The Guilty (2021)

     Last night while sitting in my dorm with my roommate, we were looking for a movie to watch to fall asleep to. We wanted to watch something new and exciting, so we Googled the best movies on Netflix. Usually, I will watch a couple minutes of whatever is on then fall asleep, although The Guilty kept me up all night to see the entertaining end. The guilty (2021), by director Antoine Fuqua introduced a modern style of movie to me which I really enjoyed. The main protagonist Joe Baylor, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, was a police detective who was demoted to 911 operator. Based in California, you can see the forest fires in the background and all over the police station. Throughout the entirety of the film, he is answering distress calls, which he did not seem too fond of. As he nonchalantly answers another phone call, he hears a very distressed woman kidnapped and thrown into the back of the car. He then spends the rest of the film trying to save this woman dealing with her day of reckoning.      

    What I really appreciated about this film was the fact that Jake Gyllenhaal was the only person in the film. He did such an incredible job at creating immensely intense scenes that kept me engaged throughout the entire film. He masters the ability to scream and whisper in a way to make you listen very well. Jake is also good at using his body to create drama! He would move his arms around in precise ways to make his words more emphasized and bolded, which was remarkably interesting. I really want to pay attention to that in other movies to see if other actors do it as well.  

     Finally, we spoke about interesting camera angles in class this week, so I really wanted to pay attention to what this movie did to create interesting effects. The camera work was incredible, which really emphasized the scene and created intensity. The camera would stay still when there were quiet scenes, although they would shake and vibrate when Jake was screaming or crying. While I have paid attention to camera angles before, this camera work was dramatically better and more noticeable than other movies I have watched in the past. I would recommend this movie to anyone that wants an interesting, entertaining, and exciting night on the couch.  

The Greatest Showman

 This week, I wanted to watch a highly rated musical, although I had no idea what to choose. After doing some research online, I came across a movie called The Greatest Showman. I have never been a huge fan of musicals, although film class has introduced me to a new field of film. I am much more open to new film experiences, mostly because they are all unique and accomplish different goals. I was in the middle of choosing to watch Hamilton or The Greatest Showmen, although finally I chose the more modern one with familiar faces involved. This movie was one of the most entertaining two hours of my life. The movie starts out in a unique way, which is why I was able to stay involved for so long. P.T. Barnum, who is our main character, is learning how to escape poverty and grow to become one of the richest men in the world. Along the way, he must deal with a lot of horrible, detrimental life experiences that set him back. He was born into poverty, so that was one of the key moments of the movie, which ended up killing his father and leaving P.T homeless when he was a kid. He met his wife when they were just children, although she lived in a beautiful mansion in the middle of a nice neighborhood. They were in opposite situations, although he was incredibly good with his words, so she fell for him almost immediately. After he opened his circus, it never got many guests to come check it out. Eventually he got the idea to create a museum based on unique, uncommon looking people. For example, there was a person in his museum with hair that covered his whole body like a werewolf. There was a woman with a huge beard who ended up being my favorite, and there was even a tall European man. Eventually they started to combine all their abnormalities to create something beautiful. They had large, organized dances and singing which got everyone around the world to come watch and enjoy their show.  

    What I really admired about this movie was the music. I did not think that I would like the singing aspect of the movie, although they made it so much more interesting and exciting. All the songs were well performed and executed perfectly which made the move flow well. All the songs had a huge role in the progression of the movie. For example, every time there was an important scene, there would be a song that summed up what every character was thinking, experiencing, or even pursuing. I think that musicals can be very cheesy, yet this movie had a lot of songs that fit perfectly with the scene that happened. There was so much talent in every scene, which created a very well-rounded entertaining movie. Hugh Jackman, who played P.T did an excellent job acting desperate yet always composed. He made his character exactly as he should have done and made the movie seem very natural. He became very greedy with money which changed him and his family throughout the film.  

    This movie did an excellent job at dealing with stereotypes. The film was all about accepting and embracing your insecurities. For example, the movie takes place in 1870s New York, so African Americans were still not welcome. The two acrobats were both black, although P.T was excited to have them because they would bring more publicity. P.T always says that all advertising is good publicly, although it ended up introducing a lot of drama, mostly because people called them freaks. I really like the idea that people use their insecurities and differences to invite other people to celebrate them and come together. At the end of the movie, they were introduced as a “celebration of humanity.”  

Green Book (2018)

    This week, I decided to watch a movie called Green Book. I chose this movie because I found out that it has won countless awards and titles for its detail and acting, so I wanted to check it out. This movie has one of the most interesting introductory scenes I have ever seen, which immediately sparked my interest and kept me entertained throughout the whole movie. What I really admired about this movie was the creativeness of the characters. While it was based on a true story, the directors found a way to enhance the lives of the main characters to keep them interesting and exciting. The main character, Tony Vallelonga, more commonly known as Tony Lip, was one of the most complex characters I have ever witnessed in my life. While he seems like an Italian from the Bronx in the 1960s, he spends the movie breaking out of his comfort zone to become much more than that. His boss, Don Shirley played by Mahershala Ali, won a lot of high praise and awards for his performance in this movie. While the two main characters were vastly different people, they managed to create an amazing relationship based on their very few similarities 

     Tony and Don were about as opposites as it gets, so a lot of the movie was their arguments and disagreements. What I really appreciated about this movie that I thought was unique were the risks that the director took to make it the best movie possible. While racism was a huge part of the movie, it felt like it was a particularly good portrayal of how African-Americans were treated in the working class. Don Shirley was an African American man who wanted to travel to the deep south to play piano concerts. Of course, he needed a driver to take him around the road. Tony had grown a reputation in town as being a loyal bodyguard who knew how to fight. He worked at a lot of nightclubs, so he had a lot of connections to high valued Italians. Tony did not have very much money at all, so much so that he had to bet someone that he could eat 26 hotdogs in one sitting to earn fifty dollars for the rent. Don Shirley, however, was very wealthy. He lived in a beautiful apartment above Carnegie concert hall, so when tony went there for the job interview, he was surprised to see a black man. 

     Tony had to really adjust to being around an African American, mostly because he was very stubborn with his views on them. When Tony told his wife that he was colored, she instantly said that “you wouldn't last a week with him.” It took Tony the entirety of the movie, although after seeing Don treated so poorly in the deep south, he has started to understand racism on a deeper level. This movie will make you experience a lot of different emotions throughout its entirety. For example, I laughed, got sad, excited, and even conflicted while the movie transitioned through the scenes. This is one of the best movies I have ever seen, so I would recommend watching Green Book to anyone that wants to be entertained for a while. 

Short Films

This week in film theory class, we watched a movie called Breathless from the director Jean-Luc Godard. While it was from the 60s, it still blew my expectations out of the water, mostly because of the amount of detail in each character. I have never really been too fond of reading subtitles during a movie, although this was an exception. I have tried giving a lot of black and white movies a chance, yet I usually cannot pay attention to them for too long. Breathless had a very unlikeable main character, Michel Piccard, who never really seemed to get better. Strangely enough, I could not take my eyes off the movie for the entire ninety minutes. Every scene seemed like a new, more interesting movie that I was excited to explore. While 90 minutes (about 1 and a half hours) seemed like a short film, they managed to fit more entertainment in that time than a lot of 2-hour movies that I have seen. The length of the movie really made it interesting, mostly because they had to fit so many important scenes in a short amount of time.  

After watching Breathless, I decided that I wanted to explore the world of shorter movies. I have seen movies that are three hours long that are not as entertaining as that 90-minute film that Jean-Luc directed. Most of the films at the theaters today are too long, so I usually get distracted from the main plot as the movie progresses. Short films are so much better because they are straight to the point with no filler scenes, mostly because they do not have time to add irrelevant information. Short films are also more effective, which could result from them having to be so straightforward with their message. I really like to see how directors of short films can make you create a relationship with the characters in such a short amount of time. Short films are usually made on a lower budget, so it is interesting to see how directors use their resources effectively to get the most out of everything.  

As I began watching more short films this week to explore the most successful and talented works of art, I realized how popular they were. I had no idea that short films had such a huge market and audience! After scrolling through the most popular short films on YouTube, I came across an award winning short called All Too Well by Taylor Swift. I really wanted to find out why it had almost 100 million views on YouTube, although I later discovered that it won three awards for video of the year, beat long form video, and best direction at the Video Music Awards. After seeing how decorated this film was, I gave it a chance to see if I thought it really deserved all the praise that it was getting. After the fifteen-minute film ended, I was speechless to the point where I sat on my couch for 10 minutes thinking the whole movie over again in my head. Taylor not only managed to direct, sing, and sponsor the whole film, she also managed to make an appearance as the main character! It was one of the most emotional 15 minutes of cinema I have witnessed, so I had no choice but to watch a lot of shorter films. No other film I have watched has compared to All Too Well, although I am going to continue watching short films until I have been able to find one that does. Her films have inspired me to not only watch other shorts, but hopefully try to create my own one day.

Optical Devices

 

Shane Rollins

    One thing that I found incredibly interesting about Film Theory class this week was optical devices. Those really enhance any film and provide more to become emotionally attached too. Optical devices became a lot more popular in the film world in 1924 when Germaine Dulac and Jean Epstein started to implement that in their magazines. Dulac, who introduced the term impressionism to describe cinematic styles that would prevail as French critics began pursuing creative ways for their theoretical interests. When I read about that in the textbook, I started to think about all my favorite optical devices that I have really enjoyed. After thinking of my favorite optical devices, the first thing that came to mind was the scar from Harry Potter. 

 

    I think that the scar from Harry potter is a huge indicator of the series in general. People who have not even seen any movies or read books can identify the character by the lightning bolt shaped scar on the right side of his forehead. That is a fitting example of an optical device because it means so much to the main character. It is a symbol of his history, where he has been, why he is famous, and why he is the boy who lived! The more that I think about optical devices, the more I think about Jiminy Cricket. As much of a character he remains in the new film, he is also a symbol of Pinocchio's conscience. He represents the choice between right and wrong and why you should choose the right one. He is very biased towards the long-term objective of the main character which influences Pinocchio to make some unique choices, yet it also creates conflict. 

 

    When I think about optical devices in real life, I think about the weather. The weather is the only excellent optical device that changes people's moods throughout the day. For example, if you look up at the sky and it is gloomy, cloudy, and you hear thunder, you are going to experience many different emotions compared to a sunny day. Other symbolism exists which can be important for specific people. For example, I still have my state football championship ring that reminds me of my time on the team. It is a symbol of my time in high school and all the friends that I made in and out of the hallways. There are so many examples of symbolism in our everyday lives, but each person has a different relationship with each object. For example, while I look at that ring as a symbol of my friends and high school, my teammate who got hurt on the team might look at the same ring from an unfamiliar perspective and experience different feelings. Every person feels differently because each item has given them a unique experience that only applies to them.