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