My Favorites

Most of the films I really loved over the semester. I even went out and bought some of them because they were so great. Out of all the films, here's a list of them from least to most favorite.

10) 

Killer of Sheep -- I didn't see any appeal to this film and it didn't strike me as a revolutionary film.
9) 

Wendy and Lucy -- Again, it didn't strike me as anything special.
8) 

My Own Private Idaho -- I liked seeing Keanu Reeves in something other than the Matrix, but I didn't really like the over-the-top style through the film.
7) 

Awara -- I didn't hate it, but there wasn't anything great about it in my opinion. To be honest, I barely remembered this film.
6) 

The Good The Bad The Ugly -- Clint Eastwood is awesome, but I'm so burnt out on Westerns due to a previous class, plus I'm not a fan of Sergio Leone.
5) 

Detour -- I thought it was a good story and I loved the story, but it wasn't my favorite.
4) 

Moonrise Kingdom -- It had it's weird parts, but overall I liked it!
3) 

 

Blancanieves and Sherlock Jr (tie) -- Blancanieves was a very cool version of Snow White that pulled off the silent film. Sherlock Jr was very entertaining and I loved the classic film.
2) 

 

Freaks and The Vanishing (tie) -- Freaks was an amazing film that incorporated a very touching story with the strange of the disfigured. The Vanishing was a creepy film that had no gore at all and I love horror films that mess with your head like that one did.
1) 

O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? -- I loved this film so much I went out and bought it the next day! I love Greek Mythology and I love George Clooney. It was such an amazing film!

I loved this class and it opened my eyes to so many awesome films and different styles. Now, I have the desire to go watch O Brother! (:

Blancanieves

Very early in the film, I found a sequence that I really enjoyed. These short few pictures are right before a very tragic event and they are the best way to warn you about what is about to happen. We have the man, offering his love and devotion to his wife and unborn child. He tosses her the hat, which she misses and it lands on the ground. She is very uneasy about what he's trying to accomplish and clutches her locket in her hand. The last picture is a reflection of the bull charging at the man in the camera.

From this short sequence, we can all assume that something horrible is about to happen. The man shows very strong love by dedicating his strength to his family. When she misses the hat and it lands on the ground, it could be a warning that he too will fall. My favorite screenshot is of the woman clutching her locket. We see her wedding ring and inside the locket, a picture of her husband. It's a beautiful image because she doesn't want to let go of him and doesn't want anything bad to happen to him. The significance of her holding the locket is strong, but I believe it's stronger because of the wedding ring. Lastly, I chose not to show the last screenshot I took because it was the impact. I believe that camera is an amazing shot that we experience for only a split second (it took about six tries to pause it at that one second to get the shot). Not only is it an awesome close-up shot of the camera, but we see the reflection of the bull charging. We can see the trouble about to happen, but it's obstructed by the lens. I find it an amazing shot.

Besides the significance of the scene, it is extremely foreboding to a very serious event. The man obviously gets very badly injured and carries the story on.

Moonrise Kingdom

This scene struck me as quite interesting. The structure is used a few times throughout the film and I like the balance between the two locations. Captain Sharp sits opposite of Sam's foster father. They are sitting in the foreground and since there is some distance between the two men that ultimately take care of Sam, it shows that there is some distance between the two. It's a way of showing the audience that, not only are they not in the same place, but that they don't see eye to eye when it comes to Sam. In the midground, we have the operator on the left and Sam's foster mother on the right. Sam's foster mother casually does dishes in the background and the operator casually listens in the conversation. In the background, We have Scout Master Ward on the left and on the right, a closed door. To me, it's a way of saying that his foster parents are turning their backs on Sam and closing the door. They don't want him to come home and they are done with him whereas Scout Master Ward isn't giving up on Sam and will be his way out of the situation.

The Grand Budapest

On this evening, I accompanied my two friends and my boyfriend to the Esquire theater to watch this awesome film. To be honest, I wasn't too thrilled to watch this film. I found this film to be one of the most entertaining films I've seen in a very long time. The dry humor made me laugh more than once.

One of the most interesting things I noticed was the beginning scene where we see the hotel for the first time. At a glance, it was just the normal picture and normal scene that we see more than once, but in fact it is 2D. It was almost like a construction paper layout. It was aesthetically very pleasing.

Another thing I noticed throughout the film is that the director, Wes Anderson, used many slightly low angles and medium shots. This was pretty consistent in the first 20 minutes of the film. Before any of the crazy adventures took place, many of the shots were decently long without many cuts. I was pretty impressed with the length of some of the shots. The one I remember very clearly was when we first meet Gustave and the hotel workers come into the room to help prepare a meal with one of his clients. The camera is set slightly low and at medium length as it follows Gustave back and forth between the two rooms. The shot is one long scene while all the workers come into the room. It was very impressive, in my opinion, because at the fast pace they are speaking and maneuvering around each other to get the room prepared.

Lastly, I want to say, the cast was amazing and I was constantly surprised at who was showing up on screen and I was not once disappointed with the acting. This film definitely is worth watching and will keep you entertained from the very first scene.

Wendy and Lucy

Wendy and Lucy is about two women that don't discuss men in their spare time, don't go nameless, and don't worry about how they look to attract a man. Lucy is a dog and Wendy is her friend. Already, this film is a good fix to the overly done chick flick, where all the girls care about is finding a man. Wendy spends a good chunk of the film looking for Lucy. It shows the true bond between an animal and her owner.

Chick flicks these days center around a Disney Princess-like complex, where the women have to be attractive and spend all their time waiting to be rescued by their one true love and happily ever after. This film doesn't have anything to do with those ideas. All the girl wants to do is find her dog and continue on her trip to Alaska. It was a nice change from the idea that all you need to do is find true love. Wendy and Lucy shows that women can do other things than sit around waiting for a man. You can travel and have an adventure! There is no reason that you should sit around and wait for your life to get started.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I've heard the title of this film for a very long time from my father. My boyfriend spoke of this film very often, saying it was very entertaining. I will admit, the title made me not want to watch it. I had the impression that it was very artsy. After the first ten minutes watching this film, I was sold. I loved it.

I caught myself laughing out loud quite often even with the many serious tones happening in the film. The whole scene with George "Babyface" Nelson is a perfect example. A man casually rolls up and picks up these three men and ends up shooting at the cops while Everett steers the car. Where the characters and the audience should be startled into disbelief, they can't really help but smile at the situation. Another example is after the exciting night with the Sirens, they believe that Pete is a toad. After they run into Pete in the theater and he tries to warn them about the ambush, Delmar only cares about letting him know that they thought he was a toad. Lastly, Everett's little girls that kept saying that he was hit by a train and how the new soon-to-be father is "bona fide". I  couldn't help but smile at it.

The scene that I really enjoyed was when Pete, Delmar, and Everett sneak into the party to try to talk to Penny. After successfully getting on stage, Everett goes over to Penny and we have a medium shot reverse-shot scene during the conversation. The interesting part of the scene is that Penny has her back to him, until she realizes that they are the Soggy Bottom Boys. It's a way of telling the audience that she has no interest and has completely shut him out. The scene also consists of many long shots from the audience to the stage which makes us feel like we are a part of the crowd. I'm sure everyone has had that feeling of seeing someone they idolize in some way on stage and this is a way for the Coen Brothers to give us that feeling again. While Everett is singing, the camera is at a slight low angle. I believe this was done to give him a bit of a "star" idea. He's important to the crowd and therefore we are looking up at him. After Homer claimed that the men were bad and declared the music over, the crowd turned on him. He was once a man of the people and here he is upsetting the people because the men were not white. During his whole speech, the camera is kept at eye level with a medium shot on Homer. As the men bring in the plank of wood, the camera follows them slightly and then switches to Homer and zooms in from a medium shot to almost a close-up. As he's carried out, the camera is at a high angle and follows him out. The high angle is used to let the audience know that he has fallen and he no longer has any power.

Is The Vanishing a Horror Film?

This film is considered a horror by many critics, but is it a horror film really? It doesn't have the standard jump scares of a Michael Myers film or the the disfigurement of a Silent Hill film or even the gore of a Saw movie. However, it has enough going for it to make it a horror film.

The first scene that bothered me and I could see it beginning to classify as a horror film is when Raymond is practicing abducting random girls and drugging them. The fact that he bought a house, made sure people couldn't hear anyone scream, practiced luring women into his car and drugging them, and then asking women and getting more comfortable with it before he actually makes his move. In the article "The Horrific in Sluizer's the Vanishing", the author makes an argument that Raymond isn't a monster. Just by the fact that he is practicing what he wants to do before he makes his move, that classifies him as a monster to me. 

The last scene of the film where Raymond is showing Rex what he did to Saskia creates the feeling of a horror film. He is casually burying someone alive! He hears Rex screaming and he just continues to bury him. The fact that he lets his family live on the land where he buried two people alive is sickening. 

Ultimately, I think people find situations that are completely plausible to be some of the best horror films. Psycho, even though it's a bit of a stretch, is completely plausible and it was one of the best horror films in my opinion. Another film that follows under the reality factor is a film called The Strangers. 

This film is about a couple out at there cabin home and three people decide to terrorize them. They destroy the car, burn the cell phones, and there is no one around to hear them scream. At the end of the film the couple asks why they did this and one of the  "strangers" simply says, "Because you were home". 

Many films that have this reality factor seem to bother people more than something like Halloween with Michael Myers. When exiting a film like Halloween, you can exit safely thinking it was just a movie. But a film like The Vanishing and The Strangers have that "It could happen to me" factor that chills everyone down to the bones. 

Killer of Sheep Hard to Watch?

It has been said that Killer of Sheep is difficult to watch. I watched this film with that in mind and for a good chunk of it, I had no idea what they were talking about. There wasn't anything difficult about this film. Then we follow the main character, Stan, to his job.

If the film is new to you, Stan works at a slaughter house. While they prepare for the slaughter, I started to get a bad feeling in my stomach. After this scene, I realized why people thought it was difficult. This film shows actual slaughter of sheep.

Even the idea of slaughtering animals makes my skin crawl. For how desensitized I am to horror and gore, anything that has to do with animals makes me almost sick to my stomach. The music is blues and as disgusting as this scene is, the music makes it almost harder. The juxtaposition of the music and the scenes leave it very misleading.

Aside from the graphic slaughterhouse scenes, the film shows how some people grew up in the time and since it was so different from other people of that time, I can see why people would think it was difficult. The children would play in the streets, throwing rocks at each other as a game. Seeing the struggle of the people in this film could really disturb some people, but the part that made this film hard for me to watch, was the slaughter house.

All in all, I can see how this can be hard for people to watch, but the basis of the story didn't bother me any.

Is Awara a Musical?

As I was watching this film, I thought back to all the musicals I have ever seen. Some that I truly loved, Sweeney Todd, Singin' in the Rain, and Rocky Horror Picture Show, I tried comparing Awara to and it didn't really fit. Throughout the whole film I thought about this topic. I had convinced myself that it was infact a musical. The more I thought about it, I have to disagree with myself.

Even though there are random songs throughout the film that keep the plot going, there are many examples of the songs being completely diegetic. The first example was the first song. At this point I was already convinced that it was a musical. When the camera scrolls over to the couple and she asks why they are singing that specific song, I was surprised that they had the music diegetic.

When I look back on the other musicals I love, the music is never seen as diegetic. They acknowledge that it happens, but it's just more like conversations to them. When you look back on much of American musicals, the people that are having a conversation with the singer end up singing as well, like it's completely normal.

In Awara, there are more than one example of diegetic singing. When Raj grows up to teenish years and he sees Rita singing and dancing in the main room, the fellows around can hear her singing and acknowledge it. The characters here the music as well. It isn't just conversation to them. It's entertainment to the fellows in the room.

I said before that I disagreed with myself at the end of this film. I was so convinced that it was a musical because there was music in the film. When I took a second to think about the article that we read and the context in which they were singing, I came to the conclusion that this film, Awara, is not a musical, but a Hindi film from the 50's with music.

Women in "Detour"

It seems that women are treated and represented in not the best light during film noir. They always seem to be up to no good or just another punching bag. In the early scenes of Detour, the main character Al Roberts seems to treat his lady like she was a goddess. He listened to her every word and was willing to travel to L.A. just to get her back. When he met his friend, Charles Haskell, the viewer sees that Haskell thinks of them as toys more as actual people. He mentions throwing a girl out of the car while in motion because she started attacking him. He has the standard attitude of a man of the time. I could easily imagine him smacking a girl in the mouth with a .45 (Play It Again, Sam reference). 

When we meet Vera, the viewer gets a different representation of a woman. She's strong and very willful. She is out for herself and that's all. She's the boss and she makes sure that Al knows it. 

She is completely in control the entire time, up until she tries to steal the fortune from Charles Haskell Sr. This was the first time she really showed anything other than anger and ferocity. "You hurt my hand and I'm going to get even." She isn't as strong and you can see how desperate she has become for the fortune.  

Ultimately, women are represented as cruel, strong, and threatening. Vera is the only woman with a very strong role and she ends up dead after breaking under all the stress of the plan she was trying to hatch. 

Is "Freaks" a Horror Film?

I have spent most of my youth studying horror films. They vary from psychological thrillers to gory blood fests. Over the time, the genre of horror has changed quite a bit. While I was searching for the film, Freaks, I noticed that every title had horror in parenthesis. After watching the film, I can see why many people of the time considered it a horror film.

To conservative people of the 1930's, seeing real "freaks" could be extremely scary. If I'm not mistaken, this was the first time people that were really mentally and physically disabled were featured on the big screen. Many people of the time have never seen this before, so it could honestly be very jarring.

Since I am very desensitized to horror, this film didn't strike me as falling under that category. But, of someone that isn't exposed to something so strange and real, I can see where it would be "terrifying".

Slapstick Comedy

One of my favorite types of comedy is slapstick. As I was growing up, my father and I would watch Abbott and Costello movies and laugh at the back and forth dialogue and the classic scenes where Costello would see something and react in a very outrageous way such as in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Costello sees Dracula, goes running in the opposite direction, and runs right into Abbott.

There are some very similar scenes in Sherlock Jr. One that made me chuckle was the classic slip on the banana peel. He tried to coax his peer to walk across the banana peel and fall to lessen his chances with the lovely lady, but instead he accidentally walks on it and falls to the ground in a very comedic way. Another scene that I really enjoyed was when he falls asleep during the showing of the movie and his dream self waltzes onto the screen and into the movie. Each scene change would cause him to fall in some way and I thought it was very effective in this scene. Although the compilation of him falling was very amusing, I don't think it really added to the story any.

Overall, I think the stunts are fun and quite edgy for its time. Compared to the kind of comedy we see every day, this is very different and sadly I don't think most people would enjoy it. Not many films do slapstick these days since our society is so strongly focused on spoken words. I really enjoyed the film and found it to be amazingly done for its time.

Introduction

Hello! My name is Megan Hoard although my nickname is Bailey (it's a very complex story). I'm a third year Exploratory student at UC and I want to get into the EMED program. I decided to take this class because I really enjoy films and film classes and I like to open up to films I wouldn't normally watch. I'm a huge horror fanatic and a self-taught special effects makeup artist. I spent the last three Octobers working in a charity haunted house acting and turning people into monsters, but sadly had to leave after money became an issue and I've been a freelance makeup artist since. Last October I worked with some professional makeup artists in Indianapolis for the Zombie Run.

I spend too much time watching films on Netflix. My favorite directors are Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, and Guillermo Del Toro. This makes it easy for me to pick my favorite movies. The top three are The Shining, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and Pan's Labyrinth. As you can guess, horror is my favorite genre of film. It is the majority of films I will watch in my free time, but because of some film classes I have learned that I shouldn't judge a film by the genre or even the title. Films have become quite a large passion of mine. I have made some short films that I never thought were very good, but I continue to try and create in my spare time.