Daughters of the dust Review- a slow poem in motion

The story line even though was clear was still vague at the same time. I know that the story is about a Gullah family who move from the Sea Islands to the mainland but there are so many aspects of the story we have to figure out for ourselves because they have been left out. This movie I feel is focused mainly from a woman’s point of view and even the whole movie focuses more on women than on men.the movie I think can be said to be African-American because that is what is focused on a lot, African-American women and their ties to slavery.

First of all the narration was a bit weird for my tastes. I thought it was pretty cool that there were three narrators but the fact that an unborn child who would run around without being seen was a narrator was weird. Another thing is that the sense of time or the order of events was not present. Did they move in a week or a year? It was just weird for me. This is a way that shows this is an alternative film narrative style film. One thing I did like was the portrayal of culture. Every movie that has a strong portrayal of culture will always give it an extra 15 points in my grading exam. The imagery is beautiful and the language seems very vivid and rich. The movie is pretty much a moving poem.

This was definitely in the alternative film narrative section because the movie definitely undermined the centrality of a main character. There was hardly a main outstanding character so in a way all of the characters were equally important. Even the little girl that was unborn was very important as she was a narrator and she was very important as she portrayed spirituality that Christianity does not agree with. The differences that this movie has compared to others is definitely purposeful because we are made to see the movie in a different point of view.

Speaking in terms of cinematography, the movie was very beautiful. The scenes were amazing, the colors great and the music was excellent and very relevant. The use of slow motion when necessary as well as running the film in real-time was well done. The portrayal of the unborn baby was pretty good as well from the running around. She was portrayed in a way that showed she wasn’t completely part of this world. It was like a see through look that wasn’t exactly see through I felt.

Another thing that was weird was the accent or dialect. To me it sounded a bit Jamaican and the accents were very thick so I couldn’t understand what they were saying. They talk about Ibo-land a lot of the time and I know that the Ibo are a tribe of people in West Africa and I know this because I come from Nigeria and a large population of Nigerians are Ibo. Why then did I not understand a lot of what they were saying especially if they kept their culture from old and how did it go from a Nigerian accent to a Jamaican one? That really threw me off.

Overall, to be honest I wish I was less tired when I watched this movie because I might have concentrated a bit more. I personally thought the movie was well done but too slow for my taste. No, no, this is a film review so I am going to be completely honest. Even though the movie was very rich and vivid, this had to be one of the most boring and slowest movies I have ever watched! Sorry, there I said it.

a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, my review is just a review...

Well I am not going to lie before I watched the movie I always thought of Casablanca using the peripheral route process (elaboration likelihood model theory) because I didn’t bother thinking about it. I always thought of it as old because I knew it had Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and also I always for some reason thought it was a musical. From the cover I knew it had to do with love and I know movies back in those times had really mushy scenes where ladies would swoon onto the guy’s arms and things of that nature so I came into the movie with a contrast affected point of view (social judgment theory)

The play stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine, a very cynical but warmhearted American bar owner in Casablanca, Morocco during WW2. Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), his former love who deserted him earlier, surfaces in Casablanca with her Resistance leader husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid). "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." She definitely opened other sides of Rick that we have not seen yet and we find out why he is the way he is. Ilsa and Victor need to escape from Casablanca, and Rick has two tickets which can be used to leave the country so he is the only one who can help them. The story goes on to a sad ending; well at least for me because Blaine doesn’t end up being with Ilsa.

After watching that movie, I think of the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” and that completely applies to me. I think the movie was definitely a classic in so many different ways. At first I was like here we go but Bogart’s character just pulled me right into the movie but even before that the characters pretty much got me in tune. Bogart and Bergman do such a great job that whenever we see the movie we are reminded of them. Rick is this m&m of a guy(hard outside, soft inside) who has buried has past only to have it stumble into his bar and Ilsa is this girl who has had two loves but has to ultimately choose one and even her correct choice grants her with nothing. Another classical thing is how many phrases and concepts are used from this movie, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” and the even more popular “here’s lookin at you kid”

I have to say that the supporting cast in my opinion were as good as the two leading stars. My two favorite supporting characters in the movie were Claude Raines who plays Captain Renault and Dooley Wilson who plays Sam. They were so great, Renaults personality and witty banter just increases the enjoyability of the movie and Sam, what a guy, Sam definitely brings the mood to the movie with his piano playing and especially the love song he sings “you must remember this…a kiss is still a kiss” that melted the hearts of a lot of viewers and so making the movie without them would have been a terrible idea. These are the characters that really did it for me

The movie is made perfectly- its romantic yet thrilling story, the songs performed by Dooley Wilson, the supporting cast, fantastic script, and the amazing cinematography. I will talk about the cinematography and mise en scene aspects of the movie in my next blog. It is definitely no mystery why Casablanca was one of the best movies ever made and why it still remains fresh even to this day. Casablanca just brings out the choices that are so tough it is heartbreaking and I have had a lot of those so maybe that is a reason why the movie appealed to me the way it did. If I were to cast a vote, I would put my vote for this movie to stay in the best films ever made category.

Here’s looking at you kid!

picture from http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.independentcritics.com/images/casablanca%2520SPLASH.jpg&imgrefurl=http://mylemonadestand.wordpress.com/2007/05/30/top-100-movie-quotes-of-all-time/&h=324&w=480&sz=99&hl=en&start=13&um=1&usg=__lPb-HHnXPmEjz2ECCobuosvCX_s=&tbnid=sOBcMETCwnFrYM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsam%2Bas%2Btimes%2Bgoes%2Bby%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

raging analysis of a crazy bull-like movie!

Ok so in order to analyze this movie fully lets go through the overview of what it was about again. The movie stars Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, a temperamental and very paranoid but vicious boxer and his relationship with this brother, who suffered from his rage and dark side, and his beautiful wife who was his ultimate prize. The movie focuses on his rise and falls and his alienation from his family and friends. Let’s look at the cinematography and editing in more detail. The boxing bouts were about ten minutes total but with editing, it seemed to go on for so long and that is one of the good things about editing. The other scenes were made to look more naturalistic compared to the subjectivity of the boxing ring shoots. This showed a difference in how Lamotta was portrayed and how he felt inside the ring compared to outside the ring.

Let’s talk about mise en scene and in this paragraph I want to focus on acting performance done by Robert De Niro. He was a method actor who liked to be his character completely much like Marlon Brando who I have talked about in my earlier blogs. De Niro took method acting to the max by gaining about sixty pounds in order to become the older fatter Lamotta version and the dedication to do this must have been a lot for him to go this far. This would differ from a movie like Monty Python which was very stylized in acting style because characters obviously knew there was a character and would try and interact with the crowd and spike lee did a bit of both in his movie, Do the right thing.

Another thing about the mise en scene that has to do with setting which I enjoyed was the fact that the film was done in black and white. This just showed the authenticity of the movie which differentiated from the other boxing movies as well as accentuate the times it was shot in. it was naturalistic mise en scene because it was historical because it showed that that is what movies were like in those days and also I think the black and white accentuated how the times were in a way, viewed in black and white. It was also quotidian mise en scene because it tried to show the everyday life of the Italian Americans living in the ghetto which was amazing because it showed the culture of those times which I really enjoy in movies.

Another thing was the editing that was done. One thing I like about the editing was the way the film was done in a way that unlike other boxing movies, the movie showed boxing in a way that the viewers saw what boxing is like from the actual boxer’s point of view rather than that of the audience. The slow motion to real time shots and the 360 panning showed the brutality of the boxing ring and also the two shot style that showed one boxer and then the other boxer showed the Hollywood continuity style as well as the eye line matching especially when LaMotta would go through the motion of throwing a punch and then the cut transition to a hand destroying the opponent. I liked it because it made me feel the pain and exhilaration of the boxing ring. This is one of the values of editing and it was showed here, the value of using editing to generate emotion and ideas through patterns of seeing.

I would say overall this was more a classic in film making than even the watching of the movie itself.

picture from

http://usesoapfilm.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/black-and-white-film-a-thon/

Raging bull review

I just watched the movie Raging Bull featuring Robert De Niro and I am not going to lie but I absolutely loved it. The story revolves around Jake Lamotta, an animal of a boxer who gains everything he wants, a beautiful wife, and a world title but ultimately loses it due to his insecurity. One of the main reasons I liked it was because of the cultural portrayal. If you have read some of my other blogs you might notice that culture has a lot of significance to me as I was raised that way. The film portrays the life of American Italians in the ghetto, from the loud cursing outside the apartments to the night life.

One thing that struck negative emotion was how he treated his family. I mean it was something that Italian Americans were said to have done all the time; curse, but still cursing in front of little children is bad parenting. Another thing was how he treated his wife. The whole time, I thought “If that was me, I’d do this...or that” which made me realize how good the movie was if it struck that strong of an emotion from me. His treatment of his brother was rough sometimes but then he still loved him overall and that’s what counts to me. I was happy when he felt like he didn’t need the mafia because I feel the mafia influenced a lot of things and refusing them in a movie would have been awesome but in the end it didn’t happen.

This brings me to talk more about his insecurity. He was so insecure that he would just rush to conclusions. His insecurity brought spasms of jealousy where he couldn’t believe his wife Vickie could stay faithful to him and would get fits of rage whenever she came home late or greeted other guys. I really don’t know how she stayed that long and trust me I would have done much better if she were mine. I thought the way he got her though was very interesting and funny. Anyways I liked the movie because it does the opposite of the other sports movies that show people rising to fame from nothing. Jake rises then falls which I thought was cool.

Overall, I really liked the movies story line, mise en scene and cinematography. I liked how the black-and-white cinematography (throughout the entire film except for the home video parts) was done and camera (subjective might I add) used innovative techniques including slow-motion (varying camera speeds), 360 degree pans during the fights, and titled camera. The lighting was deliberately made harsh and stark, to provide an expressionistic look and feel of the brutality inside the boxing ring. The music was very melancholy and it was used to contrast the darkness the movie was trying to portray. Overall they did a good job but I will talk about that in my next blog…so be patient.

Breathlessly weird!

The movie is about a carjacker called Michael who goes around causing drama with his girlfriend Patricia. One thing I can say about this movie is that it definitely wasn’t made Hollywood style in any way. The movie was pretty humorous but at some times annoying to watch. T he plot is not even that great but it’s more than just plot in this movie if you think about it. What I mean is plot wasn’t the only thing we were supposed to focus on. The characters definitely didn’t have a lot of depth and a lot of people might not have identified with them so much.

Another thing I want to talk about is the editing through cuts and transitions. I think they hurt more than they helped because it was just confusing and disorienting and what is the point of some of the scenes? Anyways I think there is an aspect of representation and the fact that we were wondering what just happened or second guessing. The editing is probably meant to be obvious because I think everyone could tell every cut or transition that occurred in the movie. We are not used to the visibility of cuts so it just made the movie choppy and the smoothness of movie factor was not present.

The film was supposed to show natural life I’m guessing but the way it was done made it definitely seem more like art than anything else. I felt they took out the natural aspect of the movie by the transitions used but apart from that I can still see the realism that they went for and sometimes it comes out pretty clearly. One would need a lot of patience to watch this movie and I think that is one of the problems with the people who didn’t like it because they were just not used to it and didn’t have the patience or try and look at it differently.

In the end the movie was just confusing and strange for me but I shouldn’t judge because it was the directors own style and we each have our own preferences in terms of cinematography. The editing was very visible and if they were trying to show the different ways that editing can be used then they did a marvelous job. I would say overall the movie is unique.

http://www.moviediva.com/MD_root/reviewpages/MDBreathless.htm

got the picture from here

analysis on Do the right thing!

I was thinking more about Do the right thing and I wanted to analyze it more so I will write more of my thoughts down. Radio Raheem was my favorite character in the movie so I will use him in my examples.

I really liked the camera angles used especially in the scenes with Raheem. Let us look at the scene with Raheem buying batteries from the Korean couple. When we see the couple on screen, we view them with an overhead shot signifying Raheem towering over them and them being the small ones. When we see Raheem, we see him through a low angle shot again showing him towering over them from their point of view. The same thing happened with his interactions with Sal.

Lets more look at the movie more from a “Mise en scene” perspective. I like the costumes used because it brought realism to the movie. They were supposed to be in the late 80’s/early 90’s and so what they war portrayed this. The very colorful clothing style, the haircut, and jewelry worn by Raheem just make him credible to my eye. His size obviously complemented his character so that was cool too.

In terms of acting, Radio Raheem’s performance was both stylized and naturalistic and he would switch from one style to another. Most of his acting was natural and in spike Lee’s case, there was probably some “method acting” as well. I say it was stylized because there were moments when he seemed he was fully aware he was acting as he would turn towards the camera and address the audience, his famous love versus hate monologue for example.

The prop used by Radio Raheem was a radio and it had instrumental and metaphorical significance in my eye. It was obviously used to blast music and if I had a radio like that I would seriously considering walking around my campus blasting out music. Not only was it just used for instrumental value, it was metaphorical because it represented his beliefs. The fact that he just blasted one song, “fight the power! Fight the power! Fight the power!” shows his belief in freedom of expression. When Sal breaks his radio, in a way Sal attacks his beliefs and that’s why Raheem goes crazy.

The color pattern of the movie I think was beautiful because there were scenes in which the whole frame would have a specific color. In the video I added to this blog, we can see the heat radiating off Raheem in the orange-ish frame which is beautiful. There is a lot of high key lighting that accentuated a lot of the movies objects.

In conclusion, I think Spike lee does a wonderful job with the directing and acting in the movie and I like what I saw. I will write down more notes when I have more to say.

here is the video which i found on youtube.com



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsFjlLXP9GU

p.s i really dont know how to make this a link so you might have to copy and paste. does anyone know how to make it a link?

review on Spike Lee's movie- Do the right thing!

When I watched the Spike Lee movie, Do the right thing, I definitely wasn’t expecting anything different. Well let me inform you that I already watched another one of his movies, Bamboozled, in one of my friend/professors class and after watching that movie, I was pretty prepared for something similar and I wasn’t completely shocked or taken by surprise at the intensity of the movie even though there were moments. I really liked this movie because it was challenging to me.

The movie revolves around Mookie, a young black man who works at for Sal along with his two sons at a Pizzeria. As Mookie performs the activities that make up his day we see how other characters influence him along the way and how they are all connected together and their relationships with each other. As the movie continues we see how race plays a big factor in their lives and their own views of the people of different races they interact with that day.

Another thing I like about the characters is their uniqueness and the role they play in their movies. The three middle aged men I feel dealt with tension relief as they had many funny things to say, even though some of their comments were very thought provoking. The use of stereotypes was drastically increased in this movie and it was hilarious at times but sometimes kind of going a bit far, something Lee loves to do. For example Sal, Pino and Vito always use a lot of expression using their hands and Tina always has the characteristic head shake and attitude and accent of a Latino woman. Let’s not even start with Sonny and Kim.

I don’t think the movie had the typical kind of plot that people judge movies by. It’s hard to explain but I think Lee focuses more on themes than an actual solid plot. A lot of the scenes in the movie might be called random to some critics but I think they all played a part. I feel that Lee just went to a normal street in a black neighborhood that had some Asians, whites and Latinos and just filmed scenes of daily life activities but just pumped it up with racial tension, anger, sadness, humor and violence. I feel the movie relates more to the daily life of the audience a lot more than the typical movie that comes out because it blatantly addresses issues that we try and avoid today and he puts it out in the open and leaves us to decide what to do with it.

I actually like the cinematography of this movie. I like the colors used in the movie. There was a lot of soft lighting used whenever they were inside which made the rooms have this jazzy soft sultry feeling to it. The cinematographer used a lot of orange and a lot of the scenes had beige like gold tint to it which was really cool. We could tell when the sun came up and when the sun came down because it would get really orangish. The camera angles were pretty cool too but I will talk about that in my next blog so don’t worry, just stay tuned.

Job well done, Willis old boy! analysis on the godfather

Let us talk more about the movie, The Godfather. In the last blog I wrote, I gave general praises on the overall coolness of the movie, but this time let us look into the movie in a more detailed fashion. I will talk about the colors and lighting as well as some themes I thought about.

Let us look at one of the biggest concepts of cinematography that actually made the movie what it is today; the use of color and shadow. The cinematographer responsible, Gordon Willis, would get nothing less than a hug from me if I ever met him. From one of my inside sources, I hear that he originally used the overhead lighting in the beginning of the scene for Brando’s make up but saw something that could be worked with, thus continuing this effect throughout the whole movie. Good now that we are on the topic of the beginning, let us concentrate on the first twenty minutes of the movie so I can give you my examples of excellent cinematography. Come and take a visual walk with me.

When we think of criminal underworld what do we think of? We think of some bad deed happening in the shelter of darkness. We see crimes going on at night time. In conclusion there is general darkness to it, whether literally or psychologically. See how the movie starts. The beginning shots set the whole tone for the movie and we see this dark tone in the film. We can only see a person’s face as the camera slowly moves towards him. The light is above him so there are shadows under his eyes magnifying the hatred in his voice and we don’t even know who he is talking to. We have a setting of darkness and mystery already. Pretty sweet huh.

One theme that ties with this opening scene is the inside view of the family vs. the outside view. We constantly see two sides of the family but incorporated into one. We see the normal jovial side of the family and then we see the darkness business side of the family. We see them separately in some scenes and interwoven in others. The beginning of the movie is a perfect example because we see this bright busy wedding and then we see the business going on inside where it is dark and quiet. We see this theme of light transitioning to dark and large transitioning to small.

Another thought this brings is the concept of props used in the movies which ties directly with the theme I just expressed as well as the use of light and darkness. I would like to say the doors and windows serve as symbols in this movie and again I will use the first couple of scenes to illustrate this. We constantly see Don Corleone looking out of the window. We constantly see the door open and close as well. When the door opens we see people bustling and laughing and having fun, basically the concepts that make a family and accompanied with this is the happy jovial music but when the door closes all this vanishes. The doors and windows are the barriers that separate the blood relations family from the crime family. What I mean by this is that the business dealt in both sides are family business but in different aspects. One is happiness and connection and the other is crime, corruption and death. The doors and windows are used to physically show us the difference between these two.


Go and take a deep breath…go and stretch for five minutes and then come back. Don’t worry I am nearly done.

Ok back to my analysis. The cinematography is also used to help generate moods and feelings from the viewers as well as to have a psychological effect on us. Let us go to the hospital scene where Michael goes to visit his father after an attempt on his life had taken place and he was rushed to the hospital with five bullets in him (what a champion). When Michael gets out of the taxi, we already get a bad tingling in our bones because we feel that something isn’t right from the way the dark gothic hospital looms over him.

As he walks down the hallways our hearts are starting to get restless due to the empty hallways portrayed perfectly by the extreme long shots. All the while the tension inducing “something’s going to happen soon/horror music” isn’t helping with the beating heart situation either. He notices little things that say people left in haste like a half eaten sandwich and when he starts running the music quickens, making our hearts beat faster. When they move his father and we hear someone coming up the stairs, it’s the slow but volume increasing footsteps that make us even tenser. Do you see what I mean by the cinematography helps with the generation of certain moods? Ok good.

One of the scenes I really like is how they spend time to show Sicily culturally using cinematography. I really like movies that show the setting in detail so that we can get an aspect of what a setting is all about. When we first come to Sicily, we get this wide shot of a hilly countryside with houses sitting so finely on the hill. It is a bright sunny day and birds are singing. We are moved from this modern life to a life of simplicity. People are dressed as peasants with the traditional clothing. We see wide and long angle shots ranging from a whole landscape to simple streets. We have nice music playing in the background. I love Sicily and the portrayal of it just made me smile during this part of the movie.

Overall my comment is that the lighting which consisted of minimal lighting and under-exposure and also had a lot of yellow-red in it made the movie what it is and the quality gave it a kind of antiquity to it if you will. This also goes towards the themes and symbols from the movies. These symbols and themes make the movie what it is and hopefully one day when a movie about my life is made, cinematographer will use a creative style like the one used in The Godfather….well a bit brighter though.

I got the picture from http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/gallery/features/3170/take-five-with-gordon-willis.html

i have an offer you cant refuse...read this

I just watched The Godfather and I don’t think I’ve watched so great a movie in a while (apart from the diving bell and butterfly of course.)We can see why this movie is one of the most looked to, parodied, quoted and imitated movies of all time. The acting was superb and the movie just brought this air of antiquity that other movies don’t even come close to. The script, music, the cast and the directing as well as cinematography just brings the excellence to the movie that a lot of movies will never come near. The range of the actors was amazing and it just showed how everyone in the mafia had their own characteristics. Some hotheaded like “sonny,” some calm like Don, some struggling even though they try like Fredo and some changing like Michael.

I think what really appealed to me the most was the portrayal of culture. The culture of the Italians was portrayed perfectly. Everything was concerned with family. It wasn’t just a business, it was the family business. The movie just brings out the everyday lifestyle of the mafia, showing that it was hard work and not just killing spree after killing spree. There are so many rich scenes full of culture in the movie. We see how the Italians live in America vs. Sicily and the similarities and differences in both contexts. We are introduced to family customs and values and we see the relationships between father and sons. Notice how they said the mafia consisted of five “families” and not business owners.

The movie also brings morality to something as heartless as syndicate crime. The don’s ethics brought a nod of agreement to a lot of heads from the audiences and I believe that is another reason that Don Corleone had to be one of the greatest fictional characters of all time. The sense of family love and protection was just as great as the other crimes committed. It was strictly business and the family matters were different. It just brought a sense of love and protection and that the family always comes first. I also liked how they put an outsider like Kay to see her point of view to show how outsiders had no clue or were in the mist about the business of the family.

One thing I thought about was just the commonness of death that was portrayed. People would just die left and right and it was just life. They portray a lot of deaths from the family as something that was unwanted but not unexpected because I feel other family members would be more devastated than the way this family took it. Even the death of the Godfather was really cool because tomatoes are very important to Italians and for him to die in a patch of growing tomatoes was just the significance of how life goes on.

We can see that this is definitely Francis Coppola’s work because of the use of lighting and fixtures in this movie. The shadow cast on the face of Don Corleone just gives him a presence that we can feel, one who has great power and of course with that great responsibility( thanks Uncle Ben!) the application of shadow and light was well done bringing out the mysteriousness in all the characters. Lighting is also used to see how Michael Corleone is transformed from this schoolboy to the next Don which is amazing. With this cinematography we can feel the kind of era this movie was set in and how dark the times were but don’t worry, I will write more about the cinematography on the next one and that’s an offer you can’t refuse!

oh and p.s i got the picture from here- http://workitmom.com/bloggers/workitdad/files/2008/04/godfather.jpg