Horrible Movie

The film The Battle of Algiers was a very bad movie. It was in french, subtitled, and black and white. A horrible combination of things. But the article, or what ever you call it, I listened to was NPR: Los Angeles Times and Morning Edition film critic Kenneth Turan. I agree with a lot of what he said. He said that it is universal how people try to get out from under an oppressive power and I definetely agree with that. While he thought that the director had sympathy for the Algerians and French, I think it was mostly just hte Algerians. The French were very seldemly individualized and it added to the fact that they seemed just like nameless faces in the crowd.
The best thing that this guy said was that The Battle of Algiers provides a way of "uniting the world morally while looking at it physically." This really seems like a good way to put the movie. It depicts seeminly real life scenes that are violent and horrible, and the emotion seems to be in the scenes too. It lets the audience come together morally because of the physical nature of seeing it first hand, and that is what is great about this movie.

Great movie

Memento was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. I loved the fact that the movie went in reverse mainly. The way that the first scene is presented is one of the best first scenes I've ever seen. The wonder it instills into the viewers from the very beginning is great. It makes you want to know so many things right away, like what happened and why, that it grabs your attention from the beginning. Also the way that the scene is actually in reverse makes you wonder what is going on. The picture going from clear to blank, the picture going back into the camera, the blood running up and the gun jumping into his hand, all make the audience wonder what is going on.
From the first scene on the movie runs backwards in chronological order and from the first scene on your attention is grabbed. The movie is perfect in the order it is in. Keeping it in reverse makes the audience just want to keep watching and find out what is going to happen next. All in all one of the best movies I've seen lately I recommend everyone see it.

Kiss Me Deadly with a box of spirits

The movie Kiss Me Deadly was an OK movie to watch. The overall movie itself was only average, living up to its B movie budget. The acting might have been the best part about it, because the plot made very little sense until the end of the movie. I really liked the movie though because of all of the random fight scenes and the way Mike Hammer handled himself. I loved the fact that he would just smile after kicking some guys ass down stairs, or smashing some guys hand in a drawer. Oh and the reaction of that mortician guy was hilarious And then at the very end of the movie, the movie took a turn for the worse.
The end of the movie was so bad. Watching the box open and who ever that person was reaction to it was so funny, but horrible as an ending to the movie. Then Velda and Mide get out walk into the water and the movie is done. No warning or anything and the movie just ends. What was in the box was never explained but In my opinion it was spirits. I mean light was coming out of it and it was making weird noises. Not to mention it lit that girl on fire out of no where. If anybody has any better idea of what it was tell me but i'm almost 100% sure it was spirits. So is Allie so your going to have to convince both of us before we agree

Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby

In class we watched the movie Double Indemnity. An overall good movie by my account, the best black and white movie that we've watched in class. Not only did I think it was a good movie but I also think that it is a great example of the genre film noir. It fit almost all of the things that are normally said about film noir. The two things that I noticed most though were the low-key lighting, and how the movie got your attention.
The low-key lighting played a huge part in the movie, casting shadows in almost every scene, darkening the mood of the whole movie. One great way they did this was with venetian blinds. It made for areas of extreme light and extreme dark. The low-key lighting in a way made the movie more enjoyable because of how it made the mood more sinister than it already was. The film got my attention because of the nature of the story. About sex and murder, the experts are right, its hard to not love stories like this. Keeping my attention through the whole thing, and not making me want to kill myself because the characters were so bad was what made this movie for me.
Oh and the only bad thing was the number of times they said the word baby, and the wig her head.

Groundhog Day

First of all I have to say that the movie Groundhog Day was a very good movie. A movie that was so much better than Bringing up Baby it's not even funny. Never in this movie did you have to contemplate killing yourself (even though Phil did) or killing one of the characters becasue they annoyed you so very much. Groundhog Day is a very good movie that shows the change one person can make in his personality and outlook on life after seeing how bad things have become. The way that Phil is shown to us as viewers at the beginnning is one of a huge jackass. As the movie goes along though, and he realizes that he is stuck in this day forever he starts to make dramatic changes. He stops being to self-centered and he starts to care about others. In the end he even seems to care so much about helping others that it consumes him in a way.
Also the acting in this movie is very good. Bill Murrey shows that he has a lot of range as an actor portraying Phil perfectly to what I would have thought of him as. These characters had some depth, even the camera guy and the actors and actresses that played them did a good job to conveying that happiness while also keeping the story going.

Bringing up Baby

I don't know about most people but the movie Bringing Up Baby is so bad. I know it is supposed to be a classic but to me it did nothing. It was a series of long takes with lots of dialogue in them. For the whole shot, Susan would just go on and on about nothing and David would stand there like an idiot and try to say something but wouldn't. All these scenes, which made up about 3/4 of the movie, did for me was make me hate both of those characters. The other two of the movies that we watched seemed to use some of the cinematic elements that we learned about in class. This movie did not. All it did was use long takes and I Think it took away from the movie.
Also the acting in the movie was not very good to me. David and Susan seemed to be characters that anyone could play. I bumbling museum worker, and a women that is so annoying and talks fast. The movie was just a boring adventure that seemed to pile on one stupid act on the next until the most was completely ridiculous

Once Upon A Time In The West

The movie Once Upon A Time In the West was a very good movie. It falls under the category of revisionist western and, after watching a classical western, I think that I much rather prefer the revisionist movies. They delve deeper into characters pasts, and motives and make all the characters more complex. With more complex characters allows for a more complex plot also. This movie is just the way I think a western should be, it makes you think and it gives you some good action.
The character of Harmonica is just the way that I think a western hero should be. Unlike the classical western hero, he is not a pure innocent human being with perfect morals. He seems to have an affinity for violence, he is blood thirsty and deep. We are always in the dark whether or not he is a very moral person. His true nature is never revealed to us and makes him even more mysterious. He is a strong silent type which aligns him with the classical western hero. This is the only way in which Harmonica is alike to the classical western hero though.
All in all the movie Once Upon A Time In the West is a very action filled movie that also has a deep meaning behind it. It makes you think and doesn't disappoint when you find out the truth in the end. Also it doesn't reveal all of the truth so it leaves you in the dark a little bit and I like that.

Seven Samurai

The movie I choose was Seven Samurai widely regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time and also possibly the greatest action movie of all time. Directed, co-written, and edited by Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai was released on April 6, 1954 to great acclaim. Spanning more than three hours the film depicts a story of seven samurai's who are hired for protection of a village that is under attack from bandits. Each of the seven samurai's in the movie have their own personality and their own impact on the film. While to me they were the best part of the film, I felt more and more attached to them as the movie progressed, I choose another aspect of film to learn more about.
The aspect of film that I learned more on was photography. While Akira Kurosawa seems to get all the credit, Seven Samurai's cinematographer was Asakazu Nakai and he also worked with the photography. While Seven Samurai was one of his greatest films he was nominated for an Oscar for the movie Ran. He also has won many other awards for his outstanding cinematography work. The most notable ones are the Blue Ribbon Award for Itsuwareru seiso, the Mainichi Film Concours award for Akazukinchan kiotsukete, and his Mainichi Film Concours award for Nora inu. With so much acclaim it isn't hard to see why many of the movies he has worked on have become classics and studied for the elements that he brought to the table.
Asakazu Nakai used many different shots during the movie Seven Samurai. Pan shots were used to show wide ranges of space especially the beautiful scenery, and also tracking shots were used when the characters, especially the samurai, were sprinting into battle. The way that the camera showed the beautiful scenery and also the characters when they were engaged in battle makes the film very powerful. Some of the most notable techniques that Asakazu Nakai used though were wide-angle lenses and telephoto lenses. Since this movie was released in 1954 Asakazu Nakai was without much of the modern technology that we now use so often in present films. To be able to master the use of these lenses back then is very impressive to me. It shows me that Asakazu Nakai had a great eye and grasp of the concepts he was using and was able to use what he had to make beautiful works of art.
I also choose to learn about the script in Seven Samurai. Seven Samurai was written by a combination of Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni. The main idea for this film was the class conflict between the samurai nobility and the peasant class. Akira Kurosawa does a great job though of masking that true conflict behind the conflict of the bandits raiding and pillaging the village. Seven Samurai also shows the way that the class struggle gets solved. The samurai and the peasants end up working together and that is what makes the movie really special. To be able to show the conflict go from beginning to end in the way that Akira Kurosawa did is just another reason that makes this movie a masterpiece.

Western

I decided to analyze the final scene of the film. Well the final important scene of the film, the shootout between the Clantons and Wyatt, his brother and Doc Holiday. From the beginning of the film you as a viewer knew that this fight scene had to be coming. While the film did a good job disguising the conflict with the Clantons, the fight was always in the back of your mind and it finally happened at the end.

I thought that the scence was very well done and also ended the movie nicely. It starts with Wyatt and his two fake fighters walking down the street, while Doc and Wyatt's brother are creeping up behind the Clantons. After a long walk and a final warning to the Clantons the shooting starts. After a series of quick cuts you see all of the Clantons fall except the father, and also you see Doc Holiday die. Then after another confrontation the father is killed and Wyatt and his brother go and check on Doc.

I thought that this scene was done very well. As Wyatt was walking down to the OK Corral the whole town seems diserted and adds to the suspense of the scene. While you know that the hero is always going to win, the twist with Doc dying was something that I didn't think was going to happen. He seemed to gain importance as the movie went along and so following the usual western storyline I thought he would live. I especially liked the way that the quick cuts added to the action. The only thing that I think could have been improved was the part of Doc and Wyatt's brother. What they were doing wasn't very clear throughout the scene. I give this scene my approval for how long ago it was made and how they seemed to make it very well.

Citizen Kane

To take Mr.K's idea I think I will talk about how low-key lighting was used in this movie. I Think it was both a way to define character traits and also to set the mood of certain parts of the movie. Low-key lighting is used many times to show Kane. It shows how he is a complex, mysterious, and kind of dark character. The mood that is usually portrayed is also a dark sinister kind of mood, going along with what is happening to kane. Whenenver a character is in a bad mood, or seems to be up to no good low-key lighting is also used. It is used when showing Susan because she is drinking her problems away, and also when Leland get fired becuase of how he feels at that point. Low-key lighting is a great way to make the mood darken and show some undisirable traits in characters.

Raging Bull

One of my favorite movies of all time is the movie Raging Bull. In my opinion Martin Scorsese's best film depicts Jack LaMotta (Robert DeNiro) and the life he leads. His brother played by Joe Pesci and Vickie his second wife, along with LaMotta are the main characters in the movie
It starts out at the end of the story with a fat, washed up LaMotta telling his story from the dressing room of a club. From the club in the present it rushes back to the past to look at the beginning of LaMotta's career. It goes through the time when he is an upcommer and nobody respects him, to a time when he is bigger than life. But underneath the boxing exterior is the turbulent personal life he leads also. An intensely jealous and intensely complex and confused man LaMotta rambles through life trying to find his own path.
The Plot in this movie was extremely involving, complex, realistic, and believable. The actors talked, acted, and genuinely seemed to become the characters they were portraying. Robert DeNiro was able to show the pain and jealousy and confusion of LaMotta in a very realistic way. While boxing was the front for this movie it was in no way the main topic of the movie. LaMotta spent much of his time on little details allowing himself to get worked up over very small things. Although he was married, the best relationship he had was with his brother to which he somewhat was able to connect. Without his brother LaMotta's jealousy and paranoia would have consumed him.
Robert DeNiro depicts Jake LaMotta in a very realistic way. The emotion he shows, the pain he feels all seems to fit in with LaMotta's personality. Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty (Vickie) both portray characters that seem to be very realistic. Pesci's character, LaMotta's brother always seems to be calming and cleaning up LaMotta, while Vickie is somewhat the opposite of what Jake needs but also seems to be a clinging on to point for LaMotta.
In the movie the cinematography was great. The lighting made the moods go from happy to sad in an instant, exactly mirroring how LaMotta felt at the time. The fight scenes had close-ups, crane shots, quick cuts, and slowed down timing to make every little detail stand out and scream I'm important. The sounds in the movie helped to heighten the mood that was being felt during any point, again mirroring LaMotta's mood exactly.
While the movie is about a boxer, and it's only logical to say that the boxing ring would be the main stage of the movie it is not. What the ring is used for is a place where all of the things LaMotta is feeling at that point can make a huge appearance. It is where we truly see LaMotta for what he is, and that is a troubled complex individual.

I haven't been watching many movies lately. Really the only movies I see now are ones that I flip to on TV or ones that are on at a friends house. So to be completely honest the last movie I saw any part of was High School Musical. No offense but that movie was horrible. It was a huge downgrade from the movie I watched right before I saw that, Remember the Titans. Now that's a great movie and I think I'll go and watch it right now

Journal entry critique the critic

To be completely honest I don't read many film reviews. I just don't see the point to read them myself when I can ask someone else what either they thought of the movie or what a critic said about the movie. But I read the film review of the Bourne Ultimatum by Rex Reed of The New York Observer. I really only picked Rex because I liked his name, and he was writing about a movie that I liked so I thought I'd see what he had to say about it.
Right away Rex goes into great detail about the movie and writes a long paragraph describing the ins and outs of the movie. But the action was his favorite part about the movie by far.

The ingenious ways they die pump oxygen into the bloodstream of The Bourne Ultimatum, keeping you dizzy and creeping you out. Bring smelling salts.

This rex guy never seems to really saw anything that is of importance or of substance. He just goes on and on about what a great action movie this is, repeating the same thing over and over again. Rex seems to think that it is only about the action scenes in the movie, or if he doesn't he doesn't saw much to explain himself. The one time he does say something other than how the action was incredible, Rex makes a good point. Saying that through all the action the plot never stops.

In almost every action movie these days, the plot skids to a halt at random
points while the actors blow things up or beat the hell out of each other.
Here,
every single set piece—the cat-and-mouse game in Waterloo Station, the
rooftop
footrace in Tangier, the de rigueur car chase through the streets of
Manhattan—is shot and edited at Grand Prix speed, yet the film never loses
its
momentum, balance or sense of story and character.

When I was watching the movie I found myself imersed in all of the aciton but also liking the plot, and how it never seemed to take a backseat to the action of the film. The second of the points that I agree with Rex on is that the villians, or other assassins, are all played by very down to earth people. The movie makes the villian look just like us, blending in with their surroundings, and it just takes the moive to another level.

Unlike the grandiose, megalomaniacal archfiends in the James Bond franchise, the
assassins in the Bourne films have been played by some of our most
down-to-earth
character actors-

While Rex seems to think that this movie was incredible on many levels, and so did I, the way that he writes his review makes me not really want to go see it again. The review had little substance and was very repetitive. Everything in the review was about the action, or how great of an actor Matt Damon was (which he hinted at, and then finally put a whole paragraph on him) leaving the reader of this review to really question either going to see the movie or just how good the movie actually was. Rex uses way to many big words to look impressive, which really takes away from his review of the film.

Test entry

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