Sky -- a Great Movie with Profound Values Back in the late Fifties, more than ten years after the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a struggle called the "Cold War." The Soviets were trying hard to extend their inf Continue Reading...
Austere diets are also common, and after winning his final title and announcing his retirement from bodybuilding, Schwarzenegger celebrates with a meal of 'real food' for the first time in many months. The ascetic as well as aesthetic nature of the Continue Reading...
English Literature Race, Regionalism, and Rights: in Snow Falling on Cedars Literature is an art form, which can convey love, hate, beauty, and ugliness. Literature, in the form of novels, has the capacity to challenge and reflect upon cultural and Continue Reading...
Because of the differences in their social status to Robert/Travis', they cannot conceive of Harriet/Tai's attraction to and ultimate love for him, the one due to his wealth and the other due to his habits. This change is necessary for the sympathie Continue Reading...
Diamonds of the Night One of the overwhelming themes which stayed with me upon screening of the Czech film Diamonds of the Night (1964) by Jan Nemec was the motif of everything being illusory. This film definitely played with the notion that perhaps Continue Reading...
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon The film, documentaries and the last docudrama are exceptional production pieces by notable directors and producers. Crouching tiger-hidden dragon defies the usual mantra of strength only attributed to men. Jen effectiv Continue Reading...
The king proves his irresponsibility by forgiving Becket and thus brings England once again in danger of being controlled by the clergy. The final scenes show how Becket dies while protecting his beliefs while the king is ravaged by his own actions Continue Reading...
Man of the Crowd By Edgar Allan Poe (1840) The story significantly depicts not only the preoccupation of the 17th hundred London issues and a trend brought by the progressive industrialization of time, but speaks so much relevance in our modern tim Continue Reading...
Talented Mr. Ripley The story of Patricia Highsmith's Mr. Ripley is one about a man who is very adept at pretending to be something that he is not. The original novel of The Talented Mr. Ripley tells the story of a man who is on the outside of the Continue Reading...
Romeo & Juliet Baz Luhrmann is an accomplished and visionary director. His 1996 rendition of the 16th century Shakespearean play, "Romeo & Juliet," is certainly a part of his accomplishments as well as his overall body of work. The scene of Continue Reading...
Cold War dominated American culture, consciousness, politics and policy for most of the 20th century. Even after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which symbolized the fall of the Iron Curtain and therefore finale of the Cold War, Cold War rhetoric and p Continue Reading...
Animal Farm Book vs. MovieThe 1999 film Animal Farm is much different from the 1945 Orwell novel of the same name. For one thing, the film opens up with one of the animals musing on the fall of Napoleon and all his evil ambitionsa scene that is nowhe Continue Reading...
Some films are about myths, some films are mythic, and some films are both. Both Cecil B. DeMille versions of "Ten Commandments" are both about myths and mythic on their own. The moral content of the film is coupled with their content: which is dra Continue Reading...
crime dramas of cinematic history, Arthur Penn's 1967 Bonnie and Clyde exhibits many hallmarks of accomplished filmmaking. Mainstay elements like character development, pacing, and screenwriting combine with the subtler aspects of moviemaking like m Continue Reading...
Lady in the Water, the 2006 major motion picture by writer/director/actor Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan that make it a quintessential allegory. The names of the major characters in the film (such as Story and Healer) obviously represent the ideas, as w Continue Reading...
Royal Tenenbaums/Nosferatu The Royal Tenenbaums is a 2001 film directed by Wes Anderson that explores the factors that drove the Tenenbaum family apart and the factors that lead to a reconciliation between the family members. As The Royal Tenenbaums Continue Reading...
The characters in the film are multi-layered. When we get below the surface we find that these members of the aristocracy do not present a favorable appearance at all. Their hidden world is one of scandal. Renoir's characters go beyond a love trian Continue Reading...
Blade Runner reimagines the future and seamlessly marries film noir and science fiction. In the film, humanoid robots have become self-aware and decide that it is unjust for their short, four-year lifespans to be calculated by those that created them Continue Reading...
Mulholland Drive directed by David Lynch. Specifically it will discuss symbolism in the film, character development and conflict among the characters, some of the storytelling techniques used, and how lighting is used and how it affects the mood of Continue Reading...
Legend' is a sci-fi thriller about a New York scientist who is abandoned in Manhattan in the year 2012. This one hour 40 minutes movie stars Will Smith and Alice Braga with Francis Lawrence as its director the movie is rated at PG-13 for violence. T Continue Reading...
Also, food is a vehicle of pleasure in general, a celebration of life, the body, and sensuality, which have all been denied by the people of the film for too long. Even simply drinking hot chocolate helps Vianne's landlady to thaw as a human being a Continue Reading...
Mummy Stephen Sommers' 1999 motion picture The Mummy puts across an account involving a group of researchers and opportunists wanting to profit as a result of getting involved in an Egyptian expedition. The Mummy is an adventure horror meant to kee Continue Reading...
Citizen Kane Many people consider Citizen Kane to be one of the greatest films ever made. Orson Wells was age 25 when he directed, produced, and starred in this film. There are many particular aspects to Citizen Kane is a memorable film. One of the Continue Reading...
O Brother, Where Art Thou? Homer in Hollywood: The Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? Could a Hollywood filmmaker adapt Homer's Odyssey for the screen in the same way that James Joyce did for the Modernist novel? The idea of a high-art film Continue Reading...
What is certain from all three films is that technology essentially shapes the way in which modern stories are told. Abstraction and Cinematic Modernism Cinematic modernism, as defined by a certain purposeful ambiguity and a rather high level of a Continue Reading...
Camera angles that focus on wretched faces, of young boys in red coated uniforms begging for mercy, and of the arrogance of the British officer corps, not just towards Americans, but towards their own enlisted men, are shown with filming skill. As m Continue Reading...
This ties closely with Hitchcock's belief that "dialogue means nothing" in and of itself. He explains, "People don't always express their inner thoughts to one another, a conversation may be quite trivial, but often the eyes will reveal what a perso Continue Reading...
Formalism The subject of films is a matter of dreams for many persons though the attraction has come down after the new medium of video has come in. Yet, for some it is still the medium to dream in. To get into the concept of formalist film theory, Continue Reading...
John Woo's Face/Off John Woo's 1997 Face/Off was only the Hong Kong filmmaker's third American feature, preceded by Hard Target (1993) starring Jean-Claude van Damme and Broken Arrow (1996) starring Christian Slater and John Travolta. Travolta woul Continue Reading...
For example, Roger Ebert describes Christiane in this way, "A loyal communist named Christiane (Katrin Sass) sees her son, Alex (Daniel Bruhl), beaten by the police on television, suffers an attack of some sort and lapses into a coma" (Ebert). Wher Continue Reading...
It is a humorous take on the time of unrest between the two World Wars, when Germany smarting from the ignominious defeat after the First World War allowed Hitler to take charge. This led to the large scale extermination of the Jewish people. This f Continue Reading...
Rather, the monologue is concerned with the Spanish conquest of Peru. The audio recording is low quality - it almost sounds like it was recorded on a cassette tape recorder, and it probably was. This lo-fi aesthetic gives the overall montage a decid Continue Reading...
Other studios relied on a few stars, but nevertheless did very well: Fox made an estimated $20 million on Shirley Temple, while Universal had WC Fields and Abbott and Costello. David O. Selznick split off in the mid-30's from MGM and started his own Continue Reading...
films may have in common are performers, directors or subject matter. The films, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and the Hurricane, have several things in common. All three films follow the results of men wrongly convicted of murder. Two of Continue Reading...
The second important theme in the movie is about extra-marital affairs. When we study closely we notice something odd. In this movie, Mr. Robinson appears rather relaxed about the whole issue of his wife having an affair even though he temporarily Continue Reading...
Their sex life clearly lacks maturity and mutual respect, and Peckinpah makes it clear early in the film that Amy is frustrated with her dull husband. Straw Dogs is permeated with symbolism, one of the features that makes the film remarkable. The f Continue Reading...
Pulp Fiction: Mia Wallace One of the most striking visual images of Pulp Fiction is Mrs. Mia Wallace, Marcellus Wallace's wife. She is first shown putting on her vampire-red lipstick as she gazes at Vince Vega, who has been asked by Marcellus to 'en Continue Reading...
3. Viewers who only saw the version of Blade Runner released in 1982 would deny that Rick Deckhard is human. Blade running involves killing replicants, and if Deckhard had been one himself it is unlikely that he would have fulfilled the job well. M Continue Reading...
Close up shots are also used in this sequence to depict the soldiers that are flying in the helicopters during the attack. By using close up shots, the camera implies that the soldiers are being seen from the point-of-view of someone that would be f Continue Reading...
Rabbit Hole The Symbolism of the Rabbit Hole David Lindsay-Abaire's play Rabbit Hole, which he adapted into a screenplay directed by John Cameron Mitchell, concerns a married couple coping with the death of their son, with complications brought in Continue Reading...
