About

The Classic Movie Project

My name is Izzy Labbe and I am an eighteen-year-old rising college freshman at Wellesley College, currently stationed at my home in Maine. I am a great lover of culture and media literacy, and as a prospective American Studies major, I love consuming media that's important- media that has shaped western society, American foreign policy, attitudes and cultural norms, and thereby affected the course of history. Starting this summer, the short warm period before I start college, I will be dedicating most of my free time to watching classic movies and writing about them from the point of view of a young, liberal, critical American, in an attempt to understand the following: (1) why are these movies important to both society and the filmmaking industry itself?, (2) what can we learn about human behavior and the exchange of ideas by watching these films?, (3) which films are worth the hype and which films are overrated?, and finally, (4) how will spending my free time watching movies that supposedly have immense cultural significance change the way I perceive the society around me?

Before I get started, I'd like to make a set of disclaimers: 

-I am not a film critic. I have trouble with critics because I always think, what gives them the power/right to tell me what's good and bad? Isn't art interpretive and subjective? That being said, I have learned a lot from critics because artistic criticism can help regular old movie viewers understand the significance of what they're watching; it can help them understand things they might not have understood, and present new ideas. Criticism can be a conversation if it's done right. I don't want to tell people what's good and what's bad. My goal in this is to express my own interpretations and you can do with that what you will. Just don't try to fight me, okay?

-I am eighteen and a girl and a white person and I am cognizant of my privilege and the bias in which some of my opinions and interpretations arise from. I am often bothered by racism and sexism in media. I will always notice it. But I am aiming to interpret the films through a lens of a time gone by. I do not deny that western society has been awful to women and people of color, but I will be watching with the understanding that popular thought has shifted quite a bit since most of the movies I'm seeing were made, and I will try to be faithful to that time as an audience member.

-A lot of my grading system depends on how much I enjoyed watching the movie. There are good movies and there are bad movies. There are enjoyable movies and unenjoyable movies. There are some good movies that are unenjoyable to watch; there are many bad movies that are highly enjoyable to watch (for me the most notable is Grease 2). If I give a movie that has a 100% Rotten Tomato score a C+ it's probably because I didn't really enjoy watching it. But I try to be fair in my scoring based on how good I think the movie is and how enjoyable I found it.

-I am open to suggestions for films but I have a limited amount of time so I can't promise I'll watch everything you tell me to, much less review it. 

Okay. Let's watch some movies.