MYST #4: Furious 7

Furious 7 is the newest of the Fast and Furious franchise that came out on April 3rd of this year. Now to start this post off there might be a few spoilers so if you haven't seen this PLEASE DON'T READ THIS. Now that we got that out of the way, the movie starts where Fast 6 left off. So this begins with Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) killing one of Dominic Toretto's (Vin Diesel) crew members. That's how we get this movie kicked off. For those who haven't seen Fast 6 here's the few word spoiler. Letty didn't die in Fast and Furious, she was taken to England with her memory lost due to a car accident caused by Owen Shaw's men. Owen Shaw is killed by Dom and Letty gets taken back to LA. Deckard Shaw is Owen's brother and he is looking to avenge his brothers death.       
From that comes The Rock's character Hobbs. He has been tracking this man since Owen was killed. When Hobbs first scene comes they chose to use a very long shot which is very unusual for the action filled movies these normally are. Of course it was a shot that was planned because guess who shows up in Hobbs' office in this long scene. I bet you guessed it, Deckard Shaw shows up and an action scene with a bunch of things breaking after getting shot in the background arises. After Shaw's visit with Hobbs he then calls Toretto and tells him that he sent the package on the front steps of his house and what else could it be? That's right you probably guessed a bomb and with that guess you are correct. 

This leads into Dom and Brian (Paul Walker) getting a few members of their old team back together for their last ride. From here on out it's a pretty typical Fast and Furious movie with some racing scenes then scenes of the team getting some sort of technology that oversees the world that Shaw gets his hands on. They then need to fight back at him with the different ideas that they have while driving around LA and blowing a lot of things up.

Though this movie has many different ups and downs and lots (lots) of action sequences the end of the movie is really what made the movie worth seeing. SPOILERS INCOMING. The end shows the team relaxing on the beach with Brian his wife and child playing while the others watch. As Dom starts walking away the Wiz Khalifa song See You Again starts queuing in the background and goes into a scene of Dom driving down the open road. Then he stops at the stop sign and Brian pulls up net to him and says "What you thought you could leave without saying goodbye?" then the sound cuts from the movie. See You Again still playing and Vin's voice over comes on and says this "I used to say I live my life a quarter mile at a time and I think that's why we were brothers - because you did too. No matter where you are, whether it's a quarter mile away or half way across the world. The most important thing in life will always be the people in this room, right here, right now. Salute mi familia. You'll always be with me. And you'll always be my brother." 




In my opinion this movie was very good overall I give it 5 out of 5 Ferraris.

MYST #3: The Sandlot

I was watching TV the other night and the movie was on the MLB TV channel. So I decided to flip to the channel and then I was hooked like I was 10 years old playing baseball in my front yard again. Now let me start off with saying that this movie was one of my favorite movies as a child. With that being said lets get into the movie.

The movie starts at the beginning of the summer in 1962 with the main character Scott Smalls. He just moved to Los Angeles and he doesn't have any new friends so he decided to follow a group of friends to a baseball field. So what he decides to do is ask his Step Father to teach him how to play catch. As he's learning to do so his Step Father throws the ball a little too hard at his plastic mitt and it breaks and the ball hits him in the eye.

Smalls then becomes friends with Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez. Rodriguez asks smalls if he likes baseball and he of course said yes to him. Benny takes Smalls to the drug store to buy a baseball and to meet all of his friends. Who start talking about Babe Ruth aka The Great Bambino but Smalls doesn't know who that is. Benny and the gang start naming off Babe Ruth's nicknames and Smalls says "Oh I thought you said The Great Bambi" then Hamilton Porter says "You mean that wimpy deer?"

So they continue on to the field to play ball. The gang doesn't think that Smalls is a good fit for their baseball team. Benny says that Smalls makes nine players so they're letting him play. So Benny goes up to bat and starts hitting to the fielders telling them plays that they want and Smalls is mesmerized by how well they know those plays. It gets to Smalls' turn and he completely misses the ball and he can't even throw the ball back to second base. All of his friends start laughing at him so he starts running to his bike and biking home because he is so embarrassed.

Smalls learns to play ball and they play almost everyday of the summer until one day. The day that Smalls changes the whole summer, he goes to get a baseball from home after they hit a home run over the fence of no return. When he returns with the ball from home he gets to bat and that is when it all changes, He hits a home run and with that the ball gets lost over the fence but this was no ordinary ball this was his Step Fathers signed Babe Ruth ball.

The rest of the week is spent trying to get that baseball back. Nothing works until finally the day comes that Benny was given the nickname "The Jet". He is given the nickname due to him hoping over the fence and getting the Babe Ruth ball out of the yard when the dog known as the Beast starts chasing him. Benny is the one and only person to ever out run the Beast and they go on a huge chase scene that ends up back in the yard where baseballs die. The Beast turns out to be very friendly but he just wanted to get out of the backyard more often. The movie ends with Smalls getting in trouble for taking the Babe Ruth ball and the fence getting put up again.


I give this movie 5 out of 5 baseballs:

MYST #2: The Wolf of Wall Street

The Wolf of Wall Street is not a movie for everyone. WARNING THERE WILL BE SPOILERS so if you have not seen the movie and would like to don't read this. This movie is also rated R and it is rated that for good reason because it has curse words almost every sentence as well as nudity through most of the movie also including people using tons of different drugs at will.

The movie starts with Leonardo DiCaprio throwing a short person at a target saying that he will give the first person to hit a bulls eye ten thousand dollars. From there it goes to DiCaprio speaking over different acts that he will do over the days showing off all of the drugs he does on a daily basis. It then goes into all of the different estates and things that he owns.        

From there it goes on to Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) explaining how he got his start into the stock broker business. From there it goes to his first day at the first broker company he worked at where we meet Matthew McConaughey's Character. His character is Belfort's first boss on Wall Street. From there we go into the first problem of the movie when McConaughey's broker firm falls through and closes down.

  After that it goes through Belfort trying to find a new job and he finds a new job at a penny stock firm. Which he realizes that he will make much more money scamming people into buying small amounts of expensive stocks and they then turn them onto the stocks that make them 50% of what the person pays for the stock in the random company. Though this isn't legal it is also very much frowned upon by the SEC.

When the FBI starts investigating Belfort he doesn't understand why and he hires a lawyer, and he starts asking him what his advice would be on dealing with the FBI. His lawyer advises him not to talk to the FBI at all and he doesn't listen to him. After he doesn't listen to his lawyer he invites the two FBI agents that are investigating Straton Oakmont (Belfort's Company) to his yacht.
        

From there he takes a trip to Europe but more specifically Switzerland. The reason he goes to Switzerland is for the banks to put his money in. The reason he goes to Switzerland for the banks is because they do not have the same laws as banks in the United States do so the can't seize money that was illegally made or solicited. From there the goes to the resolution of the whole movie where Belfort comes back to the States and gets himself in trouble and gets arrested for it.

Then the whole company of Straton Oakmont gets taken over and everything gets seized bye the FBI. From there Belfort needs to give the SEC information on everyone who works for Straton Oakmont and tries to deal with life in jail. He then gets put under house arrest and he is told he needs to pay back the people that he stole from and he does that by putting on clinics all around the world.      
 This is one of my favorite movies of all time.

This gets a 5 out of 5 cups of milk from me.

Formal Film Study: Mystery/Thriller Movies

                                               

  

            Thriller is a genre of literature, film, and television programming that uses suspense, tension, and excitement as its main elements. Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer's moods, giving them a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and terror. Films of this genre tend to be adrenaline-rushing, gritty, rousing and fast-paced. The directors of Mystery/Thrillers are usually very different in the way that they like to make their films differently. The sound in Thriller movies make and set the scene. The movies I saw were Se7en (1995), Inception (2010), and The Usual Suspects (1995).


Thrillers often overlap with mystery stories but are distinguished by the structure of their plots. In a thriller, the hero must stop the plans of an enemy rather than uncover a crime that has already happened. Mystery thrillers also occur on a much grander scale: the crimes that must be prevented are serial or mass murder, terrorism, assassination, or the overthrow of governments.

These three thrillers were not made during anything that would cause a spark politically.   Ancient epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer's Odyssey and the Mahābhārata use similar narrative techniques as modern thrillers. In the Odyssey, the hero Odysseus makes a perilous voyage home after the Trojan War, battling extraordinary hardships in order to be reunited with his wife Penelope. He has to contend with villains such as the Cyclops, a one-eyed giant, and the Sirens, whose sweet singing lures sailors to their doom. The Odyssey could be considered one of the first thrillers.


The overarching discovery that I noticed was sound. Sound happened to be a major part in each of these movies that I watched because the movies mood reflects heavily on sound and it wouldn't be the same experience. Depending on the the sound people get different feelings due to the way that the music is placed into the movies sound. 

A smaller find that is pretty important to thriller movies is the fact that someone has a person that gets murdered. I also found that the people that are murdered usually has some sort of personal connection to the main character. The main character is also trying to figure out what happened to that close person or they are trying to get revenge on their killer. 

Critics find that thriller movies are "Riveting in a gut-twisting way, but I, myself, would not call it "entertaining." Though critics say that they're not "entertaining" I would completely disagree. Although critics have their own opinion so do I but it can't judge how someone else would like a movie that they haven't seen.     

1935 Movie: Lawless Rider

STUDIO: 20th Century Fox. Known for socially-conscious adventure films and “hokey cheesey ‘Americana’.” Worked with Ford and Wayne.   

CAST/CREW:

Director: John Ford

A well known Director working in the 30s, made a lot of westerns, frequently worked with John Wayne and worked with Bert Glennon on Stagecoach in 1939.

Cinematographer: Bert Glennon

Received the Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Black & White) for Stagecoach in 1939

Actors: John Wayne, Alice Faye

John Wayne is a quintessential Western movie star that works with John Ford and Fox.

Faye also worked with Fox and was considered very popular and attractive.

GENRE:

Western. Audience familiarity. Escapism from the 30s. Cultural critique against banks/wealth.

The idea of the rugged individual can comfort the poor conditions of the great depression. The themes of justice are of interest to a bank-hating public.

SYNOPSIS:

The movie begins with Charles (Wayne) and a group of five rugged bandits looking upon a fairly large mansion on a grassy knoll. As conversation begins to develop, it is learned that the group is there to ransack the mansion for all it’s worth, and it appears that Charles is the ringleader for tonight. Charles explains that the rich couple that owns the house is out for the night, and won’t be back until late in the evening. After a few more gloss overs of the plan, the band separates to get in through the three different entrances, each man at an entrance carefully picking a door open. Once the men are in the building, all is well, until Charles discovers a girl cowering in her closet in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Charles quickly notices that the girl has made a phone call and assumes that it was to the police; seconds later, law enforcement has arrived, and, not yet spotted, Wayne snatches the girl and bolts out of the building, riding off into the night on horseback. It is explained that the girl’s name is Margaret, (Faye) and Charles says the intention of the kidnapping was for some sort of ransom. He explains that he’s not going home without any money. After several escape attempts by Margaret, the two are attacked by a group of bandits looking for loot. Charles ends up fighting them off, and becomes a sort of protector to Margaret, no longer seeing her as a tool for money. As the relationship between the two grows as they continue journeying, Margaret expresses her desire to live in Sacramento. Charles agrees, and after a long and arduous journey, is met with law enforcement officials who know his face. After a solitary respite in a town shop, Margaret is alerted to the sound of gunshots. As she runs outside, she finds Charles dead on the ground, having killed two officers before being gunned down. *Note: it is never made clear whether Margaret loves Charles back or not, just that the hostility fades and she’s complacent with being with him/enjoys his company. It is possible that she loves him, but that’s up to viewer speculation.

HAYS CODE:

Considering the movie follows an anti-hero turned hero, it’s fairly hard to make judgement calls on what’s appropriate and what’s not. However, our character is initially portrayed as a morally detestable person, one that audiences will struggle to support or relate with. Until the point where Charles begins his change of character, the actions prevented are frowned upon, due to the law winning in the end over the bandits.  As the relationship between Charles and Margaret develops and the audience begins to identify with Charles, his actions will have the audience rooting for good causes, like protecting someone special. However, in order to make the movie a real moral tale, Charles death informs the audience that a life of crime doesn’t just fade away, no matter how much you do to wipe it clean. Charles will always be an enemy in the eyes of the law: his actions have already defined him.

TECHNOLOGY:

Black and White film. Common for 30s Westerns. Stagecoach was black and white and was made in 1939… received award for best cinematography.

MYST #1: The Karate Kid

The movie that I ended up watching is one of my favorites, The Karate Kid. If you watched the remake of this movie that came out with Jaden Smith I am truly sorry for you. Although don't judge the older movies based on that pile of mediocrity. If you haven't seen the older movies give them a shot.

The movie starts out in New Jersey with a teenager named Daniel LaRusso and he is moving to California with his mother. He starts in a new high school and he makes friends quickly but he also makes enemies just as quick. His enemies are students of the Cobra Kai karate dojo and are very good a what they do. The main "goon" Daniel is dealing with is named Johnny. They start picking on Daniel because he has a crush on Ali, Johnny's old girlfriend. The sink in Daniel and his mothers apartment has a problem and that is when he meets the handyman Mr. Miyagi. Mr. Miyagi sees Daniel getting bullied in many different situations and offers to teach him karate as a way of self-defense.

Now with that comes a lot of training but this training is a bit unconventional. First it's waxing a car, then its painting a fence, after that building a gazebo and so on. As the training is still going on he is still getting picked on. So Mr. Miyagi goes to the Cobra Kai dojo and makes a deal with the sensi that they are not to pick on Daniel and save it for the karate tournament in a few weeks from then.      

The cinematography in this movie is much better than you would expect from an 80's movie. The style is what you would expect from a drama not as much of an action movie. The reason for that is because its mostly a drama and some what action oriented. The editing jumps around to very different areas of the movie sometimes that you don't really understand until a few minutes into the scene. The way it is edited just goes from training then to some sort of problem in Daniel's life. Although I have explained the scene in the dojo, the final fight in the tournament is in my opinion the best scene in the movie.  


This scene is what really makes the movie comes together. This is the end round of the final fight. Now people won't really understand the stance that Daniel is in while waiting for the round to start. It goes back to earlier during one of the many training scenes where they're on the beach on top of the old supports that were left from something before. They are on them practicing balance when Daniel sees Mr. Miyagi in the crane stance from a far and Daniel asks what it was and Mr. Miyagi tells him he is not ready to learn that yet. So as you would think this is a surprise ending to everyone. The ending in this is very realistic compared to the very very very very unrealistic ending of the Jaden Smith version.

I really like this movie and I feel that most other people would like it as well.

This gets a 4 out of 5 cups of milk from me.

Review of the reviews

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-wolf-of-wall-street-review-leonardo-dicaprio-martin-scorsese-20131225-story.html#page=1

In the review made by Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times she makes a very long movie that could easily be over explained into a one page or so review of how she saw the movie while voicing opinions also showing the facts. The authors tone seems sarcastic at times but it also seemed serious on how she felt the movie was in the way the movie was set up. The author also seems to use some vocabulary that would be considered dicey to use in an article the public can read, although the people who are going to be watching the movie are not younger children. She also goes in to very little amounts of detail for the characters that are in the movie. "Scorsese adopts the former stockbroker's irreverent tone, then amps it up so that the film fairly crackles with electricity from beginning to end. A very fast three hours, "Wolf" is a fascinating, revolting, outlandish, uproarious, exhilarating and exhausting master work on immorality."

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/12/24/4565279/scorseses-wolf-howls-at-excess.html#.VMp-A_m-2Sp

The review of The Wolf of Wall Street by Lawrence Toppman it starts off with the author saying the movie is that "Martin Scorsese can make a three-hour movie without one fresh perspective or compelling character from end to end. The proof, for three agonizing hours, can be found in “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The author of the pretty much doesn't say anything except pointing out things that he thinks are wrong with the movie and doesn't say much else about it. The tone the author uses is pretty much an angry tone for just about the whole article. He doesn't go in to detail about many if any characters at all. 

I would agree with the first quote from the LA Times. I agree with this because the movie moves very fast and escalates quickly. If someone were to see the movie for the first time they would most likely think the same thing that I was thinking. When I first saw the movie I thought it was also fast paced and exciting.

The review that would be more convincing would be the one from the LA Times. The review went more in depth rather than the way that the Charlotte Observer described it very briefly and angrily. One thing that really persuades me to go see movies is the actors. The reviews aren't really my concern because I'll go see the movies I want to anyway.

Some of the things I would write about would be the actors. Actors that are associated with movies are huge for many different reasons. I would also write about the plot of the story like what the main point the movie is trying to get across. Other important things are the writing and directing staff. Directors are huge when it comes to peoples decisions on whether or not to go see a movie.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/12/24/4565279/scorseses-wolf-howls-at-excess.html#.VMp-A_m-2Sp#storylink=cpy

Film Intro Survey

1.  What is the first movie that really made a strong impression on you? The Mighty Ducks because it was one of the first movies I remember seeing as a young child and makes me think of how you can do anything with practice and hard work. 
2. What are 3-4 of your favorite genres? Action/Adventure, Comedy, and Mystery/Thriller.
3. What are 3-4 of your least favorite genres? Romance, Silent, and Romantic Comedy
4. What are your five favorite films? The Wolf of Wall Street, Gone Girl, Django Unchained, Billy Madison, and Guardians of the Galaxy.
5. List three characteristics of what you consider to be a good movie. Good story, Makes you think, and some sort of exciting ending.
6. What are some of your least favorite movies? Mean Girls, The Happening, and Taken.
7.  List three characteristics of what you consider to be a bad movie. Unoriginal idea, bad acting, boring ending. 
8. If you have any favorite directors, list them; Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher and J.J. Abrams.
9. If you have any favorite actors/actresses, list them Leonardo DiCaprio, Aaron Paul, and Bryan Cranston.
10. List three films you would consider important films for people to see; Saving Private Ryan, Inception, and Fight Club.
11. What is your oldest favorite film? The Karate Kid with Ralph Macchio.
12. What is the best movie you've seen that's been released in the past 2 years? The Wolf of Wall Street.
13. What are the next five films on your "queue"? American Sniper, Halloween, Selma, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, and Unbroken.