Memento

First of all I am happy that we finally got back to a color movie. This movie was made more recently which is also kind of nice because it had better special effects and is more out time period. I though that this movie was probably one of the most confusing that I have ever seen but I think that that was what the director was going for. The plot of the movie I found to be excellent because it is interesting to think about what you would do in a situation like this. Would you try and find your wifes killer? Would you just kill yourself? Who knows what you would do. I thought that is was really weird how the movies sequence played out and am still not sure I understand why the director would film the movie the way he did because it was very confusing. Also by putting in the black and white scenes it just made it all the more difficult to follow. I think that this type of movie takes a lot of patience to watch because throughout the entire movie you want to know what really started it all because you got to see the ending before the beginning and that has never been the case before. I think that I would reccomend this movie to someone on the basis that it was really unique not that it was really a good movie.

Double Indemnity

This movie was the first film noir that we have watched in class. I think this is only one of the two or so film noirs that I have ever seen so I don't have much to compaire it to. The other one that I have seen is Sin City. I thought that that movie was awesome first of all and was probably the best movie of the year. I think that it was much different from Double Indemnity because of the fact that it was made in our time where we have much lower censorship codes. The movie we watched in class was a very clean cut movie. I can't say that I liked it for a few reasons. One reason that I didn't like it was because like nothing happened in it. As I thought back upon the movie after watching it I thought my myself...what did I just watch? I could barely think what I just wtached because there was so little action and actually happenings. Another reason that I didn't like watching this movie was that it seemed much to scripted. I thought that the characters just seemed like they were reading their lines instead of acting the part. Overall I didn't like it that much and hope to see a better on this time around.

Groundhog Day

Well first of all I would like to say that I enjoyed this movie very much. I have never seen it before but I have definatly heard of it in the past. I find Bill Murray to be hillarious and have seen many of his movies. I thought that the plot of this movie is something very interesting to think about. How does everyone know that the life they are living is really what they think it is? How would we really know if we were just living the same days over and over again. I think that the characters in this movie played out their parts really well and must have all had to be really tollerable of having to shoot very similar scenes over and over and over again. Personally I would be really bored after having shot the same scene like twenty times. One of this things that I like most about this movie is the progression of Phil's character day by day as he had to live out the same day over and over again. I found it very interesting the way his personality morphed from being a sort of snobish grumpy person to one of the nicest person in town. I thought it was really cool how he slowly started to try new things and maybe do things that everyone would like to do but couldn't. I was amazed when he started to kill him self in different ways and also thought it was hillarious. Overall I really did enjoy this movie and would reccoment viewing it.

Bringin Up Baby

Now this movie was one that I don't know I liked or disliked. I found some parts of this movie to be appealing but also just hated some of it. One of the things that I found to be somewhat funny were the characters. I thought that the stupidity played out by all the characters brought something to the movie. I find that sort of stupid humor to be amusing and thought that the actors were very good at all being stupid together and really played their parts. Now even though I thought that the actors played their parts well none the less I found a few certain characters to be annoying as hell. Susan probably was the most annoying character I have ever seen in a movie. First of all, her voice reminded my a a bird being defeathered and her childish attitude reminded me a a 5 year old girl trying to get whatever she wants. I found David's stupidity to be a little bit over the top and him giving in the everything Susan wanted was pretty annoying. Over all I think that this movie was not one of my favorites but there were a few parts of it that I liked.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

The movie that I decided to watch was from Robert Ebert's list. It was The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). This movie to my suprise when I went to Blockbuster to rent it was in color! I guess I don't really know when movies started being filmed in color but I was stunned when I found that this movie had color and good color at that. The Behind the scenes element that I decided to look at as I wantched this movie was set design. I couldn't find anything online about the set creation but under problems of making the movie there was nothing mentioned about the set so it must have been all good. The setting was very typical to all the other Robin Hood movies that I have scene in the past. The set designers did a good job on the two locations that this movie was filmed on and gave it a realistic look that brought me back to the middle ages.
First of all, one this that made my decision in lookoing at set design was that the movie was in color. I think that it adds a lot to the set when color is in the picture because it makes many things stand out while in black and white that is not quite the case. There were basically only two different sets in this movie. There was Sherwood Forest and the King's castle. The forest was not a fake set, it was just a normal forest full of oak green leafed trees. There were a few many different scenes in the forest and the director, Micheal Curtiz, did a good job of having the right scenes in the right locations of the forest. An example of this is when Robin hood and his men were setting up to ambush a nobleman and his soldiers the scene was set on a slender path with tall trees in which they could hide. When they would feast in the forest it wouldn't be in a cramed area but in a large opeing in the woods. I liked also that the forest was more or less undisturbed from industralization execept for a couple dirt paths because this made me feel like we were back in the medival age. The second part of the set that was used was King Richard the Lion Heart's castle. This castle was a built set that was used in many scenes as well. The castle depicted an old time castle pretty well except for a lack of windows. Exept for that it looked like it was made of strong stones and there were many torches used to light up all the banquet halls and corridors. Also the little things of the set were large dinning tables with big chairs for the nobles and even more luxourious for the king and prince, etc... There were large wood doors and wooden barracads to keep out the enemies which I think was very realisitc. The castle had one big fight scene in it where Robin Hood, Sir Robin of Loxley, was all over that place. He was running up and down all of the tall sprialing stair cases and it gave that castle an appearance of being massive as they indeed were. One thing that I think showed the movie being a little older was that there was never a long shot of the castle where you saw the roof or any part of the ceiling. Since I know that the budget for movies back in the day were not even close to what is spent today to make movies I assume that they had limitied funds for making the set super good but I though this movie's set was awesome for having been made so long ago.
Overall this movie had an excellent dipiction of the old days of nights and castles. I think that with the limited budget that they had they did a wonderful job pulling it all together to make this movie. For being made so long ago I was amazed at the color and I think that it added on a lot to the movie as a whole. I would have never guessed that this movie was made so long ago because I was very impressed. Overall I highly reccommed watching this movie.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Western Theme

One of the themes that I found to be most present in the western that we watched, My Darling Clemintine, was the Good vs. Bad. In this movie there was of course the protagonist who is introduced in the frist scene, Wyatt Erp, as well as the protagonist, the Clantons. I found that throughout the entire film there were many scenes in which these two parties were in conflict. This conflict was the real meat of the movie because this dispute kept the movie rolling on. In many westerns that I have scene the theme of this movie highly envolves the good vs. bad because that is basically what makes up a western.
In my opinion this is a good theme to have in a movie. Many movies have a theme similar to this because it is a commonality that usually are part of the plot in most movies. I think that when this is the theme for a movie I can expect a little more from the film because it causes more conflicts and action. In some movies like say mystery movies and maybe comedy's, which are great genres, are sometimes a little bit slow moving because of the lack of that protagonist vs. antagonist. There is no saying what the best theme is in my opinion because there are so many but this is one that I do enjoy very much and make westerns the great films that they are.