Romantic and Cinematic Comedies: Pixar Lost is Way The Atlantic Daily
Common Place Book
By the second week of class, you will need to purchase a notebook that you will bring to class every day and use consistently inside and outside of class to take notes on your reading and research.
A commonplace book was commonly kept in centuries past to serve as a record of readings, inspiration, and ideas. Commonplace books included excerpts from what people read to help them remember and consider what they encountered and inspire them to think and live more deeply. This class adopts the commonplace book both in order to press us to read and think and consider what we encounter on a daily basis (music, tv, movies, internet readings, books—anything we encounter in our world and “read.”)
In order to prepare for each class, you should record/transcribe important passages from the reading into your commonplace book and write out notes and questions for class discussion. This is the bare minimum required for the commonplace book.
Commonplace books are at their most exciting when they contain additional elements: drawings, charts, daily logs, cut-and-pasted items, etc. I encourage you to develop a close relationship with your commonplace book, keeping it with you all the time, using it as you read assigned texts, decorating and developing it as way of creating a memento of your reading experiences as well as a record of your intellectual development in the class.
I will collect your commonplace books at the end of the semester for grading. In order to receive a “C,” you'll need to ensure that there is one substantial entry (at least 1 stuffed page for a large notebook; 2 pages for a small one) for every week of the semester, beginning with week 2 and ending with week 14. It is useful for grading for you to ensure that all of your entries are dated and titled. From there, your grade can only go up; commonplace books that receive a grade of “A” are creative works of art and thinking that show concerted and consistent ongoing effort.
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Commonplace Book
Week1: Romantic and Cinematic Comedies
Orr, C. (2017). Pixar Lost is Way. The Atlantic Daily
Orr gives an account of the loss of romantic comedy through a discussion of Pixar. Ed Catmull created Pixar, the bestselling book in 2014 under business leadership. The 15 year undisputed run of commercial creative excellence came to an end. The excellence commenced with the introduction of Toy Story in 1995 with a climax of the Wall-e of 2008 as well as Toy Story 3 of 2010. However, people could not stay in the cold with no entertainment hence other animation studio provided better films such as Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings by Laika from the stop-motion magicians. However, Pixar was still the champion of the 3-D-animated feature films especially the Toy Story, Monsters as well as Finding Nemo.
Pixar found its audience among the parents and children who fostered the parent-children relations, especially from the Toy Story. As Michael Eisner the CEO of Disney puts it, “Who would want to see a movie about a little boy who plays with dolls?” Toy Story, however, gives the opposite as dolls who want to be played with my little boy.
Most parents are thrilled by the emotional power in the Pixar stories. One could easily notice the attention of 6-year-old Andy, the toys, and Buzz spaceman. The eagerness of the child to capture the attention of the parent is clear with the roles of grownups. Woody and Buzz become the parents of Andy as well as parents to Andy’s child. Therefore, their responsibilities are clear to the extreme measures.
Orr, C. (2013). Why Are Romantic Comedies So Bad? The long decline from Katharine Hepburn to Katherine Heigl. The Atlantic.
Orr notes that the loss of romantic comedy is brought about by the increasing obstacles that the comedians have to overcome. In the old times, the romantic comedies focused on the obstacles such as parental disapproval, differences in the social class, and promises to reveal aspects of love. However, the current society struggled to remove the different impediments to love and marriages revealing the reality and true minds. The romantic comedies seem not to modernize the obsolete dilemma in love and romance. Besides, the modernization aspect regarding social constraints that romantic comedy fails to change is the premarital sex aspect. The old comedies usually applied the carnal knowledge of happy endings at the last parts. However, changes are seen especially where endpoints and happy moments come at the beginning. Orr says, “In 2005’s A Lot Like Love—a dull, joyless rip-off of When Harry Met Sally—Amanda Peet and Ashton Kutcher meet cute by having sex in an airplane lavatory before they’ve spoken a single word to each other. Where’s a film to go when the ‘happy ending’ takes place at the beginning?”
Willmore, A. (2017).The Trouble with Disney’s Remake Machine. Buzz Feed
The Beauty and the Beast reveal the saddest love song in 1991. Though the animated movie embraces the depth of emotions, the settings give it absurd flow which needs a remake in 2017 with a change in setting, dialogue, visual beats and eerily among others.
Beauty and the Beast by Mouse House give the most recent live action with its zealousness, and god branding gives the future events in a way that they form part of the past events. The movie gives new inspiration of love with extra back to the back story for the main character that gives a long runtime.
The drumbeat gives the movie feminist aspect with characters such as Watson’s Belle avails the washing machine anticipating the good reaction of the community. However, the opposite happened as the machine takes much of the fountain. However, the event of love that a woman portrays towards a beast who imprisons her gives the feminist aspect which does not give the reality as cinematic romantic would do.
Barber, N. (2014). Is the romantic comedy over? BBC.
The Sundance Festival in 1994 reveals the four weddings and a funeral by Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley. The era gives the romance and fun after the sleepless times in Seattle and the time Harry Met Sally. However, two decades have gone without rom-com.
The romantic comedy changes with time and cycle. Most of the actors change to drama due to the reduction of the niche and age of the characters. "If I had to choose my favorite romantic comedies of the past 20 years, I suppose I would list Something's Gotta Give, As Good as It Gets, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," Dr. Stacy Abbott says, "…I would also say that genres always go in cycles. The 1990s and early 2000s were an outstanding period for romantic comedies, but Hollywood is having great success with different forms of comedy now." Here, Dr. Stacy gives a clue on the change in the comic with time amidst challenges of remaining relevant to appeal to age and gender of the audience.
Sometimes an aspect of transformation is good to ensure that actor achieves their role of entertaining the audience. Therefore, reforming romantic comedies focusing on the golden oldies would save the situation as transformation is essential to capture the current trends of both old films and romantic comedy. For example, the emergence of ‘Bromance’ embraces the growth of rom-coms with old actors giving love films second thought.
Hulis, A. (2014). The Romantic Comedy Is Dying, but Cinematic Romance Is Thriving. The Atlantic.
Well, it is no doubt that the romantic comedy ends while cinematic romance thrives at the present age. However, some audiences are still in love with the romantic comedy. Films such as The Spectacular and Enough Said offer solution to a mixed audience.
The features of romantic comedy such as love stories in comedic situations coupled with amusing characters and happy-ever-afters currently do not much the expectations of the audiences. Therefore, cinematic romance comes with human portrayals of love, fewer laughs, and happiness. Thus, films such as Enough Said, The Spectacular Now, Before Midnight and The Broken Circle Breakdown suit the current audiences. The films give reality and genuineness with sincerity. Hence, the films meet the euphoria intoxication of falling in love. The relevancy of cinematic romance is the aspect of truth that speaks volumes about the reality in the eye of the audience. The romantic comedy on the other side could not break or sacrifice the nuance and complexities in love hence remained fantasies instead of a mirror. For example, The Spectacular Now gives the reality on the awkward fumbles of first-time sex; Enough Said gives the intimacy of goofing in the bed while Before Midnight gives t...