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!

Formal Film Studies Project - Scorsese

For my Formal Film Studies project, I watched three movies by renown director, Martin Scorsese.  The three that I watched were his 1990 classic, Goodfellas, his 2006 action film, The Departed, and his 2010 thriller, Shutter Island.  I noticed several patterns with the film that seem to be Scorsese's style of directing that crossed into all three movies, however similar or different the stories in the filming techniques, the goal of having a message in each movie, and the actors used.
The first thing I noticed was similarities in style.  While Goodfellas was the only movie actually about gangsters, the other movies still had the 'gangster film' vibe in several characters.  In the Departed, he has a mob boss as the antagonist, which gives the movie the gangster element present throughout Goodfellas.  At the same time, Shutter Island also takes on some of the same style and vibes as Goodfellas.  Taking place in the 1950s, the way the main character, a US Court Marshall behaves and talks is reminiscent of the characters in Goodfellas.   However, the style of the way the stories are told is different in some of the movies.  Goodfellas features direct narration from the main character, while the other two do not.  A few other of Scorsese's signatures are present throughout the films as well.  For example, in The Departed he has a scene similar to the ending of Goodfellas, with a man shooting straight at the screen, although it is during a moment of action and not randomly at the end.  All movies feature plenty of action packed scenes with shoot outs.  In addition, Scorsese, particularly in the two recent movies, likes to put plot twists at the end of the films.  In Shutter Island, the whole concept of the movie was turned upside down at the end and in the Departed the main protagonist is suddenly and unexpectedly shot dead when he seemed to be about to have a moment of victory, suddenly ending the story.
All of the Scorsese films I watched touched on political issues at least somewhat.  In Goodfellas, it obviously commented on not only the gangster culture, but also the rising drug trade.  The Departed touched on corruption, while Shutter Island spoke very openly about the horrors of war, the main character having fought in World War II and liberated a Nazi death camp, scarred from the experience.
Scorsese has pretty specific people he chose to act in these movies.  In Goodfellas, Ray Liotta portrays the slick gangster, Henry Hill.  In both The Departed and Shutter Island, Leonardo DiCaprio stars.  DiCaprio I felt is a very similar actor to Liotta, both in presence and even looks.
Overall, Scorsese is definintly one of the best directors of the past 20 years.  He manages to put his own mark on many different movies that makes them identifiable as a Scorsese film.  I think out of the three movies I watched of his for this assignment, Goodfellas was the best put together, while Shutter Island might just have been my favorite because of the mind blowing twist at the end.