the western

for this blog i will talk about the shootings or killings of people. i will compare the 2 movies we did in class Unforgiven and Stagecoach. first off with Stagecoach it showed the good guys found it easy to kill. this is how i pictured the classic westen, as just a straight shootout and no emotion is showed befor or after a killing or death. the scene that really stands out to me was the indian chase scene. it didnt matter to anybody on the stagecoach who was shot as long as it wasnt themselves. they were pickin them off like rabbits or something. most everybody was so single minded in that and just focused on personal stuff rather than protection for the big group. Stagecoach was a very good movie to show the classic westerns view on killing people, however their is 2 ends to this spectrum as showed in Unforgiven.

Unforgiven was on the complete other side of this whole no emotion into killings/shootings. all three of the main characters found it very hard to kill someone. whether it was the schofeild kid after he killed that guy in the outhouse. after he did that he pretty much had a mental breakdown for a while. he admitted how he had never killed a guy before and how he never thought it would be so hard to do. then there was Ned who initially shot the one bad cowboys horse, but couldnt finish him off. after will finished him Ned left the group because he couldnt force himself to kill anymore and there mission was one of killing. Will also had a little trouble in the same scene as ned. he would keep stalling and wasteing time and when he finally got him he made the cowboys friend give him water. so killing in both Stagecoach and Unforgiven were portrayed in to very different manners while killing seemed easy and noble in Stagecoach, it was frowned upon and hard to do in Unforgiven.

journal 3: Pan's labyrinth

Pans labyrinth by Guillermo Del Toro was a very good well put toghether movie with many little things that made the movie more intriguing. 1 of those thing was the music and sounds that Del Toro added or directed. Del toro used an original score of music in this film. i have never heard it befor it was all orchestra and a very good one at that. their was now music from like the radio or any music with sounds it was all orchestra. Javier Navarret was the composer of this musical set. he made many great musical decisions like i felt that when we were on Ofelia the music was more upbeat or higher pitched and kept u on the edge. i think Javier did this because he wanted the audience to be curious as to what she is going to do or what is going to happen to her. the music also helped the watcher feel what Ofleia was thinking so to say. like you could tell she was confused by the music or you could tell she was excited by the music. i also noticed that it was the opposite with the captin. he got all the evil slower more sinister music to show that he was the bad guy who represented evil and all that was wrong in the world. therewas also a special set of music for the faun that no othe characters got. it was either really fairy tale like music when he was talking to her. or it was very angry or upset music when she didnt listen to him. for example when she ate the grapes and got 2 of his fairies killed he was very angery and was like an upset sourcerer music. it was really cool. the effectsthat Javier was going for was to get the watcher into each characters mind set and set the mood. he did a very good job. i think themusic was even more important because it was all in spanish so i had to pay more attention to the finner details. but over all the music was a powerful tool to this movie. maybe thats why it was so good and so easy to get into.!!!

journal 2

HOOP DREAMS

It's almost cruel the way "Hoop Dreams" keeps you on the edge of your seat, entirely caught up in the successes and failures of two young inner-city Chicago boys who are recruited to play basketball at a suburban prep school. The documentary follows William Gates and Arthur Agee for almost five years as they struggle with adolescence, family crises and economic pressures--all the while jumping through various hoops in order to get basketball scholarships to college. "Hoop Dreams" carries with it all the elements of a good fictional sports movie: plenty of nail-biting buzzer shots, plenty of triumph over adversity. But being a true story, the wins at the buzzer don't solve all the boys' problems, and the triumphs they experience are tempered by reality.
Exposing hypocrisy at every turn, the film shows us that basketball dreams unite an entire underclass, and that the pressures and expectations in the boys' lives aren't entirely their own. Parents, friends and community members repeatedly admit that they are living vicariously through the boys. Gates, in particular, feels that he carries an unfair burden: "People say to me, 'If you make it to the NBA, don't forget about me.' I always say, 'If I don't make it to the NBA, don't forget about me.'"
This film also provides some interesting insights into the off-the-court dealings at the mostly white prep school. One of the boys is sent back to public school because of his family's inability to pay the tuition. It's clear, however, that if he were bigger and stronger, a deep-pocketed alum would've stepped forward to foot the bill.
Clocking in at nearly three hours, "Hoop Dreams" is never boring and always engaging. The viewer, like the boys' parents, coaches and friends, can't help but get caught up in Gates and Agee's dreams. This makes the film all the more gut-wrenching when these dreams don't always come true