This film is about an aspiring writer named Gil, played by OWEN WILSON, who is on a trip with his wife and his future in-laws in Paris. He isn’t quite the life of the party but once it hits midnight, the city around him changes into his favorite era: 1920’s Paris. He meets his literary idols and undergoes a crisis in his love life.
This film did not have a scene that stood out or was artsy fartsy but instead it had some low-key aspects. The opening scene for example, consisted of a montage of everyday life in Paris. The whole movie itself was very bland when it came to color. This movie however, is lucky because majority of it was beautiful scenery in the background, because of course, it was shot in Paris. The two transitions that the director stayed consistent with was dissolve and fade. The music was your stereotypical, walking in the streets of Paris music, nothing special. It consisted of the wide, tight, wide, tight shot pattern throughout the entire film, no variety. This film was just your average film. This movie was not good. It was barely okay. I knew this wasn’t exactly my taste but I was willing to give it a chance because of the big debate in our film class. It was a disappointment honestly. It was the kind of film that you force yourself to watch on a long flight to kill time and if they have very limited movies, or the kind of film where the entire theater is full of old people and it’s around 2:00. It gave me The Night at the Museum vibes, but not NEARLY as good, in fact it couldn’t even compete with that movie. I was bored out of my mind the entire film, but the last 30 minutes were somewhat bearable and somewhat interesting. I feel like I have wasted an hour and a half of my life.
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This is a hard R film btw This film is about a group of scientists who go out into space and discover life on Mars. They bring the creature inside the ISS and it turns out this creature isn’t as harmless as they thought it would be. The entire crew’s life is in danger and the rest of the film is about their survival. A scene that stood out to me the most was the very first death in the film of Ryan Reynolds. This really set the tone of the film and lets the audience know they need a high pain tolerance of other people’s pain, for example someone literally dying before their eyes. Basically, Calvin, the not-so-nice creature from Mars, attacks Reynolds. You can see the pain in his eyes, knowing this moment will be when he dies, and everyone else on the outside of the glass doors can’t do anything about it, all you hear is the screaming of them and the horror in their eyes. Calvin, crawls up to Reynolds’ face and goes into his mouth. This is when it gets gross and hard to watch. Reynolds chokes and tries to finger Calvin out of his mouth, but his eyes go black, and his face turns red/purple, and the others just watch helplessly. Throughout his chest and his throat, you can see Calvin’s body move along and destroy his insides. Finally when the scene comes to an end, it’s just goopy blood coming from Reynolds’ mouth and floating up to the ceiling. Again, as the audience you feel pain and hatred. Pain because this was the hardest scene to watch in the whole film. And hatred because you want to go in that movie and kill Calvin yourself. The animation for Calvin was amazing, totally surreal. This movie was amazing. Definitely not for everyone, but it was totally awesome. I am not a big sci-fi or space movie kind of person but this really blew me away. This totally took a toll on every audience member out there, every scene was thrilling and suspenseful. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time nervously awaiting for what Calvin and the crew’s next move would be. Some would argue that this was predictable, but I didn’t think so at all, except maybe for the very end. This is a must see, but if you’re the squeamish kind, DO NOT WATCH. (Also lets stop trying to find life in Mars because this was very scarring). This film is Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This contains the same storyline, except with samurai peoples and Japanese culture. This contains a Noh theatre aesthetic with a Western tragedy. This film considered as one of the best versions of Macbeth in the world.
The very first thing that I noticed was the variety of transitions Kurosawa uses: fade to black, wipe, fade, and even dissolve. A shot that immediately stood out to me was when the spirit was first introduced (a spirit was used instead of witches because witches don’t exist in Japanese culture). In this scene there is a very bright, white light that is on top of the spirit, making him stand out as he tells the prophecy to the two soldiers. This is all shot behind the two soldiers who stand in darkness among the trees that frame the shot perfectly and the spirit is seen between the two soldiers as they listen. This film was FULL OF NOH DRAMA STUFF such as: assertive flute, exaggerated facial expressions, stillness and then agitation within scenes, and more. Other repetitive aspects I noticed were the heavy usage of fog/mist, flocks of birds (these gave me Hitchcock vibes), dark and light, natural lighting, shots through forest, rain, and a lot of tracking shots executed perfectly. This film was good. When I first watched this film, I was not a big fan. That is because I didn’t do my homework and was not really aware of what Noh drama was all about. Once I did my research, I truly appreciated this film. This was interesting and I actually like this version better than the original Macbeth, (this movie also helped me with my test on Macbeth the day after I watched it). This was very well done and is a must see film. P.S. Happy Belated Birthday to Bae, Toshiro Mifune. |
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May 2017
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