MYST #3: A Long Way Down

I watch a lot trailers for movies that I never actually end up seeing. I binge watched a lot of trailers recently, and a lot of the films looked great, but I could not find many in theaters or even planned for wide release, until one night I was browsing Netflix and one of the first titles I saw was A Long Way Down. I instantly recognized the title from a trailer I saw earlier and decided to watch it.

My little brother, Wiley, asks me almost every other day if I have started watching Breaking Bad yet (I haven't), so when I saw Aaron Paul in this movie, I figured this was a close as I was going to get to that show without totally engrossing myself into that obsession. Pierce Brosnan also stuck out to me, (although honestly I've only seen him in Mamma Mia and part of one of the bond movies) but surprisingly only just as much as Imogen Poots, who I saw in Zac Efron's most recent bad movie, That Awkward Moment. She stuck out to me in the trailer because these two movies are so different. Toni Colette has most recently been in The Way Way Back, which is a movie I enjoyed a lot. All of the actors attracted me to the film.


Aaron Paul, Pierce Brosnen, Imogen Poots, and Toni Colette all meet on a rooftop on New Years Eve as JJ, Martin, Jess, and Maureen, respectively. They are all on the roof with one goal: to commit suicide. Martin is a TV personality turned hated pervert who misses having loving attention, Maureen feels hopeless in her repetitive life, Jess initially wants to get away from her boyfriend, and JJ has brain cancer (there's more to their reasons, but I don't want to spoil them). Fortunately, none of them end up jumping. By the end of the night, they all sign a pact to live until Valentine's day--the next most popular day for suicide. Due to Martin's celebrity status, and Jess's father's political job, this is brought to the media's attention. Besides one disaster of a talk show appearance, the four go back to their normal lives. We slowly learn more about these four people as they do so. The group eventually takes a trip together to get away from their lives. It is easy to forget that we are on somewhat of a deadline with February 14th as they drink, laugh, and even throw a few punches in the tropics. They return home to their normal lives only be brought together again on a faithful day, that ultimately changes their lives.

As the story developed, I started to feel connected to the four main characters (it took a while for Martin, but even him too). The four strangers also begin to strongly care for each other as well. Prior to this, when they make the pact, they sit along a wall facing a window. The sun is just coming up as their long night comes to an end. As Jess convinces them to make the pact, the lighting very slowly getting brighter in time with a sun rise. The camera sticks to only capturing the group on the one wall, until we finally get to see the sun when JJ points it out. This stuck out to me in a way of representing a new chance for all of them, even if they may be promising to kill themselves in almost six weeks. It was a positive use of lighting that also captured the mood of the scene, which managed to stay light-much like most of the film. It was very much appreciated that the film did not get weighed down by the heavy subject, but was rather just a dark comedy.

I liked the movie, but I feel like it could have been taken to a whole other level if we were given a deeper look into JJ, Martin, Jess, and Maureen's pasts. In addition to that, if we spent more time developing their present stories, I feel like the movie could have taken on a deeper meaning. That is why I give this film 2 stars out of 5.

MYST #2: 10 Things I hate About You

With the stresses of college applications, I was looking for a movie that would entertain me enough to keep my mind completely off of my impending work for a couple hours. I had heard about 10 Things I Hate About You several times in the past couple of years, especially when the TV show based off of it aired for a short time on ABC Family, so when it popped up in OnDemand, I decided to give it a shot.

The movie follows new-student Cameron in his attempt to date Bianca Stratford. One of the many problems with this is that Bianca cannot date-that is until her protective dad says that she can go on dates whenever her sister Kat does. Bad boy Patrick Verona then comes in as the guy who gets paid to go out with Kat, because she is known around school as a "Heinous bitch" that no one would ever think about dating, but she has no idea about his deal as they truly begin to fall for each other. Both Cameron and Patrick will do almost anything to be with their girls, who learn to have each other's backs through all of the boy chaos.

I knew there would be many familiar faces as I started the movie, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt was the only face I could actually put a name to. Now having done some research, I know that Julia Stiles played Kat with the late Heath Ledger at her side as Patrick. A couple more recognizable faces make their appearances, like the main elf from Santa Clause (David Krumholtz) and the principle from Max Keeble's Big Move (Larry Miller). Although I couldn't remember their names, having seen Stiles in The Price and Me, Ledger in The Dark Knight, and Gordon-Levitt in Brick (and 500 Days of Summer), I was expecting a good story and film.

The movie did not fail me, but it did not wow me either. Besides the unavoidable 90s clothing, a stand out element of the film was the use of continuity editing and the 180 degree rule. I know that continuity editing is supposed to be unnoticeable, but once I noticed it once, I decided to try to take a mental note when it happened again. 10 Things I Hate About You did a nice job at keeping a nice flow in the scenes. The film failed to bring much else to the table as far as unique technique or style-as far as I could notice anyway. I find this to be true with a lot of teen films, but gosh I still enjoy 'em anyway.

As Pat and Kat got to know each other, I found a key scene for both their relationship and the movie was after one of their dates. First the camera moves along in front of them as they walk from a car over and up to a porch where they sit down. While doing so they are asking each other about secrets, but the real magic is the smooth moving camera that stops moving when they sit down on some steps. We get a few shots from different angles and close-ups, but it maintains the 180 rule from the porch looking out at the pair on the steps. If this rule was not utilized, it would have being too much commotion in edition to what turns into a heavy conversation about Patrick's motivations. 

Like I said, this movie did not blow me away (and it apparently did not do much for the critics). I am glad I checked it off my list and it had some nice messages, like about how people can surprise you, and to be nice to people whether you find them attractive or not. It was not your typical boy meets girl movie and for that I give this movie 3/5 stars, or only 2 stars worth hating about it.

Formal Film Study: Award Winners: Cannes VS Sundance VS Academy Awards

"I never make a movie for awards consideration. I will use the hope of getting an Academy Award a) to honor the people who work so hard and also b) it's the greatest Good Housekeeping seal in the world. It's the greatest brand. It's as good as Louis Vuitton and Dior in the world of moviemaking. It's the Super Bowl." - Harvey Weinstein

Films of a given year reveal a lot about what is going on in the world at the time and in what direction film is heading. Each year, people gather to celebrate these films for their beauty and recognize the filmmakers' hard work. Since 1929, the Academy Awards have represented the best of the best as all of Hollywood make way for the night of film celebration. On the beautiful coast of  France, the Cannes film festival has occurred annually since 1946, but it has since then not lost its touch for choosing more controversial, but artistic, films that capture the audience. The Sundance Film Festival, a baby compared to the latter (established 1978), is arguably the American version of Cannes for the unique independent films that cover the ballots. Each annual award show or film festival reveals the films that encompass that year and help us to take a look at film's current approach to styles and techniques that have been around for decades, and also what innovations people have come up with.

The Cannes Film Festival's Palme D'or, or Best Film, went to Blue is the Warmest Color, a french film directed by Adellatif Kechiche with the original title of La Vie d'Adele - Chapitre 1 & 2. The story is a coming-of-age film that follows 15-year-old Adele as she discovers what passion and feelings lie behind true love. Adele, after entering and ending a relationship with a boy, experiences what some might call love at first sight with 'the girl with the blue hair'. The color blue plays a strong roll in the film, but that is really the smallest of Adele's problems as she falls more in love with this girl, whose name is revealed to be Emma. 

Back in the states, The Sundance Film Festival has many different categories which could all be considered best film, but U.S. Grand Jury Prize for a dramatic film is often a title to shoot for. The winner for 2013, Fruitvale Station, shows the true story of Oscar Grant III on the last day of his life, on the last day of 2008, as he tries his best to stay out of trouble, but is ultimately unable to escape both his past and the prejudices that surround him.

The Oscars, star studded and all, holds in its highest regard the Best Picture winner. With Ben Affleck playing lead both on and off screen, the award went to Argo. The film takes in inside look at the historical Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979-80. With the job of a big time Hollywood filmmaker as his cover, CIA Agent Tony Mendez (Affleck) risks his own life to save six U.S. Embassy workers who escaped when Aggressive Iranians stormed the Embassy in rage of the United State's granted asylum to the Shah. It is Tony's job to make their story believable because if the Iranian were to find out that they were lying, or even that the six workers escaped, they might not return home.

The year of 2013 in film was more than a year of revealing reality in story-lines. Blue is the Warmest Color, Fruitvale Station, and Argo all used raw editing/camera movements and color to better highlight the more intense and sensitive subjects of the films.

One of the first things that I noticed while watching Blue is the Warmest color in the seemingly raw pacing, editing, and lighting of the film. There is no background music where I would assume there should be. We see Adele eating dinner with her family for a good minute with nothing but the sound of eating and silverware hitting the plates. It takes on Adele's reality as it really could be in her real life. The filmmaker must have wanted us to relate to Adele as much as possible, being that the topic of a young lesbian and the politics around that could really go both ways as far as being relatable or not-or he wanted to make sure we were paying attention like some do with discontinuity-like shots.
Going along more with the camera work, there were a lot of close ups throughout the 3 hour film. I assumed this was to make us further invested in the emotions of the characters. There is nothing to distract us from the tears on someone's face or the glow in their eyes. 

"Blue is certainly the film's warmest color" (Wolff), as the Huffington Post's Spencer Wolff put it. More so than in Emma's hair color, the color blue is seen throughout the film. As Adele becomes attached and dependent on Emma, the blue could be seen as a comfort to her.

All of these elements brought the story to life 
and not only made the story Palme D'or 
 worthy, but were used in other films to give the same amazing, award-winning affect.

Like Blue is the Warmest Color, Fruitvale Station, directed by Ryan Coogler, takes advantage of enhancing the storyline through camera work and color. Being that the plot of the film is based off of a true story, there is already some restrictions to follow in order to do the story justice. The angles cannot be too experimental because at the end of the day the movie is about Oscar. According to Kodak, "the entire movie was filmed handheld to lend authenticity, much in the way that [a use of] organic film grain [did]" (Fruitvale Station: A Tragic Tale Retold Thoughtfully). This camerawork definitely payed off in the portrayal of the story and making it feel real-almost documentary like.

Throughout Fruitvale Station, we jump between time and locations. The filmmakers highlighted this with the use of color. When we visit Oscar in jail a year before his death, the duller lighting matches the mood as Oscar's mom visits him. We revisit this again after Oscar's accident, when colors turn grayer to match the mood. These changes reflect where Oscar is in his life and the filmmakers must have really wanted to pay

homage to Oscar because their techniques seemed like the best way to show the improvement in his life and the love that ultimately surrounded him. Filmmakers have a tough job when they have to retell a true story, but doing so well-enough for an award shows real talent.

Argo, due to it's setting in the late 70s and early 80s, tried its best at making it feel like we were really watching a movie made in that era. This, again, is seen through the use of editing, camera work, and lighting. The makers of the movie used a lot of different cameras and techniques for filming the movie, according to Arri.com. According to Rodrigo Prieto, the director of photography for Argo, "I like to find a different visual approach from movie to movie. With ARGO, I was able to find three styles within one movie!" (Exposing Argo). I noticed this as the lighting changed between the movie's 3 main settings: Near D.C., Hollywood, and Tehran (Iran). It created a different tone and atmosphere for the different locations, especially as the story helped support this. Prieto planned this as he said, "it was very important for all of these locations to possess a subtly different look to help orient the audience through the fast paced narrative" (Exposing Argo).
What I am assuming were handheld cameras were probably used to really capture what a camera at some of the actual events would have captured. As Iranians stormed the Embassy or as the Iranians found out about the 'film crew', a slightly shakier camera helped make it feel like it was a documentary crew trying to catch the action.

In some of the final scenes of Argo, the technique of cross-cutting is used to add suspense. As the 'film crew' is about to board a flight home, we get to see multiple cross cuts to people obtaining or missing information on their situation that could ultimately end badly, but only we know that the whole story. I found this interesting as it swayed a bit from the reality of the rest of the film, but it must be why it was called a thriller.


Blue is the Warmest Color, Fruitvale Station, and Argo did a great job at enhancing their stories, real or not, through the magic of film. All three movies contain subject matter that could be considered controversial, but they managed to make it all an art and likable enough to become some of the best films of 2013. Argo total lifetime grosses now add up to $232,325,503 worldwide, Fruitvale Station has gotten $17,385,830 worldwide, and Blue has  gotten $7,379,806 worldwide (probably due to the NC-17 rating), according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, but that obviously does not compare to the pride these films have for going down in history with their prestigious titles.