Boyz n the Hood

Where do you even start with this movie. It's one of my favorites of all time. It's a real shame that the projector was broken and we couldn't see so much of the film. Like I said in class, I really enjoy near the beginning of the movie when they show the Reagan posters peppered with bullet holes. It's a nice little jab at Reaganomics and the effect that it had on the poorer parts of the country.

One of the great things about this movie is how it shows the way in which good parents are such an asset. Tre, the main character, has his mother who has earned a masters degree and works full time, and his father who is a Vietnam veteran and a great role model. Because of this he is responsible and is able to go to school, work a job, and get into college. Doughboy on the other hand, has only his mother, who is on welfare and unemployed. She absolutely fails to be any kind of decent role model and because this Doughboy doesn't do much but hang out on the porch drinking forties with his friends. His mother also treats him rather poorly which I feel has a rather large impact on his behavior. He is actually one of the smartest characters in the film, but his mother gives him no credit and I believe this causes him to act out. The film also mentions on numerous occasions how common it is for fathers to bail on the kids, and leave the mothers to raise them alone. Once again, Tre is the only successful character and is also the only one with a father figure. I believe it is Furious who says that "any fool with a dick can make a baby, but it takes a man to raise a kid".

I think this film is a fresh new look at the gangster lifestyle, and I think everyone should watch it. Unlike Goodfellas, it doesn't portray a life of crime in an at all positive manner. Instead it shows the hopeless of the cycle of violence that exists in the ghetto.

Goodfellas

I love Goodfellas, it's one of my favorite movies. There is a theme that occurs in this film, and in all gangster films really, and that is the idea of loyalty. It's a rather interesting thing. All gangsters insist on loyalty among their groups, especially when it comes to talking to the police. They have a strict no snitching policy, and if you break the policy they kill you. The strange thing is that I don't really feel that loyalty exists between gangsters in the first place. For example, when Ray Liotta's character is busted, he is questioned about Robert De Niro's character extensively. At first he refused to turn him in, that is until De Niro tries to have him killed. Now where is the loyalty there? Jimmy has so little faith in Henry that he flat out decides to kill him before he even knows if he is going to rat. Somewhat ironically when Henry realizes what Jimmy is planning on doing, he decides to rat him out to the cops in order to save his own skin. If these two characters actually had loyalty towards each other, or really if Jimmy just had loyalty to Henry, Jimmy wouldn't be in jail. But instead he decides it would be safer to just try and off Henry and call it a day.

American Tragedy

The film "A Place in the Sun" raises some questions about what being guilty really means. The main character George Eastman plans on murdering his pregnant girlfriend Alice, so that he is able to be with his real love Angela Vickers. He takes Alice out to a secluded lake on a rowboat, parks his car in the middle of the woods, and gives the boat rental a fake name. But when it comes time to commit the murder, he decides he can't do it. Through some strange twist of fate, Alice decides to stand up on the boat, causing it capsize. And Alice can't swim. George ends up saving him self from a watery grave, but Alice dies. Does this make George guilty of murder however? He did plan on killing her, and she did die. But he didn't throw her in the water, nor did he cause the boat to tip over. But he also didn't save her.

"A Place in the Sun" is interesting because it makes the viewer side with George, who really isn't at all in the right during the film. He starts out working for his uncle on an assembly line, where is specifically told not to socialize with the female employees. And what does he do? He goes and impregnates the first female employee. He doesn't stop there either. After he gets Alice the assembly line worker pregnant, he meets the incredibly attractive Angela Vickers, played by Elizabeth Taylor, at one of his uncle's parties, and instantly he is infatuated with her even though he already has one pregnant lady friend. He then decides that he likes Angela more and that the only way out of this predicament it to kill Alice.

Even though he doesn't intentionally kill Alice, is he still guilty? I think he actually is, but only because of what the priest at the end says. He asks George which woman he was thinking of when the boat capsized and both he and Alice were struggling not to drown in the water. He tells the priest that he was indeed thinking of Angela, which means that he did not do everything in his power to save Alice's life. This, combined with the fact that he set sail on the lake with the explicit purpose of drowning Alice, makes George guilty of at least manslaughter.

Gold Diggers of 1933

I really liked Gold Diggers of 1933. It was engrossing, funny, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I do however have a few quick criticisms.

- The story line was a little strange. It started off with some unemployed show girls trying to make it through the depression. They start to get a show together and things are looking up. Then out of nowhere it is suddenly a weird love story involving two of the girls tricking two rich men into buying them lots of extravagant things. It was just a little bizarre, and I feel like it never really finished what it started. It's almost as if it were two movies combined into one.

- The musical number were very strange. They really had nothing to do with the rest of the film, except for the beginning mentioning that they were making a musical. Petting in the park was at least a little bit related I suppose. The forgotten man was just really nonsensical, and little or nothing that related it to the rest of the movie. I was actually rather glad that there were so few musical numbers in the film, because I really do not enjoy musicals.

- Gold Diggers of 1933 seems like it could be an early version of today's ever popular romantic comedy. It was funny, featured some unlikely pairings of lovers, and was generally pretty upbeat.

Baby face

Baby Face is by far the best film I have seen so far this semester. It was engaging, perfectly paced, and some what humorous (though I think it's just because it's old). Here are some thoughts that I have on the film.

- It's an interesting take on the American Dream. The American Dream is the concept of using your skills to get to the top and get rich. What if your talent is the power you have over men? The film portrays this out right, and surprisingly doesn't really show too many negative consequences that arise through doing this.

- Anytime that she says "why don't we just talk this over?" she is going to use sex to get something that she wants.

- First she sleeps with the guard on the train to secure free passage. Then she sleeps with the human resources rep to get a job. She then goes on to sleep with numerous bosses in order to gain promotions through the company. She works her way up from filing, to mortgage, to accounting, and finally into the president's office. In total she sleeps with seven men throughout the course of the film.

- Despite her heavy reliance on sex to get ahead, she seems to actually be good at her various jobs. I think this is key to her success. If she wasn't a good secretary or what have you, she would never have been able to work her way up the chain using sex alone. She is a strong, competent female despite her obvious moral shortcomings.

- I know that we haven't yet gotten in noir, but Lily is a bit of a femme fatale. She is an extremely alluring female, who causes the demise of two men, and the near demise of a third when they get caught up in her web. She uses her powers to hypnotize her victims and convince them to spend large sums of money or her. When she gets what she wants, she is done, no matter how the male may feel about her.

"Within Our Gates"

Yesterday we watched the film "Within Our Gates". The film was written and produced by Oscar Micheaux in 1919, and is a response to D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" from 1915.

What I enjoyed most about "Within Our Gates" was quite simply that it was a little faster paced than the other silent films that we have watched, and featured far more title cards. "Broken Blossoms" for example, had very few title cards and when they did show up, they said very little. It was very hard for me to ascertain what the film was trying to say through only the incredibly static shots of the actors making strange faces and gestures. The same goes for "The Birth of a Nation". The lack of title cards (and starting the film at the end) made the clips that we looked at very hard to understand. In Micheaux's film however, there was text every 30-60 seconds that featured either what the characters were saying, or some other information on what was taking place. These title cards were very concise, and not full of cryptic poetry like what we saw in "Broken Blossoms".

The slightly faster pace and multiple plots in "Within Our Gates" also offered a much needed respite from the very long drawn out scenes from the other films. There was a lot less watching characters do frivolous activities, which I think was probably a deliberate move on Micheaux's part. The film, while still slow by today's ridiculous standards, featured shorter straight to the point shots. The multiple plots were also very interesting. The first half of the movie focused on the heroine, Sylvia, and her desire to help fund a poor school for negro children. This main storyline was interspersed with those of Larry "the leech", Mrs. Stratton, Mrs. Warwick, and Dr. Vivian. The second half of the movie was comprised almost exclusively of the unfortunate story of Sylvia's younger life. It was during this section of the film that the pace really quickened. We see Sylvia's adoptive father, Jasper, framed and hung for the murder of the evil Philip Gridlestone. We also see Sylvia attacked and nearly raped by her biological father who just so happens to be Mr. Gridlestone's brother. These scenes, while rather tame now, were undoubtedly outrageous in 1919.

I would say that in the context of other films from this era "Within Our Gates" is a shining star. However, it was still a bit of a chore to watch.