This blog was created with utmost ingenuity, as part of the author's school requirement in their Cinema class, and out of her "love for movies." Hence, the title. This is not meant for professional basis and shouldn't be used as one. The author reflecting in this blog site is a Mass Comm student who is fond of watching movies and is not considered a professional movie critic. YET. Any opinion depicted in this blog does not necessarily reflect the institution the author is affiliated with.
I just learned today that "Elysium" is already showing in Philippine theaters. It opens on September 4, 2013.
Goodness gracious! How come I haven't heard of this earlier this week? I've been waiting for this movie to be available in movie houses because I got quite intrigued with the story plot, futuristic approach, gadgets and the totality of this movie. Besides, it is starred by Matt Damon, the actor behind the character of Jason Bourne of Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum, and that somehow adds up to my eagerness to watch the movie. And if I'm not mistaken, this is directed by the same director of District 9. Phew! If you've watched District 9, you'll understand why I'm really looking forward to watch this movie.
I first watched the trailer of Elysium (pronounced as \i-ˈli-zhē-əm, -zē-\) at a movie house during which movie trailers were shown before the actual showing of the scheduled movie. I just don't remember whether it was at the time of Jack Reacher, Man of Steel, or World War Z. All I know is that the moment the trailer ended, I've already decided that I'm gonna watch it. Had I known that it has been in theaters since Wednesday, I would've put this in my calendar and watch it today. Too bad, it's not on my schedule. And I cannot watch it today because I still have lots on my plates today. Oh well, I still have next weekend. Can't wait!
Anyway, on the side, I made some research about the term "Elysium." Of course, I'm not gonna watch a movie if I don't understand what the title means. So I looked into Webster online and here's what I found:
So an Elysium simply means paradise or "heaven" so to speak. Now, that explains the "beauty of Elysium" for not having sickness, war, nor poverty as shown on the trailer. For those who haven't watched the trailer yet, here it is. Courtesy of Youtube again. Enjoy! :)
“Just because
you haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it’s not there.”– Professor Bomba
The quoted
dialogue above sounds like a line from a horror film. But it’s not, actually.
Several weeks
ago, before the typhoon Maring hits the entire Philippines with its unlimited
rainfall, I got the chance to watch a movie I downloaded online. This was done
at the comfort of my own bedroom or so to speak. Alas, at the time when this
movie was still making a fuss at the social media sites and the time it was
still being shown at the theaters, I had no chance to watch it and so I just
had to list it down to my “movie bucket-list” for future viewing. And to make
the story short, I was able to finally watch it. It is entitled EPIC.
EPIC is a 3D animated film that is of adventure-comedy-ish type. It
reveals a fantasy world that tells the story of an ongoing battle between the
forces of good and the forces of evil. Of course, the good forces are the ones
who keep the natural world alive while those who wish to destroy it are the bad
forces.
Personally, when I heard of the
title EPIC, I was thinking of extremely large scale type of storylines such as Lord of the Rings, The Terminator, or The
Matrix. Never did I think that it is an animated fantasy film until I watched
the trailer on Youtube (see below). And besides, I think the use
of the word “Epic” is somewhat strange for an animated film title. Nevertheless,
I find it intriguing enough when I found out that this movie involves a group
of small creatures living in the forest. And by the way, I have my own reasons
why I use capital letters when mentioning the movie title. J
Anyhow, I mentioned earlier that
this film involves small creatures in the forest. And when I say creature, I meant
human-like creatures. Just tiny ones. Interesting, right? Suddenly reminds me
of Thumbelina. J
Moving on, based on Wikipedia,
this film is loosely based on William Joyce’s children’s book entitled “The Leaf
Men and The Brave Good Bugs.” It was produced by Blue Sky Studios and directed
by Chris Wedge, who happens to be the same director of Ice Age and Rio. This
film stars the voices of Amanda Seyfried, Josh Hutcherson, Colin Farrell,
Christoph Waltz, Aziz Ansari, Chris O'Dowd, Pitbull, Jason Sudeikis, with
Steven Tyler and Beyoncé Knowles. The film was released on May 24, 2013.
The movie started with a long
shot of the forest’s greenery and a voice over of a girl, saying:
“Somebody told me that if you stand still in the forest long enough,
you’ll see signs of hidden struggle raging between the forces of life and
decay. That the survival of the forest itself depends on the outcome. And that
the good guys need all the help they can get. And that if you don’t believe it,
take a close look. And if you still don’t, take a closer look.”
It was implied at the later part
of the film that the owner of that voice over is actually MK (or Mary Katherine
voiced by Amanda Seyfried), one of the main characters. In the film, she just
moved to her father’s place since her mom just passed away. This father of her
is an unconventional scientist named Professor Bomba whom she finds as a weirdo
because he has been searching for tiny human soldiers eversince. Of course, MK
does not believe in her father’s nonsense researches. She thought that all
those were just out of her father’s oddity. Eventually, it was revealed that
the very same oddity of her father was the same reason why her mom had to ditch
him.
Meanwhile, it turned out that the
Leafmen are actually real. They’re soldiers who protect the forest, where Bomba
lives nearby, from ugly creatures called Boggans and their wicked leader named
Mandrake.
The conflict begins when Queen
Tara, queen of the forest (voiced by Beyonce Knowles), Leafmen leader Ronin,
and her bodyguards were attacked by overwhelming number of Boggans while she’s
still in the moment of choosing an heir for the forest. Unfortunately, at that
encounter, the queen got fatally wounded when Mandrake shoots her with an
arrow.
In the
interim, MK decides to leave and left a note on one of her father’s computer
monitors. It was indicated in the film that MK is annoyed at her father. But before
she can leave, their three-legged dog made her run into the woods in which she
finds herself magically transported into this secret world of Leafmen where she
saw the dying Queen Tara falling from out of nowhere. And before Tara dies, she gives
the smallest pod, the heir, to MK for safekeeping asking her to bring it Nim
Galuu (voiced by Steven Styler) and the adventure of saving their world – and our
world – starts.
I’ll
leave the rest of the story on your imagination or better yet watch the film.
Out of
the narration I made for this film’s plot, you might already have an idea of
what this film is all about. Yep, I’m telling you that this film has a strong,
fierce woman as a central character. Pretty much like the film Brave but with a different storyline, of
course. And if you’re quite the feminist type, you might agree with me that the
era of damsels-in-distress as the central theme in animated films sending the
message “Someday, my Prince Charming will come and save me,” has taken the
backseat. Thanks to films like this that feature heroine/s.
Movie-goers
are excited to see inspiring female protagonists on-screen because it reflects
our modern world where women have choices and our dreams can be limitless. As a
woman myself, I can personally attest to this. Moreover, this film does not
only give lessons about being a strong girl/woman but it can also make us realize
the value of family. Most of all, this movie gives emphasis to the importance of
nature – it’s composition, the balance in ecosystem, and all other stuff that mostly
science can explain.
Just like
any other animation, this film had to put some exaggeration in terms of computer-generated
shots and angles to make it more lively and eye-stimulating. Well, that is needless
to say. But my point is, it has some photo-realistic animation and some cool concepts.
Take for example, the Leafmen riding hummingbirds like horses. Furthermore, the
film was loaded with brilliantly colorful characters, fabulous voice cast and
simply impressive animation especially that scene where giant figures in
extreme close-up move in slow motion as the tiny heroes scatter about. That’s
something fresh, unusual and innovative to my eyes altogether.
Overall,
this film is full of fun, sweet-hearted kid-pleaser animation that can be
watched together by parents and their kids. Basically, it has enough excitement
and visual elegance to appeal movie-goers of any age. Indeed, a film I recommend
to everyone. J
(Below are some screen shots I grabbed from the film to give you some visual ideas of those scenes I mentioned above. Movie was downloaded from Yify-torrents.)
Queen Tara and the pod-keepers while choosing her heir.
Boggans
When MK found Queen Tara falling from out of nowhere
Casting for the lead roles of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele of Fifty Shades of Grey have finally revealed!
(Brief background: Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2011 erotic romance novel by
British author E. L. James. It is the first installment in the Fifty Shades
trilogy that traces the deepening relationship between a college graduate,
Anastasia Steele, and a young business mogul, Christian Grey. It is noteworthy for its explicitly erotic scenes featuring elements of sexual practices
involving BDSM.
And ever since it was announced that there will be a film
adaptation of the book, fans and readers started to pick names of their own
choice of actors to play the role of the main characters, especially
for the role of Christian Grey. Names such as Matt Bomer, Ian Somerhalder, Ryan
Gosling, Henry Cavill, Alexis Bledel, and Emma Watson floated all over social
media sites while fans started to come up with polls of who would be the best
actor to portray the roles. Obviously, this fuss reached E. L. James’s party.
But when asked who would be her actor of choice to play the character, she just
kept mum about it. Not until when she finally announced to the whole world her
decision.)
THE ANNOUNCEMENT. This news was announced early morning of Monday by E. L. James herself, the author of the steamy novel Fifty Shades of Grey, on her Twitter page telling fans: ‘I am delighted to let you know that the lovely Dakota Johnson has agreed to be our Anastasia in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey.’
Minutes later, she also revealed that Sons of Anarchy and Pacific Rim star Charlie Hunnam would be playing Anastasia’s kinky lover Christian Grey. She tweeted: ‘The gorgeous and talented Charlie Hunnam will be Christian Grey in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey.
THE REACTION. I know this may cause disappointment to a lot of fans and readers who have their own actors in mind to play the role of Grey and Steele. Personally, I would like Matt Bomer, star of the USA network series White Collar to portray Christian in the film adaptation of the novel. But of course, casting was finalized and it was the author herself (and maybe along with the producer and all others that would partake in the making of the film) who made the decision.
Charlie Hunnam and Dakota Johnson
screenshot of my post on FB
THE APPEAL. On Wednesday, September 3, the news reached my Facebook newsfeed. Out of my excitement and, alright, disappointment (that Matt Bomer was not chosen as Christian Grey), I posted on my FB wall the photo above (from eonline.com) with honest curiosity of how Charlie Hunnam would look like without the beard and mustache. So yes, I did seek assistance from Google with the hopes that he would look just like how I picture Christian Grey, if you know what I mean. And with photos that I saw without the mustache and beard, I think he looks just as good. So I guess, I will not join the differing fans who petitioned two days after the announcement, gathering more than 60,000 supporters who want Matt Bomer and Alexis Bledel as Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. (Scroll down further below to see the collage of images I made. Photo credits belong to the original owners. I don't intend any copyright infringement.)
THE ACCEPTANCE. If there are opposing fans of the announcement, there are also those who were truly delighted and showed support for the casting. In fact, they are so impatient for Hunnam and Johnson's impending venture into the "Red Room" that they came up with their own posters and movie trailers. This was posted at ibtimes.com on September 6. Of course, these are unofficial but I just love their creativity. Click here for the unofficial movie trailer. And as for the unofficial poster, here it is:
THE DIRECTOR. From a list that included Angelina Jolie, Steven
Soderbergh, Joe Wright and Gus Van Sant, it is Sam
Taylor-Johnson – artist, filmmaker and happens to be the wife of Aaron
Taylor-Johnson who directed "Kick-Ass” – who was chosen to direct the film
adaptation of this erotic bestselling novel. Said film has been scheduled to be
released in August 2014 by Universal Pictures and Focus Features.
From the e-book Film Art: An
Introduction by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson 463-468
(What I’m about to share to you today is my notes and
summarization on the topic: The New Hollywood. As a student who takes up Cinema
class, I definitely respect others work of art and so let me tell you that I don’t
take credit for mostly of the words used here, as they are mostly from the book
mentioned above. History is history so it’s kind of hard to come up with
something of my own.)
During the 1960s, the
supposedly healthy industry of Hollywood filmmaking had to deal with dwindling
audience due to competition, part of which is the television. American movies lose billion of tickets per year until the early
1990s.
With that as a challenge, producers thought that the strategy to
produce counterculture-flavored films will entice younger audiences and so they
started creating films for younger generation. The most popular and influential
were Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider (1969) and Robert Altman's MASH (1970).
Eventually, these producers needed the help of independent film
directors to come up with movies who can give the viewers larger-than-life
experience. These and other directors became known as the "movie
brats" who had gone to film schools. At New York University, the
University of Southern California, and the University of California at Los
Angeles, they had not only mastered the mechanics of production but also
learned about film aesthetics and history which they learned from the earlier directors
of the Old Hollywood. Remember my previous entry about The Film School
Generation? They’re them. You may click here to read that entry.
What lifted the
industry's fortunes were films aimed squarely at broader audiences. The most
successful were:
William Friedkin's
The Exorcist (1913)
Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972)
Steven
Spielberg's Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
John Carpenter's
Halloween (l9l8)
George
Lucas's American Graffiti (1913), Star Wars (1977), and The Empire Strikes
Back (1980)
Brian De
Palma (Obsession, 1976)
Martin
Scorsese (Taxi Driver, 1976; Raging Bull, 1980)
As had been the case
with the French New Wave, these film-buff directors produced some personal,
highly self-conscious films. The movie brats worked in traditional genres, but
they also tried to give them an autobiographical coloring.
American
Graffiti was not only a teenage musical but also Lucas's reflection on growing
up in California in the 1960s.
Martin Scorsese drew
on his youth in New York's Little Italy for his crime drama Mean Streets
(1973).
Coppola imbued both
Godfather films with a vivacious and melancholy sense of the intense bonds
within the Italian American family.
Paul Schrader poured
his own obsessions with violence and sexuality into his scripts for Taxi Driver
and Raging Bull and the films he directed, such as Hard Core (1919).
At the same time,
many directors admired the European tradition, with Scorsese drawn to the
visual splendor of Luchino Visconti and British director Michael Powell.
Some directors
dreamed of making complex art films in the European mold.
More influential were
their innovations on other fronts. Some directors revived American comedy of
manners that displayed rough-edged performances, dense soundtracks, and a
disrespectful approach to genre. Another plot was the casual encounters among
two dozen characters, none of whom is singled out as the protagonist.
Many movie brats
became continuously successful directors of the era. Lucas and Spielberg became
powerful producers, working together on the Indiana Jones series and
personifying Hollywood's new generation. Coppola failed to sustain his own
studio, but he remained an important director. Scorsese's reputation rose
steadily. By the end of the 1980s, he was the most critically acclaimed living
American filmmaker.
During the 1980s,
fresh talents won recognition, creating a New Hollywood. Many of the biggest
hits of the decade continued to come from Lucas and Spielberg, but other,
somewhat younger directors were successful such as James Cameron, Tim Burton and
Robert Zemeckis among many other. This was also the era when more women
filmmakers became commercially successful, such as Amy Heckerling, Martha
Coolidge, and Penelope Spheeris.
Many of the
successful films of the 1990s came from directors from both these successive
waves of the Hollywood renaissance: Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993), De
Palma's Mission: Impossible (1996), and Lucas's The Phantom Empire (1999), as
well as Zemeckis's Forrest Gump (1994), Cameron's Titanic (1991), and Burton's
Sleepy Hollow (1999).
The New New Hollywood
also absorbed some minority directors from independent film. Wayne Wang was the
most success of Asian American filmmaker. Spike Lee led the way for young
African American directors such as Reginald Hudlin.
Still other directors
remained independent and more or less marginal to the studios.
Stylistically, no
single coherent film movement emerged during the 1970s and 1980s. The most
mainstream of the young directors continued the tradition of classical American
cinema. Continuity editing remained the norm, with clear signals for time
shifts and new plot developments. Some directors embellished Hollywood's
traditional storytelling strategies with new or revived visual techniques.
In films from Jaws
onward, Spielberg used deep-focus techniques reminiscent of Citizen Kane. Lucas
developed motion-control techniques for filming miniatures for Star Wars, and
his firm Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) became the leader in new
special-effects technology. With the aid of ILM, Zemeckis astutely exploited
digital imaging for Forrest Gump. Spielberg and Lucas also led the move toward digital sound and high-quality theater reproduction
technology.
Less well funded Hollywood
film making cultivated more flamboyant styles. The use of camera movement and
slow motion helped to extend the emotional impact of a scene. De Palma has been
an even more outrageous stylist; flaunting split-screen devices on his films.
Coppola has experimented with fast motion black-and-white, phone conversations
handled in the foreground and background of a single shot, and old- fashioned
special effects to lend a period mood.
Several of the newer
entrants into Hollywood enriched mainstream conventions of genre, narrative,
and style. In presenting the women's lives, the film adheres to narrative
principles that recall Citizen Kane. Flashbacks, creating sharp contrasts,
voice over commentaries were used to intensify the emotional effect.
A similar effort to revise
conventions pervades the work of other independent directors. Independent directors
of the 1980s and 1990s have also experimented with narrative
construction. So, while in the 1980s and 1990s younger studio directors
adapted classical conventions to modern tastes, an energetic independent film
tradition began pushing the envelope.
By the end of the 1990s, the two
trends were merging in surprising ways. As independent films began to win
larger audiences, major studios eagerly acquired distribution companies such as
Miramax and October Films. Much media journalism fostered the impression that
Hollywood was becoming subverted by independent filmmaking but in fact, more
and more major studios controlled audience's access to formerly independent
productions. The Sundance Film Festival, founded as a forum for the
off-Hollywood scene, came to be treated as a talent market by the studios,
which often bought films in order to line up the filmmaker for more mainstream
projects.
At the start of the new century,
many of the most thrilling Hollywood films were being created by a robust new
generation, born in the 1960s and 1970s and brought up on videotape, video
games, and the Internet. Like their predecessors, these directors were reshaping
the formal and stylistic conventions of the classical cinema while also making
their innovations accessible to a broad audience.
Based on my prior research, Wikipedia to be specific, Un Chien Andalou is the French term for “An Andalusian Dog.” I don’t know what an Andalusian Dog is. I tried to seek assistance from Google but I didn’t get gratifying answers. All I know is it’s a dog and Andalusia is a place somewhere in the southern region of Spain on the Mediterranean Sea. Sounds like a vacation place, eh?
Okay. Back to the film.
This film is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali (remember the artist of the painting Persistence of Memory? Yes, that’s him.) And this film also… uhhmm... Hmm… enough!
I would be very honest with you. I can’t contain it anymore. I cannot write a review for a film that I don’t understand. And I’m telling you right now that this is my first time to watch such surreal-type of movie. And it’s a silent film, so I’m like…what the???It’s as if I’m watching a film without a plot, chronology, story, moral, structure, or even purpose.
But of course, I would concede as early as now that I may not be explicitly correct with everything that I just mentioned above. I might be wrong or I might be right. That was just my honest opinion. It’s a surrealist film, so I shouldn't be expecting something conventional in sense of speaking, right? But seriously, what would I get out of a film that transition from one scene to another without showing any relevance to one another? The chronological arrangements of the scenes are disjointed, jumping from one scene to another scene. That just didn't make sense to me.
This film is… something!
I am boggled by the fact that a man had to slit a young woman’s eye (and this was shown in a close-up angle) and she didn't have any painful reaction, at all. She looked calm as if nothing happened. That’s just so brain-wracking. And gross. There was also that scene that insects, which looked like ants to me, were emerging from a hole of a man’s palm. That’s nasty. And guess what the ending scene is? A shot of a couple buried in the sand up to their elbows. And that’s out of nowhere. Unbelievable, right? Well, those scenes or cuts might symbolize something, I just don’t know it. And, again, I don’t understand.
Actually, there were lots of scenes in that film that I don’t understand. I've watched a lot of films, well mostly modern ones, specifically Hollywood films, so you may understand where I’m coming from. And I will be a hypocrite if I tell you that I had an analysis of this film or what this scene simply means, for this and that, yadda yadda yadda. No. I’m not gonna do that. You’re not gonna hear that from me.
If there is something I got from this the film, it’s that it made me think. A lot. I was like frowning the whole time analyzing what really happened. Then I realized, maybe they’re just nothing and I’m just over-thinking and over-analyzing. Maybe that’s the point of the film, to rouse the audience’s psychological ability.
So there, that’s it. Sorry, you've got nothing from me this time. :)
Credits: All of the photos used here came from Google.com search engine
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