Animated short films

So it is pretty obvious that I don't really like adapted screenplay. I like books, But I just don't like seeing them turned into movies. So for the remainder of this school year, I will be looking into animated short films. I'll be seeing if they're animated well, and if they tell a story clearly. The short films I'll be watching are:
Dimanche
The fantastic flying books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
La Luna
A morning stroll
Wild life
Nullarbor
Amazonia
Skylight
Hybrid union
I'll be watching these over the next few weeks.

Dramatic Sound Tracks From Movies

Another common job of music is to make a scene dramatic. To make you feel the magnitude and glory of what is occurring. These are often  found at or near the end of a movie and help you feel the finality and greatness of the victory. I find my self associating this kind of music to nonfictional movie with knights or gladiators and monsters, when you see the main character  the hero, return victorious and everybody is cheering for him. The music almost makes me feel as if I am that hero that just defeated the great evil against all odds and have returned glorious and respected.

Jaws Annalysis

Although the music in jaws does its job I feel like it usually starts too early. In the movie the shark music starts when everything is peaceful and well and this continues for some time before there are signs that all is not well. While this creates tension as you wait for the shark to attack, I feel like the music starts to early and there for you start to lose patients before the action in the movie starts. One thing I would do to fix this would be too start the music a bit closer to the action, that way right as the audience cant wait any longer the shark attacks and the tension is broken. This would greatly increase the effect and contribution of the music track to setting the scary mood. The sound has to work with the film to portray the mood and action of the movie best.

Tribute to Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was a highly acclaimed cinematographer who sadly passed away on April 4, 2013. For each movie I have watched and written a review for, I paired it with a post that included Roger Ebert's review of the movie. These reviews that I posted was how I discovered Roger Ebert's talented mind. His movie reviews consist of perfect blends of a movie summary as well as an analysis of the movie and its characters. I did a little bit of research on Ebert when he passed away and realized what an amazing film critic he truly was. He received several extremely coveted awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, as well as being the first film critic to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. During his career as a film critic, journalist, and screenwriter, he coined the term 'Two Thumbs Up" in addition to being described as "without a question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic." Ebert continued writing reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times right up until his death, despite the fact that his salivary gland and thyroid cancer had destroyed his ability to speak. I plan on continuing to use his reviews as I basis for mine as I continue to view movies an critique them on their cinematography. Roger Ebert was an extremely talented film critic who's influence will be continually remembered and missed. Rest in peace. 

Saving Private Ryan Trailer

I just realized that for the first two movies I watched I posted a trailer of them along with the review. But, I haven't done that for my last two movies that I watched. So, here's a link to a trailer of Saving Private Ryan. The trailer does give a good look at how stunningly the movie is shot and how emotionally it portrays war. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68t6PhbYiSo

Jaws

Jaws is a very good example of a movie where music plays a critical part on the effect of the movie on the audience. The music helps create the tension, when you see somebody playing in the water and the ¨shark is coming" music starts playing you know what is about to happen, you are expecting it and you are afraid. The music is meant to give you that feeling that something terrible is about to happen and it makes you wanna scream at the movie, tell the characters to get out of the water, but unlike you they don´t hear the music. Wouldn't it be nice if music played in real life when something was about to happen to warn you?

Saving Private Ryan Legitimate Review

Below is a review of Saving Private Ryan by Roger Ebert. I post his reviews in accordance with the reviews I post because he does an excellent job of summarizing the movie as well as talking about the characters and the meaning of the movie in an easy to understand manner. In this particular review Ebert talks more about the meaning of the movie and how well the director and cinematographer display this message, rather than talking about specific visual elements. Our reviews complement each other nicely by providing two different perspectives. Enjoy!


Saving Private Ryan
Roger Ebert

The soldiers assigned to find Pvt. Ryan and bring him home can do the math for themselves. The Army Chief of Staff has ordered them on the mission for propaganda purposes: Ryan's return will boost morale on the homefront, and put a human face on the carnage at Omaha Beach. His mother, who has already lost three sons in the war, will not have to add another telegram to her collection. But the eight men on the mission also have parents--and besides, they've been trained to kill Germans, not to risk their lives for publicity stunts. "This Ryan better be worth it," one of the men grumbles.

In Hollywood mythology, great battles wheel and turn on the actions of individual heroes. In Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," thousands of terrified and seasick men, most of them new to combat, are thrown into the face of withering German fire. The landing on Omaha Beach was not about saving Pvt. Ryan. It was about saving your skin.

The movie's opening sequence is as graphic as any war footage I've ever seen. In fierce dread and energy it's on a par with Oliver Stone's "Platoon," and in scope surpasses it--because in the bloody early stages the landing forces and the enemy never meet eye to eye, but are simply faceless masses of men who have been ordered to shoot at one another until one side is destroyed.

Spielberg's camera makes no sense of the action. That is the purpose of his style. For the individual soldier on the beach, the landing was a chaos of noise, mud, blood, vomit and death. The scene is filled with countless unrelated pieces of time, as when a soldier has his arm blown off. He staggers, confused, standing exposed to further fire, not sure what to do next, and then he bends over and picks up his arm, as if he will need it later.

This landing sequence is necessary to establish the distance between those who give the order that Pvt. Ryan be saved, and those who are ordered to do the saving. For Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) and his men, the landing at Omaha has been a crucible of fire. For Army Chief George C. Marshall (Harve Presnell) in his Washington office, war seems more remote and statesmanlike; he treasures a letter Abraham Lincoln wrote consoling Mrs. Bixby of Boston, about her sons who died in the Civil War. His advisors question the wisdom and indeed the possibility of a mission to save Ryan, but he barks, "If the boy's alive we are gonna send somebody to find him--and we are gonna get him the hell out of there." That sets up the second act of the film, in which Miller and his men penetrate into French terrain still actively disputed by the Germans, while harboring mutinous thoughts about the wisdom of the mission. All of Miller's men have served with him before--except for Cpl. Upham (Jeremy Davies), the translator, who speaks excellent German and French but has never fired a rifle in anger and is terrified almost to the point of incontinence. I identified with Upham, and I suspect many honest viewers will agree with me: The war was fought by civilians just like him, whose lives had not prepared them for the reality of battle.

The turning point in the film comes, I think, when the squadron happens upon a German machinegun nest protecting a radar installation. It would be possible to go around it and avoid a confrontation. Indeed, that would be following orders. But they decide to attack the emplacement, and that is a form of protest: At risk to their lives, they are doing what they came to France to do, instead of what the top brass wants them to do.

Everything points to the third act, when Private Ryan is found, and the soldiers decide what to do next. Spielberg and his screenwriter, Robert Rodat, have done a subtle and rather beautiful thing: They have made a philosophical film about war almost entirely in terms of action. "Saving Private Ryan" says things about war that are as complex and difficult as any essayist could possibly express, and does it with broad, strong images, with violence, with profanity, with action, with camaraderie. It is possible to express even the most thoughtful ideas in the simplest words and actions, and that's what Spielberg does. The film is doubly effective, because he communicates his ideas in feelings, not words. I was reminded of "All Quiet on the Western Front." Steven Spielberg is as technically proficient as any filmmaker alive, and because of his great success, he has access to every resource he requires. Both of those facts are important to the impact of "Saving Private Ryan." He knows how to convey his feelings about men in combat, and he has the tools, the money and the collaborators to make it possible.

His cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, who also shot "Schindler's List," brings a newsreel feel to a lot of the footage, but that's relatively easy compared to his most important achievement, which is to make everything visually intelligible. After the deliberate chaos of the landing scenes, Kaminski handles the attack on the machinegun nest, and a prolonged sequence involving the defense of a bridge, in a way that keeps us oriented. It's not just men shooting at one another. We understand the plan of the action, the ebb and flow, the improvisation, the relative positions of the soldiers.

Then there is the human element. Hanks is a good choice as Capt. Miller, an English teacher who has survived experiences so unspeakable that he wonders if his wife will even recognize him. His hands tremble, he is on the brink of breakdown, but he does his best because that is his duty. All of the actors playing the men under him are effective, partly because Spielberg resists the temptation to make them zany "characters" in the tradition of World War II movies, and makes them deliberately ordinary. Matt Damon, as Pvt. Ryan, exudes a different energy, because he has not been through the landing at Omaha Beach; as a paratrooper, he landed inland, and although he has seen action he has not gazed into the inferno.

They are all strong presences, but for me the key performance in the movie is by Jeremy Davies, as the frightened little interpreter. He is our entry into the reality because he sees it clearly as a vast system designed to humiliate and destroy him. And so it is. His survival depends on his doing the very best he can, yes, but even more on chance. Eventually he arrives at his personal turning point, and his action writes the closing words of Spielberg's unspoken philosophical argument.

"Saving Private Ryan" is a powerful experience. I'm sure a lot of people will weep during it. Spielberg knows how to make audiences weep better than any director since Chaplin in "City Lights." But weeping is an incomplete response, letting the audience off the hook. This film embodies ideas. After the immediate experience begins to fade, the implications remain and grow.

Here's the link to the above review on Roger Ebert's website: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/saving-private-ryan-1998 

Saving Private Ryan

The movie Saving Private Ryan won best cinematography in 1998 when it came out. I decided to watch it over the weekend because I was sick of having my friends saying I haven't lived unless I've seen Saving Private Ryan and because I thought it must be pretty visually appealing if it won an Oscar for cinematography. Turns out my friends were right about it being a must-see. However, I did not think it had the best cinematography I have ever seen. Yes, it was an amazing movie with serious, valuable life lessons incorporated, but I didn't think it had anything special visually.

The movie was entirely about war and the majority of the filming was done during battles. This aspect of the movie was done stunningly. Each battle scene was shot so originally it was incredible. The camera angles used in the movie were one of the most interesting aspects. The scene never showed both sides shooting guns at each other, but rather an intimate shot of the men setting up their guns, awaiting the enemy, and firing the shot. As the men are about to fire their guns, the camera zooms in to show their eyes blinking as they take their aim, their lips moving slightly in a whispered prayer, and finally their finger slowly pulling the trigger. The entire movie was a more intimate look into what war is like than anything I have ever seen. Often times, the camera followed the soldiers as they ran into battle or ran from the enemy, and the camera was even placed right next to the soldiers so you saw exactly what they did. Once during a battle, the men are using machine guns and when the audience hears the staccato fire of the guns, the camera shakes simultaneously. The scenery of the movie is so important that the camera scans the battlefield frequently during the movie so you can soak up every detail of the war. In addition, the movie begins with the battle at Normandy when the U.S. troops arrive by water and charge the land. Frequently during this scene the camera goes below water to show injured and killed men sinking to the bottom of the ocean.  The camera angle that struck me as the most significant was at the very end of the movie when Private Ryan is shown as an old man in Normandy at the cemetery for all the soldiers who were killed and his face is in the foreground and filling up the rest of the screen are rows upon rows of white, stone crosses that each represent a dead soldier. A dead soldier who suffered while Ryan did not. A soldier who was unlucky, when Ryan was. It really shows the significance of brotherhood between soldiers in war and how much they become like family to one another.

Another significant aspect of the movie were the colors used, both the bright and dull ones. Obviously war is not the brightest subject to film, but the colors used in the battle scenes were so significant and fitting to what was going on. The movie includes a scene in which the U.S. troops set up fort in a half-wrecked house that used to be the home of a German family. The house is clearly not in very good condition, except for the bright wallpaper that still remains on many of the walls. The significance of the wallpaper is how it must remind the men of their homes, so far away that it's hard to even think they may one day return. The majority of the scenes during battle consist of very dull greens, blues, and browns. All but one in which the men go into battle during a thunderstorm and the entire television screen became a see of misty blues as I was watching the film. It was so magical, yet eerie, just as I assume war must seem. 

Why Music?

 What would a movie be like without music? Why is a scary movie not scary at all on mute? The sound track of  movie is almost just as important as what you actually see on the screen. Without music or sound any movie would suddenly become boring and will not do what a movie is meant to d. Capture your attention and make you feel what the characters of the movie feel. The music in a movie, sets the mood of the story for the people watching it. What a movie lacks in words that a book can describe but a movie cant, it makes up in imagery and sound which the back cant show.