For today’s pick I’m making a somewhat ticky-tack distinction between a film “soundtrack” and a film “score.” My favorite film score is definitely Ennio Morricone‘s composition for The Mission, one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of music ever written as far as I’m concerned. I picked The Mission on Day 1 of this Challenge,…
Read MoreLike yesterday, I found today’s prompt for the 31 Day Film Challenge really difficult. I can think of dozens of songs that remind me of certain events in my life, but I had to think long and hard to come up with a film that did the same. (I’ll just refer you to my explanation…
Read MoreFirst, I want to say that it’s been really great seeing everyone’s 31 Day Film Challenge picks show up each day on the Facebook page for our Challenge. I’ve got a lot of new movies to watch. Today’s pick was surprisingly difficult for me. There was a similar prompt on Day 5 of the original…
Read MorePsychology researchers James J. Gross and Robert W. Levenson published a study about 15 years ago entitled “Emotion Elicitation Using Films” in which they determined that the “saddest” movie of all time was the 1978 tearjerker The Champ (starring Jon Voight and a very young Ricky Schroder). In particular, Gross and Levenson determined that this…
Read MoreMost people who know me also know of my unabashedly-fangirl affection for the 1997 documentary Hands on a Hard Body, which tells the story of an endurance contest in which roughly two dozen small-town Texans compete to win a Nissan hardbody truck. The concept is simple, really: everyone puts his or her hand on the…
Read MoreI just want to say in advance that I don’t think my pick for today is the worst movie ever made. I took a peek at what Wikipedia lists as “the worst films ever made” (allegedly determined by “reputable critics in multiple reputable sources”) and discovered that I had not seen a single one of…
Read MoreOne thing I learned from my participation in the 30 Day Song Challenges (the Original and the Sequel) is that I almost always second-guess my selections the very day after I pick them. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to that phenomenon now and so, instead of laboring for hours and hours to be certain of…
Read MoreStarting today, July 1, I’ll be participating in the 31 Day Film Challenge on this blog. It will be similar in structure to the 30 Day (The Sequel) Song Challenge that I just completed in June and the original 30 Day Song Challenge that I completed in June 2011, only this time with movies instead…
Read MoreLast week, my Philosophy and Film class took up the theme of “documentary truth.” In preparation for our Tuesday night seminar, students were required to choose one film from a list of documentaries (Grizzly Man, The Thin Blue Line, Night and Fog, Bowling for Columbine, Capturing the Friedmans, Man on Wire, Super Size Me, Ghosts…
Read MoreI’m not sure exactly where to place the blame for the total disappointment that is the (Academy Award-nominated) film Zero Dark Thirty, which tells a based-on-real-events story of “the greatest manhunt in history.” The hunted is, of course, al-Qaeda founder and mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks Osama bin Laden. Zero Dark Thirty is organized as…
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