Break movies

Over break I traveled to Seattle to have Thanksgiving with my family. I was there all week and spent alot of my free time in my cousins' home theater. My cousins and I watched alot of the old Bond movies and then one night we decided to throw in There Will Be Blood. None of my cousins had seen it and we all assumed since it had won a bunch of oscars it would be a good film......but we were far from the truth. We all sat there with our popcorn saying it was a slow start and that at any moment the killing and action scenes would start. We waited and waited and waited, and after two and a half hours we said that watching this movie was the biggest waste of time ever. Now, I rarley call a movie bad and I can't remeber the last time I saw a movie where I said that it was horrible. I can usually pick out something good about a movie, but when it comes to There Will Be Blood I can't. There was no specific plot and all the scenes were all unecessarily long. I don't know how this film won all the awards it did but I only can think of one award it deserves, worst movie I've seen thus far in my life.
On the other side of the spectrum I saw a good movie over break, the Disney movie Bolt. On another slow day at my cousins' house all of the relatives went to see Bolt. This movie was very funny and I think has the potential of being as big as The Lion King. The main character, Bolt, travels across the country to save his owner. Although Bolt is funny the hamster steals the show. The hamster made me laugh every time he was in a scene and the ball he rolls around in adds entertainment. This is a movie you should definatly see and it is a million times better than There Will be Blood.
(Tucker I wrote about something other than westerns just for you)

Westerns...Again

This sunday I was very bored, so I decided to go to blockbuster. I was looking for a movie on the outer ring of the store, which is mostly new releases. I didn't find anything worth watching. I ventured into the action section and came across "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Remembering how much I enjoyed the western unit, I decided to rent it. When I got home I popped it into the dvd player and stared watching. This film encasulateded alot of the classic western characteristics; it had extreme long shots, a good and bad guy, impure women, and not alot of dialouge. The movie was just under three hours and overall I liked the movie alot. The start is kind of slow but once it gets going the movie brings your attention in. The star of the film is Clint Eastwood and he does a very good job playing the good guy. The film tracks three mens' lives, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good and ugly guy start scamming towns for money, and the bad guy is constantly looking for a certain man. All three men get involved in a treasure hunt for gold, but get sidetracked because of the American civil war. I would definatly recommend this film for anyone who also liked the western unit.

Western Films

Over the past few weeks while watching "My Darling Clementine" and "Once Upon A Time In The West", I now see why westerns were popular then and how they are still popular now. Of the two films, my favorite was "Once Upon A Time In The West" because of it's characters, acting, sound, and Leone's odd but effective way of telling the western. The use of sound in this film is the best I have ever seen. The score puts a different tune to each character that fits them perfectly. The use of diagetic sound in the first scene introduces the characters without them saying anything. Most movies would get really boring if a they had no dialogue, but this film keeps you interested because of its sound effects. Leone doesn't use alot dialogue in the whole film, but it doesn't take away from it in any way. The use of camera angles and shots tell the story better than through the use of words. Lastly, in this film the acting keeps you involved. These actors knew what they were doing and there wasn't anytime in the film where I thought they got out of character or too dull, like Mark Walhberg in Max Payne which I saw on opening night. Off topic, I still love Mark Walhberg because he created "Entourage", my favorite show. I hadn't seen many classic westerns before this unit, but now I like and understand them more.



I can't help but notice the similarities between the classic western and today's superhero movies. This random thought popped into my head while I was writing the in-class essay. I didn't feel that making this comment on the paper would be appropiate but I decided to state it on this post. In westerns there is a hero just like superheros, there are always bad guys that loose in the end, and women are in distress alot of the time. Westerns are the precurser to the super hero films of today like Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, and Batman. This is just another example that shows us how popular westerns are because after a century of westerns we haven't lost the plot, we just integrated it into a new form.

Citizen Kane

Overall, I thought Citizen Kane was a good movie. It didn't grab my attention and keep it the whole time, but the well-done elements of film made up for some dull parts. I would have to watch this movie a few more times to absorb all it is made out to be. I can see how people say it is the best movie ever because the shots, angles, setting, acting, and other elements of film are well done. This film has amazing elements but it would never survive the box office today. It is a different time, and America's attention span is very short, so they need to be entertained every second. If they are not entertained they will tear the movie to shreads. Citizen Kane definatley earned it's spot in history for it's elements but doesn't have the appeal to survive in today's box offices.

Some of my favorite elements of Citizen Kane are lighting, camera shots, costumes, and acting. The lighting is geniously done through scenes with high and low-key lighting. A scene that shows the great camera shots are the opening and closing scenes with the track of Kane's mansion. A scene that shows great acting and costumes is the scene with Kane and his first wife. The costumes become more and more tight on the wife and the acting shows their eventually disliking of eachother. Welles did an incredible job on this movie.

My first entry

This is my first blog for art of film. I chose this class because I like going to movies in theaters and watching movies at home!!!:-)The last movie I saw in theaters was pineapple express, and the last movie I saw at home was anchorman.

This isn't a film but I like to watch Entourage at home which is a show on HBO. The forth season just came out on DVD and it is very well acted.