Ghost Dog

This film is a womderfully written piece following a hit-man for the mafia in the streets of New York. Yet this hit-man follows the code of the samurai, and finds honor in violence, serving a master, and keeping to the code. Forest Whittaker takes on the challenging role of interpreting a lovelable cold-blooded killer, who befriends a franco-phone who owns an ice-cream truck, a small girl, who like Ghost Dog enjoys reading books about far-away lands, and different cultures. She and Ghost Dog discuss these books in the park over ice cream while he is not doing -hit jobs for one of the mafia lords. 

The theme of old- gangster vs. new gangster is apparent throughout the film, as the Italian mafia is altogether being phased out of the drug cartel, leaving that to new ways of machiavellian style war-lording, those that hold no codes and no honor.

He reminded me a lot of marlon brando's character from the movie waterfront as he kept a coop of messenger pigeons and slept with them. The mafia that ended up after ghost dog also shot his birds as the mob killed all of marlo's as well.The biggest difference here I think is that Ghost Dog actually was a contender.

Innocence

This film is set in a utopian-seeming setting as a school for girls, that serves as both a sanctuary and a prison. We open in the film following Iris, a girl who arrives at the school in a coffin, being born into the system in which the young girls for the most part govern themselves, sort of a reverse- Lord-of-the-Flies scenario. The girls are separated both into age-groups, signified by the color of ribbon worn in their hair, and into different houses, we follow House number three, where we are introduced to Alice and Bianca, two other girls whose stories we get to see. 

Within this film the camera changes perspectives with the narrator, of which there are more than five transitions, as the audience tries to piece together the mystery that is held with in the boarding school the camera allows us in to each narrator's unique perspective of the school, as sanctuary, salvation, a comfortable home, a prison, an obstacle to the outside world, or part of the journey of life, the leg that precedes adulthood. 

 While the plot is tres lent, the cinematography keeps one's eye's glued to the screen as the natural landscape shots interweave with action shots of young faces and stories telling  of the feeling of longing, secrets, and all in all the anti-climax of growing up. Something seems to be brooding inside the movie, as one watches young girls live together in what surmises must be a dance school obsessed with the idea of the life-cycle, birth and death, caterpillar to butterfly. yet the death  and disappearance of two of the young girls seems more of a foreboding never realized than tragedies within themselves. The need for secrecy is also never realized as the climax of the film simply reveals what can only be referred to as a recital, nothing so dark as what an audience member would expect. 

In this way the film is frustrating and gives the audience member little satisfaction in finding out the mystery of the setting. Yet the film gives great reward to the aesthetic viewer.

Il faut d fidel

This film poses an interesting insight into the inner-workings of a family of communist activists, and especially how the transition from capitalist-living effects the daughter and main character of the film, Anna. In 1971 Paris,  Anna has been raised a stoic capitalist, attending a Catholic School, living in a big house with a garden and a cuban-refugee nanny. All that changes as her parents take a trip to chile which was currently undergoing a revolution, and become active communists. They move to a small apartment, hire communist-refugee nannies, and need to conserve heat and electricity to pay bills. Yet, Anna learns to adapt to her new communist life-style, and eventually accepts the change as one for the better. 

This is intriguing not only for its politically volatile setting, but for the humanity attached to each political movement, whether it be revolutionary or reactionary. There are faces and stories paired with each point of view, Communist, Fascist, Capitalist, Women's Liberation, and all seen through the eyes of a primary-school girl who wants to know why she had to leave her big house, why her aunt is not with her husband, what an abortion is, and what a communist really is. She explores the big questions, and settles for sunday-ing with her family. 

Her evolution is what is central to the film, and it is magnificent and life-affirming, and finally, abandons politics for family ties. 

all about my mother, todo sobre mi madre

This film was extremely well written, offering a play within a movie, paired with a movie within a movie that weaves together the lives of the characters. the characters themselves were memorable, and well played by the talented actors that came together to make this movie. 

There are quite a few perspective shots made within the movie, which I think reflect the theme of changing perspectives that is incorporated throughout the film.

Utilizing the world of Transvestites, and the transgendered in order to tell the story of a middle aged woman who has lost her son is poignant, and moving, as is the open attitude, and humane and tolerant way in which the characters are treated throughout the film.

Big Jim Mclean

So I love a good John Wayne movie as much as the next girl who's daddy made her watch hatari before she saw the lion king. That said, this movie was only good because John Wayne was a man in it. It was anti- communist propoganda at its most blatant and made one wonder if there was even an attempt to veil the obvious overtones of HUAC and patriotism. Even down to the mustachioed villain, this movie was completely predictable.

This movie did place John Wayne with a man bigger than he is, which is atypical for a John Wayne film, where even the villain was taller than he was. The use of height to communicate differences in power and influence to the script was an interesting facet to the film. 

There was also this weird comic relief provided by Mortimer the Bacteriologist that didn't seem to communicate with the rest of the movie, as a slap-stick scene interrupts the otherwise dramatic plotline. 

The film also proffered an anti-racist stream running through the film as there are several images of multi-cultural America, open to cultural difference, just not political difference.

Singing in the Rain

Singin' in the Rain is about change, progression within the movie industry and is woven together with large musical numbers and slap-stick comedy. Gene Kelly exhibits a masculine style of dance that incorporates heavy tap and gymnastic schools. This movie stars Gene Kelly, who also directs, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O'Connor. This movie is themed around deception and genuine feeling, between what is worthwhile and what is easily done away with. 

Actress Lena Lamont is the epitome of the fake, with a beautiful exterior, but can't cut it when the talkies come about, as she proffers a grating voice, and as we come to find out, an awful core. 

The most interesting scene of the movie to me is the "play within a play"or "musical within a musical" in this case. The most potent scenes for me include Cyd Charisse, the dancer, both onstage and off. She is said to be one of the most amazing ballerinas in the world, and she gives a breathtaking performance alongside Gene Kelly without ever saying a word, which is the opposite side of the spectrum, but still in parallel with Lena's character.

out of the past

Out of the Past stars Kirk Douglass and is an example of the film noir genre. It begins with a mysterious dialogue circling around the question "Where is Bailey?" 

The opening scene focuses on a trench-coat adorned, fedora-sporting, cigarette-smoking, tall dark figure who is coarse if word and deed. 

Tourneur utilizes stereotypical and archetypal casts of characters in order to give foreshadowing to the plot line. George Baliley is a tall dark man, who wears rugged clothing and represents a good-natured man who is overtaken by far more dark and evil characters dressed in luxurious clothes and living in penthouses. The heroine of the movie is the bright, innocent  Meta Carlson is the foil to the dark lady love interest Kathy Moffet, who ends up as the succubus that feeds off all the other characters of the story. 

The symbols and characters are extremely Jungian in nature, as illustrated above. But also fed off some strictly stereotypical characters such as the secretary who sleeps with her boss, and other men, being painted as very promiscuous.

The Narrative is circular in nature as it ends up  on the road as it began in a situation that springs  "out of the past."