Do the Right Thing

I feel that do the right thing could be related to a real world example to people who live in Edina, yes I know that this sounds kind of weird but I feel that it is kind of true many people hate the kids and anyone who lives in Edina and they do it just because of where we live. Some examples are; if I am at the airport wearing an Edina sweatshirt there is always someone who will yell out “cake eater” an sometimes its funny and ill turn to who ever I am with and say “yeah I do like cake” and then there are sometimes where is just gets plain old and I wish people would just stop saying it. I feel that just because I live and go to school in Edina does not give people the right to say mean things to me or anyone else who lives in Edina. This is like when any colored person would be back talked or in the movie when they colored people would yell at the Japanese people and make fun of them for moving here and that they do not belong here.


Another example is when I was dating someone who went to a different school, we had been dating for quiet awhile and many of his friends would ask him are you still dating that spoiled rich girl from Edina, and some of the people who would ask them that didn’t even know me or even my name. It would drive me crazy having him tell me this, they had no right to say anything like that about me because they didn’t even know who I was. I feel that this is like when Sal’s sons would say so many wrong things about the colored people that lived in the area of where his store was. And most of the time they didn’t know the exact person who they were talking about just the colored people in general.

Battle

What I chose to read was the Washington Post article by Ann Hornaday who is on the Washington Post staff. This was different then what I thought it would be. I was thinking that it would be more like critics saying bad things about the movie and maybe mentioning some good parts to it but that is not what they did at all. What I thought was cool is they did some kind of interview where they would ask a question and in some kind of way they would answer it.

Some things that I did not agree with were; the parts where they said that the movie did not have any heroes I felt that each person was their own hero in their own way, another was where is said the French had their own moral backing and could go back and forth, I felt that it was true because it seemed like the French really did that it seemed like if something failed for them they would find a different was to get back at the Arab.

One of my favorite things about this review is the fact that Mrs. Hornaday she made the violence in the movie relate to the violence that we are experiencing right now with the war that we have put out selves into.

What happens in china town

Where did this movie end up... in CHINATOWN!! Surprise, you could have figured it out that it was mostly likely going to end up there because why would the movie have been named it other wise because you never saw them visit it earlier in the movie. Even with all of the times that either Mr. Gates referred to “Chinatown” or someone else had mentioned it , I always tired to figure out what it was but they never gave you enough clues to what it would be about, and that is what makes the ending so great and powerful it blast right into Chinatown, with Evelyn getting killed in the end.

But what really bothered me was the ending, I wanted it to end happy, with Evelyn dying I felt like she did not need to die. I wanted it to be more like out of the past where just that crazy girl ends up dying cause I felt like I always had a bad feeling for her but not for Evelyn but you would expect her to be one of the “bad” people but in this movie it flips things around. With what she had to live with, the story of trying to tell people about her child and her sister and how they were the same person, knowing that her father had raped her and then he killed her husband. So many things have happened to her and she was still just trying to give her child the best life she could and also trying to move on from what had happened with her father when she was younger. In the end you can understand how good of a person she is.

Kiss Me Deadly

The movie Kiss Me Deadly directed by Robert Aldrich, was interesting. Now I could leave it at that, beacuse that is what I really thought of the movie but I would I not like to fail this blog, so i'm going to try to go into more detail about it. Even though I feel that it is difficult to do that.

What I thought was so strange about the movie was the two endings I feel that both of them are just weird and do not fit in properly with the technology that we have, but what I figured is for the time that the movie was released (1955) that is wht many of the movies were doing, so it was acceptable.

The first ending that we saw where Mike Hammer and Velda get away was confusing becasue if the box could blow up the house, wouldn't it start the rest of the world on fire and be the end of the world? Yet Mike and Velda get away, well I think that is what Aldrich was trying to get at. I feel that it just does not make sense.

Although the second ending to me makes more sense, because it is up to you to figure out what would happen to them and th rest of world. Yet it makes Mike Hammer seem like he just dropped off from everything that he was already doing, because he was just killing people before, by doing nothing.

In the end I feel like the movie would not have done well in this time period, because of all of the new technology that we ahve now.

Out of the Past

I thought that Out of the Past directed by Jacques Tourneur was an interesting movie. I don't think that I have ever seen a movie that was in the genre of film noir. I also don't think that I have ever really appreciated any movies in black in white before I started this class, and this movie really makes me understand why black and white movies are so important.


The low-key lighting in this movie is amazing! The way that they don't use light makes it so much more interesting to watch and understand why a director would do that.


Also the way that Kathie starts out as a nice young women who could have never done anything wrong, and slowly as the movie continues you find out a lot more of how she is a cold hard killer.


I think that this plays a big role in film noirs in general that you find more out about how bad the characters really can be and how they can be such bad killers or liars, as the movie comes to an end, and in this case Kathie totally change she started out supposedly loving him and by the en of the movie she kills him.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind directed by Michel Gondry, was a great movie. I thought it was so cute how people could just find each other again. I think that is so amazing.

One thing I didn't like about it, which is kind of bad because it was basically the main part of the whole movie, but i didn't like how they both got each other erased from each others memory because I think that you should remember the things that you have done in one relationship so you will be able to make the next one better. I know most people will want to only forget the bad parts of the relationship, but if you only remember the good parts then you may feel like you should get back together with that person. That's why I think it is good to remember the good times you had together but also the bad and change the way you do things or say things to the next person you are dating.

But in the end I thought it was so cute that they found each other again. I think that true love like that is amazing and if two people in love can go through what they did and still end up finding each other, i believe that they are meant to be together. I wish we could see what really happened to them in the end, but I like being able to think that they did live happy together forever.

His Girl Friday

After watching His Girl Friday. I thought that it was kind of interesting I mean it kept me watching it and tuned in to it but it wasn't the kind of love movie that I loved and there wasn't enough action in it for me to really enjoy it.


I also thought that you could tell what the ending was going to be in the first 10-15 minutes of the movie, and the middle stuff did not matter then, because they did not influence the ending at all, well at least thats what I thought because even if Walter was trying to make hildy stay because of a big story. But you knew he was going to do that from the begining and it didn't matter how big the story was going to be.


End the end the movie was not horriable. Just one that i would never pick up one day and say i want to watch this movie because i thought it was so good before.

Westerns!

After watching Stagecoach and Unforgiven I have a new respect towards westerns I always thought that they were boring movies and always had the same things happening in them. Stagecoach and Unforgiven are two very different types of westerns and it helped me understand that kind of movie better, and actually enjoyed it … ok so there not my favorite kind of movies but I really liked these two. I think its because they were so different, but I would have to say I liked unforgiven better because I felt that Stagecoach was kind if like many other westerns and Unforgiven was the “new” western.
Unforgiven put I new twist on westerns by adding women into the scene as the ones asking one man to help the do a job instead of the man just doing it because some other man did something else and he felt the need to do it. Also the way that Will Munny first comes into the movie as a pig farmer and you would never guess that he was a former killer, I mean he did struggle quiet a lot trying to shoot a can, get on a horse, and actually use his gun again. But as we go through the movie we see how he changes back to the way he used to be. And how he all of a sudden could do everything he used too.
But the thing I wonder is what was he like when he got home did he go back to just being a pig farmer? Or did he keep killing people if someone asked him to? Or does he have enough will power to just kill someone if it ever came between his kids but still be able to give his kids a good life.

Pulp Fiction

I watched the movie Pulp Fiction, one of the things that I noticed the most was the kind of music that they had in the background and how it went very well with the scene and the beat to who ever was in the scene at the time. Karyn Rachtman did the music. There was one scene that stood out the most, the part where Mia was started dancing before she over dosed on cocaine and as she slowly starts dancing the music starts and as she picks up the pace so does the music, once she stopped the music shutoff and I thought that it was done very well on how they did that because I thought that it helped me relate into the scene better with the music playing. I also really liked the song so I thought that it was fun to kind of sing along with her as she danced.

Also in Pulp Fiction there were many famous stars like John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, and Bruce Willis. I think that John Travolta was chosen for this movie because he had already had many big roles and he was proved to many people, how wonderful actor that he is, and he had also won many awards for his acting. He has played many other roles like Danny Zuko in Grease and Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever. These were huge roles for him in the 70’s many of these roles were the ones that made him famous. I think in the movie that Travolta’s character was stereotypical because he was a rich man who spent a lot of his money on cocaine and slept around with many women, and I have feeling that back then that is what it was like for men who had good paying jobs. His life on the set was not bad, many of the scene required him to act in ways that he would never have acted in before and I think with having to practice that on set if something went a little wrong everyone would let it slide, because they might have thought that it was just him preparing.

Bruce Willis came to his fame when he was both a Hollywood leading man and a supporting actor, in a particular role as john McClane in the Die Hard series. I believe that he was chosen for this film because of everything that he has accomplished with his career before this movie. They knew going into it that he would put something good on the table and have a great movie. Which they did because it was the number one movie in 1994. Again I think that his role was more stereotyped because I again he was doing his job for the money and I feel that these days that’s only what people are doing now instead of doing it because they like doing it and having fun. His behavior on the set was friendly and funny until one time when he jokingly states something that offended the director.

Western

One scene that I thought that was really important in the movie was one of the last scenes; it was where ringo and the guy that wanted to kill him come together in a face off. I thought that the producer put a lot of build up into the scene and then I felt like nothing happened and it was just over before you knew it. I didn’t like that all I thought that the scene should have been much longer and that the audience should have seen more within the scene instead of just hearing gun shots while the camera was on someone else.

There may have been a reason for why the producer made this scene this way but I do not know why because from what I remember from seeing westerns is that the shot out/ or face off between the two people or two teams is very important and I has a great roll in the movie. This movie does not fallow the normal screenplay as many other westerns do. Maybe that’s why it makes it such a new and interesting way to see westerns because this was one of the first ones that would different.

Citizen Kane

In the greatest movie of all time "Citizen Kane" the director Orson Wells using a lot of low key lighting to show many different things of importance, that in the end of the movie come back to help you figure out what there true meaning really was at the beginning. Orson Wells uses low key lighting throughout the movie something’s that stand out to me are; is the lighting on the declaration of principle's, in scenes where he wanted more powerful lighting, and in scenes where he wanted to character to seem bigger, smaller, or just different.

In the scene with the declaration of principles he has most of the light on the piece of paper to show how important it is and that it really means a lot to the three guys. It also shows that they all agree on things that need to happen between them. When Wells using low-key lighting you know that it will come up again in a later scene.

In scenes where he wanted to have more powerful lighting, when Kane is typing on the type writer and Leland walks in from the back room, it blurs Kane out a little bit and puts a lot of light on Leland to show his importance in that scene and what he was supposed to be doing, is what Kane was really doing then.

In some scene's where he just wanted to show a difference in color or person. He would put light in some areas that would not normally be lit like the white cuffs on a man’s shirt. Or him when he is giving his speech to show how he is on top. I think he does this because he wants to show how he can using a little lighting to change to meaning of something by a lot, also we wants to show the importance of many things throughout the movie.

City of God

The City of God directed by Fernando Meirelles and screen play by Braulio Mantovani shows how life in the hood and family business can go wrong for young men and women who grow up in small poor towns. Andrea Barata Ribeiro produces a film that relates drug related power and gang power. Such as any gang that we have like the gangs of New York or Havana. The main characters Apresentondo (Alexandre Rodrigues) and Pequeno (Leandro Frimino) Bene (Phellipe Haagensen) grow up as hood friends that end up growing p into very different people. One dies, one is a gangster, and one is a photographer. While this all-taking place in the slum and streets of Rio de Janeiro. Everyone there is struggling for power and trying to be the “top dog”. All of them struggle for their acceptance into the gang, but as the story continues it comes down to who is the real bad guy (a gangster) and or who is the good guy (the police). The most important saying from the beginning is to “Kill or be killed”. Everyone must choose what path they are going to take at a young age because it is hard to turn back. The camera plays a huge roll in ones mans life because it sees reality and it can never lie. As we watched the young men’s futures unfold, the story becomes very believable/. In fact it is a true story.
I believe the acting in this movie was done very well the whole time I watching it I thought it was really and having it be in sub titles I think made it even better, because you got to hear it in their language instead of ours which also helped me relate it more to the characters. I believed that the actor were the real characters, I even thought that maybe these are the real people and they are just making movie about the life that they lived.
The set of this movie was done very well I thought the lighting had a huge affect on how the movie looked and how it affected many things such when it would go from black and white, when it was sad or confusing scene to a scene with much more color when things started to get good again. The costumes I thought were not that much but they didn’t need them to be because they wanted to show how poorly they lived with little money so the cheap clothing if any, but towards the end when Apresentondo want to fit in with his new friends or the better people he went out and had a friend buy him nice looking clothes with much more color.
This film had amazing cinematography there was almost everything in this movie and that is why I think that it was one of the best movies and really keeps the watcher intoned. There were many different angles from close ups of sweat drooping to having that turn into someone shooting from away. Also I high angle shot of a car driving away from this bad town as it show light ahead of them and in the front it shows the town. There were also distorted lenses from a filter lens when the scene was confusing to a clear lens when the police came.
There were also still frames of just black, or of a person of importance that they were talking about. They also showed it once in the movie where there were two scenes playing on the screen at once.
The sound affects of this film were very good at the end when the runts come they have music that sounds like they are chasing you and keeping you on your toes throughout the scene. Also in the sad times where some one dies you feel like you can hear a sad sound in the background.
Over all I thought that is was a well rounded movie with sad and happy parts and I really feel like this movie really makes you open up your eye to what is still going on in are world and horrible it is.

Personal Viewing

One of my favorite movies is the Horse Whisperer, partly because I love and ride horses, but also because it shows what some amazing people and horses will do to survive. It was a very sad throughout the whole movie but the end made it amazing and happy. The girl and her horse were one of the best in there area and she competed throughout the year in many horse show. But on one of there easy days the went out onto the trail and it all went wrong from there. It is always hard for me to watch the part where the horse and his owner get hit by a semi and the horse get’s most of his body torn apart and his owner who is a young girl looses one of her legs.

But watching the two of them try and find a way back to the partnership that they used to have while competing was very interesting in the way that a horse whisperer could help them work out the problems that they had. Without having a leg, she was unable to get on her horse, and see how someone can train the horse to lie down on its side for her to get on is really cool, and watching her trainer or the horse whisperers reaction to seeing them figure everything for the first time is very intriguing and makes want to keep watching till the end.

After watching this movie a million times and watching the partnership growing between her and her horse still amazes me and some days I wish I had that partnership with my horse. That is why I think I have such a strong love for this movie.

Critique the critic

As most sequels to movies are often not as interesting and sometimes cannot hold the audiences attention, the Bourne Ultimantum is not one of those movies. According to John Wirt, an advocate movie critic

“Bourne trilogy comes to a satisfying end”.

Both John Wirt and I agree that the movie is a great action movie, and that all three of the movies still keep you tuned in and sitting on the edge of your seats. The review seems I to agree with what I was thinking about the movie that it is one of the best action movies, that I have seen lately and event though it was third and last in the series it was still amazing as the first one.

"Sequels often run out of ideas and lose the freshness that made the original
films so appealing. The Bourne Ultimatum, the third film in a triptych that
began in 2002 with The Bourne Identity, bucks sequel redundancy. With the
ultra-focused Matt Damon returning as renegade CIA assassin Jason Bourne, the
film is an irresistible rush of action and suspense.”

If I had not seen the Bourne Ultimatum before reading this review, it would make me want to go and see it. But I also feel that John Wirt tells a little to much of the movie and tells you more about what happens in it then what he felt was good and what he felt what was bad about it, so after reading it I already knew what was kind of going to happened, so I would not have been watching it so closely as I was when I went to see it. Because I had not heard anything about it, I heard was that it was really good and you should see it. So while I was there watching it I thin it made me pay that much more attention because I had no idea what was supposed to be happening or what was going to happen.

John Wirt also feels that there were some moments where the movie was to quite, I never felt that there were any to quite moments, but I also think that he felt that like that because he has seen many other movies, and a lot more than I have seen. He also does this for his living and I am sure that he catches a lot more things then what a normal audience would catch.

“Despite The Bourne Ultimatum’s political backdrop, the film is first of all a
great action flick. Except for some rare moments of quiet, the action is
constant and furiously visceral.”

What I don’t like is that Wirt tells how he feels about the movie right away, and how he goes into such great detail about the movie throughout his reflection of the movie. Like going into such great detail of blackbrair.

“A whistleblower tells a reporter for The Guardian newspaper (Paddy Considine)
about Blackbriar, the blackest of the CIA’s black-ops programs. Because Bourne,
who’s still wondering about his identity, wants to know what the reporter knows,
he makes contact. A mere reporter, however, is no match for assassins who answer
only to Strathairn’s deep-cover operation.”

I think that this is to much detail about the movie for someone who has never seen it and just wanting to know what some people think of it, I would suggest to them not to read John Wirt reflection, because it just gives you way to much detail about the movie.

Hi my name is Meaghan, i am really exciting to be in this class and learn more about movies. I also love riding horses, and spending time with them. I have two their names are Ahlerich and Kosette.