Tres Bellezas is a Spanish satire movie with English subtitles that came out in 2014. It is about a mother and her three children (two daughters and a son). The mother is a previous beauty queen and wants her daughter Carolina to be one also. Her other daughter, Estefania, wants to be a beauty queen as well but her mother tells her that she is too skinny to be one. Estefania and her brother Salvador are pretty much ignored by their mother, meanwhile Carolina needs to lose weight for her school pageant so her mom locks the fridge and cabinets and teaches her to puke after eating. Carolina hangs herself after losing the competition and being made fun of by the school. They rush Carolina to the hospital and she survives. Then the family finds…
Scarface, starring Al Pacino, is the greatest film to ever hit the film industry. Scarface was released in December 1983 and is technically assumed to be a remake of the 1932 Scarface movie. The 1932 Scarface film was centered in Chicago during the Depression-era, however, the 1983 remake shifted the action from Chicago to Miami during the 1980s-era (Bayard). The directors did this on purpose; because the 1980s-era was the time the Mariel Harbor boat lift happened, thus in a approach to give the movie a new relevance (Berardinelli).…
Amistad, directed by Steven Spielberg, displays the fierce determination of 53 African abductees and their compelling desire to return home. Led by Cinqué (or Sengbe), a man longing to see his wife and son in Sierra Leone again, the men aboard the ship La Amistad rebelled against the Spanish slave traders who guarded them from escape. Using sugar cane knives stolen from cargo aboard the ship, the Africans defeated the gun-wielding Spaniards. With ambitions of returning to West Africa, they eventually ended up off the coast of Long Island instead of the initial destination, a Cuban port. Even as the native Africans adjusted to an entirely different life in America, their African identity still remained apparent throughout the film.…
The movie talks about Cesar Chaves, an American labor leader and a civil right activist who found the United Farm Workers union (UFW). The movie covers the first decade of the united Farm Workers, starting with the grape strike in 1965. Then followed by the boycott that gained national support to the first united farm worker contract in 1970. The movie then starts to the role of Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and his family working on starting the UFW. The movie also does a good job on pointing out the Filipino farm workers who started the famous strike in August 1965.…
Guilt. “A cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes that they have violated a moral standard and bears significant responsibility for that violation.” Guilt is portrayed a great deal in Lasse Hallström’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993). Guilt is depicted within the film through Gilbert as he is indecisive between leaving and staying, it is depicted through Bonnie as she believes that she is an incompetent wife and parent, and through Betty Carver, who holds herself responsible for the death of her husband. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape follows the trapped and tedious life of Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp), through his struggles with responsibility when caring and providing for his family and mentally disabled brother…
The first point I noticed in this movie was that when the Mexicans first disappeared people seemed to be happy and excited that they were finally gone for good, or at least that’s how it was originally supposed to be, and at the same moment of the disappearance, a mysterious fog rose up around the state of California.…
A major theme that I would like to focus on in the movie Scarface is criminality. This film is littered with criminals and is the basis of the whole movie. Three techniques that I believe identify the theme are costumes, lighting, and acting style.…
Fight Club “Its only after we’ve lost everything are we free to do anything”, Tyler Durden as (Brad Pitt) states, among many other lines of contemplation. In Fight Club, a nameless narrator, a typical “everyman,” played as (Edward Norton) is trapped in the world of large corporations, condominium living, and all the money he needs to spend on all the useless stuff he doesn’t need. As Tyler Durden says “The things you own end up owning you.” Fight Club is an edgy film that takes on such topics as consumerism, the feminization of society, manipulation, cultism, Marxist ideology, social norms, dominant culture, and the psychiatric approach of the human id, ego, and super ego. “It is a film that surrealistically describes the status of the American…
Everyone has a story. As we learned in the movie Amistad, everyone goes through something different that changes their lives and shapes them into the person that they are today. This event or happening that takes place can have many emotions: sad, joyful, mournful, happy or even none. It all depends on how we react and let it affect your life. A major part of my story, and what has shaped me into the person I am today, is my parents’ divorce.…
The way that one regards themself, a relatively stable set of perceptions about one’s self, is referred to as self-concept (Adler, Proctor, Rosenfeld 56). Self-concept is a reflection not only of the physical attributes but also the emotional, moral, value, and preference characteristics of personality. The way that someone feels about those qualities will determine their self-esteem, part of the self-concept that determines self-worth. Typically it is thought that a high self-esteem is preferable over a low self-esteem, and while that is largely true, a high self-esteem doesn’t necessarily mean that person will enjoy interpersonal success. A high self-esteem may lead people to think they are more successful than the rest of the world sees them.…
For filmmakers, music can be a tool that is used to manipulate or augment the audience’s emotions. Background music can set a film’s emotional attitude or tone, particularly with regard to the plot and characters. It can also act as a harbinger for future events by foreshadowing a change in mood, such as in films where dissonant music leads the viewer to believe in the existence of an impending disaster or unfortunate event. Music can also add a sense of continuity in that it may be used to connect different scenes through repetition, thus making more significant specific motifs that the filmmakers wish to portray (Marshall). No Country for Old Men (Miramax, 2008) and Amelie (Claudie Ossard Productions, 2011) offer different takes on the use of music in film, but nonetheless are both successful in engaging their audiences despite the dissimilar approaches of the associated directors.…
"Lights! Camera! Action!" the dramatic yet traditional prompt associated with Hollywood and the pictures. Hollywood appears to be this extraordinary glamorous world; however, in reality is it? Many people dream of being in the limelight of Hollywood; where there is an endless amount of money, power, and fame. Society fails to examine what's behind fame; the dark, twisted, and the ugly truths hiding within those exact words. Billy Wilder explores and divulges the dark yet unknown, harsh realities of fame, following Hollywood's transition from silent pictures to talkies; with his film Sunset Boulevard.…
Visually, Raging Bull is close to an artistic disaster. The visual style adopted by director Martin Scorsese and cinematographer, Michael Chapman seems to be falling apart. For instance, the last fight scene in which Sugar Ray Robinson pummels Jake La Motta depicts ludicrous images; however, the continuity editing allows viewers to make sense of it. During this shot, Scorsese shows a punch from the perspective of Robinson’s glove as it strikes La Motta’s face. In the seconds that follow, we see blood spray out of La Motta’s head, splattering the spectators. This bizarre shot makes the blood splatter look like a sprinkler, as if a bucket load of blood came out of Jake's head. The reason why this shot is so paradoxical is because of the slow…
This happens to be one of the most valuable life lessons, i.e. Take care of yourself first, before you try to help others. William Shakespeare said, "To thine own self be true." Your greatest responsibility is towards yourself first. Once that is taken care of, you can start caring for others. As it's said ‘If you want to lift somebody up, you have be on higher ground first'. Many people may think that this viewpoint is of self-interest and narcissistic. They think that they have to sacrifice themselves for others. If that would have been true then why do you think Jesus Christ say, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself". Underline the word ‘as'. If you don't love yourself, you just cannot love others.…
The movie, San Andres, is an exciting movie about major earthquakes devastating California. While there are some scientific truths in the film, there are many more scientific fallacies. All of the fallacies in the film are done out of ignorance, as a plot device. In this paper, both the truths and fallacies will be addressed.…