Amadeus (Matt)

I watched the following trailer before I saw this movie.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi498467097/

After seeing it I ended up having no idea what to expect from it. I thought it was a biopic about Mozart until I watched the trailer, and afterward I was lost. I tell you this so you can know that I went into this movie with a blank slate, at least for the most part. Several of my friends like this movie quite a bit, so there was a little bit of bias in that aspect, but that seems to be the case with any movie that we watch here that anyone I know has seen beforehand.

Lets start off with the acting, because it was great. Tom Hulce, who played Amadeus, won the Oscar for best actor for this film, and it was very well deserved. I do feel, however, that F. Murray Abraham, who was also nominated for best actor, deserved it more. His acting was amazing. We get to watch the court composer, Salieri, succumb to his own jealousy. The transformation is fascinating to watch. I have zero experience as an actor, and my knowledge of the art is limited to the movies and plays and such that I have watched. That said, it seems that playing an eccentric character would be easier than playing a normal one. The audience is more forgiving with inconsistencies with eccentric characters. They don't have to be believable. A normal character seems to me much hard to play convincingly. This is one of the main reason that I feel Abraham got stiffed.

I want to mention the costuming. Wow. The costumes are amazing throughout the film but I want to mention in particular the masquerade ball around the middle of the film. What an amazing scene that was. Elaborate costumes and masks are swirling around and dancing, lots of laughter and music filling the ears, and the glum black costume of Amadeus' father looming amongst it all. It's quite a scene, and it was easily my favorite part of the film. This movie won an Ocsar for costuming as well, and once again, it's easy to see why.

I should also mention the music. Most of the music in the film was taken directly from Mozart's actual work, so it wasn't anything new. What made it mentionable though, is the way they used it. In scenes where music is being played it completely dominates the scene. All other sounds are blocked out, and all you here is the loud, booming productions that the composers create. It's quite an experience. The music was also used in another way however, that I also thought was amazing. This was portrayed when the composers were reading sheet music. As Salieri reads through the scores created by Mozart, we hear what he reads. He knew music well enough that he can hear the entire piece simply by reading the notes, and the way the movie showed me this was awesome.

Really there isn't much I can say that's bad about the movie. Take a look at the list of Oscars that the movie won:

Best Actor In A Leading Role
Best Art-Direction-Set Direction
Best Costume Role
Best Director
Best Makeup
Best Picture
Best Sound
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium

Now we aren't done yet, these are the nominations that the movie recieved but didn't win:

Best Actor In A Leading Role
Best Cinematography
Best Film Editing

Seriously! This movie was nominated eleven times, and it won 8 of those nominations. This would have been nine but two of the nominations were in the same category.

My only complaint is that the movie got a bit slow at times. I did find myself a bit bored at moments, wishing for something to happen to move the story forward. I'll give this one 8 annoying laughs out of 10.

Amadeus(John)

I first saw this movie when I was in about seventh grade. Mrs. Bull, our band teacher, brought the movie in for band class. I don't remember her reason for having us watch the movie. I guess she thought it would make us appreciate music more. And, I would have to say, it fulfills that role as well as appreciation for many more aspects of the film.

So, the acting in the film is phenomenal. There is an all-star cast in this film and each one of them plays their part to the tee. F. Murray Abraham leads the film with his emotional narrations and his ability to play a man his own age as well as a senile older man. However, while F. Murray Abraham did an excellent job, the most outstanding performance for me would have to go to Tom Hulce, who played Mozart. His interesting portrayal of Mozart really sucked me into the film. Hulce basically had to play two different people. While Mozart was working on his music, he was focused and very devoted and serious. However, when he wasn't working, he was a womanizing alcoholic with childlike tendencies and a grating laugh. It was very interesting to see the shifts in his personality and it was executed perfectly.

The story was great. We are treated to an excellent story about Mozart's life, however inaccurate the story may be. We start all the way back to when Mozart was 5 and playing for Kings and we end as he dies. The interesting part is that the movie is narrated by Salieri, his rival. We see almost as much about his life as we do Mozart's. It was interesting how Salieri kept referring to Mozart as God's instrument and how Salieri has forsaken God because he chose Mozart over him. This theme was used throughout the movie. The last few scenes of the movie are the scenes I remember the most from when I watched it back in seventh grade. I don't know why they stuck with me over others, but they were definitely powerful scenes.

The music was amazing in the film. Almost all of the music were actual pieces that Mozart composed. I loved how the film started with some of his more light-hearted pieces and by the end the bombastic, dark and disturbing music was filling my ears. It was very fitting and set the tone for the scenes in the movie.

The set design was also very good. The costumes looked excellent. I could not believe how much detail was put into the scenes that involved the plays. It was as if there were whole operas and plays inside this one movie.

I tried to think of things that I did not like about the movie. But, really, I can't think of any. One thing that I would've liked to have seen would be a more accurate telling of Mozart's life. Although, I think we would've experienced a much more different(and possibly boring) film. This movie kept me at the edge of my seat the whole time. And there isn't even any action! The action scenes are the moments when Mozart is directing an opera, and this works so well.

I'm giving this movie a 9 out of 10.

- John Murphy

Amadeus

Origin: U.S(Saul Zaentz) 1984
Length: 160 minutes
Format: Color
Director: Milos Foreman
Producer: Saul Zaentz
Screenplay: Peter Shaffer, from his play
Photography: Miroslav Ondricek
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri
Cast: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Simon Callow, Roy Dotrice, Christine Ebersole, Jeffery Jones, Charles Kay, Kenny Baker
Oscars: Saul Zaentz(best picture), Milos Foreman(director), Peter Shaffer(screenplay), F. Murray Abraham(actor), Patrizia Von Brandenstein, Karel Cerny(art direction), Theodor Pistek(costume), Paul LeBlanc, Dick Smith(makeup), Mark Berger, Thomas Scott, Todd Beokelheide, Christopher Newman(sound)
Oscar Nominations: Tom Hulce(actor), Miroslav Ondricek(photography), Nena Danevic, Michael Chandler(editing)
Links: Amadeus Wiki

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Czech director Milos Foreman's casting of American Tom Hulce as the giggling Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart contrasts with the opulent sets and period details on display throughout the epic biopic Amadeus. But Hulce's wild, over the top performance as the brilliant enfant terrible jibes with the theory that larger-than-life music must flow from a larger-than-life personality.



Review coming soon...

The Cow (Matt)

The Cow is the first movie that I have ever seen that was created in and by Iran. It was created in 1969 and is filmed in black and white. In this 105 minute long movie we stay inside a poor village in which live a smattering of country folk. The town's greatest asset is a pregnant cow, owned by the stories main character, Hassan. He absolutely adores this cow, and the director goes to great lengths to make sure we realize this. All is well until a group of bandits appears and starts to bother the town. Hassan has to travel to work for a day and while he is gone the cow dies. It's never made clear exactly how the cow is killed. Hassan, to put it lightly, doesn't take it well. He goes insane and the villagers struggle to save their friend.

I'm afraid that I walk the middle road for this movie. The pros and the cons mixed together to create a very neutral point of view. Lets start with what I didn't like about it.

This move is boring. The first half of the film is dedicated to showing the audience that Hassan really loves his cow. We see him 'ooo' and 'ahh' over it, he gives it a bath and feeds it and makes baby noises at it the entire time. These scenes are long and incredibly boring. Imagine watching a bearded man in black and white cooing at a cow for about 45 minutes, ok now you can skip forward past the entire beginning of the movie. The only other important point of the beginning is that there are a group of bandits around the outside of the town that occasionally raid the villagers livestock. Aside from that however, it's just a dude and a cow in black and white.

The music is a bit obnoxious. I suppose it is culturally sound, and for that reason I should tolerate it, but it sounds in a lot of places just like a dude banging around on pots or plucking a guitar randomly. The melody is hard to obtain. This can be useful in establishing a mood sometimes, sort of like in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but mostly in this film it just made me wonder what the heck was going on in the orchestra pit.

I very much enjoyed the cinematography. It's filmed with very little light and this combined with the black and white and the quality of the film (which appears poor) creates a very ominous mood at night in the village. I'm not positive if this was the directors intent or not but regardless it's amazing. The shots were different from the usual shots that I would expect in a film, and that made it more interesting. This was the high point of the movie for me easily.

I also thought that Ezzatolah Entezami, the actor that played Hassan, was pretty great. He pulled a convincing insanity act, and kept the audience on their toes wondering what he would try and do next. He had good crazy eyes, and was also good at moving in discomforting ways. Just seeing him move made you think he was nuts.

So there you go, two good things and two bad things. I guess to stick with the balance here I'll give this a score of 5 PETA complaints out of 10.

~Matt

The Cow(John)

This is probably the weirdest movie I've ever seen. Although, it wasn't really hard to become that. An Iranian movie made in 1968 in Black & White about a guy who goes insane over losing his cow...yeah.

Let's start with the acting. Really nothing to write home about. I think the best character in the movie had to be Hassan, the main character. He did a good job and he really sold the insanity. The other supporting cast was just ok. None of them stood out to me...except for the guy who never left his home and was always saying "Ephram, is something wrong?". The comic relief, I guess.

Ok, story-wise is where this review gets tricky. As I said before, this movie centers around the loss of a cow. Now, as Americans living in the year 2010, it's going to be hard to relate to the film. What I did was imagine that the cow was Hassan's son. This way, I was able to at least understand a little more the events that took place. And, really, the story wasn't that bad. I kept thinking of it as an episode of The Twilight Zone or Outer Limits that took place in Iran. Kind of odd, yes, but that's what I was thinking. The story follows the typical Aristotelian flow: beginning, middle and end. In the beginning, we gain sympathy for Hassan and his cow, in the middle we learn that the cow has died and see the townspeople attempt to hide this from Hassan, and in the end we see the breakdown of Hassan.

The technical aspects of the movie was the shining star of the film. For a third world movie made in 1968, I think this movie performed above and beyond in this category. There were a lot of creepy shots in the movie and it really provided the needed suspense. If the movie wasn't shot as good as it was, I really think this could've been a boring movie. The black & white also aided in the film. The shots at night looked really really dark and we were only provided with vision when it was needed.

Overall, I guess I would say that I liked the movie but I could not recommend it to others and will more than likely never watch it again. I thought the acting was sub-par, the story was okay and the camera work was really good. I was not bored and it definitely exceeded my expectations. This is a movie you can watch that a majority of American audiences have never seen and will never see.

I'm giving it a 6.5 out of 10.

- John Murphy

Gaav (The Cow)

Origin: Iran (Iranian Ministry of Culture) 1968
Length: 100 minutes
Format: Black & White
Language: Farsi
Director: Dariush Mehrjui
Producer: Dariush Mehrjui
Screenplay: Dariush Mehrjui, from play by Gholam-Hossein Saedi
Photography: Fereduyn Ghovanlu
Music: Hormoz Farhat
Cast: Ezzatolah Entezami, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, Parviz Fanizadeh, Jamshid Mashayekhi, Ali Nassirian, Esmat Safavi, Khosrow Shojazadeh, Jafar Vali
Berlin International Film Festival: Dariush Mehrjui(OCIC award- recommendation, forum of new film)
Links: The Cow Wiki

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Rumor has it that after seeing The Cow, the Ayatollah Khomeini opined that perhaps there might be a place for filmmaking in the Islamic Republic, thus creating at least the theoretical possibility for the Iranian cinema of Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi, and others. The first Iranian feature film to attract significant international attention, The Cow was the second feature by the UCLA-educated Dariush Mehrjui, who returned to Iran determined to create a new kind of filmmaking comparable to the new Third World cinema then just emerging.

Below is not a trailer for the movie. I could not find an official(or unofficial) trailer for the movie. This is more of a snippet:

Into The Wild (Matt)

This movie tells the story of a man who forsakes all that he has in order to live the life of a hobo.

What a great opening sentence. I've been trying to think of a way to start this review for quite a few minutes and I think I finally came up with a winner.

So yes, Into the Wild is a story of a young man, fresh out of college. He has good grades, he has around $25,000 in the bank, he's qualified to attend Harvard Law, and he parents want to buy him a new car. He's living the dream. The only problem is he's living somebody else's dream. He feels like all the material things that he owns are nothing but distractions from the actual living of his life. Indeed it seems the only possessions he seems to value at all are his books. He gives all his things away and sets out on his own.

Armed with only his knowledge he sets out on a quest for happiness. As the story unfolds we find out a bit more about his motivations and we begin to understand why someone who has so much would set out with absolutely nothing, and I personally found this quest to be very noble. I am to a certain extent, even jealous of him for being able to just strike out with nothing like he did.

Well you might have guessed this by now, but by far to me the best part of this film was this story. I felt close to the character, and even felt some of myself in him as I watched him tramping around the country, into Mexico, and eventually even all the way to Alaska. I was never once bored, despite the lack of action.

Emile Hirsch, who played Chris McCandless, was amazing in this. He portrayed his character with a certain dignity that must have been hard to put into place on what was essentially, just a hobo.

The music is interesting, mainly because the vocalist on every track is none other than Pearl Jam's Eddy Vedder. He lends his voice to slow folk sounding acoustic songs and the result creates a very human, very low tech sort of experience.

There are moments where the movie gets a little slow. I know I mentioned above that I wasn't ever bored, and I stand by that, however this movie runs around 2 and 1/2 hours long, and some of the scenes could have probably been shortened or cut all together. This movie tries hard to stay close to the book and to the truth of the character, this longness is most likely a result of that. If you aren't enjoying the story however, I can see how someone could get tired of this film after a while.

8 magic buses out of 10.

~Matt

Into The Wild(John)

When watching movies, I tend to enjoy movies that make me feel emotion. If I can connect with the characters and the adventures they have, I generally think I just watched a good movie. Into The Wild was an exception to this rule. I liked the movie, but I felt so aggravated throughout the whole movie, that I was not able to connect with the characters(well one character in particular).

The acting was very good. I can see why Hal Holbrook was nominated for Best Supporting Actor the year this came out. He was very convincing and I felt disappointed that he was in so little of the film. Emile Hirsch played his part well. Seeing his transformation from being brought up in a privileged home to living out in the Alaskan wilds was truly amazing. I am always in awe when I see actors put so much into their roles. This was actually an all star movie. Hal Holbrook, Kristen Stewart, Emile Hirsch, Kathryn Keener, Zach Galafanakis and Vince Vaughn all starred in the movie and they were all pretty good.

I know this is a true story, so I will give my thoughts on the story and then say some things about how I felt during the movie. Normally I wouldn't delve outside the standard review, but I feel like this will help people understand my review better.

The story was told very well. I was drawn to the screen the whole time. This boy's journey was truly epic. To travel from Atlanta, GA all the way up to Alaska over a span of two years is quite a feat to say the least. This may be weird to say, but I kinda got a Neverending Story vibe from the movie. This boy is on a journey and along the way, he meets people who eventually become his friends and they help him complete his journey. I guess really, this movie was like any other adventure movie but I was thinking Neverending Story a lot.

Now, here's why I was aggravated. This boy thought that he had to travel all the way to Alaska with no money and no car. On top of that, he couldn't tell his parents(or his sister, whom he seemed genuinely fond of at the beginning) where he was going. In order to experience freedom, he had to do these things. My question is, why? How would picking up the phone and calling his sister take away from his experience of freedom? It's not like he didn't want help because he sure got a lot of it along the way. This was like a whole level above being your typical hippie. Even the hippies in the movie didn't really agree with what he was doing. Why could he not just face his problems head on and experience life? Everybody has problems, but true freedom-I think-is being able to tackle those problems and come out on the other side. Obviously, Chris didn't feel this way and, I guess, to each their own.

The music was amazing. Eddie Vedder provides most of the music in the film. He has never sounded better. Vedder has such a unique voice and it really complimented the movie. Most of it was just his voice with some guitar accompaniment, but that was enough.

I hope this didn't come across as negative. I thought the movie was good and the fact that I felt so much when the movie ended reflects that. This is a really solid movie and it should not be missed. Maybe you will agree with what the main character does, maybe you won't. But, either way, you will probably feel something.

I'll give it a 8.0 out of 10.

- John Murphy

Into The Wild

Origin: U.S. (Paramount Vantage, River Road Entertainment, Art Linson Productions) 2007
Length: 140 minutes
Format: Color
Director: Sean Penn
Producer: Sean Penn, Art Linson, William Pohlad
Screenplay: Sean Penn
Photography: Eric Gautier
Music: Michael Brook, Kaki King, Eddit Vedder
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Jena Malone, Brian Dierker, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart, Hal Holbrook
Oscar Nominations: Hal Holbrook(best supporting actor), Jay Cassidy(best film editing)
Links: Into The Wild Wiki, Into The Wild novel Wiki

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After graduating Emory University in 1992, Christopher McCandless, an idealistic young man from a privileged background, gave away all his worldly possessions and set out to discover his place in the world. He denied himself the comforts of contemporary life and struggled to achieve an old-fashioned sense of truth. Hitchhiking to Alaska, he made camp in the wilderness of Denali National Park, where he lived in the raw until the exigencies of circumstance took over and he slowly starved to death. When his body was later found inside an abandoned bus, his story became a cause celebre. On the one hand, his pursuit of basic truth and happiness was seen as laudable, even heroic; on the other, he died foolishly and alone, a cautionary tale about human kind's inability to live beyond the realms of civilization.

The Big Red One(John)

I had never heard of this movie before we decided to watch it for the blog. I knew most of the names and faces: Lee Marvin, Robert Carradine and Mark Hammill. So, I expected to be blown away. However, I think, all in all, this movie fell a little short of that expectation.

From an acting perspective, I think there was really a lack of emotion in the movie. Very rarely did I feel like the people in this epic war movie felt any kind of pain or sadness. I'm not sure if this was the intention of the film but it really sucked the realism out of the film for me. However, despite the lack of emotion, I thought the delivery of lines and the situations the actors were put in were pretty good. Lee Marvin was born to be in war films. His face and general demeanor fits perfectly in the genre. I was a little off-put by the narration by Robert Carradine. I felt he didn't fit the part to do the narration and I would've much rather preferred Lee Marvin. Of course, that would've changed the film. I think Mark Hammill was my second favorite in the acting department in the movie. When you compare his performance in Star Wars: A New Hope to this, it's like comparing apples to oranges(oranges being much much better :P). When I said very rarely did I feel emotion from the actors in this movie, ninety percent of the exceptions came from Mark Hammill. He did an excellent job and I am glad I got to see him shine in this movie.

There were a few confusing parts in this movie that I didn't understand. Some of the military "tactics" really threw me for a loop. However, the story is definitely where I think the movie's strengths lie. The underlying message of the movie is that soldiers don't murder, they kill. You are presented with this early in the movie and it gets brought up quite a few times until the closure at the end. I thought this was an interesting message and it's ambiguous enough that much debate could be had. As far as how the movie gets to the ending, I thought it was a good showcase of what WWII would've been like. I'm not entirely sure that everything that happened in the movie was believable but maybe for the most part, it was.

The cinematography was pretty good. The camera explored a lot of different angles that I found to be interesting. The opening scene's coloring technique I had seen before in Schindler's List and I wondered if this is where Spielberg got it from. And, I wasn't sure if the film's grainy quality was on purpose or just a sign of the movie's age, but I liked it nonetheless. One thing that was off-putting was the grenade explosions. It was extremely obvious that it wasn't a real grenade. The setting was very authentic and made the world come alive. Lastly, the sound was pretty darn good. I could hear the release of an empty clip from a gun. The gunfire was really good and explosions were quite loud.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. There were some moments that confused me, the acting was really devoid of emotion and there were some effects that didn't come through for me. But, I did enjoy the story and the underlying message and there were some interesting camera shots going on that kept me eager to see the next scene.

I'm giving this movie an 8.0 out of 10.

- John Murphy