Quite honestly, I have never been a fan of Michael Moore films, but Sicko was incredible! I must give Mr. Moore a great deal of credit because, if given enough time, he could modify anyone’s opinion on a given topic. If he couldn’t successfully modify our view, he would certainly make you look at the situation from a different angle.

It is kind of eerie that we watched a film on socialistic values in class last Wednesday because I had just written a long term paper for my Investments course on the terrible consequences of taking on socialistic traits and how they would impact the United States’ society. I wish now that I would have seen this film a few hours earlier, as it definitely would have challenged my perception of the topics I focused on; education, business, and healthcare.

It is quite impressive how well doctors in other parts of the world do financially considering they are part of a socialistic healthcare program. It seems almost too perfect for Canada, France, and England to all have “flawless” healthcare systems – in fact it is. Although Mr. Moore did an excellent job of portraying only one side of the worldwide healthcare situation, he lost some credibility when he neglected to touch on the negative areas of socialistic programs. He also made a mistake of not truthfully acknowledging the benefits of that the American people have – or so the media tells us there are benefits. I do understand that it would have defeated the purpose of Sicko to examine the positive and negatives of each system, as Mr. Moore was obviously shooting a “persuasive” style documentary.

After watching this film and focusing on how media twists society’s minds to believe what it tells the public, I had to stop and examine the types of media that I focus a great deal of my attention on everyday. Every morning I have to get my CNN and MSNBC fix, both of which tell the story from the US point of view. Then I head off to work where I serve as a research analyst in the government affairs division of a local firm – there I also focus on the US point of view through countless hours of legislative research and justifying what I find to the general public. As I disseminate the information to the public, it is clear to me that I am essentially trying to get our audience to either wholly support or oppose the piece of legislation I am working on. At school the only class, the only hour of my day where US theories are challenged, is in my Latin-American Culture course. It is sad to say, and very hard for me to accept, that I have fallen victim to the US media! As much as this thought frustrates me, it upsets me even more because I spent an entire semester studying all around the world in attempt to escape the US media plague. As I was wrapping up my semester of world studies I had one professor tell me (and the rest of the class) to watch our actions and reactions carefully or we would soon slip back into the US mainstream – well he was absolutely right. I have started to turn to other sources that I followed during my semester abroad for news sources such as BBC various leading newspapers from around the world. I especially love to compare the US headlines with that of China or Turkey, because they often differ greatly. This is my step to comfort my fears of becoming another “dumb American.” There is a reason why the dumb American jokes exist; they exist partially because we forget how to and lose the ability to think for ourselves.

Although Mr. Moore generally doesn’t appeal to me, it is probably very evident that he hid a soft spot with me in the film Sicko. It made me step back and think about just how much I do buy into American media and how much I actually should buy into it. It wasn’t so much that Sicko was related to a major concern of mine, even though the healthcare dilemma should be a priority for my generation, it was more just the way the film really provoked my thoughts.

Thank you Mr. Moore for challenging my media digestion process – someday I will partially blame him for turning me into a cynical old lady at a very young age!

The Matrix is filled with dynamics from beginning to end. This is what helps create the mystery and raise the question, “is their some thing more?” The whole film is centered around the theme; which also happens to be the first step in the analysis of the film. The theme in the Matrix if based upon a central idea; the idea that there is another realm to our world and that we are a mere piece of the game in the scheme of it all.

As we begin the objective evaluation of the film we must take into consideration the theme and level of ambition. Clearly the level of ambition for the Matrix was quite high and it appears that in this film the director did indeed succeed at what it was designed to do. Although I personally love this movie, I need to remember to keep a neutral outlook when analyzing this movie. It is important to ask what are the strengths and weaknesses of the film, why are they there, and what caused them to be there? No matter how good a movie is, it is bound to have strengths and weaknesses; it is almost as though we must conduct an internal factor evaluation on the movie, just as we would do when analyzing a business. When evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the film we must be cautious and weigh each strength and weakness in terms of its overall effect on the film, avoiding petty nitpicking on slight flaws. One clear strength for the Matrix is, that prior to this film, there really wasn’t another hit movie that closely resembled its exact theme or at least the way the theme was presented. I am aware of other films such as the Wizard of Oz, which are similar in thought, but not presented in a similar way.A weakness, although subjective, is having Keanu Reeves star in the leading role. He is not the strongest actor in the industry and it makes me wonder why he was selected for this role; was it simply because of his good looks? Along with the objective evaluation, there is also subjective evaluation that needs to take place too. Because of our inherent human characteristics, it is impossible to be completely objective when analyzing a film. The subjective analysis is based off of our intuition, emotion, and personal biases. Our interpretation of film is flavored by our personal life experiences.

Although objective and subjective analysis are the most common forms of film analysis, there are several other approaches: film as a technical achievement, film as a showcase or the actor, film as product of a single creative mind, film as moral/philosophical/or social statement, film as emotional or sensual experience, film as repeated form, film as a political statement, film as a gender statement, film as insight to the mid, and the eclectic approach. Personally, I feel that I follow the eclectic approach by drawing pieces from the above mentioned approaches and combining them into my final analysis.

Toward the end of the chapter the topic of movie reviews is addressed. An important point that is brought out is that when reading a review, you and the review writer could use the same approach to analyzing the film and come up with completely different opinions on areas. It is all based off of your personal views and past experiences.

In the article posted for this movie, the topics of Buddhism and Christianity in the Matrix are addressed. I believe that the parallels between the Matrix and Christianity are pretty evident. The well-known tale of Jesus’ second coming to save the world from destruction the Apocalypse is clearly depicted in this film. Neo (“the One”) is the Christ-like figure in the film. Another close relation to Christianity is the fact that Trinity is the name of key character in the movie – obviously signifying the Holy Trinity of God, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Buddhist traits of the movie are more commonly over looked, but once focusing, they become clear. According to Buddhism as well as the character Morpheous in the movie, the most significant problem according to Buddhism is our ignorance of existential reality. In the article it states, “If we could perceive the true nature of reality and the path to enlightenment, condensed in Sakyamuni teaching of the three marks of existence and the Four Noble Truths, then we could overcome our ignorant state and achieve the insight of a Buddha.” This theme is evident throughout the film, but is most clearly depicted in the scene where Morpheous is teaching Neo how to fight and telling him he is only bound in his abilities by his mind.

The Matrix has been a long time favorite of mine, but after reading the article for this film, I have taken a new insight into the background data that went into creating this film. The religious parallels, outside of Christianity, are extremely interesting and clear to see once the point is brought to the front of your mind.