Heathers

Heathers was one of my favorite movies we have watched all semester. It was surprising to see all the violence included in the film in that context because it isn't that way today. Back then, suicide wasn't a reoccurring thing and a movie like this wouldn't do so well today because suicide has touched so many people. Too many bad things have happened in today's society that movies like this making a comedy out of something horrible wouldn't do well. I was surprised at how raw and honest the film was and it was one of the things I enjoyed most about it.

Comparing the film to Mean Girls is interesting because they are very similar yet very different. Besides the suicide, Mean Girls is more realistic to what happens today in high schools. Yet Heathers tackled issues in a similar way that Hollywood Shuffle did. Is it truly okay to laugh at the things in this movie? Because they actually are horrible things that everyone deals with, especially bullying and suicide and the struggle to fit in/be popular. When the very fat girl, Martha I believe, tried to kill herself because it is what the popular kids were doing, I was so mortified because it is very sad in reality to think that someone might think that way. The reading states "It’s the superficially flip manner with which it treats those subjects that really stands out. Heathers doesn’t do heartwarming messages." The film didn't do heartwarming messages, but showed the audience them in a different light, same as Hollywood Shuffle did with racism. 

I think Heathers is smart and original and it is a film that I would watch again. It kept me entertained the entire time wondering what was going to happen next because it is a movie that doesn't hold back. 

Wall Street

Wall Street was the typical movie that I expected to be. The young Wall Street broker gets into bed with the wrong people and it turns his life upside down. With the predictable story line however, it is interesting to watch these gentlemen fight and do horribly things all for the trading of practically nothing- just an image.

The film also explored interesting themes, such as the American Dream. The reading talks about testing one's moral flexibility when starting one's career. Bud starts the film out by saying "that's illegal" a few times, one of those being to Gordon Gekko. But Gekko encourages him that if he wants all the things he says he does, he has to bend the rules and cheat. Bud hopes that if he does what Gordon says, one day he'll be the one giving out the demands. And who wouldn't want to be as successful as Gordon Gekko? Except for the fact that he is successful off of crushing anyone and anything in his path along with trading this image. The one thing that bothers me most about this film is that these men are going to great lengths and doing ridiculous things all for the image that maybe a company is going to have a profitable year. It is somewhat sickening to watch, yet when I imagine myself after college trying to establish my career, I wonder if I would test my morals.

While watching this film I also was comparing it to this year's The Wolf of Wall Street, and the reason I liked that movie better was because of how it was almost satirical of Wall Street. You laugh while watching Jordan Belfort rile up his broker's and have ridiculous things happening inside of the office. I think Wall Street and everything these people do is disgusting, so to watch it put into a more comedic light made it more enjoyable for myself. With Wall Street I could see where the story was going and was just bored with the predictable-ness of it all. 

VS.

Hollywood Shuffle

Hollywood Shuffle was not what I expected it to be at all. I was surprised at how large of a role the stereotypical aspect of the film would be. Bobby Taylor's struggle to fulfill his dreams of becoming an actor was clouded by the stereotypes towards the black community.



The discussions in class comparing the film to Crash was something I didn't think of before. The stereotypes laced throughout the film Crash are intense, powerful and not put in there as a comedic aspect of the film. Hollywood Shuffle was pure comedy and therefore made the stereotypical message not as serious as the scenarios in Crash. As someone mentioned in class, we all laughed because it was true but we didn't get to see the severity of how the situation has affected lives, whereas in Crash, the film is a drama and every situation is serious and realistic. With Crash being somewhat over the top with it's stereotypes, it is effective in it's message. The comedic approach in Hollywood Shuffle was another way to appeal to it's audience.
 


Another thing that I didn't like about this film was the ending. Eddie Murphy was mentioned in this film, and the director and producers of the film wanted a guy that could act like him. Eddie Murphy was clearly famous and respected in this film's time period, so why did Bobby give up so easily because his VERY first movie role wasn't a majorly serious one? I wish that he hadn't given up and slumped over to the post office. If Bobby had stuck out the role, gotten his face and name out there as an actor, then he could be on his way to fulfilling his dreams and being a respected name such as Eddie Murphy was. Sure, maybe this is somewhat far-fetched, but Bobby accepted the stereotype and gave up after 5 minutes on his first film set. I don't think Eddie Murphy reached where he is today without a little hard work and dedication, however I'm trying not to take this ending or movie as a whole too seriously.

Aliens

I usually love sci-fi movies but Aliens wasn't all I thought it was going to be. It did entertain me for the 2 hours and 15 minutes of screen time but I don't think it is a movie I would wanna watch over and over again. However, after hearing what happens to Ripley in the next movie, I would want to watch that. I wonder how they would get her to go back into space for a third time especially after these first two experiences.

I didn't make a connection between Ripley and "The Final Girl" that we explored earlier when watching A Nightmare on Elm Street, yet after it being mentioned in the reading and in class discussion, I can see how the two relate. This movie is very similar to a horror film. Its a group of people being attacked by these terrifying monster species, same as the teenagers being attacked in their sleep by Freddy Krueger. Ripley was not only the final girl but the final human in the first Alien movie, and in this one she fights off all the Zenomorphs, including the powerful "queen bee" mother.

I thought the class's discussion on the final 15 minutes of the movie was interesting because how could they not agree that the gender of the final Zenomorph mattered? I thought it was a very intense moment when we watch Ripley and the Zenomorph staring at each other, and Ripley shows her her flame thrower weapon and what it can do, and she tells the other two approaching Zenomorphs to back down. As Ripley was protecting Newt, the Zenomorph was protecting all of her eggs. I believe Ripley and Newt would have walked away fine after that moment, however Ripley couldn't not light those eggs up on fire, and the movie did need a powerful climax ending (duh).

It is obvious in this scene that the most powerful Zenomorph is a female. We can see the tubes connected to her body, producing these large eggs, and seeing a female villain wasn't popular at this time, and it hardly is today as well. Female heroes and villains are still something rare in film today, yet it has increased greatly. Ripley paved the way for other movies to follow suit and see how powerful a female hero can be. The female heroes of today's films are ones such as Katniss in The Hunger Games (go Katniss!) or unfortunately Bella Swan from Twilight (terrible female heroine role model). I also thought it was provoking to watch the female Zenomorph literally rip off her uterus (so to speak) aka those tubes to chase after Ripley. It made me question the species because how can she return to those tubes and keep producing eggs (if the planet wasn't going to be blown up). It was an interesting scene to watch and definitely my favorite moment of the film.

Blue Velvet

Oh David Lynch. I have seen Mulholland Drive, a very famous film by David Lynch, so I knew what to expect when I heard we were watching Blue Velvet. David Lynch is considered one of the great filmmakers of our time, and I can see why, yet I am not a huge fan of his films (sorry!) His films can just be too weird for me and my liking's.

I did really like the way this film was put together however. The reading discusses how Lynch uses the 50's pretense to mess with the audience's head. The postmodernism of the film where Lynch toyed with the time period in which the film took place was clever. The opening of the film couldn't have been more 1950's America. We see perfect little houses, a smiling happy firemen, and a white picket fence with red roses and a beautiful clear blue sky behind it. Then, some guy collapses in his yard while watering it while a little boy looks on. Immediately the audience knows that the film isn't what it seems like it's going to be. Bye bye to the happy images we saw because the movie was about to get weird--real weird.


The characters in this film also intrigued me. Jeffrey was an interesting lead and its hard to know what his motivation was for things he did in the film. We don't get a back story on any of our characters, and by the end of the film we don't know much more about their lives then we did before. That's one part of the film that made me not like it as much; I didn't care about the characters I was watching and there was no connection to them. Dorothy was a messed up woman because of what this Frank Booth character was doing to her, yet we don't know how she was before all this happened. The dry humping scene was by far the weirdest thing I have ever watched. Afterwards, we can see Dorothy is shook up from this, yet 5 minutes before she was victimizing Jeffrey. I don't know if Dorothy just wanted to treat someone the way she was being treated, as almost a release, or if she just enjoys weird rough sex like that. I think Jeffrey was drawn to that because it was a new experience (or so we believe since we don't know about his previous sex life) and what 20 something year old college man wouldn't be intrigued to try that with an older woman? Frank Booth was an interesting villain to say the least, but somehow I wasn't afraid of him. His weird mannerisms just took away from his villain persona. He clearly loves to say the word fuck and he just sounds idiotic while doing it. His weird obsession with blue velvet reminded me of Crispin Glover's character in Charlie's Angels and his weird obsession with female hair. And then the whole lipstick scene just didn't make sense. It was just weird thing after weird thing. And the fact that his weird oxygen breathing wasn't explained either just frustrated me. This film left me with not knowing enough about the characters I was watching.



Crispin Glover from Charlie's Angels

Overall, Blue Velvet follows David Lynch's auteur style. If we watched this film and I didn't know who the director was, I would guess Lynch because I would immediately recognize his auteur from Mulholland Drive. Lynch creates something on screen that makes people talk and enjoy his films, but I am just not a fan of his style.

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club is one of the most revered teen films of all time. Targeted toward a young audience, and even to adults, it brings a lot of parts about growing up in a certain society into one movie. It's the typical high school movie. As the reading says "The Breakfast Club's focus on cliques that come together seems like stating the obvious in today's multi-culty teen world".


Molly Ringwald's character in the film is very interesting. Everyone connects John Hughes and Molly Ringwald, especially because in the 80's they made 3 teen films together. "These are exceptional films because it is the figure of a young woman-Ringwald's character in all three- who struggles within or against the class constraints erected within their narratives. In all three films, Molly Ringwald does tend to play somewhat of the same character. In Pretty in Pink, Ringwald's character, Andie, is in a lower class than that of a popular boy, Blane. The two start a cross-class relationship, and Blane struggles with pressure from his jealous friend Steff. While in The Breakfast Club, Ringwald's character Claire is very wealthy and upper-class and she "struggles" with being so popular. Claire's character isn't as willing as Blane's to step outside her social class, and mentions that one of the reasons is because of her friends.



What angers me about The Breakfast Club is that you have faith that these 5 kids have realized something important during their 9 hour detention session together where they reveal a lot about their internal struggles with themselves and their parents. The reading says it perfectly: "The plot of the film is really that simple: after 9 hours of sharing soul-baring dialogue about sex, parents, school, and the future-not to mention dope smoking, spontaneous dancing, and evading and insulting the principal- the five go home." Yet this ambiguous ending is what makes the film somewhat exceptional. You can interpret that they've gone home and that the events of the day didn't alter their lives, and that stereotypes are inescapable, or you can have hope that maybe these kids will be different people on Monday when they walk down the hallway. Or you can realize that years and years into the future, the one day in detention isn't even remember-able (although in the magic of the film I hope this last one isn't true). I like to believe that when the 5 characters leave, they have realized something, yet I still am frustrated by the ending. After the intense circle where most of the secrets and dialogue happens, Claire asks Brian to write 1 paper for all of them-the popular girl asks the brain to do the homework-and then goes off to give Allison a makeover, because they way she looked wasn't good enough. And once Allison has her makeover, Andy seems to finally realize her beauty, while Claire goes and kisses John on the neck because "he wouldn't". At the end, Brian gets to kiss the paper, Andy kisses Allison, Claire kisses John, and you are like what the heck?! 4 of the characters leave in relationships and Brian is still stuck with academics? Frustrating. Just frustrating. Yet it all works.

 

I love John Bender.


I always wondered why he puts his fist in the air. Yes it is great but what makes him do that haha?

Desperately Seeking Susan

Desperately Seeking Susan wasn't similar to Purple Rain as I expected. This was actually a film with a story and no musical performances. One of Madonna's songs can be heard playing in a club, but that is the only reference to her musical career. Madonna's character of Susan isn't supposed to be her playing herself. The only aspect of that character that Madonna brought to it was the fashion, same as Prince as The Kid. I loved Madonna's wardrobe in this movie. It was punk chic and totally 80's fashion.




The fashion didn't surprise me, and I think that's because I expected it due to the time period and these days, Miley Cyrus is running around in jumpsuits and her underwear. Many stars have tried to attract attention through their fashion, and it works. People will talk about what they are wearing and why, and nit-pick outfits apart. This is how myself and society is used to seeing Lady Gaga:


Back in the 80's when Madonna was the first to use her sexuality as apart of her music and her career, it was big and shocking and it unsettled people. Now, its a normal thing, and its kind of sad that mostly women in the music industry believe they have to do things like this to be popular.

The storyline however did not impress me. It was so unrealistic and the irony of everything sorta pissed me off. The fact that everyone was just barely missing each other and missing solving this issue frustrated the hell out of me. But then you wouldn't have an hour and a half- to 2 hour film entertaining you. The only part of the film that kept me interested was watching Madonna on screen, and that was why this film worked.