I know that Mr. Bennett has stated and I have been told by many other sources that you have to judge a movie and a book seperately, because they are two seperate entities and should not be compared. However, when watching Angels and Demons recently, I could just not do this.
Because of Julia's post on the film, I figured it wasn't great, but not only was it not great, I found it annoying and I found myself distracted because I knew what was going to happen and I felt no sense of urgency or suspense despite what the characters were trying to portray.
I usually try to judge the movie and book seperately because it is not possible to make a 700 page book into a movie that isn't 8 hours long and get all the essential elements of the book. But personally, they left out the greatest part of the book, out of the entire movie, something that shocked me, because it was really the point of the book. How it was left out still dumbfounds me? (Unless of course, my memory fails me)
So in the end, I will say that if you read the book, don't bother seeing the movie, it will only dilute your thoughts. Just a couple of days after seeing the movie, I can barely remember it and instead am relying upon the memories of the book. So, I will be honest, I failed in trying to objectively judge this movie, so people that have not read the book may very much enjoy it, in fact, I have heard several people who liked the movie, and others who did not but I will say, that the movie fell flat.
I barely recommend it and that is only because I hope that Dan Brown, the author, will make money off of it and if it makes a bigger profit, he will make more money. But the movie just didn't work, and I liked the DaVinci Code, so maybe it is just a skewed view on my part, because in that instance I believe that I saw the movie first. So maybe if I had seen the movie before reading it I would have liked it more. I don't know.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Some Videos
A few weeks ago, Shiran posted a Family Guy clip about film noir. Here are a couple more clips that people might enjoy, about different movies that people may know or love. I apologize that the first one isn't better quality but you can blame the FCC for Copyright Laws on that one.
Hopefully they work. If they don't let me know, and I will try to do them over again.
Hopefully they work. If they don't let me know, and I will try to do them over again.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
I Have Changed My Mind
So we finished watching A Simple Plan today, and yesterday I made a post criticizing some of the film. But I must admit that in part, I was wrong. This movie is still not my favorite of the year but I will go from degrading it to praising it, to a point.
The most powerful scene in the movie is undoubtedly to me when Hank and Jacob are talking after the fake FBI Agent and Carl were killed. Hank is still trying to figure out a plan, a simple plan, that will get them in the clear for good (again) but Jacob tells him that he is done trying to do this, it's not worth it, he won't be able to sleep at night with all these burdens upon his head.
Hank's response may sum up the movie, he says, "This is what happiness costs!"
Now, I don't know if anyone is able to think back to one of the first scenes of the movie, and I apologize if I'm being redundant from someone's else post, but it is a voiceover by Hank about all that it takes to be happy, Hank said that according to his father, "It was just a few simple things, for example, a family, a good job, friends and neighbors who like and respect you." (I am paraphrasing because I was unable to write down all of the things he said in the speech, as he was talking too fast.)
But just think about the irony of that. At the beginning of the movie, all it took to be happy was a family, which Hank had, a good job, Hank didn't have a great job but he could survive and be happy, and finally "friends and neighbors who like and respect him," he certainly had all of those things and in the end all of his friends and neighbors end up dead, killed, gone, and his life becomes an empty and void nightmare.
Hank had all he needed to be happy and together with his wife, they destroyed it all, and the life they once enjoyed would never be the same. This may be going to far with the film but I don't think Hank and Sarah will stay married.
His father was right when he talked about the simple things that made you happy, and maybe Hank was just a victim but he let the web get so expanded, that it destroyed everything in its path. The final image of the film can show the dark abyss of all the friends he lost and I felt that in the past, that may have been where Jacob sat sometimes and that Hank was coming to the realization that Jacob was never coming back.
But back to my original point, why I have rescinded some of my criticism of the movie. I still have the same problems about his wife knowing everything, the FBI, and the Lou's wife getting blown away so ridiclously, but I felt that the movie tied together well and the way that happiness was referenced at the beginning and end so subtlety and I felt it tied together the movie of how everyone changed from beginning and end and the destruction that was left in its wake.
The movie also became more and more relatable and I felt like I could be as helpless and confused, and trying to grasp on to all of life, like Hank. But the movie certainly portrayed realism very well and despite all the horrible things the characters had done, I still sympathized with all of them and felt bad for them and the events they were thrown into.
Finally, I guarantee if Hank had never found the money, Sarah would never had realized that she was upset and that she was probably perfectly happy living how she did. But once she realized that she could have more, her vices took over and she became greedy and sought bigger and better things and felt like she needed and deserved the money.
On the year, this movie, like Sanbeg alluded to, will end up in the middle of the pack.
The most powerful scene in the movie is undoubtedly to me when Hank and Jacob are talking after the fake FBI Agent and Carl were killed. Hank is still trying to figure out a plan, a simple plan, that will get them in the clear for good (again) but Jacob tells him that he is done trying to do this, it's not worth it, he won't be able to sleep at night with all these burdens upon his head.
Hank's response may sum up the movie, he says, "This is what happiness costs!"
Now, I don't know if anyone is able to think back to one of the first scenes of the movie, and I apologize if I'm being redundant from someone's else post, but it is a voiceover by Hank about all that it takes to be happy, Hank said that according to his father, "It was just a few simple things, for example, a family, a good job, friends and neighbors who like and respect you." (I am paraphrasing because I was unable to write down all of the things he said in the speech, as he was talking too fast.)
But just think about the irony of that. At the beginning of the movie, all it took to be happy was a family, which Hank had, a good job, Hank didn't have a great job but he could survive and be happy, and finally "friends and neighbors who like and respect him," he certainly had all of those things and in the end all of his friends and neighbors end up dead, killed, gone, and his life becomes an empty and void nightmare.
Hank had all he needed to be happy and together with his wife, they destroyed it all, and the life they once enjoyed would never be the same. This may be going to far with the film but I don't think Hank and Sarah will stay married.
His father was right when he talked about the simple things that made you happy, and maybe Hank was just a victim but he let the web get so expanded, that it destroyed everything in its path. The final image of the film can show the dark abyss of all the friends he lost and I felt that in the past, that may have been where Jacob sat sometimes and that Hank was coming to the realization that Jacob was never coming back.
But back to my original point, why I have rescinded some of my criticism of the movie. I still have the same problems about his wife knowing everything, the FBI, and the Lou's wife getting blown away so ridiclously, but I felt that the movie tied together well and the way that happiness was referenced at the beginning and end so subtlety and I felt it tied together the movie of how everyone changed from beginning and end and the destruction that was left in its wake.
The movie also became more and more relatable and I felt like I could be as helpless and confused, and trying to grasp on to all of life, like Hank. But the movie certainly portrayed realism very well and despite all the horrible things the characters had done, I still sympathized with all of them and felt bad for them and the events they were thrown into.
Finally, I guarantee if Hank had never found the money, Sarah would never had realized that she was upset and that she was probably perfectly happy living how she did. But once she realized that she could have more, her vices took over and she became greedy and sought bigger and better things and felt like she needed and deserved the money.
On the year, this movie, like Sanbeg alluded to, will end up in the middle of the pack.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
A Simple Plan and Various
So, I haven't posted in a while mainly because I was at my brother's graduation since Saturday and I didn't really have the time or ability to post. However, another reason I haven't blogged in a few days is that I really don't feel like I have much to say.
To start, Memento was a great film and had a brilliant twist ending which I must admit completely shocked me, but much like Mr. Bennett said during our "Great Discussion," I just wanted to move on to the next film because I had nothing to really say about it. Beyond a great storyline and twist, and of course the chronlogy, I didn't see much about styling or things like that, which truly impressed me in the film. I'm not sure, but I just didn't get the right feeling from the movie and just felt something was lacking, but that's probably just me.
Maybe it was because Dark City impressed me so much and made me think so deeply, but I just felt like Memento was going for the same message and missed it, and just relied on the storyline but really didn't have any deeper meaning to it. Also, when watching Dark City, I felt like John Murdoch was the every man, trying to figure out what was going on, and just acting like a regular guy who really cannot remember anything. He is going through the same search as us because we are just as confused.
Then, in Memento, I just felt like Leonard Shelby's story was his own, it was a unique story that no one else was going through, so it was a much narrower perspective. In Memento, it was one man's search for revenge of something that didn't even happen. In Dark City, it was one man's quest to discover what has happened to the planet Earth as a whole. It just struck me better and maybe I'm the crazy one.
Now on to A Simple Plan. After class yesterday, I had a short discussion with Mr. Bennett on some of the issues I had with the film, most specifically I wasn't quite sure how Hank's wife was able to figure out every twist and turn in the path and predict everything ahead of time. I felt it was a weak point, but he countered that it was strong because even when a person knows exactly what is going to happen in a situation like this, they still can't stop it, hence the ironic title A Simple Plan, when no plan is truly simple.
My main point to him was that I felt it was unrealistic that she could have known that the FBI Agent could have been false without even knowing about him and just assuming that it was the guy based on a picture where the two looked nothing alike. Also, maybe I'm naive but I really doubt that the FBI would either a) give away information that simply about the names of their agents or b) she would be able to speak to someone from the FBI and even know how to contact them that easily, I mean honestly, it takes 6 months to get a passport but 15 minutes to find out the name of an agent and then to say with complete certainty that it is the guy.
Now, personally when I first saw the FBI agent I did think that he was crooked and knew too much and therefore was a con artist just looking for the money so maybe it was not a difficult thing to figure out if people were able to see it coming, but some of the events in this movie just strike me the wrong way.
I missed the 2nd day of watching the movie, which was Monday so maybe I missed some key points that makes these things rational.
Finally, my last point, I know how we all enjoyed when the Lou's wife got blown apart by Hank and launched into the window, but that point, although hilarious (and she probably deserved it), greatly annoyed me because if a movie is going to take itself seriously, handle the killing of people like you handled the killing of Lou and the guy and the guy on the snowmobile, with class and realism, not with her being blown into a window and looking like a blow-up doll, which it was. It angered me at the stupidity of that murder and how the cut between the two shots of her being launched into the window and then laying on the ground, the continuity was absolutely terrible.
If it was done for laughs, that is a different story.
I still need to catch up on the 2nd day of watching but I hope it ends well because it has piqued my interest, although I feel that it is a slightly flawed movie in my eyes.
To start, Memento was a great film and had a brilliant twist ending which I must admit completely shocked me, but much like Mr. Bennett said during our "Great Discussion," I just wanted to move on to the next film because I had nothing to really say about it. Beyond a great storyline and twist, and of course the chronlogy, I didn't see much about styling or things like that, which truly impressed me in the film. I'm not sure, but I just didn't get the right feeling from the movie and just felt something was lacking, but that's probably just me.
Maybe it was because Dark City impressed me so much and made me think so deeply, but I just felt like Memento was going for the same message and missed it, and just relied on the storyline but really didn't have any deeper meaning to it. Also, when watching Dark City, I felt like John Murdoch was the every man, trying to figure out what was going on, and just acting like a regular guy who really cannot remember anything. He is going through the same search as us because we are just as confused.
Then, in Memento, I just felt like Leonard Shelby's story was his own, it was a unique story that no one else was going through, so it was a much narrower perspective. In Memento, it was one man's search for revenge of something that didn't even happen. In Dark City, it was one man's quest to discover what has happened to the planet Earth as a whole. It just struck me better and maybe I'm the crazy one.
Now on to A Simple Plan. After class yesterday, I had a short discussion with Mr. Bennett on some of the issues I had with the film, most specifically I wasn't quite sure how Hank's wife was able to figure out every twist and turn in the path and predict everything ahead of time. I felt it was a weak point, but he countered that it was strong because even when a person knows exactly what is going to happen in a situation like this, they still can't stop it, hence the ironic title A Simple Plan, when no plan is truly simple.
My main point to him was that I felt it was unrealistic that she could have known that the FBI Agent could have been false without even knowing about him and just assuming that it was the guy based on a picture where the two looked nothing alike. Also, maybe I'm naive but I really doubt that the FBI would either a) give away information that simply about the names of their agents or b) she would be able to speak to someone from the FBI and even know how to contact them that easily, I mean honestly, it takes 6 months to get a passport but 15 minutes to find out the name of an agent and then to say with complete certainty that it is the guy.
Now, personally when I first saw the FBI agent I did think that he was crooked and knew too much and therefore was a con artist just looking for the money so maybe it was not a difficult thing to figure out if people were able to see it coming, but some of the events in this movie just strike me the wrong way.
I missed the 2nd day of watching the movie, which was Monday so maybe I missed some key points that makes these things rational.
Finally, my last point, I know how we all enjoyed when the Lou's wife got blown apart by Hank and launched into the window, but that point, although hilarious (and she probably deserved it), greatly annoyed me because if a movie is going to take itself seriously, handle the killing of people like you handled the killing of Lou and the guy and the guy on the snowmobile, with class and realism, not with her being blown into a window and looking like a blow-up doll, which it was. It angered me at the stupidity of that murder and how the cut between the two shots of her being launched into the window and then laying on the ground, the continuity was absolutely terrible.
If it was done for laughs, that is a different story.
I still need to catch up on the 2nd day of watching but I hope it ends well because it has piqued my interest, although I feel that it is a slightly flawed movie in my eyes.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Production Costs of the Movies We Have Seen
Today Mr. Bennett said that he thought that Memento was probably a "pretty cheap to make," so it prompted me to look up all of the movies we have seen so far, and how they each took to make, so here is the short summary. (Don't forget about inflation of course).
(First Number is Actual Budget, Second is if every movie was released this year, Adjusted for Inflation.)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) $1,448,864 $18,515,096
Citizen Kane (1941) $686,033 $9,926,764
Midnight Cowboy (1969) $3,600,000 $20,914,296
Runaway Train (1985) ???
The Seventh Seal (1957) $150,000 $1,134,695
Signs (2002) $72,000,000 $85,712,048
Top Hat (1935) $609,000 $9,458,401
Unforgiven (1992) ???
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) ???
Dark City (1998) $27,000,000 $35,510,581
Memento (2000) $5,000,000 $6,192,600
I am still trying to find the Budgets of Runaway Train, Unforgiven, and The Asphalt Jungle and will add them to this post or comment it when I find them. Much of this may seem irrelevant, but as a numbers guy myself, I decided to look it up, just to see how each movie stacked up.
(First Number is Actual Budget, Second is if every movie was released this year, Adjusted for Inflation.)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) $1,448,864 $18,515,096
Citizen Kane (1941) $686,033 $9,926,764
Midnight Cowboy (1969) $3,600,000 $20,914,296
Runaway Train (1985) ???
The Seventh Seal (1957) $150,000 $1,134,695
Signs (2002) $72,000,000 $85,712,048
Top Hat (1935) $609,000 $9,458,401
Unforgiven (1992) ???
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) ???
Dark City (1998) $27,000,000 $35,510,581
Memento (2000) $5,000,000 $6,192,600
I am still trying to find the Budgets of Runaway Train, Unforgiven, and The Asphalt Jungle and will add them to this post or comment it when I find them. Much of this may seem irrelevant, but as a numbers guy myself, I decided to look it up, just to see how each movie stacked up.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Memento - Day 1
So, we started Memento today, an interesting, intricately woven story that leaves the viewer in the dark the entire time and yet at the same time, completely aware of everything that has a will happen a true testament to a great film. Now, I have never seen Memento in its entirety, I only watched about 25 or 30 minutes once with my brother but then he went back to school so I never saw the end. (It was several years ago).
Before I begin my comments on the film itself, I will pull a Danny White, namely define a word that people didn't know today, and today that word is "Quorum."
A quorum is the number of members of a group or organization required to be present to transact business legally, usually a majority; a particularly chosen group.
Now, on to the more important purpose for this post. The movie Memento itself. I must admit, I am slightly confused as to where the movie is going, so if I make mistakes I apologize, but still I am quite intrigued and will try to make some intelligent comments on the film.
I will start with the most meaningful lines from the film that I have found so far:
"It's like waking. Like you just woke up." This reminded me very deeply of Dark City and the tuning and how memory is adjusted. Much of this film reminded me of Dark City, as odd as that may sound.
"Memory is unreliable, it's not perfect, it's not even that good. Memory can change the shape of a room, the color of a car, it can distort things. It is only a record." Again, much like Dark City.
Third, an anti-existentialist quote: "The action isn't just meaningless. The world doesn't disappear because you close your eyes."
"We are both survivors."
"At least you are living." "Yea for revenge."
A couple other things of note. And this first thing could just be my eyes playing tricks on me, but when Leonard (Lennie) re-enters the restaurant, I saw a sign on the door that said "Carte Blanche" which means that someone has free rein or a blank slate to do whatever they want and I thought that was an interesting phrase to have, maybe suggesting a theme of the film.
Also, when Leonard opens the Gideon Bible which he states that "he reads religiously," he opens to the page in the index the says "Help in the Time of Need" (I believe that he then opened to Ecclesiastes, but I'm not positive and I also don't know the significance of that book of the Bible but I will plan to look it up) the and this is very interesting because later on, Natalie says, "I'm helping you because you helped me."
And of course, the opening shot when the Polaroid picture fades instead of becoming more clear when it is shook. I think that this is to show that everything fades, especially memory, but I think that one is probably pretty clear.
Finally, I think I have stated all of my comments thus far but I will make one more thing known although I am sure someone has brought this up to Mr. Bennett but I just wanted to make it known that the director, Christopher Nolan, screenwriter, Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, and the D.P. (director of Photography) Wally Pfister, all worked in the same position on the Dark Knight. (A film I know Mr. Bennett loved.)
Before I begin my comments on the film itself, I will pull a Danny White, namely define a word that people didn't know today, and today that word is "Quorum."
A quorum is the number of members of a group or organization required to be present to transact business legally, usually a majority; a particularly chosen group.
Now, on to the more important purpose for this post. The movie Memento itself. I must admit, I am slightly confused as to where the movie is going, so if I make mistakes I apologize, but still I am quite intrigued and will try to make some intelligent comments on the film.
I will start with the most meaningful lines from the film that I have found so far:
"It's like waking. Like you just woke up." This reminded me very deeply of Dark City and the tuning and how memory is adjusted. Much of this film reminded me of Dark City, as odd as that may sound.
"Memory is unreliable, it's not perfect, it's not even that good. Memory can change the shape of a room, the color of a car, it can distort things. It is only a record." Again, much like Dark City.
Third, an anti-existentialist quote: "The action isn't just meaningless. The world doesn't disappear because you close your eyes."
"We are both survivors."
"At least you are living." "Yea for revenge."
A couple other things of note. And this first thing could just be my eyes playing tricks on me, but when Leonard (Lennie) re-enters the restaurant, I saw a sign on the door that said "Carte Blanche" which means that someone has free rein or a blank slate to do whatever they want and I thought that was an interesting phrase to have, maybe suggesting a theme of the film.
Also, when Leonard opens the Gideon Bible which he states that "he reads religiously," he opens to the page in the index the says "Help in the Time of Need" (I believe that he then opened to Ecclesiastes, but I'm not positive and I also don't know the significance of that book of the Bible but I will plan to look it up) the and this is very interesting because later on, Natalie says, "I'm helping you because you helped me."
And of course, the opening shot when the Polaroid picture fades instead of becoming more clear when it is shook. I think that this is to show that everything fades, especially memory, but I think that one is probably pretty clear.
Finally, I think I have stated all of my comments thus far but I will make one more thing known although I am sure someone has brought this up to Mr. Bennett but I just wanted to make it known that the director, Christopher Nolan, screenwriter, Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, and the D.P. (director of Photography) Wally Pfister, all worked in the same position on the Dark Knight. (A film I know Mr. Bennett loved.)
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Something to Think About
Well, I was just re-reading Mr. Bennett's absurdly arrogant comment that he made about his film choices compared to our classes' knowledge, in which he stated:
"Mr. Bennett, You have shown one sublime film after another. Obviously, You possess powers of discrimination far exceeding our own. And who is better able than You to reconcile the objective appreciation of truly great films with the subjective and inscrutable nature of the 17-year-old mind, twisted as it is within a tangled matrix of tightly wound springs . Is there the remotest possibility that we, in our fathomless ignorance, could possibly choose a film that is superior to one of Your choosing? We humbly thank You for offering us the opportunity to choose for ourselves. But, the choice between us choosing, and You choosing, is, frankly, no choice at all. Rather it is a strategy steeped in folly, bound to result in bitter disappointment. We defer to You. Choose a film that we've never seen and never heard of, but will leave us once again speechless, shaking our heads silently in awe at the transcendent power of art."
Now, normally I would somewhat agree with this statement because although I enjoy watching movies, I personally don't think that I am a great movie reviewer because most films I watch, I like. That could be a product of me being too kind to movies, or the fact that I don't like watching bad movies, so therefore most of them are actually good. In this way, I normally would not question Mr. Bennett's film choices because he does have the knowledge of more than 20 years of watching films critically.
But
I have just realized that we have all been manipulated and imprinted with memories of Mr. Bennett being a great film teacher and global teacher who has been doing it for more than 2 decades, and that in reality Mr. Bennett has only been a film teacher for about 4 days, maybe as long as a week, but certainly no more than that.
He has no recollection of a previous life, and has only been imprinted with these memories of knowing all of these films, even though he has only just been given this job. However, we can all recognize his personality, because instead of being just the sum total of his memories, he does have an underlying personality that remains, no matter what he is imprinted with. Now, we all have this ingrained personality, but in Mr. Bennett's case, it is a personality filled with absurd and ridiculous amount of arrogance, a sense of superiority, and of course a love of profanity.
So, to sum up my ideas (not sum up my memories) I have concluded after watching our most recent film, Dark City, I have realized that Mr. Bennett has just recently been imprinted with the memories that he is a film teacher and a global teacher, and has been the given the ideas that he has been doing this job for 20+ years and that he has watched all of our films, like All Quiet..., Citizen Kane, and Unforgiven 30 or 40 times each when, it fact he has never actually seen any of these movies.
Therefore, only his arrogance and sense of superiority makes him believed that he is more qualified to pick our next movie, even though it is quite possible that he has never seen a movie in his life. Because of this line of logic, I believe that each of us in the class are more qualified than our "Leader" Mr. Bennett to choose a film. So, I think that we are all better able to pick a good film than Mr. Bennett is, despite what he believes.
Think about that everyone....
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