Coen Bros

The Coen Bros might as well be the Mario Bros because of how cartoonish some of their films are. Take as an example Raising Arizona. The action sequences were almost straight out of a cartoon (Yes, I know Mario was from a video game and all, but it's still a cartoon kinda thing). This isn't to say that all of the Coen Bros films were this way. No Country for Old Men is definitely not what I would call a cartoon. It is far to glum, and the violence is far too realistic for it to be a cartoon.
Another major aspect of Coen Bros films is that they always seem to revolve around money and the law. All of the films we watched in class have someone in the movie trying to get money, generally through an illegal action (robbing a bank, dealing drugs). There is always something to do with the law and its enforcement in their movies as well. Either the protagonist is an officer, or a criminal, or the antagonist is a criminal. Either way, there is an overarching feeling of the law in their films. Even if the protagonist is a criminal (Raising Arizona), he does not feel like a true criminal, and it's very easy to take his side.
I thoroughly enjoyed this Coen Brose unit. I think I'd go as far as to say that it was my favorite unit thus far. Now hopefully the Nair unit can follow it up pretty well.

Altman

As a whole, I was a pretty big fan of Robert Altman's movies. I'd have to say that my favorite part was probably how he made his movies seem so realistic (for the most part). Especially in Nashville, he used overlapping dialogue and a large cast. The overlapping dialogue really makes the movie seem real, especially when combined with the improvisation that took place much of the time by the actors. The authenticity with which they said their lines, or came up with their lines, really made the movie seem almost like a documentary. I mentioned the large cast also. The large cast in my opinion really added to the realism of the film. It contradicts the notion that many films project, that the story being portrayed is the only thing going on. With the large cast, there are so many different stories to follow; in fact, there are maybe too many in my opinion. Plus with the addition of the presidential candidate patrolling the streets in his van, the movie truly does seem to be a documentary of blue grass singers in Nashville. Everything that happens is entirely plausible in that movie.
Moving on to The Player, it becomes slightly less realistic, but the overlapping dialogue is still present. I suppose, seeing as I don't really know much at all about Hollywood, that the story could be true, but at this point, I choose to believe that it is not at all true, that something like this would/could never happen. I'm probably being short sighted and close minded, but that's just what I'm going off of for now until I find out otherwise.
Lastly, The Long Goodbye. This was probably my favorite movie of the three we watched in class. My reasoning for deeming it the best is that I enjoy film noir, and this movie is fairly similar to film noir. I loved how the movie was filmed though. The constantly shifting camera was fantastic. It really made me feel like I was actually watching what was going on. The story itself was slightly too farfetched for me, but the way the viewer saw the movie made it seem like they were standing in the movie. Once again, Altman used some of his trademark overlapping dialogue to make it seem slightly more realistic, but the story itself was definitely concocted. I suppose another reason why I might have liked it so much was that the story was unreal... Hmm... That's just how I like my movies I guess.
Well anyway, I definitely enjoyed Altman's movies (except partially Nashville because of the country singing aspect) and am looking into checking out a couple of his other movies like potentially M.A.S.H. simply because I've heard a fair amount about it.

Panic Room

So going into this movie, I thought it was going to be some horror movie or have something to do with some sort of psychopath killer (kinda like Zodiac), but I was pretty far off. It was a thriller, and a very good one at that. Fincher used a lot of cinematic techniques to add to the suspense of the thriller. He had a sort of recurring theme, a shot that he used several times throughout the movie that served to completely throw off the viewer. It was a shot that started off showing the character placed in the normal direction, then the camera does a 90 degree tilt, and the character is then shown in a completely different perspective that totally throws off the viewer, or at least I was totally messed up. After this move, something always happened. It was a giveaway, but nothing was really given away, just that something, anything was about to happen. The shot only shows the one character, so any of the other characters could do anything, which is exactly what happened. This is pretty much Fincher's way of doing the old Hitchcock showing the bomb under the table thing, except we don't know what the bomb is, just that there is a bomb-like thing somewhere that's about to go off. There was another really cool shot that was in a way the establishing shot. It was a really intense crane shot that evolved into a traveling shot that showed people outside the house trying to break in. It wasn't the first shot of the film, but it really showed the immensity of the house and what was really going to be occuring in the movie.

Fincher uses other aspects of film to add even more thrills and suspense. The characters that are found in the film each have some sort of quirk that you know will be very important at some point in the movie. Sarah has what seems to be diabetes, and being trapped in a room with no food of any kind will eventually lead to something bad happening - Meg, the mom played by Jodie Foster, has to eventually go and get Sarah's shots while there is a slight opening while the bad guys are having a fight about the money distribution. Burnham, one of the bad guys, refuses to kill anyone in the house. This ends up nearly killing him, and it is also what saves Meg in the end. He had intentions that were far better than any of the other bad guys in the movie; all he wanted to do was get the money to help his family and get out, no killing necessary. So the way the characters were set up was a key element that added to the suspense of the movie because you never knew when each character's quirk was going to cause a big change in the progression of the movie.

I think the best part of the movie was how well Fincher made the audience feel the emotions of each of the characters. You could truly see how desperate Meg was to save her daughter, and Burnham's humanity really came through his actions. It was something that I really enjoyed in the movie, feeling how the characters felt. Obviously it wasn't nearly as intense for me as the viewer, but even feeling just some of the intense emotions that the characters in the movie felt was enough to make me really really enjoy this movie. That is, if enjoying a thriller means being uptight and antsy and even a bit afraid the whole time.

I Guess I Haven't Gotten Out Much

Alright. So I haven't seen a movie in a long time. I just haven't taken the time to sit down and watch something either at my house or in theaters, so I really am not sure what all to write about. Let's see... I guess I'll just write about what we've been watching in class. So we just started Battle of Algiers, and I have to say it's better than I thought it would be. The documentary review thing we watched in class to set up the movie made it seem like it was going to be some old, black and white, boring war movie like you always find on the History channel. I'm not saying the History channel is bad in any way, I actually love the History channel, especially late at night, but I'm just saying I thought it was going to be really not so good. Plus, when I found out that it was in French, I was actually kinda happy because I was hoping I would be able to understand everything without having to read the subtitles, but that is definitely not the case. The only stuff I can understand without reading is the voice over. Everything else, or just about everything else, is in Arabic or in very hard to understand French. That was kind of disappointing... But as for the actual movie, it's a bit hard to tell exactly what's going on, but I can tell there's a lot of action, or at least a lot of shooting people. Hopefully I'll understand the movie more as it progresses, otherwise this movie's going to pretty much go right over my head, and I definitely won't enjoy it.
Well anyway, here's the trailer for the movie. It makes it look pretty intense.

A Very Good Unit with Some Iffy Stuff

The last Romantic Comedy/Screwball Comedy unit was definitely my favorite unit so far. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a really good movie in my opinion. It was kind of confusing, but I like movies that make me think about things that I would not normally think about. Eternal Sunshine is now actually one of my favorite movies. I've never seen anything quite like it, and I really liked it.
On the other hand, His Girl Friday is definitely not one of my favorite movies. I really didn't like it hardly at all. Sure it was funny, but it really didn't do it for me I guess. I can't really explain why not, I just didn't enjoy it. I think it has something to do with how it was so fast paced that there was never any time to think or enjoy what just happened, stuff just kept happening and none of the characters seemed to pay any attention to what it was that was happening. I also didn't like how I pretty much knew exactly what was going to happen in the end right from the get go. I like movies that actually make me have second guesses as to what's going to happen, even if it is not what I want to have happen. I'd rather have something bad happen then know exactly how the movie will end. Knowing the ending seems to defeat the purpose of watching a movie in my opinion. I knew that Bruce and Hildy were going to end up together, so nothing that happened in the movie really held my attention; it seemed like a bunch of filler really.
So, I guess what I'm really saying is when it comes to any movies that deal with any amount of romance, I like them to be slower; I want to be able to understand what's happening and why it's happening and come up with my own conclusions, and have the ending be more or less of a surprise to me.

Funniest/Dumbest Movie Ever?

I recently watched The Three Amigos directed by John Landis and starring Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short as three "amigos." I watched it with a couple of friends, and it was probably the dumbest movie I have watched in a LONG time. There were so many moments that were absolutely ridiculous that I just had to laugh, like the "Singing Bush" scene (the clip below)

That was probably one of the dumbest and funniest scenes in the movie. The "magic chant" they have to say is absolutely hilarious in a really strange way. We had to pause the movie there and watch it over just because it was so ridiculous. There were many other scenes like this one (the dancing and singing in the bar while everyone thought they were cold blooded killers).

I have to say these two videos demonstrate the true nature of cowboys.....NOT! These completely contradict what is commonly accepted as a cowboy. It truly does what a parody is supposed to do: make fun of a certain genre. I found that this movie was pretty funny, but I would definitely not watch it again...

The Nightmare Before Christmas

I recently acquired the digitally remastered DVD collector's edition of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. It has always been one of my favorite movies, even though it is widely considered a kiddy movie. The basic plot of the movie is that Jack Skellington, who lives in Halloween Town, falls into a tree and ends up in Christmas Town. After exploring Christmas Town, he decides he wants to bring Christmas to Halloween Town. He tries and ends up failing, but it is thanks to Sally, the "woman" who loves him to fix things.
Even though I already own this movie on VHS, it is totally worth it to own the DVD version. First of all, my VHS player hardly works, and secondly, the quality of the sound and picture is greatly improved in the new remastered version. Plus, all of the bonus features in the set make it all more worth the while. If anyone was ever a fan of this movie, they should look into this collector's edition, especially if they don't own the original VHS copy. Learning all about how Tim Burton used stop motion and about the background information on the storyline and the characters really adds to the overall amazingness of this movie. And yes, it is truly amazing so it deserves "amazingness" to be made up for it.

*EDIT*
The music in this movie is also very cheesy, but that only makes it all the better. I never really managed to learn the songs, but i love them nonetheless. My favorite song is for sure the Oogie Boogie Song or the Halloween Town theme song... I can't decide... They're all so good.