The Right Thing?

Many critics and viewers ask Spike Lee whether or not Mookie 'did the right thing' by throwing the trash can through the window, starting the riot, after Sal broke Radio Raheems boom box and after Radio Raheem was killed by the police. Personally, I don't think that was the right thing to do. It wasn't Sal's fault that Radio Raheem died. I mean sure he broke his boom box, but who wouldn't after Radio Raheem coming into his pizzaria many times blasting his boom box and refusing to turn it down. That would annoy anyone; black or white. Sal was gerneralized due to the color of his skin with the white policemen. Sal didn't want anyone to get killed, he liked the people who came to his pizzaria. Sal told Mookie several times to 'do the right thing'. Sal viewed Mookie as one of his sons and he gave Mookie a job at a white pizza place and after all that, Mookie still threw the garbage can through the window. Many people, including Spike Lee, viewed Sal as a racist. I dissagree with that also. All Sals customers were black and he treated all of them with respect except when they didn't treat him with respect. Sal had a crush on Mookies sister, also prooving he wasn't a racist. Also, Sal gave Mookie a job at the pizzaria. People think of the argument over the pictures on the wall as racism due to the fact that there weren't any black people on the wall. But, it's a italian pizzaria. It makes sense to only have famous italian people on the wall. Sals talk with his son, Pino, really shows that he's not a racist because he often questions Pino why he's so angry all the time, aka racist. The underlining message in the story was a really good one and portrayed through all the different kinds of races, I really liked this movie.

La Bataille d'Algier

I read the article from the Washington Post by Ann Hornaday. I agreed with most of the basic comments Ann said about the film. One of the quotes I liked and agreed on also was, "He's pretty confident that his side will win the battle, but he's even more confident that it will lose the war." It was pretty obvious that Col. Mathieu knoew that the Algerians were going to keep their peace and independence even after the long battle. Even though they won the battle, it was pretty pointless because they didn't even win the war on taking their independence. I really don't think Ann Hornaday missed any major important parts of the movie. I did dissagree with one part. I think that there were alot of heroes in the film, and she thinks there is none. I thought that when the Algerian women dressed up as French women was really heroic. I mean, they risked their lives for the sake of winning their freedom and the war. That's got to count for something. I also think that Ali la Pointe was heroic in the film just by being a great leader and being sneeky to try to win independence. I think that the Algerians would consider him a hero.

Chinatown

I thought that this movie was pretty decent yet twisted. I liked how this film noir was different from the other film noirs, it was in color. I thought the plot line was pretty boring but I liked the characters and their acting. I didn't like how the plot was about the water supply or whatever, I didn't really understand what the problem with it was. I liked the role Jack Nicholson played; how he worked just for the money and then got really into his job and went out of his way on the Mulray case. Also, I liked the role Faye Denaway played, she did a good job at first acting as very shady and a non-typical film noir woman. She was very strong and straight forward, but towards the end she broke down into the typical film noir woman and got all emotional. The part where Evelyn and her dad had a daughter, who is also her sister, is really weird but gives it a nice twist. The ending of the film was pretty sad because Evelyns daughter now has to live with Noah and he'll probably rape her too.

Kiss Me Deadly

I thought that this movie was really bizarre from the beginning. First Kristina was panting vigorously which sounded like she was doing something very sexual and the credits were backwords. Right from the start I knew this was going to be a very weird film. The ending was the weirdest of all. The sounds the box made was really creepy yet very odd. Apparently it turns out the box is a nuclear bomb and blows up the whole house and the people inside it. I thought the second (the non-theatrical) ending was more fitting for this movie because if Mike Hammer doesn't blow up it kind of leads you on and makes you think there will be a sequal or something. And lord knows noone would ever want to watch a sequal of this movie. Overall I thought this was a terrible ending and we never even really found out why Kristina escaped from the looney bin except for the fact that she was looney? I could be wrong, but I don't really even care that much because either way I hated this movie.

OUT OF THE PAST!

This was the first film noir I've ever seen unless you include Sin City as a film noir. I thought it was actually pretty decent. Kathie, the villain, kept the story exciting and suspenseful and Jeff was the hot, innocent, retired detective who kept the story going. I thought the end of the film was the best. Throughout the movie it made me really mad that Jeff would keep kissing Kathie when he had a nice girlfriend. In the end of the film i thought for sure that Jeff was going to run off with Kathie. But Jeff was tricking her into getting caught by the police, when Kathie saw the police she shot Jeff. How could Kathie think after all the things she did to Jeff that he would run off with her? I thought this was a nice twist to the ending. I was really disappointed when Jeff died, I think for sure he should have lived. It also made me mad when Ann asked the boy if Jeff was running off with Kathie and he said yes. Now she has to live not knowing that Jeff really did love her. Overall I really did like the movie, but there are minor things I would change.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This movie is by far the best movie that we've watched in class. I really liked it because it wasn't in black and white, it's a more recent film we've watched. Eternal Sunshine is alot different that normal romantic comedies i've seen like His Girl Friday. The dialect was slower and I liked how they fell in love at the beginning not at the very end. The movie was a big circle from the end of their relationship to the beginnging and then the end again. It was alot different than other romantic comedies that way. The lighting style helped that it had a more serious tone along with Joels calm voice when he's telling about his life with Clementine. I think it could be considered any kind of genre because it deals with life lessons of forgiving and forgetting not just their romance.

Screw Ball

This film was one of the most fast paced films I've seen in awhile. I think that if it wasn't fast paced it would probably have been the worst movie I've ever seen because they never change the setting. This film is very diverse for it's times. Hildy is a very strong and powerful character in the film, and usually the women are secondary or soft spoken characters. Her relationships with Bruce and Walter are really weird. Normally girls would fall in love with people like Bruce, who want her to live a normal life. Walter just wanted Hildy to stay in the newspaper business even when she said she wanted a change. In the end I think Hildy should have chose Bruce because I think Hildy will go crazy with the pressures of the newspaper and Walter always pushing her to keep writing stories when she should be experiencing life.

Unforgivable.

Unforgiven wasn't a very good portrayal of normal old western movie heroes. Usually, the heroes in westerns are the hard core fighters but maintain a respectable image and they look out for the women. I think that Bill Munny (Clint Eastwood) was too light hearted to match this profile. When Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) shot a cowboy, Bill Munny couldn't finish the job and hoped that the cowboy would survive his wound. Ever since his wife died he gained a soft spot. Maybe he used to be a killing machine, but he wasn't throughout most of the film.Toward the end of the film he turns around to his past and goes for Little Bill and kills a handful of other people. A normal hero would not have killed the innocent, just the killer of his best friend.

Also, I thought that this movie was really uneventful and I didn't really like it. Usually old cowboy westerns involve alot of action; shootings and battle scenes. This film had shootings for like two seconds throughout the film and there were no battle scenes. I was kind of dissapointed in this western because it was hyped up alot and known as one of the greatest movies and best picture but I really didn't think the pictures were that great and I deffinetly would not have this on my top 100. I also was dissapointed because this movie had a lot of potential to be a great movie because it has some of the greatest actors; Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman.

Babel

Babel is a story of four stories that come together in the end. The characters in each of the stories are totally different from the next story. I think the director chose each of the characters so that it was really easy to follow which story you were watching, and didn't mix any of them up.

Richard (Brad Pitt) is the older looking father figure in the movie. During the movie his wife gets shot and he found help as soon as he could and saved her life by getting a helicopter to come to the area where they were. He is caring and very responsible throughout the movie. I think Brad was chosen for this film because he is an actor that is known for doing good things and being a good person. I also think he was chosen because he's really famous and if people saw that Brad Pitt is in this movie, then they will want to watch it. He has played many other roles in movies that are the caring husband figure (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) and he has been in a lot of drama and action movies.

Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) is a young very disturbed girl. She is a bit of a whore throughout the movie and tries to hook up with many people, including her dentist. It was pretty gross. Her role was kind of random in the movie. I didn't really understand why she had to be a whore in the movie, it didn't really add to the plot line of the story at all. I guess it made the story more juicy and exciting. Chieko was related to Richard and his wife because her father was the one who selled the gun to the kids who shot Richards wife. I found it odd that it was her fathers fault that Susan got shot, yet we didn't see Chiekos father once. I think the director had Chieko in this film to bring some diversity in ethnicity because she was Asian. I have never seen Rinko Kikuchi in a movie before so I don't know if she usually plays a whore in movies.

Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal) is suppose to be a mid-aged Mexican in the story who causes a lot of problems. He is the niece of the woman who's watching the kids of Richard and Susan. He is the character who gets really drunk at the wedding and drives the kids across the border. When he gets pulled over and asked questions about the kids and if he was drinking, he drives away and drops off the kids in the middle of the desert. Due to his poor decisions his aunt is sent to jail and the kids are left in the desert for a long period of time by themselves. I think that he was chosen for this film because he is also a very attractive popular actor. Babel would not have been such a hit with the characters like Gael Garcia Bernal and Brad Pitt.

The director did a good job in bringing the characters together. Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu (the director) succeeded in making good stories of four very complex and different stories into one great movie.

Stagecoach

One of the most important scenes in Stagecoach is the introduction of Ringo. The scene starts with a blast from Ringos gun to bring excitement and suspision, then it zooms into Ringo and shows a shot of Ringos face close up. This scene is important because it introduces Ringo as the most important character in Stagecoach. Ringo is the character that always brings peace with the group. But most importantly Ringo is the character who falls in love with the hooker, Dallas. Nobody in town liked Dallas. Ringo didn't care what others thought, he fell in love with Dallas for her inner beauty. This love affair is very controversial because normally men don't fall in love with prostitutes, they just use them....

Which leads to the movie Unforgiven. This movie is all about a man who cut up a whore, and the whore's revenge to kill the man who cut up a whore. Unforgiven portrays whores in a better way how they were treated back in the day in old westerns. William is the hero in the movie Unforgiven. He is the brave man who kills Little Bill for killing Ned. William and Ringo were both heroes fighting for whores. But their characters are nothing alike. William is the hard core killing cowboy without a care in the world. Ringo is the type of hero in a fairy tale.

Citizen Kane

Orson Welles and his collaborators played with cinematography to make the film far more interesting. He did an excellent job of using deep focus to let the viewer see what was going on far away and near and lets you in on what is more important. One example of how he used deep focus is at the very beginning of the story when Kanes parents were debating over giving Kane away to live in a rich world with Mr. Thatcher. Kanes parents and Thatcher are divided on both sides of the screen in the shot and Kane is in the middle. You can still hear Kane in the background. Mr. Welles was showing that Kane is still the most important character eventhough he's not in the room with them. Another place where Orson Welles uses deep focus is when Kane is speaking with Leland and Thatcher and walks to the window. He's shot in the middle of them and is further away, but still in focus to show his superiority over them. Orson Welles also uses camera movement in the right way to make the story flow. For example, he uses the tilt method when they are in the big auditorium and Kane is giving his speech. It's showing all the people he is speaking to (eventhough it's a painting).

"Say hello to my lil' friend"

Scarface, one of the "best movies of all time", is about a man named Tony Montana (aka Scarface), a refugee from Cuba who killed Fidel Castro so he could get a green card and come to Miami, Florida by the Mariel Boatlift to conquer the "American Dream". When he gets to America he starts by working at a small food store with his friend, Manny Ray (Steven Bauer). His first drug deal was with Hector (Al Isreal) and a bunch of Colombians that didn't go so well. Montana refuses to bring the money to them, and the Colombians refuse to give them the cocaine. In conclusion, Angel is brutally killed, and Montana gets saved by his two other friends, Chi Chi and Manny. They get their coke money and kill Hector. Overtime Tony Montana (Al Pacino) goes from being dirt poor to the king of the drug world. It is a very violent film filled with cocaine and money. Tony is introduced to a drug lord, Lopez, and ends up stealing his wife and gets married to Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer) and buys an enormous house of his own. In the end Montana kills his ex partner, Manny, due to sleeping with his younger sister, Gina. Gina, heartbroken, comes to Tony to seek revenge...

Brian DePalma did a good job of making the characters believable for their roles. This kind of story is very unlikely for the drug world today. The police would catch them right away and they would have no time to become so wealthy. I really liked the way that Tony Montana talked, it was very amusing. I don't think that Michelle Pfeiffer did a very good job for her role as the drug-addicted wife. She was very serious and she didn't seem the type for Al Pacino.

There were a lot of close-ups when the actors were doing coke. Long shots were used in Montanas new home to show how big his house was. Cuts were used to go from scene to scene. There weren't very many special effects.

At the beginning the actors were wearing their orange jumpsuits when they were in prison, they looked very dirty and poor. Then the costumes of the actors were clean, proper looking gowns and dresses for the women and dress suits for the men to show their wealth.

I don't know if I would consider Scarface as one of the best movies of all time. I did enjoy the movie, but I have seen way better. My expectations were very high also, so that could have played a role. Before you watch a movie, especially one of the "best movies of all time" you should go into watching it with no expectations, then you will probably like it. There was barely any special effects, well at least noticeable ones. The plot was like a lot of movies I've seen lately. Man is poor and goes to America to get the American dream, becomes a huge drug dealer, gets really rich, gets married, gets too egotistic, then in the end loses everything. It was also way too long for my liking. If it was cut down an hour shorter I think I would have liked it a lot more. I felt like it just kept dragging on and on. I enjoyed the action and there were many famous quotes in this movie. I didn't like one of the very first scenes when they come to America and they have their first drug deal. It was way too bloody and unrealistic. The antagonist sawed off Manny Rays arm and leg. It was absolutely disgusting.

NEXT

Today I watched the movie, Next. I really liked this movie because it kept you on the edge and wondering what was going to happen next. Not only was it suspenseful, but it had it's moments when it would make you feel bad for the characters or even very angry and frustrated. The way the movie is filmed is cool whenever he is seeing into the future and it gets all blurry and trippy around him. I didn't get to finish the movie, but as far as I've seen it's about this guy who can see two minutes into the future when something is going to happen to him. One scene I thought was really cool was when he was trying to save two peoples lives and gets framed for having a gun at a casino, he uses his ability to see two minutes into the future and escape all the security people and get to his home. During the movie he meets this girl that he falls in love with, and whenever he's around her he can see deeper into the future. All these people are coming for him to use him to try to find where a bomb is and that's where it gets intense. That's right about where I left off in the movie, so I'm excited to see what happens next...

Review for Requiem for a Dream

I found a review from the site, rottentomatoes, on the movie Requiem for a Dream. I watched this movie two nights ago and I really enjoyed it. The story and events that happen throughout the film are very disturbing, but the way the movie is filmed makes the movie terrific. The review from Jeffrey Anderson reflects my opinion of the film. I agree with this review for many reasons. At the very beginning of it he compares Requiem for a Dream with Meet the Parents and how boring Meet the Parents is due to how it's filmed and the plot line. Requiem for a Dream takes you by surprise many times and can make you very uncomfortable by the way the drugs are used, the way they act when they don't get their drugs, what they do to get their drugs and also how the actors act when they are on the drugs. The way Requiem for a Dream is filmed makes you feel like you're so much closer to the actors and shows you how the drugs are made and how the drugs affect your body by using extreme close-ups. Aronofsky didn't make Requiem for a Dream like other drug movies. “Aronofsky doesn't bother with long, loving close-ups of heroin injections (as in Pulp Fiction) or snorting of coke. Instead, he gives us a jackhammer montage to show such things (also used in Pi when the mathematician pops his pain pills). He incorporates a few other cinematic inventions, some borrowed from the 60's, such as split-screens and fish-eye lenses, and others invented by himself, like his trademark body-cam, in which the actor's face is immobile in the middle of the frame and the picture around them jumps and twitches”. He filmed this drug movie more differently than other drug movies have been filmed so that the viewer gets a better understanding of the actors by being so much closer to them. I also agree with the review when he explains how the movie is more different and interesting for using actors who aren't very well known. “Even better, Aronofsky proves that he isn't one of those cold-hearted filmmakers looking for extreme style and has no use for actors. He draws excellent performances out of an unlikely cast.” Jeffrey Anderson also talks how the film gave him night sweats and makes you sick, and throughout the whole film I was uptight and had to sit up right throughout the whole film. The reviewer notes, “Most other drug movies are filmed in a straightforward style, sometimes gritty and street-tough (Drugstore Cowboy), sometimes in spinning colors (Less Than Zero). The recent Jesus' Son is a bland example of a drug movie. Requiem for a Dream leaves them all behind. It tosses razor blades and sour milk into the filmmaking mix. It gives you an emotional jump start that makes it the most intense movie I've ever seen.” This definitely was one of the most intense movies I’ve ever seen. After the movie was over I felt uneasy, uncomfortable and kind of sick to my stomach. I felt bad the ending was so terrible. I thought for sure at the end that all the characters would end up being happy and getting themselves together but everyone just fell apart. That’s another reason how Aronofsky is different actors is because he likes to make the viewers on the edge. In all, I really enjoyed the film because it was very different from other movies I’ve seen recently even though it was very grotesque.