Director: Peter Weir
Writer: Andrew Niccol
Release Date: 9 October 1998 (UK)
Genre: Drama Sci-fi
Awards: Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 29 wins & 34 nominations
Duration: 103mins
Company: Paramount Pictures
Production Budget: $60,000,000

Theatrical Performance
Total US Gross : $125,618,201
International Gross : $122,781,799
Worldwide Gross : $248,400,000

Cast

Jim Carrey : Truman Burbank
Laura Linney : Meryl
Noah Emmerich : Marlon
Natascha McElhone : Lauren/Sylvia
Holland Taylor : Truman's Mother
Ed Harris : Christof
Brian Delate : Truman's Father
Paul Giamatti : Control Room Director
Philip Baker Hall : Network Executive
Harry Shearer : Mike Michaelson

Truman’s character is displayed as a very cheesy, happy go lucky kind of man. Through out the film we see different sides to him such as him having traditional morals with his way of life that is constantly under control and structured. He is a very polite person we discover when he acknowledges his neighbours and friends. He is also ve

Produced by : Bruce Cohen & Dan Jinks
Written by : Alan Ball
Genre: Drama

Studio: DreamWorks

Release Date: 4 February 2000 (UK)

Domestic Gross: $130,096,601

Budget: $15 million

Mktng. Budget: $30 million

Running Time: 122 mins.
Music by Thomas Newman

Cinematography by Conrad L. Hall
Editing by Tarig Anwar & Christopher Greenbury

Distributed by Dream Works

Starring :

Kevin Spacey as Lester Burnham
Annette Bening as Carolyn Burnham
Thora Birch as Jane Burnham
Wes Bently as Ricky Fitts
Mena Suvari as Angela Hayes
Chris Cooper as Col. Frank Fitts
Peter Gallagher as Buddy Kane
Allison Janney as Barbara Fitts
Scott Bakula as Jim Olmeyer
Sam Robards as Jim Berkley

Lester Burnham

Kevin spaceys performance in the film shows us that lester has no motivation in his life what so ever by the way he undertakes his day to day lifestyle. We get the feeling that he is frustrated and unhappy with his life at the start of the film when he is masturbating in the shower, over the top of this scene he is narrating about how this is the highlight of his day and everything goes down hill after that. Another good example of him showing the audience that he is fed up with his way of life and wants a drastic change is the scene where he quits his job. This changes the way we view Lester because at the start then he hands in a bit of paper explaining “what his job consists of” and it gets read out it makes us think he is very foolish because of the language he used and the things he mentions like referring to his bosses as “arse holes” and how he admits to going to the bathroom once a day to “jerk off”. We think this is a foolish thing to do because the advertising company that he works for would never hand him a reference so this would affect his ability to get another job. When his statement is being read out he has a very smug and cocky look across his face because he knows what ever he put on that bit of paper he had a plan to get him out of working with one years fully paid salary and benefits. He manages to do this by letting his boss know that he knows about their editorial director who has been spending the company’s money to buy prostitutes and Lester threatens to tell the IRS, their rival company’s and Creg’s wife about it. His boss doesn’t buy it and refuses to give him what he wants but then Lester mentions about accusing him of sexual assault. The boss cant believe that Lester had thought this deeply into it to get his own way and calls him “twisted” then Lesters response is “no.., im just an ordinary guy with nothing to loose”, I like this quote because its showing us that he has no care in the world for his job/future carrier by gambling it all away and trying his chances.
We get to understand that Lester is considered at the bottom of his family’s hierarchy at the start of the film where we see his wife driving and his daughter sitting in the front seat and him what looks to be cramped in the back seat. This shows us that the authority comes strictly from his wife and that he tends not to have any power or say in how things are dun. We see a child like resemblance when he is sitting in the back seat on his way to work asleep on his hands, his body language and posture are also very similar to a child’s.

The character of Lester seems to develops into creep through out the film mainly for the fact that he develops a crush on his daughters best friend. The way he acts when she is around is like his personality has changed to a teenage boys who is very shy and finds it hard to make convocation with a girl. When the scene of him and his wife watching his daughter cheerlead, the camera zooms in slowly into his face whilst flicking back and forth of Angela dancing, this slow zoom makes us understand that Lester is mesmerised and sucked into her body movements. The way his mouth has dropped open shows us he is very interested and wants her to himself. I like the way the cheerleading girls are in the dark and Angela is in a spotlight, this makes me feel like I am Lester and looking through his eyes, excluding the other dancers from the image he is seeing and just focusing 100% of his attention on to her.


The Opening

American beauty starts off with a crane shot that slowly zooms into his street, it looks like a very sunny pleasant place to be living. It kind of gives off the feel of being successful and wealthy. He mentions being “dead already” this indicates to us that he is fed up of his day to day life routine. When we see his wife pruning the roses we get a feel that she likes to keep everything as perfect as possible, the fact her gardening sheers match her shoes proves the point that she is completely cautious of the image she is living. During Lesters narrating he mentions “she used to be happy, we used to be happy”
Tells us that she used to be happy before getting obsessed with material possessions that has led to ruing her marriage and taking away her true personality and replacing it with one that is false. We get introduced to his daughter “Jane” by seeing her looking up breast enlargement programs, this shows us that she is a ordinary typical teenager that is unhappy with her appearance and life. When Lester describes himself as being “sedated” we understand that he

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Directed by : Louis Leterrier
Release date : 13 June 2008 (UK)
Prenatal guidance : 12
Runtime : 112 mins
Prouduction budget : $137,500,000
Released in : 3,508 theaters
Filming dates : 18 June 2007 - 26 October 2007

The HULK character first appeared in "The Incredible Hulk! ep#1 on May 1962 and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.


Opening weekend

$55,414,050 : (USA) : (15 June 2008) : (3,505 Screens)
£3,253,723 : (UK) : (15 June 2008) : (484 Screens)
2,833,654 : (Brazil) : (15 June 2008) : (400 Screens)
$8,280 : (Estonia) : (15 June 2008) : (2 Screens)
34,524,681 : (Philippines) : (15 June 2008) : (84 Screens)
76,174,694 : (Russia) : (15 June 2008) : (500 Screens)

The Hulk was to register returns as high as $85 million in its first weekend, coming on the heels of two movies also featuring Marvel comic-book characters. "Spider-Man" had a $114.8 million all-time record opening in May 2002, and "X2: X-Men United" took in $85.6 million in its debut last month.



Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of over 5,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in licensing, entertainment (via Marvel Studios and Marvel Animation) and publishing (via Marvel Comics). Marvel's strategy is to leverage its franchises in a growing array of opportunities around the world, including feature films, consumer products, toys, video games and animated television.

Marvel Comic #1 (Oct. 1939)

Cover art by Frank R. Paul

The first publication of Marvel Comics #1 (Oct. 1939), contained the first appearance of Carl Burgo's Android Superhero "The Human Tourch".

Marvel Entertainment enables the licensing, publishing, toy making, and film production businesses with a library of approximately 5,000 characters in the United States and internationally. A few of its well known characters include Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Ghost Rider, The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Blade, Daredevil, The Punisher, The Avengers, Silver Surfer, Cyclops and Doctor Doom.

The company operates in four segments:

*Licensing
*Publishing
*Toys
*Film Production

Marvel is very popular and well known as by advertisement in toys, games, electronics, home ware, posters, comic’s stationery, gifts and novelties, footwear, food and beverages, collectibles, feature film appearances and television programs.

The Pursuit of Happyness

This film shows us “Te American Deam” very well through out the movie as we pay our attention to middle class family showing us their way of life and habits.

At the start of the film I noticed the main character “Chris Gardner” (played by Will Smith) took his job very seriously as the family’s income was pretty low along with his wife “Linda” (played by Thandie Newton) working shifts at a launderette all day and night. We see Chris Gardner’s determination when he try’s desperately to sell his “Bone x-ray scanners” to different medical companies.

There is a scene where we get to watch the Gardner family eat their dinner and relax a little from a hard days work when I noticed after they had all finished his wife Linda took the glass’ and purred the left over squash back into a main bottle what they would store it. This suggested and showed to me that the family had little money and tried to save and reuse anything they could with in reason. When we see Chris travailing to his next sale opportunity he complements a successful looking business man who is parking up his car. Chris is amazed at how nice and flash the car looked along with the business man who looked as if he was happier than life. He asks the worker how he got to be so successful and what his job is. He says “im a stock broker” as he walks up into this grand looking office building. Chris’ body language shows us that he has become very interested in that kind of life style and tells us that he is determined to get there. This alone shows us that he is unhappy with his current job and wants to make a big career move.



The scene where it is his sons birthday quite depressing for me to watch because it gives me the impression that in my lifestyle I take a lot for granted. This is because in the scene his son “Christopher” (played by Jaden Smith) only has one thing on his mind that he wants and that is a basketball. The face he only receives this one gift from both working parents shows us how grateful he is for this because his parents pay cheques go strait to rent and house hold bills. His body language and expression shows us how happy and excited he is when he gets the basketball by the laughter and look on his face.
This made me feel like a take a lot of things for granted like I have my I-pod and computer and yet I still want new things and they way he is so pleased at getting his basketball made me think how expensive luxuries are being given and bought and used in out everyday lives.
There is a scene where Chris jumps into a cab with the boss of a stock exchange business
To discuss how he can get a chance to get an interview. This shows us how much he has his mind set out on bettering his life plus the fact that he chose to get into the cab instead of continuing his journey to a potential sale customer what could mean either loosing that months rent or gaining it.



When the boss struggles to do his rubix cube Chris offers to lend him a hand and help him out and insists that he can complete it. The boss doesn’t believe him and so he starts to solve it along the journey. Just as he arrives at his location Chris solves it and hands it to the boss, he leaves imprested. This seems to me like he has got his foot in the door and had made him self stand out from the job hunters. The choice of getting into the cab and missing his opponent has managed to gain little respect.


At one point in the film Chris says “happiness is only something you can pursue” , I love this saying because it is so true. You can work hard for anything you want and finally after a bit of time you can possibly achieve your goal and gain the thing you want but when you do there is always something else that you want and you think will make you happy, its just a vicious circle, so really you are only happy for a short amount of time and then you set out to get the next thing you think will make you happy.

After Chris passes the first interview he then rejects the call that is inviting him back to the office for a further interview when he gets told there is no money involved over the 3 month course. This brings him back down to reality just as he thought things were on the up and up. He rejects it for the basic principle of needing to provide for him and his son.

I also am really fond of the quote “ you got a dream?…hold onto it, you want something…go get it” this is because I find them words so true. I think In this case (The American Dream) it is referring to. Its saying what ever dream you might have, you are the only one in control who is able to make it come true. If you take all the right steps in the direction of your dream then there is no reason why it cant happen.

Through out the film Chris loses his scanner a few times and when he chases after it to get it back its like him chasing his dream and showing how determined he is to better himself and get his foot higher on the ladder.

film blog work 1

From the documentaries we watched in class I came to the decision that I think Hollywood movies at the end of the day when it comes down to it are made purely for getting fame and money. I think this because the film producers are investing a large amount of their money into a film that they have no guarantee that it will be a major hit and if it is they will receive a large sum of money and gain that bit more popularity.

They make their decision by reading the script over and over again and they then they only chose to fund the making of the film if they feel like it will be good hit and they could double their money when released. There is no way any producers would invest in a film if they think it would be a frailer, I think this because their money, name and reputation is on the line.

At the end of the day any film and every film is either successful and worth the money put into it or is a complete frailer and waste of money. When it comes down to it the script is the most important part, it’s the dead centre of the movie. You can’t make a box-office sell-out if the script doesn’t have a decent storyline. The script writer’s job does have its ups and downs. They spend X amount of time creating the script and all of its contents and then they could submit it to a number of producers and everyone could reject it and say its not good enough. That would mean they have wasted so much time they spent into it. How ever if when they submit the script and some of the producers like it and start bidding for it they could get quite an earner.

People only decide to sit down and watch a film if they are interested my the trailer or the actors/actress involved. Any major actor or actress have such a huge say into any film like, “a script writer could right a really poor script and it could get sent around and pitched to a number of producers and investors and say Tom Cruise read it and was very interested in making it, all the past producers who had rejected the idea now start bidding because they all want ownership over it”. This because they know it will rake in the cash at the box office.

The marketing and advertising of a film is such a key part to its success. This is because they get the public interested init by using, posters, billboards, adverts, radio plays and advertising on the net. Another big advertising is by teaming up with different companies to help promote each others products like for instance; if “TOY STORY 3” came out they could possibly team up with McDonalds and advertise the movie posters/characters and toys on the sides of children’s happy meals. This would work out very well because the film is targeted at a child audience and so are happy meals. That way the children want to but more McDonalds happy meals because they like “TOY STORY”, both the producers and McDonalds would sell more of their products because they are both gaining more publicity.

The build-up to any new box office film being released is very important because the more they advertise and drill the film into the publics mind to a point where they are seeing it everywhere this helps to persuade them to go and see it. The more good publicity the film gets the more people will go and see it and then more good reviews will get wrote about it making it look good. Reviews are very important to films because they have the power to change the publics mind on their opinion of it. If a film gets only a few bad reviews it can cause a lot of loss in money because people read them and can put them off.