Dark City (Another Similarity)

I didn't really want to mention this before but whatever.
Another similarity is in the Yu-Gi-Oh card game. While yes there is the similarity of tuning that really isn't all that important. There is one card in particular. That one is appropriately named "Dark City". The card art is of well a dark city where the only light is the window lights. This is quite reminiscent to the movie. Even stranger the building appear to be flat and fake which like in the movie the entire city was created by The Strangers. So this might just be a very strange coincidence or the person who drew the card art saw the movie who knows. But I still thought it was cool. 

A Simple Plan

Well not too much to say about this one. I personally liked it.  Jacob really didn't seem to smart at all throughout the beginning but as it went on his intelligence shown through.  I personally liked the isolation in winter setting. Barren snowfields are excellent examples of isolation. In fact I used this idea during my college search. I wanted to spend my next 4 years in near total solitude. So when this idea was mentioned in class I felt like I could relate. In the end Hank was ultimately alone in everything even though he said that they were all in it together.

Merry Christmas everyone... Tomorrow the Island might be a winter wasteland haha.   

Memento

Hm that was a surprising movie. The first day it gave me a headache but after I started writing things down it became much more understandable. Anyway the movie was pretty strange. The organization of it was particularly interesting. It seems like what the director was trying to do was simulate memory loss by playing the movie in reverse. The viewer wouldn't know what was happening 5 minutes in the future which in the time line of the story is 5 minutes in the past. Though I thought adding other scenes and connecting them at the end was not the best way to go with it. Maybe thoughts from the past would have been better than story line going forward. Anyway not as great as Dark City but still pretty good.

Also I got that long coat I mentioned in the last entry.

Dark City!!!

I think Dark City has become my favorite movie of all time.  It really makes you think about what reality is. On occasion I have pondered what it would be like to loose a memory or have different memories than to what actually happened. It probably wouldn't be so bad considering that is what you think always is, was and will be. What if we all have missing memories of things that happened to us? What if the life we are all experiencing is a lie? These are all very deep questions that I believe this movie is trying to portray.

One thing I instantly noticed is how many aspects were strikingly similar to those of several of my other fandoms which cross a wide array of media. I will talk about two of them.
 One thing I noticed in the movie was the spirals. In the beginning they seemed to play a large role but then it just kind of dies. We see them on the murdered bodies, Eddie drawing them on his walls and the images of fingerprints. The motif of spirals (especially in the scene with Eddie) reminded me of a Japanese horror film based on a manga titled Uzumaki (spiral in English). First of all why spirals! They never explain this during the movie anyone might think that if they were only seen during the murders they would would think it was only a gimmick that Murdoch would have used (if The Strangers were successful). However, we see Eddie drawing them later. In Uzumaki many people and eventually the town are "cursed" by spirals which eventually drives them to madness. I think spirals don't only signify Eddie's madness but also the confusion that many of the characters are experiencing such as Bumstead with his investigation and Murdoch with the loss of his memories. It could also signify Bumstead and Murdoch going deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the city throughout the course of the movie.
Another similarity is to the game Persona 3. In the game there is an element called "The Dark Hour" which is pretty much a hidden hour after midnight, similarly to the movie. Much like during the Tuning all electronics and cars stop however unlike it people turn into coffins for some reason rather than falling asleep. If that wasn't enough during the dark hour buildings grow from the ground in a similar fashion to the movie. But anyway I digress.
Finally this movie has made me absolutely sure that I want a long coat. haha

The Asphalt Jungle

Pretty good movie so far. First of all Emmerich kind of reminds me of Kane. They are presented in a similar way, they look sort of similar, they are both powerful men, they both have (or are alleged to have) a significantly younger mistress and a strained relationship with their wives. Second why is Riedenschneider referred to as Doc. Do they ever mention if he is an actual doctor or could it be referencing the fact that he is precise with his plans much like a surgeon. Third the heist scene it seemed very tense. I was at the edge of my seat for it. Maybe it was the fact that everyone was acting so calmly and there wasn't any background sound effects that made it seem so serious. So this has been a pretty good movie even though it started off slowly.     

Unforgiven 2

Haha I was right a couple of people do use Winchesters in the film. Even though they aren't mentioned they are still in it. Anyway this has been my favorite film by far. Little Bill reminded me very much of Rankin from Runaway Train. They are both cruel lawmen however, we see a different side to Little Bill that we don't see in Ranken. We see his life outside of his job. Throughout the movie he is building a house. This seems to humanize him far more than Ranken because we see his life outside of his job. While as far as we know Ranken only focuses on his ability to uphold the law. Otherwise it was a very exciting movie.

Unforgiven

Heh so far this movie seems really quite good. Now I haven't seen many Western films but I have a general sense of what is cliche in the genre through television. So far I have noticed quite a few interesting things that you wouldn't see in a stereotypical western.
1) The Englishman (English Bob)
Now like I said I haven't seen many westerns but it doesn't seem like there is a large foreign presence in this genre. But of course there were some in real life, people travel. Also English Bob mentions Chinamen of course he was probably referencing those that worked on the railway
2) Mentions of guns and dates
Well as we discussed in class the mention of dates in a western is very rare. So the inclusion of them is very nice. It sets a period where you can pin down what is happening at the time. As for guns they mention guns that were around at that time. I am just waiting for a reference to the Winchester Rifle (the gun that won the west)

So that is it for now this movie seems very promising.

REALLY Delayed Halloween Movie Marathon Part 3: Donnie Darko

Wow it took me this long to post this, what have I been doing. O_o  Anyway Donnie Darko really interesting movie about time travel and a really creepy bunny. The movie certainly faked my friend and me out a couple of times as we initially thought everyone would die at the end. Also many things seemed to have a deeper meaning or at least that is what I want to believe since there were many aspects that didn't really have much to do with the story. However I think I would have to watch it again to understand it better as I was thinking it was a slasher or something when it really wasn't (I think the fact that Donnie floods the school and burns that motivational speaker's house down justifies my assumption). However it was a really good movie but definitely one you should watch twice. If anyone has seen this I would like to hear your interpretations of it.

The Seventh Seal

It has been an alright movie so far I think I would have to watch more of it to get a better opinion on it. Although there are two things I really like about it so far. First of all is the idea of playing chess with death. I find this image to be quite intriguing. It is a representation of the struggle with death that we all have throughout our lives, any move could be our last. Also the pauses in the game are significant because death is still following him even though they aren't playing. The other part was the precession scene this also seems to be saying that death effects everyone and no one can ever be saved from it, even if you are extremely religious you can not escape it. Overall I find this movie to be not as enjoyable as the others I think because of the setting but idk. 

Runaway Train

Surprisingly moving movie. I it started off really cliche with a classic escape pattern (hiding in a pile of laundry and then escaping through the sewers) but then it gets a deeper in a struggle where the line between good and evil becomes blurred. On one side we have Manny a hardened criminal who while being our protagonist shows truly evil sides at some points such as when Buck tried to get to the front of the second engine. However one might look at this as him desperately wanting freedom. One the other hand however is Ranken who could be described as being "Lawful Evil" or a person who uses underhanded or violent tactics in order to uphold the law. Manny representing freedom while Ranken represents oppression and in the end we see the two characters as what they represent Manny being free while Ranken is imprisoned. This was a very very good movie overall. 

Delayed Halloween Movie Marathon Part 2: Van Helsing

Urrrrgggg this movie... it felt like there wasn't anything deeper than the action in this movie. The concept of the movie was nice but the pacing was terrible at one point it was dragging on and I was falling asleep the next it felt like it was almost over. My friend and I were also commenting on how unbelievable the characters were for example the female lead Anna had a rather large assortment of weapons but didn't use them at all and if she did nothing came of it. Van Helsing himself was rather generic and uninteresting. However the Frair, who served as comic relief was quite funny and did get his chance to shine before the end of the movie. However this brawl of horror literature characters does have some redeeming points such as the detailed settings and action scenes. Overall I felt as if I wasted my precious time with my friend watching this and that we should have watched something else but oh well can't take it back now.  

Delayed Halloween Movie Marathon Part 1: Rocky Horror Picture Show

Ahhh The Rocky Horror Picture show, a Halloween classic. I have seen it before but this time was pretty different since I was with a friend who has never seen it and I am in this film class. I realized this movie makes little sense but it makes up for that because it is offbeat and has good music. The plot can get rather confusing at times (I had my friend asking me what was happening quite a few times). I found myself asking myself "why" why is this all happening I mean Frank creates a man but happens to be an alien on earth for an unstated reason. Oh well it is still one of my favorite movies.

The Mayor of Casterbridge (Part 1)

The Mayor of Casterbridge was adapted from the novel of the same name. In the beginning it is about a guy who auctions off his wife and baby daughter. And well she comes back with the daughter 19 years later to find that he is successful.  The acting is alright although I think the person who plays Farfrae could be younger and they showed no change whatsoever of Henchard over the 19 years. This movie seems to make close-ups of like anyone whenever they are speaking. which is getting kind of annoying. Also the camera is very shaky at times, also annoying. But eh I guess it is alright.

Citizen Kane (Part 5)

Hm well the movie is over it was really good. The ending was quite powerful in particular. When the camera was panning over all of Kane's belongings all in piles they all of the paintings, statues, furniture etc. seemed  worthless. Like all of those material possessions he acquired over his lifetime mean nothing. The teacher I TA for asked me if I had cried at the end I cannot say I did because I was so awestruck at the fact that this man's life pretty much equated itself to a sled. So yes a man's life can be summarized in one word.  

Citizen Kane (Part 4)

This movie is still going really fast. I find it fairly difficult to keep up when watching it in parts, it is definitely a movie one has to watch in one go to pick up on a lot. Although something I did notice in the opera scene during Leeland's interview the camera was facing the stage while during Susan's interview the camera was behind her looking out into the audience for a majority of that scene. I think that this might represent the different points of view and the different views of the same story by two different people. 

Citizen Kane (Parts 1, 2 & 3)

Wow this movie feels like it is going much much faster than the last one. Fast kind of like the news reel in the beginning. Connection??? Maybe! But anyway I really like the transitions between the scenes they executed them quite well (for example the one where one portrait covers the other). I wonder why it had that scene where Kane receives the sled from Thatcher but I guess that will be explained. Everything is going so fast but it is so good and so this movie marches on.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Full Film)

I found it much like any black and white war movie (as I said in my previous post similar to Red Badge of Courage). It was alright overall. And while yes the soldiers did seem very American maybe this was done on purpose to show how similar we are to them. Personally I like how everything had a purpose and it was connected to something else. For example wasn't Kat the one who was telling the troop how to avoid getting injured by artillery shells and wasn't he also the one who later got mortally wounded by shrapnel from a shell. I kept that scene in mind throughout the entire movie and hey it came back. But anyway I believe that a door is closing on this movie and beyond that door is another movie.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Part 1)

Despite the poor sound quality when watching the first part I was able to see in what direction the director was going with on this film so far. Many of the doors and window scenes makes it feel like the director wants you to see the world of the movie. I felt that I was really watching a lot of the action from the sidelines with this. Also the acting reminded me of the 1951 film "The Red Badge of Courage". They seemed to have this "all-American vigor" that really doesn't quite capture German soldiers. However I must watch more of this movie to form a true opinion on it.