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.