Thursday, October 22, 2015

Being a Steve Buscemi fan, it is hard to choose my favorite movie he is, but one sticks out in particular. In Fargo Steve Buscemi plays the role the not-so-scary kidnapper Carl Showalter. Although the movie is supposed to be a dark tragedy, Steve Buscemi playing the kidnapper turns it into dark humor. Also, the fact that is takes place in snowy North Dakota, and everyone has Canadian-like accidents, it just adds to the movies intended humor. The dialogue is almost hilarious because you get a sense that the director is making fun of Canadian accidents and how they are so friendly when talking to one another; but the setting is just as perfect as the dialogue. The movie takes place in a quiet small town, where the only police case is about a broken down car or a missing pet. So when this goofy car salesman hires Steve Buscemi's character to kidnap his wife and hold her for ransom, it kind of adds humor to the dark concept.
Steve Buscemi and the man (Gaear Grimsrud) next to him get hired to kidnap this low paid car salesman, and hold her ransom until the wife's father pays off the ransom. The car salesman goal all along is to hire these people to kidnap his wife- get his father-in-law to pay the ransom- then meet with the kidnappers and split the money. This elaborate goal is supposed to take the car salesman and his family out of a tight money situation, but sure enough, more and more problems occur, and the friendly pregnant policewomen gets involved in the case.
As the movies unfolds, you realize how stupid the decisions begin made by the characters are, and you are able to look past the fact that someone is begin kidnapped against will, by their own husband.

One of my favorite movies directed by one of my favorite directors, Christopher Nolan, Interstellar has the ability to to be one of the most original ideas for a movie. Nothing can be compared to its futuristic, yet present time realism of the portrayal of space and universes. There are movies that involve a real sense of space and astronomy such as Apollo 13 and Space Odyssey, but while watching Interstellar, you actually feel like you are orbiting around a planet (especially in the theater).

Not only is the idea of Interstellar original, but the way it was filmed and the choreography was pure originality. The idea of the soon to be apocalyptic stage of Earth has been seen before, but very few screen writes have told the story of Earth while it was decaying away. Most tend to do post or even pre-apcalyptic movies.  Nolan tells it in a incredible way, and then manages to shoot the movie even better than it was written.
Christopher Nolan, as much as it seemed, didn't use a green screen and CGI effects often. In fact, all the space ships and shuttles were actually built and the scene were they to the water logged planet, was actually a knee deep lake in Iceland. Nolan revolutionized filming and directing movies in Interstellar by the way he displayed the vast and unexplored vacuum known as outer space.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Forrest Gump won 2 academy awards in 1994. Winning best picture and Tom Hanks winning best actor proved the movie was more than a simple man, cluelessly roaming the Earth. Although it seemed that way, I believe the message in Forrest Gump was much more.













Most people watch Forrest Gump and laugh continuously throughout the movie, because they either thought the way he said, "Jenny!" was funny, or the scenarios he got himself into were comical. What I believe, and what most might disagree with, is that there is extremely deep meaning to this movie. This not-so-smart, easy going man did everything in his life based off a simple question is it good or bad? If you noticed, in the movie he nearly does nothing bad (besides beating the man up who wouldn't leave Jenny alone). You can compare Forrest Gump to Jesus Christ even, although they lived in a drastically different time period and one was divine, they both acted upon morals. Forrest just did because he thought it was the right thing to do.













Even the times he didn't know he was doing a good thing, he was. He ran cross country (literally) while people raised funds and advertised Forrest. He went back into guerilla warfare to get Bubba and Lt. Dan. He went to the freedom speeches in D.C. and accidentally participated in rallies. Robert Zemeckis, the director, did an amazing job of incorporating Tom Hanks into actually footage of history. Another belief I hold is that this movie was to show a timeline of American history and peoples point of views while it was going on; and that Forrest Gump was to be an example of a simple man, who had the right opinion.
Even though the most recognizable quotes from this movie were, "Run Forrest, Run!" and, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." (an amazing quote) this movie has such a deep meaning, and could be a source of how to look at life.