coen brothers

I think my favorite unit so far has been the Coen Brothers unit.  I liked all three of the films we watched but my favorite was probably no country for old men.  I had never seen it before and I thought it was really good.  Even though Anton Chigurh was an evil character, I really liked him.  I thought his compressed air gone and his silenced shotgun were very unique and made his character stand out.  I also really like Fargo.  I had never seen that before either and I thought it was really good.  I thought the exaggeration of the Minnesota accent was very funny.  I liked Marge's character because of how clever and kind she was.  I liked that fact that the movie was kind of a comedy, but the violence in the film made it seem more serious, which I liked.  I thought Raising Arizona was pretty good but it definitely was not my favorite.  I thought it was funny but it sort of moved along slow.  I haven't seen any other Coen Brothers films but I am looking forward to watching some.

coen brothers

Altman films

I found that a common trend in the Altman films we watched in class was the abrupt murders.  In The Long Goodbye, Marlowe murders Lennox at the end, which I thought was really surprising.  I just wasn't expecting such a drastic measure from Marlowe, although this murder was my favorite.  In The Player, Griffin kills the first writer he suspected in the parking lot outside of the japanese bar they were at.  I thought this murder was really surprising too.  I understand that if the guy really was who Griffin thought he was, then it might not have been so ridiculous, but Griffin had no proof he was.  In Nashville, Barbara Jean is shot right in front of everybody which was really weird.  That creepy guy was in the audience and just pulled out a gun and shot her and everybody watched him.  All of these murders were very surprising to me.  

In The Long Goodbye, I thought Lennox sort of deserved it after what he had put Marlowe through and how much he had used him.  I thought the murder in The Player wasn't to justified because Griffin had no proof the writer was the person he thought he was.  The murder in Nashville was not justified at all.  That weird guy in the audience had no part in the movie until he just unexpectedly pulled out that gun during the concert and shot Barbara Jean.  Even though I enjoyed all of the movies we watched in class, I thought the abrupt murders were a little strange.

Director Movie Assignment #1-The Departed

      For the first Director Movie Assignment, I watched The Departed starring Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg. The movie is about two people who graduate from a police academy and start working undercover to try and find the "rat". The movie got a little confusing at times, since Collin Sullivan (Matt Damon) and William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) are working double lives. Sullivan works undercover for Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) and gets caught up in his job, lies, and his girlfriend. Costigan works undercover for Queenan (Martin Sheen) and gains Costello's trust, just so he and Queenan will be able to arrest Costello. Since we haven't watched any other Scorsese Films, I can't relate this film to another film, so I will focus on the goriness of this film.
      This film has many gory scenes. I was very surprised at how gory some of the scenes were. In addition to many numerous stabbing and shootings in the film, there were other scenes like when Costigan gets his arm that is already in a cast smashed on a pool table in a bar because Costello thinks he is hiding something in it. This scene was very brutal to watch because after the arm was smashed and the arm was broken, Costello started hitting the arm with a boot. This scene was especially painful to watch. Another example of goriness in the film is when Queenan falls off a building and lands right in front of Costigan and all we see is blood spray up. This scene was pretty bloody but, by this point in the film we had seen lots of shootings so it wasn't too surprising to see blood. One last example is one of the last scenes where Costigan takes Sullivan down the elevator and when the doors open, they find some unknown man standing there with a gun who immediately shoots Costigan in the head and blood splatters everywhere. In an article I found from the Chicago Sun Times, the author talks about what the meaning of this last scene really meant. Scorcese, who is quoted in the article, says that many people didn't like a gory ending, but that was how he wanted it.  I think that Scorsese added all the gore just because he wanted to and to make things more realistic, since the movie is about the mob.
          I think this movie was very good and I liked the gory ending because it didn't really leave us hanging at the end. This movie makes me excited to watch more films by Martin Scorsese.

Director choices

My group is: Andy Burbidge
Sean Curry
probably Mike Kieper and Erich Rectenwald but we still need to ask them.

Our top 3 directors are: Michael Mann
Stanley Kubrick
Martin Scorsese

film noir

For the most part, I enjoyed the film noir unit. I liked the movies we watched-double Indemnity, Memento, and Kiss Me Deadly-although Kiss Me Deadly was a little strange. My favorite was Memento. I liked it because it wasn't like any other movie I have seen because it was in reverse. My conclusion at the end was that Leonard had already killed John G. and Teddy was right. Although Teddy was the "bad guy", I think he was very convincing at the end and I kind of believe him and he's not so bad. I also thought double Indemnity wasn't too bad, but it was boring in some parts. Kiss Me Deadly was very strange and too hard to follow.

11/11/08 romantic comedies

I thought the romantic comedy unit was pretty good. I like groudhog day with Bill Murray but I hated Bringing up Baby. It wasn't engaging, it hurt my ears, and it wasn't funny. The main character, Susan, was so annoying and I hated everything about her. If I was David I think I would have just left her and I don't know how he could fall in love with her and listen to her. Groundhog Day was good though. I thought it was funny and it was interesting and kind of unpredictable unlike Bringing Up Baby. my favorite part in Groundhog day is when Phil tries so many times to say the right thing to Rita. He slowly learns exactly what she likes and what to say to her. I also like the part with ned reierson because it was funny. My least favorite part in the movie was when he kept waking up at 6:00 because that means it was the start of the same day again. I would say what I like about Bringing Up Baby, but I didn't like anything about it.