MYST 5

This weekend I was at a basketball tournament and I was a lot bigger than most of the players there. While I was there somebody called me Godzilla. Naturally that made me want to see the new Godzilla movie. On Saturday we had the night off and my team and I went to see the movie. You would think that this movie would be full of monsters and action throughout the whole film, but that is not the case. Although you see the monsters, there is no fighting until near the end. There is also a love story incorporated into this film. The main character's name is Ford and is played by Aaron Taylor Johnson. He has a wife and a kid, and he is also a marine. Him being a marine symbolizes how he is not there that often. When the monsters were discovered he had to go and fight again. the rest of the movie is him trying to get to his family while saving the world at the same time.


A key scene in this movie is when Godzilla and Ford make eye contact. Ford had just destroyed the egg sack of Godzilla's enemies while Godzilla was fighting them. Godzilla got knocked down and Ford was right in his line of sight. you could see it in Ford's eyes that he was saying "get up, get up" to Godzilla. He also realized Godzilla isn't there to hurt people. he is there to save his city. After about 20 seconds of Godzilla and Ford staring at each other Godzilla gets the power to get up and beat his enemies. This is when the action really starts to kick up. there is about 20 minutes of fighting after this and it is very suspenseful.

Overall, I found this movie very entertaining and would recommend this movie to anyone. The only downfall of this movie is that they completely modernized it and didn't really follow the plot lines of the past Godzilla movies. Other than that I still really enjoyed watching this film and recommend it to everybody.

Formal Film Study 2

For this Formal Film Study I chose to do 3 big name films of Steven Spielberg. What I want to do is compare the camera angle and music of the movies to see what similarities they have and also differences they have. I am assuming that there will be more similarities in the films considering they all did remarkably well in the box office. The films were also wildly popular. The films I did were Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, and Schindler’s List.  

Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan were made in the 90’s while Minority Report was made in 2002. Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan were made about WWII, but what is interesting about the two is that it shows both perspectives of the war. Saving Private Ryan shows how American soldiers dealt with the war and what the hardships were of fighting for their country. To briefly explain Schindler’s List, it shows the hard times of the Jews during WWII. It shows how they tried to hide from the Gestapo and stay safe from going to a concentration camp. A man named Schindler creates jobs for them and saves thousands of lives from the Nazis. Minority Report takes a different plot and is about a futuristic police force that is capable of figuring out future crimes and preventing them now. For Saving Private Ryan it’s like a basic war movie, but with a twist. For these movies it’s not so much the plot line that is the same it’s more of the lighting and shots used that really tell you about a character or the mood of the scene.

What Spielberg does in Schindler’s list is make you remember that historic time period very deeply. The shots and camera angles of scenes are so deep that the scene will be embedded in your brain for a long time. Janet Maslin of the New York Times says, “Mr. Spielberg has made sure that neither he nor the Holocaust will ever be thought of in the same way again. With every frame, he demonstrates the power of the filmmaker to distill complex events into fiercely indelible images. "Schindler's List" begins with the sight of Jewish prayer candles burning down to leave only wisps of smoke, and there can be no purer evocation of the Holocaust than that.” Another example of making you never forget something about the movie is every time Schindler talks. Depending on his take in the scene Schindler is either in darkness while talking or in some light. I feel when it is dark he is taking a bad position in the scene and visa versa when in light. Saving Private Ryan is light most time symbolizing an American victory I feel like. One thing I did notice is that every hand to and combat scene is in the dark or a dark place. Basically any type of killing is shot in darker scenes. Minority Report is a dark movie as a hole. It is a man with a mission to find his son. He is an angry man throughout the movie so the dark lighting in the movie symbolizes his anger and drive to get his son back.

Most of the shots were close up due to the fact that there was a lot of 1-1 talking especially in Schindler’s List. In Schindler’s List every time he was talking to somebody he would take a shot of Hennessy. That really stood out to me and I don’t know why. I don’t know for sure why he does it, but my guess would be to show power. Hennessy is an expensive alcohol especially back then. In Saving Private Ryan there is a scene where an American soldier and a German soldier get into a hand-to-hand combat battle and the shot was a close up on both of them and really gets you to feel that moment of the movie.

Another thing I noticed about the movie was the music was classic up-tempo action music. There were no words just up-temp beats showing that there is a bunch of action going on and it is very intense and suspenseful. The music would appear during intense war scenes in Saving Private Ryan while the music would come while Schindler was talking about something important. In Minority Report the music was playing a lot because of how many action scenes there were.

Overall, I can see why these films made it big. Saving Private Ryan was destined to be good because it came out 5 years after Schindler’s list, which was also about WWII. They both were WWII films that almost played hand in hand. With one side being the actual war and the other side showing the holocaust and efforts of people (Schindler) who were against Hitler and the Nazi party. Minority Report doesn’t tie in with the WWII theme but does tie in with the action theme. As I stated above the music really told you when the action scenes were coming and some big time action scenes would take place.  Lastly, these films were overall good movies and made it big because they were made very well, had great music, and awesome lighting and camera angles.

MYST 4

Jobs is a film that really inspires you. The main character is Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) and the story narrates his life of creating what we know today as Apple computers. They really show both sides of Jobs in this movie. They show how hard working he is as an individual, but they also show how much of a jerk he can be. In one scene where he is talking about who is going to make how much money off the investment and he completely screws over his partner, Steve Wozniak, by giving him absolutely nothing. Wozniak is played by Josh Gab and his character is very important in the film. When Jobs has his idea of a circuit board to be faster and in color he calls Wozniak in the middle of the night to have him come over and build it. Wozniak shows up and does it. They become full time partners and go to a convention to try to promote their idea. It goes terribly wrong, but Jobs still thinks his idea is unique and can make it big. The rest of the movie is Wozniak and Jobs creating Apple and then Jobs screws Wozniak over. There is a little bit of karma because Apple fired Jobs, while Wozniak still works for Apple. Jobs creates his new company "Next" and Apple wants him back because his new company would put them out of business. The second time around at Apple isn't any different, he wants the same thing and he gets it done, but loses a bunch of friends in the mean time. This movie is inspiring, sad, and very entertaining. I really enjoyed this movie and recommend it to people looking for an entertaining, but also inspiring movie.

A scene that really, REALLY stood out to me is in the beginning of the movie. Jobs calls Wozniak over in the middle of the night and is working on the circuit board. After they have a few lines and are talking like friends, Jobs looks at Wozniak and says, "Hey, thanks for doing this" Wozniak looks him right in the eye with a smirk on his face and says "No problem, it's what friends do right?" This scene stands out to me because, as I stated before Jobs screws his FRIEND over. It also stood out to me because of the lighting in these shots. all the lights are off except for the one Wozniak is using to work on the circuit board with and it is shining where you can see his whole face abd hand working on the board and Jobs in mostly in the dark. I feel that is portraying a role for the two characters. Wazniak being the better person and Jobs being the bad guy by being in the darkness.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and the cinematography of the movie. The lighting always showed something about the character and that made you really think of if you like that character or not. It keeps you on your toes and really touches your heart at the same time. As i said before i recommend this movie to almost anyone. It is along the same lines as the Social Network, but personally I think this movie tromps The Social Network.