Media Literacy Topic 3-Part A

It's not hard to identify movies that I love:

• The Dark Knight, 
• Pride and Prejudice, 
• Hot Fuzz, 
• We Bought a Zoo, the list goes on. 

These movies have a number of things in common: great cinematography, excellent editing, great music, good acting, and good writing.

As for movies that I dislike, that's pretty easy.

• Anything 'comedic' staring Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, or Steve Carell 

Not only do they have these actors in them, but the humor is crude and unattractive to me, and the plots usually have no depth.

 There are a few very unspecific things I look for in a movie:

• Good writing (is the plot deep?)
• Good editing
• Good acting
• Amazing cinematography 
• And, if the previews can make me laugh or give me chills, which usually is because any one of the characteristics listed above.

Qualities that usually make me avoid the movie...basically the other half of what I listed above; bad writing, bad editing, bad acting, crappy camera work. And anything with Steve Carell.

I use many mediums regularly, but the one that probably influences me the most is the online New York Times. This is kind of funny, because at least as far as their opinion pages go, they are as far from my point of views as possible. I've also gotten good at identifying 'biased' wording within their normal articles...but I read it because the New York Times is not only one of the first reporting companies to get up-to-date news out, but because I just like reading their writing. Not all of their writers are brilliant, but on the whole, better than I've experienced with other news sources. As far as specific biases, like I said before, their opinion pages are pretty liberal most of the time, and that doesn't normally jive with me. Anything having to do with Obama is almost TOO upbeat, and quick to separate him from the rest of the government (in a positive light). Like I said, this isn't really coherent with my own biases. I do like their movie reviews (my husband and I tend to be movie snobs, and the NYT reviewers can be too). I probably like these reviews (and that of books as well) because they tend to enjoy high brow entertainment, nothing too crude or unintelligent.