MYST Post #3: Finding Nemo

I really do think that I am a kid at heart because I do watch many Disney movies and one of my favorites is Finding Nemo!!! Finding Nemo is an underwater adventure that has every type of genre. Adventure, Emotion, Drama, and maybe a little bit of scary if you are little kid. A dad loses his fish child and travels across the ocean to Australia to find him. Finding Nemo was made in 2003 which is surprising because the animation is great  with how much technology has advanced in the past 10 years. Besides that the voice cast is great with Ellen Degeneres, Albert Brooks, and Brad Garrett as the main characters.
                                                         

Finding Nemo didn't only grab my heart but the whole world. With a box office of 41.1 million and earning a 99% in rotten tomatoes, it's safe to say that very few people disliked it. One of my favorite scenes from this movie was when Dory and Marvin wake up after being attacked by jellyfish and find themselves in a current with tons of turtles. One of the funniest scenes was when Dory tried talking whale to the whale and they end up being sucked into the whale. I was not able to find a negative comment from this movie so I can only show a positive one which was difficult to pick one because there were so many. Anthony Lane from the New Yorker says, "The latest flood of wizardry from Pixar, whose productions, from Toy Story onward, have lent an indispensable vigor and wit to the sagging art of mainstream animation." Pixar has always made some phenomenal movies and are tricky to beat but Finding Nemo did it!!! I really hope they make a Finding Nemo 2 because the first one rocked and so would the second one!

MYST post #2: Sinister

I did my MYST post on the movie Sinister because I haven't done a movie this genre in any of my MYST posts and I wanted to switch it up! Sinister is a horror movie that came out in 2012. The main character is played by Ethan Hawke who is an crime novelist and discovers a box of eerie home made movies that throw his family into supernatural horror. Movie after movie they figure out what made the house haunted leading up to a killer ending that i won't spoil for you.
                                             
For being a scary movie Sinister did very well. It had a box office of 48.1 million. Its score on rotten tomatoes is 62% which surprised me because knowing how sucky all scary movies are i expected it to get a low score as well. One positive comment that I found was from Nick Pinkerton from Village Voice and he says ," A proficient, rattling horror story." I agree with his comment. This movie kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time and actually had a story to it. One negative comment that I found on rotten tomatoes was Michael O'Sullivan from the Washington Post. He said that,"The hero of "Sinister" is almost unaccountably dumb. So, unfortunately, is the movie." I'm  not surprised to have a comment about the movie being stupid. Yes it is a little bit stupid, but compared to all the other scary movies it is a job well done. At the end of this movie I wasn't able to sleep for a few nights so I hope that answers your question to if it is scary.

The Godfather Response

1) a. After seeing The Godfather I was astonished by how much I enjoyed that movie, it is definitely on my top 10 movies list. Liking this movie so much I am able to connect to this questions. I think that The Godfather both critiques and praises the American Dream. It praises it because Vito came into America not having much, but then builds up a whole empire of being one of the most powerful and successful gangs. This leads me to why critiques the dream, it is corrupt. It is corrupt because the American Dream is something you work extremely hard for in order to become successful, not saying the Corleon's didn't work hard but the way that they got themselves to the top was corrupted. Also the image of all the gangs and killings is a critique of the non american dream. People move to america for freedom and justice and that is not justice.

   b. I think it's successful because it is full with emotions. You see the happy, the sad, successful, and funny. It had a great cast of actors, and great dialogue. Although it was made in 1972 it seems like it would be made in this century. It's filled with action and jaw dropping scenes that you would've never seen coming. 

4th Quarter MYST: The Spectacular Now

After seeing Insurgent I was still in the mindset with the cast. I looked at other movies that Shailene Woodley played in and I found The Spectacular Now. A movie about a two people from the opposite world you can say. Shailene Woodley playing Aimee Finicky and Miles Teller playing Sutter Keely meet when Sutter is passed out on Aimee's front lawn from partying a little to hard the night before. The rest of the movie is about them falling in love and some of the difficulties that came with it. 

I'm a sucker when it comes to love movies, but I think anyone would enjoy the movie. With a 93% on rotten tomato it speaks for itself. The movie doesn't have enough romanticism for men not to like it, it has a little bit of everything. Rene Rodriguez from the Miami Herald says,"This adaptation of Tim Tharp's novel, directed with delicate restraint by James Ponsoldt, sneaks up on you. It makes you laugh, then it breaks your heart." This statement backs up what i previously said, that is a greatly portrayed movie with just enough comedy, love, and heartbreak. One negative feedback I got from the movie was from Kyle Smith in the New York Post and he said,"The fast-talking but increasingly insufferable Teller ... displays little ability to modulate his performance as the movie gradually turns darker and darker." That is the only negative comment that I found and I don't find that true. Milles Teller had to play a role of a teenage boy who enjoyed to party that was deep down lost. He never had a father in his life and when he tried to find him it crumbled into pieces. So I think that because he turns darker as the story goes in is a good thing. I hope you watch this movie because it is worth the time/

MYST: 22 jump street

The most recent movie i have seen is 22 jump street. I was sitting in the car on the way back home from colorado.... A 16 hour car ride. I decided to see 22 jump street! This is the second movie of the sequel. About two under cover cops, in the first movie the cops go under cover in a high school. In the second movie they go undercover in a college.


I enjoyed 22 jump street very much. Its a comedy genre movie, with a little bit of suspense and action as well. Although the acting might have not been great I did have a few good laughs. The two main actors were played by Channin Tatum and Jonah Hill. It recieved a suprisingly high score of 85% on rotten tomatoes.

Some positive feedback I got of the movie were "This sequel to the hit action comedy 21 Jump Street is better all around: the pacing is more consistent, the sight gags more imaginative, the self-referential jokes sharper."  I find that quote very true it is much better than the first movie. The second positive quote I saw was "Self-referential irony is hardly a new gimmick, having served as the underlying premise for such franchises as Scream and Austin Powers, but rarely has it been indulged with such fervor. " some negative feed back i got on the movie was "22 Jump Street has the same writers and directors as the first film. But it's not smart this time as much as it is clever, and that cleverness tips into spottiness and cynical self-congratulation." Although its not really negative I had to show some change from the first movie to this one.



All in all this is a really enjoyable movie and I do reccomend it!

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Film Studies Group Project 1935

Title: Partition de l'amour (partition of love)

 

Studio: MGM. We chose MGM because they are well known for their drama and enchanting movies.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Main Actress: Greta Garbo. We chose her because she's played roles in MGM. She was also popular and well plated actress during the time.

 

Main Actor: Robert Montgomery. We chose him because a well known actor that was in played in The Big House that was nominated for two Oscars. 

 

Supporting Actress: Leila Hyams. We chose her because she's a typical blonde haired green eyed barbie. She is also known in succeeding in smaller parts, such as this one.

 

Director: Clarence Brown. We chose him because he's worked with Greta Garbo multiple times and filmed many well known dramas

 

Publicist: Irving Thalberg

 

Make-up Artist: William J. Tuttle. We picked him because he is an experienced makeup artist of five-teen years. And has also worked with MGM.

If i could've changed something I would've made the theme unravel more and not have it be about a broad subject.

Formal Film Study

Movies Filmed in Chicago

               For my formal film studies blog I chose to pick movies filmed in Chicago. I chose this because of the handful that have been filmed in Chicago have been very successful. The three movies I will be talking about will be the sequels of Batman, Transformers, and Divergent. Each three of the sequels have been very successful action movies. I wonder what made these movies so successful? Was maybe the fact that it was in Chicago, or the use of animation? All I know is that in each of these sequels I find one of my favorite movies.

                  The first movie I will be talking about is Insurgent. This is the second movie from the sequel Divergent. I got to see the movie 4 day before it came out in theaters because my friend won some type of tickets. Divergent is about a society blocked off from the rest of the world because it is too "evil". It is filmed in the future Chicago, and is surrounded by electrical walls to keep the evil out. There are four factions that each person belongs to. They either belong in Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent), and Abnegation (the selfless). In Divergent Beatrice Prior, played by Shailene Woodley turns 18 and it becomes her time to take a test to decide which faction she will be apart of. During this test she finds out that she is divergent which means different, and also in the movie means that Beatrice is Dauntless, Amity, Erudite, and Abnegation all in one! In the movie it is illegal to be Divergent so she is told to keep it a secret from everyone. During the ceremony of choosing a faction she decided to go into Dauntless. A majority of the movie was about her experience in Dauntless and the different tasks she had to face and overcome. One of her instructors named Four later on becomes her lover, and she later decides that he too is Divergent. In the end of the movie we see Erudite installing little chips into the Dauntless' bodies in order to control them. Trice receives this chip but does not work because she is divergent, once she awoke she saw and realized that the chip was used for bad and had the Dauntless killing many Abnegation, She figured out a way to detain the chip from the Dauntless. Now, Insurgent comes into play. Jeanine Matthews or the leader of Erudite played by Kate Winslet then blames the Divergent for this genocide when it was all planned by her. She commands the guards and the city to be out on the lookout and to bring her the Divergent. The rest of Insurgent is about the Divergent and the factionless (ones that didn't fit into a faction) coming together to take down Jeanine. This movie was filmed in Chicago, but much different than you think it is. They edited the river to be completely dry and the streets being completely bare, and the buildings to be overgrown by plants. One of the most popular changes in the movie was Navy Pier. Instead of it being bright and clean, It was turned into looking a lot more rustic and abandoned. 

                   

The second movie I chose was Transformers 1 from the sequel of Transformers. This sequel had its time in the spotlight but as the sequel went on it became worse and worse each movie. Although the rest of the sequel is trash, I do like the first one. Everyone knows that it is about robots called the Autobots find their way onto Earth to protect a magical box that grants them power to do anything. The Megatron which are the evil robots follow their way in order to retreive it back. While on Earth the Autobots and Megatrons disguise themselves as cars. Sam Witwicky played by Shia LaBeouf finds himself a new car that he doesn't know is a Autobot. Once he finds out him and Bumblebee (the name of the Autobot) become close friends and the rest of the movie is about the Autbots and people joining together to defeat the Megatrons. In the end what do you guess..... AUTOBOTS WIN! This movie brings many things to the plate if you're talking about animation. I will start off with with the robots! The animation that was used to make them is unbelievable because they're on streets running into things, fighting. The amount of work it takes to use that in every scene is incredible. Another place where a lot of animation was used in the movie was the buildings. Like I mentioned before the robots would fight but these fights wouldn't only be in the streets, it would be on the skyscrapers of Chicago. No one really realizes how much it is to detail robots on the top of skyscrapers shooting at each other, blowing off pieces of buildings.If I were to mention all the animation put into this movie I would be 40 by the time I would be done, so that is why I chose two most important times where the animation was used. 

                                                     

The last and final movie I chose to use was Batman: The Dark Night Rises. This is the second movie from the sequel, and preferably my favorite. It is about Batman  played by Christian Bale meeting a new villain named Bane played by Tom Hardy. This villain is different than the joker. Bane is much more manipulative, and everyone can tell that Batman had a tougher time trying to defeat him. One of my favorite scenes, and one that is going to be used in my example was the scene in the football game. Bane walks out and into the field in the middle of the game and threatens the crows, you all of a sudden see people dropping one by one and then BOOM.......a bomb goes off and the turf from underneath the football players feet crumbles down into a whole.  This is used in my example because it is used as animation as well. How does one animate a football stadium crumbling down with thousands of people in it?

   I think all of these movies are very successful and filmed in Chicago, but no one really sees how much animation and work is put into it! I couldn't even realize it until I watched the movies again!