GROUP PROJECT: Create a Movie 1975

         The movie that my group created is called Crash directed by Steven Spielberg starring John Travolta as Nick Redkin, Pam Grier as Janice Templeton and Robert De Niro as Ted Gretch. The studio that we chose was Universal Studios because Steven Spielberg had done a lot of movies with them so we thought it would be a good fit.
         Crash is about a race car driver named Nick Redkin (John Travolta) who is the best race car driver in NASCAR. He is a huge douche and has everything he wants but nothing he really needs. Everything changes when his race car crashes and is carried off to the hospital unconscious. He wakes up in the hospital to see a beautiful nurse named Janice Templeton (Pam Grier) and he instantly falls in love with her. Once he is rehabilitated, he starts to notice physical differences. He starts to see ripples in the sky that look like someone is scratching the sky but he just blames it on the head injury and dismisses them. He pursues Janice and he falls even more deeply in love with her. He eventually proposes to her and she accepts, but on their wedding day Nick passes out and wakes up in Heaven where he sees flashbacks of the crash and him in the hospital and he comes to the conclusion that he his dead. He then sees Ted Gretch (Robert De Niro) and Ted tells him that everything that happened after the crash was just a dream and it was what could be. This makes him apreciate everything that he had and that he needs to change. He begs Ted to give him a second chance to go back down to earth to be with Janice. He then blacks out again and wakes up in the hopital where his family is gathered all around him but all he sees is Janice. Knowing that she doesn't remember anything he kisses her and they fall in love all over again. The End!
       We decided to rate this film R because of the sexual content between Travolta and Grier as well as violence and a lot of swearing. Our focus was Cinematography and our cinematographer is Robert Surtees. We thought he would be a good fit because he filmed the movie The Sting and the sting and Crash have similar surprise endings so we needed someone who knew how to work the camera so the viewer doesn't know until the end.
       Why these actors? We picked Travolta because we needed someone young and handsome who can play the part of a cocky race car driver. Up until this point he has only been in TV shows so this movie is his big break. We chose Pam Grier because we needed a young beautiful actress. She had been in multiple movies before Crash like Foxy Brown, and Black Mama,White Mama. We chose Robert De Niro becasue he is a very experienced actor up until this point having being in The Godfather II, Bloody Mama, and Hi Mom! 
If I were doing this project myself i probably would have changed the story a little differently. Instead of having him instantly fall in love with Pam Grier I would have had him fall in love with her over a period of time so when he goes up to heaven he finally realizes what  he misses most and how he shold appreciate what he has.

FORMAL FILM STUDY #2: WWI

      I was thinking about doing war the topic of formal film study, but when I tried to think of any WWI  movies it was harder than I thought. Why is that? Why are WWI movies not as popular as WWII movies? I thought for a while and finally figured it out. In 1882 an alliance system was made called the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy to counter the power of the alliance between Russia and France. Then in 1907 Britain and France signed the Entente Cordiale, an agreement to keep Germany in check. This later led to the Triple Entente between Britain, France, and Russia in 1911. This would become a big problem.
       OK, so I know this is a lot of history but its important, I promise. On June 28, 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian citizen. Now this may not seem like a big deal but then Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Now, Serbia had an alliance with the Triple Entente so France and Britain declared war on Austria-Hungary. But Autria-Hungary had an Alliance with  Germany so Germany declared war on the Triple Entente therefore forcing Russia to declare war on Germany. Eventually the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance declared war on each other. Still with me? Good, because now I am going to tell you why all that was necessary. The theme that was most common throughout these movies was compassion. This is because these men lacked conviction. There was no Hitler or Soviet Union but just alliances. Why would these men kill each other over the death of a guy whose death does not affect them at all? They had no motivation to fight each other, but the fear of getting killed because you hesitate to kill them first is what drove the war on.
      The reason that directors aren't producing as many WWI movies as WWII because WWI does not have a Hollywood story line,not like WWI where the men fight to avenge Pearl Harbor. There is no bad guy, like Hitler, but just men who were dragged into a war because their leader made an agreement and signed a paper.
      I watched the movies Joyeux Noel directed by Christian Carion, War Horse directed by Steven Spielberg, and Flyboys directed by Tony Bill. The theme of compassion showed up in all three.

      In Joyeux Noel the French, German, and Scottish soldiers come out of their trenches and come together for Christmas Eve. They talk, share campaign and share photos of their wives. Then the next day, on Christmas, they bury their dead together and play soccer together. The truce ends but the compassion does not. The next day the German officer comes to the French and tells them that they are going to bomb them and they should take shelter in their trenches. So the French and the Scottish both take shelter in the German trenches. Because they would most likely retaliate they invite the Germans to their trenches to take shelter. This would have never happened in WWII because the soldiers had a purpose; kill the German tyrants and  for the Germans kill the people that stand in their way.

     Flyboys was about the pilots in WWI. The compassion that I saw happened during a flying fight scene when the main character, who flies for France, his gun jams and is unable to shoot at the plane that otherwise would have been downed already. The German pilot, named the Red Baron, then circles around and pulls up behind him in position to shoot but instead pulls up next to him and salutes. The Red Baron realizing that he is unable to fire shows compassion and spares him. Another scene was when a French Pilot maakes a crash landing and survives but a German pilot comes and shoots him while he is on the ground. The Red Baron then pulls up next to his fellow pilot and shakes his head at him saying that what he did was not OK.

    War Horse follows a horse named Joey through the trenches of WWI. The compassion that was shown here was a scene where the Joey is wandering through No-Mans Land tangled in barbed wire. A German soldier and  British Soldier both see the horse and together they free the horse of barbed wire. They flip a coin for possession of the horse and though the Brit wins Joey, they part as friends. Both soldiers show compassion to each other through Joey.
    Cinematic elements were tough because there really weren't and defining shots that were artistic enough to even notice. Although, in Flyboys the camera would sometimes seem as if it were mounted on the front of the plane so the angles move just like a plane would. Like the camera spiraling as a plane is shot down and spirals towards the earth. In Joyeux Noel there were many up close shots like when a Scottish soldier's brother dies or when both sides are conversing and when a soldiers wife is singing for them. The up close shots are to let you know that something emotional and important is going on. This also forms connections with the character and viewer to stir emotions in the viewer when he dies or is sad. In War Horse there were a lot of moving shots that show Joey running and turned camera angles like from above and below the horse. There was also one shot of a close up of the Joey's eye that shows a french girl approaching through the reflection of the eye.

 

MYST #1 S2: Real Steel

The movie Real Steel is directed by Shawn Levy and came out in 2011. It stars Hugh Jackman (who I love!), Evangeline Lilly, and Dakota Goyo. This movie takes place in the near future where instead of people boxing, 2,000 pound and 8 feet tall steel robots have taken over the ring. Hugh Jackman plays Charlie Kenton a former boxer who has hung up the gloves and now boxes robots. When he finally hits rock bottom he finds out that his former girlfriend has passed away leaving him an eleven year old son Max who is played by Dakota Goyo. When Max finds an old generation 2 sparing robot in a junk yard named Atom and fixes it up, their luck just might turn around when they see what this little robot can do. 

                                 

Real Steel kinda reminds me of Rocky. They are both about boxing, obviously, but they are both about underdogs who are stronger than they seem and have the will to win no matter what. In both movies the underdogs, Atom and Rocky, get a shot at the title and they give the champs a run for their money. This movie was really good, despite some cheesy lines and predictable story line. The writer of Real Steel is John Gatins who also wrote and directed the movie Dreamer (2005). The story lines are almost exactly the same. Dreamer is about a little girl who convinces her dad to take a horse that has a broken leg in to heal. The father, retired horse trainer, is skeptical but against all odds the horse makes a full recovery and goes farther than anyone thought he could go. Real Steel is about a little boy who finds an abandoned robot that is out of date but convinces his father to let him fight. The father, a retired boxer, is skeptical but against all odds the robot goes farther than anyone thought he would go. And in the meantime in both movies  father and son/daughter become closer through the experience. The plots are pretty much identical! Just substitute the horses for robots and races for fights and it could be the same movie.  

The camera work was pretty generic there wasn't really anything that popped out or seemed artistic but the visual effects stuff is amazing. They built real full scale robots for the movie so it would seem more realistic and so the visual effects would seem more real, and it worked! You can't tell what is an actual robot and what was done on the computer. The full scale robots helped the visual effects people make it more realistic because they knew what the real thing looked like and how it moved. 

I loved this movie and anyone who love movies about underdogs or boxing would love this movie. People who loved Transformers, Rocky, I, Robot, Terminator, Million Dollar Baby, The Fighter, and Fight Club would enjoy this movie. 

MYST #3: The Avengers

Marvel's Avengers was probably one of the best superhero movies I have seen since I saw the first Iron Man. I was a little skeptical at first because I knew that this movie could either be horrible or awesome. And it was AWESOME! The plot: Director Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a group of super humans to form the group known as the Avengers to help defeat Loki and his army. There is the Ironman/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow/Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), and Loki (Tom Hiddleston). All of these amazing actors and actresses played a part in the movies leading up to these and they were perfect in acting exactly how their character acted in the previous movie.

                                 

Once you get past the awesomeness of the movie you start to look at the camera work. Surprisingly there was  a lot of really cool camera work. There was one scene during the battle when an alien shot at a car and the car flipped but the camera was in the car so the scene flipped with the car. This made it seem more realistic and like you were in the battle. There were a lot of scenes where the camera would be moving constantly like from the Hulk to Black Widow without cutting the scene it would just flow right in. If you watch you will notice that it is one really long scene that doesn't cut until the end. Watch:

                                 

I also noticed that the parts when the Avengers would be fighting is bright and clear, but when it shows the alien army and Loki it gets darker. This movie is a lot like any other superhero movie. There is always a reoccurring theme in these movies. Hero has special powers but sorta thinks of them as a burden because society relies on them. Then when the bad guy comes he is beaten down and gives up hope. Then something happens (death, love, or anger) and that makes him more determined than ever and he dramatically saves the day and defeats the enemy, usually not without sacrifice. This is pretty much the plot in every superhero movies like Ironman, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Spiderman, Superman, The X-Men, Batman trilogy, and Captain America. Now that you have thought about this, you realize that I am right! Although this theme occurs in pretty  much every superhero movie it still doesn't take away our love for them because that is why we love them. So we can see the hero defeat the bad guy. Maybe i should make a movie were it is opposite of the theme and the bad guy wins...probably would not be very popular.

I chose four and a half stars because I thought that the director, Joss Whedon, did a really good job of pulling all of these really great super humans together without making it seem too cheesy. People that love superhero movies would be obsessed with this movie (like me) and people who don't normally like superhero movies will like this one.

MYST POST #2: Tower Heist

       The next movie that I am choosing to do for my movies I'm my spare time is Tower Heist (2011). It was directed by Brett Ratner and stars Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller and Casey Affleck. The movie is about these workers that work in a building called The Tower which is a building full of apartments and holds some very rich residents. Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) owns The Tower and swindles the workers out of their hard earned money through a Ponzi scheme. After Arthur Shaw attempts to escape going to jail when the FBI finds out about the scheme, it is then revealed that all the workers pensions were gone after being invested into Mr. Shaws company. The manager of The Tower is Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) and he is determined to get the money back to the employees. He conspires with Slide (Eddie Murphy) who is a thief and fresh out of prison, Charlie (Casey Affleck) who's wife is about to have a baby and they need the money, and Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) who was kicked out of The Tower for not paying rent. They realize that Mr. Shaw must have had a cash safety net and that Mr. Shaw had ordered a safe two years ago. They then start to plan to steal 20 million dollars.

    To be honest I thought this movie would be much funnier than it was, it was a little more serious than I expected. It was still good though. The movie sort of pokes fun at other heist movies like Oceans 11 and The Italian Job by taking these people who have never stolen anything in their lives and are attempting to steal from the richest man in New York City. It's a comedy because the characters have no idea what they are doing and everything goes terribly wrong. 

    This movie is a lot like Catch That Kid because they both have inexperienced people stealing a boat load of money and getting away with it. The camera views were mostly from the chest up and the only long shots were when they were showing the city or The Tower. The lighting is bright in the beginning and then gets darker when they realize they are all broke and they start to plan the robbery. Then it is bright again at the end when...oops don't want to spoil the ending! Anyways, the lighting reflects the mood of the plot and the characters. The scenes are not very long and they are constantly cutting to the other characters, especially during the robbery as if to show the urgency of the situation. 

    I liked the movie and I thought that it had a lot of good scenes and it kept you guessing until the end. It was a cliffhanger, yet predictable at the same time. I gave it three stars because it was good and funny but it was a little slow in the beginning. Anyone who likes comedies and heist movies would very much enjoy this movie. People that liked the movies 30 minutes or less, Oceans 11, Man on a Ledge, Mall Cop, DodgeBall, Italian Job, and Tropic Thunder would like this movie. This is the funniest scene:

    

GROUP PROJECT:Create a Movie 1935

My group chose to remake the 1932 Mummy movie directed by Karl Freund. Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian priest, is somehow revived when a life-giving-spell - The Scroll of Thoth - is read near his tomb. Imhotep escapes, along with the Scroll in hand. Years after, he calls upon Frank, the son of the man whom the Scroll belonged to, because it only works for the creator and his sons, and his sons' sons; but, the original man, Joseph, has passed. Imhotep threatens to kill the son if he does not help find the tomb of Princess Anckenson Amon - Imhotep's long lost love. He demands Frank to revive her by reading aloud the Scroll near her tomb; however, in order for another person to be revived using the Scroll of Thoth, someone of the same sex must be sacrificed or, in this case, killed. He knows of a woman, Helen Grosvenor, who resembles his princess and wishes her dead so that he can make the princess a living mummy like himself. Disguising as a modern Egyptian, Imhotep tries everything to make the kill, yet they never get the chance to work. He becomes friends with Helen, but her husband Marc becomes very suspicious. Imhotep gives up and finally decides to kidnap and kill her somewhere no one will see. He gets her tied down and as he raises a knife, behind him appears Marc, who is also raising his arms with his hands grasping on a machete. Imhotep has no clue Marc is behind him. The scene cuts as both weapons are risen in the air.

We created this movie for entertainment and the genre is horror. The style is like any other typical big budget Hollywood film. We believed that a horror movie would be very popular during the 1930's because of the success of the Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931. The film would be released during the Great Depression so our film would be an escape from the depression. 

      We chose Universal Studios because during that time Universal was the only studio that really made horror films. Universal also made Dracula and Frankenstein so they would have the right actors and actresses and sets to make The Mummy. Also, the original Mummy was produced by Universal Studios so they have the rights to the story. We chose actresses and actors that had been in big productions before and had a contract with Universal Studios.

      We thought that Tod Browning would be a good director for our film. He had recently filmed Dracula and it was a huge success. Also, because it was a horror film, the same genre of ours, it would seem that Tod browning would have experience with horror films. Imhotep will be played by Boris Karloff. He starred in Frankenstein and also the original Mummy. We thought that because he did so well in the first one, we thought he would be a good fit for the remake. He also has a contract with Universal so he is able to be in our film. Our lead lady will be Mae West who was the star of Frankenstein. She will play the part of Helen Grosvenor. She had not been in any movies lately because she got in a car crash and got scars. These scars will make her look vulnerable and the audience will sympathize with her and want to protect her. The supporting characters had also been stars in big movies. Bela Lugosi will be played by Marc Grosvenor. He was the lead in Dracula and was signed by Universal. After some research, we decided that the focus of our film will be costumes and makeup. We found a woman by the name of Vera West who was very popular during that time and had a contract with Universal. She was perfect for the job because she had had experience with other horror films such as the   original Mummy. Her experience with designing the costumes for the original will help our movie seem genuine if not better. 

    If I were working on this movie alone and not with a group, I would have added more new characters. I would also change what happens completely different but that the same things happen, just in different ways. Also i would rather have the movie be in color instead of black and white.

The Hays Code will affect the movie drastically. We would have to take out most of the fight scenes. This is also why we stop the ending so short so it will be a cliff hanger and no violence will be shone which would be a violation to the Hays code.  

FORMAL FILM STUDY: Francis Ford Coppola

For my formal film study I decided to study the works of Francis Ford Coppola. I watched Apocalypse Now (1979), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), and The Godfather (1972).

The one discovery that I connected with all three films was the theme of family.  In each of these films the main characters have to deal with their family and how important family is. In Peggy Sue Got Married, the main character Peggy is sent back in time to her senior year where she desperately tries to change her fate but is unsuccessful. When she is sent back she is nice to her sister and tries to make up for ignoring when they were younger. In The Godfather (1972) family is a HUGE part in this movie. The whole movie Don Corleone (the head of the gang in New York) is trying to keep his organization together and at the same time trying to protect his family from the Tattaglias gang. In the movie if you messed with a person in Don's family he would have you killed or you might wake up with your prized horse's head in your bead. Don is also trying to keep his son out of the business because he does not want him to live the life of crime. All the violence is family oriented, whether someone killed your cousin you he kills your brother it always is someone protecting their family and getting revenge. In The movie Apocalypse Now there is really no family in the literal sense but in war your unit becomes your family and you would do anything to protect eachother from the enemy. Even in the end after Willard kills Kurtz he can't leave without Lance and goes and finds him and they leave together. Also even when Chief goes crazy and starts to attack Willard and tries to kill him Willard does not kill him but he dies at the hands of the enemy. In all of these movies the theme of family always dictates the actions of the main character and the plot. I also noticed a theme in these movies of Hope. Each main character is looking for Hope in some way or another. In Peggy Sue Got Married she is looking for a chance to start over and she hopes that somethings will be different. In The Godfather there is Don looking for hope of his family making out of this ordeal alive. In Apocalypse Now there is the hope of surveying the war.

In Apocalypse Now there is a narrator (Willard) and there is a narrating in the Godfather in some parts as well but there are no parts in Peggy Sue Got Married of narration. In Peggy Sue Got Married everything is very bright and colorful but in Apocalypse Now everything is dark and hard to see. The Godfather is dark in some places when something bad is about to happen but light in places when something good happens. I also noticed that in Apocalypse Now sometimes when the helicopters are coming by the sound of the blades rotating is slowed down giving it a more dramatic effect and make sort of a soundtrack. Apocalypse Now was probably made to show how horrible the war in Vietnam was and how war can change a man and mess with his head. This correlates to The Godfather because that movie shows how when you are in the crime business people you love are going to get hurt or be killed no matter what. The Godfather also shows how violence can change who you are, just like in Apocalypse Now.

There is one particular shot in Apocalypse Now where the face of Willard is upside down. I think that this is like that to show how crazy this movie is and how strange and not normal it is. Most of the camera shots in Apocalypse Now were close-ups or shots from the waist up. Peggy Sue Got Married had more long and wide shots showing the full character. The Godfather had a combination of both.  A symbol in Peggy Sue Got Married is her heart Locket. It is shown in the movie and you can tell that it is important because they zoom in on it. It proves to be the reason she makes the decision in the end and becomes a symbol of love.

These three movies are very different but they all have something that tied them together like the theme of the movie or the way of the camera angles. Francis Ford Coppola is a very good director and i enjoyed watching his films.

MYST POST #1: The Time Traveler's Wife

               The movie The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) was directed by Robert Schwentke and stars Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. The movie is based on the book written by Audrey Niffenegger about a man who has a rare gene that causes him to randomly time travel against his will. The book was very complicated and hard to read but the movie does an excellent job of explaining and dumbing down the thick plot in a few words or less. Rachel McAdams does an extremely well job of portraying the helpless woman who can only watch as her husband disappears time and time again. I rated this film four and a half stars because it was very well written and it is a difficult feat to make a movie out of a book and do such a good job.
               Robert Schwentke has also directed the film Flightplan (2005) which stars Jodie Foster. Flightplan and The Time Traveler's Wife are two completely different films. Flightplan is a thriller and almost of a horror film where The Time Traveler's Wife is a romance. Though they have completely different plots they both have the same filming style. They both have a fast paced feel and both jump between two stories in the film without overwhelming the viewer. The Time Traveler's Wife jumps between Clare (Rachel McAdams) and her coping with Henry (Eric Bana) disappearing and Henry time traveling to the past and trying to survive in whatever time he appears which includes running from the cops. Both movies use quick scenes jumping back and forth. It reminds me of the movie Dear John (2010) where a couple is separated by a war. Him off in Iraq and her back home trying to cope. This is also not the first time that Rachel McAdams has to play the woman left behind waiting for her lover to come home. She plays almost the same role in The Notebook. 
              The movie The Time Traveler's Wife is low-key and dark portraying that even though it is a romance there is a sadness aspect of it when you realizing that they won't be together forever. The shots are mostly wide shots because there is a lot going on in each scene. The one special effect that was amazing was the disappearing of Henry. In most films it would turn the camera away and when it goes back he is gone but they keep the camera on him at all times as parts of him disappear till he is gone and his clothes fall to the floor in a heap. It made the disappearances more realistic and made you become emotionally attached to the characters and their feelings. People who would enjoy this movie are hopeless romantics; people who love the movies The Notebook, The Vow, A Walk to Remember, Dear John, and Water for Elephants. I usually do not like sappy romance movies but found myself completely intrigued by the plot of a couple who are kept from truly being together by time. It definitely tugged on my heart strings and got me hooked.

             

Review of the Reviews

          The movie that I am choosing for the Review of the Reviews is The Help. Based on the book by Kathryn Stockett, it stars Emma Stone, Viola Davis, and Octavia Davis and is about three women in Mississippi during the 1960's who decide to write a book showing the racism and how maids are really treated working for these white families in the south. They form an unlikely friendship and support each other through hard times as they take on the challenge of getting equal rights for the help.
          Jason Best from Movie Talk (http://blogs.whatsontv.co.uk/movietalk/2011/10/26/film-review-the-help-the-maids-have-their-say-in-civil-rights-tale-with-heart-soul-and-sass/) gave a positive review. The structure of the review starts with the plot and then an analysis of the characters and how they contribute to the film. Jason Best uses the points of how humor is used through the characters to make you root for certain characters. The tone of the review is light hearted with comments that say "you will get it when you see it" and sly jokes  that say "I know something you don't know." He uses plays on words that have hidden meanings that only someone could understand if they had seen the movie. He focuses mostly on the stars and how they did a really good job. There were no references to other film directors or stars.
         Ben Sachs from the Chicago Reader (http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-help/Film?oid=4166616) gave a negative review of The Help. The structure of the review starts off with the plot from the movie and then an analysis on the characters. He talks about how he thinks that there are "no real characters" and that it wasn't appropriate to the theme. The tone of the review was tough and sarcastic. The vocabulary was used to accentuation that he does not like the movie at all. He mostly focuses on the theme and characters. He references the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? and how they both are "handsome to look at".
         One point from Jason Best's review that i agree with is "The Help paints its characters, black and white alike, with a very broad bush, but the superb ensemble cast invest their parts with soul and sass." I agree with this because I believe that the actresses did a really good job of showing the characters.
         Pretending that I have never seen the movie I would probably believe the review written by Ben Sachs because it was very well written and talks about more things about the movie and points on why he did not like the movie. He talks about points about the quality of the movie and how there aren't really characters. Even though I love the movie, if i had not seen it yet his would be the one I believed because it was very well written.
         If I were to write a film review about The Help I would definitely include how the actresses did a very well job becoming their character and showing how they think that they believed the character would act. I would also include how powerful the movie is and how it makes you want to cry one minute and laugh the next. I would definitely talk about how it closely followed the book but how you can understand everything that is going on without having to read the book. I would leave out how it is kinda slow at some parts and you are kind of thinking ion some parts for it to move on and get to the good stuff.