Coen bro's

I really enjoyed watching the Coen Brothers films; Raising Arizona, Fargo and No Country for Old Men. My favorite one of the three by far was No Country for Old Men. I'd seen the movie before but I think watching it for a second time really opened my eyes to some key things I had noticed the first time I watched it. The first time I saw it I missed the key scene where the sheriff goes to the hotel where Lewelyn was killed. After discussing it I now think that Chigurh wasn't even in the room and that they were just perceiving him as a ghostly like figure. I thought this movie was one of the better movie's I've seen because there's no music in the film but they still make it incredibly scary by the footstep sounds and other creepy sounds. I thought that Chigurh was such a bad ass, he's the best. I think that the Coen Brothers are really good at connecting the movies setting with the characters and plot. Like Fargo, how the movie takes place in minnesota they all have really thick minnesotan accents. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed The Coen Brothers and I think they are brilliant directors.

ALTMAN

Robert Altman's films have been my favorite movies we've watched so far in art of film by far. All his films are all very different, unlike Surokawa where all his movies were basically the same thing. His movies vary from The Company ; a ballet movie to Nashville; a (hippie) musical movies to The Player; a murder/detective movie and then to The Long Goodbye. I really like how he's comfortable in getting creative with his movies and not sticking with one kind of movie but expanding his horizons to differentiate his movies. Although he is very creative in making different films, he has very many cinematic styles that are similar. His use of very long opening scenes, few cuts, and abrupt endings occur in practically all his films. In some of his films he lacks a protagonist which differentiate Altman than most other directors. My favorite movie we watched from Altman was The Player it mocked hollywood a lot. I like how it had the twist where the movie was about a movie. Throughout the whole film it was mocking a movie that was suppose to have a sad ending, but in the end it ends up being a happy/ cheesy ending- like most hollywood movies. Because that was a main problem for the director of Habeous Corpus I thought Altman was going to have his ending be a sad ending, but it ended up being unrealistically happy which was kind of a twist in itself- for me at least. Altman was a great director and his movies will forever be great great films.

Kurosawa

After watching all three Kurosawa movies; Stray Dog, Yojimbo and Ran, I can safely say that I despise subtitled movies. It makes everything way more complicated. My uncle is deaf so whenever he watches TV he always has to read subtitles. I think I would go crazy. After watching all three movies it really made me appreciate the use of narration; tone of voice, and dialogue. A key scene that I remember the most in Stray Dog was definitely the last scene in the movie when they are fighting and there's a bunch of close-ups on flowers and the very end when they lay next to each other crying. I thought it was a very odd scene but i liked how Kurosawa uses symbolism. Another scene that stook out was the Black Market scene where he is running forever chasing the thief all over the place. It really stood out to me because it was abnormally long. I think Kurosawa had this scene be extra long because it's the most important scene- that introduces the conflict. The whole movie is based on trying to find the thief who stole his gun and getting it back. A common theme I found throughout all movies is that I think Kurosawa is really fascinated by war. In stray dog it's a different kind of war than the other too, but he uses it as good vs. evil- the detectives vs the thieves. Kurosawa uses many different cool cinematic techniques but one that stood out to me and that I thought was very different was the pressed-angle-look where he makes characters look a lot closer than they actually are. I didn't really like all three movies, but it was something new and a change of pace to the movies that I watch.

THE DA VINCI CODE

For my third and final Ron Howard film, I watched The DaVinci Code. This was definitely the most mind-boggling film. Compared to the other two films, Cinderella Man and Apollo 13, it was more in-depth and gruesome. I think Ron Howard really likes Tom Hanks because he seems to be a reoccurring character in his films, or maybe it's just coincidence. The Da Vinci code is one of those movies that starts out with the conflict and the rest of the movie foreshadows and figures out why Sophie Neveu's grandfather was murdered, who murdered him, and also it shows what he wanted to tell his grandchild in code. The movie starts out suspenseful and continues to be just as suspenseful throughout the rest of the film, which keeps the viewer intrigued throughout the whole movie. He also makes it really creepy and disturbing when Silas cuts and wips himself and just about everything else about him; when he creeps up on everyone and when he kills the nun and his attempts and killing everyone else. The Da Vinci code is about Dr. Robert Langdon and Agent Sophie Neveu's search to find out what Sophie's grandfather wanted to help them discover; a religious mystery that has been protected by a secret society for two thousand years. Ron Howard once again does an outstanding job at making The Da Vinci Code really exciting and suspenseful by all of its twists and the quick getaways from the police.

hitchcock

All three Hitchcock movies we watched in class were all pretty good, except the 39 steps. I didn't like that it was in black and white and the whole plot kind of bored me. Rear Window was really boring in the beginning but when you start to fall asleep then BAM the action starts and it get pretty suspenseful and shady. Vertigo was also really good until you get really into it and the end comes along, then it just makes you super frustrated. When Madeleine "falls" out of the window to her death? She was like literally five feet from the edge. It was for sure a run and jump. The filming was really bad behind that one. Unless, it was trying to leave the ending to interpretation. Then it did a really good job, because I really think it was a run and jump and Mr. Klobuchar seems to disagree. Hitchcock uses many different elements that makes him different from other directors. For example; how he always uses a blonde woman that a middle aged man falls in love with...how he appears in his movies...how the man makes the woman change: like in vertigo he recreates Judy back into Madeleine and in rear window the woman changes into a more "manly" woman. I think he's a very good director and does a good job at creating movies that no other movies are like.

Cinderella Man

For my second Ron Howard movie, I watched Cinderella Man. I deffinetly liked this movie more than Apollo 13. Although both movies were very suspenseful and exciting, I think Ron Howard made Cinderella Man a better movie by the way he used love, suspense, and passion for boxing. Cinderella Man is a movie based on a true story of a former heavyweight boxing champion, James J Braddock. The story is about Jim Braddock (Russell Crowe) and his wife, Mae (Renee Zellweger) are two very poor people with three young children and their struggle to find work, make money and feed their children. During the Great Depression, Jim works some very low paying jobs, with a passion to get into the ring again. Suddenly, a boxer cancels a fight and Jim gets a shot at his dream once again. After many fights Jim finally meets his toughest match, Max Baer, for the championship. This is where the movie is the most suspenseful due to the fact Baer has killed two people before in the ring. After a brutal fight, Jim wins heavyweight boxing champion. It was really exciting I got shivers. I think he really deserved to win this fight because he had the heart and now his family can live a healthy life. I really enjoyed this movie, and Ron Howard is one of my favorite directors now and I can't wait to watch more movies directed by him.

Apollo 13

The first movie that I watched in my series of movies directed by Ron Howard was "Apollo 13". So far I like Ron Howard's style in film making. He does a really good job in making the movie really suspenseful and he does a good job at useing "flashforwards" of dreams to make you wonder if that incident will really happen, which draws the viewer in even further. Jim Lovells wife has a dream about Jim and company's rocket loosing oxygen which starts making glass shatter and everything just go downhill from there. The dream occured later on in the movie, when all the oxygen leaks outside of the rocket but the team manages to get through it. Ron puts little details in the film of like Jim peeing in this tube-like thing and it just makes you wonder how/where they poop. Anyways, I saw this movie a long time ago but seeing it twice makes you appreciate it more. Ron Howard does a really good job at making the movie suspenseful by adding in scary music or just little sounds that are "a joke" by the other people on the rocket. It always keeps you on the edge of your seat. In all, I really liked the movie and I'm excited to watch two of his other movies!