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