Baby and Bringing It Up

An interesting combination of two characters played by Catherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. One being the manipulative, arrogant, ditzy rich girl, the other an under-spoken, belittled scientist. These two characters play the main parts within the movie and quite frankly, it's one heck of a pair. Throughout the movie, much physical humor or slapstick comedy is used in order to show an example as to what comedies were back in the day. Of course back then the comedy wasn't as explicit as it is today, there are certain references as to how comedy was hidden. Certain parts of the film were quite interesting as to what the characters went through in order to resolve several conflicts. One of such would be how the original leopard, the tame oned named Baby, had gotten lost and thus the characters had to search for it. In doing so however, they release an untamed vicious leopard and mistaken it for Baby causing such an uproar within the movie when they finally find out. In their search, the two characters go through many situations together so perfectly it'd seem as though they were fit for eachother but that is not the case. Instead, they are both nearly complete opposites of each other and when they are working together, chaos erupts. Susan, played by Hepburn, causes such ruckesses that David (Grant) has no other option but to accept it and move on. Throughout the movie, these pair of opposites get into a numerous amount of errors mainly being caused by Susan's mistakes and careless attitude resulting in a terrible misunderstanding at the end of the movie. Overall the movie was quite an interesting ruckus that really makes the viewer think about differences of movies from back then and today.

Once upon a time in the west...

An important and very crucial scene in the movie was when a harmonica was put into a boys mouth. This scene was a defining moment and gave explanation to why harmonica was even after frank so diligently. It turns out that frank had killed harmonica's brother. Doing so was what caused harmonica to seek vengeance for frank's evil deed. Throughout the movie it wasn't exactly sure as to why harmonica was even after frank. From the other scenes in the movie, when harmonica had bought the house, he didn't even care about the money nor the house itself, he did it to aggrevate frank.

While watching the movie, it was quite puzzling how harmonica could be so devoted into killing frank without knowing his initial reason. After having seen the scene with harmonica and his brother being hung, it gave meaning to the rest of the actions that took place beforehand. Such as when frank was being shot at in the town and harmonica was inside the inn where jill was taking a bath. Harmonica was assisting frank in taking out all the people who were after him and it now makes sense as to why he did it, in order to kill frank himself. Witch such a motive and the determination that harmonica had, it was all only pieces of a bigger puzzle that the audience had to try to figure out until the scene with the death of his brother that allowed viewers to understand why harmonica does what he does.

NemoOoOoOoOoOo

A delicate little film about a fish directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, Finding Nemo is about a father, Marlin, desperately in search of his lost or so he believes, kidnapped son named Nemo. Throughout the movie we see the different obstacles that he must face and the trials he must overcome in order to be reunited with his one and only son.

After losing his wife, Coral, and every single egg except for one, Marlin has decided to follow Coral's wishes and name it Nemo being that she is now dead and he's the one and only surviving children he has left. The movie then skips to several years later and we then begin the journey. It starts with a simple fatherly embarrassment that drives Nemo to go against his father's wishes by swimming out away from the reef into the open ocean and is then caught and swept up by a net into a boat and sent off to Sydney, Australia.

Finding Nemo was one of the biggest blockbusters of the year. The movie was easily acknowledged as the highest grossing movie for opening weekend notably for being an animated film. The movie had made a little over $70,000,000 in its opening week alone according to this site. Furthermore, total sales as of date sums to a staggering number of $860mil. With such a high number of gross, it easily makes Finding Nemo one of the top ten best selling movies.

Of course however, with such high numbers, it wouldn't have been possible with the millions of fans around the world. Many critics such as Richard Roeper from Ebert & Roeper said "Finding Nemo is terrific entertainment." and Jeff Strickler from Minneapolis Star Tribune contributed with "...even when Pixar is not at the top of its game, it still produces better animation than some of its competitors on their best days." Numerous of other critics all gave Finding Nemo a fairly good review let alone the general public. The movie being an animated film gives audiences the preconceived notion that it's a children’s film but not necessarily. The movie was enjoyed by not only kids but of people of various ages. A fun filled family comedy animated to please our attention was easily shown by how many people enjoyed the movie. Positive reviews from not only critics but also from families throughout the world can explain how this movie hit the screens and became such a big hit.

Although the movie was released in 2003, the amount of money the movie had grossed wasn't just based on the time and date it was released. In 2003, the movie was seen as ahead of its time in technology and detail. Being the first of its kind, an animated motion picture based on aquatic life, was just what audiences, namely kids, were unconsciously desiring. With such a different and unique movie just released during the summer of 03', audiences were delighted as to see what this new motion picture could captivate them with. However that was the response it got back then. In today's day and age, although it would still be a pretty darn good movie, reactions about it would be different. With such a huge time interval between 03 and 07, a numerous amount of animated movies have been made and presented to the public with many different styles with innovated plot lines making Finding Nemo a not so much anticipated movie. Thus for it being released when it was, made it into what millions believe to be one of the best animated movies ever made to date.

My Thoughts on My Darling Clementine

My Darling Clementine was an interesting movie none the less. To me it was much better and more endurable than Kane was. However in Clementine, there was quite a bit of confusion as to how the middle part of the movie connected to the initial plot of Wyatt getting revenge. There were numerous scenes where what was happening didn't seem to contribute to the overall plot of the movie. Scenes such as Wyatt dancing with Clem or other times where the Clantons didn't even have a single appearance in the scenes or was even spoken of. The movie beginning with the death of his younger brother, we'd expect the middle parts of the movie to either pursue or continue what the beginning scenes had introduced. However, that wasn't the case and instead the scenes were evolving the characters' relationship with each other. At least with the character development we can understand what the characters are like and how they play their role in the movie. Overall however, the inconsistent plot movement somewhat threw me off as I was watching the movie but all in all a decent movie.

Citizen Kane!

Something that I really noticed while watching this movie was that of the low-key lighting used so much throughout the film. The importance of the low-key lighting could be to stress importance on certain characters such as Kane himself. At certain points in the movie, the lighting makes it seem as though he's a mysterious person or a character that has such huge power or influence yet remains in the shadow pulling the strings on the puppet dolls at his will. With the low-key lighting throughout the movie, it gives some scenes a certain significance as to what is going on. For example, when Kane, Leland, and Bernstien sign the declaration of principles, the shadows in the back where Kane sits gives us the feeling as though he's invisibly controlling their actions. Such scenes tell us the importance of how low-key lighting can affect the movies and the different meanings that can be interpretted by the viewers.

Drinking and Fighting, what a pair!

Fighting off bad guys and at the same time getting drunk is an odd way to engage into combat. However, in Drunken Master 2 or Jui Kuen II directed by Chia-Liang Liu, Jackie Chan plays as Wong Fei-Hung, is apparently the best way for him to defeat the bad guys and once again save the day. Swift attacks, unpredictable movement, amazing stunts, and action sequences all combine into a movie that many devoted Jackie Chan fans have come to enjoy.

It may seem simple to just simply fight off the bad guys and defeat the enemy once and for all, but Chan or Fei-hung, must go through many obstacles in order to accomplish what others are afraid to do. Although he is skilled in martial arts, he father has forbid him from using his skill in harming others or putting on a show, let alone use the unique style of Drunken Boxing. Regardless of what his father has said, his step-mother (Anita Mui) encourages him to do what he believes is right and stand up for his country and retrieve the stolen ancient Chinese artifacts that others want to have transported out of China and sold for money.

As you watch the movie, many different scenes were made and put together with precision. From the fast kicks and punches, the quick movement, the somewhat painful stunts and acrobatics, it was all done thanks to Jackie Chan’s ingenuity in martial arts and stunt choreography. By using specific camera angles throughout the movie, we can truly observe how the characters not only react and express emotion but also to put emphasis on the movement and action when it happens. Such as a low angles in order to show how strong Fei-Hung’s Drunken Boxing style truly is and close-ups during the action sequences to allow the audience to observe what is happening with clear detail of how the characters react to the situations that arise.

Not only are the action scenes emphasized on, we also see the props and the costumes that each character is wearing or around. For example the characters’ clothes, this is proper because of the time setting that the movie was made. Other examples include the relative setting, the houses, the streets, the music and sounds, the overall surrounding unifies the individual characters and the movie setting together. Thus allowing the audience to experience what it was like and how life was back then for Fei-Hung and what he had to go through.

Although an old movie made in 1994, it is regarded as a classic and very well known to many martial arts and Jackie Chan fanatics worldwide. All in all Drunken Master 2 is a movie worth watching whether you are a Jackie Chan fan or just want a movie to enjoy that not only contains action but also humor and the special talents that Jackie Chan has to offer.