One day three movies

So yesterday I didn't have very much going on so I decided to watch a movie, and I ended up watching three by the end of the day.

So the first movie I watched was Philadelphia.  After seeing the segment of Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington in class I knew it was a movie I had to watch.  The movie follows the court case of Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) a lawyer who was fired because he contracted the aids virus.  It is a story that portrays the negative inclination towards homosexuals and aids victims.  This was probably my favorite out of the three movies I watched.  The films ability to play on the audiences emotions is fantastic.  The character development and the talent of the actors creates such a personal connection to everyone in the film.  The many close ups of faces during intense emotional scenes just sells it and you have no choice but to put yourself in the courtroom.

The second movie I watched was Dr. Strangelove or: how I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.  This movie made in 1964, is about an incident that sparks a nuclear war between Russia and the United States.  The part of the film I loved the most was the role(s) of Peter Seller.  Peter Seller played three different roles in the movie, and all of them different personalities or even nationalities.  One other thing I enjoyed about the film was the lack of cuts.  There were large pieces of the movie that were only one shot.  I felt this allowed the scene to unfurl on its own, something you would not frequently see these days.

Lastly I watched the movie Blade Runner.  This was a movie I had always wanted to see but never had a chance to so I figured why not.  This movie stars Harrison Ford as a "blade runner" (basically a police officer) who is supposed to track down and kill genetically engineered humans, which are illegal in the movie.  The part of this movie that impressed me the most was the visuals.  The entire movie except the last scene takes place at night, in the rain, in a futuristic city.  I just couldn't get over how well all the lights and colors went together.  There were always a neon color hue, and when there weren't, scenes that took place in homes and such, there were many moving lights to represent the light from outside.  The illusion of the lights of passing cars shining through holes in the wall added a particular mood and added to the overall image of the film.

Overall I would say it was a good day.  I enjoyed all the movies I saw and I am now inspired to start watching more movies I have always wanted to see.  I am in the process of getting Citizen Kane so who knows, maybe the next blog will be about that.

Robert Cannon

The War Room

Dr. Strangelove or how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

This movie holds a strange place in my heart it is one weird movie ( it is directed by Stanley Kubrick). I first saw Dr. Strangelove in 7th grade and liked it but at the age of 13 missed out on some of the more adult imagery and many of Kubrick's stabs at the world. but it is not the strange character names and great quotable lines like the one at the end of this video that draw me to this movie. It is the amazing things that happened behind the scenes.

         There is a story about the set for the cockpit of the bomber where most of the film takes place. The story goes that the pentagon didn't allow any members of the set design team to look at the interior of the bomber that was being recreated for the film all that they had was one photo. after touring the set and looking at the replica that had been created pentagon officials commented that every detail on the prop bomber was nearly perfect down to the classified radio code transmitter. This brought about the fear that some of the folks working to build the set had not stuck to the rules and Kubrick began to fear an FBI investigation. no investigation was ever formalized and the movie went on to finish production.

It is the small things like this in films and the strange quirks that come from talking to film makers that makes film and television so interesting to me. I live for directors tracks on films and even more so the other personnel. hearing the stories about how a shot was done or something that went wrong shrinks the sometimes huge silver screen down to a much more manageable size.