First day and initial thoughts

We had our first class today. It was good to meet you all - even if it felt a bit cramped.

As we waited for everyone to arrive, I asked everyone to nominate three films which they felt everyone should watch. The result was an eclectic bunch of the good, the bad and the ugly of cinema. And here they are:

1. Highlander
2. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
3. Snatch
4. Silent Hill
5. The Hangover
6. Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
7. Love Actually
8. EIF (?)
9. Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
10. The Night of the Hunter
11. Hannah Montana the Movie
12. The Wedding Singer
13. The Lord of the Rings
14. Tropic Thunder
15. Moon
16. The Third Man
17. Shrek
18. Martyrs
19. Brazil
20. Pulp Fiction
21. Role Models
22. In the Loop
23. The Conversation
24. Plan 9 from Outer Space
25. Trainspotting
26. Cabin Fever
27. Reservoir Dogs
28. Apocalypse Now
29. Schindler's List
30. Rush Hour 3
31. 17 Again
32. Anchorman
33. Dead Man’s Shoes
34. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
35. Marley and Me
36. In the valley of Elah
37. No country for old men
38. Into the wild
39. Scream
40. Idiocracy
41. Napoleon Dynamite
42. Saving Private Ryan
43. Labyrinth
44. The Godfather
45. Mamma Mia
46. The Lion King
47. Indiana Jones
48. The Life of Brian
49. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
50. Wedding Crashers
51. Superbad
52. Monty Python and the Flying Circus
53. The Shawshank Redemption


Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting were the most popular films. Use this list to expand your own cinematic horizons. Just for fun, I threw in a few films as well.

If you'd like to investigate these more, you can look them up on a film resource site like http://www.imdb.com/

After this we did a script-development exercise. This was a bit of fun and it was interesting to see how group discussions developed characters and relationships. There's obviously a lot of creative energy in the class. If you enjoyed this activity, why not get together with some class mates and develop ideas, characters, stories for future projects.

Finally, I asked everyone to write a short summary and evaluation of one of the films they recommended. The ability to express your knowledge and feelings about a film (or any text) is a fundamental skill which we will focus in this course. We will work on your oral and written communication skills.

Again, great to meet you all - you seem like a decent bunch. Hopefully, we'll all learn something (and have a laugh or two) over the next couple of months.