Almost Famous Review

For this blog I will be analyzing and reviewing my all-time favorite movie, Almost Famous directed by Cameron Crowe. The movie is about a young boy named William who becomes a rock journalist over all odds of a strict mother who doesn’t believe in Rock and Roll. He soon goes on tour with a rock and roll band, Stillwater. As the story progresses he travels with the band in order to write a story for the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. He is brought through city to city with a midlevel band in crisis along with multiple beautiful groupies or known as “Band-Aids”. William falls in love with the girl of his dreams, Penny Lane, but is in competition for her love with lead guitarist of the band. William goes through the classic teenage problem of loving a girl who doesn’t love him back. The movie includes an extremely famous cast including: Kate Hudson, Jason Lee, Zooey Deschanel, and Billy Crudup.

The biggest cinematic element used in this movie was sound. Any type of sound you could think of really. Crowe used diegetic music as well as non-diegetic music in order to fill the film with flourishing sounds of creative artists featured within the movie. The sound track to this movie is more than impressive. It includes many artists such as Elton John, Led zeppelin, Simon and Garfunkel, and other very influential artists. The constant sound that flourishes the movie, I believe is used to imitate the constant sound that circulates within a musician’s heads. Music wasn’t the only thing used to create sound within the film, but also common sounds you would hear at concert venues, such as screaming girls, instrument checks, and roar of the crowd. Personally the most prominent sound used throughout the movie was exaggerated diegetic sound of Williams type writer and scraps of crumpled papers that he keeps his notes on. This specific exaggerated sound made us as the audience feel the effort put in by William as a writer. Crowe purposefully used this to imitate the effort that the musicians use in playing their instruments. Although sound was very prominent within the film, it was not the only cinematic element that stuck out to me while I was watching the film.

Another cinematic element that was used predominately throughout the film was lighting. Crowe used many types of lighting all throughout the film such as low key, high key lighting. Crowe used front/rear lighting the most in the film. This type of lighting set a mood of freedom for the film. The lights set mostly behind the characters creating a halo like presence around them. The halo was mostly used in scenes containing the main band members, which influenced the audience in perceiving the main band member in a god like kind of manner. The rear/ halo like lighting contradicted the struggles of the mid-level band in their rise to stardom. Crowe purposefully used this technique in order to shift the audience perception of what life is truly like for someone caught in the cusp of fame.

Overall I love this movie because every time I watch the film it moves me and makes me want to go and travel the world. Cameron does a phenomenal job of portraying the characters within the film in a relatable way. I feel as if the audience can see themselves in every one of the character’s shoes. If you have a love for classic Rock and Roll that started it all, you will definitely appreciate the films soundtrack. I highly recommend this classic hippie music film to any individual looking for a well written and overall fantastic movie. 

Black Mass Review

                Welcome back! Lately I have been on quite a big gangster/ mafia fix due to the fact that we have been discussing The Godfather in class. For my second blog post I thought I would continue on my fix, and review one of Johnny Depp’s recent films, Black Mass. In this movie Johnny plays the notoriously famous Boston gangster Jimmy “Whitey” Bulger. The plot of the movie closely follows as the story behind Bulger and his Winter Hill Gang and there rise to power over the Boston, Massachusetts area. The storyline also follows Bulger’s double life as one of the most dangerous gangsters of all time and a FBI informant. After watching the movie I was quite interested in finding out if the events depicted within the movie were actually true events. Google quickly told me that the events shown within the movie were strictly fictional except the fact of Whitey being a FBI informant. If you don’t know much about Whitey Bulger I highly suggest that you google him, because he is a very iconic man and gangster of our time.

 Personally I thought that this film was beautifully shot. The angles and the frames that the director, Scott Cooper, used were well thought out and tastefully done. I noticed that he focused most on portraying the faces of the gangsters with lots of close up shots to fully express the emotion and lack of emotion that these men possessed. The close up shots were unforgiving, because the shots purposefully displayed the scars and aging of these individuals in order to show us the toughness and pain that these individuals had gone through as gangsters. I also liked the way the director used establishing shots to set the scene within the Boston area. I am very unfamiliar with the upper east coast but with the use of repetitive establishing shots throughout the film I felt as if I was familiar or have lived there once in my life. Scott cooper captured the hilly nature of the city by putting the emphasis in the framing of the vertical structure that the houses and sidewalks.

Another favorite aspect of the film was the use of emphasized diegetic sound within intense scenes. The film overall is a quite film with not a lot of non-diegetic sound or music. The lack of sound raises our awareness of visual aspects and creates a sense of anticipation for the chaos that was soon to come. In the murderous scenes heightened diegetic sounds were used in place of non-diegetic sounds to add greater suspense and fear to the scene. Some examples of emphasized diegetic sound are gun shots, hospital machine beeps, and cries of victims.

While some aspects of the film were very well done, some were not. One thing that I did not care for was the makeup that was put on Johnny Depp in order to make him more realistic, specifically the colored contacts. The contacts that Depp wore were too false, meaning that you could tell that they were fake. With every other part of the makeup being done very well, I felt as if they should have also had colored contacts that also looked realistic. Another thing that bothered me about the film was that the events taken place in the film were strictly fiction. I personally believe that film would be better as a whole if the director had actually depicted true events that occurred in Boston due to the Winter Hill Gang. But overall I liked the film and I thought it was quite interesting, and would definitely recommend to anyone interested. Just a warning though it is very gruesome! 

Million Dollar Baby Review

I wanted to start my first blog with a movie that I had grown up watching and admiring. I recently watched the film again and fell even more in love with it because of the strategic and beautifully crafted cinematography elements. My first film that I will be reviewing is Million Dollar Baby directed by Clint Eastwood. I don't even know where to start; this movie is just WOW! For those who have not seen the film, the movie focuses on a young woman's struggle to become a professional boxer with the hesitant help of a mentor, coach, and fatherly figure(Clint Eastwood). It's like most boxing/ underdog stories, but with a more personal and sentimental grasp on the relationship shared between not only the characters but also the audience as well. Don't worry no spoilers, I promise. The writing done within this story goes above and beyond and is very well thought out. The writers did a great job alluding to the film's dramatic tone, while also throwing quick witty jokes and happy scenes in order to counter act the dramatic qualities seen throughout the film. The movie also contained beautifully lightened scenes, especially in the boxing gym scenes. They kept the dingy and dark natural lighting of the gym to allude to the dramatic events that happen within the movie and the sport of boxing itself. During the training scenes they keep low key lighting, but when the characters are placed in the fighting matches they purposely use high key lighting. The low key lighting alludes to the hard work and the tough training and discipline taken by the main character Maggie (Hilary Swank). The high key lighting during the actual matches is used to give a positive mood of her winning most of the fights.They also use high key lighting in other happy or more upbeat scenes and repeat the low key lighting within the dark or often sad scenes in order to keep the tone that Clint Eastwood, as a director, wants the film to convey. This type of lighting technique is used in almost all films.  Another key factor that caught my attention in this film was the diegetic sound of boxing purposefully made more dramatized in order to catch the attention of the audience. The sounds were rhythmical  and almost used in place of music. This also helps allude to the beauty and the precise nature found in the sport of boxing. The actors that play in this movie are phenomenal actors that bring lots of talent to the movie. Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, and Jay Baruchel are just a small amount of talented actors featured in this film. They all play their roles confidently, without over doing or out shining one another. Their acting compliments one another allowing the film to have a greater appeal to the audience watching the film. I personally connected to this film because I am a sucker for any movie that has a strong fatherly and child relationship found within the story line. The main coach, Frankie, reminded me a lot of my own father which allowed me to get even more invested into the story than I would have liked to. The classic macho man with tough exterior, but secretly a man with a big heart is my favorite male archetype found within movies. Clint Eastwood is a perfect actor for this role truly. Overall this film showed that it is a great work of art that incorporates lots of thought out literary and cinematic elements. In my top ten favorite films of all times! Ten out of ten would recommend this film to anyone who is interested. The best news is that you can find it on Netflix!