thoughts on Paperman

I really like how this film was able to tell a story and introduce characters without relying on dialogue to do so. It's all in the visuals, they way they look, act, and react to everything they come across. The visuals were outstanding as they were able to combine 3d and 2d tech to make the film look gorgeous and get shot that they wouldn't be able to get without this tech.

Movie Review of Fruitvale Station

I didn't exactly know what to expect going into Fruitvale Station. I heard great things from it coming out of sundance and many reviewers had nothing but great things to say about it. However the concept didn't exactly intrigue me, and in the wrong hands it could be a preachy, drama about with nothing to say other than white vs. black, and the way blacks are treated. However this Micheal B. Jordan, and Octavia Spencer driven film  set on New Year's day is an excellent drama about humanity and the relationship between one man, his family, his friends, and those who look down on him.

The film is a true story about a man named Oscar, an ex-convict whose last day of his life is followed up until his untimely death, which is shown in the first minuets of the film. He interacts with his former manager, girlfriend, daughter, mother, and his friends throughout the day as we learn more and more about this character. He is a caring, loving individual with a dark past revealed by his past days in prison.

First time director Ryan Coogler's film is an incredibly directed and acted film that is one of the best of the year. The film treats this character not as the man who was murdered, but rather the father, the son, the friend, and the loving caring person that he is. He is a person that is troubled by his dark past, and providing for his family is the only thing keeping him from fully leaving the life behind. Coogler uses a hand held shot for the majority of the film, which can be over used and annoying in other films, but is used very effectively in this film.

The acting here is also very great. All involved give grounded performances up until the end where the film builds up to chaos, as do the characters and performances. The star Michael B. Jordan is able to come across as a man that is loving of everyone in his life, and will defend all of them to the death. This however gets him in more trouble than these people would like. Melonie Diaz also is able to give of a character that is having trouble dealing with her husband and daughter, but still comes across as loving and the most caring person in the world.

Overall, I thought this film was fantastic. Every aspect from the directing, writing, and acting is flawless. It gives us an insight to the life of these people without demoting or promoting them. I would recommend this film to anyone. It's an important film to view and to experience. It can teach us about ourselves and our relationships with others. I would give it a 10/10.

Oceans 11 (1960) vs. Oceans 11 (2001)

The difference in these two films is outstanding. Ocean's Eleven (1960) was a very slow film with two distinct halves. The first was showing us characters and introducing them trough long, boring, and repetive scenes of them dealing with their families. This characterization never really seems to come into play because many if these characters are minor, and until the last 20 minutes it never feels like any stakes were raised, thus us not really caring about these characters. The film is well made but the heist doesn't have the energy that the remake has. Ocean's Eleven (2001) however has a very interesting style that works very well for film, allowing the film makers to put their own stamp on the film. I liked the first on eunuch more because of its style, energy, and it's ability to remove the flaws from the original and improve on what worked in the first one.

Lights Camera Action's review of Now You See Me

Now You See Me, the worst film I saw in 2013, was rated rather well by one of the top searches in Google for the review of this film. While he agrees with me in that we both think this film has a mess of a script, with bad characters, no payoff, unnecessary characters and romances, and no motivation for the charters actions. However he credits the film for always entertaining and no dull moments. He never says what exactly making such, but I feel it's impossible to be entertained by anything in this movie and that by how bad it is. The acting is surprisingly terrible for such a good cast, it's boring, uninspired, and has all tricks done by bad looking CGI effects. This was the worst film I've seen in a while, and I'm amazed how this reviewer could like it.

A short look at all of his work and his life up to becoming a film maker.

Director: since the most recent film I saw was Her, a film I thought was directed very well, I think it's appropriate to talk about director Spike Jonze. I have seen all of his films which include Her, Where the Wild Things are, Adaptation, and Being John Malkovich and can say I love all of them. Jonze is able to set these weird and very interesting films in a way that the weirdness doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the film, as he is able to create a believable new world where everything on screen makes sense. All of his films are very well paced, thought provoking, and handle the characters very well.

Irwin Winkler on Martin Scorsese and Raging Bull

Since it was on HBO about 30 seconds ago, I decided to talk about the producers of the great Raging Bull. The producers of this film were Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler. Both have gone in to produce many other Scorsese films and also produced all of the Rocky films, and both won an Oscar for the first one.

A Look at the camera work that Emmanuel Lubezki put into Children of Men

Cinematographer: One of my favorite films and probably the best looking film I have ever seen is The Tree of Life. As all of Terrence Malik films, it looks incredible and it uses it's visuals to tell the majority of the story as opposed to most films that rely mostly on dialogue to tell the story. Emmanuel Lubezki is the cinematographer of many Terrence Malik movies along with a few others.  The films he has been involved with that I have seen are Gravity, To the Wonder, The Tree of Life, Children of Men, and The New World. While I'm not crazy about all of these films, I think the cinematography in all of these films is great.