When Watching Movies Becomes a Chore...

For my psychology class, we have an assignment which is to choose 3 movies from a list, watch them and submit analyses for each as our research project for the course. The movies are, of course, related to psychology in some way or other. For the first time, really, I watch movies as an assignment. I realised, after watching my second movie, this kind of decreased my enjoyment of the movie, but it did increase my awareness of the overall picture/story that the movie wants to convery to the audience (which I usually don't care). For a person who is seldom able to recall scenes from movies unless prompted, this is quite a daunting task. So in the end, I feel like a reporter when I watched the movies, taking down notes about scenes and own thoughts about them, which made me unable to feel 'entertained' cos I obviously was more busy scrutinizing characters' actions and linking them back to what I learned in class.

The list

• Prime
• Prince of Tides
• As Good as It Gets
• Girl, Interrupted
• When a Man Loves a Woman
• The Story of Us
• Good Will Hunting
• Rain Man
• A Beautiful Mind

I watched Prime and Girl, Interrupted so far, and I need another one from the list. Any recommendations?

Well, I would recommend Girl, Interrupted if you haven't watched it yet. It really did give me more insight towards personality disorders, and the characters performed quite well in their respective assigned "conditions". The main character has Borderline Personality Disorder, while her various friends in the mental institution ranged from having pseudologia fantastica (pathological liar) to being a sociopath ( one who manipulates/ violates other's rights for their own personal gain. think: people suffer because of their own stupidity).

On the other hand, please don't waste your time watching Prime. Please. It was really two hours wasted on that movie (though err I discovered how hot Bryan Greenberg is during the movie :p ). Aside a weak plot, the entire movie revolved mainly around the heroine's and hero's love story, as in literally love, having sex. The only thing I found helpful to know was that psychologists really have to know the line between personal benefit and client's privacy, crossed the line, it becomes unethical as the client's trust is betrayed.

I guess I will be watching A Beautiful Mind, but it's quite a difficult movie to analyse, though it's not hard to identify Professor Nash's condition. Oh well, I have to watch it real quick cos I have to hand in the reports next Tuesday, and Friday's the start of FINALS!!!!!