A lesson before dying

In a lesson before dying which was directed by Joseph Sargent the story takes place in the 1940’s rural south were a white store owner is murdered and robbed and a innocent black bystander named Jefferson is wrongly convicted and charged with murder. Grant the local teacher is asked to teach Jefferson to read and write before he dies so he can be a man. After getting permission from the deputy Grant helps Jefferson to be educated and they form a close bond. Grant becomes conflicted about his place in life and the roles he will as Jefferson’s soon execution comes forward. I really liked this film it captured the essence of what life was like pre-civil rights, this director mainly focused on the story more than anything else classifying as a writer/director. There were many close up angles in this film that caught the true emotion of each scene. Production and design was very much old south, with the slacks and button up shits, and agriculture life of all shacks and cattle. A lesson before dying was mainly based of the book by Ernest J Gaines making it an adaptation. Based on both reading the book and watching the film I would say the book had more detail but the film unlike most adaptations really stuck to the storyline.

Jaws

Jaws film is a popular horror film directed by Steven Spielberg that depicts man’s fight with the creatures of nature. A great white shark plays the villain in this horrific film, when a teen girl goes missing and her remains are later found by chief Brody the protagonist of the film. As another child is murdered a bounty is placed on the shark’s head causing everyone to explore off into the sea on the hunt for the killer shark putting their lives in jeopardy.  Chief Brody and his acquaintances tag along for the adventure as well and are able to put an end to the murderous great white barely making it out alive. Being familiar with Steven Spielberg’s work as a director I would say that jaws was pretty well thought out and executed properly with a lot of surprise elements giving the film a suspense aspect. I felt the film was really similar to Spielberg’s film Carrie in the use of suspenseful music when something was about to happen and up close camera shots in the action scenes. If anything was different about this film that I hadn’t seen before it was more of the peripheral shots of the background that I thought were pretty unique. Overall Jaws was pretty entertaining more so action and suspense for me than horror which was probably why I enjoyed it.

The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is a film that is basically a story from a book being told to a young sick child who is in the care of his grandfather at the time. It tells the tale of Wesley the main protagonist who is farm boy turned pirate and who falls in love with Buttercup. Butter cup is the lead Female character who after Wesley’s false death gives herself to be married to Prince Humperdinck the antagonist of the film. Once the two are brought back together they must fight of the prince and his evil followers. The lecture for this film this week was about screen plays though out storylines for the film. This film was based of the book by Williams Goldman who also did the screenplay being that is was an adaptation. It also was Directed Robert Reiner. This film for me is a classic Hollywood movie, which featured many good actors, was very entertaining and filled with comedy. It seemed like a typical fairytale where you could make up mythical things, have far-fetched events to take place and where everyone lives happily ever after. Once again this movie was every entertaining and good to watch as a film.

Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strange Love takes place back in the times of the Cold war between the Unites States and the Soviet Union.  While on an American bomb alert base, the U.S. Air force General Jack Ripper purposely gives his crew orders to send out a nuclear attack on the soviets. The soldiers all gear up heading out on their air craft and are ready to attack under the impression that they are going into war. Seeing the disaster that is about to happen due to false reports, the President and chiefs gather together to stop this travesty. The lecture for this week was mainly about Directing and the type of directors that are in the industry. Stanley Kubrick was the Director of Dr. Strange love, he is known for being very meticulous wanting everything from the smallest prop and scene to be perfect. I must say this film was very thought out and plan, I don’t think there was a moment of confusion due to a misdirected scene or something. You could tell the plot, theme, and storyline very easily understand the message coming across from the film. Overall view, Dr. Strangelove was very entertaining, having funny moments along with everything taking place.

The Rear Window

The Rear Window is about a photographer who after breaking his leg is confined to his apartment home finding entertainment in spying in on his neighbors. In the care of his nurse Stella and girlfriend Lisa, Jeff finds nothing wrong in his peeping ways until he comes to the conclusion that one of his neighbors murdered his wife. The Rear Window for me was very interesting and captivating like any good murder mystery should be. The characters were very believable and delivered a great performance for the film.  The lecture for this film was focused on the Gaze meaning the perspective that the director wanted to focus from and what he/she wanted the audience to see from the film.  Lara Mulvey argued that the male gaze in The Rear Window was very sexist making the lead female character Lisa an object of male attention  which my opinion is true in a way but not to the point where it took away from her true talent as an actress. The movie really focused on the voyeuristic gaze from the character Jeff. The director really showed good angles of the movie kind of from the outside looking in from Jeff’s perspective. Overall I would say this was a good film.