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.