2017

1. White Dog(1982)

White Dog is a brilliant movie by director Samuel Fuller. The premise of the movie is that a young actress Julia(played by Krysty McNichol) runs over a dog and finds out that the dog is a White Dog. A White Dog is a dog that was bred to attack and kill any black person in sight. The trainer by the name of Keys(played by Paul Winfield) promises the young actress Julia that he will fix the dog or he will shoot the dog dead, one of the cases of foreshadowing in this film. Another major character is Carruthers(played by Burl Ives), another dog trainer that is on the other spectrum of Keys. Carruthers wants to kill the dog because he believes that nothing will stop this dog from killing. All of the characters are well-acted and definitely bring life to the film. This film is very important to our history because of the techniques that were utilized to make this film, the emotions and feelings that the audience feels when watching this and the theme that hate can never be cured no matter how much one tries to do so.

One of my favorite examples shots in this film is when Keys is reaching out to the dog and in the frame you see this black welcoming hand reaching towards a snarling white jaw. It is a very powerful image because I believe that it mirrors the fact that black people have tried to be peaceful and loving despite all the hate and "teeth" that they experience. Another great shot is when Julia is at the animal shelter looking for her dog and a darkened window splits the shot in half with one side being bright and the other dark. Julia is in the bright section, to represent her innocence of the dog's situation and wanting to save the dog, and the animal shelter staff being in the dark side, to represent their vile nature of putting the dogs down and them telling Julia that they should just put the dog down and forget about him. Immediately after that Julia wanders over to an area in the animal shelter where they keep the dogs. The area is almost pitch-black and the dogs are all barking and charging at the cages that keep them from freedom. She then finds herself at the place that they put the dogs down and it is a small spacecraft looking pod where they kill them with gas. One thing I noticed about this is that the pod is very bright and seemed to be screaming the word "Sanctuary" at me. Within this dark place of suffering and fear, there is this bright device that takes the dog away from this hell that they are experiencing.

The film is efficient in making the viewer feel a certain way. One second you are smiling at the dog because it is showing progress and then there is a closeup of the dog snarling and eyeing something and your blood turns cold. One of the most nerve-wracking scenes was when the dog escaped from the compound and was going through the trash. The way in which the camera is setup, you can see around the corner that the dog is at. As the dog is tearing through the trash, you see a little black boy come out of the building and picks up a balloon and starts to blow it up completely unaware that a dangerous dog capable of killing is just ten feet away. Then, presumably, a school teacher comes out and retrieves the boy and as they are heading towards the inside of the building, the dog begins to go around the corner nonchalantly. Just as the dog comes around the corner and you are at peak stress, the boy and the teacher go into the building and both parties are unaware of each other. This was definitely onen of the most stressful scenes in the movie for me because the entire time you are biting your fingernails hoping that the dog doesn't kill the two.

One of the themes that really stuck with me throughout the film is that racism is a learned behavior. I very much enjoy movies that use these techniques because it is not out there but it is subtle enough that you have to think about what you just saw to get what the director was trying to say. Throughout the movie Keys is trying to cure the dog of racism but at the end they find that, although the dog is no longer attacking black people, the dog is still full of hate and attacks Carruthers. My personal theory is that the dog mistook Carruthers as his past owner and attacked him. From going online, I found that people have either agreed with me on that point or think that the hate from racism is still infecting the dog and that's why he attacked Carruthers.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie because of the film's techniques, emotions and themes. The only complaint that I really had is that the rape scene did not feel all that dire. It was really downplayed and the way that the cops acted convinced me that it was not a big deal. The fact that they said, "This guy again?" and then nonchalantly dragged him away really bothered me. Aside from that the film was remarkable and I definitely intend on picking this up when I find it in Barnes or Noble in the Criterion section.

2. I Spit On Your Grave(1978)

So I just watched this movie a few minutes ago. Before I go into what I think of this... interesting movie, let me get the boring shit out of the way. I Spit On Your Grave is a film directed, produced, written, and edited by Meir Zarchi(Or what my brain said the moment his name came up on the intro credits, "Siracha"). The movie is about a woman by the name of Jenny(Played by Camille Keaton) who is trying to live peacefully in a summer home so she can write her first novel after only writing short stories for her entire life. Then suddenly while she is out getting a tan she is dragged into the woods and raped repeatedly. Once the rapes end she crawls and sobs her way back to her summer home and is, again, raped. Once that ends, she cleans herself up and begins to plot her revenge. She "cut, chopped, broken, and burned" all of the men and ends the movie with her riding away in the boat that the men owned. I went into this movie with not much knowledge on what this movie was about except that a women got raped and then she goes on a rampage afterwards. Although that is basically the entire movie, I was not warned on how long those two plot points would be. The rapes were about 30 minutes long and her killing the men were about 40 minutes long. The remaining 30 minutes were dialogue and the intro of the movie. This film's content definitely brings down my opinion of the movie but there is definitely some good with this movie in terms of what it forces the reader to think about. Also I think the context of the movie is imperative to understand why this movie was made and why this movie is important to film, not in the artistic way obviously. And lastly, I will try to justify why this movie should not be censored and that there should be no cut parts in the film.

This movie has a horrid reputation for being, as Roger Ebert said, "A vile bag of garbage". The 30 minute rapes were very explicit and definitely will trigger an emotion that both discomforts you and angers you. This movie made me as uncomfortable as Deliverance(1972) did back when I was in 10th grade watching it with my dad. The only difference is that the victims are different sexes. I Spit On Your Grave was thought up after the director found an escaped rape victim as he was walking home. He found her "bloodied and naked" and so he took her to the police to try and catch the perpetrators. The cop took a while and eventually took her to the hospital. He was affected enough that he wanted to make the movie to show just how terrible and vile rape is. Honestly I feel like the killings were not bad enough, except for the guy who got castrated. I do not know how much worse their deaths could have been but it definitely could have been more. I did not like that the mentally ill man was being manipulated and forced to rape Jenny just so he could lose his virginity. His "friends" could have easily paid a prostitute to take care of that but they just had to resort to the horrible act of rape. I also did not like that Matt, the mentally ill man, decided to chug a couple swigs of alcohol to get the courage to rape Jenny. But at the same time I feel like the director put in that little piece to tell the audience that you should never drink when you are in a position to exploit a woman. Another thing I did not like about the movie was that it did not try to give any depth to the characters, even Jenny. We do not get many details about the characters; One man owns a gas station and has a wife and children, one man has overalls(that is literally the only thing I know about that character), there's a mentally ill man who is a virgin and works for a grocery store, and the final male character apparently smiles in a way that the gas station owner likes. Jenny is really the only character that has some depth but just enough to where you feel even worse about her when she is being raped. I wish they would have explored these characters some more in the beginning.

While I do think that the movie is a"vile bag of garbage", I do not think that it is all bad. First, I really like that the first interaction between characters were the gas station owner and Jenny. In this interaction you are immediately having thoughts in your head that something is going to happen later on between these two characters that are not good especially since the gas station owner says something along the lines of "You're going to really like this place" and gives her a coy smile. In the background of them the two nondeveloped characters that rape Jenny are playing the game Mumblety-Peg. I would like to think that this is an important detail but nothing is coming up in my mind but I like that the director had them do that rather than just sit in the back eye-goggling Jenny. Another thing that I liked was that the movie was very low budget because it gave us a grittier look to the film. I was expecting that the rape would've happened at night but I liked that it was during the day so that it could contrast this terrible act with a very wonderful looking day during the summer where the sun is high and the birds are chirping. One of my favorite parts in the movie is when the director takes out music to build up tension and suspense. One example is when Jenny is reading a book in her bed and the men are outside trying to lure her out. She comes out and is slowly walking around investigating. The entire time there is no music and there is nothing happening in the audio department. If this was a more mainstream movie that was trying to make as much money as possible, I know there would be this low buildup of instruments that reach this super loud ending that is supposed to be signalling something happening but nothing ever comes. Another example is when Jenny is crawling into her house after being raped and she is crawling towards the phone. You can see in the background if you look closely enough that there is a shadow of a person on the wall. It shifts once or twice but she, and the audience, don't really notice it. Then as she is listening to the phone ring, BAM it is kicked away from her. I can tell you that I am very happy that there was no buildup music or that god awful high pitched screech thing that happens every single time a jumpscare happens in mainstream horror movies now. This jumpscare was actually not annoying and did make me jump and immediately dread what was going to happen next. The second-to-last thing that I liked was that the only part that the audience knows Jenny wrote in her novel was a foreshadowing of her summer travel and experiences in the one little paragraph that she wrote. I liked that the characters went back to it a couple times because it was an important part of the film. The final thing that I liked was that Jenny came out on top. It gave the audience the satisfaction that she ended up winning because if she had ended up being locked in the basement of one of the men at the end, then the movie would've been that much worse for the viewer.

One of the big things that this movie is known for are the rapes. So much so that a large amount of the film cuts out most of the rapes and shortens the violence that the men experience later on in the film. I agree that this is a very vile subject to show on film but I do not think that any of it should be censored. Those scenes are there for a reason, to make the viewer feel hateful and be angry at the rapists. It is also there so that Jenny is justified to kill them all in gruesome ways. The message of the film to me is that the idea that rape is caused by the victim is totally false. There were various lines spoken that reminded me of what some government officials say to those getting raped, "Don't dress so scantily", and"You were asking for it". When the movie is censored to the point where the movie is just over an hour long instead of approaching the 2 hour mark like the original, you are losing the impact and the vitriol that the movie is supposed to invoke. With the Video Nasty movement in the UK, this movie was banned from many countries and toned down to the point that the movie was nowhere near the same as it used to be. The final thing that should be mentioned is that critics who saw the movie were saying that the movie glorified rape. I think it was the complete opposite of what was being shown on screen. The entire time I was horrified at what was happening and not once did I think, "Why is the director making this act look okay or that this is acceptable behavior?" The way it was shot showed that this was terrible and the great acting by Camille also told us that what was going on was not a good thing. It's the same thing when people say that Walking Dead glorified violence in the opening episode of Season 7. It didn't because of the way that the characters responded. A movie that does glorify violence is 300. Either way, this movie is just like all of the other movies in that they should not be censored because they are trying to invoke an emotion and a lot of it is removed when you cut out half of the movie.

Overall I guess I liked it. I did not like watching the movie but I acknowledge that this is a film. There is a message behind it and the scenes within are important to the director's vision of what this movie is. I doubt I will ever upgrade this movie to Bluray or I will ever buy a steelbook but I will probably hold onto the DVD because there's this feeling of obligation to hold onto this if you are a collector especially of the Video Nasty list, which I am working towards. This is definitely a good movie to show off if you want to bring the mood down during a movie night or a hangout session between friends.

3. Ghost World(2001)

In my quest to watch as many movies as I can in one year, I decided to pick up "Ghost World". One of the main reasons for me choosing this movie was because Criterion is releasing a remaster of it in May(I think). This was a really good movie. I did not realize how many familiar actors/actresses were in this movie. There was Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi, and David Cross; all of whom I have seen many films and TV shows that star them. The plot of the movie is that two high school graduate outsiders begin their adult life. Rebecca, Scarlet Johansson's character, is more liked and popular than Enid, Thora Birch. They have some fun messing with people and eventually find a newspaper ad where a guy named Seymour, Steve Buscemi, is looking for a woman that he had previously saw earlier in the week. They call him, posing as the woman, and follow him around so they can learn about him more. Enid ends up developing a crush for him but she is trying to help him find a date. The rest of the movie is great and I don't really like giving a summary. I enjoyed this movie because of the the characters, the message of the film, and the ending.

The characters in this film is what the film focuses on. The dialogue is amazing and very cynical. Doing background research has reminded me of the term "Black Humor" which I had completely forgotten about for so long. I enjoyed Enid's total cynicism and Rebecca's stoicism. Enid reminded me of myself because both me and her have this sour outlook of life, she goes above and beyond though on that outlook compared to me. Rebecca and I have this attitude of "let's just move on". Rebecca begins totally agreeing with Enid with how life is and slowly she begins to eyeroll when Enid says anything negative and then she gets in a verbal fight with her over that attitude. Let's talk about Seymour as he is a big focus of the movie too. I liked his character a lot because he also reminds me of myself. I am a collector just like him and we are both inept when it comes to the dating scene. We both enjoy music, he is on another level though, and spending time on the fringe. Being a "ghost" as one could say. I loved that chemistry that Enid and Seymour had because they are totally different in terms of age and yet they both relate so well to each other. There was this sense that they both liked each other but they were suppressing that feeling the entire movie until finally Enid broke from all of the rejection and isolation that she was slowly being overwhelmed with. I was really hoping that Enid would move in with Seymour but it would've been illogical for her character. She was never going to fit in with anybody and she is unable to make a real connection with anyone. A great part of this film is definitely the characters because I can relate with them much more than I could in the last movie that I reviewed and even the one before that one.

Another great part of the film is the message, or what I believe the message of the film is. I think that the message of Ghost World is "in order to be happy you must be able to find a purpose and something real within this materialistic/modern world". This movie showed us two outcasts who are trying to find something worth doing while trying to keep true to each other. Rebecca starts to move on but Enid is still stuck in the past. This causes a rift between them and strips another piece of Enid away from her. Eventually she is stripped of all happiness and she goes over to Seymour's house and drinks a lot of alcohol. She let's loose the feelings she has for Seymour and she admits that she has always wanted to just pack up and go. This is what ends up making her happy. Looking at reviews on IMDB a lot of people had interpreted that she went off and killed herself. I doubt she did that because she did not seem to be suicidal. I believe that the bus represented acceptance. Norman(?) had, in my opinion, accepted that the bus was going to come even if there was no evidence for it. And sure enough, the bus arrived and he boarded it. Enid had finally accepted that she would never be able to fit in with the real world and that she would have to live on in her Ghost World somewhere else away from her friends, family, and possessions. A Ghost World to me is the concept that while the overall community is going on with their shared reality and world, each person within has their own Ghost World that no one sees. Everyone in this film was living in their own Ghost World. Enid had her own small reality going on, Rebecca had just her job, Seymour had record collecting in his Ghost World, and Norman had his bench. I guess to round off this paragraph, I have my movie collection and school work that only goes on in my Ghost World.

The final part of the film that I liked was the ending. As I said before, the bus was a metaphor for acceptance. Norman had accepted his purpose of waiting for a bus that would never come and Enid had accepted that she would never be able to find anything real within this small community. I think that Enid did not go to kill herself, as a lot of people online think she did, but that she went away so she could start fresh. She was so ingrained in this negativity and cynicism that there was no other choice but to leave. She is leaving behind a bad part of her that makes her hate everything and to judge anything and everything that is around her. I do feel bad for Rebecca because she will probably never see her childhood friend again. Enid just up and left without telling Rebecca, Seymour, and her family a thing. I do believe that it was necessary that she do that because she would not have been able to get away from the fake connections that she had and she would be forever unhappy. From what I was reading online, the studio wanted them to end the movie with Enid marrying Seymour and Rebecca marrying Josh. I think this would've been the worst ending for an otherwise great movie because it would feel so contrived and it is not natural for any of the characters.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie. I loved the message of looking for something real in an otherwise hollow world and the characters were my favorite part of the movie. I am very excited that this movie is being picked up by Criterion because when I was researching the film after watching it, there was a lot of talk about bright colors and that the cinematography was supposed to show comic-book style but I did not see this. Maybe when I get this on Bluray Criterion I will be able to see what they mean and I will keep an active eye out. I will definitely pick this up with the measly amounts of money that I have whenever this comes out in the coming months.

4. Blue Is The Warmest Color(2013)

After a week of hardwork with the capstone paper and my geography 300 paper all due within days of each other, I am now able to write up my review of a pretty recent French film called "Blue Is The Warmest Color". This movie is about a young woman, Adele, who falls in love with a blue-haired woman, Emma, when they meet at a gay bar. The movie chronicles the love life of Adele as she goes through various relationships and she always finds that although she is completely happy in the relationship, the other person never really shares the same view as her. Her life constantly goes up and down throughout the three hour movie but she still fights to keep her relationships no matter what.

The characters in this movie were pretty amazing if I say so myself. I found myself completely drawn to their personalities and interactions far more than any movie that I have seen recently. I especially liked Emma's personality because she is always looking to progress in life and her relationships are kind of a way for her to cope through the hardships of her life. Meanwhile, Adele wants to be in a loving relationship with someone over having a stable job. An example of this is Emma always asking her if she has a job and if she is getting enough money. I really liked the twos' parents too because they are very real in the way that they interact with their kids and take interest in their life. Adele's parents are far more conservative and simple than Emma's. I related with Adele on this because my parents are the same way as hers. Both of our parents are always wanting us to find the best in our jobs and our food choices are far less exquisite than Emma's. Adele's parents cook simple foods like pasta while Emma's parents make exquisite food that takes a lot of preparation and the display is very reminiscent of a high-rated restaurant. Adele's parents are not very supportive of Emma's art pursuits and assumes that her husband must make a lot of money in order to support her and her hobby. Another aspect of Adele's parents being different to Emma's is that Emma's parents are very open to their relationship while Adele's has no idea. They are also very supportive of Emma's art goals and actually are quite knowledgeable in the arts. The characters are what really made the film. If I saw this movie in high school instead of in college, I would've only liked the film because of the lesbian sex scenes.

Sexuality is a very important part of "Blue Is The Warmest Color". The entire movie is dedicated to Adele learning about her sexuality. In the beginning of the film she is dating a guy from her high school. They have sex once or twice but Adele just doesn't understand the appeal. She has a very stoic face during it and seems totally uninterested. As they are walking through a crowd one day on the way to the park she sees Emma for the first time. She is completely drawn away from what she was doing just to look at Emma. It was love at first sight for her. She assumes she'll never see her again so she gives up ever seeing her again and goes to a gay bar with her gay male friend. She is enjoying it when she looks across the room and sees Emma. They meet and they hit it off pretty well. Emma is a couple years older and is already in college for an art degree. They then jump right into a relationship and have sex for the first time. The shots in this scene are very intense. There's a lot of closeups on the character's faces and body which I believe the director did to force us to be intimate with the characters as much as the characters are to each other. They officially begin to date and a year or two pass and they start to drift apart. Emma has graduated and has a sizeable gallery for the art that she did of Adele. Adele is getting pretty jealous of Emma and a girl that has been hanging out with Emma the entire night and begins to have sex with a guy who is a part of the day care that she works at during the college semesters. They fight when Emma finds out about the cheating and break up and Adele is completely devastated. They meet back up after a few years to catch up and invite Adele to an art gallery that she is having for some pretty big names in the city that this movie takes place in. The movie ends with Adele just leaving the gallery and walking down a street alone. This movie I think is a way for people to see lesbianism and sexuality in general to be a very beautiful thing that we can experience. Every sex scene is pretty intense because of the closeups and the performances that the actors are doing.

The last thing that I want to talk about is the role that the color blue takes in this movie. When I came across this film I did no research into it except for what the back said. I assumed that this was going to be a very artsy movie because the front cover had a pretty intense picture of Emma and Adele kissing. I knew that I should be paying attention to everything blue because the title of the film emphasized the importance of blue. I noticed right away that the colors throughout the movie are some sort of blue. Whether it's light or dark, there is always blue lingering somewhere in the frame. I was pretty happy to notice that every single outfit that Adele wore was mostly colored blue. Sometimes she would be wearing a dark jacket or coat and when something sad began to happen or there was some strong emotion going through her, she would take it off and reveal a very blue shirt underneath. Towards the end of the movie there was this one take that was about 30 seconds or so based on my recollection where everything was blue in the frame except for her skin. The buildings, the walls, the crowd's clothes, everything. I had to just laugh out loud because throughout this film the color blue was slowly becoming more and more and at the end Adele was about to have another sobfest on the way to the gallery so everything was blue as the camera followed her as she walked through the city to get to Emma's gallery.

Overall this movie was very beautiful and is definitely one that deserves all the praise. I was very surprised to hear that the director had shot over 800 hours of footage for this movie because the movie was not all that complicated. There were long takes of dialogue but I have never heard of a movie having this long of footage being shot. I can definitely see this movie becoming better and better as I watch it over and over again. Although I have not really explored French New Wave, this definitely has opened my eyes to what I can expect out of this genre.

5. Birdman(2014)

This movie was badass. And not in the beat-em-up way but in the way that the film was shot. Birdman is a dark comedy starring Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton, and Zach Galifianakis who all work with Keaton's character to get a play working and performed successfully. They go through some bumps in the road (A cast member getting his head split open, Keaton's character slowly becoming insane as the movie goes on, and some other issues that normally come up in a play) and they get through them but not without consequence. There were funny moments in the film that you definitely did not want to laugh at but before you realized how terrible it was to laugh you find yourself in a much darker theme that goes deep into Keaton's character.

The film has an amazing cast and they played their roles perfectly. The timing was great, they really made you feel like you were watching through a window instead of a camera, and they did not play the roles that they were known for. For example, Zach Galifianakis did not play an idiotic fat guy like in the Hangover movies but instead a very stressed out agent who made sure that Keaton's character did not fall behind on his life or his schedule with his play. Edward Norton was amazing as he is in all of his movies. When Norton's character came in I immediately believed that he was going to be the main character. He had an amazing introduction with his quick wit and being able to figure out the lines without having to read the script. This little detail made me think that his character had a superpower just like Keaton's character but it was never really explained so in my head he did have a superpower that allowed him to predict lines for a play. Keaton was pretty great in this and I realized that this may have been the first movie that I saw with him in it. He played a superhero that is no longer relevant. We start with him right in the middle of him preparing himself and the cast of the play. He can move objects with his mind and only uses it out of sight until finally he breaks. Every scene with Keaton made me realize that I should check out more of his stuff. Keaton made me believe that he was actually a psycho who was still fighting with everyone just to become relevant again.

The best aspect of the film aside from the cast was definitely the cinematography. The film is shot as if the entire movie is one single take. I had no idea the movie was like that until about 5 minutes in and I realized that the scene had not changed angle or direction. The movie feels like you are a bystander in the events of the characters' lives. As if you are an audience member in a theater show. The camera doesn't cut every few seconds to show the characters' reactions but the camera itself moves back and forth or cleverly uses mirrors so we can see both of their faces at the same time. One of my favorite parts in the movie was when we were following a character and then that character acknowledges another. Once acknowledged, the camera shifts focus to that character and starts to follow them around. Leaving the last character to do whatever he/she needs to do. This movie gives us a sense that the entire movie is a single knot with many ropes intertwined with each other. Each rope is a character and they go this way and that while all of the characters make up the knot or the story. In The Protector with Tony Jaa, there is a 7 minute long single-take scene that blew me away the first time I saw it so when I realized that this entire movie was basically a single-take scene, I was delighted and excited to immerse myself in this film. That is all I have to say about this movie. I am trying out this idea I've had where I will be doing 3 paragraphs instead of 5 that way it is faster for me to write and it will allow me to not try to fluff up my review to reach 5 paragraphs. Either way, watch this movie. You will not regret it.

6. Whiplash(2014)

Whiplash is such a great film. It had everything that I like; a great cast, good music, and a very focused story with no hiccups. Whiplash is about a college freshman who has dreamt of being the best of the best in the drumming world. He looks up to great musicians like Louis Armstrong and other jazz musicians that I am not that familiar with. He is recruited onto an ensemble group with JK Simmons as the teacher. He is ruthless and pushes all of the students to their limits both physically and mentally. He throws chairs, he gets in the faces of students who are making the most minor mistake, and kicks out any student as if he was becoming a better person by doing so. One second the teacher is being a very supportive and loving human being but then quickly switches over to his mean side. The freshman just seems to be unable to meet the standards of the teacher. The movie never fails to make you uncomfortable and tense.

I like everything in this film, as I said earlier. The thing I like most though is the character relationships and how they impact the story. Throughout the entire movie we only know about four to five people. The drummer, the teacher, the girlfriend and the father of the drummer. In the beginning of the movie we know nothing about the characters but as the movie goes on we slowly learn more and more about each character. We begin to understand why they are the way they are. JK Simmons may be a dick to every single person on the planet but you actually understand why he is that way. He wants there to be a new wave of great jazz with musicians who are just as good as the classics. The drummer is a pretty boring guy in the beginning but as the movie goes on you see a dull character begin to fill with life and purpose. He fights back against JK Simmons and is trying to prove his teacher wrong that he cannot be the very best. The final concert of the movie is one full of emotion and tension as the student finally shows his teacher that he does have potential. With one of the final shots being JK Simmons smiling and showing approval, the watcher finally takes a breath out and all tension is released. It is a great feeling especially coming from a film.

There is nothing that really bothers me about this film except for the romantic part of the movie that lasted about fifteen minutes and did not add much except to show that the drummer was really to do anything to become the best. We already had plenty of scenes to show us that such as his hands becoming a bloody mess when practicing or him going over ninety miles an hour to get to a concert on time. But aside from that the movie was flawless in my eyes.

7. Driller Killer(1979)

Driller Killer is a mixed bag for me. Driller Killer is a movie about an aspiring artist who is struggling to make ends meet. He gets letters from the electric company and telephone company saying that he hasn't paid any of his bills in months. His landlord is always knocking on his door asking about the rent. A buyer is constantly asking about his buffalo painting that he has taken up a lot of time doing small edits to an otherwise finished art piece. Eventually it all becomes too much and he goes on a killing rampage with a power drill. The main character really reminded me of Jim Morrison throughout the entire movie. His hair and his facial structure made me want to turn on a Doors' record and watch this. The band that played downstairs to the "Driller Killer" reminded me of the horror movies that came after this in which there was always a punk-rock band that slurred their way through songs and have pissed off every neighbor that has the misfortune to live on the other side of the wall of.

I feel like this movie was a little over hyped for me. I had been waiting to see this film in the remastered version by Arrow and once I got my hands on it, the final exams came up and it took me weeks to finally find the time to watch it. I played it on a large TV that my parents had, they were out of town thankfully at the time, and the budget was very low so I felt like I was watching a movie filmed with a camcorder like Blair Witch Project. The gore wasn't as extreme as I thought it would be. It was still a violent movie that is understandably on the Video Nasties' list but never was I like "ewww" when he started drilling into someone. I guess I expected closeups of the Driller Killer drilling people with bone fragments flying everywhere and flesh being exposed. A lot of the kills in this movie had the Driller Killer drilling into the clothes so blood would come out like a shower but never did we see the main character with blood on his clothes or person. I enjoyed the movie for what it was but I definitely think the marketing could've toned down the promises that were on the cover. This was definitely a B-Horror movie with too much hype.

(Update)

I still do not get this film despite two more viewings since writing this review but it becomes more apparent that I just don't like this movie. What I would've done would be to have the main character slowly going insane by the punk band playing the same song over and over again. As the film goes on he slowly kills off the band one by one with the final band member being the vocalist and the death could be something ridiculous like drilling through his larynx while he's alone practicing despite not having a band. The cover art is in my opinion the worst thing they could've chosen. They chose the most gory kill in the movie and it doesn't even happen until the end of the film. They should've gone with something a little more subtle and non-spoilery.

8. Moana(2016)

Moana is one of those movies that makes you feel good the entire time. From the visuals to the audio, this movie was very amazing. What brought me to watch this film was more the fact that Lin Manuel-Miranda had a big hand in doing the musical tracks in this movie. I am a big fan of Lin's musical Hamilton and so when I heard that he had done a lot of the music of this film I got excited. I do not go to the theaters often so I did not catch it back during the theatrical release in 2016. I thought about getting the movie on Steelbook but it was around $30 and it sold out day one on Zavvi. I heard that Netflix had scored a deal with Disney in which they would be releasing all their new movies on Netflix when they released on home video. Very recently they released it and I watched it. I was very happy to find that it was good. I think this one was definitely better than Frozen but I still love both.

Moana is about a Polynesian girl who has been chosen by the ocean to bring back a demigod, Maui, to a dangerous island to return its heart. They do not like each other right off the bat but they learn to like each other. They experience a few hardships such as a pirate crew of coconuts, a jazzy crab that made me think of the Oogie Boogie Man from Nightmare Before Christmas, and the island itself. The movie is spread from when she's a baby all the way to her early twenties. Moana, and the audience, learn about her village's history and discovers that they used to be seafarers. Her father is very adamant that no one ever go beyond the reef so this presents Moana with a dilemma. As she's trying to figure it out her grandma suddenly dies following Moana's discovery that her village used to sail the seas. Her grandma tells Moana that she must go beyond the reef and find Maui. Moana agrees and leaves that night. The rest of the movie is her finding Maui, convincing him to help her bring the heart back to the dangerous island of Te Fiti, and then deliver the heart. This movie is a lot of fun and any age will enjoy it.

9. Moonrise Kingdom(2012)

Moonrise Kingdom is an okay film. Wes Anderson directs this romantic comedy about a boy scout and a sheltered girl. I haven't watched many Wes Anderson movies, except Fantastic Mr. Fox, but the reactions about him are either high praise or deep annoyance. I am about halfway with him on this movie. The first thing I noticed while watching this was the way that he framed his shots and his pastel colors. At first I was impressed about his shots but it slowly became annoying. I really appreciated the shots but it slowly became pretentious for me and distracted me the entire movie. His characters were very bland and dry the entire movie. There was no emotional investment in the story for me. Many people say Anderson is a master at his craft and that all his films are masterpieces but I don't see it in this one. I was pretty excited to watch Moonrise Kingdom because I went to a boy scout summer camp every summer from the year 2008 all the way until last year. I was eager to see how Anderson was going to cash in on that nostalgia but I was left with boredom. I do not know how he screwed up with the talent that he had in his disposal. Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis. None of these cast members had interesting characters. They never had shining moments to showcase their skills and there was nothing exciting about their performances. I went online to do some more research into why everyone loved this movie but all I got was "beautiful" and "the best movie ever". Whenever I found an opinion that was similar to mine the commenter was downvoted to oblivion and was attacked. But I did find a few people saying that Wes is a "either hate him or love him" sort of director. I guess I am the former.

10. Amadeus(1986)

Amadeus is an alternate version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's life. The entire movie is dedicated to the rivalry between Mozart and fellow composer Antonio Salieri. In real life Salieri did have some qualms with Mozart but they both had great respect in each other as composers. This movie explores a what if scenario where Salieri is driven by jealousy and plans to kill Mozart. Salieri commissions a Requiem from Mozart that will play during Mozart's funeral. This movie is very interesting but I do have to say that the runtime could've gone down a bit. There were a lot of back and forth scenes between the two where Mozart believes that Salieri is helping Mozart when it's actually the opposite. The sets were amazing and upon research I found that they actually filmed a lot of the concerts in the actual music halls that Mozart did his compositions. The cinematography was pretty good but nothing notable or groundbreaking. The acting was superb and the main cast that played Mozart and Salieri were phenomenal. F. Murray Abraham, who played Salieri, was a total scene stealer. Every time he was in the frame I was completely hooked. I enjoyed this movie and I applaud Zavvi on making such a beautiful steelbook for a beautiful movie.

11. Eraserhead(1977)

Eraserhead is David Lynch's confusing masterpiece. This film really captures what makes Lynch a master in cinema. The movie is weird, it has the best atmosphere, and it doesn't outright tell you what is going on. I enjoyed this movie far more than Mulholland Drive but I still loved Mulholland. With Mulholland Drive you feel like you know what is going on until the last 15-30 minutes. With Eraserhead, you don't know what is going on throughout the movie. There's a lot of talk about what the hell this movie is but no one can come to an agreement. After watching this film, I feel like I have a reasonable interpretation. I should note that I haven't looked at anyone else's so maybe someone already thought of this but oh well.

So here it is. Henry, the main character, has cancer. The baby was a metaphor for the cancer. Throughout the movie we see these people with various grotesques that resemble rumors but Henry doesn't have a tumor but he does see this baby that cries and laughs and all that while he tries to sleep but he is kept awake by it. Except it's not a baby and it's a coughing fit from his cancer. His wife can't stand hearing his cough all night so she leaves him. In the end we see him cutting open the bandages and he finds that the bandages were the flesh. When he opens it we can see the lungs perfectly and it is covered in blackish liquid which represents tar, what smoking causes. One thing that also supports this theory that i just remembered is the fact that when he gets a nosebleed we find out that the baby was premature which means that his cancer came much earlier than the doctors thought. We never saw him smoking because he had already quit. He had already consulted the doctors. This movie is a document of him rapidly declining in health because of the tumor baby and the last shot of him is of a woman in white embracing him and then the movie cuts out. The cancer has claimed another victim. Side note though with her is that we saw the same tendril in Henry's room as we saw in her theater performance that was dropping all around her and her stomping on them. That's what I think this movie is about. A man's struggle of living as the cancer drives him towards death.

Whether this is correct or even coherent doesn't matter to me as much. It's the fact that this movie is ambiguous enough that many people can come up with various theories and support them through the imagery that Lynch shows throughout the film. That's about all I have to say about this movie but overall I really enjoyed this film and will rewatch it in the future with my theory in mind because, to be fair, I only thought of it towards the end so I wasn't able to look out for many supporting pieces. Just some from memory. Go out and watch it and let me know what you think through the new page "Contact Me". It'll mean a lot to me to hear your theory about what was going on in the film.

12. Requiem for a Dream(2000)

Requiem for a Dream is quite amazing simply put. The movie is about the desire to reach happiness by four individuals; Harry, his girlfriend Marion, his mother Sara, and his friend Tyrone. In the beginning all of these characters are normal everyday people who have problems. Harry starts out as a lazy man who just hangs about with Tyrone and does drugs. His girlfriend is a recovering addict and Harry's mother is glued to the television screen all day. All of these characters are addicted to one thing or another. Drugs, television, the pursuit of happiness. Harry, Marion, and Tyrone find out that there's a stronger heroin being spread around the city so they decide that they're going to get involved in selling it but they end up slowly becoming addicted to the drug. Harry ends up having to get his arm amputated by the hospital since the injections have caused an infection. Marion becomes a depressed prostitute who relies on the drugs to stay happy. Tyrone is arrested for being black, as evidenced by the fact that his previous false arrest was not even brought up by the officers who arrested him, even though he had no part and he was trying to save Harry from his infection. And Sara is now a mental patient of an asylum.

All of these characters find themselves in worse situations than they were in the beginning of the movie. Each character wanted to be happy. One example is Tyrone who just wanted to be the son that his mother could always be proud of. We are shown through flashbacks that Tyrone was very close to his mother and she always wanted to see him succeed. Anytime he gets high he sees his mother caring for him as a child and telling him that she loves him. The final shot of his story is him balled up in bed while a shot of his mom sleeping with her arms around him in the same position plays. His story is just as if not more tragic than the other characters. He wasn't being arrested for committing a crime. He was arrested because of his skin color.

Sara is also a very tragic character because from the beginning she wants to be skinny. We see her struggle with temptations from the fridge as she tries out different diets. She eventually starts taking prescription drugs which cause her to slowly lose her sense of self. She takes higher doses at a time as the story progresses and eventually she has hallucinations. Her son returns at around the middle of the film and she expresses that she's alone and has no friends. He tells her that that is untrue because she sits and chats with various other middle aged women throughout the film. She says that that doesn't count because they don't care about her. At the end of the film though she is visited by two of the women and they are seen breaking down after seeing the withered state of Sara in the mental asylum.

This is definitely a film that I will be rewatching in the future and I highly recommend to everyone.