Is it the key to understanding Kane's life or just one missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle that does not explain much at all?

Faulkner, and Joyce and Eliot -- Oh My!

Citizen Kane has a distinctive narrative technique in which Welles tells Kane's story from multiple perspectives and uses flashbacks rather than a chronological order. Do you see any connection between Welles' storytelling and modernist fiction? Why do you think he tells his story using these innovative techniques rather that just a straightforward narrative?

Newspapers on Film

We have seen two films, His Girl Friday and Citizen Kane, in which the protagonists work in the newspapers business. What do these films tell us about the job of a reporter or publisher in the 1940's? What is the role or status of the newspaper at that time? How have things changed since that time?

Favorite Scenes

Describe a scene from a movie we have screened in this course. What makes this scene so memorable? Is it funny, inspiring, satirical, tragic, or just amazingly beautiful?

Shout out!

Hey guys,

If any of you like horror/dark comedies/vampire movies, my cousin is finishing up directing and producing a film that he wrote the screenplay for called The Revenant.  I think it should be finished this summer or fall soo you should all see it!! (One of the guys from heroes is in it.)

The Revenant is a story about an ancient pestilence recurring to infect modern society.

In what was supposed to be a standard military drive through the desert, Officer First Class Bart Gregory finds himself killed in Middle East during a rescue attempt gone wrong. Although his body is returned to the United States, and his body is laid to a peaceful rest, Bart finds that his afterlife is anything but. But before the lid can be put on his tomb, Bart inexplicably awakens, confused, horrified-- a moldy, putrefying living corpse - A Revenant.

Bart desperately enlists the help of his best friend, Joey Leubner, in an attempt to ease Bart's newfound nausea and agony. When a panicked emergency room forces the confused corpse to flee, the two friends discover that there is only one cure for Bart's condition:  Human blood.

Bart and Joey take matters into their own hands to keep Bart from decomposing, becoming "The Vigilante Gun-Slingers" in the process. The two anti-heroes sate both Bart's bloody urges to feed upon the living, and exact vengeance upon the criminal element to protect the innocent. However, it is only a matter of time before things begin to spiral out of control during their macabre crusade, and Bart will learn that he must eventually embrace the path of his own horrific destiny... all while cruising in a 1979 Camaro with a surfboard on the roof.

http://www.therevenantmovie.com/