High Noon

I really liked this movie! The ending is soooo good. Will Kane must confront a gang of criminals, Kane put their leader away for murder years before, and now he is out and looking to kill him. He goes around the town to gather people for help, he has done so much for this town and assumes it wont be hard, everyone turns him away! Even the judge and his own deputy. Instead of running away he stays put and defeats them all! When everyone comes to congratulate him, he just takes his star off and kicks it to the floor and drives off in his carriage!   "Carl Foreman stated the film was intended as an allegory of the contemporary failure of intellectuals to combat the rise of McCarthyism , as well as how people in Hollywood had remained silent while their peers were blacklisted." this is a common theme in the world. when something happens to someone and they reach out for help but no one wants to get their hands dirty, most people will run away to save themselves, but a few people in this world will stay in out and prove themselves just so that they can regain their pride and walk away from the poeple that walked away from them!

The Wild Bunch

For someone who doesn't like westerns I did enjoy watching this movie. To tell you the truth, I did not know much about westerns, and had not seen many at all, maybe 1 or 2. They just seemed "boring" to me. Maybe it was the way they looked or how long they typically are, I just avoided them at all costs. The Wild Bunch is a fun, loud, theme filled rambunctious movie about a gang out old outlaws getting ready to retire for good. They just want their one last ride, their one last deal, that will set them straight financially for a long while. Another theme similar to public enemy "once last punch". This theme always makes me so nervous! It foreshadows that this will be their last and final fight. Not because they will stop after this one, but because they will die. Another theme in this film is betrayal. In this film the men live by a code of honor. At the end they leave their friend to basically die with the mexicans, they while they are trying to relax and drink they all realize "when you side with a man, you stay with him. Otherwise you are just some animal." They all get up and this is what initially lead to the conclusion of their journey. 

Question of the day

When did movie credits start showing at the end of movies? i feel like most movies before the 1980s all showed at the beginning of movies, now its just the "main names" like stars, producers, director, production company and writer. Is it the choice of the creator of the movie or the director? who has made this grand decision?

Crime and Gangster

Crime and gangster films are always fun to watch, they are usually based on crime, drugs, money ,bank-robbers, murders, women, and cars. What I have found quite common in most of these films is that the audience usually

develops a type of sympathy for the main criminal. And at some point in the movie you are not sure if you are on the "good guy's" side or the "bad guy's" side. But the "good guy" always wins. These movies are usually based in large crowded cities, so that one can see the small shadowy crevices that these criminals hide out in. Gangster films are usually a story about morals, the criminal is usually someone who is striving to make money, make a name for himself. The criminal is usually coming from a small poor family and sees an opportunity to make it big. There is usually some sort of catch. An example of this would be : "the only problem is it means doing something illegal to get the money like robbing a bank". The criminal thinks that he can do it just this once and then be done with it. And then they get addicted to the money, the thrill, the rush, and they keep doing it till they die doing it. Gangster and crime movies dates back to the early 1900s, but it was not until the 1930's when sound was invented that these films really became a thrilling entertainment. The sound of the machine guns going off, the car driving away and the women screaming really added to the plot lines. The themes in the 1930s really went well with the genre as well. The prohibition era led way for fantastic movies about bootlegging alcohol and the ups and downs of that business like in the public enemy.

The Public Enemy

This movie was hard to watch. I just new they were going to die and kept waiting for it to happen, similar to Bonnie and Clyde, they should have stopped while they were ahead. the end credits message was confusing to me, was this movie put out as more of a warning? It was interesting to see the development of the two boys. How they went from troubled little boys stealing watches and selling them to the black market to bootlegging alcohol, ripping money, slapping women, and killing people like its like putting out a cigarette. it was confusing when Matt got shot, and Tom was hiding behind a building, he was almost smiling, it was creepy with his thin eyebrows, was he smiling that he did not get shot, or that he had something to do with Matt getting shot. and at the end when Tom storms into the building that all those men were walking into, we hear a lot of shots and then he comes out hurt. what was this little meeting? was it the mob meeting? why did he go in and shoot them?was he shooting for Matt? or did he feel set up having his gun and money taken away?

Question of the week

Film Noir:
SO now that I am more familiar with Film Noir, I understand how the films we have watched are categorized under this genre, however i am not sure how to go about categorizing movies I haven't seen in class and Noir or not. if it was made with in the 40s & 50s and has crime and femme fatal and has great lighting then is it Noir?

Bonnie and Clyde

I really loved this movie. I think that many movies have taken inspiration from this film. the film has so many great aspects to it. Crime, love, teamwork, deceit, dreams, and defeat are some that come to mind. I found it interesting when researching the real Bonnie and Clyde that the pictures at the car with the gun that were taken in the film were actually taken in real life too. Another aspect that the film had that is true are the poems that Bonnie Parker wrote about their legacy. I read that she was an honor roll student in high school and won an award for the poems she wrote. The love story of the two of them is so heart breaking.They should have stopped when they had the chance. This happens in many films and in many lives. When people try something illegal for the first time and get away with it, then they think, well hey lets try this one more time, and they are successful again. Instead of stopping they keep at it and it gets sloppier and sloppier and then they get caught and killed, its unfortunate that this is a reoccurring theme. Its so sad, the two of them were so young.

Film Noir

Film Noir

Before taking this class I was not really sure exactly what Film Noir was. I knew that they were all black and white films, but I was not sure what distinguished Film Noir from other black and white films. Film Noir means black film in french. Film Noir's were mostly made in American between the years of the 1940s-1950s. Specifically 1941-1958. It is hard to define this genre. I read that the french were the first to recognize a movement in American film at this time before and after WWII. What I have noticed is that the films usually have something to do with crime, corruption, a femme fatal, some type of love triangle confusion, and death. the main female character always seems to be scheming and have a few tricks up her sleeve, unlike women in movies after this period that just sat their and looked pretty.In the strange love of MarthaIvers , Martha is the ultimate femme fatal, she manipulates the people around her and intimidates her husband into doing what she wants, and she lives in fear that everyone will find out that she killed her aunt. Or in Sunset BLVD Norma Desmond is in such an illusion that she is still a big star that she ends up killing poorGillis . I have really enjoyed watching these films, this is my favorite genre so far. I really liked the Maltese Falcon, I think that this movie had every part of thequintisential aspects of film noir all wrapped up in one movie. Sam spade was the hero cop that solves the crime, Mr. Gutman was the criminal that was chasing the falcon that Sam Spade was trying to capture and Mrs. Brigid O'Shaughnessy was the femme fatal who was in trouble with Gutman and wanted the falcon, but most of all almost took Sam Spade down.