The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

This movie is a classic example of the American Horror genre.  It is full of suspense and was created using the Hollywood format of horror films.  Personally, it is one of my all time favorites because it has the ability to suck me in every time I watch it.  It is quite the iconic film that is often referenced to in pop culture.

It is both horrifying and entertaining which is why it has stood the test of time and is still very popular.

Modify (2005)

This movie is an expository documentary about the various forms of body modification practiced out there today-- mostly focusing on the US.  It is shot mostly in interview form without hearing or seeing the interviewer, spliced in with footage of performances, surgeries, branding, etc.  It goes in depth with why they do it and the fascinating insight of their personal beliefs and philosophy.  It's inspiring how they can do such extreme things with their bodies and not fear what others may think of them.  A good deal of it is very graphic and should not be seen by the light of heart, but it is definitely a good documentary to watch whether you have tattoos/ piercings or not.

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (2009)

This movie is about a grad student who is conducting research on why men think the way they do.  The entire movie is shot out of sequence and seems to go on tangents, not really following a specific story line.  This reminded me of the avant-garde film Sink or Swim.  The story is told in segments like that one, but it isn't as experimental as that one.

Another thing that is out of the usual form of the standard narrative movie is its genre hopping qualities.  It seems as though half of the movie is shot from the point of view of the interviewer, which gives the impression of a scientific trail or even a documentary.  The stories told by the interviewees are original, refreshing, and give insight to the characters as well as show honesty and vulnerability.

On the other hand, the movie is also shot as a typical drama.  These are usually shown to tell the story of the woman who is conducting these interviews.  We don't get much information of the life of this stoic woman or why she has shown interest in conducting this research until much later into the movie.  The movie skips around and does not tell the story in a linear fashion, but that is what adds to the overall message and feeling that the movie wants the audience to take away from it.

I thought this was an excellent movie with a great message, structured and executed in a creative and exciting fashion.  Apparently it was a hit or miss movie with most, which I definitely see how this isn't for everyone, but it was a hit with me.

Good Dick (2008)

This movie is about a 20-something male who works at a video store and starts to romantically pursue a female customer who regularly rents adult movies.  This romantic comedy dramatically strays from the common cliche's of the genre while staying true to its formula.

The story is told in linear chronology which works for this movie because it is about building relationships and figuring out who these people are at the same time that the characters get to know each other.  The main character takes the audience on the same journey that he is taking when he's trying to get close to the love interest and trying to figure out who she is.

The film had a straightforward storyline that the linear structure did a good job of telling, but what I definitely did not like about the film was its ending.  At the end, we get some insight into the female's background and a taste of why she was introverted and weird about sexual relationships and relationships in general, but I felt that the mystery unfolded too quickly.  The character development happened too quickly, making the end feel rushed.

On top of not giving a clear explanation of her past or why she changed her ways, the ending scene of her and her "boyfriend" meeting in front of the movie store, talking with no sound made this non-cliche movie have a cliche ending.  A movie that did such a good job for 90% of it, to end like that was disappointing.  It was completely out of character to have a 360 degree change of personality in just a few minutes.

Overall, it was a good movie, but if the ending was different it could have been a great one.

The Cell (2000)

The Cell is about a psychotherapist who goes into a comatose serial killer's mind in order to find out where he hid his latest victim.

Today, I will focus on sound with is very key to the creepiness that is trying to be portrayed in various scenes.  In the opening scene, the main character's voice is amplified with strong echo.  She is in a desert with a boy and the look is very dream like.  The echo-ey voice adds to the sensation of watching someone else's dream.

The music throughout adds suspense in all the right places.  It builds up and adds the shock value like any good thriller or horror/sci-fi movie.  The voice of the demon in the serial killer's dreams often has a very distorted voice that is, for lack of a better word, demonic.  It works as an indicator for when he is coming.  The music rising in pitch also lets the viewer know that the monster is close.

Another good use of sound that I noticed was when the main character and the killer are seen hooked up by the cables.  She is going through stress which is heard in her heavy breathing.  It almost makes the viewer feel like they can't breath either and increases panic.

This movie was very much about fantasy and sound played a big part in making these fantasies become reality.

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1958)

Plan 9 From Outer Space by director, Ed Wood, is infamous for arguably being the worst movie ever made.  Most film noir movies seem pretty bad or cheesy compared to today's technologically advanced movies, but even by 1958's standards, the film was a beloved disaster for multiple reasons.

Here, when the flying saucers are invading the planet, the editing and effects are very weak.  The long shot of the "sky" is on the screen for a very long time as sounds of gunshots are heard.  The camera remains static and so do the saucers, making for an uninteresting shot.

In this scene, the director chose to shoot it all in a single long shot.  Again, the camera adds little to nothing to this potentially terrifying scene.  The only interesting parts are when the camera goes to a medium shot on the alien and undead on the left, then cuts to the aliens on the right.  I think this could have been enhanced by unexpected shots and angles, such as exteme close ups, canted angles, and low angles.

The use of space and mise-en-sene were not taken full advantage of.  This scene, for example, could have been made a lot creepier if the space wasn't so vast and bright.  The sense of fear in cinema is most often achieved by having trapped places or if the place is open, it should not be well lit at all.  The graveyard could have benefitted by having something more than just two crosses.  A few tombstones would be nice, or even a mausoleum.  There was a small mausoleum in the film, but it wasn't very well built.  It looked too tiny and like it was made of cardboard.
Bad acting, story-telling, and set aside, I liked this movie because it's so bad that it's good.  It did it's job to remind us that Horror/Sci-Fi films can be fun and ridiculous if you ignore all the rules of good cinema.

The Tracey Fragments (2007)

The Tracey Fragments, a film about a 15-year-old troubled girl in search of her lost younger brother, is all about editing.  The entire movie relies heavily on non-linear story telling and displaying the visual content in a fragmented way that's almost a throwback to the comic book layout.  Director, Bruce McDonald, shoots a single scene multiple ways and displays it in the same frame.  This technique effectively displays the chaos, confusion, and vulnerability of the main character and how she sees the world.

Here we see, different close ups, extreme close ups, as well as different camera angles.  It seems as though the viewer is merely seeing different shots of the same thing, but each panel is focusing on a different aspect of the subject-- the necklace (a symbol of sibling love), her face admiring the necklace, her position to the mirror and how she smiles at her image rather than hate what she sees.  The warm colors and soft lighting indicate that this is a memory that Tracey charishes.

Here, the viewer is given a visual "biography" of Tracey's life without narration or dialogue pertaining to the images in a matter of a seconds.  In this way, the director gives you a sense of her early childhood quickly and without being too direct, leaving some things up to the interpretation of the viewer.  The drab colors, low lighting and dark backgrounds show that her childhood wasn't a particularly cheerful one.  The creepy, sad clown framed in the center is a dead give away.

In this scene, the director takes the classic, Eyeline Match method and turns it into something completely different, but it somehow keeps the same functionality that the traditional method would give.  Both of the characters are looking towards the camera, but the different panels give the impression that they are actually looking at each other.  Their faces aren't directly facing the camera but their eyes are given much attention to show that the other obviously knows that they are being watched, but don't want to admit that they are looking right back.

All of Tracey's appointments with her odd transvestite therapist are done in front of a bright white background in a bare space.  Although her meetings with this therapist are generally perceived as real events confirmed by her parents who send her there, this is where the viewer is indicated that reality and fantasy are increasingly blurring in Tracey's mind.  The fragments are a reflection of her life and mindstate, but fantasies like the ones she constantly has with school-mate, Billy Zero, show her imagination running wild and her desire for a different life.

Speaking of "running wild," in several instances throughout the film, animals are used to create metaphor, such as crows, but often there are references to horses.  In the clip above, Tracey runs away from home and while the song entitled "Horses" is playing, and image of a horse is spliced into the scene, replacing her as the running subject.  The shakey handheld camera used to film her running, in conjunction with the horse splicing, emphasizes her exasperation with her home life and her willingness to get away from it and find her brother.  The inside of her home is lit with soft amber lighting, but it serves as a deception of what family life is supposed to be.

In the end, it is odd to see the movie in a single frame.  It seems as though her mind is finally calm and accepting of what has happened to her and the severe emotional/mental problems that she has.  She repeats the line, "No one can stop me.  No one can make me stand still" as she walks, hugging the shower curtain that she has held on to in place of her clothes.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

This movie is the film adaptation of an off-Broadway musical about a transexual from East Berlin who eventually comes to the United States and tries to find herself and her "other half" through music and performance.  The star and director of it, John Cameron Mitchell, made it a point to keep the spirit of a theatrical performance alive in the film medium.  This is evident in various points in the movie where the band plays a song that draws the plot and message along.

The mise-en-scene in this film is key to the story-telling.  Hedwig's elaborate costumes reflect her personality and sometimes even important slogans as in the picture above.  Her cape reads, "Yankee go home...with me!"  It shows her feelings of not belonging and also her beliefs of peace for everyone.  She turns her sexuality into something playful or shocking, to get people's attention and get her message across.  The bright spotlight plays up the theatrics of the story.

The same can be said in the "Wig in a Box" scene that is over-the-top, which shows how Hedwig feels the need to be the one who's over the top and doesn't take herself seriously in order to feel better about herself and her situation.  The overhead long shot shows the stage and bright lights, which makes the eye focus on the small group of people surrounded by darkness and emptiness.  This is done to capture the good feeling of the moment and the feeling that nothing else around them matters.

The colors, for the most part are very bright throughout the movie except for the ending performance of  "Wicked Little Town" which is dark with dim lighting, "Midnight Radio" which is white with bright lights, and the scenes where Hedwig (Hansel) is in East Berlin.  Everything in Germany is portrayed as drab and is shot in pale blue/gray light.  The bag of German gummy bears shown above, shows Hedwig's childhood memories, when she couldn't express herself and felt oppressed.

Some interesting editing choices were during the opening song, "Tear Me Down" and "The Origin of Love" shown above.  During these two songs, performances are spliced with animated footage of childhood drawings.  The cuts emphasize the songs' meanings and pertinence to the story.  An editing choice during "The Origin of Love" is especially powerful when an extreme close up of Hedwig's emotional face takes up the whole scene.  It is there for a few seconds, but then the screen is split in two, showing her face and the animations.  I thought this choice made the message really hit home especially because it seems that she is singing directly to the viewer.

Overall, I think this was a beautifully shot film, and although some people might not like it or quite understand what it's about, it is extremely creative and a true work of art.

The Piano (1993)

 

This Jane Campion movie is about a mute widow and her daughter in the 19th century, who are forced to move to New Zealand thanks to an arranged marriage.  Although the main character is unable to speak, the cinematography and mise-en-scene are rich enough to add much information to the story so that the audience is taken along the ride without any sense of deprivation.

Like these still shots suggest, The Piano is full of long shots and extreme long shots to show the vastness of the landscapes, signifying isolation as well as possiblility.  Many times, it is also used to highlight the sense of smallness that the character may be feeling at the moment.  Deep and shallow focus is also used to emphasize these themes.  The colors remain dark and bleak throughout the film, which reflects Campion's American Gothic influences.

Other parts of the movie, however, contrast with the theme of loneliness by utilizing multiple close up shots to show intimacy.  Costumes are used to display connections between characters, such as the tight bond between mother and daughter.  The use of symmetry, such as in the photo above, also suggests that the characters are so close, they are almost like the same person.

Light plays a big part in creating intimacy and is used to contrast the coldness of the outside world.  We see warm colors and light mostly in Baine's house and when Ada and her daughter are talking to each other, usually before bedtime.  Unfortunately, I can't find the pictures of the pretty amber light shown when the mother and daughter are together...