Rachel's Media Criticism Blog Posts

       In this new age of Disney films, the main event seems to be live action remakes of Disney renaissance films such as The Jungle Book, Lion King and Cinderella. One of the most popular remakes of the Disney renaissance movies would be the Beauty and the Beast remake, featuring Emma Watson as Belle. In a review made on theatlantic.com, David Sims dives deep into how this “Tale as old as time” was told worse . The story of transformative love, and learning to see someone’s inner beauty is a tailor-made Disney movie at heart. The 1991 original film is one of Disney’s greatest animated works. But in the 2017 edition of Beauty and the Beast to Sims “feels particularly egregious, in part, because it’s so slavishly devoted to the original; every time it falls short of its predecessor (which is quite often), it’s hard not to notice” (Sims,1).      Sims mentions the added time to the remake due to extra songs which execute a little more of a back story to...

  After much discussion over the controversial Netflix film “Cuties,” the movie has been on the top ten watched today list on Netflix for the past week or two. This, bringing in many viewer reviews in regards to the film. On the IMDB page for the movie , the audience reviews seem very similar and universal, but at the same time there are also some that may differ from others. While most of the movie’s reviews seem normative by saying how disturbing and uncomfortable it was to watch the movie, the majority of those normative views were linked to empirical observations made rather than being primarily ungrounded. For example, in one of the reviews the user decided to not focus on the obvious fact about how the young girls in this movie were oversexualized, rather than how the plot was there but was not complete. He addresses almost all the plot holes, camera angles and moral of the story. Another user makes a similar review, although being short and to the point, it addresses the ...

  `Within the past week, there has been a recent uproar on social media in regards to “Cuties,” which is a french film surrounding the lives of 11 year old girls, friendship, and the social pressure of social media on young girls. In an article on The Washington Post , Monica Hesse addresses that the movie isn’t what it really seems to those who have been starting the hashtag, #boycottNetflix. The movie does include very uncomfortable scenes such as dancing and sharing intimate photos of young 11 year old girls that may seem very wrong to those who have actually not viewed the movie. In Hesse’s critique, she states the movie as “ one of the more compelling movies you’ve likely seen in months. Funny and deeply uncomfortable, sweet and sometimes sad,” which may seem normal to the traditions and experiences of the audiences on Netflix. But in this case, it seems different due to the allegations against Netflix online although these reactions were not the intentions of director Ma...

  Super Bowl halftime shows have made their claim to fame in American media after Michael Jackson’s groundbreaking performance in 1993. In an article on highsnobiety.com , writer Jake Indiana, critiques Super Bowl halftime shows throughout the years from worst to best.  Indiana’s honesty and sincerity within his critique often starts with the stereotype and purpose of the Super Bowl halftime show in general, which is to create a show of a lifetime for both performers and the audience in general. A good example of this would be the worst ranking on the list which would be the performance of Phil Collins, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, and Toni Braxton. Rather than playing their own hits, Indiana describes this Super Bowl performance as “Disney produced.” This also plays into the writing and production of this particular performance, because artists Phil Collins and Christina Aguilera both have history recording songs for Disney. Jake Indiana also mentions the importanc...

  There are movies such as Halloweentown, Hocus Pocus, and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown that are timeless classics for the fall for children and families to watch.Although there are timeless classics, there are movie goers who are looking for a new timeless classic.One of the newer movies that seem to be hit among families is the Disney Pixar hit movie, Coco . I n a video critique made by youtuber, Chris Stuckman, he talks about the plot of the movie, and how similar it is to a movie made by Universal Studios, called The Book of Life . Stuckman mentions how although Coco is a great movie done well by Disney Pixar, the overall theme of the movie is fairly similar to The Book of Life , which was released a few years prior to Coco . He also brings up the differences between the two movies in cultural context, animation, and how the plot unfolds.  When thinking about this criticism in comparison to Orlik’s definition of media criticism, I believe this particular critiqu...