Sicko

Sicko is a movie that deals with our health care system and how much of a joke it is. After seeing this movie it really makes one think about what goes on behind the scenes that we dont see, for instance when the lady turns people down for personal gain. I dont think that I would be able to live with myself if I knew that someone could have died because I bent the rules and said no to them on getting health care so that I could get a little bit higher on the rankings latter. It also talks about other countries health care. When we talked about Canadas health care in class though its tough to say whos is better. Their big downfall is that your at their mercy as to when you get treatment and thats its all on lists. It doesnt make since to me that if one person has been waiting on the list for a year and hasnt gotten the procedure that they need and then someone else gets hurt and needs the same thing and get priority to them just because they are younger or something. I wasnt a fan of the movie but I think thats just because I dont like Michael Moore. The way that he goes about doing things bugs me. It always a ridiculous point of veiw, its his way or no way at all. Your never going to get a perfect system anywhere you go. Hes trying to say that other places are so much better then us but if you went a looked at their system I would bet money that you find some pretty corupt things with them also. All in all its really an eye opener though. Ive learned that you really need to read and reread the things you sign so you can have a fighting chance when they try to screw you over. The movie was one that I never would have watched on my own but one that was interesting to see.

Amelie

Amelie was a different movie. It is about a girl who never got much attention from her parents. Her parents thought she had a heart condition because when she got physicals from her dad her heart would race because it was the only physical conduct she received from them. Amelie's parents home schooled her so she was never able to develop people skills and never made friends. Because of this she gained a vivid imagination. Her imagination was protrayed in the movie because it showed what she was thinking in different situations. The childhood she had affected her into her adult life as we see in the movie. Once she finds a 'treasure' of someone elses child hood and returns it to them, she gets a new outlook on life and become a do-gooder. She lives near a old man who paints random pictures. He teachers her a valuable lesson though about love. He says that if she doesn't take care and bring love in her life, that she could grow old with a heart as brittle as his bones. After hearing this Amelie sees Nino and falls for him instantly. The only problem thought is that she doesnt know how to act on her feelings to she has a resort to strange ways to get him to notice her. She starts to leave him clues and Nino eventually gets curious and pursues the clues who lead him to her. Amelie was a strange movie to me. I dont think its one that will go in my top 5 but it was an interestine one to watch.

Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine was a strange/weird but good movie. Its the perfect dysfunctional family. The mother, Sheryl is a busy woman who is just trying to keep the family from going crazy. Sheryl's brother, Frank is an expert in Proust but tried to kill himself after his homosexual partner left him. Sheryl's husband Richard is in a dead end job trying to sell his sell help book but is going nowhere with it. Next is Dwayne who doesn't speak because he has taking a vow of silence to become a test pilot. Edwin is Richards father who was in a home but was kicked out for heroine. Last is the star of the movie, Olive. She is seven years old and has a dream to win the Little Miss Sunshine contest. Edwin and Olive are close so they spent a lot of time together. Edwin even teaches Olive to dance. Even though the family lives in Albuquerque they decide to give Olive her dream and take her to the contest in California. Knowing that they cant leave any of these people alone, Sheryl gets everyone together and packs them into a Volkswagen van and off to California they go. The van is a p.o.s and has troubles the whole way. Its main flaw is that to get it to start it takes all the people pushing it until Richard can pop it into gear and start it, but once its started the whole family has a run a jump into the movie van. The trip to California is a riot. One of my favorite parts is when Dwayne finds out you have to be able to see colors to be a pilot and he is color blind and he absolutely freaks out. He swears up a storm and is just an angry person. Paul Dano did a very good job acting that out. Another good part is when they have a dead body in the van and the process they have with that. They finally make it to the contest but the lady wont register them because they are late and says if will be to much work but a guy next to her says its not a big deal and he can enter her in. Once Olive gets registered and walks back you can see she is nothing like the other contestants. Olive is heavier then the others and just doesn't quite fit in. Dwayne and Frank try to talk her out of it because they think it will embarrass her and scar her when shes older. Being good parents thought, Richard and Sheryl come in and tell Olive to do whatever she wants. Olive continues the contest and when it comes time for the dance portion she remembers all the Edwin has taught her and busts out to dance to Super Freak. Her dance is outrageous and contains a stripper move or two. Once she is onstage and doing it the whole family jumps up with her and just have have a blast. Needless to say Olive didnt win the contest and was banned from all contests after that, the family has a blast and good bonding time. The movie an instant classic in my mind. Its got an offbeat humor to it that I think all people can enjoy. Overall a great movie.

The Full Monty

The Full Monty wasnt a bad movie but its one that I probably will never watch again. I was impressed with Dave (Mark Addy). Im used to seeing him in Still Standing so watching him play a movie where he has an accent was different altought I thought he did a good job with it. The movie takes place in Sheffield where they think that they wil be able to work on the steel mills until they have to retire but then it shows the mill close and now Dave and Gaz are out of work. In the next scene we see them walking home and they read a sign of male strippers and Gaz gets a plan to make some quick money. Gaz wants a make money fast because his wife is going to take full custody of there son unless he can come up with child support. After Gaz makes this plan he goes onto recruting for it. He starts to recruit other guys from the mill who cant find jobs either. The main guy they try to recruit is Gerald but he is very reluctant at first but he finally gives in. They really want him because Dave and Gaz spotted him taking dancing lessons and they need him to teach them the dance moves they are to perform. After getting Gerald they continue to recruit by having the other guys try out in the warehouse. Once they have a group Gerald starts to teach them the routine. After they had been practicing for a while a cop waling by hears the music and comes to investigate. As soon as he walks in he sees the guys dancing and arrests them all. I thought it was funny after that when Lomper went to his band practice and the band starts to play the song they were dancing to. After they get busted the crew kind of falls apart for a while but once they find out how many tickets they sold they regroup and get ready for the performance. Dave backs out because he doesnt think that anyone will like him up there becuase he is overweight but his wife talks him back into it and he helps to save the show by urging Gaz to perform along with the help of Gaz's son, Nathan. At the end of their performance they live up to the movies title and go "Full Monty." Over all it was an alright movie. It was kind of hard to understand the actors a few times because of the accents they used.

Hotel Rwanda

1. The genocides in Hotel Rwanda were between two groups lived in the same city but had different views on the other group. Even though the two groups are at war with each other we have to realize that not all people of one group are bad. Even though Paul was a Tutsi there were a few Hutu people that helped him to supply food for a price, but they did help him. I think that we have to look at all the people as individuals and not as a group because thats just pushed the hatred more and could lead to violence. Just because some people are born under one 'sign' doesnt mean that they dont want to live in peace with a different group.

2. A big event that has affected us would be the war in Iraq. The media protrays it as the whole country is evil but im sure that not everyone there wants to be living there at all. I would say that the most emotional and vivid one would be the news clips where it shows hostages over there. They are fighting for our country when they are caputred and then abused and killed over there. After the movie it makes one think about the strugles going on in their country also but its tough to feel sorry for them after what happened during 9/11 and other events.

3. I think that the director has to keep it close to the truth because if he goes to far off the truth people will just disregard the movie and not accept it for whats it worth. Im sure a few parts had to be changed to make it work with the story line in the movie but Im guessing he kept it close to the truth.

Artistic or Visual Design

For this project I watched 3:10 to Yuma.

1. I think that the set was important to the everall effect of the film becuase you cant go out and shoot this type of film in the cities. They needed to creat a look and feel of what things would be like in the 'western days' and I feel like they accomplished it.



2. This goes right along with number ones answer. You have to shoot the movie on a set where the audiance is actually going to belive that this is what it looked like in the time peroid. You have to have a town along a railroad because that helped the town to survive so this set was very believable.



3. Everyone in this movie had dirty clothes so that tells me that they had rough lifes and probably didnt get to change/bathe often. The antagonists had darker shaded or black clothes representing the evil while the good characters wore lighter colors such as light tan and white to promote the good in them.



4. Id have to say the lighting for the movie was a mixture of the two. In some scenes it was harsh and direct. For example when one character is getting called out by everyone the light seems to shine more directly on the emphasinzing the pressure ment towards them.



5. I think the director is trying to tell us the point of focus is pressured to one or two people rather then having a whole group or people being seen in a part that one two people are having a serious conversation

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones is a definitly a movie that set the bar much higher for movie that were coming out after it. It did something previous movies didnt do. It was a non-stop action with comedy added in. I feel that other movies with a main action hero, like James Bond, imitated the style of movie by adding more explosives but still throwing in a funny line or two. When we saw the list of movie heros I didnt think Indiana Jones should have been number 2 but after seeing the movie it was pretty easy to understand why. Jones was constantly saving the girl, facing his fear of snakes, and always to do what was best for the artifacts he uncovered.

Last week I said that Good Will Hunting had a bad ending but Raiders of the Lost Ark had a cheesy ending. I couldnt stand the part when Bellog opened the Ark and all the 'ghosts' came out and melted everyones face. Then not only did the faces melt but instead of having the research it all it showed was them putting the ark in a crate and storing it in a big warehouse. Im about 99.9% sure that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg could have came up with a better ending then that.

The first arcitle I read was the review by Roger Ebert. After reading it you really learn Steven Spielberg feeling toward the Nazi's and how he portrayed it in the movie. He also makes it seem that Indiana is the ultimate man, when he deals with spiders, snakes, booby traps, and a big rock. I really liked how he finally described Jones as "dry, fearless, and as indestructible as a cartoon coyote." He made it sound like Raiders of the Lost Ark is a must see the way he emphazied all the action.

The second atrile I read was "Real Archaeologists Wear Whips." This article was quick and to the point. It talks about Jones as being the smart, fearless guy whos just out there for the museum. I liked how it said hes out there going through all the action and danger but he never, ever loses his hat.

The last article I read was "Masquerader of the Lost Ark." This was a real intersting article. Vendyl Jones really think that he is the inspiration for the Indiana Jones movies. I enjoyed how Vendyl said that the got Indiana from taking the "V" and the "L" out of his name to leave "endy." Vendyl even goes as far as to say that the movies dont hold a candle to his adventures. He goes into saying he has major finds including a two thousand year of juglet of oil mentioned in the copper scrolls. I think this guy might be slightly nuts when he started talking about the "greatest hoax of mankind" the conspiracy of Christianity over Judaism and that the New Testament is a fraud. He talked a lot about how Lucas and Spielberg stole the story from Filmore, a writer for Vendyl, after he took it to hollywood. Im pretty sure if this guy did everything he said he did that all the people in his crews and his friends who knew what he was doing would have made it more public. Vendyl even talks about how he isnt had because this is helping to get more knowledge out about this stuff. All in all the article was pretty interesting. If what the guy says is true hes found some important things. It was worth the read I think.

Overall this is a good movie. It was really a trail blazer for later action movie. One of my favorite parts would have to have been at the beginning when Jones is running from the tribe and they are throwing spears and darts at him and he dives into the water and swims to the plane so jus twhen you think the action is settling down he finds a snake in his seat and we realize his hatred for them. The worst part in the movie is still the entire ending. The only movie with we've watched that had an ending that has an ending where we find out how all the loose ends tie up on is 'On the Waterfront.'