Sugar Cane Alley

Sugar Cane Alley is an interesting movie. It is amazing how most of the characters in it were not professional actors, nor had they acted before. With the movie taking place in a different time and century, it showed me what living in poverty is like. The children were amazed at a chicken egg. They did not have much to play with. Left alone all day to keep busy, they got into quite a bit of trouble. Jose, a children living in poverty was smart, he got out of the poverty and ended well off in life.
Sadly, there were a few deaths. The one that surprised me most was the young boy who ran away from his father and tried giving his secrets away. Another thing that I was sort of surprised at was the discipline for the children when they got in trouble. Spanking them with a stick seemed pretty harsh. This was not a bad movie, it was not as entertaining as most are use to. It taught a lot though and that is always a plus.

Persepolis

Persepolis is a very interesting movie. It tells you about what life is like to be a girl living in Iran. One of the topics we discussed was whether or not the animation was well for this movie. My opinion is that the animation used for this movie fits perfectly. Throughout the whole movie there are exaggerations that the animation captures perfectly. When she describes people that take part in her life, you really see what they appeared to her as. There were a few inappropriate times and the animations helped limit those moments as well.
This movie really opened my eyes to the way people live in Iran. I now see all the differences between Iran and the U.S. I feel blessed to live in America and have all the privileges I have. This movie was definitely different than what I usually watch but I am glad I did. It is a great movie when you enjoy it and you learn something from it.

Inconvenient Hero on a Wire

Watching the Chinese movie Hero in both lip dubbed and with subtitles made me realize the huge difference they have. I normally do not watch foreign movies but when I do, I know I will watch it with subtitles. As many details as I may miss while trying to read what the characters are saying, I find it too bizarre for the characters to try and mouth the words with English. It looks ridiculous. I am also pretty sure that I will not miss so many details that I do not understand what is going on.

I also do not watch documentaries much. Watching both Man on Wire and the Inconvenient Truth made me realize how many ways a documentary can be presented. Man on Wire seemed to be more like a movie with entertainment. Inconvenient Truth was more informational like the stereotype documentary. Through discussion, I noticed that other movies like Paranormal Activity are considered documentary. It came as a shock to me. Through these three films, I learned that there can be many different types of movies.

I would also like to talk about who I thought was the actual hero in Hero. I believe Broken Sword was the hero. He realized that it may take many lives to save many more in the end. Towards the end, he tries to stop Nameless from assassinating the emperor and makes Nameless realize the intentions that the emperor has for their countries future. Nameless dies heroically but he would have killed the emperor had Broken Sword not talked to him and China could be worse off now. Broken Sword saved the emperor and saved china. I believe he is the true hero.

Night of the Living Dead

If you ever have to be faced with a zombie attack, the question of whether you should worry about the zombies or the other victims. I believe you should worry about other victims. Now, there may not be as many threats like Ben; a strong-take hold man who is always in charge. Most might be like Barbra, most likely the girls; Barbra is approaching shock and is no help let alone any guidance. I think it would be men verse men, just like in the Night of the Living Dead. Harry is a guy hidden in the basement with his family. Then there’s Ben, a man who happen to find the house and take order in it. Ben believes he is in charge while Harry thinks he is in charge. This causes conflict from the start. One says something and the other has something better. Towards the end, Ben shoots Harry because Harry would not help Ben. As the result, Ben lives until other guys kill him by mistake. Like I said, it mainly would be guys verse guys. Either for control or mishap, the men will kill others more than the zombies will. “The man who kills a man kills a man. The man who kills himself kills all men. As far as he is concerned, he wipes out the world.” -G.K. Chesterton

The grotesque and appealing Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burton is a writer and director of many known films like Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice. Most of his films contain a creepy or scary theme with a touching moral. All characters have something off about them. The most common theme in characters is that they are living dead. In the Corpse Bride, in The Night Before Christmas, and in Beetlejuice and his newest Frankenweenie; all main characters share the property of being dead and rising, or appearing dead.

Tim Burton makes The Nightmare Before Christmas the same way. It derives from Halloween town where everyone lives to scare. So, of course everyone looks gross and creepy. It is not the appearance that we believe to be appealing; it is the emotion behind it. There are many characters in this movie who have the biggest heart and you see beyond the gross appearance.

An example is the Boogeyman; he looks like a giant pillow but is filled with nasty little bugs. Another example is Sally, she is a beautiful doll figure with a pure heart but she was made by a scientist and is held together with stitching. The creepy part of Sally is that she can remove limbs from her body and they move on their own.

Edward Scissorhands

In Edward Scissorhands, there is a man named Edward who was created by another man. The guy that created him died before he finished Edward. So, Edward is forever stuck with scissors as hands. Edward is found alone in a house and is taken into the town by a nice lady. At first everyone accepts Edward and sees him as a friend. One woman sees him as attractive and pursues him. Edward never brought up in town doesn't understand her cougar attempts and denies her.

You could consider Edward an artist. Society accepts him and his unique ways. He is an outcast to some all throughout. The wives love him as he cuts their hair uniquely. When moved into town, Edward found new things to work with like dog hair, human hair, and shrubs. This benefitted him, not to mention he found a home. In return, the town receives amazing sculptures all over.

Considering Edward has scissors as hands, he is perceived differently than most artists nowadays. Some see him as dangerous from the gecko and refuse to accept him. Individually, everyone has their own opinions. In society, everyone is skeptic  and then realizes his potential. He is admired and then denied.

Christopher Nolan

You may have seen Following, Memento, the Prestige, the Batman trilogy, or Inception but do you know the writer and director of them? Christopher Nolan has written and/or directed all of these movies and has won many awards for them. How are his movies so great? What sets him apart from others? Through many different technical elements from camera shots to background music, Christopher Nolan creates unreal yet spectacular films.  

Nolan’s techniques are sometimes subtle to completely obvious. When you first watch a Christopher Nolan film, you may realize that there are little to no credits in the beginning. He jumps straight in to keep your attention and to get you more into the movie. Heres a view of the beggining of one of his greatest movies. The way he jumps from scenes with hard cuts and crosscutting scenes is obvious. How he uses music throughout a lot of the movie.  Sometimes the music is prominent and loud or subtle and barely there. None of the music has words, it’s all instrumental. Nolan studied English literature at University College London where he was in a film society. There, he learned about guerrilla techniques and used them on his first film Following. After that, he had enough standing that he got the funds to make his next film, Memento.

A common theme is present in all of Nolan’s film; a protagonist who stands for the right and justice in this world. They usually lose something dear to them and that puts them into a vengeance seeking stage. Often times, he makes the characters face some sort of psychological stress.  Like in Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne looses his parent and seeks revenge and Dr. Krane uses a hallucinogenic spray that makes everyone face their biggest fear. In Inception, Cobb looses his wife and has an issue with whether or not he is awake or in limbo. Also, most of the protagonists use force to get information. In the Dark Knight, Bruce uses abuse to get the joker to talk and in the Prestige, Angier buries Fallon to get information about a trick. There is more to the movie than you may think.

As you may notice if you’ve seen his films is, he uses a lot of the same actors and they majorly aren’t American; Michael Caine is in 5 of his 8 films. He uses famous actors like Leonardo DeCaprio or Christian Bale. They all give off a stunning performance which builds to the film.

Nolan tries to use as little Computer Generated Imagery as possible. As he said in an interview with Jeffrey Resssner in the spring of 2012, “I believe in an absolute difference between animation and photography. However sophisticated your computer-generated imagery is, if it’s been created from no physical elements and you haven’t shot anything, it’s going to feel like animation. There are usually two different goals in a visual effects movie. One is to fool the audience into seeing something seamless, and that’s how I try to use it. The other is to impress the audience with the amount of money spent on the spectacle of the visual effect, and that, I have no interest in. We try to enhance our stunt work and floor effects with extraordinary CGI tools like wire and rig removals. If you put a lot of time and effort into matching your original film elements, the kind of enhancements you can put into the frames can really trick the eye, offering results far beyond what was possible 20 years ago. The problem for me is if you don’t first shoot something with the camera on which to base the shot, the visual effect is going to stick out if the film you’re making has a realistic style or patina. I prefer films that feel more like real life, so any CGI has to be very carefully handled to fit into that.” (Wikipedia 2012)

He also tries to use actual film compared to digital video. “For the last 10 years, I've felt increasing pressure to stop shooting film and start shooting video, but I've never understood why. It's cheaper to work on film, it's far better looking, it's the technology that's been known and understood for a hundred years, and it's extremely reliable. I think, truthfully, it boils down to the economic interest of manufacturers and [a production] industry that makes more money through change rather than through maintaining the status quo. We save a lot of money shooting on film and projecting film and not doing digital intermediates. In fact, I've never done a digital intermediate. Photo chemically, you can time film with a good timer in three or four passes, which takes about 12 to 14 hours as opposed to seven or eight weeks in a DI suite. That's the way everyone was doing it 10 years ago, and I've just carried on making films in the way that works best and waiting until there’s a good reason to change. But I haven't seen that reason yet.” (Wikipedia 2012)

Christopher Nolan has many awards. For his second movie made, Memento, won 46 awards, 22 just for Nolan.  The Dark Knight won 2 Oscars, 94 other wins, and was rated 9 out of 10 stars on Imdb. With Inception, they got 4 Oscar awards and 81 other awards, a Roger Ebert said, "Nolan tests us with his own dazzling maze. We have to trust him that he can lead us through, because much of the time we're lost and disoriented."

I have not seen all of Nolan’s films but I intend to. I heard he is making Man of Steel which will be released in 2013. It is the new superman and I personally, can’t wait to see it. I will always be inticed to his amazing film writing and screen play. I hope you love Christopher Nolan’s films as much as I do.