All Posts By

Josh Matthews

Video Reviews

Parasite — A Quick Video Review

https://youtu.be/cQfOfP0mEZU Is "Parasite" as good as everybody says? It's got a Best Picture nomination at the 2020 Oscars, it was the unanimous winner of the 2019 Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and it has an amazing 99% on rottentomatoes.com. No, it's not that…
mm
January 30, 2020
Video Essays

Joker (2019) — A Quick Movie Analysis

https://youtu.be/-XfEvOYss1U Why did Joker receive so many Oscar nominations in 2020? I find it ironic that it did, given the grab-bag, kitchen-sink way that the movie describes why Arthur Fleck turned into the Joker. The movie makes appeals to conservatives, liberals, and everybody else. This…
mm
January 28, 2020
Video Essays

Die Hard, Political Messages, and Character Types

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX_ccG4-4J8&feature=youtu.be Using the 1988 movie "Die Hard," I'll show you how to watch movies like a pro. One way is to notice and interpret the obvious character types. What's a character type? A clear identity marker that shows what group a character belongs to. In…
mm
January 27, 2020
movie educationVideo Essays

Character Positioning in Movies, Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8janO4DUe0&feature=youtu.be In this video, I'll show you how massively significant it is how characters are turned toward you or away from you. These character turns create emotions, in you and on behalf of the characters. Essentially, how you position a character on the screen--turned toward…
mm
January 16, 2020
Video Essays

What Makes This Movie Great? — Decalogue 10

The final film of Kieslowski's Decalogue series, Decalogue 10 is the funniest entry. It's about two Polish brothers who get inadvertently involved in the world of stamp collecting. The movie showcases various problems centered on the tenth commandment, "thou shalt not covet thy neighbors' goods."…
mm
January 14, 2020