medjesky 02

when i was asked to write a blog on story and writing about a silent film, I'll admit I was foolishly apprehensive. but after watching Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, i see that sometimes things like speech only get in the way of amazing storytelling. Sunrise is the story of a young couple torn by hard times. the husband, depressed at the hard times that have fallen upon his farm, has gotten into the habit of cheating on his wife with a young city girl. One day the city slick suggests that he sell his farm and move to the city to live with her. the man protests reminding the city woman of his wife and child but she convinces him that he kill his wife. but when the moment came to do the dirty deed, he realizes that he could not do it. His wife sees the murderous intent in his eyes and is appalled but forgives him because he sees his remorse.the rest of the movie is them rebuilding their relationship.

when it comes down to it, this movie is a masterpiece. i don't often find myself getting really moved by movies but this movies attention to detail and narration really won me over. it's a movie about more than just being in love but a story about redemption forgiveness and true love. without sounding sappy this was a heartfelt and well presented piece. 10 out o ten.

Medjesky o4

the bridge on the river Kwai is a movie that, unlike many of the movies in today's media, takes the time to flesh out characters, worlds and ideas. the story is simple: an English battalion surrenders to the Japanese and agrees to work on a bridge, but on their terms.their terms are of course the rules of the Geneva convention. the commanding officer of the English group is very stubborn in his beliefs and is true to the code of war, his soldiers are loyal and brave and his enemy is clear. writing wise the movies is fairly simple at first though a there is a seemingly loose sub-plot that turns into a major plot point concerning one commander sheer that evolves into something of a search and rescue. the colonel in charge of the prisoners gets torn between his duty to build the bridge and the escape prisoners, his men.

the story itself is a testament to good  screen writing and the ideas of duty are tested. the way this movie synthesizes the story and it's ideology, with the lighting and score are phenomenal. the writers and director took time to develop characters that were otherwise mysterious and blurs the line of good and evil. very well bet where this movie shines the most is presentation. The way the movie conveys the colonel and the major are not only interesting but amazing given the time. in the beginning we are immersed into it with establishing shots of the location. when the major is making his daring escape you feel the thrill and terror and find yourself wondering if he'll get to safety. there are aerial shots when he is stuck on the boat and the writing when he arrives at the hospital and is being asked to return you feel his anguish. without giving too much away the colonel is also superbly portrayed. he is stubborn, and plenty of times he tells the warden of the pow camp that his officers will not work. though he abandons these ideas later in the movie you can see how much he cares about getting his work done.

overall i didn't think i would like this movie, but i was pleasantly surprised by the depth of characters, the lush and dangerous environments, the fantastic swells and lulls in the score and the interesting plot. the feeling of immersion was there from the moment i started watching and even though this movie is a hefty 2 and a half hours i highly recommend it.

medjesky 03

I should really start keeping up with this more. The next movie I'll be reviewing is a tale of a man who was framed and ends up on an adventure that involves, but is not limited to cowardly and yet-somehow-still-frightening German porn stars, a fat rich guy in a wheelchair, the fat guy's beautiful and crazy daughter, the fat guy's his hot trophy wife, JEFF BRIDGES, and a lot of unnecessary bowling.  i'll be analyzing this flicks photography and mise en scene.
the photography and mise en scene of the 1998 cult classic "The Big Lebowski" is eccentric. the usage of color and light in scenes compliments an otherwise confusing, if not interesting series of events. the movie opens up almost like a play with it's lights and hues getting bright during the introduction. we go from a dimly light dessert to a bowling all lightly lit and then to the bright area where are main characters are introduced. the movie pays a lot of attention to detail; setting up scenes where extras can be seen bowling to boost the believability. there are also scenes where the main character played by JEFF BRIDGES is in a dreamlike wonder zone and in those times the director uses the scene and the expression of JEFF BRIDGES to let us the viewer know what's going on.particularly the scene where he has been drugged by the porno kingpin and is in a state of wonder and awe at his vivid hallucinations. honestly those scenes are also some of the most fun to watch in the movie but a theme of those scenes is they happen almost always after some form of pain is inflicted upon him. the scenes themselves depict JEFF BRIDGES flying over the city while fire works or being the star of a weird bowling porno and a and insinuate that even though he's just been punched in the jaw or drugged he is at least having a good dream. that is until the three weird guys show up with scissors threatening to cut of his Johnson. then the camera angles seem to skew so that he cant and turn to insinuate fear. overall this movie is weird and personally all it made me do was hate John Goodman for the first hour and a half. but overall it was a good flick to watch

Medjesky 01

In today's society we value things like technology and equality but realistically speaking we weren't always this great. I mean, there was a time when Tim Burton was directing batman movies for christ sake. today we'll be looking at the ideologies around the movies Batman(1989) and The Dark Knight(2008).
       with the rise of new technologies in the 80's it was becoming more and more apparent that we need to bring the cape crusader into the times, lest he be lost forever. In a valiant(and fairly successful) attempt to bring the Batman out of the dark ages of adam west and disco we turned to none other than the eccentric Tim Burton to create a universe of mystery and darkness where you fear for your life all the time. and what we got was Batman. Batman was an interesting title in that MICHAEL FREAKING KEATON was cast as Bruce wayne. Guys i don't think you understand, MR. MOM WAS CAST TO PLAY BATMAN. Anyway the movie was enough of a success but what was Tim Burton going for?
Upon my first watch i noticed a few important details Harvey Dent was black and bruce wayne was clark kent. The movie is riddled with just enough Black people to get my attention especially considering that there were few other minorities. it's almost as if the movie was saying"hey guys we're not racist we just wanted to make a batman movie.." As far as Bruce himself, he was a good guy, like , a really good guy and so when he acted sleazy and jerkish (the scene where he told viki he was gonna be out of town) he seemed really out of character. But Then there's viki the thing a noticed the most from this movie was the crazy amount of misogyny in the plot. viki wasn't so much a character as she was an item to be won.it's funny because the joker (played by Jack Nicholson) got mad at his former employer for having him killed "over a woman" and then he proceeds to try to kill batman over a woman.and that's the thing, everyone wants viki so they all have dick measuring contests amongst themselve to win her. in the end batman wins her because he's the main character and all is well. if i had to guess the ideology in one sentence i'd say "You'll win the girl if you're the main character"
    This was by no means the case in the dark knight. the dark knight is about a little more than the romantic life of bruce wayne. Though that life does play a more important and tasteful role in this movie.But first and foremost the movie is about Batman, Harvey, and the joker. three men who have or will be tested mentally.honestly this is the best writing for a batman movie you'll ever see. it starts as the typical saturday morning heist cartoon and quickly grows into a thriller involving gang politics, romance, loss betrayal and most importantly a guy in his mid thirties running around dressed as a large anthropomorphic bat.... seriously though this movie is the culmination of bruce's years of depression, dent's quest for justice gone horribly wrong and the joker's wish for who know's what! and at the end of this movie you find yourself wondering who got what they wanted. the answer is nobody and if i had to guess this movie's ideology in one sentence it would be "there are no heroes, just people that try and sometimes fail."
overall both movies are great even if i gave Batman(1989) a lot of crap for it literally revolving around a woman that Bruce seems to only kinda like and the joker is just infatuated with her because he can be. the movies are in many ways mirrors to modern society and that is something i not only enjoy but respect.

An intoduction

Well hello!!
if you have been lucky enough to find this blog you should thank the Gods (or Science or whatever else you people pray to) because you are no doubt in THE DEFINITIVE MOVIE Critique blog. Here I'll be post whatever Prof. Chris Medjesky asks me to as well as any movie reviews that i've felt like posting for a while. the way this blog works is simple. if i post a blog dealing specifically with Madejsky's class it will be titled medjesky 1 or 2 and so on. otherwise it will have a wacky title dealing specifically with whatever source material i'm referring to in the article. that said sit back, grab some popcorn and enjoy, MOvies with james
-James Boley