MYSP Q2 Post 2: The Green Mile

For my second movies in your spare time post this quarter, I watched the 1999 film adaption of Stephen King's novel, The Green Mile.  Starring Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan (RIP), the film tells the story of a death row prison guard in the year 1935 as strange events play out.  Overall, I thought this film was very well done.  I would give it a 4/5 stars.
The film was directed by Frank Darabont who directed a movie with a similar theme a few years earlier, The Shawshank Redemption.  The film begins following an elderly man in a retirement home.  As we hear conversations he has with his friend and the staff, we realize there is something this man is hiding.  Apparently he goes on long walks everyday.  While watching an old movie from the 1950s, he breaks down in tears, forcing him to explain himself to his friend in private.  This introduction to the film then leads into the flashback that makes up most of the rest of the film.  This was an effective way of doing this rather than cutting out the parts with the old man and having the flashback as the whole film because it sets up context, and explains what happens to him in the end.
The acting in the film was phenomenal.  Tom Hanks was right on the ball as always, and Michael Clarke Duncan stood out very much in what was probably his most famous role.  While the film was rather long (clocking at 3 hours and 8 minutes), and the setting remained in the prison most of the film, it did not seem to drag to me as every scene seemed to contribute to the whole story.
The film deals with several themes, most prominently (and obviously), death.  We get to know several characters who are death row inmates, and we find that they are actually good people too deep down (well, some of them).  In one inmates final sober moment before his execution, he tells Tom Hank's character the story of the happiest days of his life, wondering if that is what heaven will be like and if he truly repents what he has done, can he go to heaven?  Its moments like these that keeps the movie personal and emotional, but not in an over the top way.  Another theme that emerges is a true sense of good vs evil.  We are introduced to John Coffey (Michael C. Duncan) as an evil, baby raping/killing brute.  As the movie progresses however, we realize that not only is he a truly gentle, kind human being, he is literally one of God's miracles.  He has the ability to see into people's souls on physical contact, and we learn that another inmate, the rowdy 'Wild Bill', is the true definition of evil.
With the super powers of sort that emerge from John Coffey in the film, the ability to heal people, it almost starts to feel a bit cheesy and unbelievable, but then you must remind yourself that its more of a fantasy (even though it doesn't feel like it in the beginning).
Overall the Green Mile was a phenomenal film.  Yes, there were several borrowed elements from other films featuring the directors or actors (the flashback in the beginning borrowed from Saving Private Ryan and the prison theme from The Shawshank Redemption most notably), but overall the film feels fresh and certainly worth watching.

Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) and John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan)

Group Project, 1975 film: Truckin'

For our 1975 film, my group decided to produce a low budget, experimental film both directed by, and starring, Dennis Hopper.  The film is a counterculture film that features many Grateful Dead references.  The main character, Rubin (a reference to the Jerry Garcia Band song, Rubin and Cherise), is a relatively straight-laced guy who meets a girl, Cherise (Briggite Bardot) in a coffee shop.  Intrigued by her, he asks if he will see her again, and she says only if he comes to a local Grateful Dead gig that night.  She has been following them on tour as many 'Deadheads' did then.  He agrees, and goes to the concert.  At the concert, he trips acid, and has a life changing, spiritual experience.  He then stays with the girl and follows the Dead on the rest of their tour.  The movie follows his change in thought over the course of time and celebrates the counterculture movement of the late 60s and early 70s.  

Dennis Hopper plays the lead role in the film as Rubin, and Brigitte Bardot as Cherise.  Dennis Hopper fit the part nicely after playing a similar role in Easy Rider in 1969. Brigitte Bardot was selected  as Cherise because she was known as the "sex-kitten" of the 60s and 70s, which would fit her character in the film as an attractive, young, rebellious woman.  Using the standard set in Easy Rider, the soundtrack to the film is mainly popular songs of the time, mostly Grateful Dead songs.  The cinematography changes throughout the film, running like a normal romance film until Grateful Dead shows, when it turns into a counterculture documentary.  

The genre of the movie is very open to debate, as were many films in the 70s.  The main theme is that of a counterculture film, but it also features documentary style cinematography during the Grateful Dead concerts, which the actors and crew actually attended and filmed at for the making of the film.  Finally, there is a strong romance occurring through out the movie between Rubin and Cherise.  

Overall as a group we agreed with everything and there's nothing I really would have done differently with this film.  

The MPAA rating system would rate this film R because of the scenes of partial nudity and the drug use.  As a counterculture film, this rating was inevitable, especially with real footage of what goes on at Grateful Dead concerts, particularly focusing on the drug use part (when Rubin takes acid for his first few times).  

Formal Film Studies Q2

For my second formal film studies project, I watched several documentaries/live DVDs of rock bands.  I took note of the structure and organization of each one.  The three I focused on were Silverstein's ten year anniversary documentary/live DVD, Decade, Parkway Drive's documentary/live DVD, and finally, for a bit of contrast, the recent documentary of the annual Vans Warped Tour.  I found that each film took its own way of completing the same goal of putting live music and documentary information in a DVD.

The first of these released was Parkway Drive: The DVD.  The film starts with individual members of the band and close friends being interviewed from their hometown of Byron Bay, Australia.  The first hour and a half of the film follow in this vein, using old footage and pictures to go with what the person being interviewed was saying of the band's history.  For this band, this was a very effective method of capturing the band's early history as they had a very grassroots beginning, often sleeping outside during their first tours.  The documentary section of this film will leave viewers inspired by their beginnings.  After the documentary section ends, a full video of a recent hometown show plays, without cutting in between songs, showing both the songs, in order, and the chatter in between songs.  This gives the film a more realistic feel, allowing the viewer to become immersed in the set as if they were there themselves.

The next film I watched was Silverstein's commemorative ten year anniversary DVD, Decade: Live at the El Mocambo.  This was filmed over 4 days: each day, the band played one of their then four released albums in its entirety, and did interviews about that time in the band's history before and after the show. This film takes the opposite approach as Parkway Drive's film in that it starts with a song being performed, then cuts to a short interview, then plays another song or two (skipping over some in the set), and flips to another interview.  This is effective in putting the commemorative feel on the film as they are able to focus on more specific aspects of the bands history.  Specifically, they discuss the history behind each specific album, then flip to the band playing songs from that album so that viewers can listen to the song being performed with the history behind it fresh in mind, giving the performance a more sentimental feel.

The next film I watched was No Room For Rockstars: the Vans Warped Tour Documentary.  While it doesn't focus on a specific artist like the other two I watched, the film follows 4 selected artists that performed on the Vans Warped Tour in 2010.  Warped Tour is a music festival that travels the country every summer.  Played at outdoor venues, there will be 6 or 7 stages set up at every event, with over 100 bands on the tour.  Founded in 1995 by Kevin Lyman, it is the longest consecutive running music festival in the world.  Originally it focused on punk-rock groups and gave several bands, including Sublime, Blink-182, and Pennywise, their initial chance at fame in 1995.  Now, there is a wide variety of music displayed, primarily metalcore (a fusion genre between heavy metal and hardcore punk) and pop-punk bands, although many rappers, pop artists, folk artists, and many more follow the tour each year.  The film follows 4 artists that played Warped Tour that year in their day to day lives on the tour, making the film more a 'day-in-the-life' type of documentary as opposed to going through the tour's history, which is minimal.  It also makes a point of capturing the tour's diverse line-up by following folk-pop artist Christopher Drew, pop singer Mike Posner, the (late) deathcore vocalist, Mitch Lucker, and finally the up and coming pop-punk group, Forever Came Calling, who were following the tour in their van in order to sell CDs and get their name out there.  The film emphasizes Warped Tour's rich culture and history and mostly follows artists and crews on their day to day activities, and occasionally has an interview.  Short clips of performances are shown to give examples of the band, but there is no actual live music section of the film.
The cinematography of each film varied according to its purpose as well.  For Parkway Drives, purely factual, interview section of the film, anyone - or no one for that matter - could have been behind the stationary camera.  Silverstein on the other hand used the director of several of their more high budget music videos to film and produce their film, resulting in a more technical approach.  Some of the interviews were filmed in black and white, while performances were in color.  The interviews would have multiple camera angles, often starting off out of focus and clearing up a few seconds in.  The Warped Tour documentary featured a combination of both, having plenty of stationary interviews as well as traveling documenting.
Overall, each documentary had a different method of explaining the band or tour.  The real difference was not always in content, but the way they organized it.  They all featured artist interviews, documentary footage, and live videos, but they organized it differently, some relying on others more.  Overall,I think the way they chose to use each of those types of footage depended on what the ultimate goal of the DVD was: for Silverstein it was to commemorate everything they've done over the past 10 years, so there was a lot of individual emphasis on each song, cutting to interviews in between each one.  For Parkway Drive, it was to explain their history and show you their power live, so those to sections were kept distinctly separate.  Finally, for the Warped Tour documentary, the purpose was more to show you what goes into each Warped Tour and what life on the tour is like, as opposed to explaining the history and showing live footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_1WWJhQGbE a live song clip from Parkway Drive's DVD

MYST Q2 Post # 1

Memento (2000)

SPOILER ALERT

The first film I watched in my spare time this quarter was Christopher Nolan's psychological thriller, Memento (2000).  We began watching this film in class and it interested me enough to finish it at home.  I was not disappointed.  The film follows Leonard Shelby (Guy Pierce), a man who cannot form any new memories in the aftermath of some accident.  The whole film, he is determined to kill a man named Teddy, who he believes killed his wife and caused his injury.  The movie flips between black and white scenes, which are portrayed in chronological order, and color scenes which are played in reverse order.     While this may seem confusing at first, the end of the movie ties the two together with a twist ending.  To me, this movie was great.  It was interesting enough to keep you watching, despite the somewhat confusing layout of the scenes, and the ending really made it worth watching.  Overall, I rate this movie 4/5 stars.
The first and most obvious thing to comment on in the film is the artsy, experimental style used to both film and organize the scenes.  There will be scattered close ups and shaky camera techniques at time that feel unconventional, meant to accent certain moments of the film.  The use of the two different clips, the color and black and white, kept the movie feeling fresh and unique, accenting the psychological theme of the film.
There are several repeated themes throughout the movie, including loss, grief, and above all perception.  While the whole movie Leonard relies on written notes, Polaroid photographs, and tattoos on his body to remember events and people, the end of the movie takes a big twist when it turns out someone has been messing with his perception of reality.  The whole film he reminds himself using a tattoo on his hand to 'Remember Sammy Jankis", who he believed to be an example of his condition, but in the end turned out to represent himself.
Overall, the film is a breath of fresh air from the conventional Hollywood film and will keep the viewer interested.  The twist ending really makes the film and personally reminded me of the ending in Shutter Island (which came out 6 years later but I saw first) in that it completely flips the plot.  It was a solid film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9lOnmnj0IY

This is Leonard's explanation of who Sammy Jankis was.  Note the heavy irony of the situation: he refers to Sammy writing himself notes, but getting mixed up, which in the end is Leonard's case.  It turns out that Leonard was his lawyer for the insurance company, and after examining his condition, he determines that he is faking it, and denies him extra coverage, earning himself a bonus.  In the end it turns out the fate he thought Sammy recieved, accidentally killing his wife by forgetting he already gave her her insulin shot, was actually his own fate, and that his wife did not die in the accident he thought she did.

Group Project post

In our movie, The Three Little Pigs and the Big, Bad Banker, we took a spin on a classic story, The Three Little Pigs. The movie is about three brothers living during the Great Depression.  They all live in the same town, and each one of them is a bit wealthier than the other.  As the story progresses, the main protagonist of the film, a local banker, begins to try to foreclose their houses, and ultimately succeeds right up until the last brother who lives in the biggest house (this is the wolf blowing down their houses reference).  There is also a substory which follows the love between one of the brothers and a young female.  The twist is that the girl ends up being the daughter of the banker, which ultimately resolves the issue between the two parties when the two announce their love for each other.  

We thought this film would do well in 1935 because the Great Depression theme and portrayal of those very real issues would likely really strike home for people watching at the time as whether or not the same thing has happened to them, it likely has happened to a friend or family member.  We planned on the film being a high budget movie as it would likely have a large draw for those reasons.  With this in mind, we went with MGM and picked a cast of their most well known actors at the time, who also bore some resemblance to each other to pull off the whole brother thing, and also had played in similar movies to this.  It is a romance drama as the movie has the elements of a drama, but also has the romantic substory.

The Hays Code affects our movie because we had to edit down the scenes involving the relationship between the brother and the bankers daughter, making it more of a 'read between the lines' portion of the movie. Other than that, this movie was intended to be pretty clean cut so we didn't run into many issues with the Hays Code.  

If I wasn't working with a group on this, I would have made it less of a family friendly film (within the restrictions of the Hays Code, of course).  With this in mind, I would have made it a lower budget film and chosen less known actors.  The movie would be so good, that this would have been their breakthrough film for sure.  Everyone in this movie would be a legend.  

MYST Post #2: Leadbelly

The second movie I watched for the Movies in Your Spare Time project was the 1976 film, Leadbelly.  The film is the true story of 1920s and 30s folk singer Walter "Huddie" Ledbetter, more commonly known by his stage name, Leadbelly.  As an African American, Leadbelly's story touches much on the racial issues in the south at the time.  The movie was an interesting watch and a bit different than other movies I have watched recently.  I overall thought it was a good film and did Leadbelly justice in telling his story.  I give it 3.5/5 stars.
The movie follows the story of Leadbelly as he is introduced to music and begins his life as a musician.  The movie was very interesting to watch because I found myself in awe of what a true man Leadbelly was.  He would hop on trains, play his guitar the whole way there, hop off somewhere else, get into a bar fight and kill someone.  Not the sort of behavior modern musicians follow.  He was really living a sort of life that is impossible to live today and one can only marvel at how much simpler life was back then.
 One thing I didn't like about the movie as much however was the acting.  In the 1970s I've noticed acting seemed more obvious by nature, which is fine, but its not my thing really.  I watched the movie because I was interested in the life of Leadbelly, not because I like movies from the 70s.  The dated feel to the film made it feel more like something I would watch in school, which I didn't enjoy.  Plus, there were plenty of slow parts.  Running at 2 hours, the movie probably could have been cut a bit short.
On the other hand, the story was incredibly interesting other than the slow parts.  Ledbetter was in and out of jail for much of the film, sometimes for things he did, most of the time mainly because he was black and in the wrong place, at the wrong time.  It was a very interesting movie to watch just to see what a different life an American could have back then compared to now.
The cinematography of the film was noticeably dated.   Some close ups and use of the music seemed obvious or cheesy.  On the other hand, I did notice use of several of the camera angle techniques we learned about in class, such as a wide shot during a change of scenery.
Overall, Leadbelly was a captivating watch.  While the acting and filming may seem dated, the story was interesting enough to make it worthy for me.  He had a crazy life man.

A scene from the film, Leadbelly's introduction to 12 string guitars

MYST Post # 1: Clerks

The first film I watched in my spare time was the 1994 comedy film, Clerks.  Shot with a low, out of pocket budget, the movie was filmed entirely in black and white because it was cheaper that way at the time.  It is one of the only movies I have seen that came out in the last 30 years or so that was filmed in black and white for no artistic purpose.  The movie focuses on two underachieving convenient store clerks over the course of one day, and touches on topics in their lives such as living to their potential, and most importantly relationship issues.  While the movie was pretty slow at first, I found by the end it was a very satisfying movie to watch.

I give this movie 4 out of 5 stars for several reasons.  I first decided to watch the movie because it was a comedy, and I was in the mood to laugh.  What I found as a watched the movie is that the humor in it tends to be more subtle, not the rib-splitting kind of material.  That being said, the movie was still funny, it just wasn't exactly what I was expecting.  The next big thing I noticed about the plot, was that the whole movie takes place over one day, and they never leave the store property throughout the whole film.  This almost gave me cabin fever at times, as I wanted to leave the setting for a bit, but most of the time I thought it was fine.

Most of the movie is simple humor, for example while reading a newspaper and not paying attention, one of the clerks sells a pack of cigarettes to a 4 year old girl and later gets fined. The bulk of the movie is in this vein, until it gets real at the end.  At the end of the film, the two main characters get into a huge fight, trashing the store, and when it settles down, the scene is silent and one of the characters says something very thought provoking and leaves.  The end of the movie turns into a message to the main character from the secondary character about his love life, and how he should be appreciating the caring girlfriend he has now, rather than get back together with his old, more vain girlfriend.  When the movie ends, you feel pretty satisfied, having both laughed at the comedy scenes, and thought at the provocative scenes at the end.

The cinematography of this film was very interesting.  As it was cheaper at the time, the whole movie was filmed in black and white.  There weren't a ton of different angles and such used as the whole film was shot in a convenient store.  However, I did notice that throughout the 'comedy part' of the movie, it used a pretty outside shot that showed the whole view of the counter, and during the dramatic scene at the end, more of a semi-close up was used to convey the seriousness of the conversation.  Overall, the movie was pretty well done, but it showed that it was an low budget, out-of-pocket film.

An example of the sort of humor used in this film!