This was the first time I had ever seen Crooklyn and I was amazed by the film. My mother encouraged me to watch it because she grew up in the 70s and thought I should see what her childhood looked like. I absolutely loved the film because of the storyline, Lee is incredible at writing and directing, he has made so many films and every single one of them is different. This makes it hard to find something about his films that connect to each other. My favorite movie ever is Love and Basketball because of his main character struggling to choose between her dream and the love of her life. In Crooklyn, a mother of 5 children dies from cancer. She leaves behind her only daughter who then steps into a mothering type of role to take care of her brothers, who are all older than her with the exception of one younger brother. If I could connect all of Lee's films together, I would say that he favors female protagonists and complex relationships.
Crooklyn is about a family just trying to survive in the summer. The protagonist is the only girl in the family and she is teased by her brothers and all of the other boys in the house and neighborhood. She is constantly trying to find her place in the family being that she was the only girl. The parents have a fight and end up separating because the father wants to pursue music. The mother becomes very sick and dies, which leaves her to step up and take care of the house as a ten year-old girl with help and support from her father.
My favorite part of the movie was when the little girl went to visit a different part of her family for the summer. She had braids in and short and a t-shirt on, and her cousin had on a dress and her hair was pressed. This side of the family was much more feminine. She ended up bonding with her cousin and was sad to leave her, but happy to go back home, which was when she found out her mother was sick. The cinematography of the film was great, all of the wide shots were amazing because there was so much to look at, every part of the neighborhood looked busy. I thought the angles he used were very effective because they showed just enough of what we needed to see in order to get the point across. I highly recommend seeing this film, I loved it!
Friday, December 12, 2014
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
International Neo-Realism: The Bicycle Thief
I watched The Bicycle Thief by Vittorio De Sica. The film was about a man named Antonio Ricci who was unemployed, and the head of the unemployment office called him and told him he got a good city job for him, but he had to have a bike. Ricci said he had a bike, but it was broken. The man demanded that he have a bike by the end of the day, or the job would go to someone else. So Maria Ricci, Antonio's wife, took his sheets and sold them to get money, then they went to a pawn shop and bought Ricci a bike. Ricci went down to his new job, bike in hand, and was told that he started work the next morning. The next morning, Ricci was told how to do the job, and he went off to do it on his own. He was hanging up his first poster when a young man came up and stole his bike. Ricci chased him, but lost where he had gone. The rest of the movie is Ricci and his son looking for his bike, which they never find. Instead, Ricci decides to steal a bike, but he is seen stealing the bike and beaten and humiliated in front of his son, but the owner of the bike decided not to press charges against him. International Neorealism began in Italy right after World War II ended. Neorealistic films were usually about the economy of Italy after the war, typically included story lines about the working class, and were shot on location, which is why The Bicycle Thief fits perfectly under this umbrella. Some neorealistic films had non-professional actors, but not all of them. Poetry and cruelty of life were combined and portrayed throughout The Bicycle Thief, as the movie did not have a happy ending. Ossessione by Luchino Visconti (1943) was the first film described as neorealistic. This film angered the Fascists and was banned in the Fascist-controlled parts of Italy. Neorealism was big after the war and was extremely influential on the international level, however, it only made up a small percentage of films produced in Italy. Italians were more interested in comedies to take their minds off of the war and economy. Mario Camerini's What Scoundrels Men Are! was the first film shot entirely on location in 1932, which starred Vittorio De Sica. Other neorealistic monumental films include Umberto D by Vittorio De Sica, Two Women by Vittorio De Sica (Sophia Loren won an Oscar for), Federico Fellini's La Strada, and many more. Umberto D was considered the end of neorealistic movement, but the other two films made later are considered part of the genre.
Monday, October 20, 2014
The Central Park Five by Ken Burns
Summary:
The documentary started off with the voice of Matias Reyes confessing the crime that the Central Park Five were accused of. Next, we got a summary of how crime was in New York City in the late 1980's. Then, we met each of the Central Park Five boys. Raymond, Antron, Yusef, Kevin, and Kharey did not know each other, but they all lived in Harlem. On April 19,1989, a group of about twenty-five or more teenagers went to Central Park. Among the twenty-five were the Central Park Five, however, none of them participated in the mischief that night. The other kids beat up a homeless man and took his food. The police showed up and the group scattered. Kharey went home, the other four went to go find the rest of the group so they could all go home together. The police came and the group split up again. This time, Kevin was put in handcuffs along with Raymond. They went to the precinct and they waited for the police to call their parents. Parents were called down to the station, but they were not allowed to leave just yet. The police held the kids there because a woman was found in Central Park beaten up and "virtually dead," and she had been raped. The detective on that case told the police at the station to hold the kids there and question them, so they did. Both kids denied even knowing about the woman in the park, saying that they had no idea what they were talking about, and they didn't. The next day, Antron, Yusef, and Kharey were brought in and asked the same questions as Raymond and Kevin. They said the same thing as Raymond and Kevin, they did not know anything about the woman. The police demanded answers, and the kids were growing tired and hungry, so they made up stories. The police were telling every single one of them that the others were putting their name in it, so they all wrote down false statements, thinking they would be able to go home afterwards. They were all (except for Yusef) videotaped as they did vocal confessions, later to be used to put them behind bars. Since Kharey was 16, he was sent to an adult jail. All of the kids were found guilty. Yusef, Raymond, Antron, and Kevin served between 6 1/2-8 years in jail, Kharey served 13 years, since he was 16 years old. While everyone else was out, Kharey ran into Matias Reyes. Matias went around saying that there were people serving time for a crime that he committed. The case was brought back up, and Matias confessed and all of the evident errors from 13 years ago were made clear, proving the Central Park Fives' innocence. Raymond was in jail for an unrelated crime, but his time was cut short because of his proven innocence of his first "crime." Matias went to jail, everyone else was free and lived almost happily ever after. They struggle as adults because years of their youth were taken away from them, and they could not quite catch up to where they were supposed to be in life.
My Response:
This documentary pissed me off. I had never even heard of this case before and I lived on the East Coast for a lot of my life. It makes me so upset because I am black and I do know of cases where black people get more time for the same crime a white person may have done. The injustice in the 80s was not surprising, nor was the unfair treatment of the blacks to me. People think that just because this is New York that racism did not exist. Wrong, when it comes to the Criminal Justice System in ANY state of the United States of America, there will be racism. This documentary is very relevant to what is going on right now in Ferguson, it looks like the country is going backwards rather than forward in the Civil Rights department. The documentary made me extremely sad, because here are these teenage boys who are not mature enough to make tough decisions for themselves, forced into confessing and making up a story that they had absolutely nothing to do with, and then thrown in jail for a minimum of 6 years. I felt especially bad for Kharey because he was the oldest, and was sent to an adult prison. All of these kids were forced to grow up quickly in order to survive and that is completely unfair. But Kharey also lost his father, and couldn't even spend time dwelling on that. Raymond seemed to get the short end of the stick most of the time as well, because his family did not have enough money to get him out on bail, and then after he got out of jail, he started to sell drugs because he was miserable, unable to get a job because he was registered as a sex offender. Kharey said it best, no amount of money could make up for the 13 years of lost time.
Cinematic Response:
I thought the film was very nice. There was not that much of actual footage of the kids, but there were a lot of relevant pictures and old footage and they all looked really nice. There was one shot in particular that I thought was beautiful. It was a cigarette burning and the smoke coming from it on a desk. Then they did a time lapse on it to show how long the kids were being interrogated, waiting to see if they could go home. Antron only wanted his voice on the film, so when he spoke, there were images of him as a teenager and all of the shots they showed were relevant to what they were talking about. I thought the angles were very nice, especially of the pictures. The pictures of this film are really what made it work and fit together.
The documentary started off with the voice of Matias Reyes confessing the crime that the Central Park Five were accused of. Next, we got a summary of how crime was in New York City in the late 1980's. Then, we met each of the Central Park Five boys. Raymond, Antron, Yusef, Kevin, and Kharey did not know each other, but they all lived in Harlem. On April 19,1989, a group of about twenty-five or more teenagers went to Central Park. Among the twenty-five were the Central Park Five, however, none of them participated in the mischief that night. The other kids beat up a homeless man and took his food. The police showed up and the group scattered. Kharey went home, the other four went to go find the rest of the group so they could all go home together. The police came and the group split up again. This time, Kevin was put in handcuffs along with Raymond. They went to the precinct and they waited for the police to call their parents. Parents were called down to the station, but they were not allowed to leave just yet. The police held the kids there because a woman was found in Central Park beaten up and "virtually dead," and she had been raped. The detective on that case told the police at the station to hold the kids there and question them, so they did. Both kids denied even knowing about the woman in the park, saying that they had no idea what they were talking about, and they didn't. The next day, Antron, Yusef, and Kharey were brought in and asked the same questions as Raymond and Kevin. They said the same thing as Raymond and Kevin, they did not know anything about the woman. The police demanded answers, and the kids were growing tired and hungry, so they made up stories. The police were telling every single one of them that the others were putting their name in it, so they all wrote down false statements, thinking they would be able to go home afterwards. They were all (except for Yusef) videotaped as they did vocal confessions, later to be used to put them behind bars. Since Kharey was 16, he was sent to an adult jail. All of the kids were found guilty. Yusef, Raymond, Antron, and Kevin served between 6 1/2-8 years in jail, Kharey served 13 years, since he was 16 years old. While everyone else was out, Kharey ran into Matias Reyes. Matias went around saying that there were people serving time for a crime that he committed. The case was brought back up, and Matias confessed and all of the evident errors from 13 years ago were made clear, proving the Central Park Fives' innocence. Raymond was in jail for an unrelated crime, but his time was cut short because of his proven innocence of his first "crime." Matias went to jail, everyone else was free and lived almost happily ever after. They struggle as adults because years of their youth were taken away from them, and they could not quite catch up to where they were supposed to be in life.
My Response:
This documentary pissed me off. I had never even heard of this case before and I lived on the East Coast for a lot of my life. It makes me so upset because I am black and I do know of cases where black people get more time for the same crime a white person may have done. The injustice in the 80s was not surprising, nor was the unfair treatment of the blacks to me. People think that just because this is New York that racism did not exist. Wrong, when it comes to the Criminal Justice System in ANY state of the United States of America, there will be racism. This documentary is very relevant to what is going on right now in Ferguson, it looks like the country is going backwards rather than forward in the Civil Rights department. The documentary made me extremely sad, because here are these teenage boys who are not mature enough to make tough decisions for themselves, forced into confessing and making up a story that they had absolutely nothing to do with, and then thrown in jail for a minimum of 6 years. I felt especially bad for Kharey because he was the oldest, and was sent to an adult prison. All of these kids were forced to grow up quickly in order to survive and that is completely unfair. But Kharey also lost his father, and couldn't even spend time dwelling on that. Raymond seemed to get the short end of the stick most of the time as well, because his family did not have enough money to get him out on bail, and then after he got out of jail, he started to sell drugs because he was miserable, unable to get a job because he was registered as a sex offender. Kharey said it best, no amount of money could make up for the 13 years of lost time.
Cinematic Response:
I thought the film was very nice. There was not that much of actual footage of the kids, but there were a lot of relevant pictures and old footage and they all looked really nice. There was one shot in particular that I thought was beautiful. It was a cigarette burning and the smoke coming from it on a desk. Then they did a time lapse on it to show how long the kids were being interrogated, waiting to see if they could go home. Antron only wanted his voice on the film, so when he spoke, there were images of him as a teenager and all of the shots they showed were relevant to what they were talking about. I thought the angles were very nice, especially of the pictures. The pictures of this film are really what made it work and fit together.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Fish Tank By Andrea Arnold
Summary:
The movie started out with Mia (the troubled 15 year old) tired from running. She goes to her friend's house and asks for her, the father tells her to go away. Mia finds her friend at the park dancing to hip hop music with her ugly friends. Mia sits, watches, then gets up and starts an argument with her friend. The ugly friends chime in and Mia headbuts one of them. The next scene is Mia going home and her mother tells her to stay home with Tyler, her younger sister. Mia leaves anyway and goes to dance in an abandoned building. She goes back home and goes to sleep. When she wakes up and goes downstairs, she watches a Hip Hop music video and dances to it as she makes tea. A man (Connor) comes downstairs and watches her for a little while. Mia turns around and is startled because she has never seen this man before. He tells her she dances like a black girl, which he says is a compliment. He goes back upstairs to the mother. Mia makes a friend as she tries to save a sick horse. Mia, Tyler, her mom, and Connor go to a lake and Mia helps Connor catch a fish. Then he asks her to dance and Mia dances, but stops and gets upset when her mom says she looks stupid. She storms off then finds a flyer that says wanted dancers, so she prepares a song. Connor lends her a camera so she records herself with it and sends it in. She gets a callback and is excited. Meanwhile, she watches her mom and Connor have sex. Connor looks at her twice then she goes back to her room. The next day, Mia finds Connor at work, she is with her new friend and she asks Connor for money. She later goes home and Connor says that boy looked old for her. The next night her mom comes home drunk so Connor puts her in bed. Then Mia goes downstairs with Connor and she shows him what she wants to do for her audition. Connor likes it and then they have sex. Connor leaves the next morning, Mia goes to find him. Connor says she can't be at his house, so he takes her back to the train station to go home. Mia goes back to his house, but Connor isn't there so she goes inside and discovers that Connor is married and has a child named Keira. When the family comes home, Mia sneaks out of the house and sits down and watches Keira ride her scooter back and forth. Connor and his wife go in the house and Mia kidnaps Keira. Keira runs away near a lake and kicks Mia in the shin multiple times so Mia drops her in the lake, then Keira pops her head back out and Mia pulls her out of the water with a tree branch. They hug and Mia takes her back home. She is walking home when Connor is driving and finds her and chases her down and slaps her. Then he walks away and that is the end of them. Mia talks to her friend and he says he is going to Wales, so Mia goes with him. Her mom is in the living room dancing to her Nas CD, Mia and Tyler join her in dancing. Then Mia leaves.
Analysis:
I actually loved this movie. The plot was a little scattered at times, but overall it was good and I do recommend it. The shots were really nice I thought the angles they used were amazing. There were 2 shots that I hated though. One was in the beginning where Mia was dancing in the abandoned building, and they showed her from the back, and it was so dark, but really light in front of her. It was like a half silhouette and it looked gross. The other one was towards the end when Mia was chasing Kiera. The camera was so shaky and I couldn't see. It hurt my eyes. Other than that, the movie was beautiful. It took a while for the movie to pick up my interest. The exposition scenes were strange. I feel like they just threw in random bad things for Mia to do so that we could see that she was a "bad girl" but it was so outrageous and random it just made me a bit uncomfortable. But once Mia did her audition dance for Connor, I was wondering if they were going to kiss or not. I thought the arc of the relationship between Mia and Connor was great, but I didn't like how they ended things. I hated that he just slapped her and left, they didn't talk about anything. I would've wanted more of a resolution for them. Other than that, watch this movie its pretty good.
The movie started out with Mia (the troubled 15 year old) tired from running. She goes to her friend's house and asks for her, the father tells her to go away. Mia finds her friend at the park dancing to hip hop music with her ugly friends. Mia sits, watches, then gets up and starts an argument with her friend. The ugly friends chime in and Mia headbuts one of them. The next scene is Mia going home and her mother tells her to stay home with Tyler, her younger sister. Mia leaves anyway and goes to dance in an abandoned building. She goes back home and goes to sleep. When she wakes up and goes downstairs, she watches a Hip Hop music video and dances to it as she makes tea. A man (Connor) comes downstairs and watches her for a little while. Mia turns around and is startled because she has never seen this man before. He tells her she dances like a black girl, which he says is a compliment. He goes back upstairs to the mother. Mia makes a friend as she tries to save a sick horse. Mia, Tyler, her mom, and Connor go to a lake and Mia helps Connor catch a fish. Then he asks her to dance and Mia dances, but stops and gets upset when her mom says she looks stupid. She storms off then finds a flyer that says wanted dancers, so she prepares a song. Connor lends her a camera so she records herself with it and sends it in. She gets a callback and is excited. Meanwhile, she watches her mom and Connor have sex. Connor looks at her twice then she goes back to her room. The next day, Mia finds Connor at work, she is with her new friend and she asks Connor for money. She later goes home and Connor says that boy looked old for her. The next night her mom comes home drunk so Connor puts her in bed. Then Mia goes downstairs with Connor and she shows him what she wants to do for her audition. Connor likes it and then they have sex. Connor leaves the next morning, Mia goes to find him. Connor says she can't be at his house, so he takes her back to the train station to go home. Mia goes back to his house, but Connor isn't there so she goes inside and discovers that Connor is married and has a child named Keira. When the family comes home, Mia sneaks out of the house and sits down and watches Keira ride her scooter back and forth. Connor and his wife go in the house and Mia kidnaps Keira. Keira runs away near a lake and kicks Mia in the shin multiple times so Mia drops her in the lake, then Keira pops her head back out and Mia pulls her out of the water with a tree branch. They hug and Mia takes her back home. She is walking home when Connor is driving and finds her and chases her down and slaps her. Then he walks away and that is the end of them. Mia talks to her friend and he says he is going to Wales, so Mia goes with him. Her mom is in the living room dancing to her Nas CD, Mia and Tyler join her in dancing. Then Mia leaves.
Analysis:
I actually loved this movie. The plot was a little scattered at times, but overall it was good and I do recommend it. The shots were really nice I thought the angles they used were amazing. There were 2 shots that I hated though. One was in the beginning where Mia was dancing in the abandoned building, and they showed her from the back, and it was so dark, but really light in front of her. It was like a half silhouette and it looked gross. The other one was towards the end when Mia was chasing Kiera. The camera was so shaky and I couldn't see. It hurt my eyes. Other than that, the movie was beautiful. It took a while for the movie to pick up my interest. The exposition scenes were strange. I feel like they just threw in random bad things for Mia to do so that we could see that she was a "bad girl" but it was so outrageous and random it just made me a bit uncomfortable. But once Mia did her audition dance for Connor, I was wondering if they were going to kiss or not. I thought the arc of the relationship between Mia and Connor was great, but I didn't like how they ended things. I hated that he just slapped her and left, they didn't talk about anything. I would've wanted more of a resolution for them. Other than that, watch this movie its pretty good.
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