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Lars and the Real Girl

Sometimes you find love where you’d least expect it. Just ask Lars, a sweet but quirky guy who thinks he’s found the girl of his dreams in a life-sized doll named Bianca.

Virtual Reality in The Hunger Games

Introduction: briefly outline the Virtual Reality elements of the film, e.g. the beasts, the fire, and the deaths displayed in the sky. Address them all together, but:

Surveillance and the Search in The Hunger Games

Disclaimer: I approach this essay as someone who has not read the books and who has only watched the Hunger Games Part 1.

District 9 (Cert. 15)

A camp in Johannesburg full of immigrants is due to be cleared as the inhabitants are to be relocated to the outskirts. Armed groups are preparing to clear the area of this impoverished community, a community of aliens.

'Her' and Artificial Intelligence

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‘Her’ presents us with a near-future world in which the way we interact with computers has moved on. In this world, we are beyond the era of the mouse and keyboard. Instead, the voice is the primary controller of technology, mid-air gestures are the norm for controlling games and touch is almost an afterthought, used only on occasion. This presents a more natural world than the one we currently inhabit. Many of us spend our days hunched over a keyboard, and our evenings fondling a tablet, which does not seem to be a natural environment for us.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

‘Locked-in syndrome: paralysed from head to toe, the patient, his mind intact, is imprisoned inside his own body, unable to speak or move.

The Hunger Games

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the Capitol of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games.

Burgers, Baileys and Pugs in Denim Jackets: The Role of Social Isolation in “Her”

When you first heard the storyline for “Her”, you might have thought, “A guy falling in love with his OS sounds quite weird. I did have that teenage phase where I thought social interaction was too much effort and spent 12 hours a day playing World of Warcraft, but I don’t think I’d ever have taken it that far”. Hence, part of the success of this film rests on how believable or understandable the story is to us, the audience.

Music and emotional manipulation at the movies

The use of music in films is the secret weapon that producers use to manipulate our emotions and shape our responses to the story. The same footage may appear romantic, sad or even sinister through the choice of music and within these broad confines, more subtle gradations of emotion can also be engendered. A little personal reflection will confirm that a piece of music can change how we feel within seconds which is quite remarkable for a stimulus which is not found in the natural world.

Her

In the not so distant future Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), a lonely writer purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user’s every needs. To Theodore’s surprise, a romantic relationship develops