Batte Of Algiers- New York Times

The New York Times review of "The Battle of Algiers" is long, in depth, and boring. I am not knocking all reviews that are over 500 words, but in my opinion i think this review is poorly constructed. The review goes into way too much detail about the plot and the history and doesnt give enough plot analysis or ctiriscm of its faults, and also doesnt give his point of view on the camera angles or directorial ideas that i have found to like becuase of this class. Now, that ive said my peace about that review ill say a couple lines about how i feel.

The battle of algiers is a movie, that is impartial, has no protaginist, and breaks almost every fundamental rule of film making Mr. Klbuchar had taught us in this class. But saying all that i was very interested the entire movie and thought this unique style of filmmking was great, once, not something i could do on an every movie bases. most of my movies i like to have a true protaginast, someone i can root for, and also a bad guy, someone the good guy is trying go against.

In all i enjoyed watching this film becuase it was something new to expierence, but im still glad that i dont have to see this syyle of movie every friday night in theatres.

Momento...wait Memento.

In Memento, a movie starring Guy Pearce (Lenny), a man (Lenny) is on a quest to find the murderer of his wife and avenge her death. During her death the murderer whacked lenny across the head and made him have a very rare form of amnesia where he cannot create new memories. The interesting this about this neo-noir is that it is told backwards. We start the movie with the killing of the killer but every scene is what previously happened RIGHT before the scene we just saw. it was very confusing to watch over a 4 day span (especially with thanksgiving break) but i still LOVED the film and it has been my favorite so far in art of film.
What i wanted to talk about in this blog was how this movie makes us think. It happens a few different way, msot obviously the way the story is told. If ou dont keep tabs or are actively involved with the story then there is 0 chance you understand the plot. So you have to think to even follow with the movie (Katie Rosecrans). Deeper then that this movie makes us think about humanity, what we can do for happiness. At the end of the movie (or the beginning) we see Lenny kill someone who he believes raped and murdered his wife. Immediately after he and his friend chat about how all of Lenny's life is a lie becuase without the purpose of revenge and anger he has nothing to live for so Lenny conditions himself to belelvie that was the killer, immediately forgets it and creates a new killer to find. Now i personally belvieve that this is an exaggerated view on human nature. Like teddy says "so what, you lied to yourself to be happy. Everybody does it". I 100 percent agree with that statement. Whether it be if were happy with our place in society, like our jobs, or even our relationships. as humans our life goal is to be happy "who cares if you dont know some of the detals".

Kiss Me Deadly

Kiss Me Deadly was an amazing example of Film Noir for our generation. In Kiss Me Deadly, the main character, Mike Hammer, is a Private Invesigator who gets pulled aside by a hithchiker which leads to a crazy chain of events. Eventually leading to what you can infer, his death. The reason this movie is such a good Film Noir is becuase it has all the elements that a great Film Noir should have. It is dark in its plot...as well as its lighting, it is black and white, and the movie itself unravels like a great film noir should.
Some great unique things about this film that other Noirs of its time didnt contain, were the multi-plot aspect of the movie. Most older film noir, and older movies in general are focused on one main point and never really deviate from it. This movie on the other hand, has the girl, the death, the box, what the box is for, who wants the box, the hithchikers "roomate". this movie is years ahead of its time in the plot and way it was developed. Also the imaganation of this movie, during the cold war, with the sci-fi part with the hot, (radioactive) box.

In all i really enjoyed this movie and hope i got the most out of it i could. It was a great example of film noir adding on from Double Indeminty.


(im on safari so thats why my post has no bold or anything cool like that)

Double Jeopardy...I mean Indemnity

Double Indemnity, a film directed by Billy Wilder is a great example of Film Noir. This movie is considered one of the 1st and best Film Noirs of all time. This film is a great example of Film Noir because it has all the key elements Film Noir are supposed to have. It is black and white, it was a very dark plot and time, and was very edgy for its time. in all i liked the film because the plot kept me entertained and the editing and music were unique. on the other hand the acting was...sub par...and some of the camera angles were...awkward. i thought the movie in whole was a great example of how Film Noir should look and sound and Wilder did an amazing job with the materials he had in 1944.

Groundhog's day...

This blog assignment doesnt really have a real rubric so im going to just give my thoughts on the movie "Groundhog day" which we watched in Art of Film. This movie is starring Bill Murphy as a cocky, mean, overall dick reporter who was sent to do the reoprt on groundhogs day in the small town of Puxatawney Pennsylvania. His day never really ends because every morning he wakes up to the same song, at the same time, on the same day. Although the plot is completely unbeleivable, the movie as a whole was very good. I really enjoyed almost the whole film. some positive things about it were the fact that it was very funny but not over the top, always kept me entertained and intrigued, and gave pretty good life lessons overall that relate to most peoples lives. for every positive, there is a negative. some things i did NOT like about this movie was the random characters who were introduced but were short lived and annoying (ned reierson, and the 1st chick who he tried to...have relations with). also in the middle of the movie before he started only doing good deeds it was very long and repetitive and lost my attention for about a 15 min span.
overall i rate Bill Murray and the movie as a whle 3 stars out of 4. it was very very good, i liked it alot and would reccoment it to everyone but not an alltime classic

( i know the pic above is from caddy shack...but c'mon that movie is tight...)

Bringing Up Baby

Normally i come up with a witty title that moves around the title of the movie just for creative purposes, an example being "Pan's Labyrinth". Bringing Up Baby on the other hand does not even deserve that. This is not going to be a 500 word rant about how much i hate this movie...this blog post will be different. I might even point out some positives i saw in this movie.
In all the things i liked about this film was Carry Grant as David. I thought he was funny, clever, and played a very good counter part for Susan (Katherine Hepburn). Also another good thing about the movie was the plot in whole. i know its a little ridiculous but its a very good example of a screwball comedy and re-done it might actually be funny
Now for the negatives...and o, there are sooo many. I strongly disliked this movie...but the one reason i will talk about is the annoying, obnoxious, stupid, clumsy, loud Katherine Hepburn. Her character almost made me want to hurt myself so i could take my eyes off of her. Thank god this movie is over.
In all i am glad i saw this movie so if i ever am in a jam and saying "Could this be any worse.." i will remember the time we watched Bringing Up Baby in Mr. Klobuchars art of film class.

thanks Klob..

Seacrest out.

Once upon a time...in a land far faw away

In Once Upon a Time In the West directed by Sergio Leone, there were many key scenes that helped plot develpoment, character development and were key to the story. But the scene i am going to discuss was the showdown between Harmonica (Charles Bronson) and Frank (Henry Fonda...Janes Fonda's dad). This scene was a long anticapted showdown between good and evil, right and wrong, and protaginast vs antagonist. The wole movie leading up to this scene was about Frank wanting to become more then a cowboy, wanting to become a business man and take over the land from Jill McBain (whose husband was murdered earlier in the movie for his land) and make a town on it. Harmonica comes in and for quite sometime you think he is protecting Jill, but in actuality the only reason he sticks with her is to get to Frank. Harmonica even killed all of Franks men becuase they were about to turn on him and Harmonica decided to kill all of them just so he could have the pleasure of doing the deed himself. He stick by JIll becuase he knows eventually Frank will come for the land. The whole movie culminates into one final scene (a tribute to the OK Corral scene in "My Darling Clementine") where Harmonica and Frank showdown outside of Jill's house where the train is being built. Rather then in most movies where it goes by quick and you see the loser die in a flash and the winner grab the spoils, this film draws it out for a very long period of time. They meet in the blistering western heat, and circle eachother round and round till they both stop and talk. They talk about the "last of a dying breed" being the TRUE man, not the business man. You see them shoot at eachother and the camera pans up the body of a dying man and you see his face...its frank. then you know Harmonica was the victor and shot frank. As frank was dying he looks up at him and says "tell me...who are you?" Harmonica says nothing and it flashes back to when he was young and you see him holding up his dying brother and Frank laughing. this is significant becuase you now know the true reason Harmonica has a vendetta against Frank.
The significance of this scene as a whole is immeasureable. Without this scense the movie doesnt make sense. Without this scense this movie is an awkward, long, plotless movie with random killings. This puts everything in prespective and i thoroughly enjoy this movie as a whole because of this one scene.
On a 2nd note i think Leone is a genius for making this movie a suspense ending rather then knowing his intentions the whole time...i think it really brings the movie to a different level.