MYST Q2 #3: Memento (2000)

MYST Q2 #3: Memento (2000)

Memento (2000) was a film that we watched in class and when we weren't able to watch the whole thing, I really wanted to see the rest. Memento (2000) is directed by Christopher Nolan who is also known for The Dark Night (2008), The Dark Night Rises(2012), and Inception(2010). Inception is one of my favorite movies and I can really tell that the director was the same for both films because they are the same in the fact that the ending leave you to figure out what really happened. Memento (2000) is about a man named Leonard (Guy Pearce) who suffers from short term memory loss. He is on a misson to find the man who raped and killed his wife. But since he cannot remember, he uses pictures, notes, and tattoos to remember very important information. I loved this movie and I would give it 5 out of 5 stars.

This movie was so confusing at the beginning. I was so lost but then, it clicked and I understood. The weird thing about this movie was that it plays in reverse. The movie starts off where it should end and it ends where it should start. After a few scenes, I caught on. Each different scene, goes farther and farther back into the storyline. I thought this is one of the coolest ways to make a movie. There is no other movie that I have ever seen that does this, so it is different and I think that is why I really liked it.

Another thing that was different about this movie was that it was separated info different sections. The film would alternate between the actual movie and a scene that showed Leonard (Guy Pearce) talking on the phone. The scene that showed Leonard talking on the phone was also in black and white while the rest of the movie was in color. Another thing that I found interesting and thought was really ironic in the film was that during the movie Leonard says that he does not like talking to people on the phone. But in the film, there is a good amount of time that shows him in his motel room talking on the phone. I don’t know what that means. But I thought it was really ironic.

I really liked this movie and I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys thrilling movies with some mystery to it. Like I said, I thought this movie was like Inception (2010) in the fact that I was confused at the end and I needed to talk to my friends and family to discuss what we just watched. I give this movie 5 out of 5 stars and recommend that everyone sees it. 

MYST Q2 #2: The Unquiet(2008)

The Unquiet(2008)

This movie was a Lifetime Movie made in 2008 and directed by Bill Corcoran. Bill Corcoran is also known for Tribulation Force(2002) and Quints(2000). Quints (2000)was a Disney Channel Movie about a family who is surprised with quintuplets and was one of my favorites when I was little. This was one of those movies that my friends and I found on Demand and decided to watch. This was a movie about a woman named Julie Bishop (played by Cara Buono) who wants to investigate an old abandoned prison. During her investigation, she finds out that her ex-husband, Tom (played by Chris William Martin) is also doing some kind of documentary of the prison. They decide to team up together and find information. During their filming process they are frightened by sounds and voices they hear and things they see move that they know they shouldn't  I really did not like this movie at all and I do not recommend anyone to see it. I would give it 1 star out of 5.

This movie had some really different things than from an ordinary film. One thing that was different was that at some points in the film it was filmed through a video camera. Since the characters in the film were making a documentary, it fit that the audience saw through the video camera. But the bad side of seeing through a video camera is that it was really shakey and the camera was on a slanted angle some of the time. This made me a little dizzy and I really didn't like it. Other than that, the movie had many of the same angles and shots that other films have including full body shots, close ups, and a crane shot.

Since it was a Lifetime Movie, I really was not expecting anything special. I personally thought that the acting was really bad. It looked as if the actors and actresses were trying to make some parts look fake. The part I am thinking of was when the lady who reads energies is reading one and a demon comes insider of her. It looks so fake it was funny.

All in all, I really did not like this film at all. If you like films that are cheesy and fake, this would be a great film for you to watch. But other than that, I did not lioke it and would not recommend this movie to anyone. 

1975 Film

Bluebird

Story: The film we invented is going to be based on a true story. In the 1950’s the CIA began a secret research procedure known as MK Ultra. This secret operation was experimenting with mind control.  There were many code names for this operation and one of them was Bluebird. That is where we got the title from. Frank Olson(played by Michel Piccoli) was a man who worked for the CIA. At a time in his career, he became a security risk. One day he “mysteriously” jumped from his hotel window. After this terrible event, Frank’s brother (Jack Nicholson) and wife (Faye Dunaway) become very interested to find out what was going on and why. As the movie goes on, the story gets deeper and deeper into the mystery of what this secret mission is and what happened to Frank Olson.

Studio and Producer: The studio we chose for our film is United Artists. We chose this studio because they played a big part in MGM’s downfall. United Artists took over the sales of MGM when MGM fell. Therefore they were on top of the list of studios that were doing well while other studios were on the bottom of the list. The director we chose is Milos Forman. We chose Milos because he had previously done other work with UA. And finally, we chose our cinematographer to be Gordan Willis who also did The Godfather. We want to focus on the cinematography so we decided to do a cinematographer who was well known.

Cast/Crew: The main cast of actors we decided to put in our film includes Jack Palance, Michel Piccoli, and Jack Nicholson. We chose these actors specifically for each different part that they are playing in Bluebird. Jack Palance is known to be the scary bad guy in the previous films he has been in. In our film, Palance will be playing the head “bad” guy of the CIA. Michel Piccoli will be playing the main character, Frank Olson who works for the CIA. Jack Nicholson will be playing Frank Olson’s brother who becomes involved after Olson dies. Finally, Faye Dunaway will play the brother’s wife.

MPAA Rating: We chose to rate this movie R. This movie is rated R because it has adult content that is not good for children to see and also because this film is about something that actually happened. We want mature audiences to see what happened in some prisons from the 1950’s to the late 1970’s.

 70’s American Film Characteristics:  We had two main characteristics of 70’s film. One was anti-government. In our film, we showed the actual events that took place sometime in the history of the United States. The government let these things happen and by showing the public these events, some people might be mad at the government for allowing this to happen. Our film is also an escape for the audience. This film lets the audience think about other things that have happened in the past and forget about the current issues going on in the time.

Blending Genres: The two genres that we are blending for this film are crime and drama. 

Formal Film Study 2

Formal Film Study on Best Picture Winners

This time around for my Formal Film Study, I decided to do something very different. Instead of researching a certain genre or director, I chose to research the winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture movies from the last three years. These movies included, The Hurt Locker(2008)directed by Kathryn Bigelow and  won in 2009, The King’s Speech(2010) directed by Tom Hooper and won in 2010, and The Artist(2011) directed by Michel Hazanavicius won in 2011. I had never seen any of these films, so I was very excited to watch these movies.

All of these movies were very different in their own way.  The Hurt Locker was a very intense war movie that had my heart beating all the way through. The King’s Speech was a movie that I felt like I was a part of and The Artist was a movie that I really enjoyed even though I thought I definitely would not.

The styles of these movies are different. In The Hurt Locker, the cinematography is very shakey. It is as if someone is holding the camera the whole movie running away from the bombs, following the bad guys, and looking around to make sure the area is safe. The movie is mostly from a third person point of view but there are a few times when the camera switches to make it a first person point of view. For example, when the Sergent William James puts on the bomb suit, it switches to his point of view looking out of the eye hole and you can hear his breathing and his steps. Another time in the film the third person point of view changes to first person point of view when a soldier is looking through the scope of his gun looking for any threats in the area. It shows the scope so it looks like the person watching the movie is looking through the scope.

In The King’s Speech the most part of the movie is in third person but in the opening scene when he attempts to give the speech, he is so nervous and the camera switches to first person point of view and it shows the microphone right in his face and the entire crowd. There was one thing in this movie that I saw as a recurring view. The Duke of York has a speech impediment and needs to go to speech therapy. In the office, many times, the camera shows the Duke sitting on the couch on the way left side of the frame and the empty wall on the rest of the frame. I’m sure that this was done purposefully, but I could not figure out the meaning of it.

In The Artist was completely different than any other movie that has been made in a very long time. This movie was not just in black and white, but it was also a silent film. I was really skeptical about watching it at first but in the end I liked it. It started off exactly like the other silent movies that we had watched in class with the credits starting in the beginning of the movie. One thing that I noticed about this silent film was that when the actors talked, I could read their lips sometimes so I knew what they were saying. In the other silent films I have seen in class, I do not remember being able to read the characters lips. Since I was able to in The Artist, I had more of an idea on what was going on. I also noticed that the lighting was really important and played a role in how the crowd is supposed to feel in the film (like how the actors face emotions help feel what the mood is).

 Not all of these movies were big when they came out. When the review people started giving the films good reviews saying they could possibly be candidates for the Best Picture, then they became even more popular. This is especially true with The Artist. When this movie came out, it was very small. After people started to see it and talk about it, then it started to become very popular. Since all of these movies were Best Picture winners, they are very popular and will always be remembered in film history.

I did find one overarching “discovery” about these three films. I believe in order to be a winner of the Academy Award Best Picture of the Year, the films needs some specific qualities.  I think that the Best Picture films from 2009, 2010, and 2011 needed to have great actors, an easy but intriguing plot to follow and relate able characters.  All of these movies I thought had fantastic actors. These amazing actors portrayed characters that were so relate able I felt like I was either part of the plot or there in the scene. In The King’s Speech, the Duke of York has a speech problem that he needs to work through. 

While watching this movie, I felt so sorry for the Duke. He tried so hard to work past his issues but still had some struggles. In The Hurt Locker, whenever the main character Sergeant William James (played by Jeremy Renner) went in to detonate bombs, my heart was beating and I was actually scared to see what was going to come next. I could not even imagine what it is like to have to do that in real life. In The Artist, I actually felt like I was in the studio watching the film being filmed. With these qualities a film (these films) are really amazing films and I am glad they won Best Picture awards. 

MYST Q2 #1 Tower Heist

For the first movies in your spare time project, I decided to watch the movie Tower Heist.  Tower Heist (2011) was directed by Brett Ratner who also directed the movie Horrible Bosses (2011). There were also many famous actors in Tower Heist. Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, and Matthew Broderick were just some of the actors that I recognized. Ben Stiller has been in so many things and I actually watched another movie from for a MYST with him in it. But whenever Eddie Murphy spoke, I could only picture the donkey from Shrek (2001). I really liked this movie though and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes action and also comedies because this movie had both action and comedy parts.

This movie is about a very wealthy man, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), who gets caught up in a money problem and is in deep trouble. He took money from his innocent employees and the employees want to get their money back. The leader of the employees is Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller). He devises a plan to rob Arthur Shaw and get the money back to all the employees.

In the very first scene, there is parallelism because it shows Arthur Shaw and Josh Kovaks getting ready for work. They go back and forth switching from looking at Arthur to looking at Josh. One of them puts on their shirt and then they switch to the other guy and they show him putting on his shirt. This continues showing them getting dressed and during this they show a game on the computer of chess going back and forth that is also them playing against each other.  In the movie there were also many different shots. One shot that I noticed was a long shot that was also walking with Josh. There were also mid shots, full body shots, and close ups. There were also many shots that took place in cars.

In the end, there was one shot where four employees who were going against Arthur were on one side of the truck and Arthur was on the other side of the truck. This was a composition shot because it showed the group of four people who went against Arthur and then Arthur on the other side. All in all, I really liked this movie. I thought it was funny and it was also kind of an action movie. I would give this movie  5 stars out of 5 because I really liked this movie.

 

MYST #3 Obsessed (2009)

For another one of my MYST projects, I decided to watch the movie Obsessed (2009) directed by Steve Shill. The director Steve Shill I know from the television series ER that was on television form 1994 to 2009. My parents always watched this show and when I was old enough, I started to watch it too. This was my favorite television show and I would watch it religiously. Steve Shill is also a director of the popular television series, Law and Order.

This movie is about a family with a husband, Derek (Idris Elba), and wife, Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles), and their little baby. They just moved into a new house and are very excited to get started with their new lives. When Derek goes to work there is a new temporary worker, Lisa (Ali Larter) who begins to start drama. The plot thickens as Lisa spreads rumors and starts to be “obsessed” with Derek.

While watching Obsessed, I noticed a few things that stuck out to me.  The camera angles were one thing that I noticed repeatedly. There were many different camera angles in this movie. One that I noticed that was used a lot was the camera angles that are straight on and from the shoulders up. This was used a lot when the characters were talking to each other.  Another shot I noticed was the close up angles. These angles were used when the scenes were suspenseful and creepy.

The lighting of this movie was not anything special. Most of the lighting was natural light. A lot of the scenes took place using natural sunlight to light up the rooms. There was one scene that took place at night that I thought was different. Since it was a night scene, most of the screen was dark. But to have light in this scene to see what was happening, a blue tinted light was used. It looked fake to me because it was so blue, but I think they just needed to have some light in the scene so the audience was able to see what was happening.

There was one scene that I saw composition in. When Derek and Sharon were talking in Derek’s office, Lisa walks in on their conversation. Derek is sitting on the left side of the screen and Sharon is sitting on the right side in the foreground. There is an empty space between them in the background until Lisa walks in the door and she stands right between them. I thought that was cool how they planned that out to have it look like Lisa was splitting them down the middle.

Overall, I thought this movie was so creepy. Lisa goes beyond what is normal and it is scary. I really liked Beyoncé in this movie. This was the first movie that I had seen her in. I would give this movie 3 stars out of 5. It was action packed but really creepy the things Lisa did to try and be with Derek.

Film Group Project

Our movie starts out with a murder in an apartment building in London. At this time, the main characters (Bela Lugosi and MaeClarke) who are newlyweds have just moved into their new apartment on floor 13 upon recommendation of a friend (Eric Blore). After Mae Clarke is very suspicious of her husband being the killer, the actual killer, Eric Blore strikes again and kills yet another innocent person.

The director of this film is James Whale. James Whale is an English film director who is best remembered for his horror movies. His most famous movies are Frankenstein (1931) and The Old Dark House (1932). In 1931, James Whale signed a five year contract with Universal Studio.

This film we created is a suspense and horror film. We decided to choose a horror film for this time period because this was around the time of the Great Depression. Many people who went to the movies at this time went because it “provided an effective escape to audiences tiring of their Great Depression” stress (Horror Film History).  The audience wanted to see things that would take their minds off the reality of their lives.

The studio we have picked is Universal Studio. We chose Universal because in 1935 it was known for their work on horror films. Universal “made its name with horror pictures of this time” (Horror Film History).  This studio is not one of the “big guys” rather, it was part of the Little Three including Columbia and United Artists. Therefore, this is a smaller scale movie on a smaller budget.

We picked our cast very carefully. The main actor is Bela Lugosi. Bela Lugosi has had previously smaller roles in films of this time even though he was signed with Universal. We decided to take a chance and give him a big part. The main actress is Mae Clarke. Mae Clarke is a very famous actress of this time. We chose her to be in our film because we want to focus on her discovery of who her husband really is and who he might be. The supporting actor of this movie is Eric Blore.  Eric Blore was a “nobody”. We chose him to be the bad guy in our film because we don’t want the audience to think he is the bad guy. Everything in the film will lead to the audience thinking that Bella Lugosi is the bad guy, but in the end, it’s the guy who no one will suspect who is the actual killer.

The Hayes code played a part in what we could and could not put in our film. The Hayes Code has many specific rules that include no murder or profanity. Since we made a horror film, we had to take into consideration both of these rules. We can and did not show any brutal murders. Most of the “killing” scenes need to be inferred. Since we did not show anything murderous, we did not give anyone any ideas on how to kill. There is no bad profanity in our film either. This makes it more accepted for everyone.

If I had to do this film project on my own, I would change a few things. One thing I would change is the supporting actor. Right now we have Eric Blore as our supporting actor because he was not well known at all and we think the audience will not suspect him as the killer. I think we should cast a female as the supporting actress because I have a feeling that a female would be even less suspicious in this type of film.