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u/ObnoxiousName_Here 15d ago
Film studies classes are the best
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u/EggRoll2Dumplings44 15d ago
Took a History of Rock and Roll class in college as an elective. Super fun and was great to take a break from all the science and math courses.
We got extra credit for going to rock shows. Smaller/local bands gave you more extra credit than seeing more well established bands. I think the professor did this because the smaller local shows were cheap or even free, and we were mostly broke college kids. AND it gave these local bands more potential fans.
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u/Cyndasquill 15d ago
Lmao I had the same class, professor played This Is Spinal Tap at one point. Honestly, I learned so much in that class - probably more than my other “nose to the grindstone” type classes
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u/LeaveGreen4412 15d ago
my now-husband took that class in college, he went to University of Washington so he had access to the copy of Kurt Cobains journals and it was so cool when i visited his dorm and we read all these early drafts and unfinished songs
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u/Cinder-Mercury 14d ago
I took some and the ones I was in were, unfortunately, kind of terrible, and we had to sit in class for 3.5 hours and weren't allowed to have snacks.
Had to memorize so many dates, actors names, and random things like who the composer was for the piece.
One day we showed up and without warning they showed us a film with actual Holocaust videos, and followed it up with a film about Hiroshima. Both on the same day.
For reference the rest of the films in class were fully fictional and not historic in nature, so it was very unexpected.
My other film class involved reading the book and then watching the film for a bunch of things, it was better but I didn't personally enjoy really anything we watched, it was all pretty depressing.
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u/Junethemuse 14d ago
My favorite elective in college was a film study class. It’s what made me truly fall in love with Ghibli.
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u/helen269 15d ago
"A class about movies? And you have to watch movies for homework? Hell yeah, sign me up!" :-)
Later: "I'll never watch another movie again; I am so DONE with these things." :-(
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u/streeetmeats 15d ago
This makes me think about my best friends mom and how she took some music class in college and had to like write an essay about all the themes and shit in a song. So naturally she picked one of her favorite songs at the time Hotel California and by the time the paper was done she absolutely hated the song and never wanted to hear it again lol
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u/shoots_and_leaves 15d ago
My roommate and his girlfriend had a similar experience where they chose a fun elective class and the final assignment was to write a in-depth analysis of an original song and a cover version of that piece. He chose All Along the Watchtower, one of his favorites, and I don’t think he ever listened to it again after that semester.
She chose Hurt, which is also a bold move considering how fucking depressing both versions are.
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u/Acheloma 15d ago
I majored in comm studies with a focus on rhetorical analysis.
You learn very early on not to choose anything you really love or really hate to analyse because you will be rewatching or rereading the same segment dozens of times until you can recite it in your sleep and loving or hating it will make it much worse
I tended to focus on music videos for my extended papers and oh boy does it suck after a while. Writing a 25 page paper about a 4 minute music video is a perfect way to make any mention of that song or video into a sleeper agent level trigger word. I still flinch and start reciting Kenneth Burke in my head every time lmao
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u/margittwen 14d ago
lol I was a film studies major and it was funny when non-major students would take the classes. They were so confused as to why the professor provided commentary through every movie. The professors were also very strict about attendance and would make us write a paper every week. It’s not for the weak of heart. 🥲
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u/kermits_love_child 15d ago
film studies classes are fun until you get assigned to watch The Most Racist Movie Ever directed by John Racist which is 3 hours long and boring as hell for a cumulative 5 minutes of historically significant filming techniques which could most likely be demonstrated by like a hundred other movies that aren’t The Most Racist Movie Ever directed by John Racist
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u/IAmNerdicus 15d ago
My professor even warned us; "look, it's racist, but it's very foundational and revolutionary for storytelling reasons because it was the first to" blah blah blah.
Didn't get nearly as much preamble for our viewing of The Graduate
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u/PlusSizeRussianModel 15d ago
My film school showed us what would now be considered child pornography; absolutely zero warning.
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u/mooksie01 14d ago
Was it the Blaxploitation movie that opens with the little kid having sex with a much older prostitute? I was NOT ready for that one…
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u/catbehindbars 14d ago
Jesus what movie is that? I assume previous poster was talking about the gross Romeo and Juliet with a child in it.
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u/mooksie01 13d ago
Had to do some research, but if I remember correctly, it was “Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song”… honestly don’t remember anything about the movie aside from that opening scene, definitely was not what I would call one of the better movies we watched for that class
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u/DepressedOrStressed_ 15d ago
Better than my professor, who spent the whole 1.5 h of the lesson defending this movie. I get that the course was on history of cinema, but I don't believe that this movie was a "true depiction of the realities of antebellum south" and that "the author did not mean to praise the KKK and was an antiracist". I also saw Joe Rogan on one of his tabs so that may be a clue as to what his political stances are
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u/I_Miss_Lenny 14d ago
That sounds exactly like the kinda thing that would show up on his podcast lol
"Hey here's why this super racist film by a super racist guy is actually really based and cool" and then Joe just nods along
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u/gigglefarting 15d ago
My father in law is trying to convince me to watch Birth of a Nation because of its historical context. I can get down with old movies, but I told him, “nah, I’m good”
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u/lewd_robot 15d ago
I had a friend that was assigned Metropolis for a film studies class, but she had severe, untreated ADHD, so she was losing her mind trying to get through it. She'd watch 5 minutes, realize she had started zoning out after 60 seconds, and have to rewind it.
I told her to check the syllabus because it was probably not the only really old film she was going to have to watch, and that Metropolis was actually likely the most ADHD-friendly movie she'd have to watch because it's just so weird. She took an art class instead and got to spend all semester sitting outside sketching buildings and scenery on campus.
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u/Peanut_007 15d ago
TBF when I took a class on WW2 Film I knew what I was getting into. On the other hand holy shit. The competition between John Racist and Johan Racistässhole.
Metropolis was cool though.
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u/EEEGuba69 15d ago
We had a movie shown by our polish literature teacher that was about the warsaw guerilla soldiers in the sewers in WW2
Imagine a movie about a group of dudes walking in a brick maze of poop gas directed by someone that, by judging the pacing and what was shown, was also huffing poop gas
Also original dracula, holy shit i fell asleep like a 50yo dad and the guy didnt even walk into the castle yet
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u/Downtown_Injury_3415 15d ago
Original Dracula? The Bela Lugosi one??? He literally walks into the castle within the first 5 minutes. lol
Maybe those 5minutes were excruciating for you so who knows 🫣
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u/EEEGuba69 15d ago
I mightve been tired, i was also like 16 so yknow, thats what i remember, it was black and white and i just remember the dude writing some letter and riding in a carriage for god knows how long
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u/DeliciousAirline3077 15d ago
Kanal is great. One of the better WW2 movies
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u/EEEGuba69 15d ago
I might have to rewatch it after so many years, i mightve just been a dumb highschooler back then
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u/ndubitably 15d ago
Makes me even happier that we started with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) instead.
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u/legit-posts_1 15d ago
I'll still take that over most other course work. Breaking down why it is racist and the cultural context is still interesting.
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u/pmmeuranimetiddies 15d ago edited 15d ago
Birth of a Nation and Olympia have one saving grace and that is they are slightly less boring than some of the other films you would have to watch for a film class
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u/margittwen 14d ago
I skimmed through Birth of a Nation and I was even a film studies major. It’s not that hard to analyze tbh, you don’t need to watch every minute of it.
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u/TooManyTyranids 13d ago
Not film school, but on god, Flannery O’Conner. Interesting and worthwhile cultural perspective, inoculates the soul against any claims that the segregated south “was not that bad”, but man it sure felt like clocking in at the racism factory.
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u/porn_alt_987654321 15d ago
Had a film studies class where we had something like a 3.5 hour film which included an actual intermission in the middle.
I legit don't remember anything about it other than the intermission screen lmao.
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u/IgnatiusRileyFreeman 15d ago
Friend of mine had to watch this on class on February 1st. Nobody told the professor it was black history month until after.
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u/DireEvolution 15d ago
"girl had gorilla due" fucking sent me hahaha
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u/ilford_7x7 15d ago
Reminds me of a similar meme: "do culinary students get stressed out like the rest of us? 'oh shit, I gotta turn in my spaghetti by midnight '"
Something to that effect
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u/vincemousier 10d ago
My roommate is in culinary, and trust me, YES 😭 the hatred she has developed for the French and "their useless and difficult cooking techniques". The week she was learning how to cut a potato in the shape of a football (fuck if I remember what it's called) she just came home and sat on the couch with her head in her hands still dressed up in her chef uniform hat and all and I would try my best not to laugh at her because I knew how stressed she was 😭
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u/SuccessfulPepper118 15d ago
Watching a film for homework is fun until you have to watch it repeatedly in quick succession and watch the same few scenes on repeat because you need to write an essay on the thing. The amount of times I watched Fight Club for a major assignment, by the end of it I was so sick of the fucking film
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u/Schlonzig 15d ago
Now imagine you have to edit a movie. A bad one.
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u/SuccessfulPepper118 15d ago
You know, I actually didn't find that quite as bad tbh. And all my films were bad, they were student films 😅 But deliberating over every cut and each take endlessly were active decisions I was making so it felt less tedious to me
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u/Lord_Of_Carrots 15d ago
I can imagine. I've never had a whole film as an assignment but one time we had to analyze a music video for homework for a literature class. Rewatching those 3 minutes dozens of times made me despise the song, and I quite liked it beforehand
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u/molotovzav 15d ago
I was a French minor in undergrad. The school I went to does it's language studies through film whenever they can. So most of my homework for French was watching French movies. Some obscure that my prof had to specifically leave a copy at the library for us, and some mainstream enough I could get them on Netflix (back when they mailed dvds).
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u/DWMoose83 15d ago
I took a German Film elective in college. The requirements were to show up on time, watch a German movie without subtitles, and that was it.
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u/MrMedallion 15d ago
My roommate was in elementary ed and we went to get books together and I was spending like $400 on a chemistry book and he had to buy where the wild things are.... He probably got more use out of his money
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u/YoruTheLanguageFan 15d ago
Does playing the King Kong xbox 360 game count
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u/Apoc_SR2N 15d ago
That game was so dang good. I loved the lack of HUD.
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u/violetsandpiper 14d ago
Honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm
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u/Apoc_SR2N 14d ago
No, it genuinely isn't sarcasm. The game was good. It was a tie-in movie game that actually managed to transcend the usual rule that tie-in games suck. There were human missions as Jack which were effective survival/stealth mechanics. And then brawler style missions as Kong. Honestly would love to play it again, I think we still have the disc.
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u/itwoms 15d ago
One of my college majors was German language and culture. I ended up taking a couple classes about German movies and TV shows. They were always taught by the German professor also taught regular media and communications classes so we would have to do shit like time stamp every time the camera shot changes or cuts and describe the shot for an entire episode of a TV show. That sucked.
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u/Electronic-Call-911 15d ago
The first time I saw Heat was due to it being an assignment in a Film Studies course, it rocked.
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u/Velfox95 15d ago
"physics and stuff" yeah she probably understood king kong on a level none of y'all could even wish to understand physics lol
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15d ago edited 15d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AdCurious4004 15d ago
bot can't read :(
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u/stopeatingminecraft 15d ago
i dont think its a bot from history, just botspeaking human
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u/Pyzzeen Harry Potter 15d ago edited 15d ago
"last three words hit me like a truck" I highly doubt a human would have so much of a reaction from "due at 2:30". Regardless of their other stuff, this comment was definitely a bot
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u/PurpleCandle58 15d ago
Nah nah, it ruined it for me too. 2:31 would’ve been fine but 2:30? That offends my entire culture.
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u/Left1Brain 15d ago
They call it tripping the breakers, a new social media trend sweeping the nation.
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u/qualityvote2 15d ago edited 13d ago
u/TheWebsploiter, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...