In the News...

Interesting Article on a late Egyptian director:Click here

Also, I watched The Shining yesterday. The acting was awesome in that every single character was disturbing in some way. I was very well cast. I loved the moving/following shots...like something was always watching them. Great filmmaking. :)

LMU Homework - Raging Bull, It Happened One Night, and Talk to Her- 5 thru 7 of 15

Okay so in the last week I've watched several movies:
The Avatar Movie (Show Finale)
The Dark Knight
Raging Bull
It Happened One Night
and...
Talk to Her.

First, non homework movies:
The Avatar series is one of my favorite animated shows along with Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends. It has great messages, very likeable characters, and an interesting plot. The movie was an awesome sum up of the whole series, very wise. I enjoyed it.

The Dark Knight... oh there is lots I could say on this and I'm sure each person has their own opinions. I loved it! (*SPOILER*) My dad said the fact they HAD to blame everything on Batman ruined it for him, and the fact Harvey was portrayed as such a strong person but then fell apart so swiftly into a villain, was kind of odd... somewhat akin to Skywalker's quick transition into Darth Vader... just didn't seem developed enough.

HEATH WAS AWESOME, the Joker was phenomenal! The whole battle against this anarchy-thriving villain was thrilling and scary... because it is really something we can fear... it is basically terrorism. And how far Batman could use violence and aggression to fight it was another concern that parallels current situations in the world. Also, Bruce's realization that his identity is Batman and Bruce is the mask is interesting... he can't just walk away from this life.

To me the best thing was that the characters were very real in their internal struggles... they came alive to me. The superhero, good vs evil, traditional structure is always fun but twisted with the smart, maturity of the overall plot it created a truly awesome movie... That really kicked butt with new box office records! :) I recommend this, (but for children over 12... because it is disturbing).

Homework Films: (more on these later)

Talk To Her - This is a really well acted and directed film despite its somewhat disturbing material... but I liked the way it was handled.
Utilized the movie within a movie style as a metaphor for what made this movie oddly disturbing to me... but it also kept you in suspense about the whodunit
The main character Benito was a likeable creeper, you were sympathetic to him until you really know what he did.

Funny thing... my waiter at Anamia's reminded me of him because of the intensity of his friendly-ness lol.

It Happened One Night by the legendary Frank Capra! Witty little romantic comedy that even though the actress did not want to do it, that played right into her little pretentious character... she won an oscar for what she thought was her worst performance ever. Clark Gable was the lead man, the Brad Pitt of the day... well I don't think so but most sources will say so. :) Fun watch if you are interested.

LMU Homework - Psycho - 4 of 15

Alfred Hitchcock. Master of suspense. The thriller.
I loved Psycho (although I could have done without the know-it-all psychiatrist at the end.) Anthony Perkins was awesome for the part and his acting was perfect... best I've seen for an old movie. Great twist (too bad I learned the entire story before seeing the movie, but my sister didn't know so it was fun watching her keep guessing). You think the story is about this girl's romance and lapse of judgment but no its about Mr. Bates and his mother. The very end was awesome... Anthony's creepiness was so great! :-)

Themes:
1. Madness, and how it effects people.
2. Traps, being in them
3. Mothers, their omnipresence
(there are many more... but these ones stood out)

Interesting thing about old shot-on-film movies is that they often have long continuous shots, many times starting from a full shot of the conversation and moving into a medium close up of one of the characters, or following them about the room at a steady full shot.

I think the most interesting thing I learned though was how Alfred directs... because he has storyboarded every shot and how his camera moves... basically what he tells the actors is that when my camera moves, you move, what you bring to the character and what gets you to the next mark is up to you. If you need help, I'll be there. Janet Leigh said often actors said this hindered them but she felt it was a nice challenge for her to find the motivation to move when he wanted her to.

Fun Facts:
1. The blood in the shower scene was Chocolate Syrup
2. There were 70 setups for the shower scene which took a total of 7 days to shoot.
3. First time a toilet was ever seen in a movie
4. The censorship department had a cow over the word "transvestite".

LMU Homework - Blade Runner - 3 of 15

Blade Runner. Hmm... I guess the good points about this movie are:
1) Technically it's awesome. The special effects are good for its time. The shots are interesting, with the lens flare sci-fi style. The red-eye flicker for the Replicants is cool symbolism (also key to second guessing Deckard's humanity).
2) It leaves you with more questions than when you started. Sometimes movies give you all the answers and you don't have anything to talk about after the movie. This one on the other hand wants you to think about the social and ethical implications of human-esque robots and just the value of life, as well as the idea of living in constant fear in this world.
3) I think its very intriguing how this movie combines, historically the fears and beliefs of the time.

The ambiguity got me. I still can't decide if Deckard was human or a replicant (the director, Ridley Scott, says he's a replicant). I also don't understand... Why a unicorn? I guess if he's a replicant that could be an inserted memory and the reason the creepy cop knows is that he oversees Deckard's operations. And also why does it end with him running out with the girl replicant? Sure they are acting on their newly developed emotions... but does that sum up the story? I don't know.

Overall this movie examines a lot of the fears of the future and are still present today as technology continues to develop.