Tag Archives: movies

Her – The Perfect Companion

Posted on by Standard 1

By now I have to assume that everyone has seen “Her”.  It stars Joaquin Phoenix as a man in the distant future named Theodore who falls in love with his computer’s operating system, Samantha.   The amazing screenplay was by Spike Jonze and he raises an interesting question – will computers become advanced enough to replicate human emotion?  Samantha was smart enough to read a book in less than a second, hold hundreds of conversations at once, develop human emotions, and form the desire to become human. Theodore takes Samantha on double dates where she is able to adapt to any type of situation. Samantha can learn and take an interest in any possible topic, making herself the perfect girlfriend. My only complaint is that the computer’s voice, Scarlett Johansson, ruined the experience of imagining what she really looked like.  I wish they picked a voice that was unknown.

My favorite part of the movie was when Theodore discovers that Samantha was talking to over a hundred people while she was talking with him, and she was in love with a portion of them.  Samantha had a different view of the meaning of the word love and didn’t believe it should be limited to one person.  She reveals all of her inhuman qualities and shows she will never be human, and is too smart for the human race. The ending was great, showing how advanced Samantha and the other operating systems had become to a point where they need to explore more of the world because they learned everything they could from us.  Short but sweet 🙂

Have a Heart

Posted on by Standard 4

Have you noticed that supernatural creatures in movies and TV shows have become much more sympathetic lately?  In the past, these guys were pretty much pure evil, but lately movies are branching out more and giving their supernatural characters some heart and soul.

Let’s look at some “older” Vampire movies:

1.      Dracula – 1931

2.      Fright Night – 1985

3.      The Lost Boys – 1987

These vamps are evil and tortured and have no morals. They’re full of darkness and just an evil force to be defeated by the protagonist. Now check out these newer entries:

1.      Interview with a Vampire – 1994

2.      Twilight – 2008

3.      True Blood – 2008

4.      Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant – 2009

In these versions the vampires are the protagonists and the hero. Of course there are bad vampires, but the stories follows the good vampires and for once show their positive light.

Werewolves:

1.      American Werewolf in London – 1981

2.      Mom – 1991

3.      Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV show) – 1998

All of these werewolves are somewhat mindless, immoral characters pit against the good protagonist. Even if the werewolves are good people in their “natural human state” who regret what they have done in werewolf mode, they’re still killers.  Compared to…

1.      The Twilight Saga: New Moon – 2009

2.      Teen Wolf – 2011

In these movies the werewolves have the ability to control themselves as a werewolf and maintain their conscience.

Zombies:

1.      Dawn of the Dead – 1978

2.      Shaun of the Dead – 2004

3.      I Am Legend – 2007

4.      The Walking Dead – 2010

These zombie movies haven’t advanced as quickly as the others because it’s difficult to sympathize with a creature that is brain dead and is purely running on instinct. They have no personality, fear, feelings or thoughts.

1.      ParaNorman – 2012

2.      Warm Bodies – 2013

In Warm Bodies the main character is a zombie that is trying so hard to find his human side.  It’s almost impossible through the “zombie fog,” but he slowly starts to find his humanity again.  I love the movie ParaNorman, it should have done better at the box office.  Anyway, these zombies aren’t really bad.  They’re just people who made mistakes and are seeking to undo it.  It’s difficult to write a movie where lifeless creatures have emotions, but these movies manage to pull it off in a pretty spectacular fashion.

Aliens:

1.      Aliens – 1986

2.      Independence Day – 1996

3.      The Faculty – 1998

Great movies, but there isn’t any real background or attempt to show two sides of the story.  The aliens never really specify why they chose to colonize and take over Earth without any regard to the humans that they kill.  Even when the alien possessed Data (from the old Star Trek: The Next Generation, great casting!), and then the president, all we learned is that the aliens wanted us to die.

1.      District 9 – 2009

2.      Super 8 – 2011

3.      Star Trek – 2013

Now we’re getting somewhere with these three.  All these movies give the aliens a nice back-story and explain why they behave the way that they do. It’s hard to make the audience sympathize with the aliens because we obviously want to route for humans (well, I assume most of the audience does).  But showing the aliens’ true feelings and motives gives an all-around better story as opposed to one-sided as usual.

Time Travel Never Gets Old

Posted on by Standard 1

I always thought it was kind of interesting that each movie has their own set of rules relating to time travel. Also, if you could pick any universe of time travel to live in, which one would you chose? Check it out…

1.      Back to the Future Part III

All three of these movies were amazing. I especially loved how in the third movie they were able to get the time machine to return to the current time period by riding on the rail road track even though it was only partially finished. But since they would be returning to the current time period the road would have been finished. Very smart!

2.      Field of Dreams

Coolest time travel concept – Dead baseball players emerge from the crops to play baseball in Iowa. I loved the scenes with Doc. The first was when Kevin Costner unknowingly traveled back in time to meet the old Doc, and ended up driving the young Doc to Iowa to fulfill his dream of playing baseball. The second was when Doc had to make the decision to cross over the line to save a kid choking, which means he can’t play anymore, or simply ignore the kid and keep living his dream. Of course he chose to save the kid, great moment!

3.      Looper

The idea of sending criminals back in time to be executed by looper’s was very clever. The most interesting part to me was that when young Joe cut himself with a knife, the scar would appear on older Joe’s arm. Also older Joe would receive the memories as younger Joe went off the path due to him coming back in time. Another great scene was when younger Joe sacrificed himself to save Cid from being killed, and his older self literally disappeared.

4.      Groundhog’s Day

It was intriguing how in this movie Phil kept on re-living Feb. 2 over and over even after he tried to killing himself in a bunch of amusing ways. He was time traveling back to the same day after the night ended and eventually he figured out it wasn’t a curse, but a gift. He used it to help people and save lives, and learn all of the qualities that Rita would want in a man.

5.      Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J.K. Rowling is such an amazing and creative writer. She has Harry and Hermione go back in time, but when they see their “other selves,” they need to be careful not to run into themselves. In most movies you don’t see yourself while you’re back in time (yep, I know, Back to the Future when Marty was singing), but it worked really well here.

6.      Midnight in Paris

I found it fascinating that the overall message was that everyone wants to live in a different time period, but you just have to enjoy your own. He time traveled every night to his desirable time period in Paris, but ended up falling in love with a girl who was also time-skipping because she desired another time.

7.      Men in Black 3

This was my favorite in the series because of the twist ending of finding who J’s father is. It tied the other movies together really well because it showed that throughout J’s life Kay was watching out for him since his father was killed helping Kay. Great twist ending!

8.      Click

As a big fan of remotes (Jessie, pass the remote!), I enjoyed this movie since the remote is the power source. The cool part of time travel that this movie capitalized on was what happens to your body when you fast forward in time. Apparently your body is on auto pilot when you fast forward, which was a cool point to establish in the movie.

9.      About Time

I recently saw this movie and I found it so interesting that Tim can’t go to the future, but only back in time to points in his own lifetime. Most movie characters can go as far back in time as they want. I loved that he couldn’t go back in time after his children were born because then the same child wouldn’t have been born as a result. This movie used the basic principles of time travel, but made it very unique.

10.      Minutemen

I liked this movie, but I don’t really agree with the part when Virgil went back in time with the DVD of Derek getting tackled in the football game and changed the past, but the DVD still existed. If he went back in time and changed it then the DVD should be erased from history even if he did bring the DVD back with him.

Top Ten Best Death Scenes

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Random food for thought. Top Ten Best Death Scenes. What do you think?

1.      Jaws – Quint

I love Steven Spielberg and this movie is a classic. What a way to go! An awesome but tragic ending for Quint.

2.      Alien – Kane

The alien popping out of his stomach – no one saw that coming!

3.      There Will Be Blood – Eli

I found this scene to be hilarious because Eli’s screams were so high pitched and Daniel was so weak and old, but he was still very intimidating.

4.      Star Wars: in Return of the Jedi – Emperor Palpatine

This was when Darth Vader threw Emperor Palpatine down the energy shaft to his death. (Tangent, I love the hilarious banter about the name Darth Vader in Pitch Perfect. Jesse is amazed that Anna Kendrick knew that Darth Vader was Luke’s father. She coolly explains that his name literally means Dark Father in German).

5.      Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark – Sword swinger

This was such a funny scene. The sword swinger demonstrates his skills by waving around his sword ready for a fight and Indiana Jones just casually takes out his gun and shots him.

6.      Looper – Younger Joe

I loved how younger Joe sacrificed himself to save Cid and reset time to a world where he doesn’t have a future and prevented Cid from turning into the Rainmaker.

7.      Lord of the Rings – Gollum

Gollum falls into the lava holding his beloved ring feeling truly happy for once.

8.      Saving Private Ryan – Private Stanley Mellish

He dies with a knife slowly penetrating his skin and giving him the most painful death. It was a total Hunger Games moment and really showed how war can turn people into monsters and change you for the worse.

9.      The Princess Bride – Vizzini

Vizzini was a cocky jerk who thought he had Westley outplayed. He didn’t realize that Westley had built up an immunity to the poison and Vizzini died laughing about how clever he was.

10.      The Faculty – Professor Edward Furlong

I saw this movie recently and it was so fun to see these stars at such a young age. This scene was awesome; Zeke killed his teacher by stabbing him in the eye with a drug that killed him due to its ability to suck up the water in your body.

Taking One For The Plot

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Needed to Depart:

1.      The Walking Dead – Shane Walsh

Shane is a great villain and reminded the audience that just because you aren’t a zombie doesn’t mean that you have basic human compassion.  But his death was necessary because he served his purpose as the bad guy.

2.      Game of Thrones – Ned Stark

I hated to say goodbye to Ned Stark, but his death was a huge leap of faith on the part of HBO.  The show stayed very true to the book and didn’t alter the script (much) to satisfy the audience.  Ned Stark’s death really advanced the plot by putting Joffrey in charge and setting everything in chaos.

3.      Homeland – Nicholas Brody

Brody has survived too many near death situations.  His suicide vest didn’t explode, he killed the vice president, was accused of blowing up Langley, he was shot and he also killed Akbari by suffocating him with a pillow.  Wherever Brody goes people die while he remains relatively untouched.  Brody needed to go because it wouldn’t be fair for him and Carrie to live happily ever after while everyone else involved died.

4.      Game of Thrones – Khal Drogo

Khal Drogo was one of my favorite characters.  It was great to see him and Daenerys Targaryen together.  I found his death to be so ironic because he is so strong and a very dominant character.  You never thought anyone could defeat him, he was even confident enough to drop his sword in a fight.  But he dies because he presses his chest up against his opponent’s sword and that leads to an infection.  If he only had Neosporin! It was interesting that something so small took him down, which was a great way to put Daenerys into power.  If he had lived then Daenerys would keep relying on men to guide her, but she was ready to take the next step, which she never would have done if Khal Drogo remained in power.

5.      True Blood – Steve Newlin

I really liked Steve Newlin because there’s a point when you come to terms with the fact that he is such a wimp and only thinks of himself that you just laugh about it.  He screwed over James after he warned him not to drink the infected V-Blood.   The character’s demise was very much necessary for the plot.  And he did get a great send-off when Eric burned him in the sun and Steve confesses his true love for Jason, which in the world of True Blood, is an awesome way to go.

Didn’t Need To Die:

1.       How I Met Your Mother – Marvin Eriksen Sr.

I love Marshall.  He is the sweetest character in the whole show, so of course his father had to be killed off.  The worst part of it was Marshall was going to tell his father about how he was healthy and would be able to have children, which his father would have loved to hear.  I don’t think killing Marshall’s father was necessary or really advanced the plot besides giving the season a continuous episode of pity.

2.      Dawson’s Creek – Mitch Leery

I don’t understand why Mitch had to die, Dawson didn’t deserve that.  Also his death was written in a way that would haunt Dawson forever, he feels indirectly responsible for causing his father’s death.  The writers were clearly running on fumes when they wrote this and had to keep the series interesting.

3.       Andrea – The Walking Dead

She tried so hard to make peace between the Governor and Rick, but she was stuck in the middle.  She didn’t deserve to die being strapped in a chair killed by her friend waiting for him to turn into a zombie and kill her.  There are many other necessary deaths on the show that needed to happen, but Andrea’s death wasn’t one of them.

4.      The White Queen – Jacquetta Woodville

Since the show is based off of real life events she had to die to stay true to history, but I don’t think her death helped the plot or added depth to any other characters as a result.  Let’s change history!  I loved Jacquetta.  She was a very witty and clever character who knew what to say to get out of any unsettling situation.  She was a great mother to Elizabeth and really helped to guide her through her life as the queen.

5.      Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Joyce Summers

I was always kind of indifferent about Joyce.  She was a fine mother to Buffy, but I hated how she reacted when she found out she was the Slayer.  She could have been more supportive and been there for her.  But I saw no point in having her die; maybe it showed that even with all of Buffy’s powers she still can’t always save the people that she loves most.

My Favorite Top 10 Movie Quotes

Posted on by Standard 2

1. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

  • When Harry Met Sally

2. “If you build it, he will come.”

  • Field of Dreams

3.  “I’ll be back.”

  • The Terminator

4. “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man.  I get older, they stay the same age.”

  • Dazed and Confused

5. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

  • Jaws

6. “Round up the usual suspects.”

  • Casablanca

7. “Dude, no.  This is serious.  I just sharted.”

  • Along Came Polly

8.  “There’s no crying in baseball!”

  • A League of Their Own

9. “Toga! Toga!”

  • Animal House

10. “Do or do not.  There is no try.”

  • Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Girl Power or Lack Thereof

Posted on by Standard 3

I was discussing movies with my friend Kate, and she told me about the Bechdel Test. I never heard of it.  But, as I now know, the Bechdel Test applies to movies and the rules are:

  1. It has to have at least two women in it.
  2. Who talk to each other.
  3. About something besides a man.

Check out the link here: http://bechdeltest.com/

Kate’s favorite movie is the Princess Bride, and it received 2/3 on the test because the old lady boos Buttercup in her dream, but she is mad at her for leaving Wesley, so their conversation was about a man.

I was surprised to learn that a majority of my favorite movies failed the test, which led me to wonder how important the test really was.  Passing or failing the Bechdel Test doesn’t mean the movie is bad.  In fact, a majority of the movies that failed are some of my favorite movies of all time.

I made a list and categorized the movies based on what movies passed and failed that had a female protagonist.  Then another list on movies that passed and failed with a male protagonist.

It was pretty easy to find movies that had a female protagonist who passed the Bechdel Test and just as easy to find a male protagonist who failed the test.  It was really hard to find women protagonists who failed the test, and somewhat difficult to find movies with a male protagonist that passed the test.

In my opinion this shows that only when women are the protagonists in movies will there be interaction between women.  But when there is a male protagonist it’s very unlikely for that movie to be capable of passing the test due to a lack of women characters.  I found the results to be very interesting, but, again just because a movie “fails,” doesn’t mean that it’s bad in any way.  Weird little exercise, but here it goes.

 

Female Protagonists that Passed:

1. Beautiful Creatures – Lena 3/3

2. Enough Said – Eva 3/3

3. Freaky Friday – Anna 3/3

4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – Katniss 3/3

5. Sixteen Candles – Samantha 3/3

6. My Big Fat Greek Wedding – Toula 3/3

7. Mean Girls – Cady 3/3

8. Pan’s Labyrinth – Ofelia 3/3

9. The Wizard of Oz – Dorothy 3/3

10. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Bridget 3/3

11. Aliens – Ellen Ripley 3/3

12. Clueless – Cher 3/3

13. The Devil Wears Prada – Andrea 3/3

14. A League of their Own – Dottie 3/3

15. Pitch Perfect – Beca 3/3

16. Bridesmaids – Annie 3/3

17. Bring it on – Torrance 3/3

18. Bend it like Beckham – Jess 3/3

19. Twilight – Bella 3/3

20. The Help – Skeeter 3/3

21. Admission – Portia 3/3

22. The Host – Melanie 3/3

23. Baby Mama – Kate 3/3

24. Alice in Wonderland – Alice 3/3

25. Whip It – Bliss 3/3

26. Titanic – Rose 3/3

27. Zero Dark Thirty – Maya 3/3

28. Mary Poppins – Mary 3/3

29. Soul Surfer – Bethany 3/3

30. Akeelah and the bee – Akeelah 3/3

31. Eat Pray Love – Elizabeth 3/3

32. Never Been Kissed – Josie 3/3

33. 27 dresses – Jane 3/3

34. Miss Congeniality – Gracie 3/3

35. To Kill a Mockingbird – Scout 3/3

 

Female Protagonist that Failed:

1. Trouble with the Curve – Mickey 0/3

 

Male Protagonists that Passed:

1. The Karate Kid – Daniel 3/3

2. The Matrix – Neo 3/3

3. Stardust – Tristan 3/3

4. Pleasantville – David 3/3

5. Shaun of the Dead – Shaun 3/3

6. The Spectacular Now – Sutter 3/3

7. Almost Famous – William 3/3

8. Midnight in Paris – Gil 3/3

9. Elysium – Max 3/3

10. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – Walter 3/3

 

Male Protagonists that Failed:

1. Ender’s Game – Ender 1/3

2. The Social Network – Mark 1/3

3. Captain Phillips – Richard Phillips 1/3

4. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – Ferris 2/3

5. Ocean’s 11 – Danny 1/3

6. Slumdog Millionaire – Jamal 1/3

7. Interview with a Vampire – Louis 1/3

8. Back to the Future – Marty 1/3

9.  Point Break – Johnny 0/3

10. Home Alone – Kevin 2/3

11. Ghostbusters – Peter 1/3

12. The Fifth Element – Korben 1/3

13. The Truman Show – Truman 1/3

14. Mud – Ellis 1/3

15. The Fifth Estate – Julian 1/3

How to Train Your Antagonist

Posted on by Standard 1

There are certain protagonists in movies that are redeemable and others that are clearly unredeemable. If a protagonist is redeemable then they have done something in the movie to prove to the audience that they’re worthy of being viewed as the hero. However, if the protagonist is unredeemable then they have either done nothing or not enough to prove that they deserve to be perceived as a hero. Here are a few of my favorite ones.

Beware of spoilers!!!

Unredeemable Characters

1. There Will be Blood

I wasn’t sure what to make of Daniel Plainview early in the movie, but as the story went on I had reached a conclusion. He murdered a man for deceiving him, beat up and killed Eli, abandoned his son and provided no support for his son’s future plans. He had very nice manners early on and he’s a clever business man, but he uses that to hide his true motives. After he killed a man it was very difficult to morally bring him back to being a likeable character again.

2. The Wolf of Wall Street

I saw this movie recently and I really truly disliked Jordan Belfort within the first five minutes. I kept looking for an opportunity for him to prove that he wasn’t such a full on bad guy. The closest he got was when he gave his female employee more money than she asked for, in order for her to pay her son’s tuition. That wasn’t even a big deal because he has so much money that he literally throws it in the trash.

He is a bad person and no scene in the movie could convince me otherwise and I really liked that. I was looking for something to make me sympathize with him and he didn’t give me anything to work with. It was really interesting to see how I personally responded to a character like that.

3. The Beach

This movie was very entertaining and showed how a fully functioning isolated society can go so wrong under the right circumstances. Richard is a very odd character because he saves his friends from being killed, but then betrays his them later on. He cheats on his girlfriend and makes up a crappy reason for doing so and betrays Étienne by stealing his girlfriend without even thinking twice about it. He also gave a map of the island to some people he barely knew. He is an egotistical person who never thinks of the consequences of his actions.

4. Inside Llewyn Davis

Llewyn Davis doesn’t really have a great personality or anything special about him that makes him likeable as a character. He plays great music, but he ruins the lives of people around him and unloads on innocent people because he is afraid to face his own problems. I couldn’t find anything interesting about him besides the cat that he is taking care of, which in the end he leaves in the car on the side of the road.

5. The Fifth Estate

I didn’t know that much about WikiLeaks, but this movie really provided a lot of information on how it got started. I absolutely hated Julian, he wanted there to be no secrets, but he lied about his white hair and acts like a hypocrite. It was a minor lie, but telling the truth is his whole reason for WikiLeaks.

It was annoying that he didn’t even listen to reason when he received the leak of all the information about everyone in the government. He got so many people hurt and didn’t redact anything. He was so focused on his sole goal of disclosing all our country’s secrets that he didn’t consider how many lives he would negatively affect.

Redeemable Characters

1. Looper

This movie was very interesting and really left me thinking. The twist ending was great and highly unexpected. Joe is involved in a shady business, but being in the world that he lives in he needs a job that pays a lot of money. He isn’t your typical hero; he’s a junkie, kills people for a living and betrays his best friend for money.

But he does care about saving Cid, the Rainmaker, even if it means killing his older self.  It’s somewhat ironic that the one person Joe gives his life for is the same person that grows up to become a killer. Through these acts he proves to the audience that he deserves to be the hero of the movie.

2. Good Will Hunting

Matt Damon and Robin Williams were an amazing pair. Will is a very intriguing character because from an unbiased perspective he appears to be a total jerk. But if you take a closer look you see the pain that he has gone through and why he behaves the way he does. He manages to confront his issues and take a leap of faith by leaving to get his girlfriend back.

Good Will Hunting

Flickr
Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/moviesinla/8263880555/sizes/o/An Officer and a Gentleman

3. An Officer and a Gentleman

The audience sees Zack at a young age and then observes as he progresses to an adult who aspires to become a pilot. He engages in illegal businesses and is a somewhat self-centered person who only cares about himself. But in the end he helps his fellow girl pilot climb the wall showing that he was willing to prolong his success to help a friend. But the best was when he carries off his girlfriend to their new and happy life together.

4. Troy

Yes, Brad Pitt is great in this role as Achilles, but he is a total jerk. He killed Hector without a second thought and only spared him the first time, so more people could see him die. He demonstrates his selfish attitude when he doesn’t even care that conquering the beach will kill most of his men; he just wants to establish his dominance. All he cares about his making sure his legacy remains intact when he is died. But he does love Briseis and tries to save her in the end, so his other mistakes are (somewhat) dismissed.

5. Game Change

This was a great HBO movie that really showed a different side of Sarah Palin. We see her as she begins this huge role as John McCain’s running mate for vice president and she clearly has no idea what she’s getting in to. We see her slowly crack and get to the point where the press backlash is too much for her to handle. She never completely redeems herself, but the audience understands how she got to the breaking point and how she was never prepared for this responsibility.

6. The World’s End

Gary King is a drug addict who hit his peak at high school and his life never got better after that. He never completed the Golden Mile (drinking in 12 pubs in one night) and it’s haunted him ever since. So, he lies to his friends and arranges a reunion to try for the Golden Mile again as adults.  We see some insights into his life and how important the high school time period was for him, so we (kind of) understand why he behaves in such a self-seeking manner.

7. Election

Jim McAllister shows early in the movie that he was a great teacher whose purpose in education was to stimulate his students and get them excited about learning. But he wanders off this path when he cheats on his wife with her best friend and fixed the election to guarantee his chosen winner.  And, by the way, Tracy Flick was a great character played by Reese Witherspoon.  She’s so annoying and hilarious, that I probably would’ve voted to “Pick Flick.”

8. White Men Can’t Jump

Billy is a very athletic and funny character that is very enjoyable to watch. But he is a hustler, and very careless with his actions regarding money. He does love his girlfriend, Gloria, but he manages to screw that up too. He messes up a lot, but he always seems to fix it and then ruin it again. But he is redeemed because even though he can’t save his relationship with Gloria, he did try many times.

9. Now You See Me

This was a difficult movie to nail down a protagonist because Dylan Rhodes, the cop who was actually the leader of The Four Horsemen wasn’t revealed until the very end. So the audience didn’t have that much time during the movie to make their personal assessments of him. But when he confesses to Alma his reasons for deceiving everyone and framing Thaddeus the audience pities him. Dylan’s motivation was a worthy and understandable case, which makes him a redeemable character.

10. Pirates of the Caribbean

Johnny Depp was fun in all of the movies, but he is an overall self-interested character. He has his shining moments, but in the end he only really cares about himself and will do what has to be done to survive. But when he has these great moments they’re so spectacular that they nearly cancel out his wrongdoings and make the audience dismiss it.

The Faculty

Posted on by Standard 6

I was flipping around the channels last night and stumbled across a fun movie called The Faculty.  It was released in 1998 and had a cool cast with some young actors that grew up to be major stars.  The story follows a group of different kids who come together to save their high school from an alien invasion.  There are some great twists that you never see coming.  I’m usually pretty good at figuring out plot twists pretty early movies, but this one really surprised me.  There are a bunch of funny lines scenes like forcing your teacher to snort drugs to prove she isn’t an alien.   There are interesting love triangles and actually some pretty scary scenes.  The movie begins with the gym teacher attacking another teacher and you are left wondering why.  Then it happens again, and I figured it was another vampire movie.  Or werewolves, or witches.  But, it was water-loving aliens who were slyly converting humans against their will.  And, it was a total surprise to find out who the mother alien was. Many of these characters went on to make great movies.  Nerdy Elijah Wood became Frodo (but I love him).  Rebel teen Josh Hartnett went on to become a hero in Pearl Harbor.  Some other minor characters like Salma Hayek, Usher, Robert Patrick and Jon Stewart went on to big things.  Who knew?

What You See is Not Always What You Get

Posted on by Standard 7

Is the audience biased towards the protagonists in movies?

Do you ever wish that we could have more of a back story for the villain characters in movies?

There are so many movies that are just one sided and make no attempt to show the villain’s perspective.  It makes sense that the audience should feel connected to the character that they see the most, but I hate movies where, say, the bad guy has no good reason for taking over the world besides wanting power.  At least give the villain a reason like he needs to save his home planet.  It would a nice twist to show the character you thought you pegged as the good guy was really bad the whole time.  Anything besides the same old aliens who want to destroy Earth for an unknown reason.  Here are some examples…

1. Independence Day

We don’t know much about the aliens besides the fact that they want to destroy us. I loved Will Smith and the entire story, especially when the president gives his speech before they leave to fight. But it would be nice to have discovered that the alien’s planet was going to be destroyed and they needed a planet to inhabit or something.

2. Aliens

I watched the Alien series in one night because I couldn’t go to bed without finishing it. Ripley was amazing and a total badass. But if all of her friends (besides her cat) are going to die at the hands of the aliens then I would like to know the reason. Why does Ripley’s daughter get stripped of the opportunity to grow up with her mother?  A little backstory would have been enjoyable.

3. Thor: The Dark World

Thor is great, he’s easy on the eyes and anything that happens on his home planet is cool.  But, really there’s not much of a plot. The bad guy never explains his true motivation for wanting to take over Earth. There were some creative ideas in the movie like the teleportation and the Aether, but the aliens are the reason Thor is fighting for Earth, and I like to know more about their species.

4. Snow White

Why does the queen want to kill Snow White? Yes, she is scared that Snow White’s beauty will surpass her own.  But what drove her to that point where she would care so much?

Along those lines, if a character is able to be seen when he/she is truly vulnerable, the audience will be able to relate so much more.  This allows the audience to dismiss the character’s wrongdoings because they understand why they behave in that way. Here are some examples:

1. The Social Network

Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed as a total jerk that screwed over his best friend by cutting him out of the share of the money. I found him to be sarcastic, smug and somewhat annoying, but at the same time I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. His personality is just so interesting and you just want to know what he’s going to do next.

The story was told from his perspective so we understood how jealous he was of his best friend for getting into the Phoenix, an elite group in college. He was rejected by girls, feels unpopular and is treated like a total loser. He tells his best friend, Eduardo Saverin, on the phone that he doesn’t want to go back to his life before Facebook after Eduardo freezes the main bank account. The audience sees this confession and therefore will view his cruel betrayal towards his friend as a mistake that Mark understands he committed. But if the audience just saw things from Eduardo’s perspective the audience wouldn’t pity Mark at all.

2. Shattered Glass

I recently saw this movie and the whole time, despite all the evidence, I still wanted Stephen Glass to not be lying. I think this was because he had a great personality towards his friends when he wasn’t lying in his writing. He was nice and caring and you also get a view of the pressure his parents put on him. The worst part was his crying, I really wanted to believe him. It wasn’t until he was fired that I truly got his game of crying, acting nice and having low self-confidence was all cover for when he inevitability got caught.

3. Catch me if you can

This movie is great because we got a true backstory of Frank Abagnale Jr. The audience was with him from the start. He saw his father tell little lies here and there to get what he wanted and was so proud of him.  Then when his family life falls apart, he took these learnings from his father to a whole new level.  He wanted his father to be so proud of him and just get back together with his mother.  He wanted to get caught and even developed a relationship with the FBI guy chasing him (Tom Hanks).  If the story was from the FBI’s perspective then Frank would be viewed as an annoying and criminal kid who deserved to be caught.

4. The Spectacular Now

I saw this movie a couple of months ago and it was what lead me to write this post. The main character Sutter is an alcoholic and somewhat selfish teenager. He goes out with Aimee, a girl he somewhat pitied. Sutter originally uses her to make his old girlfriend jealous, but realizes he does like her. Sutter’s overall attitude for life is to live in the now. Throughout the movie I couldn’t figure out if I liked him or not. That was until I found out about his father issues, which led me to understand why he goes through his life with an “in the in the moment” type of attitude. Sutter doesn’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow and doesn’t want to know because he fears for his future, which the audience sees when he struggles to write his essay application.  Without the story being told from Sutter’s perspective I would have seen him as a bad influence on Aimee and a selfish guy who only cares about himself.

5. Quiz Show

Voldemort kicks butt as the professor Charles Van Doren, who gets busted cheating on the TV show “Quiz Show” in the 60’s.  Charles started off the movie with very high morals, but the audience slowly watches his so called standards fade away when money comes into play. Even though Charles cheated to win money the audience knows that he feels bad and is in way too deep off a hole to dig out of. We see the impossibly high standards that his family has over his life, almost a shadow over any of his accomplishments. So we understand he knows he made a huge mistake, however he does redeem himself in the end.   But, it was still fun to watch the senator from New York scold him like a child when he finally admitted he cheated.

6. Blood Diamond

Great movie with Leonardo DiCaprio as a diamond smuggler in Africa.  He plays a guy named Danny who teams up with a nice man who has hidden a huge diamond when he was forced by militants to dig for diamonds in a river. Danny is clearly involved in some shady business, but the audience sees his perspective when he tells the reporter what happened to his parents, and the life he’s been forced to live.  He evolves and shows compassion, and finally helps his friend escape with the huge diamond while he held off the other soldiers after he was shot.

7. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Hilarious movie and lots of fun, even after many viewings.  For most of the movie I was on Peter’s side and believed Sarah was heartless to break up with him. But when Sarah explains, late in the movie, why she cheated on him and broke up with him, I understood her point of view.  While Peter is clearly a great guy, he was lazy and didn’t want to do anything besides sit on the couch, and Sarah tried hard to make it work. To be fair, Sarah wasn’t supportive about Peter’s musical, but Peter also needed some self- motivation. They needed to have a relationship where they both brought the best out of each other, and they could never do that. We saw the whole movie from Peter’s perspective, so the audience pitied him and disliked Sarah. But, I kind of get where she was coming from.

8. Frankenstein

I read this book and watched the movie. I was truly inspired by this story and the main character Frankenstein’s monster after having a debate in class over who would be held accountable in court for Victor’s monsters actions. The class settled on Victor, but I voted for both of them.

The monster was abandoned by his creator, Victor, and left to learn life’s lessons on his own. Victor should have been like a father to him, but he got scared and left him. The monster, feeling he was wronged by Victor, hunts him down and hurts everyone that Victor loves. The story follows the monster so we’re able to see how sad and hurt he is by Victor’s betrayal. The reader/audience is also able to see how the monster got to the breaking point of wanting to hurt Victor and how he was pushed over the top. If the story followed Victor, then we would see the monster as a horrible creature whose mission is to destroy Victor’s life for no reason whatsoever.

Of course it could be blamed on Igor for giving Victor the brain that said Abby Normal. Oops, sorry wrong movie.