Field of Dreams, a film production directed by Phil Alden Robinson, is an enduring classic of its time that delves into the idyllic nature of baseball. The director’s subtle inclusion of diegetic sounds, depth cues, and the Kuleshov’s effect brings together a polished masterpiece that keeps the audience at the edge of their seats. In the film, the spirit of Doctor Archibald Graham refuses to return to Iowa with Ray despite his dreams of playing professional baseball. “Sixty-five years [before], for five minutes, [he] had come [so] close, it would kill [most] men to get so close to their dream and never touch it.” Graham chooses his present over his past and adamantly insists that “batting in the major league” is not written in his destiny. He will not leave Chisholm for it is his “most special place in the world.” His duty as a physician feels more fulfilling for “if [he’d] gotten to be a doctor for [only] five minutes… [that] would have been a tragedy.” In fact, Graham willingly accepts his fate and concedes that his sacrifice for the greater good has not been in vain.…
Ronald Joffe, the director the The Killing Fields, including various scenes of children in the film to create compassion in the viewer for the struggles Cambodians had to endure.…
I watched the PBS Frontline documentary "Death By Fire," directed and produced by Jessie Deeter and co-produced and written by Mike Wiser and Michael Kirk. Todd Willingham, the father of three little girls, was ultimately charged, tried, and convicted of murdering his daughters by means of arson. The date of the fire was December 23, 1991, and he was finally executed by lethal injection on Feb 17, 2004. The circumstances surrounding this case were and still are controversial to this day. Opponents on both sides continue to voice their opinions on whether or not the state of Texas executed a man for a crime that they could not prove was a crime. As a father of two daughters myself,…
Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert critiques John Carpenter’s movie “Halloween” which is about a psychotic killer who escapes a mental institution and goes one to wreak havoc on anybody. They show a scene of a young woman attacking Michael Meyers when he tries to kill her. Roger Ebert goes on to say that “the movie develops the movie characters as independent, intelligent, spunky, and interesting people. Halloween does not hate women” (Siskel). This sort of critiquing falls under feminist criticism which states that “feminist literary studies soon began, however, to claim the equal but distinctive qualities of writings by women and men” (Mays 2347). The movie Halloween is treating women equally, giving them a better character or representation than most of the…
i first came across the movie Maltese falcon.. it was so interesting, i then decided to buy the book and read. to me Dashiell hammett is very talented novelist.. in his book the Maltese falcon.. I liked how Sam Spade gives the feelings and impression of knowing things and gets people to tell him what he knows. He clearly knows the police well and knows the criminal factors too. He himself doesn’t carry a gun, which I don’t remember from the movie. Well, there are beautiful women lots of them are red head blondies and guns and a few fights. the movie isnot as fast as an hardcore action movie though didn't expect, but it picks up in the second half of the book. . sam spade Makes you think if he is a nice guy or not.. i loved every details…
In the movie Unforgiven, W. W. Beauchamp who was an author that wrote about gunslingers in the west and their battles, was played by Saul Rubinek. Beauchamp improves the narrative be flowing around different gunslingers and learning that they are not what he thought of them. His character connected with the audience improving overall experience. Beauchamp characterization was successful throughout the movie and improved the narrative.…
Night Crossing is a movie that takes courage, creativity, perseverance, and collaboration. Night Crossing, takes you in a perspective of a family trying to cross the border in a extremely inspired way. Watching the movie gained my understanding of the Berlin Wall created in 1961 and taught me to be creative and stand up for what I believe. Being original and creative can help you as far as crossing a border. In this movie, they took risk and had to have strong perseverance to not give up. Trying again and again to have the best life for him and his family. First off, creating the idea of crossing with a balloon you need bravery to go to the shop and buy the materials without getting caught by the secret police. While watching the movie I was…
Released in 1988, Grave of the Fireflies is the story of Seita and his younger sister Setsuko, who lost their mother and father through different events of World War II. As a result they are forced to try to survive, any way they can, though their efforts are finally lost when Setsuko dies of malnutrition, and Seita dies not long after. It’s based on a semi-autobiographic book by the same name, whose author lost his sister due to malnutrition in 1945 during the war. The main value shown throughout the film is the endorsement of family, illustrated through the ever-growing relationship of Seita and Setsuko. The film provides an insight into Japanese culture, by showing the battle between those who subvert traditional roles in families and community, and those who fight to maintain them, such as Seitas aunty. There is also the question of moral ambiguity.…
We rarely anticipate killer shark movie but a simple yet effective detail of The Shallows has changed our mind. With a bonus of killer blonde as the female badass, Blake Lively (Green Lantern, The Age of Adaline), it’s no longer an ordinary survival movie. Hence, behind the scene is Jaume Collet-Serra, a Spanish film director with bloody cold pieces; House of Wax (2005) and Orphan (2009).…
My thoughts on the film wit were that I liked the film, I just didn’t like the way the doctors were treating the patient Vivian who had cancer. She was treated horribly by one of the doctors Jason who was also one of her former students in college. As I noticed that it was really weird how a student she used to teach is examining and treating her. In my opinion the way Jason acted around Vivian wasn’t professional, he didn’t really know what he was doing at times. I would say that he treated Vivian with no respect. Even as a doctor he doesn't treat her like a patient.…
Todd Haynes's film Far from Heaven is a remake of Sirk's previously analyzed film. Haynes recovers in Far from Heaven not only the narrative line of All That Heaven Allows but also the techniques of melodrama, such as mise-en-scène, camera movements, or the film's composition, which make it possible to reinforce the sentimental connection of the viewer with the story (Higgins 101). Haynes emphasizes the power of melodrama’s visual techniques and music to move the emotions of the viewer “with saturated colours and the overdressed bourgeois splendour of Eisenhower’s America, [and a] music so full of forebonding and hidden emotionalism” (Thomson). But Haynes does something more apart from paying tribute to Sirk's films, given that “Hollywood melodramas are all about the times in which they were made [and] Sirk’s movies (…) wouldn’t have looked or sounded as they had it not been for pressures like censorships and an extreme dependence on euphemism” (Patterson).…
The film Little Miss Sunshine, Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Farris, explores the lives of a regular American family and how they change their lives in front of us in the ‘Combie’ van on the road to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. The film examines the issues of winning and losing, and what it means to be a winner, throughout many sequences in the film as well as exploring the value of family. The directors and the cinematic team use an extreme range of camera techniques, costuming, and sound techniques to reshape our understanding of winning and losing in the world we live in today.…
Princeton's math department is brutally competitive and some of Nash's classmates would love to see him fail. Still, they tolerate him, and inadvertently incite him to greatness. He's with them one night in a local bar when their reaction to a hot blonde grabs his attention. As Nash observes their rivalry, the idea that has been haunting him bursts into focus. His resulting paper on game theory - the mathematics of competition - boldly contradicts the doctrines of Adam Smith, the father of modern economics. One-hundred-fifty years of accepted thought is abruptly outdated, and Nash's life is changed forever.…
During the Buffalo Film Seminar of Grave of the Fireflies by Isao Takahata, one can see World War II from the viewpoint and experiences of a Japanese survivor (Akiyuki Nosaka). The movie is about Seita, a sixteen years old boy, and Setsuko, his younger sister, and how they were forced to struggle in order to survive in the widespread famine and the heartless indifference of their extended family members and countrymen.…
When you hear horrible news, such as the death of a family member, would you laugh hysterically? No, most people would not, but in some cases, those with Schizophrenia may do so. Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that can affect the person's behavior, interpreting reality in different ways. One movie that portrays this disorder is A Beautiful Mind. This excellent movie tells the true story of John Nash's life as he struggles with schizophrenia. It starts off with John Nash attending Princeton University in 1947. He was a mathematical genius that lacked social skills. As years go on, he continues to impress everyone with his intelligence and begins teaching at M.I.T. as well as doing some code-breaking work for the government. That is…