Brief Screen Report

In chapter 13 of the movie Easy A, Olive’s mother enters and hands her a gift from Brandon, who she pretended to have sex with the night before at Melanie Bostix’s party. She had told him that if he pretended to be straight he would be accepted by their peers. Inside the gift box she finds a vibrator and a gift card to Target along with a card saying, “in case you don’t like Target you can go screw yourself.” Rhiannon, Olive’s best friend calls to verify the previous night’s events and tells Olive that “everyone and I mean everyone, thinks she is a skank.” Outraged Olive says, “If people thought I was a dirty skank, fine, I was going to be the dirtiest skank they’ve ever seen” and goes out to buy red fabric and skimpy clothing that are two sizes too small. She stays up in her room cutting out and sewing red A’s onto her entire wardrobe as reference to The Scarlet Letter, which is a book that Olive is reading in her English class.

I feel this is a very important seen because this scene sets the audience up for the rest of the movie. The rest of the movie unfolds with Olive receiving gift cards from several guys for sexual favors that are never actually performed. People really believe that she is a skank and is selling her body for money when in reality she is still a virgin. It shows how words can truly affect someone’s image and that person has to live with the consequences of events that haven’t occurred.

Realism, Anti-Realism and Genre Setting

According to Barasm- Realism and Anti Realism, realism is complex and often times viewed as an illusion. It can be defined as viewing scenes of everyday life with common experiences. For example the setting in films can be considered realistic when taking place in a typical environment such as a small town or a high school. Anti-realism then is the opposite of realism and being abstract. So looking at setting again the movie Avatar may be considered anti realism because of the unique idea of creating Avatars in a virtual universe. Then we have verisimilitude, which can be described as the combination of realism and anti-realism. This technique convinces the viewer that what they are seeing on screen really can exist in the world the movie has created. The best example of this that I can think of is The Matrix.  The Matrix starts off with an ordinary man living in his normal everyday life but as the movie progresses reality starts to transform and we lose what is real and what is in the world of the Matrix. 

Typical settings for horror movies are dark and dreary. One element that is always reoccurring in horror films is storms. When there is a significant part about to happen there is rain pouring out of the sky, loud thunder and cracks of lightning. This sets an uncomfortable setting that lets the viewer know something is about to happen. In the movie When a Stranger Calls, the babysitter in the house believes somebody is outside the house watching her so she decides to go out and find out for herself. As she does this the wind and rain are blowing very hard making it hard for the character to see or hear what is really going on. The loud noises from the tress blowing in the wind and the rain pelting down don’t allow the babysitter to fully hear if someone is watching her from outside. She is also unable to see clearly with the rain as if she were going out to look on a clear night.