Alexis Johnson

UWRT 1103
Rhetorical Analysis of a Published Movie Review

One Good Turn by Mike DAngelo, wrote a review on the film Good Will Hunting and
it was quite interesting and not at a normal movie review like I would normally expect. It was
published in Entertainment Weekly, a magazine company known for containing the top news in
pop culture. The actual review found in the University of North Carolina at Charlotte database is
just text, but you can tell where two pictures were originally inserted because of the captions:
PHOTO (COLOR): HUNTERS GATHERING Damons boyish genius and Williams shrink, and
PHOTO (BLACK AND WHITE): GLOOMY GUS Van Sant be Praised.
Mike DAngelo, the author of the review, seemed to have purposely written the review to
analyze the work of the films director, Gus Van Sant. Overall, I feel that his main purpose of
writing the review was to entertain the readers, mainly because of the platform that it was
published on, but also because it did not really persuade readers to go see the movie or inform
them of any aspects about the movie. Mike DAngelo referenced Gus Van Sants other films like
Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. He talked about how Gus Van Sants
eclectic style was not really seen throughout the movie, which is different from his other films.
The only time Gus Van Sants true style could have been seen was during the goofy
slow-motion brawl at the beginning of the film. With that in mind it could also be assumed that
Mike DAngelos audience for the review would be fans of Gus Van Sant or audience members
that are particularly interested in who the director is and how the movie was filmed.
Some basic conventions of the movie review genre, or what the audience expects to find
is, the film name and year it was premiered, quotes from the movie, a rating system and an
introduction or summary. This movie review did not really have any of that. It obviously had the
films name within the review, but you had to read to the final paragraph to find it! The review
also did not have the actual film publication year, just that the article itself was published in
1998, which would only lead me to assume that the film itself was premiered around that same
year. It did not feature any direct quotes from the movie like the classic, it is not your fault, but
it did give somewhat of a halfway summary of the film and even then it only ended with the
author comparing it to another of Gus Van Sants films. At the very end of the text there is a
section that listed out all the films with a letter beside of it. I am assuming that it is Mike
DAngelos way of rating the films. According to his rating, Good Will Hunting is deserving of a
-B.

Works Cited
 "One `Good' Turn." E
D'Angelo, Mike. ntertainment Weekly 440 (1998):
78. Film & Television Literature Index. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.