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.

Labryinth's Pan

In Pan's Labyrinth directed by Guillermo Del Toro acting is a critical part of the movie becuase the plot is so original and unbelevable, the actors NEED to be convincing or else no one would beleive the story. In Pan's Labyrinth the main character, Ophelia, moves to the spanish country side because the captain wants them out there. The main character in the movie was a little girl named Ophelia played by the actress Ivana Baquero. I thought Baquero was perfect for the role becuase of her amazing narration voice, and her innocence that just exploded from the screen. "Del Toro says he was "scared shitless" in casting the right actress for the lead role, and that finding the 10-year-old Spanish actress was purely accidental." It was reported that the role was originally written for a girl who was a little younger then Baquero, who was 11 at the time of shooting. The role was written for an 8 year old with curly hair, but Del Toro was quoted saying "But I loved her first reading, my wife was crying and the camera woman was crying after her reading and I knew hands down Ivana was the best actress that had shown up, yet I knew that I needed to change the screenplay to accommodate her age." Del Toro knew he had to have her in the movie and sent her comics, fairy tales and other materials to help her get into the true Ophelia Character.
Another vital character to the movie was Captain Vidal, played by Sergi Lopez. Lopez was again perfect for the role of Captain Vidal was becuase Captain Vidal was sane, but had signs of crazyness and overall was a jackass to Ophelia and everyone else he was around. Sergi Lopez showed this slight crazyness in his acting and exuded arrogance whenever he walked which described Captain Vidal perfectly. Del Toro was once again quoted saying about Vidal "Vidal is deranged, a psychopath who is impossible to defend." and Lopez portrayed that more then perfectly and his subtelties were nesacary in such a character.
Doug Jones, was the character who played both The Faun, and The Pale Man. Jones had worked with Del Toro twice before in both Mimic, and Hellboy and emailed Jones over a year and a half before filming saying you HAVE to be in this movie. Jones accepted not knowing the script was in spanish was forced to learn spanish fluently even though in editing they dubbed his voice anyways. Jones efforts didnt go unnoticed tho "Del Toro decided afterwards that he still preferred to dub Jones with the voice of "an authoritative theatre actor," but Jones's efforts remained valuable because the voice actor was able to easily match his delivery with Jones's mouth movements" which made the story much more beleivable and helped the story move along fluently. Overall, the acting was my favorite part of the movie and without the flawless acting from the people i spoke about and other cast members this movie would not have been as awesome as it was.

Sources http://imdb.com/title/tt0457430/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pans_labyrinth
(im on a Mac, so i cant hyperlink, or fonts or anything, sorry)

Western's...hooray?

In class we watched a film from a genre i had never personally seen before, Western. My grandpa never stops talking about them becuase how fast paced and plot-less these shoot em up movies are and how you can fall asleep in the middle and wake up and not miss any important parts becuase there are none. So i waled into this unit only expecting the best, a fast paced plot-less action film with crappy special effects and editing. What i got on the other hand was a slow, very plot based movie with about 7 minutes of true "suspense" action.
In "My Darling Clementine" there was a specific scene where the two main characters meet and walk into a bar looking for a shakesperean actor doing the monologue "to be or not to be". He is forced to perform by a gang of hooligans in the bar and cannot finish the entire monologue and asks a man by the name of Doc Holliday to finish the quote. So far we know Doc as a man who is sick, fearless, drunk, and impuslive. But to the surprise of everyone in the room he finishes the quote without pause or hesitation and shows that even a man who was thought to have no culture, and only be a rebel, could be a scholar.
This movie is pretty classic in the plot, but original becuase of the time it was made and the style of movie it is. The plot very simplified is a man wandering, wants revenge on someone, gets a little sidetracked, meets a girl, and gets his revenge. I could name about 2 dozen movies without thinking that have a plot pretty similiar to that. But its the style and time period this movie did this that makes it so original and unique.
If i had to rate this movie it would not be a very high score on my ratings system, but i am biased. Coming in with preconcoeved notions of a western and getting the opposite of what i was expecting was a negative, but also being a member of the younger generation im not sure i can truly appreciate what a classic this movie might be. overall i thought it was just fine, but expected alot more, but as i said earlier...i think my opinion is a little biased.

Citizen's Kane

The one aspect of Citizen Kane i would like to point out is the sound. I thought the sound and music of Citizen Kane was used masterfuly. The music motif used for Kane i thought was perfect for the time and changed tempo and mood outstandingly when the attitude of the film changed. Also how Kane's voice always seemed to have a hint of echo in it, no matter the room he was in. Welles made it seem as though his voice was always powerful thus making him seem more powerful. All of the sound in Kane i thought was done perfectly and without the sound and other musical attributes this movie would not have been as good.

Where's Nemo?!

For my Art of Film blog post, i chose to watch the movie "Finding Nemo" directed by Andrew Stanton. This film is a Disney movie which instantly became a classic, the minute it was released in theatres. The story is about a clown fish named Marlin (Albert Brooks) who lost his entire family when barracuda's attacked his ocean home and eat everything. Marlin thought all was lost, when he found one last egg laying on the coral reef floor, Nemo. On Nemo's 1st day of school, he ventures off into the ocean and gets taken by scuba divers from Sydney, Australlia. Mariln immediately goes after his son and will stop at nothing to find where he went. Along the way he met a friend named Dory (Ellen Degeneres) who forgets everything almost immediately after she learns it. Together they go on a journey trying to find Nemo and get into some crazy adventures along the way.
Some interesting things about this movie which i enjoyed were the way the fish spoke. Rather then being very cartoony and geared more towards the young, I thought the speech in this movie was very normal. I enjoyed this becuase i could relate more to the characters, rather then always being disrupted in my thoughts by the use of very childish words. Another thing i throughly enjoyed was the "camera" movement in the film. Although this film was animated it still used very unique ways for us to be able to see the fish. Some examples were when Dory and Marlin was gobbled up by a whale, it had about 5 minutes of the movie taking place in the whales mouth...a scene that would have been extremely diffcult to do if it were a real movie, but since it was animated it could go places other shots could never be able to go. Another example is rather then most movies now a days when they need to change views they just cut to a new angle, Finding Nemo and Andrew Stanton decided to "pan" the "camera" along the water. I found this very nice becuase it was very smooth and i never felt like i left the characters becuase we were always looking directly at them, even if moving to a new place. Also just as an extra note, the animation was AMAZING and very very realistic and i thought that was a super-plus to add to the realism of this movie.
I looked, and looked for a negative to write about in this review, but i couldnt. I thought this movie was perfect for what it was trying to do. The only thing i could try and knock it on is maybe it was a little too young and cute for my liking, but it was an animated movie and their target was families so i completely understand there logic in doing that and cannot knock it for such a petty reason.
So all in all i thought the music, the acting, the animation, the story, and everything else imagineable you can review went perfect and Finding Nemo is a spectacular film for all ages.