Blog Post #3

I chose a quote from director Abraham Polonsky to describe film noir.  He said, "A certain kind of hard film full of difficult emotional things and explosions of emotional drama and anxiety."  That description also describes the movie Double Indemnity.  In this film Walter was living a normal life as an insurance rep until he met and fell for Phyllis.  He developed emotions for her quickly and the roller coaster ride of emotions, drama, and suspense come in.  From Walter and Phyllis murdering her husband, to Walter finding out Phyllis is also seeing someone else, then to him murdering Phyllis.
In Double Indemnity Phyllis is a femme fatale.  One type of femme fatale described in the documentary Film Noir is the "spider woman."  The actress Marie Windsor put it simply she said, "the classic femme fatale to me is a woman that's usually getting the man into bed, then into trouble".  In Double Indemnity that is exactly what Phylllis did.  When her and Walter met Phyllis was portrayed as a sexy character, she met him for the first time in a towel.  I believe she is a typical femme fatale because she was a sexual character who never loved Walter but just used him for her own advantage.
In the beginning of the film when Walter is confessing on the dictaphone the lighting and confession show film noir.  He is alone in a dark room with low key lighting and the camara is focused on him.  In the film the choice of music also indicates film noir.  For example the diegenic sound coming from the radio in the "About that Ankle" clip we had to watch gives the feel of the film noir style.  Walter comes in as a dark shadow then comes into the light.
Neo-noir is like film noir except modernized in color.  Both film types have a lot of the same elements, they can have a femme fatale, they can have the same theme, and ideas.  In Memento it has color and also black and white.  It begins with a film noir feel, a man is shown shot in the head so right there it indicates drama and violence that film noir has.

Blog Post #1 Film Criteria

My criteria for an award winning movie would be a movie that keeps me watching and wondering what's going to happen next.  The components to that would be the acting, the setting, and just the way the story and plot progresses.  When it comes to the actors it's important when they become the character and you can't tell that they're acting.  In the setting I like to see that the scenery and costumes go with the main idea of the movie.  For example if it's a mob movie I expect to see the typical settings like the characters wearing fancy suits, the scenery to have the classic cars and so on.
The movies that I viewed in week one met some of my criteria.  What I liked best from the film A Trip to the Moon, was the acting.  Even though there was no sound you could tell what was going on in the film by watching the actor’s body language.  In the beginning of the film the actors pointed toward the sky so you knew they were planning a trip to the moon, another instance is when they landed on the moon you knew they were going to sleep because they stretched out their arms showing they were tired.  In the film The Great Train Robbery, I also liked the acting.  There was a lot of action in the film I enjoyed watching the fighting scenes.  The shootout scene at the end was great, I like how you could see the smoke coming out from the guns.
The two films that meet my criteria would be James Cameron's Avatar and Mel Gibson's Apocalypto.  What I love about both those movies is that they're unique.  In the movie Avatar I loved how the actors got into their characters, even speaking the Na'vi language.  The visual effects in the movie were awesome, everything about the film settings were incredible.  I liked the creativeness of the movie the different animals, all the details of the forest, and the war vessels.  I loved the story and the plot of the movie.  The movie Apocalypto had all those same elements that I loved in Avatar.  It was also a great movie I loved the costumes the Mayan characters had.  I also loved the story and plot in this film.  Those are two movies that meet my movie watching criteria.

http://youtu.be/hL4iOpyZEIw 

My Interest in Film

When it comes to watching films, I’m one of those people you mentioned that usually watch a movie with someone else.  I’m not much of a movie person anymore; I don’t look forward to any movies out there unless it catches my attention.  When I was in high school I loved horror films.  Not the bloody gory ones though, but movies like the Exorcist, Amityville Horror, the Sixth Sense, and one of my favorites The Others.  I liked the thrill of being scared, especially when the creepy music is playing and you know something horrifying is about to pop out of somewhere, and when it does it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.  That’s the kind of scary I like, when even after the movie is over you just have to turn on every light in the house.  To me those movies were fun to watch.

Now I am a mother of two and am too busy to sit and watch a movie at home.  I really don’t have the opportunity to watch scary movies anymore because my kids would have nightmares.  I do enjoy taking my kids to the theater every now and then.  The last film we went to go see was Disney’s Frozen.  Now the kids are in charge of the television so if there is a movie on at home, it’s a children’s movie.