Shmoop Launches New Comprehensive Guides to Movies

With movie reboots coming out of the woodwork from every angle (hello, Ghostbusters), it's time to start brushing up on the classics. Shmoop (http://www.shmoop.com), a digital publisher known for its award-winning Test Prep and certified Online Courses, has released in-depth guides to popular movies ranging from noir to western to Disney musical...and back again.

Shmoop's movie guides, written by film scholars and Hollywood insiders, dig deep into each film to explore everything from character development to production design. Whether you want to read up on Han Solo's moral compass or find out how Hitchcock broke a bunch of laws to get his shots, Shmoop has the inside scoop. Users can even see how the movie characters stack up against the literary characters they're based on. Spoiler alert: Simba is totally Hamlet.

Shmoop's founder, David Siminoff, received his BA in English from Stanford University and his MFA from the USC School of Cinema and Television. Throw in a few years on the front lines of Hollywood and he knew he wanted students to be able to understand and analyze films the same way they do literature. "Studying film will help students understand the hero's journey at the core of every story," he said, "from ancient mythology to the newest Star Wars." Sounds like movie day in class is getting a major educational facelift.

Users can expect to see new movie guides each month, including everything from early-20th-century romances to 21st-century post-modern psychological thrillers. And students who want to prove their film chops even more can subscribe to Shmoop and earn certificates in courses like Film Studies, Literature in the Media, or The Hero's Journey.

So go ahead: get busy living or get busy Shmooping.

About Shmoop

Shmoop offers hundreds of thousands of pages of original content. Their Online Courses, Test Prep, Teaching Guides, Learning Guides, and interactive Study Tools are written by teachers and experts and balance a teen-friendly, approachable style with academically rigorous concepts. Shmoop sees 13 million unique visitors a month across desktop and mobile. The company has won numerous awards from EdTech Digest, Tech & Learning, and the Association of Educational Publishers. Launched in 2008, Shmoop makes the magic happen from a labradoodle-patrolled office in Mountain View, California.