This course kindled my interest in film history and preservation, and it is hands down the best course I've taken at UCLA thus far. Professor Wuest is not only astoundingly good at lecturing, but he knows how to engage his students with the course materials and film selections in meaningful and relevant ways. You can tell he cares deeply about the topics he teaches, and his love for film borders on infectious—whether or not you're familiar with film as a medium, you'll learn to genuinely appreciate and love it through this class. Attendance isn't mandatory and he posts all his slides on BruinLearn, but I'm always inclined to go because of how insightful his additional elaboration is during lectures. In other words, the more information you jot down by attending his lectures, the easier your papers will be to handle! The papers themselves are pretty straightforward in regards to their prompts and rubrics, as this is a GE class at the end of the day, but what you learn in the professor's lectures will better prepare you for writing them. This class is great for anyone who wants to expose themselves to a humanities course that's fairly easy and interesting!

If Professor Bryan Wuest's lectures were reviewed by official critics and the reviews were published on Rotten Tomatoes, I can guarantee Wuest's lectures would receive a certified fresh rating of 95%. Professor Wuest is by far, one of the most engaging, outstanding, and best Professors I have had at UCLA so far. Here are the Pros and Cons for taking Professor Wuest's Film History class

Pros:

1.Bryan Wuest is a very, and I mean VERY, good lecturer. Wuest loves to talk about films and his compassion for the film industry is distributed among his audience as he teaches his class about the history of the film industry and how it evolved since the late 19th century all the way to the 21st century.

2.Wuest lectures off of material from slides that he displays within the theater; however, Wuest also goes above and beyond in regard to expanding upon the material on the slides and likes to throw in interesting facts in regards to the film industry.

3.Oh, did you notice what I mentioned in the last pro, yes its true. THIS CLASS IS TAUGHT IN A THEATER!?!?!

4.Wuests slides are easily accesible via Canvas

5.Wuest's take home assignments are easy to complete... as long as you complete them properly and do not rush them (work with the TA's during office hours and the writing center to perfect your essays or research project or short answer responses, AND ALWAYS CITE YOUR SOURCES (big mistake I made for one of my assignments D:))

6.The material Wuest teaches is really interesting... at times...

7.Almost every lecture, Wuest would showcase a movie and his selection of films (besides Red Dawn) were outstanding and memorable films (BOYZ N THE HOOD WAS AMAZING!!!!!)

8. Wuest provides small breaks during lecture so people do not have to consistently take notes

9. also taking notes is kind of useless as all of his slides are on canvas (and for other reasons which I will talk about in the con section...)

10. During breaks, I would sometimes walk up to Wuest to talk to him about some random film stuff, and he is very approachable and loves to talk to his students about the film industry and tell you interesting facts about film

11. Wuest is the first LGBTQ+ professor I have ever had and I heavily appreciate all of the LGBTQ+ material he teaches within this class in connection to the Film Industry. I also appreciate a lot of the diversity material he teaches also within the Film Industry.

12. Attending section is easy credit points

Cons:

1. Despite what I said about Wuest's lectures... his lectures... in regards to the actual assignments... are pointless for getting an A in the class. the most important material is the actual movies he showcases. Obviously his lectures are important but the class can easily be completed without attending lecture and only watching the movies and doing some of the readings, which is unfortunate because his lectures are amazing. I recommend Wuest should change the questions/instructions so that they incorporate the lectures more into the actual assignments, maybe by making the questions more history oriented (such as a history class short or long response question where historical content is necessary and use movies and readings for evidence)

2. sometimes reaching out to the TA was difficult but that is more of a TA complaint then a professor complaint.

And... thats it lol, Wuest is a great professor and I would love for him to teach the TV version of this class (PLEASE D:)!

Overall I give this class a 4.8/5!!!

This class was wonderful. If you like film at all and can tolerate a well-taught history class, take this class. Attendance is optional, but you will find yourself wanting to go, if anything just to watch some good movies in the huge screening room. Professor Wuest is a really engaging lecturer and you can tell he cares a lot about film. Great class.

Professor Wuest seems fantastic. Honestly, I'm just sad I didn't have the opportunity to take this class in person. I learned so much and feel that the class expanded my knowledge without forcing me to memorize things. I also learned to appreciate film. I'm not an arts or humanities student by a long shot, so taking this class was out of my element but I would definitely recommend it to anyone who needs it for a GE! It's not too hard but also fun and you learn a lot!

tl; dr - Really good class but your experience will be highly dependent on hw strict of a grader your TA is.

Wuest is a really good lecturer and his lectures were super engaging and his passion was super evident. He was also really nice to talk to in office hours.

Each week has 2 lectures, and covered roughly a decade in film history. The lectures were asynchronous, with roughly one hour of lecture content and 1.5 hours of a movie screening per lecture day.

There's no midterm, but we were graded on 4 discussion posts, a research paper, and a final exam along with discussion participation. The forum posts weren't difficult as long as you watched the relevant movie and did some of the reading. Some TAs were super harsh graders and returned scores late, so make sure to pester your TA into releasing scores or talk to the professor if they don't. The research paper was a little vague, and slightly involved so try to start early on it. The final exam was basically slightly longer forum posts.

All in all, I really enjoyed this class and my TA (N. Spagnola) was really good. Take this class if you need a pretty easy GE, if you want to learn about film history, or just to watch some nice movies.