Movie Review Assignment

Here's a sample of quotes from our recent movie review assignment. We're going to go over all our various ideas in class this week and figure out a basic structure for our quarterly movie review posts.

from Samantha's blog:

A list of aspects we need to touch on should be posted, but we should otherwise have free reign

from Cherie's blog:

I think for our quarterly movie review we should be given a good amount of freedom. There should be basic guidelines, but for the most part I think we should be able to structure it the way we want to. A list of what we need to put into our reviews (key points and such) would be helpful and then we could show those key points in several different forms. Another idea would be to not always have a written review. One quarter we could get into groups and create a type of news report that would review the movie, that way it would continue to be interesting.

from Kyra's blog:

In terms of our own quarterly movie reviews, I think that we should have a certain amount of creative freedom on what we write. Each movie is an individual production, thus not every question or qualification may apply to it. Of course, we should have a very basic structure to follow- such as touching upon each film aspect in the review; however, we should be allowed to choose how much we focus on each one and what we write about each one. I'm sure that if we were allowed to write the review as we see fit, the assignment would be a lot more interesting for all of us- I know I'd be more motivated!

from Peter's blog:

to help me and the rest of the class there should be some form of structure when we are assigned to write a movie review of our own. This would help with making sure we cover everything. Also when writing our own reviews we should be allowed to choose the topic and movie itself. Besides that there should be guidelines on how we write it.

from Zoe's blog:

not all reviewers will perceive movies in the same way: therefore, we must be free to discover and explain the elements that strike us as being the most noteworthy. However, the reader deserves to know what's going on in the film, so reviewers should be required to mention certain key things involved in the three aspects. 

from Aidan's blog:

we should be given creative freedom to the assignment. There shouldn't be a structure, because the structure will come naturally to the nature of the review, and the person's connections with the film.This would make the assignment more understanding and important to the writer. It would also be much more fun to write, and I'm sure there wouldn't be as many students doing it last minute in the library and turning it in a minute after they finished it.

from Brianna's blog:

 I think we should have a lot of freedom when writing our quarterly movie reviews because different films call for different amounts of attention to the three aspects, and making everyone follow one structure detracts from the quality, diversity and honesty of the reviews. As long as some basic criteria is met, we should be able to review the film as we see fit.

from Vu's blog:

We should be left to choose which of the three (or combination of them) that we wish to talk about in our reviews after establishing what the movie is about.

from Song-Binh's blog:

In our quarterly movie reviews, we should have a general structure that isn't too specific. The main requirement should be to mention all of the three aspects of film.

from Andrea's blog:

For our quarterly movie review, I think that we should only have a basic structure to follow, allowing some freedom as far as organization goes. We could just be required to discuss the three aspects of film, giving us the chance to decide what to write about based on what we find important during the film. I also don't think that the reviews should be too long, as most movie goers want a short, concise review to read, not an essay. 

from Leah's blog:

We could also find a way to come up with a creative aspect of it, like writing the review in the form of a news report or creating a commercial for the film, but still include the three aspects. Some reviews could just be in paragraph form, but I think giving students the option to do their own thing with it would make it a lot more fun.

Good idea Leah. Maybe students could do an NPR style movie review. Or, something similar to the video movie reviews The New York Times is doing. This is definitely something we should explore.

from Emily's blog:

Last year, our reviews had very specific guidelines that didn't give us a chance to demonstrate how we felt about the movie. Because of this, the review should not be so structured this year. We should be able to chose what aspects of the film we would like to focus on, although there should at least be a minimum or maximum length so people don't do too much or too little.
 

Movie Review Criteria