Movie Review: North by Nothwest

Movie Review: North by Northwest

     North by Northwest is a movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The theatrical version of the film was released July 28^th, 1959 by MGM studios and Warner Home Video released the DVD version of the film in the year 2001. Cary Grant stars as the protagonist, Roger Thornhill and Eva Marie Saint stares as Eve Kendall.

     The protagonist, Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a man named, George Kaplan. He is kidnapped and taken to the house of what he assumes is Lester Townsend’s. When Thornhill enters the house, it’s where the initial incident in the plot begins. He is interrogated by a man named Phillip Vandamm and later is arrested for drunk driving after being forced to drink Bourbon. When we are first introduced to Roger Thornhill he is an innocent man, but as the story builds he portrayed as a criminal because of the bizarre events leading up to the conclusion of the story. One of these events is when he meets Lester Townsend in person; suddenly Townsend is hit in the back with a knife leaving him dead. Thornhill pulls the knife out of his back and is photographed for the paper as a criminal. Later in the story, he meets Eve Kendall on a train to Chicago. She is a very unpredictable character.

     Both Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint played their roles well. They were very believable. The costumes in the movie blended well with the time period and the characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and would definitely see it again. It was a very suspenseful movie and had good plot structure. 

Literary Views on the film "Stand by Me"

Literary Views on the film “Stand by Me”

     The movie “Stand by Me” is directed by Rob Reiner. It was released worldwide by, Columbia Pictures, August 22^nd, 1986. This movie stars, Wil Wheaton as Gordie Lachance, River Pheonix as Chris Chambers, Corey Feldman as Teddy Duchamp, and Jerry O’Connell as Vern Tessio.

     Throughout the film, many various camera angles were used. This created a very realistic effect for the viewer, making them feel like they’re in the film with the characters. In the scene where they boys are walking across the bridge with the train tracks and they hear the train coming, the notion of filming between both the boys and the train creates suspense because you know that the train is right behind them and you’re also wondering if the train is going to hit them or if they’re going to make it across alive.

     Symbolism plays an important role in this film. The train tracks symbolize the boys’ journey to finding the dead body. At the beginning, it also represents their path to becoming heroes. In the scene where the deer approaches Gordie, the deer symbolizes innocence and purity. This could also represent a similarity with Gordie’s unique personality.

    Similar to the film, “The Goonies”, each character in this film portrays their own unique personality. In this film, each characters personality reflects their home and personal life. One example from the film is; Gordie is the main protagonist of the film and is portrayed as a shy and self-conscious character. His older brother meant the world to him. He felt like his brother was more of a father figure to him then his own because he felt his father didn’t’ care for him which lead him thinking he caused the death of his brother. As the movie progresses, the boys mature with it. 

Dramatic Views on the film "The Goonies"

Dramatic Aspects of the Film, “The Goonies”

     “The Goonies” is a film directed by Richard Donner. The movie was released June 7^th, 1985 by Warner Bros. Pictures and stars Sean Astin as “Mikey”, Corey Feldman as “Mouth”, Ke Huy Quan as “Data”, Jeff Cohen as “Chunk”, Josh Brolin as “Brand”, Kerri Green as “Andy” and Martha Plimpton as “Stef”. The general summary of the plot starts with a group of friends who call themselves, “The Goonies”. They are each facing the foreclosure of their homes. On their very last day together as a group, the kids are up in Mikey’s attic exploring the many items his father has collected over the years. While on their expedition, they find an old newspaper clipping, a Spanish map and an artifact, which relates to the story of One-Eyed Willie. The group heads down to the coast and enter an abandoned restaurant where they encounter the Fratellis who are wanted criminals. While hiding from the Fratellis, the group finds an entrance to a cave where they then follow the map to try and find the lost treasure.

     For the design and set teams of the film, it must have taken them a long time to design and build a cavern like the one featured in this film. The set traps added detail and made the set look more intriguing to the viewer because they added suspense to many scenes throughout the film. This makes the film more interesting for the viewer to watch. The pirate ship and the treasure (which is mainly all gold) seemed to catch the viewer’s attention because everything looked very realistic. The gold was especially eye catching because it was so sparkly and shiny. The pirate ship had every detail that you would imagine a pirate ship would intentionally have. These details include a plank, a mast, a flag, trapped doors and etc.

 

     The make up in this film was done very well for a movie of the 1980’s. John Matuszak who plays “Sloth” in the film had a very disfigured face, which was all thanks to various molds and make up especially. This gave him a very realistic look towards his character.

     Each child actor in the film portrayed a character with their on unique personality. For example, Mikey is an enthusiastic type of character who is very excited to find One-Eyed Willie and the treasure, Data is known as the “go to gadget guy”, Chunk is a loud character that loves food, Stef can be a “smart mouth”, Andy and Brandon are portrayed as very stereotypical characters and Mouth loves to joke around. 

Cinematic Views on the film "Super 8"

Cinematic Views on the Film “Super 8”

     Super 8 is a film directed by J.J Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. It was released June 10^th, 11 and stars, Joel Courtney as Joe Lamb, Elle Fanning as Alice Dainard, Riley Griffiths as Charles Kaznyk, Ryan Lee as Cary and Gabriel Basso as Martin. The overall plot of the movie is about these kids making their own major production film in a small town. Late one night, Alice drives the crew to a train station where they set up to film a scene on the boarding platform while an actual train is passing by. While they are filming this scene, a nearby truck comes into contact with the train. This causes the train to derail causing a major explosion. The kids make it out of the wreckage alive and leave immediately before the army made it in time to catch them at the scene of the crime. Following this event, strange things start to happen in the town and people are slowly starting to disappear.

*Watch the film to find out what happens next!

     In the film, “Super 8” the train crash scene includes no lack in detail. The editors of the film were given a task of creating a very surreal looking train crash, which included numerous explosions while the train was derailing as well as pieces and parts were flying everywhere, especially towards certain characters. The tension created first starts when the characters are told to yell over the sounds of the train passing by, towards each other. When the train passes by and the characters are filming, each characters hair is flailing around insanely. This represents how close the characters are to the train and how much force is going against them. This causes the scene to be loud and dramatic. There had to have been additional lighting to this scene to present the emotions of each characters face in response to the situation. This scene had to have taken a large portion of time for the editing department to finish. The sound in this scene is diegetic because the characters can hear what is going on around them in the environment. 

  

     Another aspect shown twice throughout the film are lens flares. Lens flares are created from light sources found in a scene. They give off the effect that the audience or the viewer is in the scene with the characters. It makes the setting more realistic for the viewer. The first lens flares are seen when the kids first arrive at the train station and the camera zooms towards them creating numerous flares from light sources found in the shot. The second lens flare is seen when Joe and Alice are viewing Joe’s video of his mother. The lens flare is found coming from the projector behind them.