The Godfather Review (Non-Analytical Version 9.6/10)

We enter into the film in darkness. All we hear is the plea of a broken man sickened with rage and disgust towards the legal system. When the judge and the jury are dead to those that desire help, the godfather stands ready to give justice. As we pull out we see more into the dimly lit business room and peer through the eyes of the highly esteemed Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando). Vito is the brains behind the operation, the hands behind the action, and also the face behind the masque of Red Death. If any oppose Red Death he shall give them "an offer they can't refuse."

Vito and his new client exit from the darkened business room and into the light. Outside we see the fruits of the Corleone clan. There is a wedding with dancing, drinking, a large and unnecessary cake (like most weddings have), and Italian festivities. Through the course of the wedding we see Sonny (James Caan), Fredo (John Cazale), and Michael (Al Pacino) Corleone—or Vito’s three sons.

After all the festivities and all the joy and happiness and backdoor dealing we see a new face in town. He’s a narcotics dealer that goes by the name of Sollozzo (Al Lettieri). The narcotics dealer comes to Vito in hopes of money and protection. When Vito says that narcotics is a dirty business, there is bad blood and whenever there is bad blood there is sure to be blood. Hopes collide, gun fights come about, and a war erupts between the other families within the cities. All question the style of leadership Vito has and the only question left for the Corleone family is “What is the legacy of the clan going to look like?”

My personal opinion of this movie is that although the movie is wonderful but overhyped. There are many scenes that are well known that really didn’t impact me the way it seemed to have impacted everyone else. To me, the most beautiful part of the movie was the fade in towards the beginning but the iconic scene in [i]Godfather[/i] is the part where the horse head shows up at the end of the bed or the shooting scene near the end where there’s background music. The next part of this movie that strikes me as wonderful is the way the screenwriter reveals Vito and Michael to the audience. But there are some characters that feel so flat that we can’t connect. I feel like the lack of connection with Connie (Talia Shire) makes the audience not be able to connect with her when we should be connecting with her the most (or connecting with one of the brothers the most afterwards).

I would definitely recommend this movie but I would say go into the movie with an open mind and don’t expect the greatest movie of all time that will blow your mind and send it just bowing at it because it’s just that good. It’s a great movie and if you like action, gore, and don’t mind a little verbal jousting then this is just the movie for you (there’s even a cute romance subplot to boot).

Final rating: 9.6/10

Apocalypse Now (Analytical/SPOILER Version)

For those that look at this blog be sure to know this post has major spoilers.

Within the movie Apocalypse Now there is a realism that deems it the title "great" instead of just impressive. Apocalypse Now does not show it's theme and central message through the dialog but rather through the actions and cinematography.

At the beginning, there is a battle in a village, and the theme of war and how destructive and terrible war is just lashes out at the audience. In order to encompass what war really is there had to be an element of terrible grandness. In the first battle scene there weren’t close ups, there was no main character just fighting on his own like a James Bond film, or Casablanca, or Saving Private Ryan, but rather there was a large fight. Explosions were everywhere. People were dying left and right and to see all of it was a terrifying but awe-inspiring shot. After that they prepare audience to react to Kilgore. Colonel Bill Kilgore is a man that is gun ho about killing and gung ho about gore and gung ho about the "smell of napalm in the morning." They prepare the audience to scowl and to wonder why he loves to fight and kill via this large scene of killing and destruction upon those that seem innocent (the Vietnamese women and children). As the war rages on, there is a broken church in the background. The depth of focus is not on the soldiers in this one scene, but rather on the church, making the brokenness and the sadness of war only a little more real.

Another part of this barbarism within war is not only within this small but symbolic picture but also there are more subliminal decisions (and I’m not talking about the two phallic symbols within the course of the film). The more subliminal decisions are the ones with the tiger stripes and the incorporation of that color scheme within the film. The tiger first appears in the scene where Chef and Willard are out of the boat. Within the jungle a tiger jumps out of the forest and starts to attack and at first they run away from the forest and barbarism and tiger. Later they embrace it and even Roach has a gun that has tiger stripes. There’s face paint with green stripes and there’s more animalistic qualities to each person as they enter into the jungle more and more. Purple haze is introduced as the haze between what is human and what is animalistic in war starts to get hairy and blurred.

At the end of this whole movie, camera angles also take a role in how the cinematography conveys the theme. The camera angles shows Kurtz, when Willard first finds him in the darkness, at a high angle so that Kurtz looks hunched like an animal. He rubs his head and mumbles and the whole time people want to see him but the camera angles and the lighting and the color of the whole frame prevents us from seeing him truly. As the movie progresses we see less darkness in him and we see more of his face. The movie ends at last with the camera angles showing Willard up high and Kurtz down low as Willard kills Kurtz like the natives kill a caribou ceremonially. The whole thing is bloody and barbaric and yet it conveys the theme so much. As much as the movie is unsettling, that was the main theme and the point of the movie in general. I love how elegantly Kurtz puts war in the end when Willard kills him via the knife.

“The horror…the horror…”

Apocolypse Now (Non-Analytical Review) 8.7/10

The next movie that I've watched is Apocalypse Now. The whole theme of the story is based loosely on a book by Joseph Conrad called Heart of Darkness. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is on a mission to assassinate a devout soldier of the military who has "lost himself" as the movie so eloquently phrases it. According to the reports Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), an A class soldier, has been using that natives and asserting himself as a god to fulfill his own agendas.

Captain Willard experiences a dramatic change from within from sanity and civilization to madness and jungle and anarchy. The transfer from all this is smooth and the character of Willard might shock those who start to assume stuff from him. This movie shows the complete package of war. Through the movie we see that the more that Captain Willard learns about Kurtz, the more he understands the mindset of the jungle and the more he and the crew grows towards madness.

That is the only warning I give to those who want to view the movie. If you are looking for a Casablanca or a James Bond movie. This man is no hero or saint. This man is a soldier trained to kill and not to question those that have authority over him. There is killing of those that are innocent. There are those that seem normal but aren't. The stress and the decay of society and the tumult to chaos is completely evident within the movie. **A cow is literally butchered in a movie (it was filmed in the Philippines). If this makes you queasy then don't watch this movie--or turn away when you see a cow standing in the middle of a circle of natives**

The movie in short is wonderfully made and might make me feel uncomfortable, but in the end I would say that this story is very well written and the themes and the symbols are displayed elegantly throughout. I'd give it a 8.7/10 because it has great cinematography, the storyline is cohesive, the characters are somewhat frustrating but understandably so, and the gore is tasteful as well.

Diving Bells and Butterflies (analytical/regular review) 9.5/10

"The Diving Bell and Butterflies" is a cinematic masterpiece where the mind and the heart of Jean-Dominique Bauby is translated without flaws. From the more surreal dream scenes where ice falls to the ocean to the more realistic scenes where he eats dinner with a special someone, the audience is drawn by Jean-Dominique's (Mathieu Amalric) saucy charm. The beginning of this ravishing French film reveals Jean-Dominique's condition the most. The audience at the beginning experiences a waking up. His vision is blurred. There's a feeling of nausea as the people speak in gibberish and the television is blurred. Everyone around seems like a block of pixels.

Jean Dominique learns he has locked-in syndrome. He's paralyzed from head to toe with the exception of his left eye where he is able to see and blink. He can’t talk, can’t eat, and some even call him a vegetable (Jean would ask, “What kind of vegetable? A carrot?” His one eye plays an important role within the rest of the film as he tries to overcome locked-in syndrome and try to talk with other people in a language all his own. He has to speak through blinking and with the help of his two nurses.

The wonderfulness is not within the complexities of the shots or anything of that sort but rather the simplistic and yet accurate first person view. When Jean Dominique comes out of his coma, we see doctors and equipment and when it all comes into focus and the lens is able to see features like noses and eyes, they almost intrude into our personal space. They look into our eyes, into Jean-Dominique’s. The experience is refreshing compared to the movies where the shots are in the distance to see a missile shooting at a large robot and there’s a huge explosion. Instead of seeing a grand forest, we as an audience get to see the single tree.

The character of Jean Dominique might be the breaking point for many people watching the film for he’s a smug character, full of sarcasm and wit. For those that do not appreciate biting sarcasm and some wit here and there, they might not appreciate the character. There is though another side that cares about others and can reflect about a situation. When he is with the nurses at first, Marie (Olatz López Garmendia) and Claude (Anne Consigny) he first takes a look at their boobs and deems them well enough to be his nurses. There is a saucy side to him but as he gets to know them more he sees more than just the bodies, he sees Marie is a devout Christian and that Claude cares for him and wants to make him better and he matters to her.

Essentially through all the cinematography of us seeing through his eyes and through us relating to his humor and his family the audience is rooting for him to get better. There’s a draw to him. The human experience, what everyone seems to care about is deeply endowed in the story. The main draw of this movie is to show the human experience trapped in a body which can’t speak, talk, or even swallow properly. The power of the human imagination is strong and we are able to see through his eyes. His imagination becomes our own and we are able to see and yearn what he yearns for.

Overall I'd give it a 9.5/10 since it has amazing cinematography a great storyline and a great amount of symbols that make a second viewing great.

In Bruges 8.9/10

The movie "In Bruges" is a masterpiece. Each part of the movie plays an integral role and at the same time no part is lacking in quality. Ray (Colin Ferrell), a young boy in an adult body, and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), an old man, are told by their employer to stop in Bruges, a fairytale like town in Belgium. The two of them are hitmen and during the course of the movie Martin McDonagh (the writer and director) reveals that Ray killed a priest for money and accidentally killed a boy in the process. They also talk about life, death, and all things in between.

Each character is so different and is set apart by the way they speak. Ray is a profane asshole and the beauty of the screenplay is that his mannerisms and the things he says after his insults are just so charming. An example is when there's a rather large couple thinking of going up to a tower and when they ask Ray if he'd been there he says that "you can't go up there" and when they ask why he says "cause you're a bunch of fuckin' elephants that's why!" Humor like that is easy to come by but pulling it off is the key.

The whole movie in general is an action filled, comedy filled movie, that has stuff there for a second look into the movie for a deeper meaning, but it's not great for the kids so keep them home. Their journey will hopefully become yours as you run away from those trying to kill them and as you walk into memory lane with Ray and Ken.

I guess this movie gets an 8.9 out of 10 because the language wasn't really needed and there was an element of unrealistic character development within Ray as he develops from a child to a child still. The rest is simply phenomenal!