Saw I, II, & III: Genre outlook

All three of the Saw movies should be placed in the psychological horror. A "psychological horror" is a subgenre of horror fiction that basically gets into the movie goers minds. Wikepedia says, "Psychological horror relies on character fears, guilt, beliefs, and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot." This subgenre use gore, and a normal human being rather an ugly monster to do the horrifying.
In the Saw movies we see an older man who gets into the minds of various people, making them in the end kill themselves. These people don't know until they are in a specific predicament that they are playing a game within a game, in which will determine their destiny.
In the third Saw, "Dr. Lynn is told that she must keep the madman alive for as long as it takes Jeff, another of his victims, to complete a game of his own. Racing against the ticking clock of Jigsaw's own heartbeat, Lynn and Jeff struggle to make it through each of their vicious tests, unaware that Jigsaw and Amanda have a much bigger plan for both of them.
Saw is brilliant and I can concur that this fits well into the horror, subgenre, as a psychological horror.

Zhang Yimou: House of Flying Daggers

Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers was the second major film he directed after Hero. The film has some concepts similar to those in Hero. Zhang Yimous uses a common theme of everday people becoming great heroes. Both films speak about a rebel/rebellion against the emperor. Another major theme within each of the films is the idea that love always prevails.

In the film two policemen decide to infiltrate the "House of Flying Daggers" in order to weed out there new master. Jin takes Mei into the forest in order to help her find the House of Flying Daggers. Along the way they are attacked by Jin's own police guards in order to confuse Mei. In the end they discover many things about each other and eventually the two policemen fight for Mei's love.

The link is only a Wikipedia article. It talks about major themes in the film along with aspects of genre. The plot of the film and information about Zhang Yimou is also explained.

Postwar Samurai Films of Japan

Allen White, screenwriter and film journalist for GreenCine, writes in this article about the Samurai film immediately post World War II, when the genre most prominently developed. The article is a mix of consideration of Japan in that period and how it dealt with film making, as well as an exploration into this somewhat obscure genre. The article focuses on the particular era between the beginning of MacArthur's occupation of Japan through 1970 and hence includes mention of Rashomon and Seven Samurai, but it can also be used to understand post 1970 Japanese films as just an analysis and context on the genre itself.

The Mafia Genre

The Mafia genre can be seen in many movies today, but one of the greatest movies in this genre is The Godfather. In this article written by Murray N. Rothbard, he discusses this genre and the difference between The Godfather and Goodfellas. The success of the Mafia genre can be seen by the "realization and dramatic portrayal of the fact that the Mafia, although leading a life outside the law, is, at its best, simply entrepreneurs and businessmen supplying the consumers with goods and services." Rothbard states that the violence depicted in The Godfather should not be taken the wrong way because it is "productive and non-aggressive," while unorganized crime is "punkish and viciously aggressive against the innocent." He also talks about the difference between The Godfather and Goodfellas. Rothbard mentions that The Godfather stays true to its genre because Goodfellas has many contrasting aspects, such as the punkish crime and random violence, which is not true to the ideals of a Mafia. The Godfather depicts its genre of family and Mafia excellently, but still many people fail to realize the true meaning and portrayal of the film.

Science Fiction

In J.P. Telotte's book called Science Fiction Film, it discusses the basic foundation of the science fiction genre. It makes a sort of connection to the science fiction genre and real life science. Telotte quotes legendary pulp editor John W. Campbell Jr. by saying " science fiction should be the effort to predict the future on the basis of known facts." Telotte also adds "science fiction often seems to appeal precisely because it lends itself to the greatest imaginative capacities of the film medium: special effects." This is a useful peice of writing that can help clarify one's understanding of the science fiction genre.

Science Fiction Genre

This site explains what the genre science fiction is. This site says that science fiction are

complete with heroes, distant planets, impossible quests, improbable settings, fantastic places, great dark and shadowy villains, futuristic technology and gizmos, and unknown and inexplicable forces.

The site is pretty good with explaining the genre since it goes on to explain it through examples of movies, and it lists a tons of movies. Each time a movie is listed, an explanation is followed where it explains what made the movie science fiction.

Whaddya Look at? Re-reading the gangster genre

This movie is talking about the "Godfather" but I think it is relevent since my movie Pulp Fiction is also a gangster crime drama. The article goes character by character of the Sopranos and sees how it all fits in the crime gangster genre that, in this case, Godfather belongs in. The article is written by Martha Nochimson who studies the gangster genre in Hollywood. The article is linked from the JSTOR database available through the UIC library.

The following quote from the beginning of the article very nicely tries to sum up the gangster genre:
"Perceived as hypermasculine fare, the gangster picture is generally understood to be popular because of its explosive virility and its close connection to reality. Yet despite these entrenched truisms, hindsight and the progeny that have been spawned by the early masterpieces of the genre suggest that the situation is more complex."

The Lady From Shanghai

Everyone knows the genre of horror, action, drama, romance, and comedy. Many people, though, do not know the genre of film noir. Film noir was very popular in the past, but not seen so much today.

The movie The Lady From Shanghai, is an example of film noir, starring and directed by Orson Welles.

The Lady from Shanghai is adroitly punctuated by many of the genre’s conventions, and viewers will be hard pressed to find a more impressive and thorough film noir.

This article really analyzes how this movies fits into the genre of film noir. Usually a film noir has a leading character that is usually a female called the femme fatale. Most are in black and white and usually have a voice over narration by the main protagonist who usually is a detective.

COMEDY FILMS

Roberto Benigni's film, Life is Beautiful, not only serves as a historical-type genre, it is also a comedy. I chose to provide a link to a website that discusses and deconstructs the genre because it provides the reader with excellent information on a critically over-looked genre.

Tim Dirk's website, www.filmsite.org, provides an explanation of a famous genre called "comedy." It defines the genre of film comedy as "make 'em laugh" films designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are light-hearted dramas, crafted to amuse, entertain, and provoke enjoyment." Like many genres, comedy possesses many forms. A few of these forms include: slapstick, dead pan, and verbal comedy. This site provides an extensive list of the different forms of comedy present in the comedy genre. Filmsite.org not only defines the many types of forms, it also provides an example of each. Here is an example from the site:

Black or Dark Comedy:

These are dark, sarcastic, humorous, or sardonic stories that help us examine otherwise ignored darker serious, pessimistic subjects such as war, death, or illness. Dr. Strangelove serves as an example of this type of comedy.

For more information on the comedy genre and its many forms, click on the link. Enjoy the laughs!

Sci-Fi Films

Science fiction (Sci-fi) films are those in which are, of course, scientific and portray advanced technology/gadgets (robots i.e.), great imagination, etc. In these films we may see things like flying cars, cloning, futuristic events, just the impossible (or at least for now). The Terminator 2 ties into this genre, because of the visuals of robots and cloning. In T2 we see the Terminator become the clone of anyone he comes into contact with. Other great examples, of this genre includes Blade Runner, Frankenstein, and Star Wars.