I have really enjoyed the in-class presentations so far.  I felt as though each presenter took it upon themselves to teach the class something important and specific about the film theory they are studying. Everybody had well thought-out arguments with a substantial amount of support and reasoning behind them. I believe that Maya Deren can easily be argued as an auteur along with Scorsese and DiCaprio as co-auteurs. I loved the discussion on adaptations and the different approaches to the horror genre. Because we all had a little bit of prior knowledge to the subjects, the presentations helped to solidify the arguments and theories and it was fun to see what others deemed important. Even during my presentation, I was able to learn a little bit more about my own analysis by the post-presentation discussion questions. I was asked what I felt was the most successful combination for a parody film. A parody film is a hybrid of a comedy and another genre, and because a horror is meant to scare, poking fun at it results in a much different reaction by the audience. I chose this as the most successful, and most obvious, type of parody. I was also asked if parody films are meant to leave the audience with the same message as the original film, and my answer was no. The emotions of the audience after seeing  a film tell a lot about what they will take away from it, and being scared/sad about a story is much different than laughing at it. I believe that important messages can still be presented in parodies, but these messages vary from the original films intent.