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National Lampoon's Senior Trip

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The adventure film is a broad genre of film . Some early genre studies found it no different than the Western film or argued that adventure could encompass all Hollywood genres. Commonality was found among historians Brian Taves and Ian Cameron in that the genre required a setting that was both remote in time and space to the film audience and that it contained a positive hero who tries to make right in their world. Some critics such as Taves limit the genre to naturalistic settings, while Yvonne Tasker found that would limit films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) from the genre. Tasker found that most films in the genre featured narratives located within a fantasy world of exoticized setting, which are often driven by quests for characters seeking mythical objects or treasure hunting . The genre is closely associated with the action film , and is sometimes used interchangeably or in tandem with that genre.

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47-528: National Lampoon's Senior Trip is a 1995 American adventure comedy film for the National Lampoon magazine franchise , directed by Kelly Makin . It marked Jeremy Renner 's film debut. At Fairmount High School , Ohio in the suburbs of Dayton , a group of teenage students begin their school day with an assembly featuring a band called "High on Life". As the band continues to play onstage, Mark "Dags" D'Agastino and Reggie Barry decide to sabotage

94-421: A cemetery . Miosky lights a fart on J. Edgar Hoover 's flame to distract Travis. That night, the seniors secretly lace a box of chocolates with tequila and give it to the chaperone, Miss Milford. Under the influence, Milford seduces Moss. The students seize this opportunity to crash a party at the hotel next door. When Steve Nisser threatens to blow the whistle, Dags orders Miosky to "take care of him". While

141-478: A "landmark of effects-led adventure cinema." Outside technical effects, adventure films of Douglas Fairbanks such as Robin Hood (1922) with its scenes of battles and recreations of castles cost a record-setting $ 1.5 million to produce also provided a variant of adventure spectacle to audiences. Tasker stated that The Lost World (1925) arguably initiated a jungle adventure film cycle that would be expanded on in

188-416: A Duke, and the "Princess" he loves a noble Lady. Even MacTavish is moved to tears of joy by the happy ending. Donald Crisp (MacTavish) had directed Fairbanks' Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925) in addition to playing the villain in that film. Crisp, who had been in films for over a decade at this point, was also a major director of silent films. He continued as a character actor for another forty years, winning

235-468: A continuing trend for Hollywood adventure films. The other major Hollywood style was the historical adventure typified by early films in the style of The Black Pirate (1926) and The Mark of Zorro (1920) which feature less intense violence. Historical adventure was a popular Hollywood staple until the mid-1950s. While the historical adventure film would be parodied or presented as highly camp , special effects -driven adventure films began to dominate

282-607: A conversation with Jackie Coogan . Off-hand, Coogan had mentioned how much he loved the Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle . Fairbanks and his art director, Carl Oscar Borg , sought to replicate Pyle's evocative illustrations in the film. Fairbanks' wife Mary Pickford doubled for Dove for the kiss between the Princess and Black Pirate at the end of the film. The Black Pirate was the third feature to be filmed in an early two-tone Technicolor process that had been first introduced in

329-587: A low critical status, with a few exceptions. Historically, the genre has not been seen as authored cinema. The genre's cinematic traditions were effectively absent from debates on genre cinema since the 1960s. Chapman echoed this statement. He argued that with only a handful of exceptions, adventure films have not won much favour with film critics: "In traditional film criticism there are few 'good' adventure films; those that have won critical acclaim have usually done so on grounds other than their status as genre films." When action and adventure cinema secure awards, it

376-512: A quest narrative, where characters seek mythical objects or fabulous treasure as seen in films like King Solomon's Mines (1950) or Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Tasker opted for a broader sense of genre, and commented on Taves limits, stating it was an understandable impulse to place generic limits on potentially diverse bodies of texts, while included films like Raiders of the Lost Ark which she described as feeling "like an adventure in

423-590: A setting that was both remote in time and space to its audience. While Cameron refuted the idea of a clearly defined adventure genre, he said films described the "positive feeling for adventure" evoked from the scenes of action in the film and the identification with the main character. Taves echoed this, exemplifying the character of Robin Hood who deals with a valiant fight for just government in an exotic past. Taves wrote in The Romance of Adventure: The Genre of Historical Adventure Movies (1993) that defining

470-426: A straightforward action adventure. "The result was a refreshing return to form and a dazzling new showcase for the actor-producer’s favorite production value: himself. Fairbanks is resplendent as the bold buccaneer and buoyed by a production brimming with rip-roaring adventure and spiced with exceptional stunts and swordplay, including the celebrated ‘sliding down the sails’ sequence, arguably the most famous set piece of

517-516: Is often in categories such as visual effects and sound editing. Tasker found this reflected Richards comments on the creative labor as being the primary appeal on work in the genre. The Black Pirate The Black Pirate is a 1926 American silent action adventure film shot entirely in two-color Technicolor about an adventurer and a "company" of pirates. Directed by Albert Parker , it stars Douglas Fairbanks , Donald Crisp , Sam De Grasse , and Billie Dove . In 1993, The Black Pirate

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564-488: The silent films of the 1910s and 1920s. These films required elaborate visual effects that were important to displaying menacing or fantastic worlds. These films often took narratives from novels, such as films like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916) and The Lost World (1925). Beyond being adaptations of famous books, Tasker said that the appeal of these films was also in their effects laden scene, finding The Lost World

611-439: The 1922 feature The Toll of the Sea . This reproduces a limited but pleasing range of colors. Ben-Hur – filmed around the same time – contains two-tone sequences but is shot primarily in black-and-white with tinting and toning in many scenes. Fairbanks spent considerable money on color tests before making Pirate . Two-tone Technicolor at that time required two strips of 35mm film to be fused together back-to-back to create

658-475: The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1942 ( How Green Was My Valley ). The script was adapted by Jack Cunningham from a story by Fairbanks, who used his middle names "Elton Thomas" as a pseudonym . The film was directed by Albert Parker . Fairbanks had conceived of the film as early as 1920 or 1921, after finishing The Mark of Zorro . He was allegedly inspired to produce the film after

705-536: The Black Pirate, and want to name him captain. The Pirate Lieutenant jeers but consents to wait to see if the ransom is paid by noon the next day. However, he secretly has a confederate destroy the ransom ship later that night to ensure it will not return. Then, when the Black Pirate is caught trying to release the woman, the Pirate Lieutenant exposes him as a traitor and the pirates force him to walk

752-473: The Light Brigade (1936) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). The historical adventure film continued to be a popular Hollywood genre into the mid-1950s featuring various male stars such as Tyrone Power , Douglas Fairbanks Jr. , Burt Lancaster , and Stewart Granger . Imperialism -themed adventure films continued in the 1950s with a greater emphasis on location shooting . Examples include

799-576: The Lost Ark (1981), The Mummy (1999), and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). Few other films embarked on more serious tones, such as Ridley Scott 's Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven (2005). Since the late 1970s, both action and adventure films have become synonymous with the high-budgeted and profitable Hollywood films and franchises. While both genres took on challenging material, towards

846-537: The Movies (1973) stated that adventure "is not confined to a particular genre [...] it is a quality which turns up in almost every sort of story film; indeed the most obvious adventures movies, the sword-and-bosom epics, are usually among the least interesting." American historian Brian Taves wrote in 1993 that having such wide-ranging application of the genre would render it meaningless. Despite their different definitions, both Taves and Cameron stated that genre required

893-523: The United States , explaining what is wrong with the education system. The next day various newspaper station vans show up at the school with the announcement that the President, amazingly, enjoyed their letter, and has invited them to Washington, D.C. to discuss it. In reality, the invitation is a plot devised by the corrupt U.S. Senator Lerman to humiliate the President. The trip underway,

940-501: The adventure film was defined from a fictional narrative and excluded films based on historical events and people such as Zulu (1964) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), finding they belonged to other types of narratives such as the historical film and the war film . Chapman summarized the complicated nature of the genre, stating that the "Adventure film is a less clearly defined than most: indeed, this might be one reason why film historians have left it pretty much alone." He described

987-415: The art director, costume designer, fencing master, stunt arranger, cinematographer and actor just much as the writer and director. For the swashbuckler is truly the sum of all their work." Both action and adventure are often used together as film genres, and are even used interchangeably. For Taves, he compared the styles saying that adventure films were "something beyond action" and were elevated "beyond

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1034-460: The assembly by exposing the band for lip syncing. After a typing class (during which the teacher suffers a heart attack and dies), the seniors cut school and throw a party at Principal Moss' house. Moss finds out about the party from student body president Steve Nisser. He returns home and catches them, then gives the group detention, during which he forces them to write a letter to the President of

1081-593: The box office hit King Solomon's Mines (1950) which was shot in Africa. 1960s fantasy films such as Jason and the Argonauts (1963) combined the set-pieces and fantastic locations of historical adventures with renewed emphasis on special effects. By the 1970s, The Three Musketeers (1973) marked a point where the historical adventure has been firmly associated with what Tasker described as "comic - even camp - tone" that would inform later films such as Raiders of

1128-445: The broadest sense of the term." Tasker noted this specifically, that even when disregarding its historical setting, the film concerned a quest, with travel and developing moral sense of the hero's place in the world. Tasker wrote that these films films have no consistent iconography, their set design and special effects, ranging from stop-motion, to digital imagery and 3D are given a privileged place in these genres. Chapman also noted

1175-415: The bus stops at a convenience store, where Dags and Reggie lock Moss in a flooded washroom, and they steal alcoholic beverages. They are pursued by Travis, a crazed Star Trek fan and crossing guard, who hitches a ride with an Asian family. Principal Moss falls into a deep sleep after taking pills given to him by bus driver Red. With Moss passed out, the students throw a party on the bus, and Carla Morgan,

1222-473: The decade. Erb found that the jungle imagery of these films of the 1930s frequently showcased the jungle world as frequently alternating between "demonic and edenic " images, while Tasker said the jungle films and other adventure films of the period would establish a travelogue allure of these settings as romantic spaces. Within the Classical Hollywood cinema , one of the major other styles

1269-558: The entire Fairbanks treasure chest.” A two-year-long restoration of The Black Pirate was begun in 1970 by the British National Film Archive at the request of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. One original release print and two incomplete negatives were used to restore the film. In addition to the surviving color film, some black and white outtakes and test footage have been found and included in the Blu-ray release of

1316-426: The final film. Fairbanks biographer Jeffrey Vance maintains that “ The Black Pirate was the most carefully prepared and controlled work of Fairbanks’s entire career” and “the most important feature-length silent film designed entirely for color cinematography.” Vance believes the limitations imposed by early Technicolor forced him to remove the "pageantry and visual effects" of his earlier swashbuckler and produce

1363-431: The genre in context with the historical adventure, and said explicitly excluding films with fantasy settings such as Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) as they involved the supernatural over human agency. Taves wrote that "unlike adventure, fantasy presents a netherworld where events violate physical reality and the bounds of human possibility." Comparatively, in his overview of British adventure cinema, James Chapman said

1410-776: The genre that would continue into the 21st century with film series like The Lord of the Rings , Harry Potter , and Pirates of the Caribbean . In their analysis of the genre in 2018, Johan Höglund and Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet found that the contemporary adventure form often appears in trans-genre work where the adventure component is perceived as secondary. They exemplified that in films such ranging from Top Gun (1986), Godzilla (2014), to Lone Survivor (2013), which range from fantasy film to science fiction film to war film genres, all adhere to traditional adventure narratives. Adventure films are generally perceived with

1457-521: The late 1970s of an adventure style geared towards more family-oriented audiences with films like Star Wars (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Star Wars exemplifies a resurgent adventure strand of the 1970s cinema with characters like the Jedi Knights who swing from ropes and wield light sabers recall sword-fighting and swashbuckling films. Tasker commented that this led to a commercially lucrative and culturally conservative version of

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1504-536: The market towards the late 1970s, with films such as Star Wars (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). This trend continued into the 21st century. Adventure is a broad film genre. Early writing on the genre had wide categorizations. Critic André Bazin went as far to say in the 1950s that "there is not difference between Hopalong Cassidy and Tarzan except for their costumes and the arena in which they demonstrate their prowess." Ian Cameron in Adventure in

1551-706: The missing students, and are informed of Lerman's plot. The senator kidnaps Miosky and takes him to the White House with the others in hot pursuit. At the White House, when the senator makes insulting remarks about the seniors, Principal Moss, in spite of everything, unexpectedly stands up for them. The senator's plot is exposed, and the seniors return home. The film ends with a montage of the characters, telling where they end up in later life. The film opened to $ 2,184,901 from 1,397 theaters with an average of $ 1,563 per site. The United States generated $ 3,686,337, 78% of

1598-428: The other students enjoy the party, Lisa Perkins takes Dags to the rooftop where she seduces him. The next day, she discovers the plot to use the students to embarrass the President. Senator Lerman surprises Moss and Milford, who wake up, shocked at finding themselves in a room together. When they go to collect the group for their meeting with the President, they find only a trussed-up Steve Nisser. Moss and Milford locate

1645-1126: The physical challenge" and by "its moral and intellectual flavour." Forms of filmmaking that would become film genres were mostly defined in other media before Thomas Edison devised the Kinetograph in the late 1890s. Genres, such as adventure fiction were developed as written fiction. In the early Hollywood cinema, early adventure cinema were both original stories as well as adaptations of popular media such as adventure stories, magazines, and folk tales. Films were adapted from adventure stories such as King Solomon's Mines (1885), She (1887), and Treasure Island (1883). Tasker described both action and adventure cinema are resistant to any historical evolutionary chronology. Both genres are self-reflexive and draw from conventions of other genres ranging from horror to historical imperial adventure. Taves found that that films that were swashbucklers or pirate-themed adventures were often humorous, and that they retained viability even when parodied. Many silent films with action and adventure scenarios flourished in

1692-408: The pirates celebrate, two survivors wash up on an island, an old man and his son. Before dying, the older man gives his signet ring to his son ( Douglas Fairbanks ). His son buries him, vowing vengeance. The Pirate Captain and Lieutenant bring some crew to the other side of the same island to bury some of their plunder. They then plan to murder the other pirates: "Dead men tell no tales." But first,

1739-483: The pirates from blowing up the ship along with the crew and passengers, suggesting that they hold the ship for ransom. When a woman is discovered on board, the Pirate Lieutenant claims her. Being in love at first sight for her, the Black Pirate finds a way to temporarily save her from this fate by presenting her as a "princess" and urging the crew to use her as a hostage to ensure their ransom will be paid, as long as she remains "spotless and unharmed". The pirates cheer

1786-407: The plank . At noon the next day, with the ransom ship having failed to show, the Pirate Lieutenant goes to the woman to claim his prize. But just then, the Black Pirate, who with the help of the sympathetic one-armed pirate MacTavish, had survived being sent overboard, returns leading troops to stop the pirates. After a long fight, the pirates are routed. In the end, the Black Pirate is revealed to be

1833-410: The school slut , applies makeup to the unconscious Moss. The next day, as the bus is pursued by Travis and the police, Red, the driver, dies from an apparent drug overdose , and the bus nearly plows into a lake. Dags manages to stop the bus in time, but the pursuers' car lands in the water and Travis escapes. Arriving at Washington, the group checks into a hotel and decides to take a class photo at

1880-432: The similarly effects driven sound film King Kong (1933). In her study of King Kong , Cynthia Erb noted a conventions of both travel documentary and jungle adventure traditions. Tasker wrote that the best known displays of these films were those that focused on the character of Tarzan which found more significantly commercial success with the success of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films featuring Johnny Weissmuller during

1927-485: The son appears as the "Black Pirate", who offers to join their company and fight their best man to prove his worth. After much fighting, the Black Pirate kills the Pirate Captain. The Pirate Lieutenant sneers, and says there is more to being a pirate than sword tricks. To further prove his worth, the Black Pirate says he will capture the next ship of prey single-handed, which he does. He then uses his wits to prevent

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1974-505: The style as being commonly applied to narratives where action and visual spectacle were foregrounded. He included styles like the swashbuckler , the British empire film, the sensationalized spy thriller, and mythological fantasy films as part of adventure cinema genre. Writing about the adventure genre in the 1970s, Jeffrey Richards said that "since the way a swashbuckler moves and looks is just as important as what it says, we must look at

2021-401: The style as not being a discrete genre in its own, but a flexible, overarching category that encompasses a range of different related narrative forms. British author and academic Yvonne Tasker wrote in her 2015 book The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film (2015) that adventure films imply a story that is located within a fantasy of exoticized setting. She found that these films often apply

2068-546: The total gross of the film. The overseas gross was $ 1,000,600, bringing the worldwide total to $ 4,686,937. The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews, earning a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes website, but it currently holds a B grade at Yahoo! Movies. Adventure film Adventure films boast their setting and visuals as key elements. This ranged from early technical showcases such as The Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933). These films set up exotic locations as both beautiful and dangerous. This would be

2115-517: The two-tone palette. Due to the heat of the projector, there would be so-called cupping of the film, making it difficult to keep the film in focus during projection. (Technicolor later perfected its process, so that two-color films required only a single strip of film.) A limitation of the process was that hues on film shot indoors under artificial light differed from that shot outdoors in sunlight, so two sets of costumes with slightly different colors for each character were required to get matching colors in

2162-559: Was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress , being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The film begins with the looting of a ship, already captured and badly mauled, by the pirates. After relieving the ship and crew of valuables, the pirates fire the ship, blowing up the gunpowder on board, sinking her. While

2209-662: Was the historical adventure film. These films were typically set in the past and drew from the Fairbanks films such as The Black Pirate (1926) and The Mark of Zorro (1920). They feature violence in a less intense manner than other contemporary genres such as the Western or war film . While not specifically associated with one Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. released a series of popular historical adventures featuring Errol Flynn such as Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of

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