Formal Film Study

Formal Film Study

            For my formal film study I chose to do British gangster films as my topic. For this topic I chose three greats, Lock Stock by Guy Ritchie, Layer Cake by Mathhew Vaughn and Snatch by Guy Ritchie as well. I chose these films because I feel as though they represent the British gangster genre very well. Guy Ritchie known for his subtle comedy and riveting action was actually very similar to Mathhew Vaughan and I think that’s where the classic theme of a British Gangster comes into play.

             American gangster films are known for of course for violence, important and distinguished rules, a hierarchy and some sort of family and british gangster films are no exception to this tradition. However British gangsters have a bit different of a feeling when watching them in comparison to the godfather, goodfellas etc.

            Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, a Guy Ritchie film was absolutely outstanding. You have pot dealers, guns, massive british men and a lot of money involved. The plot follows three guys who just get involved with the wrong men, they end up owing big bucks to a very impatient man and the film follows them for the next week. One thing I liked about this film was the cinematography, its got almost a yellow tint to the whole film which gives it a somewhat of a vintage feel. Also one thing that stuck out was the directors film style. The camera swings a lot, there’s a lot of close ups, a lot of emotion and I feel as though the camera angles used are very personal and very realistic. Overall, Lock Stock is a must see.

            Snatch is a great film as well. It was actually Guy Ritchies follow up to Lock Stock which is rather surprising with the feel of the film. This film deals with all the same as Lock Stock, the guns, the money, the violence, but this film works around a diamond, not a load of cash. It follows a group of guys who again get mixed with the wrong crowd. The aspect of this film I most enjoyed was the humor, the cast , and the cinematography. You get a certain amount of humor in Guy Ritchie films that really fits in with this whole gangster scene very well. The cast is phenomenal, Brad Pitt, Del Toro and Jason Statham really make this a fun movie to watch. Overall, this film is worth your time.

            And lastly is Layer Cake. This film breaks away from that classic british style just a tad, however that may be just that I have become accustomed to the Guy Ritchie style. It follows Daniel Craig (who by the way is amazing). This film I find to be a little more Americanized mostly due to the film and directing style. Its more steady, consistent and precise, it doesn’t have that gritty, biting the tongue feeling that I find very enjoyable in a British film. Overall, this film showed great film style for what was put on the screen, maybe not very traditional, but definitely a film to see on a Sunday night.

            What I found to be common between British gangster films was pretty cool and definitely unique to the brits. You have a very gritty, nonchalant feel the whole movie. You get the quiet awkward moments, the rough accents, the excitement of bare knuckle fighting more so than gun fights, and a very masculine feel. Theres no hiding in British gangster films, they are go getters and they like to hit you with everything they got, some humor, some punching and a hell of a lot of F bombs. If you’ve only seen American or Italian gangster films you really need to check out British ones. Actors like Jason Statham and Marcel Iures keep the action, the cuss words and the style flowing. 

Group Projct: Create A Movie CRASH

The movie that my group created is called Crash starring John Travolta as Nick Redkin, Pam Grier as Janice Templeton and Robert De Niro as Ted Gretch. We had Steven Spielberg as our director and Universal Studios as our studio being that Spielberg had already worked a lot with them.

            Crash is about a racecar driver (Travolta) who is the best racecar driver in the world. He’s got the fame, he’s got the girls, and he’s got all the money in the world. The problem is that he just is a bit of a jerk, he has no morals, no respect and it is really hurting his could be prosperous life. Redkin gets in a severe crash and he is carried off in a stretcher. When he awakes in the hospital a beautiful Pam Grier is his nurse. He instantly falls for her and throughout the film gets to know just who she is. When released from the hospital he notices faint scratches, inconsistencies in his world, but he simply blames it on his head injury. Whilst falling in love with Grier, Robert Deniro as Ted Gretch comes into the picture. Deniro plays Redkins best friend who is teaching Nick how to get rid of his anger, and his judgment. Deniro plays almost a guardian angel in this film and helps him be the person that his love Janice really wants to be with. The day before the couple’s marriage Nick passes out and wakes up in heaven where he realizes he was dead after the crash, he never even made it to the hospital. Deniro redeems himself as a guardian angel and gives Nick a second shot on earth with his newfound morals and strengths. When he awakes in the same hospital bed with the same nurse he reaches for her and kisses her. Deniro gives a wink in the background and fades away. The end shows a ring being put on a finger at a wedding.

            We went with R rating for this because there is going to be blood, there is going to be violence and language, and there is going to be nudity. Our focus was cinematography and for that we chose Robert Surtees. We thought he would be a good fit because he filmed the movie The Sting and the sting and Crash have similar surprise endings so we needed someone who knew how to work the camera, and give a great surprise ending like he knows how to do so well.

            These actors were carefully picked as well. Travolta was young, handsome and cocky, perfect for the role. He had been mostly a TV actor before this so this was his big break. Grier was black, beautiful and a talented actress. She had been in several films before this such as Foxy Brown, and Black Mama, White Mama. We chose Robert De Niro because he is a very experienced actor up until this point having being in The Godfather II, Bloody Mama, and Hi Mom! If I were doing this movie as a solo project I would have made it a little more masculine, thrown in some fight scenes, some more blood and maybe a little more gruesome of a struggle for their love.

MYST

Marley

            This documentary is astounding. It follows the life of the great Bob Marley. What i loved about this film was the integration of live clips, interviews and actual film so smoothly. The editing was really a strong point of this film. You have obviously a great story to work with and they did everything they could with it. Marley changed the world with his music and this film will keep his legacy alive.

            The live performances in the film were my favorite part. To see Marleys emotions not through an actor is really amazing, the way he sings and dances and speaks can not be replicated by an actor. The film starts with Marley as a child in his homeland of Jamaica, Trenchtown. It was extremely poor, extremely beautiful and Marley was one of a kind. He wasnt liked and he was very different than many of the other children there. He always had great words to be spoken says his grandmother, and he always had a passion for his music.

            I feel as though Kevin Macdonald (director) did most astonishingly with his style. I have never really seen anything like this film for many reasons. He so smoothly integrated Marleys voice just speaking, into live concerts into his relatives and children speaking of him. The best part was having the stories told by the people who actually spent the most time with him. Hearing stories from his daughters and sons, his band mates and his best friends gave you a very realistic idea of Marleys life, the man who changed music. I give this 4.5 out of 5 stars, absolutely fascinating and captivating, you need to see this.

1935 Trading Bases

1935 Trading Bases

            Our film tells the story of a newly engaged couple. They are ecstatic about their plans to be together for the rest of their lives but the next day the husband and main character played by Tyrone Power gets his draft papers for WW1. Devastated, the couple has to postpone their wedding but after time in the war he cant stand being apart from his wife anymore. He fakes his death in order to return home and see his wife, Janet Gaynor. The twist Is that Gaynors character is also love struck and in an attempt to go see her fiancée she fakes being a boy to go see Tyrone. The movie tells the tale of their struggle to find each others love once again in the midst of a great war. We thought this war film would be appropriate because we would show very mild battles with mild blood and mild sexual scenes. Our main aspect of the movie is the couples struggle to find each other love. 

            We chose 20^th Century Fox for our label because they have a lot of money to put out and a wide selection of contract actors that fit our selection well. Also, other labels have come out with war films but this would be 20ths first. 20^th was the perfect choice to make a large scale blockbuster that we were looking for. We chose Tyrone Power as our main actor mainly because of his age and classy style. He was in his early twenties when the movie came out which is essentially the age in which you would get drafted, also a contracted Fox actor, he was an easy choice. Janet Gaynor was our choice for the main actress because of her age, her look and her great contract with 20^th Century Fox. Lastly, as our main supporting actor we have Raymond Griffith, an elder man who plays the squad colonel or leader. He was a defined, hardened looking man perfect for the role. We chose John Ford for director because of his future success in War Films. His contract with 20^th Century made him an obvious choice. Our cinematographer, James Howe, was hard to choose. He specialized in deep focus shots which are vital for battlefield scenes. He could capture a detailed focus with outstanding camera angles and entertain with his camera smarts. If we could do this project again I definitely would have done two things different: 1. I would have spent time in class more wisely, we spent a lot of time chatting and putting off certain tasks which really did not help our ease of work on the last day. Secondly I would have made a definitive ending to our plotline so that I wasn’t guessing what to say about the ending to the class.

MYST 3 7 Psychopaths

MYST 3

Seven Psychopaths

            This film is very interesting. While you want to love it because of the great casting of Walken and Harrelson, you get to the end of the movie and you realize, that was a waste of 110 minutes. If I had to give this movie a ranking I would give it a 55/100 and the only reason it is that high is because of two things. One scene with Sam Rockwell on Peyote and the other being just overall a love of Christopher Walken and his awesome voice.

            Basically the movie follows a man (Colin Farrel) who is writing a script for a movie of a bunch of psychopaths, hence the name. It then goes on to tell the story of each of the characters that he writes for his script, several of them being main characters in the film. The other main aspect of the movie is that Farrels best friend is a dog thief who stole one of the psychopaths in Farrels scripts Shih Tzu, and lets say the owner is not happy. Let me just say, why should we care about a film that revolves around a crazy man that lost his dog? The film jumps into a world of different scenarios and what director Martin McDonagh sought to be exciting events that for me did absolutely nothing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOsd5d8IVoA

 

            One thing McDonagh did great though was setting, casting and just the overall feel of the film style. The camera was smooth, made you feel like it was a high budget, hard worked on film with some great actors and great plot setting. If you like to watch a film just for overall satisfaction and don’t really care if you get much from it in the end, then this film may actually suit your fancy. But for me I like a twist, a captivating entity in a film and for me this film just did not deliver that. 

MYST 3 Lords of Dogtown

Chris Chenery

MYST #2

Lords of Dogtown

            This is a great film, if I had to rank it I would give it a 82/100. The film takes the story of the oldschool Zephyr Skate Team that basically revolutionized the skateboarding world. It started in the late 60’s, early 70’s and it follows the tale of a bunch of surf bums who start to shred the concrete waves when the surf is dry. Emile Hirsch and Heath Ledger star in this film and they are nothing beneath perfection in their roles.

           

The main aspect of this film that I enjoyed was the storyline and the casting selection especially of Emile and Ledger. Kalver got to the point perfectly of the story of the Z Boys and each individuals rise to fame. You see Ledger, the boys initial manager that got them started in the skate industry fall into a downward slope of anger and drinking. You se Hirsches character Jay Adams turn from the fun loving punk to the hardcore thug that he currently is. The plotline is super believable and in my opinion captures the story of the skaters very realistically to what I have read on them as well.

http://www.youtube.com/

The filming was overall done very well. One thing however that I was not a fan of was the ending. It was just a bit abrupt. You have all the boys reunited skating and then it cuts  the scene and rolls the credits. It was just a bit disappointing because the whole film you have a great warm intensely exciting feeling with the rush of the skating and surfing and partying. But then you have the movie almost spiral downhill for the last twenty minutes leaving you with an okay feeling about the movie instead of the great prior feeling you have during the first 7/8s. 

Formal Film Study: WAR

Chris Chenery

Formal Film Studies

October 13, 2012

War (Ancient to Modern)

(large focus on soundtracks)

            For my formal film study I chose to research the topic of war film. While it is a rather broad topic I wanted to see a couple different aspects/styles of war. I chose to compare a contrast a modern war film, a tribal war film and lastly an ancient war film. For these topics I chose Jarhead (Sam Mendes 2005), Troy (Wolfgang Petersen 2004) and the Last of the Mohicans (Michael Mann 1992). All of these films really captured my attention, watching them in a row was a great way to get a true understanding of the way the films differentiate. Of course the settings and the wardrobe changes drastically, but what I found to be most fun especially with Last of the Mohicans was the soundtracks and also in the case of Jarhead, lack of a soundtrack.

           

So, a quick overview of the films seems to be necessary if you haven’t seen these. Jarhead starring Jake Gyllenhaal is a modern day Marine film set in the Gulf War in the Middle Eastern deserts. The film captures how war can slowly take you away from the reality you knew your whole life and in a matter of months actually drive you near the brink of insanity. Troy is about the story of Achilles and his men attacking the great city of Troy. I found this movie very fun to watch, Brad Pitt starred as Achilles in this captivating sword and shield war film. Lastly, Last of the Mohicans starring Daniel Day-Lewis is a Colonial America war film about a daying tribe of Mohicans fighting Britain during the French and Indian War. While all of these films were captivating, entertaining and well filmed they all had massive differences yet many similarities.

           

Lets start with Jarhead. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1152567-jarhead/It’s a strange movie in the fact that there is a lack of a soundtrack, a lack of blood and an overall lack of intensity, yet somehow it captures your attention. How does it do this, in my opinion its the composition, the editing and the natural suspense that the lack of a soundtrack leaves you with. You get scenes of vast open deserts and you realize how isolated these soldiers really are, you see them carrying liquor in gas tanks to a party with some of the only real noticeable music in the whole film, and you slowly see the team being driven insane from all of this. I feel as though the lack of sound really put you into that feeling of isolation a lot more than if there had been trumpets and drums in repetition in the background. One scene in particular of Gyllenhaal and his teammate walking through the dark desert with burning oil wells spewing 300 foot tall flames up in the sky is a great representation of the vastness and the isolation they are placed in. Even in the midst of the spewing of flames, all you hear is a slight fuzz in the background.             

On the contrast, Last of the Mohicans had a fantastic plot line, was filmed amazingly and had one of the best soundtracks i’ve ever heard in a film. Trevor Jones took his genious of full orchestras and turned Last of the Mohicans into a masterpiece soundtrack. I feel that the reason this film can dive so deeply into the soundtrack and still maintain the war atmosphere is that it is much more epic than Jarhead. In LOTM (Last of the Mohicans) you get intense drum patterns that drive the running and fighting scenes. The main song “Promentory” has intense violins and a full orchestra behind driving a chase scene that is almost unforgettable. I feel as though when a movies soundtrack can give you the chills you know that something fantastic has happened. It’s hard to get into multiple aspects of a film, especially a war film if you know what im saying. Usually a war film has either intense fighting or an intense plot etc. But LOTM was able to capture this amazing story of a Mohican native Indian man and his people fighting an entire country and put one of the best soundtracks behind only to enhance the film even further. Troy shares many similarities to LOTM.

Troy was great for a lot of different reasons. Petersen took the great legend of Achilles and really portrayed him as you always imagined him to be, intense, attractive, God-like. Brad Pitt takes this role to a whole new level and while it may not have the greatest cinematography or even the greatest storyline it somehow captures your attention for over two and a half hours and makes you just want more. The fighting in this film is great, you have horses, swords and shields, arrows and spears, all the things that make an ancient war movie epic. Again what drives this movie though is the soundtrack, unlike Jarhead and much like LOTM. Riding into battle you have a full orchestra with violins, percussion etc. leading you into the battle personally. I think that the main difference between Troy and LOTM soundtrack wise is the overall epicness. Troy provides you with a fulfilling soundtrack of what you would expect to hear as you go into war. However, just because it is general does not mean it is not great. Sometimes, especially in complicated, long films, a soundtrack needs to just get you to feel what you need to feel as simply as they can get it on the track, and id say they did a pretty good job. But LOTM really took it to the next level providing you with a soundtrack as interesting and unique as the film itself.

As far as comparing the films on a war film basis, I would say that Troy and LOTM are up for taking it far over Jarhead. I was a little disappointed with the lack of a true war story behind Jarhead. I feel as though it captured the mental aspect of war fantastically, but really just left you hanging on the action part. The most you get is Gyllenhaal almost taking out someone with a sniper and then a commander coming in and blowing up the building instead. And thats great, for a small 30 second scene in a war film, but if that is the extent in which you dive into fighting in a war film then maybe im going to watch a different war film next time. Troy and its swords and shields, and LOTM with its hand held weapons and axes and arrows really captured my liking and entertained me each for over two hours. What i loved about LOTM fighting was the close quarters fighting scenes. You had native indians with painted skin running up to  Red Coat British soldiers and beating them with native weapons and clubs. On the contrary, you then have large fight scenes in the woods and on a island with gun fire, canons etc. But then we come to Troy, with all of its fighting glory. The whole film bases around Achilles amazing fighting abilities, he takes on people by himself and with hundreds even thousands behind him in some scenes. If you are looking for a war film to capture your fighting attention and you want to see people anguish, bleed and fight to the death, Troy is the war film for you. 

MYST 1 "Drive" 2011

Chris Chenery MYST “Drive”

                This was a very interesting film. Ryan Gosling plays a unique role in the fact that he says very few words throughout the film, yet he attains a relationship with a married woman and turns into one of the most violent men I’ve seen in a film in quite some time. Camera wise this was a great film, captures many angles and many styles and one thing I noticed that I absolutely loved was composition in this film. While it was relatively simple, the composition in most of the scenes was fantastic, it held a solid foreground and background but the most important thing was the placement of the main characters in each scene. It was very easy to follow who you should be focusing on yet was rather spontaneous at the same time. Also, great cast, you have Ron Perlman from SOA, Albert Brooks and Bryan Cranston all very well known and respected actors and of course Gosling.

                What I liked about the movie definitely overpowers what I did not. I found the slow increase in violence to be very appealing, I was not looking for a movie such as “Taken” where Gosling takes down a whole gang of thousands. Throughout the film the violence increases, in the intro you have Gosling as the getaway car driver, interesting and exciting but very mellow in the scheme of the rest of the film. Until the bar scene where Gosling swears out and threatens to kill a man who brings up a past heist Gosling really isn’t all that intimidating but the latter half of the movie shows Goslings greatness in this role. He becomes hardcore for lack of a better word, when I finished that film I said to myself “I want to be  as hardcore as that guy.”

                What I didn’t like about the film is short but definitely worth criticizing. Goslings fake smile in place of narrative was very gutsy and in my opinion very strange. I didn’t feel like he was a real person for a lot of the film, it was as if he was so cool it wasn’t even believable. Also, I was not a fan of the stomping of the mans head in the elevator. Gosling stomps a mans head to splatter in front of the girl he loves and for what? The guy was dead and there was no need for that, but I must say it was pretty cool. Lastly, the relationship between him and his girl never was more than a smile, I would have loved to see a happy ending, and I am sure everyone else viewing this was hoping for the same.

Review of the Reviews

 http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1886825,00.html
  http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/item_uW9Ffj7Anjua7p1Rnj4s1O;jsessionid=0DE12D00615B76D87F6B4647584141B7

These reviews were so vastly different that I don’t understand how they could be writing about the same movie. While Kyle Smith of the New York Post rips on the raunchy comedy, Richard Corliss of Time Magazine applauses its humor and actor choices. Both of these critics set up a basic summary of the film but the tones are very polar. Corliss focuses on the choice of Paul Rudd for the lead of this film and he is somewhat praising the decision. He said he “wondered why Apatow (director of previous films like I Love You Man) ha[d]n’t promoted the actor to star status” when clearly he was a solid choice. He had watched Segal, and Jonah Hill rise to the top while Rudd continued to get secondary roles. And the answer was that this film was the perfect choice to fulfill Rudd’s unique persona. Smith on the other hand could not disagree any more. He notes that the film was too “cliché” and that is “not the way to do it.”

Right off the bat Smith compares this film to a Apatow film in the same way that Brett Favre looked like a quarterback in a Jets uniform. Smith clearly has beef with the stereotypical bromance film that John Hamburg (director) had created. What really struck me as a low blow from Smith was when he says “We get dirty jokes that aren’t funny, and clean jokes that aren’t funny… etc. What we don’t get, ever, is a reason to care.” Unlike Corliss of Time Magazine, I think Smith just does not possess a knack for subtle comedies such as I Love You Man.

Corliss focused for a bit on why Paul Rudd had not become a star yet. I loved that he said “ Apatow recognized this [star] quality in Rudd, and didn’t know how to build a movie around it. I would have to agree with this because I also believe Rudd was perfectly casted for this role. He holds a certain kind of charm in the viewers eyes and a perfect genre for him is hard to come by I feel. On the other side of the spectrum, Smith stated that Segel is “ too mello, too much the punching bag he played in forgetting sarah marshall.” Smith is spot on with this, because in all honesty Segels character is far too stereotypical. Which brings up that maybe Smith was right by knocking on this movie for the stereotypical film he said it was.

These reviews both do a good job of portraying the film from both aspects of good and bad, but in all honesty I think Smith’s negative path of this movie would hit me harder had I not seen the film. He says “ what we don’t ever get, is a reason to care.” That is a very critical quote and had I not seen the film I don’t know if I would want to waste my time watching it after hearing that. He hits every aspect of the bad of this film and I feel as though it hits a lot harder than just hearing how clever and funny it was from Corliss.

Had I been writing my own review of this film I would definitely touch on the good and the bad because I Love You Man definitely has both. I would lay out the plot in a positive manner and then dig into the fact that Jason Segels character is a stereotypical moron, you can guess the end of this movie within the first five minutes, and you definitely will not come out with a higher meaning than a couple laughs here and there. But I would also touch on the fact that while you may not be laughing and falling off your seat, these two idiots work perfectly together and provide you with 90 minutes of solid chuckles. 

Intro to Film Survey
1.Goodfellas. The way Scorsese captures the emotions felt in the film and just the way the story line folds in general made me just absolutely love the film. His rise to power and his downfall were captured perfectly.
2.Action adventure/ gangster crime/ war
3.Musical/ old sci- fi/ dark
4.Goodfellas/ The Usual Suspects/ Fight Club/ Lock Stock/ The Matrix
5. a. Story line captivates me for whole film
    b. I find myself wanting to get into the director after the film
    c. very good acting
6.The amazing spiderman
7.Noticeable bad acting/ actors that don't fit character/ corny lines
8.Scorsese/ Snyder/ Nolan/ Fincher
9.Robert De Niro/ Depp/ Pacino/ Jim Carrey/ Tom Hardy (recently)
10.The Usual Suspects/ Pulp Fiction/ Goodfellas
11.Citizen Kane/ Memento/ Schindlers List
12.Dr. Strangelove
13.Warrior
14.Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind/ Reservoir Dogs/ Thor/ Se7en/ The Shining