Think About the Themes

War films are quite common in American culture. The plot-lines are typically from the view of Americans who would be fighting for or to protect their freedom. The films show the military as protectors of American freedom, since it was the US army that won America's freedom from England during the revolutionary war, and it is willed that the US army be always shown as liberators. The war films that are created with the purpose of justifying violence when their 'freedom' is threatened. The films will also desensitize the American audience to the idea of armed conflict. When the U.S. military invades a country, the American people, for the most part, would not see the invasion as an act of terror, but an act that is necessary for protecting their freedom. And with the help of these war films, they will begin to not question their leaders, but trust them that they're striving to benefit the people.

Value and Idealogical Control

This is the trailer for the movie: Public Enemies.

This is the story of the last few years of the notorious bank robber John Dillinger. He loved what he did and could imagine little else that would make him happier. Living openly in 1930s Chicago, he had the run of the city with little fear of reprisals from the authorities. It's there that he meets Billie Frechette with whom he falls deeply in love. In parallel we meet Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent who would eventually track Dillinger down. The FBI was is in its early days and Director J. Edgar Hoover was keen to promote the clean cut image that so dominated the organization through his lifetime. Purvis realizes that if he is going to get Dillinger, he will have to use street tactics and imports appropriate men with police training. Dillinger is eventually betrayed by an acquaintance who tells the authorities just where to find him on a given night.

I agree with the film rating of 14A, because the violence shown is not very gory, the swear words are not too offensive, and the sexual activity is not explicit. 

Film Constructs Reality

A film that I had seen which presented reality very well was Paranormal Activity 2. I didn't know anything about the series or the movie, so when I saw the amatuerish quality of the film, I wondered if the film was real. But then I just decided to focus on the movie. What made it seem real was the handheld cameras, the crappy audio, no background music, all that. What made it seem unreal was the fact that every event was recorded. People don't just carry around cameras with them all the time. I realized that eventually..

Midterm Summative Blog

The film that I have chosen is the American film, "300" , directed by Zack Snyder. The film retells the Battle of Thermopylae, circa 480 B.C.E. from the perspective of  Leonidas I. The details of the battle were accurate for the most part. However, the inaccuracy is in the depiction of the Persians, which led to controversy, particularly in Iran(modern-day Persia). In 300, Persians are depicted as African, piercing-ridden, subhuman, masked, ruthless, and incompetent soldiers. King Xerxes I of Persia is depicted as a psychopathic, homosexual tyrant.

Persian Immortals depicted in 300
This is the reality of Persian SPEC-OPs soldiers that is presented in 300.
Persian Immortals as shown in Deadliest Warrior
The Immortals shown in Spike's Deadliest Warrior are far more historically accurate.
Historical depictions of Immortals
This picture was taken from Persepolis, Iran.

King Xerxes shown in 300
He wasn't black, bald, or gay.
Stone carving of King Xerxes I
That's what he looked like, but without the stone.

Based on the evidence above, the reality shown in 300 does not fit with reality.
The reasons as to why the Persians were shown in this light would be obvious to history scholars.

All film is a construction

The steps for making a film

- conceive the idea of the movie
-obtain rights to the source material (pay people to use their stories/books/whatever)
- hire a professional screenwriter
- a director, casting director, cinematographer, assistant producers, editor, musical director, and other professionals must be hired
- hold auditions for actors, negotiate with them, blah blah blah
- get a suitable location for filming, manipulate it to fit the needs of the movie (special effects, different atmosphere, etc)
- house and feed the actors for however long the filming takes
- film
- edit, add music, add sounds, spend hours and hours making the film watchable
- promote the movie to specific or general audiences with posters or trailers
- observe

Sound City

Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
This song is freaking awesome. Listen to it. Stahp what you're doing and just listen to the whole thing.
Music ain't as good as it used to be because of the technology that's overused in modern day music. I would show an example of a modern song but I'm supposed to pick a song from either before or after 1995, not both. But holy crap this song is amazing. Do you hear autotune in this? Or badly tuned synthesizers? NoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo, man, this is Led Zeppelin holy crap these guys were amazing. Sure auto-tune and modern musical technology is good and all, the problem is that the producers and artists use it too much. Their music is old as hell but listen to those vocals and guitar and bass and drums omg my ears are in heaven.

Media Ownership

Canadian Media Ownership Network Diagram

Parent companies
-Rogers Televisions
-Corus Entertainment
-TVA Publication
-Quebecor Media
-CBC Radio Canada
-CTV GlobeMedia
-Astral Radio Station
-Systeme Radio Canada
-CHUM Radio Network
-Kingston Whig Standard

Those are what I got. There are probably more. Some of them are related by smaller companies which two of them own. Yeah.