The Running SUPER BLOG

Run Lola Run, I didn’t think the name of the movie would be so literal. I think 90 percent of the movie is her running. This girl has some wheels and she must be a track star because I know my big body self would not be running that much. 

The movie starts out with Lola talking to her boyfriend on the phone and he is explaining the world of trouble he is in. If you ask me he brought it upon himself because how do you leave a bag of 100,000 marks behind on the train. If I was me and I was transporting a gang members money that bag would be glued to my hand it would never leave. People make mistakes though so he ended up leaving the 100,000 marks . Right from the beginning the boyfriend blames his trouble on Lola because she was late. This becomes a common theme throughout the film, they both end up robbing a bank and he once again says I wouldn’t be doing this if you came sooner. Something else I noticed in the film is Lola gets hit with adulthood in the film. She goes to her father for the money and instead of giving her the money he tells her nah I’m leaving you and your mom and I’m going to make an actual happy family. You know how much of a shit day that is, your boyfriend is on the verge of being killed because he can’t keep track of 100,000 marks, then your father basically tell you to fuck off he is going to make a better family. Not only that but then she gets caught up in a robbery because she was too late to get to her boyfriend. 

 Switching gears let’s talk a little about CGI and ILM ( Industrial Light and Magic. I enjoyed watching this. It was cool to learn about how they do CGI and how much of a process it actually is. It has never really crossed my mind on how they made the ships and everything else that was not the characters. I wanna say that I have way more respect for CGI than ever before. ILM made me more appreciative of CGI films like Star Wars and Gladiator. The film that I am most impressed with is transformers. The entire movie is basically CGI and those films are not short and do not lack any detail. 

I enjoyed these films this week. Run Lola Run kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. It was a good action film. ILM made me appreciate films with CGI a lot more. 

But let’s switch it up, let’s talk about this semester and the crazy journey we have been on in this class 

Man what a year this year has been a chaotic one but this has been one of my favorite classes. Reading everyone’s blogs to see what they have had to say about our screenings was one of my favorite things about this class. The blogs were something new instead of turning in paper assignments or stuff like that. Before coming into this class I had little to no knowledge of film but this class taught me a lot 

We started at the end of the 19th century with silent films. Before this class I did not know the importance of silent films. Silent films mapped out a foundation for our films today. We started with the Great Train Robbery. I never knew that I would actually enjoy a movie with no sound. This film was kind of low quality compared to us today. It was more of a chopped and cut by cut  film. After we explored silent films a little bit we started to transition over to films with sound. This transition was drastic but subtle at the same time. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is an example of how sound was in films, this film just had music playing in the background while the actors really set the mood with their acting. A trip to the Moon is another example of early sound and special effects in films, this film was more documentary style with props moving around a still camera. 

Jumping forward a little bit, we started to learn more about early horror films like Frankenstein, and the Bride of Frankenstein. These two films are like the holy grail of early horror films. Frankenstein’s costume was terrifying to people, it was this big monster who was thought to want to kill everyone but in reality he just wanted a friend. Comparing Frankenstein to horror films today he looks like a child’s movie. More modern films are more focused on gore And violence like slasher films. I think the most scary thing we had watched in this class was The Fly. That nasty but awesome film was a great example of the things horror films today try to hit on. This mad scientist turns himself into a bug and just goes crazy, the props and makeup in the movie were in my opinion just phenomenal.  During the transition from human to the fly he had body parts falling off, they had little robots that played the inside out monkey and the final form of The Fly.

With more gruesome and scary movies becoming popular it led us into the semester where we talked about censorship in films. One of the more famous forms of censorship we talked about was the Hays code. This set of rules limited the amount of sex that was allowed in films, it also did not allow interracial couples. Also same sex couple was not allowed. As films progressed on and the Hays code was later abolished we started to talk about how we rate films today. This film is not yet rated laid out perfect on what is wrong with the system today. They are very biased on what they let pass or not. In the film they discussed how if you got a NC-17 your film would basically not show, but there were no set rules on what could pass and what could not it is based on how they feel while watching the film. 

Slowly crawling to the end of the semester we started talking about more modern films. I wanna give my group a little shout out, good work group four. I think we did a really good job and I will be watching Gladiator again. In more modern films like gladiator computer generated images or CGI is a big role. Also movies like transformers and Star Wars where they use a lot of CGI were great hits because of CGI. Gladiator and Star Wars we’re big films for the production of CGI. 

This is a sad sad time but it brings us to the end of this course. This one of three of my classes that I got excited to attend. I loved reading your blogs. It was nice to see what everyone thought or analyzed from the films. Also I want to thank professor Schlegel for having this class. It was so much fun and I learned a lot, and I also can’t forget about meeting Joe Dante. It was cool to meet an actual director. Well I hope you all the best and nothing but success. It has been a pleasure.

Opera-tion Record

This week our main screening was Diva Directed in 1981 by Jean-Jacques Beineix. This film was pretty interesting to me. I never watched a movie with any opera in it, but i was not disappointed. It had what seemed to be everything in it. It matched things together that you wouldn’t think fit, like opera and action. It was nice to watch something that you don’t see everyday. The main plot of the film is of a postman Jules who records a beautiful opera singer Cynthia Hawkins without her consent during one of her concerts. Cynthia did not allow anyone to record her singing so that’s what made this tape of her signing so valuable. The action comes from two men who are afte Jules from accidentally getting caught up in a sex trafficking ring, two men are hunting him down to get the tape of a confession from a prostitute. 

This film was very soothing. It didn’t feel like things were being rushed in the beginning of the film. It was playing soft and soothing music then cuts into Cynthia’s concert and it kind of made me skeptical of the movie at first because romance or drama is not at the top of my favorites lists of movies. The scene with Cynthia singing really set the mood for the feelings of the crowd. The lights were soft and bright on her letting everyone know   the focus is on her, she is the main character. The crowd watching her was dark, you could not really see who was in the crowd besides Jules. This for me helped almost form a connection between the two. It made me say okay so something is going to happen between these two and sure enough Jules ends up recording her concert, then later bringing her flowers and her dress. 

Another big thing that stood out to me was the music. The music gave the entire movie a more relaxed vibe. Like I said earlier it just felt like this movie was taking its time, there was no rush into developing the movie’s plot and the music helped out a lot. Besides short snippets of intense music for the action scenes the music was more laid back it allowed me to feel the emotions that were being presented. The music allowed me to feel like I was actually in the movie. 

Overall I guess I can say that I enjoyed the movie.  I have watched a very limited number of movies where the postman is the main character. I have also not watched a single movie with opera in it so it was nice to mix it up a little bit.  I enjoyed how the music and lights really made me feel the emotions in the movie.

The Slashing BrundleFly

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Horror films are by far one of my favorite genres, so this week’s screenings were pretty great. This week we got to see how the birth of slasher films became popular. During the late 70s and early 80s slasher films were in high demand because of the gore that was in the film,  slasher films brought a form of a dark side to films. If there was more blood and people being killed more people enjoyed the film. When watching slasher films like Friday the 13th you experience a too scared to look and a too good to look away feeling. These films were really gruesome but that’s what the people wanted to see. People in the audience went from cheering for the victim to get away from the murderer to cheering for the killer to catch the victim. The special effects of these films were explained in Going to Pieces. A lot of the stabbing scenes were of a rubber head that could be put on your shoulders or laid in a bed. In Going to Pieces they explained  how the death of Jason was a rubber head controlled by a hand, the head was sliding down the blade and the facial expressions were made from someone from someone’s hand inside of the dummy head. Most of the victims in these slasher films were helpless women begging for mercy or unable to defend themselves. Critics started to see this as hate against women, some even said that they feel like the films were discriminating towards women. The shalsher industry saw these reports and feared for the end of the slasher films, but in response they started making women more heroic. In fear of losing the wave of money that they are riding, film producers started to make more women heroes instead of victims.

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The Fly was disgusting but definitely worth the watch. It starts with Seth Brundle, a scientist who is working on a teleportation device. He completed this device to later try it on himself. While he teleports himself a fly joins him for the ride. Throughout the film he evolves more into a fly than a human. Brundle makes the statement along the lines that he has always been a fly but the teleportation makes him into his pure form. The formation into a fly was disgusting but there was so much good detail. I did a little research on how they did some of the special effects for the film and for the most part it was pretty simple, the vomit Brundle spits out on Stathis (Veronicas ex boyfriend) was a mixture of honey, flour, and food coloring. When Brundle actually formed fully into the fly was a rigged puppet system with  motors, cables and hydraulics, it took about eight people to operate the mechanical beast. The fly was a nasty but eye-catching film, I would definitely suggests watching it but make sure you’re not eating while watching it.

Here is the website that I found info on the fly character https://www.cinelinx.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/k2_items_cache_dcdc6c694e3bfbcfde1f887328c54bae_XL.jpg

Jaw-Dropping

You’re sitting with your friends on the beach, maybe having a few beers just relaxing when someone decides to go swimming. While swimming you hear them scream and see the water around them turn into a bloodbath surrounding what used to be your friend. Jaws storyline was of a chief of the police force of a small island trying to protect the people, but the mayor who is a money hungry fool disobeys all of the chief’s suggestions to close the beach down because he wants to bring in more money. 

Jaws was such a hit because it touched someone personally like they were living in the movie, in real life you could go to a beach and swim with your family and in real life one of you guys could be attacked by the flesh hungry 20ft great white shark. The main plot of the film could actually happen in real life, a small town who brings in many visitors on the Fourth of July struggles without the income of tourists coming to their beach to swim. When the money from the tourists is being threatened by a ginormous shark, a bounty of $3000 is put on the shark. Martin Brody, the main character beside Bruce the shark, sets out to sail with Quint who makes an offer that if he is paid $10,000 he will kill the shark. Matt Hooper, a marine biologist is also on board the ship. Jaws was a gory attention grabbing film that no one really wanted to take their eyes off. Many scenes had a human being eaten by a shark and blood would pour out around them engulfing the now shark snack into a sea of red. The most gory scene that I noticed was when the Orca was sinking into the abyss of the sea and Quint loses his grip sliding into the jaws of a killing machine. This scene showed Quint being thrashed side to side and blood spewing everywhere, while you hear Quint screaming for the last few seconds of his life. Another gory scene was when Martin finally killed the shark, when martin shot the container filled with compressed air you can see chunks or the 20ft beast fly into the air along with a mist of blood and justice. Scenes like these are what made people want more, they liked the violence, they liked the gore and I can not blame them.  Jaws gave David Spielberg the popularity he deserved in the film industry but jaws was also a “breakthrough “summer blockbuster,” and the first film to gross over $200 million at the box office and to return over $100 million in rental receipts to its distributor – still the measure of a blockbuster hit.” ( Structure of the industry, Tom Schatz). Jaws can be considered one of if not the first blockbusters, a blockbuster is a film or other form of a product that brings in loads of success to not only the director but the industry. It could be said that with the success of jaws Spielberg saved the film industry. According to ABC news, Jaws changed when movies were released and filmed “The idea of the summer blockbuster had yet to crystallize when “Jaws” was released. Summer was considered Hollywood’s off-season, filled with schlock and B-movie fare.” Jaws started the trend of releasing and filming movies for the people in the summer. Jaws was and still is a very important film for the industry it broke records and started new trends for the future of the film industry.

Work Cited

ABC News, ABC News Network, abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/ways-jaws-changed-movies-forever/story?id=31366659.

The Ride and Dies

Bonnie and Clyde have had the ride or die relationship that many people would love to have. I have only watched about two bonnie and Clyde movies but yet for as long as i can remember I have always known about this power couple. I am sure everyone knows the story of how these two just went completely off the rails and lived by no rules. As crazy as it sounds, going on a 21 month spree of just committing any crimes they needed to to get to where they were going, and that was nowhere but the graveyard. Bonnie and Clyde directed by Arthur Penn in 1967 was the first Bonnie and Clyde film that I had watched that was directly focused on their story. From the little knowledge I know about their crime spree this film was pretty intriguing, I could not take my eyes off the screen, the film producers did such a good job actually telling their story and how mostly everyone loved them even though they were crazy criminals. There was a lot of foreshadowing the bloody end of the crazy thrill seeking couple, but the time that was most clear for me was when Bonnie wrote her poem that was later put in the newspaper “ to the law it is a relief, but it is death to Bonnie and Clyde.” These few words were enough to show that the end of Bonnie and Clyde was near. The scene where bonnie and Clyde actually die is pretty gruesome, and sad to see this 24 and 25 year old couple who everyone was madly obsessed with get just ripped apart by machine guns in front of their car. Another Bonnie and Clyde film that i have watched is The Highway Men. This film was about two guys who were put on detail to hunt down Bonnie and Clyde in the Arthur Penn film bonnie and Clyde were portrayed as a loving couple who was nice to everyone that didn’t get in their way, in the John Lee Hancock film bonnie and Clyde have a more evil outlook, Hancock still included the love by the people, but it was more focused on the police aspect of the film. In both films the two love birds are shown being torn apart by the law enforcement. I really suggest watching The Highwaymen on Netflix and it is just so good. 

Bonnie and Clyde was an action filled love story that showed you all of the violence in the story. Guns and shooting people was a common theme in this movie. Bonnie and Clyde: sexy, bloody, and sticking it to the man on YouTube states that “Bonnie and Clyde put the final nail in the coffin of the hays code.” I can agree with this: Bonnie and Clyde were not shy about showing violence, the best example of this is when Clyde and Bonnie’s time runs out and they are sprayed down in the last car they stole. This scene showed their bodies splattered in blood and twitching on the ground as Clyde takes one last look at Bonnie and they both die. I think of this scene as one last we will do what we want towards the hays code.

Wild Neorealism

Wild Strawberries is about a retired doctor named Isak Borg who decides to drive his car to Lund to receive his award. In the beginning he is shown as an innocent old man,  but he is abruptly shown as a self centered old man who only cares about himself throughout the film.  We are first shown this as he tells his house maid  that he is going to drive instead of take the plane because he wants to take a leisure drive. His daughter in law asks to come with him. Later in that drive she later tells him why she doesn’t like him. This is when we are shown again who he truly is as a person. During that car ride he has daydreams about his memories. Most of his daydreams were nightmares either of him dying or forgetting all of his knowledge of being a doctor. During their ride to Lund they pick up three teenmagers who are traviling to italy. The one teenager Sarah has the same name and reminds him of his first love Sarah. These teenagers soften him up on the ride to the lund which allows him to finally accept the fact that he is dying and he should appreciate life more.

I enjoyed wild strawberries but it was a little confusing at times. I liked how when they were riding in the car you could see the road moving in the background. The transition from reality to his dreams was very clear.  

Neorealism showed the real world struggles in the aftermath of WWII. The bicycle thief is a good example of neorealism, an unemployed laborer finally finds a job to provide for his family. To be able to succeed with this job he needs his bicycle. His bike later gets stolen. Bicycle thief shows the struggle that families were going through after the war. Tons of families were waiting in long lines just to find work so they could support their family. 

Ruggles and Censorship

This week’s screening The Ruggles of Red Gap was relaxing to watch. It was funny to watch and was kind of a break from all of the films we have been watching recently. I think one of my favorite parts was when his wife threw out all his clothes and went and bought him new ones, and after they bought him new clothes the wife said to go to the art museum. The funny part was when he told his helper he never goes to the museum he always just reads a catalog of the museum and just goes to the bar and tells his wife a random fact that he read in the book. I was thinking to myself, man , this man has the whole system figured out, he goes to the bar, reads a little in the book and tells his wife a different fact. I think another funny scene is when they are at the bar and the helper finally lets loose after having a few drink and just yells “ YAHOO” it was just funny because you have this uptight helper telling the husband that he need to go to the museum so he doesn’t get in trouble by his wife and the next scene he is drunk off his ass. I wasn’t a big fan of the wife. She seemed just really annoying to me, I got the vibe that she uses the type of girl to always be the center of attention. When Ruggles started to get more recognition because of the newsletter she started clinging to his arm and started praising Ruggles. One thing I didn’t like about the film was how they treated Ruggles. Ruggles was a kind man and treated everyone with respect and was very formal. Egbert was one of the few people who treated Ruggles like a person. 

Hay code was a form of censorship that filtered through films not allowing things like complete nudity, in depth murder scenes, and interracial couples homosexuality was not permitted illegal drug use was also not allowed, according to Menthshealth in the article “How the Hays Code—as Seen in Hollywood—Censored Hollywood.” Hollywood found ways to get around these codes. Later on The hays code was abolished because things like rape and nudity appeared more in films.   Looking at the film industry now it’s crazy to think how much we have changed. Many films like 50 Shades of Grey and Breaking Bad would definitely not meet the requirements. 

Work cited 

Adebowale, Temi. “How the Hays Code Censored Hollywood.” Men’s Health, Men’s Health, 8 May 2020, http://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a32290089/hollywood-hays-code/. 

The Grand Storyline

The grand hotel was an amazing film. This film didn’t just have one story line throughout the entire film it had multiple. Bouncing back and forth between each person filling in their story piece by piece. I haven’t watched a lot of movies like this one. The grand hotel is a popular and extravagant hotel in Berlin with lots of people staying inside, lots of rich and important people. 

The Grand hotel starts off with the operators answering the phones, tons of calls are coming in. Showing how busy the hotel actually is, later in the film they reference back to this scene. The main characters are seen talking on the phone handling their own personal business. I thought this was a great way to introduce the different storylines that were going to be played.

 Transitioning to the hotel the Kringelien is shown complaining to the front desk because he has been waiting three days to get a hotel room he pleads that he wants to stay there because a lot of rich and important people stay here. During complaining the doctor Otternschlang tells the front desk that he can have his room. Kringelein is an old man who has worked his entire life to get what he has, and that’s not much, as he says. To me he came off as a sweet old man just looking for a friend to spend his last couple of days together. When  he finally gets his room is trying to get everyone to come over to check out his very fancy room. 

Doctor Otterschlang is kind of a mysterious character, he is very quiet and moves in the shadows if you will. He is introduced by walking through the stations at the front desk asking if he has any messages, calls, or if anyone has asked for him, a side character states that everyday he comes down asking these things like he is expecting something from someone. The doctor is the first person to give Kringelien a kind gesture by offering to give up his room for him. Not much really comes out of the doctor 

The Barron talking with his criminal colleague about his next heist. Barron was a sweet guy to everyone, I don’t think that this was much of a cover up. I think he was genuinely a nice guy. Barron was kind of a treesh though, he tries to pick up Ms flaemmchen by asking her to dance when she states that she doesn’t dance with strangers he persists. She then agrees and they go on their way. Barron is plotting  to steal the dancers pearls to get a check of $5000 marks. When he finally goes to steal the pearls from the dancer the dancer walks into the room, after hiding for a bit he finally comes out to tell the dancer he thinks she is pretty. He then tells her he loves her and that he is a criminal and gives her her pearls back. Barron does not have a happy ending; it is kind of sad. 

Ms Faemmchen is a Stenographer for General Director preysing, she is mostly seen talking about barron and her work. Mr preysing is married but he is still trying to sleep with his Faemmchen. Faemmchen talks about how she is struggling to find a job and get money. Preysing offers her a job to be his secretary but I think khe only offered her that job to try and sleep with her. Faemmchen takes the job and moves into the same room with Preysing. Barron tries to steal Preysings wallet and he catches him later killing him. When Faemmchen sees what he has done she runs to Kringliens room where he makes the decision that he should call the cops on preysing.

 I think my favorite part was when Kringelien got his revenge on Preysing for all the times Preysing had disrespected him and treated him like dirt in the film. It was  a you got what you deserved kind of deal. I overall enjoyed the film from the beginning to the end. What was your favorite part?

Sunrise quite before the storm

Sunrise is the first silent film I have watched in my entire life. The story line was pretty great. When the movie starts it shows a man who is not interested in his wife, who is bored of his life and is getting a form of arousal, and excitement from seeing another woman behind her back. As the man is seeing this girl he starts to think that he loves her. Him and this girl make a plan to kill his current wife and sell his own farm and move to the city with her. He pushes her off and disagrees with her. She then convinces him to drown her by capsizing the boat and using some form of plants to save himself. After he agrees the next day the husband and wife agree to go on the boat for the day they give their child to the grandmother to watch for the day.

As he grows enough confidence to actually take his significant other life he then gets second thoughts. He changes his mind and realizes that he actually still loves her and he wants her instead of the mistress. As they get to shore she runs and he chases after her which turns into a full day on the town. He buys her flowers trying everything to win her trust back, he gets a shave, they go to a church, they get their photos taken where they break a tiny statue and run out the store. They go to a carnival where they play a game that throws bags at a target for a pig. One of the pigs gets loose and they chase it around the entire carnival. After they catch the pig and leave to head home a storm rolls in that ironically tips the boat over that almost takes the wife’s life. That same night the mistress shows up to the house thinking that he killed his wife for her although that was not the situation he then goes outside and continues to choke her almost taking her life until the grandma calls out saying they have found his wife. 

For being my first silent film I enjoyed it a lot. Throughout the movie I was actually entertained. I liked the plot of the movie. In the beginning it caught my attention because he was cheating on his wife while he has a farm and a child.  I didn’t like him in the beginning and I am still not sure if I like him now. It was a perfect resemblance of what can happen in marriage, you get bored and you think you want something new until you are reminded why you fell in love with that person. I liked how it was more foreshadowed than his wife was going to drown. Although he didn’t drown his wife himself, the boat was still tipped over and she was lost on the water. I was really happy when they had found his wife. I also thought it was funny when the pig had escaped and started drinking the wine. Overall I enjoyed the film a lot, and I definitely would watch another silent film.

Introduction