Introduction to Journalism

Junior Composition

What is an Editorial?

A type of story which serves to express an opinion and encourage the reader to take some action

What is a Review?

A form of editorial written to comment on a play, movie, piece of music or some other creative work.

How to gather info for a review?

It is very similar to performing an interview.You should have set questions you want to

answer about the movie.You should do some research about the

movie.You should be prepared to take notes.

Write down important quotes, names of characters, et cetera.

Writing the Review

PrewritingWrite down three things you thought the

movie did well.Write down three things the movie did

poorly.

Movie Review

150-200 words Enticing headline Good introductory hook Makes some claim about the movie as a whole

Be specific when using examples.

Finishes with a recommendation Could be defining for whom the movie is suitable or

for whom it is aimed.

Writing the Review

Take a close look at other movie reviews and how they are constructed.

Example Review

A Tale of Love and Liberation (Puppy and Otherwise)By STEPHEN HOLDENPublished: January 16, 2009

Children and dogs: those two magic words distill the appeal of “Hotel for Dogs,” the cuter-than-cute, sweeter-than-sweet family film about animal-loving kids who embark on a crusade to rescue all the stray pooches in a fictional city. After watching the movie, only a grouchy critic — one who shares W. C. Fields’s conviction that a man who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad — would shout “Bah, humbug!” and summon the truant officer and the dog catcher. I wouldn’t dream of it, but ...

The liberation movement is led by the recently orphaned 16-year-old Andi (Emma Roberts) and her 11-year-old brother, Bruce (Jake T. Austin), who have been shuttled among foster homes in the three years since the deaths of their parents. Their latest guardians, Lois and Carl Scudder (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon), a scowling, untalented pair of aspiring rock musicians, are in the foster-parent business strictly for the money.

The inedible microwave slop they serve their charges for dinner types them as inhumane misanthropes of Dickensian proportions, and “Hotel for Dogs” is the rare example of a movie that equates rock ’n’ roll grunge with meanspiritedness. Because no dogs are allowed in the Scudders’ apartment, Andi and Bruce are forced to conceal the existence of Friday, their beloved, insatiably hungry Jack Russell terrier.

Example Review Two Bickering Sisters, a Stepmom and an Ominous Garbage Can

By A. O. SCOTTPublished: January 30, 2009

“The Uninvited” sounds like the name of a generic horror movie, which is more or less what it is. But when you stop to think about it, the title is actually a clue to the picture’s lameness. Words beginning with “un” do have a certain scary resonance — intimations of the unknown, the undead, the uncontrollable and the unholy — but “uninvited”? As in “not on the guest list”? Only in Hollywood could such a notion be a source of terror.

By the time the credits rolled (“directed by the Guard Brothers”), I wished that the title had referred to me. But invited I was, along with a few hundred other restless souls, for whose company on a wintry Tuesday night I was profoundly grateful.

Two gentlemen behind me kept up a lively, derisive banter — the kind of thing that would ordinarily drive me mad with rage but that in this case saved me a bit of work. Just at the moment when the kindly local sheriff left the heroine alone in a dark room, assuring her that no one else would get hurt — spoiler alert! he was wrong! — one fellow asked his friend: “Is this a commercial break? Because I need to go to the bathroom.”

“And,” his companion said, “I need to see a commercial for a better movie.”

Example ReviewHope for a Racist, and Maybe a Country

By MANOHLA DARGISPublished: December 12, 2008

Twice in the last decade, just as the holiday movie season has begun to sag under the weight of its own bloat, full of noise and nonsense signifying nothing, Clint Eastwood has slipped another film into theaters and shown everyone how it’s done. This year’s model is “Gran Torino,” a sleek, muscle car of a movie Made in the U.S.A., in that industrial graveyard called Detroit. I’m not sure how he does it, but I don’t want him to stop. Not because every film is great — though, damn, many are — but because even the misfires show an urgent engagement with the tougher, messier, bigger questions of American life.

Few Americans make movies about this country anymore, other than Mr. Eastwood, a man whose vitality as an artist shows no signs of waning, even in a nominally modest effort like “Gran Torino.” Part of this may be generational: Mr. Eastwood started as an actor in the old studio system, back when the major movie companies were still in the business of American life rather than just international properties. Hollywood made movies for export then, of course, but part of what it exported was an idea of America as a democratic ideal, an idea of greatness which, however blinkered and false and occasionally freighted with pessimism, was persuasive simply because Gene Kelly and John Wayne were persuasive.

Final Journalism Project

Remember that all three articles will be represented on the front page.

All articles need a headline and a byline.Feature article needs a photo with a

caption.The Newsletter needs a flag (Name of

Paper).

The Final Product should look similar to this: