Formal FIlm Study (Q2): Christopher Nolan

I decided to do my formal film study on director Christopher Nolan. When I was younger I had seen the film The Prestige and Batman Begins. These came out in 2005 and 2006 so I was about ten years old when I went to see these films. I had no idea they were Nolan films because I had no idea about films back then. All I knew was that I really enjoyed these movies at the time. When the Dark Knight came out, that's when I found out that he had directed those films that I had seen and Memento (which I had seen a little bit after I had seen Inception). But once I had realized who the director was, I was amazed by his talent. So I decided to study Memento, Inception, and The Dark Knight Rises.

The style of Nolan's films are very noticeable. If you watch a Nolan film, you can tell it's him. But out of these three films, I feel like TDKR (The Dark Knight Rises) and inception are closer in style than Memento. Let's start with Memento. This is Nolan's oldest film of the three and definitely had the smallest budget. Memento had an "indie" feel to it. It seemed a little grainy. The flashbacks were in black and white, during the colored scenes, the colors seemed faded. Overall, it was a dark film. A lot of close shots in Memento. Since he had a small budget for this movie, it seemed to come out that way, but for this type of movie, it seemed to work. It was a thriller where no CGI was needed. Just pure camera work and actrors. With TDKR and Inception, Christopher Nolan had a huge budget to work with. If i could describe the style of these two films in one word, the word would be massive. These two films are massive. What I mean by that is that the action is huge and when it comes to setting, he uses an enormous visual scope to portray where these characters are located. For example in TDKR, when they're in Scotland in the beginning, the setting looks beautiful and enormous. There are also a lot of air shots filming the city of Gotham. Same goes for Inception. In Inception they are in a lot of different settings, including places of their dreams, which includes a lot of CGI. But these places are shown in a grand scale. Both Memento and Inception have a non-linear story line, a common thing that Nolan likes to do in his films. Also talking about the style of these films, Nolan does a lot of fast cuts and even has people talking still while he jumps to the next scene. The technology is pretty stellar in these three films. In Memento the most important technological aspect is the editing. Because of the non-linear story line, this is crucial. I feel that cinematography in TDKR and Inception are very important just because they are grand scale films. These films portray revenge, redemption, and reality. The three R's. I feel like in these three films, the characters always have psychological problems. In Memento, the protagonist has short term memory loss. In Inception, Leonardo Dicaprio was obsessed with his wife and reality. And in TDKR, Bruce Wayne has lost everyone he's loved and feels like he owes everything to his beloved city.

The overall big thing I have seen in these films is that all his characters have an obsession. Bruce Wayne is obsessed with being Batman. In memento, he is obsessed with finding his wife's killer. And in Inception, Leo is obsessed with his wife, going back to his kids, and realizing reality. Overal Nolan's films make you think a lot.

MYST #2 Lincoln (Q2) 3.5 out of 5

I found myself watching a lot of movies over break, and one of the most memorable ones was Lincoln, directed by Spielberg and having an all-star cast, including Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The movie focuses on Lincoln in his final months in office as he tries to abolish slavery. I enjoyed this film very much so. Like most people in the theater  I think they thought that since it was a Spielberg film, it was going to be a huge epic adventure with tons of action, but it was the complete opposite. It was a civil war drama and it focused on the political side of the war. I expected it to be like this that's why I enjoyed it.

This film was directed by Steven Spielberg. It's different from his other epic films in a way that this film has no action. I think that he took the criticism he was receiving saying that he was trying to be like John Ford and make only epics. Obviously this film is about a huge moment in our history, but he managed to make it an actionless drama that was actually enjoyable. Daniel Day-Lewis did an amazing job portraying Abraham Lincoln. It really felt as if he became one with his character. But an actor that I thought stole the show was Tommy Lee Jones. He played an angry and radical politician and he did great. One problem I had with the film was that I felt like it didn't focus enough on Lincoln. Most of the time that he was on screen he was telling a story from the past and acting very nonchalant. I thought that Tommy Lee Jones's character was almost as equally important, and if the movie is called Lincoln, it should focus on Lincoln.

Well since being a Spielberg film, the camera work wasn't anything special. I'm speaking for myself, but when I think of old events in our history I think of a time that was very grey and not colorful, and with this film, it felt just like that, and I liked it. A lot of the times when Lincoln was on screen, the lighting was very dramatic on him, for example when he was arguing with his cabinet in the dark room or when he was at home waiting for the results of the voting, you couldn't see him because the sun was cast on him. Very dramatic. Overall i think a key thing in this movie was the lighting and color. 3.5 out of 5.

MYST #3 (Q2) The Hobbit 4 out of 5

I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings series but I enjoy them very much so. Usually I'm not a fan of fantasy movies but when I saw the first installment of the Lord of the Rings, I liked it a lot. I found myself rooting for Frodo and the rest of the fellowship. I was satisfied when the final movie ended because I thought Peter Jackson did a terrific job with the franchise overall. Then years later, Peter Jackson announced that he would be directing the Hobbit in a three film series. I saw the first installment and I was blown away. The film was shy of three hours but it didn't feel long at all. I felt like throughout the film there were no slow moments in the film. As they say it, it was action packed from start to finish. I found myself cheering for Bilbo and a lot of the characters.

A huge part about this movie that really sold  me were the visuals. Peter Jackson decided to shoot this film at 48 frames per second, two times the regular amount. Some people did not like this at all because it seems too real but I thought that it looked amazing. It looked so real, almost like you were watching a blu ray disc at the movie theater. Since it was one of Peter Jackson's fantasies, there was a lot of long shots showing all the scenery. Compared to the LOTR movies, this movie seemed a lot more colorful and bright. I think this is because The Hobbit is a children's book, but Peter Jackson made it is own. Overall this movie blew me away. 4 out of 5.

1975 Movie: Mischief In Manhattan

The plot of our movie is about 3 brothers and 1 sister all living in Manhattan. The two older brothers, played by DeNiro and Walken, run their own restaurant while the youngest brother, played by Hoffman, is living a life of crime. The two older brothers used to be involded in tha mafia and organized crime but they decided to stop and to make a decent living. They do not agree with their younger brother's lifestyle because they know where that road can lead, so they don't have much contact with him. Their sister is adored by all brothers and she is the mediator between them. One day the younger brother steals a lot of money from the mob boss and is in a heap of trouble. He runs to his older brothers and begs for help, but they want no part of it. The mob, while searching for the youngest brother, kills the sister. This breaks the heart of all brothers so the older brothers decide to help the younger brother and hunt down mob members.

The style is dark and gritty. We are making a gangster/crime drama, so it has to have these components. This works for the cast and crew because DeNiro and Walken are used to making these type of movies. Same with the director, Scorsese. He is used to making crime dramas and movies dealing with family issues.

The studio we are using is Warner Brothers as our distributor and our producer. They make a lot of crime dramas, including Mean Streets with DeNiro and Scorsese. This helps because it is the same style of film so therefore the actors and the directors will feel comfortable with this studio. This is going to be a high budget movie because Warner Brothers now trusts Scorsese.
For our cast we are using Robert DeNiro, Chritopher Walken, Dustin Hoffman, and Lynda Carter. We chose DeNiro as our lead role because he is a gritty actor that is used to playing in crime movies. We chose Hoffman because he portrayed an innocent man in Mrs. Robinson so we hope that he portrays a young, irresponsible character in this movie as well. Our director is Martin Scorsese because he makes these types of films. Our focus is cinematography so we went with cinematographer Gordon Willis. He is famous for doing the Godfather films and we wanted that same dark, gritty look. He likes to keep his characters in the dark, and that's what we want.

We went for the popular R rating at the time because we wanted to push the envelope, like most 70s films were, when it came to violence, sex, and language. We couldn't make a gritty film unless we went with this rating. We were aiming for a more mature audience so we could tell a gritty story.

Since our group bounced off ideas and didn't have many disagreements, the only thing I would have done differently was instead of hiring a star actress, such as Lynda Carter, for such a small role, I would have hired a star male lead to play the mob boss.

MYST #1: 007 Skyfall (Q2) 4.5 out of 5

I recently saw the most recent James Bond movie, Skyfall, and I thought it was fantastic. I may have some bias because I am a big fan of the Daniel Craig Bond movies. But besides that, I thought it was great. I thought the plot was very intriguing. James Bond is getting old and people don't think he still has it in him to be a 007 agent. It also brings in the fact that M, played by Judi Dench, has some past ghosts that come back to haunt her. Throughout the movie, we also find out who James Bond really is and how his past has affected him. The villain Silva is played by Javier Bardem and he did terrific. Javier Bardem portrayed his character as a psychopath which he did really well. I truly believed that he was insane. It reminded me of his character in No Country For Old Men.        

The Daniel Craig Bond movies is one of my favorite series, except Quantam of Solace. Casino Royale, in my opinion, was the best Bond movie, until now. Director Sam Mendes portrayed his vision of a Bond movie very well. He is best known for American Beauty and this is a drastic change, but he did it well.

Now I touch on the technical side of the movie. I thought the camera work was very interesting. Nowadays, we see a lot of action scenes in movies very shaky because the cinematographer want's to make it seem "real." It's refreshing to see a movie where the camera is still and you can see every move. This is different from the other Bond films. The lighting and the color of certain scenes such as when Bond is in China, it reminded me of Mission Impossible. The lights had a very high contrast. I liked it. But throughout the movie it had a dark theme, because it wanted you to feel how Bond felt. There were a lot of extreme long shots to show all of the scenery. Overall I thought this was the best Bond Film I have seen. I give it a 4.5 out of 5.

MYST #2: Sinister (2012) 4 out of 5

First off let me start by saying that I rarely ever see horror movies, but for some reason I was dragged along by friends to come watch this, and to my surprise, I wasn't disappointed. It was about a crime novelist that moves to a home with his family where a murder took place, without his family knowing. He finds a box with super 8 film in it and he starts playing it. It is video recordings of different murders that occured in different areas with a reocurring character in all of them.

Ethan Hawke is the leading main character in this film and I thought he did an awesome job. Hawke has disappeared as of recently and hasn't done a good movie since Training Day. But in this film he actually becomes the character and acts very passionately. The thing I liked about this film is that they tused the serial killer aspects and the demonic aspects of horror films. You get the best of both worlds.

The reasoning I'm giving this movie a 4 out of 5 is because it ends like every other mediocre horror film. Very abrubtly and without reasoning. Other than this, i thought the movie was very good.

1935 Group Project

We have created a movie called "Trading Bases." Basically our movie is about a blue collar guys that asks his girlfriend to marry him. She says yes, but the day after he proposes to her he receives his draft papers to go fight in the great war, also known as WWI. So he goes off to war and they are both heartbroken. They can't live without each other. So during an accident, the soldier fakes his own death and starts on a long journey back home. Meanwhile, his fiance can't stand being without him so she pretends to be a man and volunteers for war so she can be with her husband to be.

Our genre is a war drama. With this, we could include the aspects of a war film, like exciting action, and also the aspects of a drama, like a love story. This works well because this appeals to more than one crowd of people. It appeals to both men and women.

As a studio we choose Fox. We chose Fox because it had the money to make big budget films. With this film we were going for a Hollywood type of movie where we would have many people go see it. So with the money that Fox provided, we made the sets for the war scenes more intense and realistic.We also chose Fox was because they were used to making dramas, which was a big part of our story. Another reason was because RKO had just come out with a war drama and Fox wanted to compete.


As our leading male role we went with Tyrone Power. We chose him because he was one of Fox's main stars, and even tough he did a lot of romantic comedies, he also did dramas as well. As our leading female role we went with Janet Gaynor. She was Fox's leading lady and became very successful when she started doing movies with sound. We also choose her because she was very attractive and that appealed to the Hollywood type movie. For a supporting role we went with Raymond Griffith who plays a general. We chose him because he was an old experienced actor that worked with Fox. John Ford would direct this film because he directed a lot of westerns which can be related to wars. He was also a big war fanatic. In our film we chose to highlight cinematography so we went with James Wong Howe. He was a very sought out cinematographer because of his use of shadows. We thought we could use him because he was one of the first to use and perfect deep focus, so we thought this would look good during battle scenes.

With the Hays Code we couldn't show the two lead actors' affectionate side. And also, we had to make the audience seem like the American soldiers were the good guys, to promote american values.

If I was working on this project alone, I would have changed it to just portray the soldier's journey home and have his fiance at home waiting for him.