Money Ball 7

Alex Holt

Money Ball

03/06/2012

Review 7

            The art of winning an unfair game is the book the movie money ball is based off of. Now I have never read the book but I have read the summary over the book and have heard that it is pretty close to the movie. So I guess what I am trying to get at is I love a movie that is based off a true story it just makes the creditability even better, and that’s before we get into who is the star of the movie.  Brad Pit played ( Billy Beane) the general manager of the Oakland A’s. The story is based over Billy having a low budget salary and he cannot get the players needed to compete against the big teams like the Yankees and the Red Sox’s, so he has to come up with a creative touch an edge to get his team at a high level of play. So he did the unthinkable and made his team up off of computer based status of the players.

            Everyone in the organization thought he was out of his mind to do something like this but he believed in (Jonah Hill) Peter Brand who was his right hand person and he had all the mathematical calculations down, of who was a good hitter and good catch and more. As the season gets under way it is not looking good for Billy Beane people are starting to doubt him and the owner is starting to get mad that he is letting his team go down. After a small period of time they start to win and the players start to play as a team Billys method is working and he is getting everyone on his side again. His team did not win the playoffs but they got into the play offs and Billy turned down a job at the Boston Red Soxs for 12.5 million a year. This type of money was unheard of for a general manager in baseball. Most people would take the money and run and be happy but Billy did not manage baseball for the money he did it for the love of the game he did it to show the world he could.

            Towards the end of the movie it shows Billys emotions of the game and it builds you up to think that he might leave the Oakland A’s because he needs a change. So I felt the director did a wonderful job of throwing a change up in the movie by having him turn that money down and not letting it change his character as a person, because throughout the whole movie he was mad because he wasn’t giving enough money to make a good team, but it was proving that money doesn’t make the team the people and the managers make the team.

Overall a really good movie and for baseball fans it will make you get an understanding of how things work behind the scenes. If you are not a baseball or sports fan I would not recommend this movie, because my mother and sisters both fell asleep when going to see this.

Waiting To Exhale

Alex Holt

02/28/2012

Waiting To Exhale

               Waiting to Exhale has the perfect name to me because this movie hits all major key points of what black woman want in a man and have not found, so the woman are holding their breath and waiting exhale with new great men but they never find them in the movie. It is kind of like a sad twisted love story along with a real life twist all in one movie. The actress in this movie are along the A list in Hollywood, Whitney Houston played a woman named (Savannah) in the movie she was a woman in search of love so she left her job in Denver to travel to Arizona where she had a job awaiting her, along with her 3 friends who all stared in the movie. Angela Bassett played a woman named (Bernadine) who is left by her husband in the beginning of the movie for a white woman played by Loretta Devine (Gloria).

               The plot of this movie is straight forward so if you’re looking for a movie with a lot of twist and hiding secrets keep on going past this movie, because you will not find what you are looking for. If you like a standard chick flick with a twist that woman can get even too then this is your movie. In this movie 123 minute movie Forest Whitaker keeps the drama high in all the relationships throughout the whole movie. One thing I would like to give the director a thumbs up for is giving all the woman in the movie some type of closer in the movie, even if it was just some type of mental closer on a bad relationship, or a woman making up her mind and deciding to have a baby with a man she knew would never amount to being a good father or even leave his wife.

               Robert Ebert says "Waiting to Exhale is not really an assault on black men (and men in general), but an escapist fantasy that women in the audience can enjoy by musing, "I wish I had her problems" - and her car, house, wardrobe, figure and men, even wrong men.” The sentence by him was taking straight out of my mouth because as a kid when I went to see this movie back in 1995 or 1996 the older woman I went with talked about this movie for weeks and talked about how there men weren’t worth anything and wished they had better jobs and more money, but they all went home later with these same men they just degraded. I think a movie as drama packed as this reminds me of a good soap opera, because it goes back and forth multiple times with the same characters and just about the same story. Overall I think this was a good movie for its time frame it was made in and is still relevant to this day and I must say RIP to the Great Whitney Houston who did a great job acting, in this film.

(5) Fav Film Bad Boys II

BAD BOYS

Alex Holt

02/21/2012

BAD BOYS II

               Bad boys Bad boys what are you going to do? What are you going to do when they come for you?! I love this movie not just because it has two of my favorite actors. But also my favorite director Michael Bay, I love his attention to detail and the way he keeps the action in the movies at the right time, he never lets the movie go boring. He also uses the actors to their full potential. On paper this movie is loaded with famous actors, some say this movie wouldn’t work for a second time, because Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are to different and Will Smith has went into a different lane of acting. Somehow Michael Bay pulls it off for a second time.

               The movie is taking place in Miami and Cuba where Will Smith is played by detective Mike Larry and Martin is detective Marcus. They both are undercover narcotics cops who are trying to stop a big shipment of ecstasy from hitting the streets of Miami. Both Mike, and Marcus are partners as cops and it is there job to do whatever it takes to keep the drugs off the street. So that’s exactly what they do. In one part of the movie they get a tip from a man who leads them through the city of Miami into a hug gun fight which seems like it kills everyone in the city and cases damage to everyone in there way even. I didn’t like the idea of how they went about the gun fight scene, but I did like the action that he brought to the movie. The sounds of the Ferrari motor going at speeds of over 100 while shooting a big gun made the movie go from a comedy to a action movie, Michael Bay was showing of his talents in this part of the film.

            The movie gets better once they go to Cuba to get Marcus sister back, this is when the heat turns up because the bad guys out number the good guys, even though the name of the movie is bad boys. Once in Cuba Marcus and Mike get straight into action trying to get his sister back and take down the biggest drug king in Cuba who has his own army of bad men and the real army of Cuba on his side, this would not be a easy task for Mike and Marcus. After going on a ten minute gun fight through the villages of Cuba the fight ends for the drug king at an Army base in Cuba that was owned by the United States of America.

            Overall this is a good film for someone who is not looking for a hardcore action movie like Heat , or American Gangster, this is a film you can let your teen agers go to see on Friday night and not be scared that they might see someone’s head cut off. Bad Boys is a comedy first and action movie second.

Overall great job  

(4) Fav Film HEAT

Alex Holt

02/15/2012

HEAT

               The movie HEAT has the perfect name Micheal Man went outside of the box and took a gamble on this movie, because most action movies over 2 hours usually cannot hold the audience’s attention because it becomes ether to much action and no plot or not enough action and boring. In my personal opinion I think Man knew that he had the talent in this movie to hold the suspense all the way until the big shot out at the end. The two stars of this movie were Neil McCauley as (De Niro) and Detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). Neil played a bad guy who was a major bank robber and a major player in the underworld activities. While Vincent went head to head against Neil throughout most the movie. This movie and American Gangster has a lot of things in common, the two main characters in both movies are a good guy and a bad guy, the bad guys life outside of his professional careers are good , while the good guys personal life’s are bad and not a good example of how to live a regular life.

            In the movie Vincent’s wife says to him that he is no different than the men he are chasing. This seems to be true in the movie because the director gives off the impression that Vincent likes to chase the bad guy and he looks up to the ones who gives him a challenge. In one scene Vincent pulls Neil over and ask him to go get coffee with him, so as they have their coffee the conversation gets interesting when Vincent says if I have to put you down I will, But what was so different about that conversation is Vincent wanted to be Neil’s friend and they had never met, Vincent respected Neil and really didn’t want to have to take him down. In this conversation Neil says you cannot have anything in your life you’re not willing to throw away in 30 seconds are less, when the heat is on. At the end of the movie this is tested when Neil gets back to the getaway car and he spots Vincent coming straight at him he has to decide to get his woman and money are leave them and run from Vincent. After Neil keeps to his word and leaves the woman and cash the HUNT started. Both Neil and Vincent both liked the hunt throughout the movie so it was only right for them to have the best head to head hunt of the movie, although in a hunt one of the men have to die. I will not tell you the story but I will tell you that this is a must see movie it sets the bar for any action movie for the next 25 years. This movie was made in 1995 and I still have not seen a movie as long as action compacted to this day.

#3 Fav Film American Gangster

Alex Holt

Meta Review 3

02/06/2012

My Man! Is the word in the movie you did not want Frank Lucas played by (Denzel Washington) to say to you, because this only meant one thing that you have pissed him off , and in the movie he was not the one to make mad. Frank had the streets of Harlem in his pockets he ran the entire town for more than 3 years straight he was getting the Heroin straight from Korea during the war he would have his drugs shipped in coffins of the solders into the United States. Just as it seemed like Frank Lucas was untouchable to everyone there was one small cop who would soon start to cause him problems Richie Roberts (Played by Russell Crowe) was a cop in New Jersey who wanted to keep the streets clean. This man risked his career on a day to day, as well as his life, and with little to no fears going head to head with the big guys in the city.

Josh Taylor the reviewer said “The irony of both characters is that their professional and personal lives are flipped. Frank does dishonest things for a living, but in his personal life lives by a strict moral code of humility, honesty, and family. Richie is a painfully honest cop, but his personal life is a garbage dump of lies, failed relationships, and insecurities.” This quote is very true the entire movie Richie puts aside everything in his life to focus on work including his relationship with his son and ex-wife, to do his job correctly. The two men were on two different sides of the playing field with the same objective and that was to win at whatever it is they did.

In this movie I would have liked the (director Ridley Scott) to show more background on the two men and show why they are who they are today. I feel this would be important because they have such big rolls and they are both very good at what they do so it would be nice to see them open up emotionally behind what drives them to be great, and not just men who are good at their job. I feel like this movie had a great script and a great beginning, middle, and ending, because the movie’s plot is set at a good speed and shows the growth of both men’s operation, which helps the director build up to the plot. Overall I feel like the rolls were played great by both characters and the movie was well put together and thought out to get the real life story out there of Frank Lucas was a great idea to inform the world of a man who turned nothing into what is a empire no matter if he was right or wrong for his choice of business the director leaves that up to you to decide by letting the characters outside life into the film, I feel like this is the key piece to the film. Overall I give them film a –A.

Bride of Frankenstein

Alex Holt

The Bride of Frankenstein Movie Review #3

It’s alive!! The famous quote from the first movie Frankenstein for when the monster was awaken for the first time, is yet used again for the monster to be awaken from the fire at the beginning of the movie, The Bride of Frankenstein.  The storyline is simply just a man made monster played by (Boris Karloff) who is misunderstood and when anyone near sees the monster’s face the over dramatic reactions causes the monster to instantly either hurt or kill them with the weakness of not understanding his own strength.

There is an over dramatic tone but with humorous acting between the main characters in the film. For example, the maid named Minnie (Una O’Conner) tries to warn those of the monster at varies times throughout the film as well when she also sees Hans (Reginald Barlow) who was a soon to be husband to (Mary Gordon) was shown in one of the first scenes that he had appeared at first to have been killed by the monster. The reactions of Minnie screaming would have been humorous when the movie was first released but since we are more educated with the culture of film that it became an annoyance for someone to scream throughout the entire film.

The interaction between the blind man who goes by Hermit (O.P Heggie) and the monster is somewhat instead of a friendship in which Hermit claims but rather a very short father son type of relationship. The scenes of interaction between the monster and Hermit, presents a short comical vibe before Hermit is taken away. The monster learns some humanistic values such as talking and the feeling of being care for, therefore when Hermit is taken away a reaction of the monster blowing up with anger is because the most important thing was taken away by those who judge and hurt him.

The Bride of Frankenstein is not clearly identified, which should be easy but for those who give it a deeper thought; Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson) is the bride of the doctor who is Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and then there is the man made female monster who is meant to be someone’s bride (Elsa Lanchester) who was created by Dr. Frankenstein and Doctor Pretorius. The film hints that there are many unspoken feelings and confusion of who is the Bride of Frankenstein that may be linked into the unspoken topic of same sex relationships, which is an aspect of this that has been reviewed by critics. An example of the hint to homosexual feelings would be when the Monster walked into Hermit’s house and they seem to grow extremely close in a short timeframe, such as the Monster staying the night, and the two of them sharing cigars, wine, and bread.

For the age of this film, the photographic effects are pretty simple and clear, for insistence the close up shot that shows Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), standing next to his experiments of miniature people that are in glass jars shows that the scene is advance for its time. There is a display of harsh shadows on the actor’s faces that use lighting flicker effects in the overall setting. There are a few great silhouette shots in this film. For example, when the monster sets out into the graveyard it becomes a good transition scene. The sound effects that are used to show the actions of the machines that work with the experiments go along smoothly with the photo effects that are displayed, such as lighting and electricity voltages. One issue to notice with this scene is that through all the smoke and lighting aspects, at the end of the experiment it wasn’t clear enough to see the monster chasing a man who was carrying a fire torch up the stairs.

This film may be viewed as overdramatic and somewhat stupid to some but each movie always seems to provide a deep hidden message to the audience. Many may overpass the underlining message that a film provides but there may be more then just one underlining message. A message that a viewer may pick up in this film is that nobody wants to be or should be alone; hence the idea of a woman friend for the man made monster. Love seems to be a desired objective throughout the movie rather it be humanistic or of the supernatural, nobody wants to be alone.  Another message that this film sends to the audience is the one of the golden rules that we all learn in school, treat others the way you want to be treated and not to judge a book by its cover. The monster is judged before it’s given a chance, just because he may look horrible he could actually be a kind hearted if not misunderstood throughout the entire movie.

The look and feel of Rashomon

Alex Holt

Jan-17-2012

Rashomon

               The look and feel of Rashomon was very different, because of the setting is out of the United States. The type of houses or tents that the people were in looked different from what I would expect a home in America.  This movie was about how 4 different people tell a story from their point of view of what happened.  One critic said “There’s a moral here, and its best expressed by one character’s assertion that it’s human to lie, even to ourselves”. This is the message the director is trying to get across to the viewer. No matter the country or the color, or race of a person we are all human and we will tell the story the way our mind interrupts.

               I also think this movie was very different because in the 1950’s ,when this movie was made ,most people only knew about western movies in America for the director to take the chance at a movie like this was very outside of most boundaries.  This was a phenomenal film and it influenced cultures for many years to come by showing different cultures and world to a Japanese film which most people were not interested in before Rashomon. The role the woman played in this movie reminds me of how woman of American cultures were when film noir was present. She was very quiet for most of her scenes and then towards the end she makes the men fight for her love until one of them dies. Just like in most film for tall movies the woman gets what she wants at the end. I really liked how the director made the connection between the genres, and cultures.

               As each character tells there story about what happened the lighting is very intense at the beginning to draw the viewer in. As there story starts to climax, music and quick motions become a part of the film as well. The bold lighting and storyboard effectively enables characters to convey their potent mockery of the story, which also brings the viewer’s attention past the story telling and makes it seem like this is what really happened. The man who was sleep in the woods as the woman and her husband came past, played a big role in the movie. He was the one who fought for the woman and showed off his talents and strengths to win the woman over from her husband. Towards the beginning of his role, it seems as he is just the normal guy who goes crazy once he sees the woman he likes he will do anything to get her, and the woman played the role that she was not interested.  Over all the movie had a good message and strong content. It also lets the characters tell the story in a different way each time and at the end it let them express there opinion on what happen when they were confession on the roof top, I feel this helped the characters get their own identity . I feel like in this movie it could have had a better ending and more scene changing events to keep the viewer’s attention better.               Overall it was a decent movie.

For The Love of Movies

Alex Holt

Jan-16-2012

For the love of Movies

            For the love of movies was a very intriguing movie because from the start of it, you can’t tell if it will be a documentary or a short film or some kind of narrative. So it comes out to be a little bit of all of the above.  In this movie it really shows different views of how movie critics are viewed. I never  knew that critics played as much of a roll in the movie industry as it does, I believe the reason why I never realized that is because the movie industry doesn’t give critics the energy or light they should. In this film they also talk about two different styles of criticism dating way back to the 1920s and these styles are still somewhat used in styles of writing by critics in recent films.

            From watching this movie it seems that the hardest job of a movie director is to get their message across to the critics as well as the viewers in a way that pleases everyone. The critics show no mercy on the directors. The directories seem to value the film critic’s opinion because in the movie it shows the director giving the film critics readings some thought. In the movie they talked about high vs. popular culture. I feel like this was an important because high culture wasn’t taken serious and pop culture was taking serious and influenced the rest of the cultures to go with popular culture , this seemed like to me to be the turning point in the critics viewing and writing style. I also really like the change in the film when Elvis Mitchell talked about why he became a film critic. I feel like this part of the movie turned it from a short film to a film with meaning, I feel like this was the game changer in the movie it showed that film critics had a point to prove as well as do a job. It also showed that they weren’t there to just bash the directors as most society thinks. They were there to show the world that movies still have room for growing , and that’s the whole objective of film critics is to give the people a higher power of directing and movies. Another game changer in the movie was when Pauline Kael talked about her views on women films.  She feels that woman are portrayed show a nonrealistic view of what is going on in society it is made up on the motion picture, but in reality it is different.

            I feel this was a very interesting film it touched a lot of topics, which I felt needed to be address for film critics to be taking seriously in the industry. I am glad it got its message across to me because it would be a shame for a film about critics to not be interrupted the way it was intended to because this is the struggle the directors have to face every day they direct.