Touch of Evil

The movie Touch of Evil was about corruption in the Mexican safety and protection department. Mike and Susan Vargas had just gotten married and were in Mexico when they witnessed a murder. Vargas offers to over see the investigation while his wife gets transported to a hotel a while a way. In the end there is a murder that one of the police men try to from Vargases wife for and Vargas gets the cop to admit it on tape.

This movie was slightly hard for me to follow and i did not enjoy it as much as the other Film Noir movies we watched. I don't think each character was developed enough for me to be able to tell them apart once they were all together. The scenes were somewhat chaotic for me to distinguish. However, the final scene with Vargas. and Quinlan did pull the whole movie together. The intense dialogue pulled the theme of the entire movie together.

The use of low camera angles accented Orson Wells. Showing him at this angle made him look bigger then life and in this movie he played a character that pretty much could not be touched. No matter what he did, how corrupt nothing would effect him. In addition this most of the movie was filmed rather dark The most important scenes were filmed at night, and the most important characters often had shadows cast on their faces. At first i found this really annoying however i realized it only enhanced the feel of the movie. The background of the whole movie was dark , police corruption is not an easy or light topic, and keeping the feel of the movie dark played on my emotions and i think it was a good choice and a successful decision

The major difference i noticed while watching Monsoon Wedding in comparison to Casablanca was the language. Obviously there were subtitles but what i noticed is that sometimes they were not needed. Sometimes the subtitles were up while the characters were speaking english. Also, sometimes the character would start off a sentence speaking in indian and end it in English. I feel as if this was slightly sloppy, and i cannot say the same of Casablanca. Casablanca was very clean and precise. The actors costumes were clean, pressed and perfect, their hair was perfectly in place. The set was pristine and obvious that there was thought into it. Another thing i noticed about Monsoon wedding that was not the case for Casablanca were the camera angles. In Monsoon wedding, sometimes the camera views were awkward and cut off faces or parts of bodies or were off center

Monsoon wedding was a movie about a girl who had a wedding arranged for her by her father however she was still involved with her ex boyfriend. Eventually she meets her new husband to be and seems to be falling for him but wants to be honest with him so decides to tell him about her ex. He is angry at first but finally takes her back and they get married. Meanwhile the wedding planner and the servant end up falling in love and getting married too.

I liked the usage of traditional Indian color in this movie. I also liked that although it was a completely different different culture with different morals, values, expectations, and social norms however i could still relate to the character and her feelings for her ex. In addition to the feelings she had for her ex, the one relative snuck around with the one guy relative too. That is also something that remains constant in all cultures and makes it easy for viewers to understand.

Daughters of the dust was a movie about a family in Africa who wanted to move north.

I could not say that i enjoyed this movie. I thought the narrative was somewhat confusing along with the timing of everything. I could not tell how long the family was on the island, it seemed as if it had been a long time however they were wearing the same clothes the whole movie so it also seemed to me like it could have been a shorter amount of time. I didnt think the dialogue was clear enough for me to understand who was saying what to who.

Casablanca was a movie about a man named Rick who owned a cafe in Europe at first it seems to be about world war II and the nazi's trying to contain a freedom fighter, however there was a deeper story to it. Victor goes to Ricks cafe with his wife who happens to be Ricks first love. At first he is very bitter towards lisa however after much explanation she explains what really happened back in Paris. Rick forgives her and they plan to run off together but in the end he goes through with this whole plan that sends llsa and victor off with the letters of transit.

This movie was enjoyable to watch because it was entertaining and as soon as I found out llsa and Rick had history I was rooting for them to work it out when they finally did I was happy and it seemed like it was going to end perfectly. However when Rick goes through with his own plan i was disappointed at first however you realize it was the nobel thing to do and that it took alot of love in his heart for llsa and he wanted her to be happy. Although Rick as a character wasnt the most warm person it was still easy for me to easily like him as well.

Bonnie and Clyde was an entertaining movie about a man who picks up a woman and they lead a life of robbing banks. His brother and sister in law, and a random mechanic join them on the way. They move across the nation together stealing money from banks and cars from people. At the end they find refuge in CW Moss's fathers house, where his father is upset at him for bringing these criminals to his home. The father has a meeting with the sheriff and plans the murder of Bonnie and Clyde ending the movie.

This movie was entertaining and fun despite the heavy content. I found it almost comical how much they didn't really seem to know what they were doing but always got away with the bank robberies. The dynamics between the characters were funny and easy for me to relate to. Just about everyone has that one person they cant stand, the one thats just there, and the one you love.

The Godfather

In the Godfather, the opening scene starts at his daughters wedding. The Godfather is approached with a favor by Jonny who ask's for aid of his drug trafficing from the Don's connections. This offer was ignored and in turn the Don is shot and barely recovers. Eventually the Don's son Michael is the one who has to take over the family business. He prepares for this position and once he does he is the head of the family and the new Don who gets revenge on all the people who killed his family.

In the last clip you see all the murder clips being flashed. You see Al Pachino in the church, stepping into the role of family man and protector, then you see all these murder scenes and that was him stepping into the dichotomy of on the one hand who he wanted to be and on the other hand who he becomes. There is a contrast being displayed through the display of the two different clips showing the two sides of this man showing him murdering his rivals ruthlessly.There is nothing noble about the angles choosen to show this man murdering these people. It is just barbaric. The constant dark lighting on the whole film is a reflection of the dark path that he has chosen. The straight on shots of the camera shows the straight on selfishness given free reign. The murders in daylight shows the honestness of his brutality.

*I had to cool off for a few days before I wrote this.

Do the right thing was a movie highlighting racial prejudice and human morality. Mookie was an african american living in brooklyn working for an italian family owned restaurant. The movie was slow to start and mostly showed Mookie in his current life, his girlfriend, son, and job. It finally picked up at the end when an african american is killed by a police man as a response to a previous fight. This causes a riot and in turn the African Americans end up burning down the Italian shop.

The color effects in this movie was what hit me the most. The yellow tones and the warm feel of the hues in Do the right thing really put a realness to the portrayed heat. The way the light poured into the mans bedroom and right on his bed in the opening scene was effective to me because thats when i feel heat the most, sweating in bed.

The next thing that i thought was portrayed very well was the angle from which they showed Radio. By positioning the camera low and angling it up at him it gave the impression that he was giant and powerful and persuasive. This was important because of the end of the movie. His death seemed more drastic to such a minimal character.

In Apocalypse Now, the use of lights, shadow, music, complimented the characters in the scenes that they were in. The scene that stood out to me the most was when the soldiers were in the helicopter and the captain said he would be putting the music on soon. When he does it is just so loud and dominant in the scene, and the music choice matched perfectly with what was going on below. All of a sudden the scene cuts to another and the music stops abruptly and i thought this was a very interesting choice because as I remember, it was a well known part of the song and you could finish it in your head once it went out. I thought this was really interesting, and at first i didn't understand why it wouldn't have at least finished the measure of the music but then i thought about what had happened next. There was an attack on the town below, and i don't know if i was looking into this too much but it almost seemed to compare the fact that the music stopped so shortly when you didn't expect it to how the lives of the people in the town below also stopped so shortly.

The scene where Tyrone dies was so well done but not over done. The scene starts off with everyone receiving mail which gets the boys excited because it is the only thing that has connected these soldiers with home for the last several months. Tyrone is playing a tape from his mother and all oaf sudden he dies. The directors choice to keep the tape playing while he was dying was a very effective to the viewer. Not only does his mothers voice continue, but she is saying that they all miss him, and are going to throw a big party when he comes back and to make sure he comes home in one piece. The boy dying was sad enough but to add his mothers voice saying she missed him added something personal to the mix. Before then he was just an annoying young boy off to war, i didn't really care too much about him until i was able to connect his family to him.

As soon as we find out what his mission is there is this curiosity as to who captain Kurtz is and why he is so insane. We wonder what he does thats so crazy, why no one has successfully killed him, and why people follow him as a God. At the end of the movie when we finally meet captain Kurtz we never really see his face. Every shot of him keeps part of his face in a shadow and i thought this was an interesting choice. It leaves the mystery to him. As captain WIllard spends more time around him he starts to wonder if he wasn't crazy at all and that also keeps some mystery to him. Until we meet him its easy for the viewer to hate him, or to at least agree that he is crazy and needs to be killed. We go along the whole journey with captain Willard and when we finally get to the end and expect him to just go in and kill him but then WIllard starts talking to Kurtz and considering his ideas. We start to think about them as well and i think the shadow helps us be ok with wondering.

The final scene when Willard kills Kurtz, we see a moment when Willard considers staying. He kills him, steps out on the step, and then looks over the crowd then turns his face into the shadow, and i noticed it was the same shadow that was on Kurtz when we first met him. I thought this was a really great idea to tie the two characters together for a split second. It gave you a look into the possibility of what he could become. However, Willard choses to go home instead.

Apocalypse Now was a movie about a US Army Captain, Willard, was recruited back to go on a special mission to kill Colonel Kurtz, a former US soldier who they believe to be insane. Colonel Kurtz now is the leader of a group of people who now follow him as a 'God'. Once Captain Willard got to Kurtz, he wasn't sure about what he believed. He didn't know wether he believed him or what the US army was suggesting.

The opening scene of the movie starts with showing Sheen overlapped with many other images, war images, and other images that give foreshadowing as to his past and his future. I also thought the sound of the helicopter paired with the image of the fan was very effective. It made you think about the war aspect of the movie and of Sheen's life, but quickly brought it to present day in his apartment when it cut to the fan.

In my opinion, the movie, followed Captain Willard and his crew very well. It showed the emotion and the building progression of the crew's frustration and fading stamina as the months wore on and his crew decreased in number. At times it was frustrating because you could see the potential outcome of bad situations, and then it would happen but in the same sense you could see the potential good that would also be lived up to. I loved the determination of Captain Willard to do something he didn't believe in 100% however, put his whole heart into simply because it was his mission and he was on a mission for his country.

As other would probably agree, the last 10 minuets of the movie was most effective. The lighting between Willard and Kurtz told more of a story to me then the words actually did. And while you questioned the state of his loyalty at the end his faithfulness shone through.

The diving bell and the butterfly was about a successful magazine editor who had a stroke and was left completely paralyzed. Unable to speak, he worked with speech therapists and developed a long, tiring way to communicate with others. After working with a patient translator, he was able to finish the book he had previously contracted to. The love of his life finally came to visit him and 10 days after publication he died.

The movie credits open with x-rays of bones which i found really interesting. It made me think the movie was about some kind of medical condition, which it obviously turned out to be but i never expected paralysis. In my opinion that was a really creative way to open a movie about someone who literally cant use his bones. Another decision by the director that i thought was brilliant was his decision to keep Jean-Do's face hidden for the first portion of the movie. The first time they showed his face in whole was when he was in his job. I like the fact that they showed him in his entirety for the first time the way he used to be because in my opinion it made me sympathize with him more. It also gave me an idea of how much he had change. I think if i had seen what he currently looked like, then saw what he used to look like i don't think the effect on me would have been what it was. When they did decide to show him they did it gradually. They showed the back of his head, his one eye, his hands, his feet and finally his whole face. This choice was also very effective to me. It left some mystery to him even though we already know what the outcome for the rest of his life was. The next thing i thought was completely brilliant was the shot of Jean-Do's father in the mirror with the picture of his son was incredible. It showed the huge amount of admiration he had for his son, which was a theme that was kept through the whole movie.