Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth is the story of a little girl, Ofelia who accepts a quest in order to become the rightful princess that she should be. Her and her mother move in with an evil man, Vidal in the middle of a big war in Spain. One day Ofelia wanders off and finds a labyrinth where she meets a faun and some fairies. The faun gives her three tasks to complete that will test her to see if she will be able to serve as princess of this magical other world. She needs to complete these tasks before the full moon, but she runs into some obstacles such as her pregnant mother and the evil Vidal who is leading the big war. The war is a whole different story that conflicts a little with Ofelia and her quest, but for the most part is not related. This part deals with the conflict of Vidal and Mercedes, who works for Vidal but is really undercover for the people Vidal is fighting. When Ofilia's mother dies Mercedes is the one who takes care of her. Carmen, Ofilia's mother was pregnant with her and Vidal's son and they are able to save the son before she dies. Vidal is obsessed with having his son and doesn't care about anyone else. It is the son who in the end of the film ties in the war segment and Ofelia's quest to complete her tasks. This was a great movie with some amazing imagery and imagination from the director and other creators of the film.
The director of the film is Guillermo Del Toro. He is very interested in fairy tales and has a great imagination. All of the imagery and characters are amazing in this film. They are fairytale but not the kind that you would normally think of. They have a very dark feel to them, from the giant frog to the evil monster with eyes in his hands. Even the faun who is good and helps Ofelia looks extremely dark and evil. Guillermo's imagination was influence by fairytale authors Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielson, and Edmund Dulac. It is with these author's illustrations and his own imagination that Del Toro was able to create these amazing fairytale creatures.
Along with having a great director this film also had some great actors. Sergi Lopez played the villain, Vidal who was a horrible and very violent man. Sergi captured Vidal's controlling and evil personality perfectly making him seem like a very real person. Lopez loves acting and has done it all of his life. He was born in Vilamova which is a small village near Barcelona. He had his own acting troupe there and then went on to study acting even more in Paris. It was there that he started his career with a role in La Petite Amie D'Antonio. As he continued acting he became known to play dark roles as the villain of the film. He acted in many films that all led up to his greatest role of Vidal the villain. Another very interesting actor in this film is Doug Jones. He played the role of the faun in Pan's Labyrinth and did so in a different way. Doug was born in 1960 in Indianapolis, IN. He studied acting and miming at Ball State university in Indiana. He played in many other movies before Pan's Labyrinth, most notably in Batman Returns. To play the role of the faun he need only to mime him. Jones just moved his body while a puppeteer moved his head. These two great actors really helped make the film very interesting and real.
Pan's Labyrinth is a very creative and interesting film. Even though it is in Spanish you can understand and enjoy its creative plot. The great director Guillermo Del Toro really helped make this fairytale like movie into an amazing work of art. Also the great actors contributed in helping to make the story come to life. Pan's Labyrinth was an amazing film and if you haven't seen it I would recommend watching it right away.

article reflection

This article has a lot of interesting things to say about westerms. It talks about how the western was struggling for a period of time and almost died out. It is certainly less popular today than it was back in the mid-90s, but films like 3:10 to Yuma have kept it alive. The western has also changed alot from when it was originally popular. In attempts to acheive a greater audience westerns now will contain more modern ideas like the issue of Iraq. The appeal to most people is that westerns are very natural, what you see on the screan was really acted out and there is not much fancy technology to alter the film. Westerns are making a comback and don't plan on dying out any time soon.

Pulp Fiction Review

I chose to watch and review the film Pulp Fiction, directed by Quentin Tarantino. There are many great actors in this film such as John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Maria de Medeiros, Ving Rhames, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette, Christopher Walken, and of course Bruce Willis. The screenplay was written by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary. The director of photography was Andrzej Sekula, and Karen Rachtman was in charge of the music. The producer of the film was Lawrence Bender. And finally the editor was Sally menke, and the costume designer was Betsy Heimann.
This movie greatly reminds me of another great movie, Sin City. Both movies have almost the exact same format. In both films there are three stories that take place during the course of the whole story. Not all of the main characters interact with each other but we can see as the film goes on how each story is related to one another very closely. The setting of Pulp Fiction is in California and mostly in Hollywood. There are five main characters in this film. First there are Vincent and Jules who are two gangsters working for another main character, Marcellus, who is kind of the head gangster. Then there is Mia who is Marcellus' wife, but who also falls a little bit for Vincent. Then finally there is Butch, who is a boxer who crosses Marcellus and has a big fight with him. There is not just one main source of conflict, there is one for each of the three stories that is told in the film. The first story is about Vincent and Mia. The conflict is for Vincent to try and take Mia out with him to a nice dinner, keep her safe and happy and return her to Marcellus unharmed. He encounters some problems though with some drugs and must think quickly just to keep her alive. Next we have the conflict between Butch and Marcellus. During a boxing match Butch killed his opponent when he won the match, but this upset Marcellus who began to chase Butch. Butch received a very important watch that got him into trouble with Marcellus and almost killed. The third story is with Vincent and Jules, who get into some trouble with some people that they have killed. The conflict is them struggling to stay out of trouble but also for Jules who is now starting to realize that what they are doing is wrong. These three stories and conflicts get intertwined with each other and work together to create this great masterpiece.
The Plot of Pulp Fiction is very complicated and can be very confusing to the viewer at times. It is probably realistic for a small portion of people who are involved with the world of crime. they would probably use the same language and act very similar to the characters in the film. This film had some very big names in it to capture each character perfectly. John Travolta portrayed Vincent, the gangster who didn't have any morals whatsoever perfectly the way he made his character not seem to care at all if someone died or even if he almost died. Samuel Jackson and Bruce Willis also portrayed their characters perfectly and made the film seem very real with all of the great acting. A theme that i saw in the movie was the challenge of overcoming evil. This applies mainly to Jules who realizes that he can't just kill people through a moment of clarity in the coffee shop, but also to Butch who takes a big step by helping out Marcellus even though they are trying to kill each other. One very important symbol in the second part of the story with Butch is his gold watch that he owns that used to be his father's. This watch is extremely important to Butch which we see in a flashback and symbolizes something to fight for and a reason to keep going for Butch as he goes through a hard time in his life with boxing and his fight with Marcellus. But the gold watch also symbolizes a big conflict that is about to happen when Butch goes back to his apartment to get it and finds Vincent waiting for him. The sets and costumes really helped set the time period witch seemed like it was back in the seventies. There had to be a lot of make-up used in the multiple bloody scenes. Also at one point in the story Vincent and Jules have to change out of their suits into T-shirts and shorts. When this happens it makes them look ridiculous and it makes them seem less powerful. There were many camera movements used in this film. Most of the movement was tracking to capture all of the action in the film, but there was also some tracking and pan shots included as well. There were also many close-ups used in the film. Some important ones were close-ups of the needle before the shot of adrenalin was administered, Vincent and Mia's handshake for the secret that they would each keep, and when Butch slowly opens his apartment door with his key. There is almost always a low angle on Vincent and Jules to show how powerful and important they are. Also there is a high angle shot of Butch and Marcellus when they are strapped to chairs to show how weak and helpless they are at that time. There are many deep focus shots used to show the viewer everything that is happening in a scene. One important instance is when Butch and Marcellus are tied up like I mentioned a second ago, you can see them tied up and also what their capturer is doing in the background. There is a nice distorted image when Vincent takes some drugs and decides to drive home while he is high. I noticed in the restaurant there were many quick cuts back and forth to Vincent and Mia while they were having a quickly moving conversation. Also there was a fade out when a story would end and a fade in when one would begin. When Vincent meets Mia there is some happy non-diegetic music playing to show that the two people will probably like each other and get along. And then later there is some diegetic sound with the dance music that Vincent and Mia dance along to.In Pulp fiction there are tons of elements of film that help make this a great movie. From the great acting to the amazing cinematic effects every second of this film is a masterpiece.

The Prestige Journal

I chose to review a review of the Prestige off rottentomatoes. The review I read was by David Ansen from Newsweek. This is a story of a rivalry between two great magicians. Each one of them are always creating new tricks that just fuel the rivalry between them and it forces them to keep outdoing each other. Ansen believes that the film is very clever with all of the twists and turns that it has to offer. I completely agree with him, one of the reasons I love this movie is that it always keeps you guessing and it will keep you wanting more. Ansen mentions that there are three huge twists in the film.

At the end of this dark entertainment three twists await: one you will certainly see coming, another you may have figured out just before it happens, and the final may be so tricky you won't quite piece it all together until after you've left the theater (the "explanation" whizzes by so fast it can be hard to catch.) Take the movie's first words to heart: watch closely. You'll be well rewarded.

These three twists in my opinion make the film amazing. You see the first twist and you think to yourself, yes I saw that coming. Then you see the next one and you think, wow that was sweet and I never would have guessed that. But then at the end of the movie you are kind of confused with the last one and and you can't stop thinking about what happened. I myself have my own theories about it and I argue with others who have seen the movie about what really happened. Ansen also calls the movie dark in his quote and I could not agree more. I think there are multiple things that make this movie very dark. First Borden, the more skillful magician causes the death of Angier's, the other magician, wife. Ansen thinks that Borden may have tied the knot in the trick that killed her a little to tight on purpose, but I disagree. I think that it was a complete accident even though it benefited Borden. This event would be the spark to ignite the huge rivalry between the two magicians. That is a pretty dark beginning to the movie but the darkest part of the film doesn't come till much later. In efforts to top Borden, Angier voyages to the U.S. to find a machine that does "real magic." This machine allows him to do an amazing trick, but at a horrible cost. I won't say exactly what the machine does, but it causes a sickness in your stomach that leaves you thinking about it all night.
Ansen describes Angier as being very sophisticated and describes Borden as more working class. He also says that Borden seems like kind of a bully and someone that will go to all lengths to become a great magician. I agree that Angier is more upper class than Borden, but I don't really think Borden seems much like a bully. I think that Borden is portrayed more as the "good guy" and someone who will make tremendous sacrifices for a great trick. At the end of Ansen's review he mentions the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. This is a big idea that gets us started with the movie, these are the components of a great trick. Ansen also mentions a question posed at the beginning or the film, "are you watching closely?" These are two things that are very important and if anyone was to go see the movie they need to definitely keep those in mind. I have agreed with most of Ansen's ideas other than a few, and I would recommend this movie to anyone, but if you decide to see it just make sure that you are in fact watching closely.

Bruce Almighty Clip

I chose to show a clip in Bruce almighty where Bruce decides to get back at his rival, Evan by making him say ridiculous things by using his powers. A medium shot is used to show all of the characters so we can see what is going on very easily. There is a low camera angle used on Bruce at one point when he is using his powers to type what he wants on an invisible keyboard. This makes him look powerful and superior to all of the other people. This is a great movie and one of the funniest parts of any movie that I have ever seen.

Happy Gilmore review

The movie Happy Gilmore is probably my favorite movie ever. It is a story about a hockey player who becomes a pro golfer to try to make enough money to buy back his grandmother's house.I agree with the movie review I read and think that this movie is hilarious with all of the great characters and the outrageous things that they say. This is one of the funniest movies that I have ever seen and if you have not seen it yet then you should rent it as soon as possible.
















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