The Godfather - Symbols

Although this movie is three hours long there is rarely a comment about someone wishing it to end. The movie takes you into the gritty lives of an Italian mob family. The Godfather has set the standards high for any gangster movie.

Michael represents mankind's struggle against sin. Often it is hard to resist falling into the kind of lifestyle that has instant gratification but is morally wrong. At first Michael is completely against joining the family business and wants to go through life as an average, law abiding citizen. Things change when tragedy strikes the family and Michael steps up to fill in for his father, the "Don".

Something I found ironic was the baptism scene. Michael is asked if he believes in God, and he says yes. Yet, if he truly believed in God would he not realize how his life is filled with sin. Every time he orders someone to die he is going against God's wishes.

Another prominent symbol is a fruit, the orange to be exact. The premonition of death is represented by oranges. In most pre-death scenes you will be able to see an orange. It can actually be used as a religious symbol; it is like the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The characters who die are all people who 'picked the fruit' and suffered the consequences.

This movie is so complex that it would take numerous times watching and perhaps even reading the book before you could get the majority of symbols and meanings in the film. This movie has earned it's place as one of the best movies ever created.

Amanda Bynes

This actress helped shape my humor, and seeing as how I consider humor important that's a pretty big accomplishment. I would watch anything with her in it because I think she is so great. She's beautiful and acomplished and I think she is so inspiring.
The Amanda Show was the first thing I watched of hers and it was a show that really spoke to my quirky side. The Amanda show featured a combination of comical skits and sketches. I've mentioned in previous blogs that I love spoofs and satire and this had plenty of that.
Amanda Bynes is known for more than just this program. She was in popular movies and my favourites are Hairspray, She's the Man, Sydney White, and Robots. She also did a the voice of Anna on an episode of Family Guy. She had a short stint in the fashion industry, making her own clothing line called Dear. The line launched in August of 2007. She is also the recipient of a myriad awards.
She is an excellent role model because she never did go "Hollywood Crazy" by over partying and ending up in magazines for the latest scandal. She seems very grounded and likes to spend time with family and friends. She was known as the anti-club scene girl but has found a balance. She's at a stage in her life where she wants to have fun but that doesn't always entail drinking. She's one of my favourite actresses and I find her so relatable, and that's why I would recomend any movie she is a part of.

The A Team

Last Friday night my Dad took me and my brother to the movies. The only two playing were the A Team and Sex and the City 2. It's a pretty obvious choice. I didn't know much about the A Team because I wasn't fortunate enough to watch the tv shows. The only things I knew about it were from spoofs I had seen and that my Dad used to watch it before it was reruns. This movie is now one of my favourites. It had humor, explosions, and a crazy guy flying a helicopter... Can't get much better than that.
Through a twist of fate four Rangers (military group) begin working together as a special ops team. They come up with elaborate plans to accomplish their missions. The team find themselves in deep trouble when they take on a mission that has numerous parties involved. It ends not to well for the A Team but it doesn't keep them down for long. The members of the team are as follows:
-Col. John "Hannibal" Smith is the leader of the group. He always comes up with the plans and knows exactly what to do. He loves it when a plan comes together.
-Lt. Templeton "Faceman" Peck is the charmer. He can aquire anything with his confidence. It seems all the girls love him.
-Sgt. Bosco 'B.A.' Baracus is the muscle and he is deathly afraid of flying after his first encounter with our final and fourth member, Murdock.
-Captain James "Howling Mad" Murdock is a bit of a nut but that's why he's my favourite character. He is the pilot that performs the most wicked stunts to out manouver the bad guys.
I loved the movie because I had no idea what to expect. I never felt like anything was predictable and I think it had an interesting story line and loveable characters. So many scenes made me laugh but one that sticks out is when Murdock does a scene from Brave Heart. I would definitley say this film is worth a look. You won't be disapointed.

Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb

Dr. Strangleove is probably one of the best satires I've ever seen. Satirical humor is right up my alley. I find it to be a more subtle than other types of humor. This particular film did an amazing job of satire without going overboard and cheesy.
The whole movie is about the Cold War and what would happen if the bombs were accidentliy deployed. One of the generals- I think- went a little silly and decides himself that it's time for America to attack Russia. Only he knows the codes to call back the planes and he's put a lockdown on the base so no one can get in and stop him. The President of the United States is trying to warn the Russian leader and figure out how to stop it before the Russian Dooms Day machine goes off, destroying all life on the planet.
The movie starts out very serious and slowly becomes more absurd. There are a plethora of scenes that are perfect examples of satire. When the President is trying to warn the Russian leader, the whole conversation is funny. Their conversation is light and flufy when the situation is so dire. A quote that is so good is "No fighting in the War room", it cracks me up. I also loved the scene where the man that could save the world can't make the call because he doesn't have enough change. The response of the other man is priceless. I don't want to go too into detail and not do the scenes justice.
The very best scene displaying satire is at the end when they know the Dooms Day machine will go off so they start making plans to live in the mine shafts where the radiation won't penetrate. Well, some of the men are quite excited by the ratio of 10 women to 1 man; of course all the woman must be beautiful so to help with the repopulating. The part that is satirical is how they are so clam at the doors of the end of the world. Also, that they start worrying the Russians will emerge in a hundred years and be ahead in the arms race. Even after the fact that the world nearly ended because of the arms race they still need to be ahead. It just shows how ridiculous the whole thing was.
If you appreciate satire then this is a must! I loved watching this film, some people might be board but I thought it was very entertaining.

Maltese Falcon

I have to say this was one of the harder movies to get through that we watched in class. It is a mystery, but the only mystery to me is how I managed to stay awake. I'm not saying it's bad necessarily, but I didn't particularly enjoy it.
This convaluted story begins when a beuatiful woman by the name of Miss Wanderly comes to the Spade and Archer detective agency. By that night Miles Archer is dead, and so is the man Miss Wanderly hired him to tail. She is surrounded by dangerous men. Her only hope for protection comes from Sam Spade and even he is a suspect for one murder or the other. More murders and even more twists are yet to come as the hunt for the Maltese Falcon continues. The biggest mystery of all is which side Sam Spade is really on...
As a mystery it's supposed to keep you guessing, only revealing things later on. It did this but I found myself not caring to hear the answer to the questions. I didn't get drawn into the story at all. I'm not sure what they could have done to fix this. The fault is probably with me, not the film because it's rated highly everywhere I look and I haven't readanything negative about it. All I know is that I had a hard time paying attention and had to look on the computer to remember what happened.
When thinking about this film nothing sticks out for something I liked. One thing I can think of happened near the end but I can't talk about it without revealing part of the ending.
*SPOILER ALERT*
I like how Sam Spade isn't actually crooked, and just makes a bad reputation for himself to make it easier to deal with criminals. I wouldn't recomend watching this movie, I'm positive you have better things to do with your time. Try reading a book, learning a new skill, or talking to your grandparents-gauranteed to bring you more gratification.

Tim Burton

Timothy Willian Burton (born August 25, 1958) is known for the quirky/gothic atmosphere of his films. He is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated, Board of Review Award for Best Director-winning, American film, director, writer and designer. To list every movie that this man had been a part of would be too long for my Media Teacher's attention span (just kidding) but there seriously is so many. I will list some of my favourites as well as the more well known movies.

As a child Burton didn't do well in school, and often found pleasure is painting, drawing, and movies. He got a job as an animator for Disney but his talent was not being utilized and he was bored silly. The studio recognized this and he became a conceptual artist (the ones that design the characters) and did work on the Black Cauldron- probably Disneys darkest film. When Disney didn't use his drawings he made poems and drawings that would later become The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Because I am also an enormous Johnny Depp fan I will mention this. Depp and Burton are good friends and Burton often casts the talented actor. The pair are a match made in movie heaven. Depp is able to portray the misfits of Burton movies incredibly well in movies like Sweeney Todd, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, Edward Scissor Hands, and Alice in Wonderland.

A short list of my favourite or well known Burton movies:
-Batman Returns
-The Nightmare Before Christmas
-James and the Giant Peach
-Mars Atacks (Loved it!)
-Planet of the Apes
-Beetlejuice

I think the reason I like a lot of his work is I'm a little demented myslef. I too love art that is just plain creepy. Many times I will like a movie and later discover that Tim Burton had a hand in the making of it. I'm sorry if I left out any of your favourites by him, but there is too many to list/discuss.

Bambi

In Media Studies class our teacher had us watch a Disney classic- Bambi. I hadn't watched the whole movie since I was kid, so I was excited to see it again. Everyone probably knows, or at least heard of the story of Bambi. It's been around since 1941, and now that it is digitally remastered the artwork and animation look as fresh as any modern day equivalent. For those of you don't know the story (shame on you) it's about a clumsy baby fawn who becomes friends with a rabbit, (Thumper) and a skunk (Flower). He experiences family tragedy, grows up to fall in love and be a hero of a sort.

There are so many reasons to love this film. It's got beautiful images and music to go along with the story. There are some moments that are genuinely funny, like when the owl is talking about "twitterpation". The biggest reason to love this movie is how realistic it is. It is still kid friendly but it has a lot of truth to it. Winter is a hardship not a time to frolic, the deers' family dynamic is different from humans. There is a scene where older Bambi fights another male over the girl deer, and that's how it would happen in nature. It also shows the deers' ever present threat- man. Even though the woodland creatures are cutesy-wutesy, speak fluent English, and have an orchestra to play music for every move it actually does a decent job of portraying nature.
I have a few small critiques but even those aren't worth changing a classic for. They didn't portray hunters correctly. The hunters in the movie shot willy nilly at every kind of animal. In real life any hunter with a brain wouldn't shoot at mice and scare away the deer. I guess they needed to over-dramatize the hunters since man was the antagonist. Also the hunters used approximatley 7 dogs which I thought was over kill.

We watched the VHS version so they may have fixed this on the DVD but I hope not. After the fire and the animals are coming out of the water the racoon on the left is licking her babies and all of sudden she just eats one! I'm kidding but it does randomly disappear. It was funny, we rewinded it and watched it again.

Would I recomend this movie to people who have never seen it? No, and I'll tell you why. If they haven't seen it by now they clearly didn't have a proper childhood and are too serious, and wouldn't appreciate this film. If you saw it when you were young, watch it again. It's amazing how much you remember. And if you're wondering if you should let your child watch it, that depends. If you want them to be a normal functioning member of society then yes. If you're one of those parents who sanatizes everything, only reads politically correct fairytales, and doesn't let them watch TV for fear of corruption then no. Bambi is too real-life for your sheltered child.

High Noon

High Noon is a suspenseful western film made in 1952. It is about a man who refuses to leave town, against the advice of everyone, to face some criminal gunmen that plan on killing him. Even though he is freshly married, and a retired marshal, he feels morally obligated to protect the town he worked so hard to keep safe. It wasn't as much shooting, and fighting as we typically see in westerns. The big showdown between the ex-marshal and the gun slingers wouldn't take place until the end of the movie. Each scene was building to this climax.
High Noon was all about suspense. It was filmed in actual time. What I mean by that is for every fifteen minutes that pass in the movie it takes fifteen minutes to watch. This created suspense because you constantly could see how long until the showdown. Another technique involving time is the close-ups of the clocks at various moments in the movie. The clocks had swinging pendulums that really emphasized each passing second. They also repeated a scene of chair with a voice-over. The voice belonged to a spurned convict threatening to kill the protagonist when he gets out of jail. That criminal will be at the showdown. I think they use this scene to strike home the point that he really is in danger and it will be a fight to the death.
He is trying to recruit people to help him but he has a lot of difficulty. No one wants to get involved in this gruesome ordeal. The viewers don't know whether he'll be able to get help by the end. You also don't know if he'll leave town before it's too late (this is an option constantly brought up by his anti-violence wife). Everyone is prodding him to leave and with the lack of eager volunteers you never know if he'll leave or not.
*SPOILER* The best part of the movie is at the end after he kills the four bad guys basically on his own, he throws down his tin star. To me it was like he was saying "I've cleaned up your mess, no thanks to you. You don't deserve someone like me protecting you." I was disappointed that no one was willing to step up and do what was right.

Citizen Kane

Rosebud. One simple word leads to the basis of the classic, 1941 film, Citizen Kane. Newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane is one of the richest, and most powerful men in the United States. With his last breath he utters the enigmatic word: Rosebud. A newspaper reporter digs into Kane's past to find the significance of this mysterious word. The film shows his rise and eventual down fall. A man who seemed to have everything would have traded it all for something that most take for granted- love.
I liked this movie, it's not my favourite by any means but I did enjoy watching it. This classic film had many great moments. The scene that was my absolute favourite was the scene after his second wife left him and he trashed her room. He walks out of the room and he is reflected down the hall of mirrors. This was a stunning shot for a few reasons. It emphasized the feeling of loneliness that was so important at that moment in the film. It was also an impressive technical shot. At the time the movie was made they didn't have the technical skills we have now. They were able to get the numerous reflections without reflecting the camera.
I thought that Mr. Kane was an interesting character, he never let anyone or anything deter him from what he wanted to do. When people tried to influence his choices he would blatantly go against them, even if that made life harder. I didn't like how he treated his first wife, he shouldn't have cheated on her and he should have done his best to keep her, and their son out of the scandal. I also didn't like his second wife. She was whiny and immature.
I would recommend this movie for the simple fact that it is said to be one of the best movies of all time. I personally didn't think it met that expectation but it is a good movie, and a classic. I think Family Guy did the best sum up of it and would suggest watching that after you're finished watching the movie.

Kick-Ass

I thought this was an awful movie. It completely didn't advertise what it turned out to be. I was under the impression it was going to be a comedy but it turned my stomach numerous times. The movie is based off the comic of the same name, it is about an average New York teen who dons a wet suit and takes it upon himself to rid the streets of crime. After a mishap on his first stint he ends up in the hospital. This far from deters him, while in the hospital he had to have metal plates put in. Between that and his messed up nerve endings he is able to take beating after beating. He calls himself Kick-Ass, and before long is a local sensation. He inspires a father daughter pair to take on a mob that the father has a personal grudge against. They do a decent job of dismantling Frank's sizable underworld empire when Kick-Ass gets drawn into the fray. In an attempt to catch Kick-Ass, Frank's son Chris becomes Kick-Ass' first arch nemesis. A clever ruse causes a showdown that could end kick-Ass' life.
There were very few parts that I liked in this movie. The cons far outweigh any possible redeeming qualities. I found the scene where the man was microwaved alive disturbing. Another graphic scene was when the man was put in the car crusher, or when people were beat almost to death. I'm usually not too squeamish when it comes to violent scenes but this was over the top. There are plenty of techniques that they could have used instead of showing everything. Another unsettling quality was the father-daughter duo. The father is teaching the daughter in the area of deadly weapons and she is quite lethal. That isn't the disturbing part, this little girl is swearing and has completely lost her childish qualities.
I'm racking my brain to think of something that I liked. I guess one thing that I liked was The Mist's (the arch nemesis) car. It is tricked out and actually kind of cool. A bit of a stretch for something good but I really didn't care for this movie. Perhaps part of the reason I disliked it was I payed 7 dollars to watch it in the local theater and the sound was awful and the man did little to fix it. Now, 7 dollars isn't much money but I'm more upset about the time wasted watching this atrocity. I had actually watched a blog of this movie that warned me not to watch, I didn't heed their advice and went to it anyway. I strongly advise anyone who reads this blog to avoid this movie. No part of my being can justify recommending this movie.

My Sister's Keeper

The other night my family and I watched the movie My Sister's Keeper. The movie is based on the novel by Jodi Picoult and directed by Nick Cassavetes. This touching drama is about a loving family challenged by a child's illness. The Fitzgerald's are devestated when the daughter is diagnosed with leukemia and none of the family are matches. This is why Anna is born. She was genetically engineered to be a donor for her sister. From birth she has been donating to her sister and at eleven years old she's had a enough. She demands the right to her own body and goes as far as hiring a lawyer to achieve this. This choice causes turbulence in the family but ultimatley it is the first step in the realization of what it means to be a family.
This movie made me laugh and cry, I thought the actors did phenominal portraying the myriad roles. Even though I didn't care for the character she played I thought Cameron Diaz did an excellent job. I enjoyed seeing her play a serious role, when previously I had watched her in comedic movies. I also thought Sofia Vassilieva, the girl who played the dying girl Kate, did a a wonderful job. I imagine it would be quite difficult to play the role of a sick child.
The scenes I liked in the movie were the ones where Anna and her lawyer were discussing her situation. I liked how mature and intelligent her character was. Something I didn't care for was Cameron Diaz's character. I think she played the role well and it was necessary for the story but I was angry at the character. To me it was clear that she didn't care about Anna as much as her other daughter and did things that I was appalled at. At one point in anger she slaps Anna and I thought, as a mother, it was uncalled for.
I would only recomend this movie if you know what you're getting into. Make sure you keep a box of kleenex close at hand becuase this is a tearjerker.

The Kid

The other day I watched the Charlie Chaplin silent film, The Kid. Now apparently this movie was fairly risky back in 1921, when it was made. In the movie a woman has a child out of wedlock. Today, that is the basis of some shows like Pregnancy Pact, Sixteen and Pregnant, and countless others. But let me get back to the movie at hand.

Not only does this woman have a child out of wedlock but she abandons it in some random vehicle. Now I'm not too sure about this next part, I think they're criminals. They're wearing scary clown makeup and acting aggressively. My assumption can't be that far off.

Well, a different man finds the baby and a comedic scene ensues when he tries to give the baby to the wrong woman. Then when he goes to put it back where he found it a police officer is watching him. With no other option the man he takes the baby boy home. Tucked in the folds of it's blanket is a note left by the mother. It reads something along the lines of "love and care for this orphan child". The man does love and care for it. The rest of the movie the baby is a few years older.

Now that you know a little about the film I am going to discuss things I enjoyed or didn't. Something that I didn't care for was the dream scene near the end. I found it tedious, and pointless. I still can't figure out the significance. Besides that little part, there wasn't anything else I had qualms with.

One thing I liked was their use of exaggerated movement and music to emphasize points. Probably all silent films do that but a I still liked it.

I also enjoyed the humor. You must think I'm pretty sick and twisted finding humor in a movie about an abandoned baby but that's how I role. I'm kidding, the movie was meant to be funny. There was a lot of physical comedy (not like there were many other options for a silent film) that was actually kind of funny. Anytime there was a fight scene it was very well choreographed. I'm fairly certain Scooby-Doo got it's chase scene from this era of film. My favourite, though, was when the one guy had a pillow stuffed in his shirt to make him look muscled and menacing.

Overall I thought this film was good. Had it greatly exceeded 50 minutes my opinion may have changed. I'm glad I was able to watch this classic.