MYST post #7: Battle Los Angeles

I watched Battle Los Angeles due to boredom and the fact that this movie was downloaded on my friends computer. As we were driving to southern Illinois, he pulled it up, which I hadn't seen in a few years. I barely remember the plot but all I remember that the action and digital effects were great. Looking at movie reviews on this movie really made me question watching it, and thus made me be very critical of watching it. It received a 35% on Rotten Tomatoes by the way... Ok so lets get into the plot and my critical review of the movie.

First, Battle Los Angeles to have a lot of plots holes and a lot of missing parts that should not have been missed. The movie starts as many other alien invasion movies such as Independence Day, because they both started happy go lucky before everything went crazy. Next a sergeant from another city, is introduced to help lead another platoon in practice missions. One of the members of the platoon had taken his presence to be hard to stand as the sergeant's leadership had killed his brother. This conflict was introduced to make more tension against one another in the movie. After some time, new casts on the television showed extra terrestrial beings approaching major cities. Of course, the characters had to seem that they did not know what was coming, but many hints were preparing the soldiers for the invasion of aliens. Once many deaths/chaos ensued, all platoons, including the sergeant's, were ordered to fight against the aliens. His platoon was ordered to find a bunch of civilians a few miles away. Unfortunately throughout the story many of the soldiers die and throughout the story, you grow more fond of the sergeant. As the platoon soon finds out, it is very difficult to kill the extra terrestrials, and the only way to kill them is shooting them in what seems to be their form of the heart. Also, all of the aliens are controlled by one, huge, mothership. This seems re-done... Oh wait. It is. Independence Day which was made 15 years prior to Battle Los Angeles. In both movies, if you destroy the mothership, you destroy all of the aliens. In the end though, a member of the platoon does take down the entire ship and humans, once again, regain power of the world. How original..
One scene that I want to take a deeper look at was when the platoon was on a helicopter, on their way to safety, and the sergeant volunteer's to try and kill the mothership. At first, none of the other members seem to want to slide down that rope, which seemed to be a death wish to stay back, but in the end, his entire platoon followed him down the rope to try and help save mankind. This was a big turning point in the relationship between the sergeant and it's members. Also it was a very spiritual and patriotic move that all of the platoon would literally risk their lives for their country.
The movie had very good visual effects, because of course they cannot emulate an alien without good digital help. They workers did a great job on this. Also, I liked the "far off" graphics of the mothership, crashing helicopters, and flying missiles. As always, I was trying to note any audio that would help the plot develop/increase tension; I did not notice any of this and I feel that the movie lacked a special part that could have increased my liking towards it. Finally, I feel that this movie is much too predictable and acting is, mediocre, at best. You're friend just died from an unknown alien, please react more than just staring at the body.
Overall, all this movie did for me was passed time on my 5 hour car ride. I did not really like the ending of the movie, which was so predictable. One thing I did like about the movie was the patriotism held throughout the entire movie, but that is barely it. I would only recommend this movie if you have not seen Independence Day, which did receive a much better score on Rotten Tomatoes than this. I give this movie 2.5/5 stars

MYST post #6: UP

UP is a classic in my book. I wanted to watch the movie with some friends on the way to a fishing trip to pass some time. I love this movie, it always touches a sweet spot in my heart. This movie has a great combination of all different kinds of genres to appeal to their target audience. In this case, children, but not in mine, I could watch it over and over. So, lets get into this, out of the ordinary Disney and Pixar movie.
The movie opens up with a child  exploring around and a voice is narrating what seems to be going on in his head as he runs around the neighborhood with his balloon. At first it seems like this movie may be like any other cartoon, Disney movie, an adventure of a young boy on his quest to explore his surroundings. But this is not the case as he meets his new best friend, Ellie, at an abandoned house. This is where all their fun begins. Ellie allows Carl, the young boy, to join her adventure club. One quite cliche aspect to note here is that as in most Disney movies, there are very few characters in this movie. But this works out perfectly in the end. So, as Ellie and Carl are shown growing up together, getting married, it makes the audience get attached to their relationship in just a few minutes. And then, the unexpected happens, one of the main characters dies, leaving Carl alone. After that scene, it shows Carl living alone, in his old house, in the middle of a growing metropolis. This scene shows Carl aggravated with the building company interrupting his used-to-be silence. This is the scene that I will go further in depth with. When Carl finally comes out of his house, filled with a bunch of locks, the audio of the movie is amplified. It increases the volume of all the building equipment and gives a close up of Carl's face, and how bothered he looks because of all the ruckus. Next, it shows his walking to his mailbox, which he made with Ellie. The mailbox appears to be covered in work dust. What happens next is probably a daily occurrence which shows Mr. Frederickson pulling a leaf blower out of nowhere to blow off all of the dust. Then he gets his mail and is approached by a friendly worker. The worker says that his boss wants to offer him to buy the house twice that of his last offer. Then Carl asks for the workers megaphone and yells at the boss, which is in an all black suit and sunglasses. This shows his superiority over the rest of his characters. This also shows the audience that he is a mean guy, which he is.
Finally, when Carl is having to be moved to "Shady Oaks" a retirement community for a mishap that he caused, he pulls of the extraordinary. His house lifts off into the sky from tons of balloons that he acquired from his job of selling balloons at the zoo. His next journey is to fulfill his lifelong dream of living next to paradise falls in South America. Trouble ensues as Russell, a boy scout accidentally went along with Carl. Now their real adventure begins as they encounter many problems to have to put his floating house next to the waterfall that he has been longing to do all of his life. He also does this to fulfill Ellie's dying wish. In the end, as all Disney movies do, Carl was able to bring his house, with the help of Russell, to the edge of paradise falls.

This movie is a must-see for people of all ages. Teaches kids and adults to be more tolerable of others. And shows a great story of what persevering though tough times can achieve.
 I have to give this movie a 4.5/5 stars.

 Love this movie!

MYST post #4:Intersteller

Well, I had some free time to watch a lengthier movie, and I am very glad that I picked the newer movie Interstellar from my video store. This movie is 2 hours and 49 minutes of intense intergalactic and a very realistic. The main story is placed in a futuristic America. While this story gave me a new view of Christopher Nolan's idea of the future, I felt that Interstellar had many of the characteristics of Oblivion. Even with some characteristics being similar, I really enjoyed the movie. I like the idea of Matthew McConaughey being the main character, Cooper, deal with some of the dilemmas he was faced with. I strongly feel that McConaughey performed excellently. All of the actors performances captured the audience and make it seem real for them. The movie seemed to have a few "Black Holes" per say because I was still flustered about some main themes in the movie. Interstellar wanted to almost "teach" the audience about a 5th dimension. Even though the movie is lengthy, I still felt kind of confused about that idea. I can look at this in a lighter note in that the movie really made the audience think about the interaction between characters. The whole movie is a "thinking" one.

The key aspects that I was watching for were realism and audio. These two really wowed me. One scene that I wanted to look at in depth was after Cooper made it back into the ship after exploring a different planet. This was another "thinking" part because one hour on that planet was 7 YEARS on Earth. This made the mission difficult for Cooper because he would see his children grow up without him. After Cooper makes it back to his "main dock" his children sent him videos of their seemingly quick lives. Cooper saw his son and daughter grow up and hear that his father died. Cooper is shocked and reacted in character that really blew me away. 

This futuristic movie has topped my "favorite movie watched in the last three months list." It has definitely left me pondering about not only the future, but also the ideas brought up in the movie. McConaughey made me like him even more after his performance in Wolf on Wall Street. It has showed me that he can play a serious and comedic character very well. Interstellar also capitalized in being able to incorporate different emotions in it. There were sadly, even slightly hilarious robots in the movie. But also, there was intense and dramatic scenes. In the end though, I speak highly of this movie and will probably have to watch it again just to get the whole ideas. I would have to give this movie 5/5 stars.

MYST POST #3: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

As the weather is getting warmer, the senioritis is really seeming to kick in. I wanted to get in the spirit of the end of senior year by watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off. A classic by anyone, one of my mom's favorites. I haven't seen this movie for a couple years now, and also wanted to lighten the mood from my last MYST post of You're Next. I love the layout of the movie, how there is still a story, but the main character is talking to the camera every once in a while. I would say that this movie compares to Project X because in this movie as well, the main characters still talk with one another but once in a while address the audience and ask maybe what they would do in that situation. As Ferris Bueller usually does not talk to the camera but he does look at the camera often to just make the audience feel what he is feeling. And of course, his favorite quote, which I wish I abide by it more often, "life moves pretty fast if you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it." 

I think this movie is a big step in the movie industry during the 1980, 1986 to be exact. I feel that this movie really makes the audience, especially me, being a senior like him, to empathize with all of the characters, well except Dean Rooney of course :). In this movie I like how there is a bad dean, that just wants to fail Ferris. This can compare to The Breakfast Club and how Principal Vernon wants to make everyone's day miserable, just like Dean Rooney! Wow, what a combo of awful teaching faculty.
One scene that stands out that incorporates a number of different cinematic aspects is when Ferris pretty much makes it in the house, but then Rooney catches him at the door trying to sneak back in. But! Then his sister, who despised him all movie, helps him out and gets Rooney to leave. She finds Rooney's wallet inside, which startles him, and throws it to wake up their vicious Rottweiler. Then Rooney takes a run and then the scene cuts, but most likely, Rooney got attacked by the dog. The camera angles that the director incorporates well is when Ferris is looking for the key to get inside under his mat and sees the dean's tattered shoe. Then Ferris looks up to confront Rooney.
I like the angled camera view to almost seem as if you are there. The camera is close, but I wouldn't consider it to be ECU. I like when Ferris's sister opens the door, presents Rooney with his wallet, and the camera cuts to Rooney's face, especially his eyes and how they open up dramatically signifying that he is screwed and she knows that he was inside their house. Ferris escapes yet again!
In the end, this movie is a classic and is needed to be seen by everyone. I  believe that I can go as far as saying this movie is one of the top movies ever made. Well, here is the trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-P6p86px6U
and if you haven't seen it.... Shame, shame on you! SEE IT.
I give this movie 4.5/5 stars 

MYST POST # 2: You're Next

While me and my friends were perusing Netflix for another decent horror movie we came upon this one, You're Next. You're Next is a rather small profit film that still gets its point across. This movie is not exactly a horror, at least for me, but there are some elements that could frighten people whom frighten very easily. But for me and my friends, we gladly accepted this movie to be a sick, twisted thriller movie. I would compare this movie to Thirty Minutes or Less because the plot was somewhat similar. In You're Next two family members hired some weird, masked hit men to murder their family to be the only ones to inherit their parents estate. While in Thirty Minutes or Less two masked men hired a random guy to rob a bank so they have enough money for a hit man, to kill their father, so they get the rest of HIS estate. One other movie you can compare You're Next to is The Purge, as more people are going on killing sprees with masks on. But, all in all, You're Next a rather unique movie, with many small time actors.
This movie didn't "wow" me too much with the editing. The editing was there, and it made you feel as if you were in their current position, wondering why so many people are just randomly killing your family. But something I would like to point out is their number of camera angles they used. In one particular scene that stood out to me for this is when one character jumped out of window to save herself from one of the killers, after she hits the ground thinking she is safe, a climactic rush of music makes your heart skip a beat when the killer's masked face peeks out from the window. 
This brings me to another aspect the movie does exceptionally well. Of course, horror movies and thriller movies need to have many different kinds of sounds, songs, and background music or else it wouldn't be very scary. For instance, whenever something scary is about to happen, in any scary movie, the pitch of the music is very high. But when something jumps out at you, there is so much sound that it can become overwhelming with fear, if done correctly.
One scene in particular that was done exceptionally was earlier in the film when the family agreed together that someone should run out of the door to seek help. It seemed that this plan was going to work, as the movie spent a couple minutes for planning, and it was slow motion while the actress was running out of the door. Two guys were holding the door handles, and going to open them right before she would step outside. The only problem was..... was that the hit men placed a extremely sharp wire in the neck area of the door. This ensued panic when the girl inevitably would die as she just sliced here neck. I loved the camera angles of this scene. Before the girl was getting ready to run, there were extreme close ups of her face and how she felt about this. The camera was pointed at all of the characters and they counted to three... While she was running in slow motion, all of the action was on her, watching what will happen when she runs into potential bad guy territory. Once she gets her throat cut, many high pitched violins played for around 30 seconds until she bled out. But while the girl is dying on the floor, the camera angles switches to looking up at the characters. Signifying that they are the only ones that can do anything, but in reality, they can't do anything because how can you stop someone from bleeding out of their corroded artery. Lastly, I liked the close up of the lady's cut which intensified the scene.
Overall, this movie was a great thriller, and was one of my better liked thriller/horror movies. I would persuade many of you to watch the trailer here---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHhtpW6xHg4
In the end though, I would give this movie 4/5 stars 

Formal Film Study: Lithuanian Movies

When I heard of this Formal film studies project, I immediately thought if I was able to analyze movies in a different language. Being Lithuanian, and wanting to explore more in all aspects of culture, I found it apparent that I should interpret the way they create movies overall. I have watched a few different movies, mostly documentaries, during my Lithuanian school years. Usually I would get rather bored and not pay attention too much. Now i find much more interest in these kind of topics that are in both documentaries and other film genres. I watched, what I found to be the more known and better rated movies. The three that I have heard the best reviews, and top ones rated on Google that I watched were The Other Dream Team (2012), Redirected (2014), and Before Flying Back to Earth (2005). These three movies are very different on most levels. Also, the different genres that they possess will also give me a better representation about their film production, editing and sound, camera angles, and actors performance.

The one movie that I watched before this class was The Other Dream Team in the theaters. This time I got much more meaning for the movies as I got older. This movie gives Lithuanians a lot of pride for their country. This movie has a great documentary style that also incorporates many other aspects in it. It really incorporates the story of the Lithuanian basketball team with other parts of Lithuanian history in it. This is definitely not one of your boring school documentaries you see though. The cuts of the basketball games they show in the movie almost feels as if you are sitting at the game. The director, Marius Markevicius, really knew what kind of format he wanted for this movie. And all of the interviews with many of the Lithuanian basketball team and Russian basketball team portrays their actual moods and motives throughout the game. A funny part of the movie was when the Lithuanian basketball players were talking about the 1992 basketball game against the USA. Many of the Lithuanian players knew they really had no chance, but they didn't want to totally get wrecked by the USA team. The Dream Team. (This explains the title now). In the end the Lithuanians did lose pretty badly but still had a good time. A specific funny part during the game was when one of the Lithuanian basketball players noticed no one taking pictures of the game and so he proceeded in taking awful pictures of the game with a pretty cheap camera. But overall, the movie displays Lithuania's hardship during Soviet occupancy with the story of these basketball players. Soviets invaded Lithuania in the 1940's. Just giving Lithuanians more anxious to be able to express their love for their nation. Russia was also occupying many other European countries at that time And "By the end of 1991 the Soviet Union completely collapsed and turned into 15 independent nations" Lithuania being one of them (History of Lithuania: Introduction). The best message of the movie is how Lithuania, a country of 3 million people, can beat Soviet Union, with a population of 150 million.




The next documentary-style movie I watched was Before Flying Back to Earth. I had not heard too much about this movie, but I decided to watch it after seeing that it had won a couple awards and was nominated for many more. This movie is about a pediatric hospital in Vilnius that hospitalizes children with leukemia. The movie starts at the very beginning of a child's journey with cancer. Right in front of the electric razor. The camera angle that is directly on the child's upper body and face show just the barbers hands. The child has mostly a expressionless face. Being that the movie is a mostly documentary style film, the camera stayed motionless on his face. This really heighten the mood of the film. This movie is shorter than The Other Dream Team but still put an emotional impact on me. While The Other Dream Team expressed Lithuania's culture and country in a much more positive connotation, this movie gives a more sad story. Before Flying Back to Earth is all in Lithuanian, unless you can find one with subtitles in English, it would be hard for people to get the movie's full potential. Arunas Matelis, the director, does a great job with the movie. One thing that he excelled at was letting the children be themselves throughout the movie. The movie also had many highs and lows in the children's stories. Many times, Matelis shows how cancer doesn't slow the children down too much as they play with friends and lusterless toys. But you feel so bad for the kids when they get chemotherapy's full effect. Another thing that Matelis excels at and I feel plays a big role in the story is the idea of death. Not once does he brings up the chance or the possibility with the children. This would also make the movie very melancholic and almost  hard to watch.


Lastly I watched Redirected directed by Emilis Velyvis. This movie is a thriller/ drama that gave me a different taste of Lithuanian style. The movie starts off in England where a couple friends rob money and a priceless ring from a bunch of mobsters. While the main mobster Golden Pole (Vinnie Jones) doesn't care about the money stolen from him, he wanted his nice ring back. The friend's plans to escape them was to take a plane to Malaysia. Their great idea didn't turn out too good when their plane got redirected (hence the name) by a volcano that had erupted in Iceland. Velyvis does a good job of editing here. He made a pretty realistic scene from a news source that showed news of the volcanic eruption. But the best part is is where the friends end up. It had to be Lithuania right? Of course, Lithuania. When the friends land there, they party hard and act all big thinking they were home free. They thought that while being in a super small country, they were safe with the thousands of Euros they had just stolen. This was not the case, and when they meet against. Trouble ensues. Velyvis portrays many of the Lithuanians in this story to be kind of crazy throughout the movie. The movie is also very vulgar and violent. Many scenes are very explicit. And I think this movie can even compare to The Wolf on Wall Street for how many times the F-word is being tossed around. One scene that I wanted to address is when the friends are in the act of stealing their money. The scene is very dark, almost like a noir type, with only one light over the middle of their poker table. And the friends are yelling jib bits at their victims. The camera angle is what gives that away. It is quickly flashing between victim POV and perpetrator POV through their mask. And it also gets extreme close ups of someone's reaction as their hand is getting smashed by a gun. But, in the end, I really enjoyed this movie and how much more different Lithuanian's were portrayed.


The three movies gave me an inside of Lithuanian movies, and also gave me a lot more pride for my country, Even though these movies were pretty low budget films, I feel that some of them can even be compared against some Hollywood films. Some aspects between the two documentary style films are similar, but the overall message is much different. When one, Before Flying Back to Earth, is trying to get empathy from viewers, The Other Dream Team, is trying to engage the viewers and get a sense of pride and happiness from them. Then Redirected came in a totally different vibe. This movie was much different. It wanted to thrill audiences and see how strange some Lithuanian customs can be.





Sources: http://www.truelithuania.com/history-of-lithuania-introduction-629

1935 movie creation "The Godtoddlers"

Basically the whole story is Humphrey Bogart, Da Boss is a huge mafia guy in Chicago and the first scene shows his grave after he died in the mafia and his daughter Shirley Temple, Crystal takes the throne of his large Mafia. She takes control of some parks and such. whatever a 7 year old gangster would do. Then the rival gang, with leader Edward G Robinson, Frankie Joyce decided to retire to compete against the competition properly and puts his son Norman Chubby Chaney, Chubs, competes against Crystal. At first, Chubs follows his father footsteps and rules his gang as a mean mobster, but when he found out he was competing against the cute little Crystal. Crystal and Chubs have a friendly get together at the neutral ground, Grant Park, and Crystal changes Chubs for good. Over some time, Crystal and Chubs get in a relationship and the become great friends. Through their relationship, the gangs dissipate and they work together to make Chicago a better place.

Well we chose this genre because we wanted to be unique and stand out so we made the first comedy gangster of the time period. This would also appeal to many more people as we have combined to genres of film.

We used the Warner Brothers Studio because, at the time, they were infamous for creating great gangster movies and they were also dabbling in comedic movies as well. The best for "The Godtoddlers."

We chose Humphrey Bogart because he was a tough, mean looking guy at the time and his character would compliment the movie well. We wanted to incorporate Shirley Temple because she was just starting up in the movie industry at the time, and if we could go back and create this movie with her in it, it would obviously be her best movie ever. We chose Edward G. Robinson because he was another tough looking guy that would be a great gangster. Finally we chose Norman Chubby Chaney because this would make the movie funny in that aspect. He just looks funny, and the things he could bring into this movie are endless.

We would get around most Hay code no-no's by not showing the bad things such as death or drug trafficking because the story will focus on the childish "mafia" parts and what they would do. This would not only get around most parts of the Hays Code, but it would also be funnier to the audience, as they have never seen anything like this before.

If I had total control of thinking about this movie, I don't really know too much of what I would change, as I like it just as how it is already. But if I had to think of something to change, I would try to focus more on the quarrels between Temple and Chaney. This could also spur some more comedic moments in the movie and make the story longer as well. I would do this because real stories don't always end "happily ever after" soon after they meet.