MYST Post #3: Now You See Me

During my rental of The Internship, I also rented Now You See Me along with it because they said that I would get $.50 discount; I’m a huge fan of discounts. This movie is about these four magicians who are brought together to perform three main acts as “the four horsemen.” These acts include robbing a bank (the Crédit Républicain), transferring money from Tressler’s bank account to the audience, and framing Thaddeus with money from stolen money from a safe. While all these are happening, the FBI and Interpol are trying to be one step ahead of them so that they can arrest them, but instead the four horsemen always seem to be one step ahead and always get away. In the end, we find out that the FBI agent turns out to be the fifth horsemen and he was the one who wrote the blueprints for everything that should have occurred; the four horsemen were just there to execute them. He needed them so that he could get revenge for his father, known as Lionel Strike. The movie as a whole was very intriguing and attention-grabbing. I felt like I was consumed in the movie the entire time and felt myself trying to figure out how each act was done along with the FBI and Interpol. I thought that the movie was executed very well and had many special effects that worked well with the movie.

The actors, in my opinion, are a bit more low key in this movie than ones in the past movies that I have reviewed, especially the ones that play the four main characters. Dave Franco is also known for being in the movie 21 Jump Street in which he plays a similar role. This movie and Now You See Me are more on the daring side of films. They are very action-packed and have dare-devil scenes in which he participates in like car chases and car crashes. Jesse Eisenberg is another actor that plays a similar role from past movies like The Social Network. In both of the movies, he plays kind of the nerdier guy that talks mostly about facts and in a nervous kind of way (kind of fast). Isla Fisher plays a strong independent woman in this movie. She is the only woman of the four horsemen and has to make sure to hold the fort when others disagree. She is the sly and deceiving female that gets others to do what she wants. This is very different than other roles she has starred in like Confessions of a Shopaholic, Wedding Crashers, and The Great Gatsby. In those movies, she plays a very ditzy and annoying girl who does whatever she wants with her life. She is mostly obsessed with finding the “perfect guy.” As you can tell, the actors were mainly chosen for this movie because it matches their personality and appearance, but as for Isla Fisher, it allowed her to see how talented she really is on how she can play such different roles.

Out of the three movies that I have reviewed on this blog, I would say that Now You See Me has the best cinematography. This movie had the best mixture of lighting, shots, and angles throughout the movie. The entire used mostly dark lighting because it is essentially a movie about magic and how secretive each of their acts for the show is. The movie also used the stereotypical bright lighting for any bank heists. As for angles, Louis Leterrier, the director, used not only direct angles, but many high and low angle shots to show inferiority and superiority. This was specifically evident during the interrogation scenes which I'll talk about later. Throughout the movie, Leterrier used many different shots to get the actions across. One of this includes panning. This allows the audience to see everything that is occurring both in the surroundings and to the characters. An example of this was in the end when the are standing in the center of New York City in Times Square. It helps to make the audience member feel like they are there with them and can see everything they see. In addition, Leterrier used other shots to make the audience feel like they were there like with the car chase scene. There was the use of a shaky camera to go along with the car movements to make it seem like we were in the car with the FBI agent and Interpol woman chasing Dave Franco's character, Jack. Overall, the cinematography throughout the movie was fantastic, especially the many special effects used for the three shows that the four horsemen had.

The one scene I would like to pinpoint and and specifically talk about in this movie would be the interrogation scene towards the beginning. This was after the first act from the four horsemen in which they robbed a French bank. The four of them were taken into questioning in which there was this one part where the movie kept switching between the questioning of J. Daniel, played by Jesse Eisenberg, and Merritt, played by Woody Harrelson. This speedy flipping back and forth enabled the audience to see both conversations and how each was manipulating the minds of the FBI agent and Interpol woman. In the interrogation scenes, the use of low angle and high angle shots were strongly evident. Low angle was primarily used when it was showing the FBI agent to show that he was superior and had the power in his hands. On the other hand, high angle was usually used when it showed one of the horsemen to show how they were inferior at the time because they were "in trouble" and in questioning. There was also the use of medium shots and close-ups to show the expressions of the other when one of the horsemen would be talking. In addition, there were jump shots between the person talking and the others to see the facial expression and reactions to what was being said, especially when the suspects seem to be trying to confuse the FBI and Interpol so that they would be released. There were also many smaller shots that I noticed that helped to add suspense and reality to the movie such as including some behind the shoulder shots and a high angle as if looking right through the security cameras. The use of zoom was also evident in J. Daniel's interrogation when he switches the handcuffs to the FBI agent and asks the Interpol woman, Alma, if there was something wrong with her soda. The camera zooms into her hand shaking the soda and zooms right back out to when she pours it. This adds some detail as to what is going on for the audience. Last but not least, oblique angle was also incorporated at the end of J. Daniel's interrogation. This is used to show that there is something off about the current situation which fit perfectly with the scene where J. Daniel was grabbing the phone. Later on, we find out that he actually switched the phones and gave back a bugged one.

Louis Leterrier created a movie that I enjoyed very much. He spent a lot of time, or so it seems, to make the movie intriguing and his cinematography and special effects were out of this world. It might just be that I am biased, as I have always loved the concept of "magic," but I thought that this movie deserved 4.7/5 stars.

MYST Post #2: The Internship

Originally, my intention was not to watch this movie. I was planning to watch The Lego Movie in theaters, but I read the schedule wrong and ended up renting The Internship from RedBox instead. I decided to choose this movie because I started it a while back, but never had the chance to finish it. This movie is about two guys who used to work in sales until their company shut down. With very little education and skills, they did not know what to do with the rest of their lives. One of the characters, Billy played by Vince Vaughn, looked up a Google internship opportunity for them that could lead to future jobs. Although they had a random team that didn't get along at first and didn't have much knowledge, they ended up winning the competitions and earning jobs at Google through teamwork and their creativity and uniqueness. Overall, I enjoyed the movie very much and was glad I finally finished it. It was very witty and the kind of humor I enjoy, but it was a bit predictable except for the slight twist in the end.

This movie included many well-known actors, like Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, but as well as some random actors, like Tobit Raphael. The director, Shawn Levy, chose all the actors in the movie because they all fit into their parts in some way. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson star in Wedding Crashers together as two men who, as the title of the movie says, like to crash weddings because their own love life is going down the drain. They bring the comedy aspect to both movies and work very well together. They are able to perform well together because they have similar personalities. Rose Byrne is another actor that has a similar role in both the movies The Internship and Bridesmaids. In Bridesmaids, she plays the friend who is very self-motivated and has to make sure everything is perfect for the wedding since she has nothing better to do with her life. In The Internship, she is a very goal-oriented person who works for Google and does nothing for herself to make herself happy, like having a relationship. In both movies, she plays the role of a women who cares more about other things than herself, which distracts her from the fact that she isn't happy the way she is. For some of the other characters, instead of being chosen for other roles they played in other movies, they were chosen based on their real life situations. Dylan O'Brien recently turned 21 before the movie was filmed, so he was chosen because he could now participate in the scenes that involved strip clubs and alcohol. This also means that he is apart of the generation of technology, so he is portrayed as a guy that is always on his phone. Tobit Raphael and Josh Brener, some less known actors, attended UCLA and Harvard, respectively, recently. Raphael, being from UCLA, was able to relate to the pressure he was put under and being "that guy that had a rough childhood." Brener came from Harvard, so he was used to being pushed and a kind of "nerdy" guy. He is also a huge fan of Harry Potter, so the one scene with the game was actually improvised from the knowledge he had. The Internship contained many characters that were well-known and not, but they were all chosen because they fit the part, not just for their name.

In my opinion, one of the best scenes of the movie would be when the group of them - Billy, Nick, Stuart, Neha, Yo Yo, and Lyle played by Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Dylan O'Brien, Tiya Sircar, Tobit Raphael, and Josh Brener respectively - were trying to come up an app that would earn the most revenue. The scene starts off with medium shots of Billy, Neha, and Stuart. This allows the audience to see the hand motions that they are using such as fidgeting and using their phone to look up information. Then the camera starts to pan as Yo Yo walks from one side to the other saying that they should brainstorm ideas by looking up information like past apps that were popular and see if there is a connection between them. This sparks up an idea for Billy in which he starts to describe his "exchange-o-gram" idea. During his explanation, Levy uses many jump shots in order to show all the characters and their reactions to this idea. A lot of times, it shows interjections from the other team members with how they claim that this is the same idea as Instagram, which Billy refuses to accept. There are also interjections, mostly from Lyle, about how Billy says "on the line"when he should be saying "online." (This "online" versus "on the line" scene is my favorite part in the movie and it actually made me laugh out loud non-stop.) These quick shots allow us to see all sides of the characters rather than focusing on just the speaker. The scene ends by a far shot that shows the entire team huddled together, showing that they are trying very hard to make a successful app and win the competition.

The Internship used a variety of angles and shots, but it was still mainly medium shots and close-ups. Since most of the time they are sitting down, medium shots were used to show any upper body movement in the head and arms. Close-ups were also used to show the emotions and expressions of the character when another character was talking. They would usually be faces of disgust/disagreement or of confusion since most of the characters didn't understand what Billy and Nick were talking about since they were so "old-school." There were also many uses of jump shots and panning throughout the movie to show the multitude of characters and the actions of each in the scenes. This helped the audience to understand everything that was going on and allowed them to feel as if they were right there inside the movie with the characters. In the movie, there was also one specific instance of slow motion that I noticed and that stuck inside my head. It was used when Yo Yo was taking his first shot of alcohol. This effect was added to add a sense of intrigue with how Yo Yo would react to drinking it. The close-up and slow motion shot was able to let the audience see Yo Yo wince in pain, but then scream out of excitement. Lastly, the movie had a lot of improvisation especially with the characters that Vince Vaughn, Dylan O'Brien, and Josh Brener played. They got so into their parts that they started to make up their own lines, which made the movie more realistic as to how one would act in such situations. They also improvised to make the lines be more of what they would actually say in real life if it happened to them.

This movie, The Internship, exceeded my expectations in the cast that they hired and in the screenplay. It was filled with my kind of humor and incorporated many types of cinematic elements that made the movie flow well, therefore, deserving a 4.4/5 stars in my book. I was happy to be able to finally finish this movie, although I would still like to see The Lego Movie. Maybe I'll actually read the schedule right next time.

Formal Film Study: Spike Jonze

For this film study, I decided to take a closer look at some of the movies Spike Jonze either directed or wrote the screenplay for. These movies included Where the Wild Things Are, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, and Her. I chose to watch Where the Wild Things Are because I knew that it was based off a children's book and it sounded like it would be a cute movie that I would enjoy; I turned out to be correct and it ended up being my favorite of the three movies. I decided to also watch Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa because when I watched the trailer, it seemed that it would be a classic comedy movie and I am a huge fan of comedies. Lastly, Her was on my list of movies to watch by Spike Jonze because it came out recently to theaters and I have been hearing mixed reviews about it; I was hoping to get my own thoughts on it. Since these movies were created only a couple years apart, the cinematography in them were quite similar and they all had classic endings, but the ideas and the storylines behind them were pretty different. Some would say that they require more thinking and are more developed, while others would say that they get more obscure.

Although these movies are not exactly related in any way, they kind of have a pattern as to the order that they came out. As I mentioned before, there are two ways to look at them: more obscure versus more required thinking. Let us start with the obscure aspect of it. For the movie Where the Wild Things Are, from 2009, Spike Jonze directed a movie that was meant for young children to see. It showed how a child's imagination ran wild and how it helped him to befriend a bunch of wild animals that became very close to him. Since it is based off a children's story, the plot of the movie made sense and also how it was very low key as to nearly no violence and profanity. The next two movies, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa and Her, came out in the same year, 2013. In Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, Grandpa Irving goes to bars and bingo places and starts yelling out obscenities. This shows how the level of obscurity has increased because no one would expect the grandpa to be so profane. One specific scene that shows this is when he walks into a black bar and all of a sudden decides to start stripping and flailing his genitals around. In Her, the main character, Theodore, falls in love with an operating system. He becomes so attached to it that they when she dies for a couple minutes, he freaks out and starts running about trying to get her back. This movie is even more obscure compared to the other two because a man fell in love with an inanimate object. Not only this, but Theodore and the operating system, Samantha, pretend to be two humans beings being together in the world. At one point, they get a random girl to take Samantha's human form while Samantha speaks to Theodore through an earpiece. For the deeper thinking aspect to the order of these movies, Where the Wild Things Are and Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa do not require much of it. What you see happening in the movie is what it is. As for Her, there is more logic behind the creation and meaning of the movie. By having Theodore fall in love with his OS, it shows how technology has taken over society and have made some people a bit crazy. This movie causes people to have to think more while watching it and realize what is going on than compared to Jonze's previous movies.

Other than the progression of obscurity or meaning in Spike Jonze's movies, he also included classic endings to them. For Where the Wild Things Are, the little kid, Max, ran away from his family, but through his journey he realized how important his family was to him and came back and hugged his mom. This is the classic storybook ending to a children's movie or book, always ending on a good note. For Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, the movie ends with Grandpa Irving realizing how much he would miss his grandson, so he decided to drive back and bring him back with him again. This is another classic ending in which someone the character did not realize how much someone meant to them until they lost that person. For Her, the movie ended with the OS being disabled because the technology company realized how it was affecting society negatively. Although this is not a very classic ending since the movie is so different, it was one that was kind of predicted because it falls under the movies in which the character loses something they cannot have. What I have also noticed in a couple of Jonze's movies is that they relate to his real life in a way. A big example would be with the movie Her. Jonze used to be married to Sofia Coppola, another director, but they got divorced because they had different thoughts on their future. Afterwards, he dated many other women but nothing has gotten too serious it seems like. Spike Jonze's life relates to the movie Her, which he directed, because Theodore, from the movie, was also divorced because of difference outlooks on life and how devoted he was to a real relationship. Then he fell in love with the OS, Samantha, which also did not work out since she had to be shut down. This is kind of a unique way of subtly portraying his own life.

Now I am going to focus on each movie separately.

Where the Wild Things Are: This movie is about a boy named Max who ran away from his family because they did not support him and kept saying that there was something wrong with him. He sailed across the ocean to a random island where there are "wild things" living there and becomes the king of the land. While trying to help them stay together as a family, he realizes how much he misses his own and decides to sail back. He came back with an open mind and love for his family. This movie is a fantasy drama film that captures the message that family is an important aspect everyone needs in their life even if you dislike them. Since it is based off of a children's book, it has a sense of naivete coming from the child. He makes abrupt decisions and automatically assumes that his family does not love him. When he gets to the island, he uses his imagination to get out of all the traps and tricks them to making him king. The movie is made with computer generated images (CGI) mixed in with a bunch of live action, which is different from other movies Jonze has made. The CGI is used so that he can create the fantasy world without spending a ton of money on costumes and make-up to make the characters seem animal-like. The mixture of CGI with live action helps us to give a feel of what is imaginative and what is the real world. It helps to show how strong one's imagination can be and how it can change our perspective on the world. Jonze also used a lot of extreme long shots in the movie, more than his others at least, to show the setting and everything that is going on. A couple of the scenes where he used this that stood out to me where the shots of Max on his journey out at sea and also when the "wild things" and Max were building their fortress. The shots helped to make it seem like we were there with them looking at it in their perspective.
The statement, "Jonze has created a world in which even 'wild things' can be full of personality and fun to be around" (Rotten Tomatoes) by Jeff Beck from Examiner.com shows how much others, both critics and the audience, enjoyed the movie. It shows how skilled Jonze is at making us feel close to something unusual and how well he can capture our interest. I agree with Beck's statement in that Spike Jonze did a wonderful job of making a movie out of a classic children's book for many to enjoy.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa: Grandpa Irving and Billy are on a road trip to drop Billy off in South Carolina to live with his dad because his mom was put in jail again for doing drugs. Throughout the trip, Grandpa Irving stops at many places, like bars and hotels, telling Billy to stay in the car and wait for him because he is about to go in and talk to some ladies. He also constantly calls Billy a "cockblock." During the entire trip, Grandpa Irving teaches Billy lots of profane things an eight-year-old should not know about and also makes a fool of himself while trying to get women. When they finally get to South Carolina and he drops Billy off, Grandpa Irving realizes how much he misses Billy and comes back to get him and tells him that he is not a cockblock anymore. This movie was filmed in a way that made it seem like it was a reality television show. It was essentially a hidden camera run movie in order to capture the true reactions of people toward the obscenities done by the grandpa and grandson. The film was made purely for laughs and to see how far a grandpa and grandson can go and get away with it. The ultimate message, if it had to have one, of this movie would be that its best to keep those that you love closer to you because you do not know what you have until it is gone. Grandpa Irving did not realize how much Billy meant to him until they were no longer together and he regretted leaving him with his terrible dad so he felt the need to go and take him back. Overall, I think the one thing I do have to give this movie props for is for costumes. They were able to make Johnny Knoxville, who played Grandpa Irving, look completely different and old. He no longer looked like himself, instead he looked like a real 86-year-old grandpa. Even the people put in the movie from the hidden cameras were not able to tell.
Linda Barnard from the Toronto Star said that, "Like the lime-green bingo dabber contents Irving drinks down to the horror of his seatmates, it's an acquired taste" (Rotten Tomatoes). I agree with Barnard because I was not a very big fan of this movie, however, there are people out there who like this kind of humor. I thought that it was very crude and obscure since the jokes were mainly coming from the grandpa, but others who enjoy dry humor and adult humor would like this movie.

Her: Theodore, the main character, works at a company that writes love notes to a person from their loved ones. Through doing this job, he realizes how lonely he is after his recent divorce. He started up this new operating system that is personalized to work well with their owner and ends up falling in love with it. They do everything together. They have even tried making it so that they can have a physical relationship together with someone else pretending to be the OS. Eventually Samantha, the OS, has to be disabled and Theodore is once again feeling alone. From this movie, I think that there are many messages that Jonze is trying to portray. One of them is to not depend on inanimate objects so much because you will most likely end up getting disappointed. Another message would be portraying the negative view on technology and how it is taking over modern day society. Throughout this movie, many different types of lighting and shots are used. For example, the lighting in this movie matched the emotions and feelings of the characters a lot of the time. When Theodore and Samantha were happy, the screen was very bright and sunny. When they were sad and talking about things that were bothering them or secrets, the lighting was a lot darker, especially the scenes of Theodore's room right before he is sleeping with the lights turned off so you only see a hint of his face. Also, the movie was sometimes put in the perspective and view of how Samantha would see it. In one of the scenes, the camera was all shaky because we were seeing it from Samantha's view from inside of Theodore's pocket when he was walking or running. These effects help us to feel more like we are with them inside the movie and it allows us to feel and see things from their point of view. Another detail that really stood out to me during this movie was the soundtrack. Most of the songs played were by Arcade Fire, whom I am a big fan of, and I thought that they fit the mood of the movie very well.
"It's an odd, sad love story, combining with a meditation on technology as an accelerator of social loneliness. Not a small part of it seems to be an allegory of lonely guys and their fear of women" (Rotten Tomatoes) said Liam Lacey from Globe and Mail. I agree with Lacey in that it indeed is an odd love story that talks about how technology is slowly making us become more lonely and isolated because we depend so much on it. Many people lose the ability to communicate in person with emotion because technology eliminates the ability to know the genuine thoughts and feelings of one another. However, I feel that this movie might have a deeper meaning to it that what is shown. This movie to me was mediocre mostly because I am not used to the idea of one falling in love with their computer. But overall, the movie was nicely filmed and directed and the dialogue would be just how I would think it to be.

Although these movies are quite different, there are some shots that were similar between them. All three of these movies used close-up shots in order to portray any emotions and feelings the characters had. This way we could see and understand them and be able to notice subtle details like tears. There were also the use of quick shots to be able to show all that is going on at that moment. This allows us to be able to not only focus on one specific event at a time, but to also be able to see the surroundings to make it seem like we are there and can see everything that they see too. Last but not least, full body shots were used for most of the action shots to show what every part of the character's body is doing: arms, legs, head, etc.

Overall, I thought that these three films showed a lot about what Spike Jonze is capable of. He does not solely focus on one type of movie, but in fact can direct and write a wide variety of movies. This makes him unique and is the reason why he is such a well-liked director.

1935 Movie Project: Sabotage and Salvation

My group and I wanted to create a movie that had a comedic side to it in order to lift the spirits of the people during the Great Depression. The comedy in the movie would contrast with the seriousness of the plot, while also containing a heartfelt ending so that the audience would feel more at peace with the movie.

The movie is about these two people who are married, but the wife is not too happy with the marriage. She is sneaking around the house and going on dates, making the husband very suspicious. The husband runs around asking her friends to see if they know anything and follows here everywhere. He is finally able to confirm the fact that she is cheating on him. Instead of confronting her at first, however, he decides that he would sabotage all the dates that she goes on with this other man (i.e.: dressing up as their waiter and spilling drinks all over them). Eventually the wife catches on that it is her husband doing all the sabotage and they talk it out. The movie ends happily with the couple working things out and having a successful marriage because she realized again why she fell in love with him in the first place.

Because this movie has so many scenes and different ambiances that we are trying to create, we thought that going with Warner Brothers would be our best bet. This studio is known to be more dialogue-oriented which is helpful for our film because it will help the audience to understand what is going on. The dialogue will help to express the emotions of the characters and to lose some of the confusion of what might be happening during each scene. Warner Brothers is also known for using a realistic style and targeting social issues. The main issue we are trying to get across to the audience is the concept of gender equality. It shows that women are also capable of doing things outside of just being a housewife. They also have expectations that they hope to have met and they can also pull tricks out of their sleeves. Also, during this time period the thought of a divorce is a bit iffy to the audience. With the ending we included, we hoped that this would show that marriage has a strong bond that can overcome any obstacle that comes in its way.

This movie would be a black and white film in order to focus more on the cinematography and editing of the film. We will incorporate quick cuts so to help the audience stay engaged and to help make the pacing of the movie seem fast. It will be most evident during the sabotaging scenes because it allows the audience to see all the actions taking place at the time with the wife on the date and how the husband is going to sabotage them.

For this film, we chose Ray Enright to be the director and Conrad A. Nervig to be the editor. We chose Enright because he works with Warner Brothers and he is known for making fast-paced style movies. Nervig also won an Academy Award which appeals to us because it means that he is good at what he does. Our two main stars would be Myrna Loy, who plays the wife, and James Cagney, who plays the husband. We chose Cagney because he is known to be very energetic and humorous. Loy usually plays exotic roles since she looks foreign which will help to ease some of the tension of the audience because it will make them think that American women would never cheat. Cary Grant would be the guy that Mryna cheats with; he was chosen mostly because he is known for his dashing good looks.

Through the making of this movie, the Hays Code does not completely prohibit us from shooting many scenes. The main thing that might be frowned upon, however, is the fact that a woman is cheating on her husband; therefore, she is being an unfaithful person. This leads to the thought of having an unsuccessful marriage, which might get us in trouble since it portrays the wrong ideas to the audience. However, we do make sure we do not violate this code completely by not including kissing scenes or any other scenes that gives a sense of sexual tension between two people.

Overall, I do not disagree with any of the decisions that we made for this movie. We decided most of the details as a group, so I am happy with our choices.