The Perks of Being a Wallflower

As with all great books, I account myself among the audience that clutches this little yellow-green book to their chests going "please, don't mess this one up hollywood.... If you can grant any wish please let it be this one."

This was the book, that back when I first read it changed my life, some read catcher in the rye with wide eyes singing its praises, while I found Holden whiny and incapable in changing his life without talking obsessively about how truly innocent his sister was, when the likely hood of that delusion being true was probably at the same level as him doing something useful with... well anything. I was the kid huddled close to my battle worn copy of this book going, This Charlie, this I understand... I know where you are, where you've been I've been where you've been this is not JUST a story!

So to say I walked into the theater with sweaty palms and a silent prayer on my lips is putting it lightly, in fact to go see this movie I insisted on seeing it alone at the emptiest showing possible (which i am now grateful for) but then seemed like an obscene request to the woman at the ticket booth. I sat down with bias feeling, horribly high pretending to be low expectations and found them met with a cathartic cry of jubilee.

This movie was a perfectly artistic blend of book and film, along with an expertly written dialogue, a magical feeling flash back sequences that have undertones speaking volumes but almost too quiet for those that have not read the book to pick up on. Characters were cast beautifully, and I found myself on the edge of my seat despite knowing exactly how it was going to end. What can you say to something like that?

Yes, I am bias on this, but i was so happy in the way they did it. All hail the creators of dialogue and its amazing purpose.

Lady Vengence

Lady vengeance 

With concern to the film Lady vengeance I write that I am surprised. The first 20 minutes felt like a foreign puzzle, which I truly enjoyed in an uncomfortable squeamish way. As the movie continued I was drawn in by the alliances she had made in prison more than the main character herself. She was background it seemed... A pale companion for these interesting people placed in her path. Her ways-to-means type of allegiances felt more like a large story that we only caught cuts of. 

I expected a slasher, and got exactly what it promised. Vengeance. But not the normal well placed justice/revenge plot, there was more emotionally (of course) than that. It brought me to tears at the point where the mother saw her daughter hung. Most of the children weren't tortured that we saw, for which I am grateful. For the implication was more than torture could have done.

This movie left space for imagination, space for implied narrative and story telling either cut or written to question. 

However I felt strongly on the subject that it was mediocre. Even with tears in my eyes I could not bring myself to like or sympathize with the main character, mainly because of those exact blanks left in story. The families and girls were the only impacting part that I walked away resonating with. Their grief in silence during the scene where cake is served, was the end for me. 

Lady vengeance was only important for her role in the jail to me. And I feel disappointed in her that she let THEM down. Outside of that, I couldn't connect.  

Not having or losing a child might attribute to that. 

But her friendships forged in the prison were intricate, the hardship of the Thief living with the very man that she was waiting to kill, was more emotionally jarring than she was. The elder lady labeled as a problematic Alzheimer's spy was more interesting.

The gap between how she was in the prison and after left so many holes that I felt like I was more so staring at some red eyelined Swiss cheese than a great female role.  

Heck, I was even more drawn in to the workmanship and effort on her gun than her personality. 

What does that say of me? Probably that I'm a horrible viewer, with a lack of understanding for the true meaning of the movie. 

But in this case...

I honestly think I'm perfectly ok with that.

The Master

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 There is one word and one word alone that comes to mind completely when it comes to this film, and that is Vague. Though I would like to elaborate on that, it seems this movie had no intention of doing that.... ever. 

I walked into this film with a slight distaste for one actor, and a great respect for another. So I was ready for a mediocre movie, and that's exactly what I received. So I guess that's a plus. Throughout the film I watched Joaquin Phoenix play a tortured soul thinking, right. This is new; in fact this is exactly what I expected. The only difference is that this one in particular, Freddie Quell, has no history to grab onto, no torture that seems real in any way but the torture in his own mind and body, (in which he seems to inflict regardless of situation) Then I'm left wandering around in a quiet mindset of "why does Dodd (Philip Seamore Hoffman's character) make me just feel sorry for his ever attentive wife that you know absolutely nothing about because everyone's obsessed with a cause that you don't fully understand"

I felt myself swimming in characters never fully developed, hanging out with snippets of emotion and sexual fantasies, and facing flash backs like they were my best friend from 4th grade that I haven't seen in 20 plus years at an elementary school reunion. BUT NO, that would be too much information, you might actually GET all the undercurrents I’ve send out through the sailing water. The amoeba of the enigmatic never seen shadowy idea of "the Master" is played until there's no tune left in that lute, and as said by his son is "making it all up as he goes along" which is pretty much what I felt about the entire film itself.

 

Pan's Labrynth

This movie is by far one of my favorite films if not just for the terribly beautiful fantasy element it brings to a vivid light. I love all that it has to offer as a whole. The story is haunting; the music is a blend of her harsh reality and somewhat scary fantasy world.

What drew me to this movie however was something i never got to elaborate in class, it was the lack of doubt in the little girl's mind about the fantasy world. Not in its characters or in its effectiveness, but in its existence. The second it came to her there was no period of questioning, she simply took it at face value and believed, up until the very end which made her parting so bitter sweet. From her hardships in reality, facing men that could not come to ever grasp the hopes of controlling her with anything outside of her mother, to her naivety to the violence around her at how her world had truy changed.

Yes it brings up questions as an audience, yes through her eyes we see something fantastically adventurous and brave, and startling child like without regard for consequence, but at the same time with the bold violence and pain around her it is like the only truth in a web of lies. Lies the mother tells to herself, lies of her security, lies of loyalty and allegiance.

This is one of the first movies that MADE me take sides almost mid stride, the feminine presence could not be ignored at every turn, the strength in these characters were subtle but obvious in so many ways, and when the maid finally twisted that knife in the general's (was he a general?) face i could not help but feel a surge of victory facing the same violence that he delt without regard. Mainly because you knew that the maid WOULD regard everything that she did once anger had drained as something that had to be done but at the same time regret. Because you know that she, unlike ophelia's step father, cared about what she did to him.  

Hunger

Hunger (2008)

It has taken me a surprising amount of time to bring myself to the point of writing about this film. I feel like I still have to give it time to settle, that speaking about it now might not reach the full extent of my silent rebellion pushed up by the content like a reluctant spring after a long winter. 

The only thing I can bring myself to write about thus far, was one of the opening scenes. I feel like this scene made the most impact, though not the most disturbing or heavy, it set a tone that was far from expected. Having never heard of the subject the film was based on or hearing about the atrocities committed at the time, there was a sad quiet mixture of horrible beauty that put this film at a distance, and almost pushed it too far away to take in.

The scene that really punched me in the gut, that stirred emotion almost as strong as (pardon the conpairison) when I first read "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" was when the criminal was in the room with the guards of the prison. Dressed in normal attire, scared and defiant, he wishes to keep his clothes, and is marked somewhat as uncooperative. That's when I was hit with a wave of nausea, while he was forced without words or orders, to strip. I can not say if it was the way it was filmed I could almost say was boarderline genius, or Purly the acting in general, but suddenly I was in this world, and it was terrible.

The slow agony of each button comming undone, was like watching a tragedy that you couldn't look away from. It was like being dragged into a world that you wonder if it would have been better to be ignorant of. The silence was deafening, the surrender of layer after layer was painful. 

And finally when he stood bare before the guards I wanted to weep for what he been lost, without even the smallest inclining why, or warning of. He was alone in a room full of people, immediately debased, no longer human, but a prisoner, just that fast. 

He was now a subject. I felt their gaze as If they were staring at a science experiment with such extreme indifference and thinly veiled disgust that it becomes tangible. 

The art of film in a Music Video

I feel like this is a great example of what we touched on briefly in class the other day. This is one of my favorite music videos (if not my favorite) when it comes to telling a story.


Video directed by J.A. Bayona and Sergio Sánc
Music by Keane on the album Strangeland
"disconnected"


http://vimeo.com/42554729

I wish I could accurately put words to the first time I viewed this video. It created an unexpected narrative that, though unexpected, was a story you were connected to almost immediately through the implied relationship. the combination of music and the art of film is more obvious through the "scary movie feel" and that is exciting to me. 
Tell me what you think.

The list

1. Streets of fire 

2. Princess mononoke

3. Hackers

4. The usual suspects 

5. Moulin Rouge

6. Trainspotting

7. Equilibrium 

8. Girl with the dragon tattoo (Swedish version)

9. Hellboy 2 the golden army

10. Amelie

11. LOTR return of the king

12. The matrix

13. Sunshine

14. Pans labyrinth 

15. The last samurai

16. The shadow

17. tombstone

18. no country for old men 

19. Basic

20. The Crow

The Film Journal

I want to preface this journal with the admission that, by no means, am I a critic.
I am an empty vessel, and rarely have much to say about anything.
The challenge for me in this assignment, is honestly going to be to develop an opinion and vocabulary larger than "I like this because..."

Fight club

On the topic of Fight Club, I am always pleased. From the soundtrack to the scene sequence, it truly is a revolutionary film. I guess the only downside i find is all of the people saying that they "know what it means" they truly can see the millions of elements that mean so much to society. And the argument begins.

In this, i guess I'm going to speak on the elements of the film that i truly enjoyed. Not what I think they mean, or a profound cosmic realization. Just what I thought was interesting.

First, I want to start by saying this was not my first time viewing Fight Club, which makes the differences that you are content not to question in the first viewing, a little more obvious.
The first thing that I have to admire is the almost immediate relationship that is developed with our narrator. Through internal and external dialogue, I felt drawn in; I wanted to know what exactly was going on. Questions were erected that were easy to ignore, but picked at my mind. The screen shots of shadowed figures, maybe Tyler, maybe Marla.
I enjoyed his dialogue, somewhat dark, powerful, and cynical.
"Every night I died." It’s an emotional dilemma and addiction that he is content to have.
His priorities are confusing; you don't know outside of his consumer lifestyle what his purpose is. Then with the introduction of Tyler and fight club, I found myself excited if not only because there is a sense of direction for his life.

The part of this movie that I can't even begin to comprehend but somehow always draws me back in a doubled way is the fight scene between jared leto and our narrator. Mainly because the rules are broken. He taps out but is ignored; the narrator beats a man out of a jealousy he cannot yet comprehend as being jealous of the boy's tie to Tyler.
But is it only that, can we trust the narrator’s viewpoint enough to assume what we have seen is correct? Did he truly have no recollection of him being Tyler when Tyler knew the whole time that he was the narrator as well? Or did he?

This movie leaves me with questions that, I feel like if were answered, would take away the glamour of what I see. The mystery of fight club is what impacted me the most. At the end, there is more you don't know than when you began.