Ridley Scott’s Alien provides us with one of the most basic and primal super-objectives: the preservation life. Our protagonist, Ellen Ripley, faces impossible odds as a seemingly invincible alien predator wreaks havoc on the crew of the Nostromo, taking them out one by one until she is the last man (or in this case, woman) standing. In most every horror, or as Blake Snyder would call it, “Monster in the House” film, the super-objective is to preserve life. Some, however, are more successful than others in conveying that idea, and Alien is perhaps the most triumphant of the bunch. The screenwriter, Dan O’Bannon, heavily juxtaposed the frailty of man with the invincibility of the alien. Neither bullets, nor electricity, nor fire can harm the creature, while it possesses a variety of methods of attack, from corrosive blood to razor sharp teeth. Therein lies the strength of the film’s super-objective: though the alien could easily kill them all, Ripley fights to survive.…
People expect mindless action when they watch Fury Road but they end up getting a story about oppressed people pushing back against their oppressors with a feeling of hopefulness despite the setting. Where most action movies are content to check off what they need from a formula and cash the paycheck Fury Road is only content after it has made the audience feel for its characters and hope for them to succeed.…
Both the book and the movie are very different, they have lots of similarities and differences. The Setting, Plot and Characterisation are three parts that the book and movie can be compared.…
Family is typically seen as a grouping of a mother, father and their biological kid(s). Still, there are many different families out there that are much more abstract from that grouping. Personally, I believe that there isn 't a default family, just like there is no such thing as pure perfection. There will always be flaws as well as positives, we all just see them differently. Ofelia 's family in Pan 's Labyrinth is a rather flawed family, yet it has its small advantages. Mainly the difference between blood and non blood “relatives” is apparent in this movie which I believed to be an interesting family.…
George Bluestone points this out in his article “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film”: “between the percept of the visual image and the concept of the mental image lies the root difference between the two media […] differences in form and theme are inseparable from differences in the media (Bluestone 1-2).” This can indeed be seen in the film adaptation of The Displaced Person, where the dialogue remains much unchanged, but details such as the peacock, an important symbol which defines a lot of characters by the way they interact with it, are not conveyed in a way that translates to film. Of course, it is hard to not become frustrated with films that do not live up to the expectations of the source material, but ultimately one cannot blame the director for making a bad adaptation, but for making a bad film. My brother, a young man who is very good at science, once wrote a report on a science experiment and made a low grade. He received this grade not because he had performed poorly on the science experiment itself, but rather because he had written a low-quality summary of the experiment. There is no question that the source material was of high quality, but oftentimes adaptations do not reflect this. Not due to unfaithfulness to the original, but the inability to convey the story in the way the medium…
One thing in particular that the book does much better is making use of complex metaphors and themes, such as: the river for life, and oneness with nature, that string themselves together as you turn each page of the book, while in the movie the metaphors and symbolism are represented in a much different way through picture. In the book, both themes regarding the river are very vivid and clear, as they use strong imagery of nature to draw pictures in the minds of the readers. In the movie both themes are represented and referred to much less because of the lack of narration.…
Entertainment was a very important thing for Americans during the depression years. People would turn on the radio and forget about their worries for a short period of time, but it was better than nothing. Like The Wizard of Oz, War of the Worlds, and Gone with the Wind, Angels with Dirty Faces was a very popular, enjoyable movie for the American people. Even though it was loved, it was different from the rest. It was a gangster movie with a twist.…
Though the movie King Kong could not possibly cause anyone to lose sleep after seeing it today, it was certainly classified as a horror movie when it firstly went public in 1933. On the one hand, the director’s intentional blurring between the boundary of a documentary and a fiction added to the horror effect. On the other hand, besides the use of cutting-edge cinematic technology, the era of Great Depression and thus the unusual psychology of people during the crisis also contributed greatly to the huge success of King Kong. Just like Carl Denham expects towards the end of the film: “The whole world will pay to see this! The eighth wonder of the world ”, the whole world did pay to see this, to see the movie. Somehow the movie took advantage of people’s psychology during the crisis and made them realize how lucky they were to live in a world without having such monster as Kong destroying the city. Suddenly the plight of losing a job became acceptable.…
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre shows it's audience what kind of creepy people can be found in our world and how the youth of our country often ignores the obvious signs of danger in order to do what THEY see as "the right thing to do." The new version of the film takes all of the main events and characters from the original version and twists them in a way to make it easier for the present day audience to relate to the plot. In both of these movies the general plot is the same, an innocent group of friends fall victim to a psychotic family of killers, however each movie has a very unique set of characters and side plots that help the directors strike a sense of fear and reality into their viewers.…
In 1933, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack created a film that would change cinema forever. The image of Kong a top the Empire State Building is one of the most iconic images in the history of film and popular culture. Kong remains one of the greatest giant movie monsters of all time even making himself an American icon. When people think of the empire state building they can instantly relate to King Kong. One of the most significant changes in the 2005 remake of King Kong is the amount of character development. Peter Jackson who directed the newest version of the classic film really explored each character and their individual arc to improve how they were presented on screen. In the original film Ann's back story isn't too clear or…
CHANGELING is a lurid tabloid tale that happens to be true - apart from one or two Hollywood embellishments. On all available evidence, for instance, its real-life heroine, Christine Collins, bore absolutely no resemblance to Angelina Jolie.…
A few years ago I went to see the movie “Unbroken” with my family. It is the story of a man that was a prisoner of war in World War II. On the way home from seeing the movie I complained about how some of the disturbing imagery had made me uncomfortable and how I didn’t think I could stomach watching the movie a second time. My father’s reply to my complaints was “It is your discomfort with the movie that is the reason you should watch it everyday.” That statement has been one that has stuck with me. That movie, like these photos, brought “home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war” as the New York Times put it. I will admit that these photos make me uncomfortable, but that’s the point. War is the complete opposite of comfortable.…
The movie Lion King and Hamlet have many differences and similarities. The Lion King was pretty much based off the Hamlet play. These are only a few compare and contrasts between the stories. Hamlet and Lion king are mimicking each other even though one ends in death while the other ends happily ever…
Historic are not always very accurate however the five movies Pearl Harbor, Red Tails, Hacksaw Ridge, Saving Private Ryan, and Alone in Berlin do a good job in portraying important events of World War 2.…
beauty as the master force. “Aristotle thought beauty was a pattern of organization that should guide composition” (Hicks L6). He also defined it as a combination of parts in a whole. In the movie King Kong, we are shown that beauty is the master force. In the movie, Fay’s beauty overcame Kong’s violent nature. He did not die from airplanes; he died protecting a woman he found beautiful. It was his love for beauty that was his downfall.…