Do my post, then gets my moneys

I really enjoyed watching Do The Right Thing. I liked the characters and how each had their own unique personality. At first I thought the movie was just a racial comedy but as I watched I noticed how much detail spike lee went into to get his message across. Although it wasn't ultra realistic like the Battle Of Algiers it had its own way of showing tension and I think that as the movie went on it was almost hard to watch because you could feel the tension and pressure building. When everything finally went down, it was just chaotic but wrapped up the movie well. Now that I have seen the movie I can definitely say I'll recommend it to others.

Where is Algiers again?

Okay, this is coming a bit late because I've been in Canada and I get no internet from my igloo.
Anyways, the battle Algiers wasn't my favorite movie of all time, but I can see the reason this movie was picked for social commentary. It was extremely realistic and because of the film style it almost looked like a documentary. The reason that I didn't fall asleep during this movie was because of all the confrontations and tension between the people in the movie. I was shocked at all the things that happened during the movie and thought it did a good job explaining what happened during the Battle of Algiers.

You see I have this condition...

I really enjoyed the movie Momento, and although I'm sure I missed a lot of subliminal messages during the movie, hopefully I'll pick up on them the next time around. I really liked how this movie strays from your typical movie by going backwards, but doesn't do it just for the sake of doing the film backwards. I liked how the character development in the movie worked. Where we started off beleiving every word people said (with the exception of teddy). Then ended up not trusting them at all as we were shown exactly what they had done to Lenny throughout the movie (once again, with the exception of teddy). It was a great movie and I hope to catch the little things I missed the first time through when I watch it again.

Spirits?

Kiss Me Deadly. This movie was so confusing. A Sci-Fi film Noir? That doesn't make much sense. But on top of that you have a guy slapping old people in the name of justice, and an intro scene that makes it seem like this "b" movie is going to start playing some funky music and get real inappropriate. I had a look on my face like, well you probably know the look. Its just an empty stare, because I had no idea what was going on pretty much this entire movie. But in the end the movie was completely redeemed by the spirits inside the box at the end. It was pretty amazing, the spirits blew the house up and set a girl on fire. I just loved that ending.

Double Indemnity

I liked Double Indemnity, even though going into this movie I was convinced that all noir movies were silent. I thought it was entertaining and I liked the films style of telling us the main character was doomed but some how drew us in and rooting for this doomed bad guy throughout the movie. I really thought some of David's actions were really awkward, like his line 'baby' it didn't seem as smooth as I'm sure he intended it to be, that and the way he squeezed his lady love. It looked like he was trying to crush her. Even with all of this the movie was still pretty entertaining.

Groundhogs Day

I've seen Groundhogs day a couple times and I've always thought it was a really good movie. Bill Murray does a good job of showing a transformation throughout the movie although its hard not to think that after enough torture by repetition anyone would change temporarily. You never know, he might have returned to the same jerk he was days after the movie ended. Either way I thought the movie was really funny and an overall good romantic comedy.

Slinging Up Baby

Well, before I start my post on this movie let me just say I LOVED this movie! That is, I'd love to have the original copy of this movie destroyed. But all sarcasm aside this movie was probably one of the most frustrating movies I have ever watched. I thought the movie was entertaining in some parts but the acting of the main actress was way to over the top and gave me a headache almost every single day. The guy in the movie just made me shake my head and I couldn't believe how much of a spineless tool he was. On the bright side it was almost cute how they both fell for each other. But in the end all this movie gave me was a headache.

Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time In The West was a good movie in my opinion. A lot of the characters were really deep and it was cool how they all were completely different and had their own stories but it meshed together to make the movie. I liked the fact that we did not know a lot about Harmonica as the audience until the final face off with Frank. I liked how both the protagonist and the antagonist are close in personality but some how end up motivated in different ways.
I also like that JIll is not the traditional western woman like we saw in My Darling Clementine it was nice to get a break from that and have her with some solid character. Overall I thought Once Upon A Time In The West was a really good western that did well because of its strong story and good characters.

It's A-maze-ing...pun intended

Journal Number 3 time, 'Behind The Scenes'. For this journal I sat down with some people and watched the infamous Pan's Labyrinth. I'll begin by saying that this movie was written, directed, and produced by Guillermo del Toro himself. The script came from many years of del Toro's notebooks, in which he constantly keeps character ideas and plot bits, eventually these random idea's gathered up into a cluster of thoughts that became the movie, and trust me when I say you can tell.

The cinematography in this movie is done by Guillermo Navarro, who won many Academy Awards for his work in this movie and is credited for movies like Desperado and Hellboy. There is amazing camera work in this movie, but nothing out of the ordinary if you take a quick look at the rest of Navarro's work. Another thing that can be noted is the music. The film won an academy award for the original score in this movie and throughout the movie according to the DVD Commentary, del Toro was striving to reinforce the magical mood that surrounds the movie. Overall del Toro picked appropriate actors, using a combination of new talent and recognizable Spanish actors.

I think it was the combination of all of these that caused this movie to get such a great critical reaction. Roger Ebert even said 'It's a fairy tale of such potency and awesome beauty that it reconnects the adult imagination to the primal thrill and horror of the stories that held us spellbound as children.' it's obvious this was well received by the critics. As for audiences it had mixed reactions and seemed to be a love hate. From searching online and asking people who have seen this movie it seems that it is either a love or hate movie. However, it is very obvious this movie took a lot to create and was carefully put together.

That is my behind the scenes on Pan's Labyrinth.

A Clementine Is A Mandarin Orange

Its time to talk about the Western movie. Oh yes, I'm talking about My Darling Clementine. After watching the movie all the way through I think the church bell is a very important part of this film. It almost symbolizes and end to the wild west, and the beginning of a new age of civilization. Because the church is unfinished, the completion of the church almost would symbolize the west becoming tame. It is only during the slow process that this church is being built that the west is being settled.
I think its unnecessary that I talk just a bit about the acting before I finish this post though. Doc Holiday is very well portrayed character in the film. His character is show perfect as a man who is living for today, and who no longer has any dreams or aspirations. However, Wyatt Earp, to many seems like a very multi-dimensional guy but to me seems like the basic man he looks like (not to mention I'm pretty sure he can't move his shoulders....ever.) But once again the film is saved by the acting of Cathy Downs who plays Clementine. I thought she did a great job of portraying what women in the west were like at this time. She does this through many outlets, such as her voice, clothing, and attitude. I think without this acting the movie would be incomplete.

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane was a movie that relied as heavily on the sound as it did the actors. For me watching the movie I noticed that even though the music and sounds seemed normal and didn't come out of place at all. But there were a few motifs throughout the film that really showed the mood off well. For example, when the director used Kane's theme song first for the scene at the newspaper, then during the election, then when he was by himself. It showed many different sides of Kane as well as stages throughout his life. It seemed like loud noises were used to snap the viewer back into focus just in case they were like me and had a short attention span. I think Kane was an overall good movie for its time and used sound very well.

Dun Dun. Dun Dun. (Get it, its music!)

How do you review a movie that has gone down in history as possibly the greatest horror-animal movies. Jaws is a suspenseful action ride directed by Steven Spielberg himself. I saw this movie as a kid and when the opportunity came to watch it again and write a review for it came, I found myself nearly jumping at the chance. The movie started and I was instantly as excited as I was the first time I watched all the action unfold. The start of the movie begins with the legendary shark itself attacking a woman while she takes a late swim. I think what happens next is pretty self-explanatory. Immediately after this the police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) tries to close the beach because of the attack, but of course this does not work. It takes another attack before a bounty is put on the shark and we are introduced to the famous shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) as he decides to interrupt the towns meeting with a polite offer of his services, just as long as its to the tune of $10,000 dollars. Around this same time we are introduced to a marine biologist that is brought in by the police chief, he goes by the name of Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss). In an attempt to not spoil a movie which I'm sure a large percentage of the planet has already seen, I'll sum up the rest of the movie by saying these 3 men team up to take down the undersea beast. While watching this movie I was trying to focus a lot on the lighting and camera usage of the scenes. There was a lot of techniques used for this film but one stood out for me, it was during the attack scenes. There was of course, the famous music change that Jaws has become famous for, but there was also a change before Jaws attacks the shots become longer then usual and the camera zooms to an extreme close up of the body part Jaws is attacking, this is repeated throughout the entire movie. There was a great use of props in the water as well as visual effects from Spielberg. The acting is right on and there is not much sign of overacting, even with a large fake shark swimming around the actors they managed to show the real fear well. I definitely recommend the movie to everyone, it is one of the few movies that while being good 'for its time' is still good today as well.

Reign Over Me

I am normally your regular guy when it comes to movies. If it involves superheroes, explosions, senseless violence, or basically any kind of comedy, I love it. But a few months ago I saw the movie Reign Over Me. It has Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. Don Cheadle plays an average man, going from day to day working the same job. Adam Sandler plays his college roommate, who lost his wife and two daughters during the 9/11 attacks. When I first heard about this movie I thought that it was a boring dramatic movie, using the event's that happened on september 11th to make some quick money. The first thing that struck me when I saw the movie was that they never really mentioned 9/11. It was made obvious that those were the events where Sandler's character lost his family, but its not brought up directly. When I saw this movie I was completely amazed by Adam Sandler's acting. As a guy who loves comedy more then anything else, I'm really familiar with his acting, and normally, his characters aren't that smart. But Sandler does a perfect job. The movie is all about Cheadles' and Sandler's development after seeing each other again. It's hard for me to explain why I enjoyed this movie so much. For me it was that it was very gripping and wasn't just a sap story like every boring drama I have seen before. It really did an amazing job of pulling you into the characters. That is why one of my favorite movies is 'Reign Over Me'.

Mr. Woodcock [Journal 1]

The review I chose to review was by Roger Ebert. I don't normally read reviews because I prefer to not go into movies with any part of it spoiled for me. So since I just saw Mr. Woodcock, I thought it would be fine to check out his review.

Ebert gives everything you'd expect from a man who's most popular book is titled 'Your Movie Sucks', and I agree with his opinion on this particular movie, it sucked. However I think that Ebert has a bad opinion for all the wrong reasons. Throughout the review he throws out a million compliments to the acting of Billy Bob Thorton:

To laugh at parts of this film would indicate one has a streak of Woodcockism in oneself. But to gaze in stupefied fascination is perfectly understandable. That's what makes Thornton such a complex actor. He can play a tough coach like the one in "Friday Night Lights" as a three-dimensional human being, and then make Mr. Woodcock into a monster.

It seems like even though Ebert is not a fan of this over-done awkward comedy, he his however a fan of the over-done repetitive acting of Billy Bob Thorton. For the most part in his review, this is all Ebert talks about. He doesn't address why the the comedy fails at being just that. Instead he is more apt to go on for long periods of time about the one thing he liked. By saying there was only one thing he liked, Roger Ebert is saying that he hated everything else:

Billy Bob Thornton is in full "Bad Santa" mode in "Mr. Woodcock," an uneasy comedy about an adult who returns home to discover his mother is planning to marry the gym teacher who made his high school days a living hell. The thing about Thornton is, he makes no compromises and takes no prisoners when he plays guys like Woodcock. He's a hateful bastard, and he means it. That makes the movie better, actually, than if we sensed a heart of gold under the crust, but it doesn't exactly make it funnier.

It is hard to argue with Roger Ebert here, because the movie is bad like he said. I think that reading this before I had seen the movie would have impacted what I thought of it. Because Ebert only gives a brief summary and goes on about Billy Bob Thorton's outstanding acting and all the other characters dry attempts at comedy. I would have focused more on the characters, who were all well played. Instead of being unimpressed by the weak punchlines and frantic plot.
The only time Ebert points out the horrible story is at the end of his review:

Anyway, all is resolved in a rather contrived ending that might have something to do with the film's three weeks of reshoots, as reported by Patrick Goldstein in the L.A. Times and documented on IMDb. I would have been happier if young John Farley had torn his positive thinking book to shreds, slammed Mr. Woodcock in the gut with a medicine ball, and told him to drop and give him 50 quick ones or he'd do it again.

It still bothers me that Ebert has completely wasted a review on discussing the celebrities in the movie instead of the movie itself. However, I will say one thing for Ebert. He does a good job of trying to save people from wasting a couple hours of their time.

I live in your computer

No not really. It was a joke. A bad one.
And I apologize.
Sincerely.