What the hell is going on?!

Join me on a quest to figure out what was going on in Muholland Drive, which throughly confused me I still throughly enjoyed. First off let me say that dude who said this movie was David Lynch's easiest film to understand... you are a liar sir! Wild at Heart and Blue Velvet was pretty straight forward, hell even Eraserhead kind of related to something (marriage, parenthood). Regardless David Lynch is the man love his stuff, and at first ill admit I was not into this movie... but as more and more time goes by I am loving it more and more. It's a movie that makes you think about it long after it's finished and makes you want to watch it again, very few movies have done that to me... Matrix, Donnie Darko, Primer come to mind.

At first I thought this movie was about a woman suffering from a head injury and nothing was making sense around her making the movie into a half reality half dream like place. But then as it progress I started to assume other possibilities such as split personality disorders or even time travel . . . that there had somehow been a rift caused by the accident that had altered reality, kind of a Final Destination thing. She should have died but didn't so now the world is skewed and mesed up.

Now after reading the everything you want to know about Muholland Dr. I have since been enlightened a bit so here is what I have concluded could be the plot line: A blonde dancer who wins a swing contest in her hometown moves to Hollywood to become an actress, she meets an attractive dark haired actress and then begin to date/hook up. The blonde woman falls in love, but the dark haired woman soon becomes bored and begins to hook up with the director of a movie they are working on together as well as other women. The blonde woman becomes enraged that she has failed as an actress, lost her innocence in Hollywood, her aunt is dead who could have helped her in the business, and that her girlfriend dumped her. She proceeds to hire a hitman to kill the dark haired woman. But after she does this she fantasizes about the dark haired woman surviving the hit and losing her memory and falling back in love with the blonde haired woman all over again, also that owners of the film company force the director to cast her as the new lead in the movie, and the director's life becomes shit. This leads the blonde woman to go crazy as she is haunted by characters in her imaginary story thus leading her to kill herself.

A couple of things I didn't understand hopefully someone could explain. . . who were the guys that talk about dreams at the diner, do they have significance in this? How about when the crash is referred to when the hitman kills the three people? Wouldn't the crash be after this scene because he has the black book at the diner when the blonde woman hires the hit? What is in that book he takes? Who is the spanish singer? Who is the creepy guy in the wheelchair? What is the key and box? Is the key real, if so what does it do? What is the monster that pops out every once and awhile? Who is the other girl who comes and grabs her stuff from the blonde woman's apartment? Who is the crazy lady that tells the dark haired woman shes in danger? Why do the old people haunt her and not her ex girlfriend or the director? Who is the dead body in they find in the imaginary apartment? Why does the director have a golf club?

This movie is awesome in that there is so much left open and yet it feels like the pieces should fall into place if done properly I feel as if I need to watch this movie a few more times to get it closer to it true meaning.

In class the professor told us to think of it like an infinity symbol which is true in that the first half of the movie is this circle of disillusion and the second another circle of real life realization and both collide and continue.  I think this movie portrays Hollywood quite well because it shows what people think Hollywood is like or the myths and legends about it and how friendly and world of opportunity it is. Yet in reality it is a very harsh and not so glamours lifestyle that often can destroy people's lives and minds. The audition sequence for example, normally the actresses do not get dressed up and perform a song in a scene right off the bat but in the blonde woman's made up illusion of her Hollywood they do, and surprise surprise the director is captivated by her. I think this movie also speaks wonders on love, often times in relationships one partner will become instantly obessed and madly in love with the other person, when the other person simply is having fun. Thus the psycho exs, which the blonde woman obviously becomes. I wonder if she did even order the hit on the dark haired woman or if that whole ordeal was also made up in her mind?

Please comment and throw me a lifedraft here people!

Mister rabbit says, "A moment of realization is worth a thousand prayers."

Well Mr. Rabbit please for the love of God tell me what is happening in this movie? This was the second time watching this film and i'll be honest I do not care for this movie, I remember last semester we talked about this film in movie censorship class for pretty much a whole class period and how controversial it was and how edgy and thought provoking... and then I watched it and was like um that's it? Rather then write an essay about how bad this movie is i'm going to try the list format, so shall we begin?

Why I Do Not Like NBK:

1. The 90s liked to do this thing where they threw 50 images at you at once mixed with cartoons, old tv footage, nature images, etc. Maybe people thought this was really intense and awesome, i found it to make the movie look like garabage and headache provoking. It was very similar to alot of shall we say "reality" shows on MTV right now (they are obviously scripted, cheesed up, and meant to appeal to people with short memory spans)

2. The media is bad! Ah holy crap the media is horrible ... but guess what we keep using it and relying on it, and a lot of it use it as a bible for their own lives. Man we better stop the media before it controls everything oh wait 6 major corportations basically own everything in our nation's economy too late. Also these people are praising Mickey and Mallory for mass killing 50 fifty people ... I'm pretty sure no praised the Virgina Tech guy for what he did so this film is kinda off on that note, although I will say there was an odd support by college kids for Bucky when he escaped. I think sometimes people like to see that criminals can beat the police system in our country thanks to the general distaste for police. Regardless media sucks yeah we know, no ones gonna do much about it.

3. Random cartoons? What was with that? Is it because both characters have childhood issues? Maybe... or maybe graphic cartoons were really in at the time (Aeon Flux for example). This helps to prove this movie is exactly what is tries to make fun of, it's a pop culture movie filled with whatever people in the 1990s liked with ridiculous characters.

4. The characters are ridiculous! Can you say over the top? Holy Canoly! Mickey is super cool he talks like a poet and tells jokes and he loves his wife... oh and he rapes women, kills people and makes very little sense. 

5. Mallory is even better she likes to talk about Angels, hit on men then beat the crap out of them, has father issues so she goes a little nuts pretty much every scene and proceeds to yell "you stupid bitch" about 50 times, oh and randomly dances likes shes trippin on some hallucinogenic. 

6. Dwayne is Australian. He likes to show this by pushing his accent way way over the top. He like the past two characters is bi-polar or at least is strung out on speed cause that dude is all over the place. He yells at convicted criminals who have killed 50 people and then later on shoots at cops then tries to join the Mickey and Mallory bandwagon. That makes sense since he hunts down and loathes criminals... wait no it doesn't.

7. Scafetti ... is a psycho killer too! Wow even the cops are getting in on the fun of mass and brutual killings, this movies is a great depiction of American life. Him and the rest of the cops also enjoy in eating alot of doughnuts cause thats what cops love (hello stereotype).

8. My absolute favorite thing I hate about this movie... the Music! I don't know if that was Oliver's chosing or what but man is it horrible. I personally hate the low voiced singer at the beginning it reminded me of pulp fiction which also came out that year and the song where Uma Thurman dances around and does coke, it creeps me out and sounds like crap and i disliked both songs. As for the rest of the music the only song I kinda liked was the Rage Against the Machine song towards the end which that even seemed out of place and not that loud or epic. But alas it was the 90s so pretty much all the movies had to have Heavy Intense Rock music right? dumb.

9. The writing. I think if anyone picked up this script today and read it there would be no way they would ever make this movie, the dialogue sucks! It's just a mix of some deep stoner thoughts mixed with pop culture and swear words aka crap. 

10. What is the point of this film? Can someone tell me please? That killing people is ok if your crazy? You can get away with murder in the US, or at least be idolized for it? Everyone in our society is messed up? Stay away from Indians and rattlesnakes?

I did like a couple things in this film though, the green lighting is very rarely used in films that are not horror pictures and helped to emphasize the trippyness of a snake bite. I also like the green neon lights in the jail which were unnessicary but looked neat none the less. The I Love Lucy mock segment was awesome it is so horrible and disturbing I feel like they should have just made that part into a whole movie. The laughtracks are awesome, which I have commented on in other previous posts, they can help to mess up the viewer's prespective on a situation. The horrible part about that scene is that Rodney Dangerfield is a comedian and the mom was from Ferris Bueller both of whom we are use to laughing and add the laughing people you almost wanna laugh but then your like wait no this girl is getting molested and thus you feel really bad. Any movie that messes with your emotions is pretty good in my book, if the whole rest of the movie didn't totally miss I would have praised it for it shockingness.

Lincoln's Beard this Movie was Confusing!

Manchurian Candidate... yeah, not feeling it, and the worst part was that I went in with such high hopes and just instantly became confused! I feel like I shouldn't have know that the Mom would end up manipulating him prior to watching the movie so then I wouldn't have over analyzed the scenes with him and his mother, which were annoying. I absolutely loathed the main character pretty much the whole movie, he was supposed to be this mean cold hearted general... but he overdid the part way way too much at the beginning, I felt like ever other line of dialogue was either "I can't believe I said something nice about the General!" or else it was "I keep having these nightmares!" So with such witty dialogue as that it just seemed like this movie was going nowhere, for a very long time. Then oh hey it's frank sinatra ... doing his thing, and I was like wait what I thought this story was about the first guy so now I have no idea who the candidate is and who was running for office. I didn't really understand that the stepfather was running for vice president, they made it seem more like he was running for senator. I also completely missed the whole deal about his stepdad accusing all these people of being communists, what did that have to do with anything? I mean these guys are brainwashed to kill high political figures so why would the new leader who apparently hates communists help the communists?

So then the movie suddenly decides oh hey let's just go off on a huge side story about the main dude and his ex-girlfriend and how he got along great with the communists and his mom hated it...alright. Then we find out the Queen of Hearts through solitaire controls the guy, and let the over use of the Queen of Hearts begin, holy crap they were literally beating us with that giant card costume, i just wanted to yell "Yeah we get it, what's he gonna do lets finish this jeez!" It wasn't until the very e

nd of the film that the action picked up and stuff actually made sense which I guess was kind of the point that there was a lot of my

stery to this picture but I found it to be too much in the dark til the end, regardless the ending was fast-paced and awesome. I honestly didn't see it coming and thought it was a really cool way to end the film.

My favorite character was the girlfriend of the main character because she seemed to be the only normal person in the whole picture, everyone else was drastically over the top, and I also liked her because she was stunningly attractive. I also enjoyed the stepdad vice-president because that dud

e would be all crazy on the broadcasting and in front of the public and then would go and party his butt off in an abraham lincoln costume. Holy crap that guy loved Lincoln, I mean Abraham was in pretty much every scene of this movie, I could not for the life of me figure out why? Is Lincoln the most patriotic and anti-communist figure in our past? I'd probably say no, if anything he's mor

e of a communist then other presidents in that he helped in making all men equal under the law in America which is kind of communist in a very vague way. In relation to that costume party I liked how each costume worn related to the character's future endeavors...stepdad is Lincoln because he plans on being future president but then is shot... the main character guy is a cowboy (hilarious costume btw) and he shoots people later on... the girlfriend is the queen of heart because she marries and is in love and the card stands for death in this film which she ends up dying

 due to the card ...I can't quite remember what the mom was wearing but I feel like it was a greek goddess like get up which would make sense because she plans to become the future Goddess of America (First lady).

This movie did answer the age old question though that has always bothered me . . . exactly how low could Abraham Lincoln limbo if he was alive today (and if he had thrown a few back before).

Jarvis is a horrible name...

So my thoughts on Touch of Evil... not so great, thus why I never was motivated until now to write up my response to the film. This movie kind of hurt me cause I was really pumped to watch a classic film noir peice and I got over an hour and a half of a fat guy walking around, people yelling JARVIS! A super obvious and boring storyline, and Latino music galore. Why was Jarvis so cold to his wife? I mean who leaves their wife to walk around by herself after a carbombing, and then leave her alone at a creepy motel in the middle of the desert, and everytime he sees her barely kiss her. Worst husband ever, it must be because he's such a dedicated cop ... like I haven't seen this story a thousand times good cop tries to take down corrupt cop, sure back then this was probably a newly formed movie idea but it's been played so much since then it's lost its excitement.

Here's another big question what was up with the hooker lady the fat cop going to see? Is that like the only person he lo

ves? Did he use to be skinny? What is their past, it was very lightly touched upon and she was super odd looking and unaffectionate to him until he dies at the end and she walks away alone ... but wasn't she alone before the fat cop showed up? I didn't get it.

Not to say this film totally sucked, the film work was freaking amazing! That whole opening shot was ridiculous, it was set-up and followed in the perfect manner and I don't think I've ever been so nervous during a black and white film ever before it was my favorite part of the whole movie and made me pumped to watch the rest. I mean we all saw the bomb planted and didn't really have enough time to see who it was who put the bomb in, the

refore allowing us to be in the dark 

on the murder, and then we have to watch the uncontrollable scene unfold, simply genius, it almost reminded me of a Wes Anderson like shot. Wells does alot with the lighting and crazy mexican music especially during the big murder scene towards the end of the film where the fat cop frames Jarvis's wife and kills the mexican boss guy. The craziness of all the images and the amount of darkness really helped in sealing the deal of the overall feel of the movie. I also enjoyed when Jarvis beat the crap out of ALL those guys in the bar, all of them, you bad ass Jarvis.

Why Clint Eastwood is the Devil

Well it's been awhile, but yes ladies and gentlemen I am back and ready to throw my opinion in your faces, this week I'll be exposing the truth of Mr. Eastwood in that he is in fact the Lord of Darkness. Or at least he comes off as Satan in the movie "High plains Drifter," whether he is in real life is still open to discussion but more on that in another blog. High Plains Drifter, what an awesome movie, I sincerely loved the hell out of this movie, why you ask? Simple it's almost 2 hours of Clint walking around messing up this town and doing what ever the hell he wants. Oh you want a beer bam its yours, you want to have sex with a lady hey go for it, you want to make this little dude the mayor and the sheriff by all means. How does this walking devil get away with all these evils? Well he killed three guys when he showed up, so the town figures he'll protect them from outsiders if they let him do whatever he wants. Which as it turns out in the end, he peaces out when the bad guys show up comes back and kills them but manages to blow up a building, set another one on fire, paint all the town houses red and make the place seem like a living hell. bravo. And if that wasn't enough heres the twist is Eastwood's character alive? Perhaps he was the twin brother of the dead sheriff, or maybe the sheriff wasn't completely dead when they buried him. Or the later theory which I really like is that Clint Eastwood was sent from Hell to avenge his own death and make the town pay for not helping him therefore making him the Devil.

What confuses me about that theory though is why he does help some people out for instance the native american family in the store, or the little dude who gets pushed around alot. It was touched on in class and I can definitely see the point that the only reason he was nice to these people was to further piss off the town, and in sense he had no beef with the Natives. As far as the tiny dude yeah there wasn't much he could do to help him when Eastwood was being whipped to death and then later on he ends up marking the grave so that could kind of save him from the wrath of hell.

The rape scene was pretty intense, and it came so suddenly I was just like wait wait what? I mean the girl gives him the eyes and does the whole im a rude brat who does what she wants routine which I've seen way too often, especially on My Super Sweet 16. You see girls like that your like man one day someones gonna knock you on your ass, and in this movie Eastwood does that...and then takes it further by dragging her through town into the barn...and then rapes her. Which she kind of gets into (yikes), and later on in the movie he does the same thing to another woman who tries to stab him with scissors, but in that scene hes much more psychological and the girl gets all heated up caz he plays this whole im sweet and i know it routine. I'm sure feminists would love this movie...NOT. I mean every woman character is being violated and seems to kind of like it, and everyone in the town is just lettin it happen and some of them are actually smiling when they see it. Thats what disturbed me about the rape scene not so much the camera aimed up at Eastwood dominating the audience or the graphic showing of the actual deed, but the whole follow up after it. I mean the husband tells his wife to stop freaking out and let the rape go, Seriously? That's horrible. It just makes us hate the town more and side with the evil ways of Clint.

I'd also like to touch on the fact Eastwood has the best one liners in this movie it really completes his whole character of mystery and I like how alot of the story is open to question and nothing is ever fully explained. If Eastwood comes to Fredonia you can bet ur bottom dollar i'll give him whatever he wants.

Crazy High on Sneaky-Pete Wine

Blackboard jungle...you see the funny thing is at first I was totally bored by this movie, I mean yeah I understood that it was a huge deal back then to show the harsh realities of inner city schooling and that it kind of fits into the "classic" race civil rights genre along with to kill a mockingbird and others such as those. But there were just so many scenes that seemed super preachy or long and boring. Yeah I got that he was trying to teach these kids...its like Coach Carter or Hardball... but for me it's just boring after like the first two scenes, then it turns into a Disney Channel original made for TV movie. Cheesy basically, and thus im bored.

When I came into class earlier today I basically had no clue what I was going to talk about because I felt like I hadn't really come away from it with anything worth noting... other then that I thought that one rape scene was pretty ridiculous in that a white kid student tried to rape a teacher in the library, then fight with books, then jump out the window only to completely destroy his face with glass. That was awesome. So there I am sitting there and then I'm asked how I liked it... which I basically said in the first paragraph but I decided to go with my instinct and tell once again what annoyed or bothered me about the picture, which turns out to be some of the interesting components to the film. I really like that about the films we watch, at the surface they seem like typical movies that we either like or dislike, but when you actually sit down and analysis them in-de

pthy and compare them with the readings some really cool stuff ends up coming out that you didn't catch the first time.

So my issues with this film start with the female teacher and how she is over the top sexual throughout the picture in an all male school... of dangerous young hormone amped boys... and is being hit on by the rest of the male staff... what a dummy. But let's look past all that bologna, and look at the fac

t that she is nearly raped on her first day ion the school until she is saved by Dadier. Does she leave the school... nope. Does she stop dressing proactively... nope. Does she start hitting on Dadier who is happily married and trying to have a child? Heck yes she does. What?! That makes no sense. Annoyance number 1.

Annoyance 2: Dadier in general. His character is so cold it's stunning, not to mention that he is a walking oxymoron, he's a teacher who tries to preach equality and learning by non-violent means... yet he is openly racist and beats the crap out of several kids including slamming West into the blackboard over and over again. He is overly sexist to his wife, making her stay at home all day while he wor

ks, puts alot of pressure for her to have a kid after just losing a child at birth... which both himself and his wife are overly cool with... showing no signs of depression or abnormality which therefore scares me even more then if they did. When his wife thinks he is cheating on him he just shrugs it off and is like im not cheating on you so shut up, and then later on she's like I knew you were too in love with me for it to be true, and he's just like yeah whatever. I mean at one point he even comes home and talks about that female teacher and his wife asks him if he remembers what she was wearing when he got home, to which he responds with yeah, what was I wearing? To which she can't respond and then is like ok ok yeah I'm the dumb housewife good call honey I won't question you... I mean females should be outraged by this film... this film isn't so bad at being racist about inner school kids but more about unhealthy home life relationships between Dadio and his wifey. Another horribly disturbing por

tion of this film is when the wife allows for not one, not two but three notes about her husband cheating on her come to the house and then takes several phone calls from West on top of that. I kept waiting for her to burst into the school at the wrong moment of Dadier and the female teacher embracing and then freak out and leave him with is unborn child, thus making him hit rock bottom and freak out on Mills and the whole fiasco ending horribly and racistly ( I realize thats not a word but you get my point). But no, she never comes to check on her husband or the teacher, why? Because a good house wife never would do this, she should always trust her husband even if it makes her freak out and go into labor too early. On top of this he then gets all worked up about how he needs a kid to understand his students better, not nessicssarly to have a kid with the love of his life, no so it will help him his work... i mean damn thats cold.

The last topics I want to touch on real quick are Mills, West, and that Italian kid. Mills is a jerk at the beginning of the film and then soon we grow to like him, it's like we're unconsciously racist towa

rds him at the beginning and then soon realize that we are mistaken as time goes on along side with Dadier. But I mean in a way Mills was racist towards himself, when he states that a black man can never succeed in the world so he just kind of throws in the towel and gives into his aggressive no good stereotype that is placed upon him. I disargree with the reading in that this film is a buddy picture because for the most part of the movie Dadier and and Mills are at odds and it's not until the very end that they become somewhat friends and then it ends with them agreeing to stay at the school, I mean if you looked at it in warped way possibly. West is just a scum-bag. That kid was the biggest jerk in the whole film and the funny thing is I have met kids like him in real life and they're just as scummy. The fact that the reading tried to say he was a homosexual... I don't agree with that. I think Dadier would be more fitting for the classification of a homosexual then West honestly. And as a final note I just want to touch on that the Italian right hand man was randomly the other bad guy at the end even though all the kids turn good its the trashy racist white kid and the shifty and sneaky Italian kids that get kicked out. I mean that is so racist in and of its self that this movie is one big contradiction.

Until next week... keep on rockin'

Nobody talks to children...No, they just tell them.

Rebel without a cause...but in my opinon he totally had a cause. I mean he was really just a normal guy trying to stand up for himself against all the bull that was happening around him. This movie is filled with weak characters that represent so much of the society back then and saddly enough still today. Characters like the Father who is whipped by the mother and can't even stand up to his own son let alone for him. I mean for godsakes he was wearing a woman's apron around and cleaning up. That's actually an interesting take on the father role at this time because as we saw in the date with your family video the father should be the driving force and most relaxed when he comes home, in other words the house and family should revolve around him. Not to mention usually during this time period it was the father who put the wife in line and maybe even enforced domestic violence to prove his point, not to say that either way is a correct manner to uphold a household I just found it funny how Jim tells the officer that he wishes his dad would just smack her into line sometimes.

Another interesting character to add is the father of the Judy, a man who is obviously the man of the house but at the same time is treating his own daughter like a tramp. I mean yeah she has her flaws she hangs out with a rough crowd and she might wear too much makeup but hell shes 16 i mean give the gal a break. She shows her own dad affection and he smacks her in the face! It just further drives home the point that the distance between parents and their kids during this time peroid was a large and dangerous riff, take Plato for example his parents basically disown him and he doesn't know how to live or think civily because he's missing this large void in his life where he should have had parents...so naturally when Jim and Judy show him the littlest ounce of affection or friendliness he goes overboard and ends up being the death of him. The real crooks in my opinon in this film are the damn greaser guys they are the provokers of basically everything that goes wrong in this movie, i mean sure it can be argued that everyone was on edge and basically waiting for an excuse to go over the line but still these guys push the enevople way way way too far. I mean hanging a chicken from the doorway? Knife fights? Chicken runs? Theses kids must be bored outta their minds to come up with stupid stuff like that...id be curious to see how their homelife is. I won't hold it past them if their family's where actually typical nice conservatives.

When it comes down to it Jim is a good guy, he tries to do what is right but his parents and basically everyone around him tells him what to do or change his way of thinking or living. This drives Jim mad but I mean he's no rebel at all he's trying to merely survive in the messed up world around him. And his cause is the cause everyone Should have, to do what is right no matter what happens and to defend the defenseless, and never ever back down.

Gotta Dance! No actually you really don't...

Ok so as everyone in the class already knows, I'm not a huge fan of this movie, in fact I find it grossly overrated. Now I'm not saying I hated the movie by any means, nor am I stating I hate musicals because truth of the matter is I love musicals and secretly have musical albums on my ipod that I would never openly admit to! I even starred in a handful of musicals in high school including Guys and Dolls ... yeah, and I think the big name actors and actresses in this film are both very talented and stunning, but the film bugs the hell out of me.

I guess my big problem lies within musicals themselves, in essence musicals are absolutely ludacris and ridiculous to begin with. The fact that people will just randomly bust into songs, often for no real reason is weird, it's like if we were having a discussion and all of a sudden I start singing about clouds because clouds are on my mind... What?Ridiculous. Ok but we can look past that because heck if the song is good we get into it, it's fun

 and your always wondering when they'll sing next. Now the next big problemo is whether the musical is trying to be serious or not... because lets be serious right now, can you take a musical seriously? Like honestly. I have a very hard time with that question because the musicals that I really enjoy are musicals that are playing with or making fun of the issue or story at hand. For example, I enjoyed Hairspray because it makes fun of how racist white people were in the 50s, and other movies like Cannibal the musical, Little Shop of Horrors, or Southpark the movie make fun of the very fact that they are singing in situations that you don't sing in....they therefore make fun of other musicals and that works for me because honestly you got to make fun of yourself in those situations. Now musicals like Fiddler on the Roof and Rent do not do anything for me... they almost subconsciously make fun of the hard issues they're trying to expose, I have heard more people make fun of Rent and singing about AIDS then I have heard people talk about how Rent exposed them to the harsh realities 

of NYC. Come on did they people who made that really think that a musical was the best way to tell the public about those issues?

That's what really warped my view of this picture, yeah Singing in the Rain makes fun of Hollywood and then on top of that when they're backstage they sing and dance randomly, that's funny I will give them that. But to say that this picture is a good representation of what the biz was like back then and how actors acted off stage, it doesn't work. You can't take anything in this film seriously because the musical numbers ruin the validity of the piece. The plot in this movie isn't even good, it makes perfect sense to me after watching the movie and reading the article why that is, because the movie was basically slapped together around the songs themselves. Basically the movie studio said hey we got these popular songs and these popular actors...lets just throw them together and have a weird all over the place plot. And guess what happened the public loved it, and still loves it, I mean it's been labeled a classic, and the fact that everyone keeps egging this process of being distracted by the prettiness of the picture annoys me. I like this movie I find impossible to say this should be a classic in film history, baloney I say, baloney!

That scene that everyone seems to be freaking out over about Don and Cathy singing in the studio to each other...yeah I totally fell asleep at that part, slow songs are not my cup of tea I guess...fair enough

In conclusion what I learned from this movie is the big question everyone wants to know... what does singing in the rain have to do with this movie's story? Absolutely nothing at all. 

Double Jeopardy...I mean Indemnity...yeah

Well first let me start by saying film noir is freaking sweet! I've hear a lot of hub bub over film noir films and always figured they'd be kinda boring and lame, but I didn't realize how awesome ruthless and intense they were! It reminded me a lot of Sin City which is a film noir picture in itself and also one of my top favorite movies, in fact now that I think about it more a lot of the graphic novels that I have read and collected over the years commonly have a "film noir" quality to them even though they're not video. Right from the get go I knew this movie was going to be awesome seeing as the beginning was not in a linear fashion but rather started at the end and backtracked, which help in getting me through the motions of setting up the characters at the beginning (usually a painful procedure for myself, I'd rather get right to the action an conflict and have the characters be developed there as opposed to seeing their normal lives prior to the events) and really grab hold of me as the main character started to put the plan into motion. This was the first film we have seen in class where I wasn't hoping it would end after awhile, rather I was intensely watching and experiencing all the motions with the characters, which really makes a movie in my opinion.

Probably my favorite aspect of this movie the main character Walter played by Fred, and the way he was just so outrageously relaxed for the most part of the movie. Sure he sweat bullets and kinda panicked at some points for the most part he was just calm and cool, for instance when the man on the train started messing up his plan he pl

ayed along and came up with a quick solution by making the guy go back in for cigars, or when that man showed up later and kept almost recognizing him he played it chill and kept his composure. Most of the times when he's with Phyllis he puts on a front in way that basically is like were in deep crap but I got it all handled don't worry about, we got this. Even when she shoots him he doesn't go nuts or plea, he walks towards her and is like go ahead shoot me again... yeah didn't think so bam bam peace devil woman... come on thats sweet. Some of my favorite scenes in the movie are when Walter and Lola, the daughter of the man Walter intends on and eventually murders, are together. First she gets into his car unexpectedly, which I instantly thought meant that she had a crush on Walter and would then be a huge interference in the plan... which turned out to be not so true, but still Walter is cool and nice, yet he knows he is going to kill her dad. Then later on she comes to his office and tells him that she knows who killed her father, which then makes Walter wonder if she knows about him and if so why she has told him and no one else, so I'm like ok well maybe she does have a crush on him, or just wants to mess with him and maybe even kill him hers

elf... turns out I was wrong again. Then when they go out together to the music concert she tells him how she thinks its her boyfriend and her stepmom who killed her stepdad, but she still loves her boyfriend either way... which makes me wonder about if she did have a crush on Walter whether or not she'd turn him in or kinda let the affair go... either way the thing that I liked was how Walter should have been avoiding Lola or at least feeling real guilty when being with her, but instead he talks about how she comforts him and made him feel at ease not paranoid, what?! I'd be so nervous, but Walter is cool with it and in a way I both admire him and at the same time am kinda nervous about his character. I agree with what we discussed in class that Walter is basically a guy who is straight up bored with his crappy life and was obviously searching for the first reason to get his hands dirty whether he consciously knew it or not, thus why the situation should scare the hell out of him but instead he holds on for as long as he can due to the thrill factor... sure he killed someone, sure he cheated the insurance agency, sure he was all over a married woman... and he knows that he most likely can't get out of it, but every time he by passes a barrier I feel like its an adrenaline rush for him which keeps him going and gets him "high" in a sense.

My final point I want to touch on is the overabundance of smoking that was done in this movie. . . which made it look like a giant cigarette / cigar commercial. Basically in every scene someone was smoking, whether it was a business time cigar (Keyes) or a thin cig to look cool and seductive to the opposite sex, or even to relax from a tragic event they all made it seem very natural and a way of life. I mean I do realize back then there were a lot of Americans that did smoke and often at that but jeez there was a ton of smoking up, and man did the camera make it look so elegant, romantic, and professional. Each time Keyes goes to light his cigar Walter always gives him a light almost like a respectful motion to his superior, which at the end is exchanged likewise as Walter lies in a mess at the office door. The sudden burst of flame and white hot burning of the cigarettes and cigars where stunning against the dark backgrounds and made the simple motion of lighting up into a dazzling spectacle that I really enjoyed even though I hate tobacco with a passion. Even the way they Walter light the matches with one hand in a snapping manner that was just I don't know how else to put it but totally bad ass. I gotta learn that trick... note to self buy a box of matches.

Also how many times did Walter say the words Keyes and Baby... id say somewhere around 100...

White Zombie!

Where to begin, oh my good golly this movie was horrible! When I saw that we were watching a zombie movie I was actually quite excited, considering I have seen quite a number of zombie movies in the past that I found to be awesome. Then I found out that White Zombie was actually the first zombie movie ever made, which both intrigued me yet caused me to kinda doubt the actual quality of the movie. And then all hell broke loose. I agree with alot of what was said in class that this movie seems more like an abstract dream then an actual "horror film," in that alot of images are shown as well as things said that really have nothing to do with the plot at all. For instance the water in the castle... what was up with that? Was it poisoned water, or perhaps a cursed river that captures your soul? Either way characters were becoming seriously troubled by it which made me feel at first like laughing but then oddly enough changed to me just becoming disturbed by it. The same is true of the vulture that shows up every once and awhile in the picture and that god awful noise that seems to be so over exaggerated it at first seems funny but at the same time gets under under skin.

I found the movie as a whole to be highly annoying and almost lazy in a sense. Th

ere was so many uses of the same shots, over and over again. How many times are they going to show the zombie master clenching his hands together, after awhile I just wanted to yell Ok we get it, you can control the undead and the living with your weird little handshake, stop remin

ding us! That guy was quite freaky to begin with, I think it was definitly unneeded to show him starring at the camera for long uncomfortable lengths of time. Another example of them using the same shots like its going out of style was when the main woman character is broken from the spell at the end of the film and her face is light up, and then darkened, and then light up, and th

en darkened, etc. Seriously, we just need to see it once, we know she's going to end up ok at the end, she's the white beautiful female, of course she'll be fine, we don't need to play the whole is she ok, no shes not, but maybe, it's not thrilling at all and borderline humorous.

The reading helped me big time with this movie, because alot of this movie made l

ittle sense to me, but Tony helped to show and explain scenes that even though I saw I felt were just kinda random. Not to say that most of that movie doesn't make sense, but through Tony's analysis I was able to derive much more from the plot and the characters. Although his points were very insightful there were parts of his paper that I felt were diving too much into a meaning that really wasn't entirely there, particularly when he describes who each zombie represented in the US imerpialism sense. I mean I could write a 10 page paper about how Titantic is a

ctually a metaphor for the French Revolution, it doesn't mean that that is the movies actual

 intent.

My Man Godfrey

This week we watched My Man Godfrey, and to be brutally honest this film annoyed the crap out of me. In terms of camera work it wasn't really anything fancy or impressive, the storyline was all over the place, and the characters were pretty much all nuts. I mentioned in class how this film reminded me alot of Wedding Crashers, that is if the movie had been just about Vince Vaughn's story. In both films there is a main character guy who feels he is superior to the rich people around him and has very saracastic comments about it, there is also a crazy girl in both who is obsessed with this main character. The parents in both films are rich and somewhat oblivious to the way their children act, peticularly the crazy daughter. In the end of both movies that main character ends up with the crazy girl, even though it seems like a horrible match. In retrospect when someone else related the film to Arrested Development I totally agreed in that that show is of a way closer tie to My Man Godfrey then Wedding Crashers, and made me wonder if the show used that movie for something like a starting block.

The main reason why the film really grinded my gears, was because of the whole idea that Godfrey allowed the family to keep living rich while not really learning a lesson. Throughout the film you have a character who is educated, kind, patient, and overall just a good guy, Godfrey, and then at the same time you have this family that is arrogant, ignorant, insane, mean, and essientally stupid. As the movie goes on we come to realize that Godfrey actually descends from a rich family and chose to live as bum for some odd reason, and then suddenly he decides to strike back at the rich community by showing up to a scavenger hunt and calling them idiots. And then he decides to take it a step further and become their butler...which really doesn't make sense but we let it go because he claims to have a plan up his sleeve. The big plan? Oh its to handle the family's money without them knowing and make them richer then they were already. Great idea Godfrey, don't let the family that is nuts, bad with money, and depends greatly on their income, learn their lesson and be broke for awhile. No instead wait til the father of the family figures out oh crap were broke, then tell him its all good and then go and build a night club on the river by the garbage dump for homeless people to work at. Oh and marry that insane girl who is spoiled out of her mind. What?! This film is ridiculous, I don't know who wrote this but really it just doesn't add up to me. In the reading we were assigned about Screwball Capitalism really drives home what I'm taling about in the sense that the movie almost accidentally doesn't help with the money situation or that of the rich class in america, seeing as the moral of the movie appears to be If your rich and crazy, someone smarter then you will let you keep on being rich and crazy.

Stagecoach

Before even viewing the film, I was both excited and eager to watch Stagecoach for the first time, because although I've seen tons of movies I really have yet to explore western cinema, especially early film westerns. In addition to that I have never seen any John Wayne movies, I mean I know who he is and have seen impersonations and references to him in a number of other movies but have never actually seen him act.

So then we started to watch the movie, and right off the bat the crackly old sound quality had me going nuts, its a pet peeve of mine and is basically the main reason I loathe early black and white films. Another thing that caught my attention and continued to bug me for most of the movie, was the goofy character of Buck, played by Andy Devine and his easily recognizable voice. I knew I heard that voice before, but I couldn't put my finger on it and for most of the film i was distracted by it, until finally I realized he was Friar Tuck in Disney's animated film Robin Hood. His character was definitly over the top comedic relief throughout the film, and even when the audience sees him get shot we continue to laugh at his odd noises, even though he is clearly in pain.

Some other quick things I noticed were the odd number of similar odd shots at the beginning of the film of just the Banker Owner's face and his odd unchanging stare. These shots were strange in that they didn't really explain anything about the character other then he creeply stares into nothing silently in his bank, and it felt like the director filmed him just staring for awhile cut up the scene and then just kinda threw peice of it back in the picture at different parts. After the second time I just found the shots to be funny, especially his expression.

I noticed that whenever the camera is only on John Wayne it is set-up much nicer and more vivid then shots of any other character in the film. For example when we first see John Wayne in the movie the lighting and picture quality changes suddenly as it zooms in on his face, and then cuts to this stunning portrait of John with his hat tilted perfectly and the background complimenting him. Even during the final shoot out scene against the Indians, John choose to lie down on top of the coach in a manner that looks more like he is posing for a picture then a comfortable shooting stance. I feel like this was done to make him really stand out and shine in the picture, and with the exception of the gambler gentleman character Mr. Wayne is the only somewhat young handsome character in the whole film.

I should also note that my hypothesis on why the gambler guy was aiming the gun at the mother on the coach is because after he realized that the passengers had no ammo left and were still surrounded by savage indians, and he had but one bullet left in his gun the only people worthy of the final shot would be either the mother, the sherriff, or the newly born child. Now this is very interesting to think about, if all the passengers were about to get captured, tortured and scalped who would be most deserving of being killed quickly and mercifully first... Well we can cancel out the banker because he is obivously consumed by Greed, and not the doc because he is a raging Acoholic, and not John Wayne's character because he broke the law and is a Fugitive, and then in turn not the blonde woman because shes a Prosititute. The gambler is untrustworthy and apparently a Murderer thus ruling him out as well. That leaves Buck the stagecoach driver, the sheriff, the mother, the baby, and the old married brewer. Now the brewer dies from an arrow right at the beginning of the fight, and both the driver and the sheriff are outside the coach, so then the only two possible candidates for quick mercy are the mother and the baby. Now if this movie was made today, the gambler probably would have aimed for the baby, but because were talking 1930s I feel like they really couldn't get away with that, so instead he pointed the gun at the woman. That's my idea of that whole situation.

All in all I was super bored by the film, and other then the idea of all these typical sinners traveling across the country together I found it to be cheesy and unentertaining.

Andy Devine info:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0222596/