Rating Movies

1.  Moonrise Kingdom-  A Visual Masterpiece.  The plot was engaging and the cinematography was filled with magical shots, and scenes, with vivid color contrasts.

2. Fruitvale Station- This film was a well portrayed and very enlightening film.  The build up of the plot was intense and well played out.  With dramatic camera shakes during intense shots.

3. O' Brother Where Art Thou-  The music was fantastic in this film and fit perfectly with the film and the plot.

4. Freaks- A ultimate story with a life lesson of karma.  Filmed with great angels and perfectly appropriate lighting used at all times through this film.

5.  My own Private Idaho-  Very aesthetically pleasing film with beautiful set up shots and also interesting landscape shots.  Interesting still shots and editing techniques done.

6. Killer Of Sheep- A very dramatic film of the african american poverty expressed during this time period.  The soundtrack of this film was absolutely perfect and appropriate for the film.  Made the movie.

7. Sherlock Jr. - A comical black and white film that was full of very interesting dream scape images with a fun story to follow along with.

8. Detour- A fun film about a scandalous drama.  This film was very interesting in terms of its play on woman and the roll of woman.

8. Awara-  A painful experience to sit and watch this story that never seems to end,  the film was bland and the story could have been interesting if it wouldnt have drug out for what seemed like forever

9. Good Bad and Ugly-  A traditional Western film, pretty un engaging in my opinion.

10.  Wendy and Lucy-  A boring film going no where with plot and hard to get into, because of lack of plot.  Filled with interesting secret messages though

Fruitvale STATION

 The first shot is a close up of Oscar and his enemy in the background perfectly coming in through the left side of the camera shot.  Oscar has a look of oh shit on his face and we can see the enemy looking angry  trying to confront him.

 The second shot is a medium close up shot of oscar and sophina looking like they are in trouble and worried.  The by standers are looking at what just happened and are wandering what is going on.

 This is a perfect shot of the cops enforcing upon the two guys with the contrast of the yellow taser popping out against the black uniform and black outfit in the dark train station.  The station is all dark and gives a sense of trouble coming on.

 In this shot we see Oscar looking as though he is innocent and throwing his hands up as though he is scared, and the look on the police mans face is fierce.  The by standers in the background are concerned and everyone is trying to see what is going on.  This is a transition shot in the same scene in which we are in the train station.

In this shot are eyes are led to the yellow of the taser gun witch is complimented by the yellow train line in the background.  We see a white man over powering all of these black men on the ground looking scared and angry.

This is the ultimate shot of perfect blur out of the phone leaving the action shot in focus, so we have enough information to no something needs to be recorded here by a phone but we are more centered in on what is happening in the distance rather then close up.

WENDY & LUCY

This movie was one of my least favorite movies  i have ever watched.  It was so bland and had no point or purpose besides to document someones shitty day that they are having for what we believe is no reason.  We have no idea why she is going to alaska or no explanation.  This movie is an antidote to chick flicks because usually chick flicks have something happen that is extremely sad, or a love story, or girl time.   This movie had no sense of plot or any kind of direction except down hill.   Chick flicks appeal mainly to women and i think that this movie appeals to almost no one and not limited to chicks especially because it was a movie for anyone that has the nerve to watch it and waste their own time.

O BROTHER!

I believe that the music in this film has a very important meaning and purpose behind it.  The songs themselves are very historic and relate straight back to times after the great depression which is when this movie is set.  And the role of all the racism and ways of the south it holds great meaning of how times were back them just by the stories through the lyrics of the songs.  The music was so powerful that anyone could relate to it and enjoy it because it fit the story line so much, that people felt that they could appreciate it outside of it being bluegrass country like which most people are not interested in.

My own Private IDAHO

I really enjoyed this movie for the aesthetics of the film.  The scene i found the most fresh and awesome was the two scenes where Sant did the same thing in both.  He froze the shot as though it was a still life photograph during a few of the sex scenes.  I thought it was refreshing how he did this because it brought that photographic media into a film where usually that isnt done much.  The images that were frozen upon were very engaging as well, it was fascinating to see what pose he was going to freeze it on next.  I appreciate this because it is a breathe of fresh air to incorporate stills with in a actual moving film, rather then just viewing a still from the film itself

Killer of SHeep

Charles, Burnett (1977)

                                                      

I chose the scene where the boys are behind the wood piece and they are playing the game throwing rocks at each other as for a game to entertain each others time.  First we have a close up shot here were we can only see the boys hands and we are not sure what is going on here yet but besides that we know he is hiding behind something and moving at the same time, also we see that things are being thrown at him.  Then we go to a wide screen establishing shot were we see that there are other boys on the other side throwing rocks and playing a game with one another

The GOOD the BAD the UGLY

Sergio Leone (1967)

This film really set up clint eastwoods characters and attitude for the rest of his career mostly thus far.  He is just always a silent yet badass character that is always is doing good though but always being ruthless and sticks up for people in most all his films he keeps a pretty constant role when acting in most of his movies.  He is always smoking a cigar and looks rough around the edges which got him into the perfect part for this specific movie, just completely conforming to the character he knows he needs to be.

Bollywood Cinema

Awara: Raj Kapoor (1951)

For me i would consider this film a musical.  Not a full on musical but there is so much singing in it, and for how obnoxious the singing is.  You almost cant ignore the music playing or the songs being sung.  Its almost overbearing, listening to them always signing.  Its just like any film that is labeled a musical, like sound of music lets say, i would say that they sang almost just about as much in both films so i would have to conclude that it is indeed a musical.  It always sounds like they are singing the same song, even though they are not, the tone sounds the same in all the songs it seems.

DeTOUR

Detour: Edgar Ulmer (1945)

In this film there is a idea or suggestion revolving around women, and womens behavior.  From the very beginning of the film we see the main character all upset because Sue, wont marry him, she breaks his heart.  Then we get to meet Verna and she just is set in her own ways, its her way or the highway.  She pretty much grabs him by the balls by hanging this threat over his head.  Then she gets made out to be a gold digger pretty much and only focused on money.  As the film progresses she just wants more and more and starts to get greedy.  At one point when they are in the car she states, "I'm always right", very firmly and once again just bringing her back to this idea that she has to have this superior feeling of empowerment over him and the situation.  There are several times throughout the film were we see Verna acting very seductive and trying to be a temptress to him, by grabbing his hand, or laying around in her robe, ect.  This movie just makes women look very conniving and up to no good.  This film almost gives women a bad name for the most part, makes us seem like trouble and that we just play games, which may be true but we aren't all bad.

Freaks FREAKS freaks

Freaks : Tod Browning

   In regards to the statement of this being categorized as a horror film, I would say I agree and disagree, and let me tell you why.  I think this because of the time when this film came out  they couldn't have imagined the types of fucked up things that people now think about and make movies about.  Rape, brutal killings, really scary looking monsters/zombies, ect.  The things we are exposed to now isn't comparable to anything that the 30's produced cinema wise, or even had thoughts in their head about.  So i can understand how then it would be classified as such, on the contrary I think its a bit upsetting regardless of the time period to call this a horror.  What are you scared of the way people were born?  Thats real life, the way God made them, they are real people.  Not some make up artist creating someone into a scary monster.  Its sick people look at people that weren't born with as much fortune as they were with lower respect, it could have been any of us.  The film is logical when I think about it, of course the freaks have a code of freaks, after having to live like that their whole life being picked on.  How can they not stand up for themselves, and plus Hercules, and Cleopatra deserved what they got for the sick way they acted to people who are just the same as all of us.  That was made pretty clear from the beginning of the film, and as  Joan Hawkins said in her article, "freakish is only skin deep."  They have emotions and feelings too.  They never tried to kill anyone that was respecting them, they showed kindness and a good connection with people giving them respect even though they were different.  So I think that the only part that would make this a horror was the scene with the revenge of the freaks.  It is dark out and rainy out and sets up an inevitably scary setting, but we have already watched this whole movie and had a built up preconception of these freaks being just like us, so it makes its not as scary but almost rather justified.  Now a days we attribute horror movies to having suspense in them, however I don't think there was much of that in Freaks.

It was all a DREAM

                                                             Sherlock Jr.  Buster Keaton

                                                        
In the scene where Keaton has stepped into the film while he was dreaming at work, all that kept seeing was him fail over and over again.  And he wasn't even ever seeking failure, he wasn't intentionally walking into situations that would lead to failure.  Although the most absurd inconvenient things kept happening while the screen kept changing scenery, he would go to sit down and fall into or off of something.  Keaton did a great job in this particular scene using self reflexive technique, it takes us to the core of his intentions in even creating this character.  From the start of the film he is working on building this series of unfortunate events of failure.  He is just a good nice man trying to do something good from the very beginning always being honest and yet no matter how hard he keeps trying he keeps getting screwed over, by the modern mechanical world.  As Gunning said in his article"Buster Keaton or the work of comedy in the age of Mechanical reproduction", "trying to make sense of a rationalized system based on irrational principles."  We watch this character have the world crash down on him time after time when he didn't deserve any of these mishaps.  Sometimes objects or people will just completely stand in our way and lead us to failure and sometimes (most all the time in this film) its not even in our control, and thats just what he was trying to get through in this film.  Its a great film on perseverance and just doing the right thing, and in time karma will come back to you in a positive way.

My Introduction!

I love the movies and am so excited to be taking two movie classes this semester! I love to Hula hoop and i love to dance with fire.. *Wild Child Gypsy Forever*

Wanderlust~

LOVE & LIGHT
dear counterparts

xoxo