Fish Tank Review

Using Rotten Tomatoes to review a film

Fish Tank Review

We felt that the film did not have clear storyline to it and it didn't hold the audiences interest. However, we thought that it gave quite a good representation of modern day families in certain areas of England. The film is set in Barking, London at a block of council flats. The area is not wealthy and it seems as though there is a high risk of crime as during the film we see smashed windows, graffiti and vandalism.
Fish Tank is based around Mia and her family. She lives with her mum and younger sister in a small and cluttered flat. Throughout the film we begin to see Mia's feelings develop. At the start of the film she is represented as a stereotypical teenager who smokes, drinks, is violent and doesn't seem to care about her education or the way she affects people around her. The film makes it clear that she wants to become a professional dancer and when she dances she forgets about all of her worries and fears. It is evident in the film that Mia is lonely, her mum doesn't have any time for her and her sister is too young to understand. When Connor comes into the equation Mia befriends him as she feels comfort in his father figure. However they get too close and feelings develop between them giving the film a slightly disturbing twist.
When Connor walks out on the family Mia feels as if she is in a worse position than she was before he entered their lives. We see her go on a major downfall when her audition turns out to be nothing like she expected. This shows us that dancing was the one thing she enjoyed and was the only thing she turned to when feeling shut out form the world.

Fish tank review

This film follows 15yr old Mia and how her life changes when her mum brings home her new boyfriend. There is a big contrast between his style of living compared to their style but his actions drag him down to their standards of living.

They live on a council estate full of "chavs" in tracksuits and drug addicts and alcoholics. Mia's mum treats both her children badly and tells Mia she didn't want her.

Connor, however, lives in a posh house with a wife and child who are unknown to Mia and her family. They have a decent house and money which is shown by the nicely furnished inside.
His actions make him lower himself to someone who would live on a council estate like Mia and her family. He cheats on his wife with Mia's mum and then has the nerve to cheat on her with Mia!

He ends up leaving the whole family the next morning and disrupting the whole "happy family" feel. Mia takes her revenge by turning up to his house and stealing away his daughter and taking her on a wild goose chase in which the daughter falls in water. This is a wake up call for Mia who finally takes her back. Connor tracks her down and ends up hitting Mia across the face.

At the end of the film, Mia takes off to Wales with her friend from the gypsy trailer. There is a nice, heart warming feeling before she goes when her sister, mum and Mia are all dancing together. This is their way of saying sorry and making up.

Review of Fish tank

The film didn't keep its edge or interest as it progressed and began to become very dull, with random events which tried to liven things up. The stereotype of this class of people can be seen as only true to an extent, and can make the audience believe that all people from this area are exactly as those in the film. It portrays uncaring mothers who ALL drink, smoke and take drugs, which is a strong stereotype which is just loosely based. The films plot was very strung out and at times odd and unclear. The ending for example was very uninteresting and quite blunt, with her simply driving away..... It is unclear as to where she was going. In short the film could easily make the audience uninterested and bored.

Rotten Tomatoes, Our review on fish tank:

Mia (played by Katie Jarvis) from Fish Tank.



Rotten tomatoes is a website that is used by critics and members of the general public to express their opinions and review media that is on the market. The staff of rotten tomato then determine for each review whether it is positive ("fresh", marked by a small icon of a red tomato) or negative ("rotten", marked by a small icon of a green splatted tomato). At the end of the year one film will receive the "Golden Tomato", meaning it is the highest rating film that year.

Our review for the Film, Fish Tank is as follows, we have uploaded this review on the website:
Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank is a contemporary film that has been produced in a lower, working class, poverty driven area in Essex. The film is set in your stereotypical council estate block of flats, where the lack of support and fundings for a teenagers upbringing is evident.
We are seeing the world from 16 year old Mia's eyes. Her performance in this film successfully reflected the producers aim as it portrays her desperation to pursue her dream of dancing without the support from anybody. Living with her younger sister and young, party animal, mother we are able to see there are distinct barriers between them and Mia clearly receives no support or love at home. Along with this we see the lack of education that Mia receives and thus the lack of support from there. The representation of a British working class family, i feel is inaccurate as within the film we see the working class family represented as a unsupported lazy and rude culture with a lack of direction in life. We see no effort from the characters to succeed seeing as Mia a 16 year old girl not in education instead she is drinking and smoking with her younger siblings. I believe this isnt true to all working families in Britain but does represent the minority, we see Mia's mother sleeping around with her other men until she finds a man, Connor (Michael Fassbender) who promises to bring love and support to the family. He offers the possibility of hope to Mia as he supports her love of dancing, providing a video camera for her to film an audition for a dance competition. Unfortunately Connor deems to be bad news for the family as he sleeps with the naive 16 year old. Mia's neglectant alcoholic mother is ignorant to the fact that any of this has occured and falls into the self pity mode. Mia is given a tiny opportunity to escape this viscous, continuous cycle that surrounds her when a male friend she has made offers to take her away.
Although this film captured us and allowed us to try and relate to Mia, warming to her lost, lonely character in the meantime I believe the storyline is quite vague and the leads within the story aren't followed up. It doesn't ever seem to get anywhere and we are left saying to ourselves, What was the point in that?

Youtube...

Sky News - Major news company. It shows small and big news around the world, it is done by proper cameras and narratives over the top, sometimes they use the audience's videos as they are there on the seen or it is more clear. There are no comments on this particular video (Doctors Remove Boy's 11 Extra Digits On His Hands And Feet).

How Youtube Documents Events

Who created the information?

There are videos about the budget created by many different people using very different formats for example there is one official video by Alistair Darling which has been posted on the HM Treasury Youtube Channel. There are also people who have posted their and response and views to the budget in a documentary style. To add to this there are also clips taken from national news channels which are about the area.

Why do you think the they created it?

The official HM Treasury video was created to appeal to a different type of person (someone who is on the go or who couldn't watch it on the TV at the times it was broadcasted.

Document events 'We Media' - News

Who Created the infomation? Rick Laytham.
Why? trying to slide down a hill in a canoe and thought that they were going to talk to him about that but sledged down hill & told him they didn't mind him filming.
How is information presented? Original information was taken off a mobile phone & just uploaded onto youtube, whereas this was presented in a news report with a voiceover over the top telling people about it and what happened to the officers

Example Questions

What difference has the internet made to media production and consumption? refer to at least two media types in your answer.

The internet has changed the way media products are produced and consumed in a variety of ways. One of the changes is that people are able to view the product before it is released, for example in the video game industry some companies produce demos of the game or mini feature films/ trailers of the game displaying some of the story line which enables the user to understand the format of the game and its characters before they buy the game. This idea can be seen in the GTA 4 advertising campaign.

One of the many GTA 4 trailers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO25p4JdB1U

This type of advertising also allows the viewers to start there own types of advertising through the use of peer two peer blogs and remixes of the trailers created by fans and posted on free internet broadcasting sites such as youtube.

Another way the internet has changed the way media products are consumed and produced is through a wider

An Education Question

What was the Distribution and production company?

Distribution company in the USA - Sony Pictures Classics
Distribution company in the UK - E1 Entertainment

Production Company - BBC Films, Wildgaze Films, Finola Dwyer Production, Endgame Entertainment

What was the budget?

$7.5 million

Was it released in different countries at different times - why?

Yes, because it was released first in larger companies where the profit would be greater and the home countries of the production companies.

Can you find different ways which it was marketed?

newspapers, trailers, films of the same general and bbfc classifcation.

Alfie

The clip where Alfie walks into the Church and sees Gilda with her new husband, getting a new baby christened shows family values, that Alfie failed to recognize. Gilda does what society expects of her, be a loving christian mother whilst the father takes care of the up-keeping of the family. This is a stereotypical view of the family identity of the time. The Scene conforms to Strykers Theory agrees with the family group being represented as a collective which constitutes to the behavior and expectations. If we take Marcuse's Theory into consideration, all we would be seeing is a males representation of the 60's and it would take more than a passive audience to read into the family values that are portrayed.
Althussers theory would require us to recognize that having a baby outside of marriage is unaccepted in society.