Sons of Anarchy- Season 1, Pilot

Sons of Anarchy is an American crime drama television series created by Kurt Sutter, about the lives of a close-knit outlaw motorcycle club operating in Charming, a fictional town in California's Central Valley. The show focuses on protagonist Jackson "Jax" Teller (Charlie Hunnam), initially the vice president of the club, who begins questioning the club and himself, especially after reading a book his father wrote and left for him in a storage unit.  

Sons of Anarchy premiered on September 3, 2008, on cable network FX. The series' third season attracted an average of 4.9 million viewers per week, making it FX's highest rated series ever, surpassing FX's other hits The Shield, Nip/Tuck, and Rescue Me. The season 4 and 5 premieres were the two highest-rated telecasts in FX's history.  The series finale premiered on December 9, 2014.

During the first episode of the show, a rival gang steals the Sons' stockpile of assault rifles, while Jax's ex-wife's drug overdose leads to an emergency c-section and life-threatening surgery for their baby.  This is already an action packed show within the first 15 minutes.  Jax grows weary of the increasing lawlessness of the motorcycle club.  His life becomes more unstable when he discovers his late father's true vision for the Sons of Anarchy, and his crank-addicted ex-wife gives birth to his son.  He begins to realize that there might be more peaceful ways to handle the gang's affairs and to avoid conflict.  His stepfather disagrees and believes in the violence.  We find that our characters have a lack very soon in the show.  Jax needs to find a way to make the gang his father's vision and also find a way to help his poor son that was born in very serious conditions.  

In November 2013, Kurt Sutter indicated that he was in talks with FX to make a Sons of Anarchy prequel set in the 1960s.  I hope that this comes out soon, I miss watching this amazing show! I would encourage anyone that likes action, drama, and badass Californians to watch this show! Conveniently, it is available right on Netflix! 

Rachel Getting Married

"Rachel Getting Married" is a drama film, released in 2008. It stars Anne Hathaway as Kym, a relapsing drug addict who has been trying relentlessly to get clean. At the start of the movie, she returns home to attend her sister, Rachel’s wedding. Upon arriving, there is still the unresolved tension from Kym’s previous conflicts, one of which ended in the death of her brother. It is evident that her family still weighs heavily on the fact that her drug abuse led to her killing her brother in a car accident. Aside from family tragedies, there is also a war going on for which of the sisters gets the most attention. Rachel is sick of Kym getting fussed over, just because of her drug problem, and would like her parents to focus on her for once, since it’s her wedding. While Kym claims she hates the attention, she’s almost always finding some way to bring the spotlight on herself and her own recovery

“Rachel Getting Married” seemingly aims to illustrate how much havoc a drug addict can have on a family. However, the movie seems quite choppy at times, and has a lot of distractions, which results in it becoming more like a soap opera than a movie. The characters, I felt, were not as developed as they could have been. The family confrontational scenes were far and few in between. The wedding, dancing, and the well-wisher scenes went on and on and on, perhaps taking up almost half of the movie. Adding to the damage is the film’s handheld camera effect. Perhaps it was used to create an authentic feel, however it mostly makes for a dizzy and distracting sequence.

Colors and other Elements in Requiem for a Dream

For the 89398th time, I watched Requiem for a Dream last night with a few of my friends. I’ve always admired this movie for it’s cinematography, whether it was the split screens, the extreme closeups, or for strapping the camera to the actor. However, while watching the film this time around I noticed something that really stood out to me; color. In a lot of my classes recently we’ve been learning about how important color is in any sort of media: photography, television etc. In this film 

In the beginning of the film, there is a strong use of cool colors, showing the calmness of all the protagonists who are not yet in any real trouble. However you start to begin to see the color red a lot more frequently when things begin to go down hill. For example, one of the films protagonist Sarah Goldfarb, has a recurring dream of herself on a television show in the same red dress. She becomes obsessive with this red dress, as she does with being on television. This obsessed begins her downfall and soon more reds show up. Next, she decides to dye her hair a similar shade of red.  These reds really stood out to me more than any other color. The reds played the role as a foreshadow for her losing her mind and symbolized danger in her life and mind. A scene that really portrays this is when she’s spinning around in her red dress and applying red lipstick on herself. This creepy slow motion scene is full of reds, and gives an eerie feeling. The bright red was the only color that would stand out in the scene, making you focus your attention on her and only her. 

Although the other character’s did not have colors that stood out, there was a strong use of cool colors when Harry Goldfarb another protagonist was fantasizing or drugged up. When he lays with his girlfriend doped out, the lighting has a blue tint to it and when he fantasizes about her, the blue sky stands out more then any other color. This represents the tranquility and calmness in his mind. 

This movie has a lot of amazing elements other then colors, the soundtrack adds to the plots mood and the camera shots as mentioned before differ from each other and really stand out. Although this movie has a sad ending and isn’t for the weak stomach, I recommend this film to anyone who loved Black Swan or The Fountain.