Fight Club

This movie with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton is awesome.  I've watched it numerous times and own a copy of the movie.  With its celebrated cast members (even the doorman at Edward's apt.), this story of a downward spiraling way of life of "two" who after meeting, become "friends", was thematically scary.  Their "bond" was very strong, kind of like us people in real life bond with our alter egos.  Question though..Why doesn't the quarter return after Ed hangs up after there's no answer from Brad?  Edward talking directly to the camera put a spin on the storyline (narrative/documentary form.  Brad is just off with his charming manner (he seems natural as if how he is in real life).  I love Edward's voice and how he says his lines.

Edward is Tyler-this crosses "reality" and fantasy as it turns out.  Either Tyler is just playing a dirty trick on Edward or Edward's subconscience he's been dealing and fighting with, is extremely strange, destructive to his well-being, and psycho.  That would be a disturbing way to have your mind playing tricks on you. 

Both Edward and Brad's acting style is intense in this movie, but oh so good.  The director has realistic techniques, as this movie definitely relies onthe abilities of these actors.  It's not hard to differentiate between the actor's (Brad and Edward) artistic personas.  They are both extremely wonderful actors.  They both played some tough characters here.  That just shows how diverse they each can be.  Neither one are personality stars as they have both played a wide range of characters and I'd personally give them the titles of "icons." 

In casting this film, I wonder if the directors knew right off hand who they wanted to play these parts.  It was though the parts were written just for these men. 

This movie was definitely done in a closed form.  The settings in the film (the house and basement of bar), were perfect in portraying how grimy this movie was intended to be.  The dark and dirty, nasty rooms must have been quite a "joy" to work in.  The make-up artists displayed great skills with all of the blood and broken teeth and swelled-shut eyes.  It looked so very real.  The costumes didn't have to be much considering they were regular old clothes.  This movie can never get old.

Amadeus-Sound/Music

I loved this!  I remember the song, "Amadeus, Amadeus!" but have since forget the artist.  It had nothing to do with the movie as I recall. 

The opening orchestra piece brings to life the setting.  The movie directors and actors had such a vast space  to use.  It seems the script should have echoed on the set.  The musical piece that played during the showing of the cutting of the throat by Maestro Saliad (the guy in the beginning) doesn't seem to fit.  It was a happy tune, not melodramatic.  I loved the violins (being that I played the violin for years while in elementary, middle, and high schools), bass, cellos, and violas.  I danced in my mind through the opening credits.  Hansel Gary (not sure of spelling) playing the violin, or not, sounded recorded in his flash back of a concert he'd composed.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's laugh rang in my ears everytime it was vocalized.

The opera singer (Is she singing?) singing "Greedy Songbird" was nice.  The piece playing as she's on stage represents and goes along with court composer Saliad's jealousy.  He's in love or lust.

There was some bit of the "Mickey Mouse" sound as the performers danced on stage.

The score went well with the grandiose view inside the palace at the wedding of Mozart and his fiance.

The sound of the horses trampling sounds much too large for five horses when the majesty meets court composer in the park.  It was more of a representation of the royalness of the majesty arriving.

The shrill turning of the paper (sheet music) shows contempt, jealousy and anger of the court composer.  My thoughts were confirmed when he states "...we are enemies..I'll hinder and harm...ruin your incarnation!"

The surprising arrival of the father-the loud crescendo of music-played well along with the scene.  Overall the sound in the movie was delightfully representative of each scene in the movie.

North By Northwest

This Hitchcock fillm was cool!  I'd seen some short series on television, I recall as a child, but not one of his full-length films ever.  He really is a genius when it comes to editing his films.  After reading the chapter on editing and learning that he draws his storyboard, I viewed the film.  It was just like it said in the book.  He likes to make the viewer feel what the character is feeling or to be able to get a sense of what they're thinking, by cutting and going to a CU of another character's face to see his/her facial expression.  It adds a sense of humor to the scene. 

When Cary is rushing down the hall, instead of attemting to make screen time conforn to real time he used editing to get the viewer to understand the hurriedness of Cary's steps.  The cuts of the different positions in the hallways do just that.  It speeds the film up.  My heart was racing with anticipation of him reaching his destination.

When he's drunk in the car and you can see the camera sway with the car, I felt a bit of "sickness" and could feel somewhat "dizzy" by it.

My favorite part was when Thornhill's in the fielded area.  This setup was nice in the way it played out.  You kind of anticipated this though, following the film.  The different cuts of him after getting off the bus gives you the idea of the time it takes for someone else to get there.  He keeps turning and looking for a long time, thinking the different vehicles approaching might be who he's intended to meet.  The views of the road gave me the sense of, "la di da di da, hhmm mm; just waiting and waiting.....more waiting."  The dust being blown in his eyes...twice, then the guy who gets out the car, stands there for a while, that's when I got the feeling it was a trick.  My thought was confirmed when the other guy got on the bus and the doors just shut in Thornhill's face.

The airplane banking and trying to shoot him down was intense.  I thought it would be more of one of the vehicle's that had approached, someone would drive slowly by, and shoot him.  The airplane was much more exciting.

There were all types of shots taken during filming of this movie; long shots, medium shots, up close, panned views, extreme close ups.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie.

Raiders of The Lost Ark

This film was full of stunts.  Being thrown into the pit of snakes; the trucks and other vehicles crashing throughthe crowd; and the truck and jeep having a fit of road rage, with trying to run the other off the road or blow their opposer up throughout the jungle area.  Even the lady holding onto and then falling against the structures as she descends to the rocky ground.  OUCH!!!  Is all I can say.  But are these stunts for real or is their a mass amount of different shots taken with a stunt double?  These don't look like the beautifully crafted real stunts of the Woo era.  How many jeeps were destroyed while being sent off the ledge?  The snake scene scares me a bit.  Are Jones and the lady really in the company of all these snakes?

Is the fighting real?  Fighting with the soldier before having his face shredded by the propellers was interesting.  Actors don't actually fight anymore or did they ever?  Jones sliding underthe truck and willingly being dragged by it looked real..

The stunts with the exploding lights inside the cave after the opening of the ark looked real until the spirits started to fly about.  The light force striking through the actors bodies and the skin falling off the face of the dark one was edited well. Great FX!

For the most part the stunts looked very staged and choreographed.  Not real like Chan in his movies.  Too bad.  I never really got intersted into the Raiders' series of movies.  Not my kind of genre, but it was interesting to watch.  Entertaining and kind of exciting!

Singin In The Rain

This was a colorful movie.  The movement was included cranes and other flying forms-Lyricism, choreography because there was much dancing and performing.  The camera seemed to sit still and focused most of the time.  There were girations involved with the charcters for example, the damcing and flipping up and down, doing the flips and somersaults.  The sylized convention regarding Gene Kelly's elaborate dance routine in a downpour.  He twirls around the lampposts, splashes through puddle. There's kinetic variation symbolizing his feelings about the girl.

The scenes where there are alot of people on stage and dancing when the camera has a wide-angle shot and view of them then goes to the overhead angle, the characters eyes follow the movement of the camera well.  There seemed to be some trucking and tracking shots taken from a moving dolly as well. 

The cameras kept up with the fast motion of the characters and caught their facial expressions very well.

Henry V

This is set in an old time; the language is old, archaic in fact- English? French?- Old empirical clothing with shields and armor.  The language is so passionate i.e. "I will keep for thee".  The acting is also as in the tussel that ensues before the three are convicted of treaso (betrayal to the king).  The words spoken create the effect needed to strike upon the audience of the intense air that is about in the room.  The colors ar drab, dingy and the lighting makes scenes look cool and dingy.  The English vs. French war that happens looks as though at night, with the darkness and the fire looks like a stage set, not an actual place-built.  The use of the cameras-the high and the low positions show the effect of grandeurism, God-like views and the effect of making someone seem "bigger than life". 

The voices speaking so gruffly in that "Sparta" form- we don't speak like that anymore for the most part.  We've gotten so lazy in our speech. 

The French to English lesson of the body parts scene is so bright and sunny in the fun and joy (lighting).  The lady and her maidservant have more fun time while the men fight and the ladies joke.  Such roles women and men played back then.

The cold, rainy, wet, and muddy path made me shiver.  No wonder so much sickness prevailed to sometime fateful ends for some.

"Shall the King hang a thief?" and the reply that "Not thou shall" and then the broken promise followed by the King terfully allowing so showed much emotion.

The first time me noticing the narrator talking straight to the camera and the lights dimming to introduce a more sinister, lurking danger, the camera followed him just right.  I felt I need the subtitles on with the blending of the words.

The Mise en Scene I noticed had the distance between the camera and it's subjects positioned well.  The battle scene showed a widescreen effect showing much detail with danger approaching much of its victims (fallen soldiers).  The slow motion made it that much easier to see and notice.  The scene with the Princess and Crispin had a balance to it when the King stood in the middle of them.  The cropping was good.

Snow White/Animation

Watching Snow White took me back to my childhood era.  Looking at it this past week in class reminded me of the exciting colors used.  It was kind of scary also with the queen and the jealousy she had of Snow White.  The lengths she went to to kill her off with the apple and poison, how vulnerable some women are.  There were still pictures used and for example, coupled with movement (i.e. the dark clouds).  In most of the frames both were used.  I've always been curious about the series of pictures, the animation and all the drawings used to make one film.  In Snow White the colors used were pastel and standard.  The astonishment drawn for Snow White's face as she is told to "Run, hide in the woods, anywhere!", were very well done. 

Going from the fun and singing scenes to the dark and scary and threatening were very well done also.  Capturing the movement of the characters and their shadows took quite skill and perfection.  I can see so much thought and detail put in the creation of this film.  The movement of the dust must've been difficult, I'd presume for the artist, and challenging.  In the cleaning scene it looks as though some time the tape was rewound to use the same picture to make the duration of the movement longer.  For example, the waterfal along the path the dwarfs followed home.  The sparkling of the diamonds and jewels where the dwarfs worked caught my eye as spectacular.  The fly making the bubble on the soap bar was done magnificently.
It looked as it does in reality.

The artists show shading in the skulls' brows that are realistic.  When Bashful starts to sing and turns a bit red, it's done in realistic timing.  The colors represent well.  I could see the expression in Snow White's eyes as she began telling her story of love, like the flutter of her eyes as she began to tell, rather sing, her story to the dwarfs.

In the reading it said that Snow White is where Disney made his signature trademark for the most acceptable type of fairy tale.  The fairy tales that followed basically followed the same type of script, with the princess in distress and some turmoil happening, but the being saved and loved by a strikingly handsome prince.

Disney taking this from the Grimm Brothers and making it all his own, isn't that what most moviemakers do today?  So why all of the fuss?  Disney not giving his animators credit and them having to fight for recognition, for the most part, is selfish and wrong.  He gets proper credit for a million other things, why not share the spotlight or at least give credit where it is due, because without these artists and animators, Disney would have gotten nowhere.

The Matrix

     The Matrix was afun movie to watch.  The special effect intensified everything.  The prolonged ringing of the telephone and the way the agents moved were special.  The storyline follows the basic structure with the plot, rising, climax, falling.  But the ending leaves you knowing that there will be a sequel, which there was.  The western style gunfight in the subway was awesome.  I love drama and action and this movie had both.  The lighting, which the book's first chapter focuses on agreed with the movie.  The darkness of most scenes was right for what went on.  It made me follow the movie more closely.  The colors showed through the darknes, although it was a bit off from reality. 
     The clothing the character wore went with the photography of the movie.  The slow motion moving of the bullets with the air being seen as disturbed was awesome.  The stunts and moves of Neo which turned into a dance move later, was shown with much detail.  The angles in which the movie was shot was right on also.  I enjoyed watching this film again, paying more attention to detail rather than the storyline.
     The theme which is photography was very prominent in the film.  It's what made the filming of the movie so unique and trendsetting.  I'd watch it again and again.