Final Project Outline

Subject: Danny Boyle’s exploration of film genres and his directorial style.

I. Trainspotting
Genre Boyle explores: Gritty drama
Themes and concepts: addiction and obsession
Boyle’s connection to the work
Critique of film

II. 28 Days Later
Genre Boyle explores: Horror
Themes and concepts: societal breakdown and apocalypse
Boyle’s connection to the work
Critique of film

III. Millions
Genre Boyle explores: Family film
Themes and concepts: childhood dreams and heartbreak
Boyle’s connection to the work
Critique of film

IV. Comparison of the three films and what they say as a body of work about the director and his unique style of direction.

Archer Pilot: Mole Hunt

Spoofing spies and espionage is not a new thing. In the mid 1960’s “Get Smart” riffed on James Bond with the air of a Mel Brook’s comedy, to great effect. In the late 80’s, along with the surge of blockbuster action films, we got “The Naked Gun” series, showing another bumbling, undercover agent. Now, in the age of Jason Bourne and Daniel Craig’s Bond, America was ready for another spy spoof, and in 2009 audiences got what they had been waiting for, in the form of an offensive, dryly written, wonderfully cast animated show called “Archer.”

Recognizing that the general public had become bored with bumbling, incompetent spies, series creator Adam Reed gave us Sterling Archer, the show’s titular protagonist, who is a talented and competent spy. Yet more importantly, he is also an insolent, misogynistic bastard, and you can’t help but love him for it. As an antidote to the 2000’s obsessive political correctness, Archer draws out deep belly laughs with dialogue that you just shouldn’t laugh at. When trying to bribe his way past a heavyset secretary Archer says “If you let me into the mainframe, I'll drop these donuts. And then you can pretend you're a hungry hungry ... hungry hippo.” Or when berating his ever loyal, British butler for not buying milk “I'm gonna pain you dearly Woodhouse, when I peel all your skin off with a knife, sew it into Woodhouse-pajamas, and then set those pajamas on fire!”

Beyond the sardonic humor and upsettingly lovable lead, “Archer” has also managed to assemble a wonderful ensemble voice cast, including Jessica Walter as Archer’s condescending, drunk of a mother, Aisha Tyler as a powerful female spy who acts as Archer’s foil for much of the episode, and SNL alumni Chris Parnell as the ISIS comptroller and consummate nerd. The cast plays together so well and delivers the crude jokes with such finesse; it’s easy to imagine that they have been working together for years.

“Archer” only runs into problems when it attempts to get serious, which it (thankfully) does very little. It’s easy to imagine a bigwig at FX becoming worried that the series doesn’t connect emotionally with viewers, and trying to strong-arm in a serious plotline here or there. The thing is, we don’t need those in “Archer.” The audience is expecting silly and offensive and the show does best when it sticks in those boundaries. The nasty humor and their ability to spoof most everything is what make “Archer” so refreshing. When a show has as little respect for common decency as this one does, there is something genuine and liberating that rushes forth, making the 21 minutes of nonstop jokes and awkward pauses a total, if guilty, joy.

“That Which I Should Have Done But Did Not Do (The Door)” Review

“That Which I Should Have Done But Did Not Do (The Door)” by Ivan Albright is a painting that gets under your skin. The subject of the piece is relatively simple; a large wooden door with a funeral wreath hung upon it, and a greying hand reaching from the edge of the painting towards the doorknob. Yet there is something about the obsessive intricacy of the painting style, the rancid decay of the subject and the uncomfortable scale of the work (eight feet tall, three feet wide) that makes this piece of art especially difficult to stomach. It’s hard to study the painting at any length without your mind wandering to the artist himself. It’s easy to imagine a frazzled, obsessive Albright, awake late at night, stopped over the canvass, lumpy oil paints mixed into bizarre colors. He is painting with a tiny brush in the light of a small candle while rain pounds against the windows and thunder crashes outside. Albright is Dr. Frankenstein and “The Door” is his monster.

Alvin Albright, Ivan’s father, was a renowned landscape painter in the late 1800’s, and often used his son as a model for his sweet, nostalgic paintings of children playing in pastoral settings. Ivan found his father’s artwork impotent and silly, and decided that yes, he would pursue art too, but his work would be powerful and gripping.

From the beginning Ivan had an obsession with the macabre, while in school at the Art Institute of Chicago he would insert dark touches into his homework. An assignment to paint a simple hillside would become a rainy cemetery, when asked to sketch a bird, the drawing would end up as a pair of bird’s wings, apparently ripped from the corpse of the animal, lying crumpled on a cement sidewalk.

In all of Albright’s work there are hints to death and spirituality, subjects that he became obsessed with. But Albright’s obsessive nature didn’t just send him towards specific subject matter, it also led him to develop a fanatical, obsessive style of painting. He was well known for using single-hair brushes and taking years to finish a piece. This style of painting is no more apparent than in “The Door,” a painting with detail so minute it took Albright almost ten years to complete.

“The Door” is a sickening and uncomfortable piece, but there is something beautiful about the way Albright confronts death and decay with such honesty and clarity. He savors the putrification of it all and works incredibly hard to communicate the rot to the viewer. In this way, Albright succeeds without question. The painting is so hard to look at, a majority of visitors to the Art Institute seem to avoid it, but if you force yourself to dissect the painting there is no way to deny the subtle, moldy beauty of “The Door.”