FILM REVIEWS

Screening Reflection

Tangerine

IMBd 7/10

Rotten Tomatoes 97%

71% Like

Madelon’s Rate: 9.3/10 (93%)

Overall, Tangerine was a cinematic experience. From its unique shooting, completely on an iPhone, to its focus on an underrepresented demographic in film, Tangerine displays many examples of unconventional methodology and narrative that make the film a surprise and excitement to watch. The narrative focuses on a transgender prostitute as the main characters of the film. In addition to this, its cinematography exemplified the ability to create a film, independent of the expensive and professional filming equipment. Despite its lower quality picture, the iPhone was able to catch the aspects of the film, characters, and narrative, based on the filming techniques used, and supported by the musical underscore of the film.

What I focused on when viewing the film was the representations of transgender prostitutes and ethnic minority families (Armenian). I thought the film did a good job of authenticity in its representations. When watching the film, you could tell that it was a lower budget film, and the actors and actresses were not A-list actors, but that almost skit-like scenes acted out, that weren’t dramatized representations of a situation or person, but more down to earth, realistic displays, added an authenticity to the portrayal of the characters in my viewing of the film. So from the beautiful orange and pink infused sunsets, to the Christmas lights that twinkle on the hedge beside Dinah’s profile, the filmmakers did a great job of taking my breath away with the shots they included in the film.

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Mommy

Imbd 8.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes 89%

51% Like

Madelon’s Rate: 9.7/10 (97%)

Themes: Mental Illness, Oedipus Complex, Recovery, Forgiveness

French director and producer, Xavier Dolan, creates an astounding look into the complicated lives of a widowed mother and violent, mentally troubled son. Dolan’s cinematic creation was not only a narrative thriller, but also a cinematic journey as he played with the realm of video framing. The square-size proportions of the movie allowed for a unique look, as the audience notices the almost-consistent square frame shift to a wide frame in the important scenes of the film. This film got me researching filming proportions so what I found was… Typical movies are screened and shot in a 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 aspect ratio, BUT in this film, Dolan boldly experimented with a 1:1, or square, ratio. Dolan explains that this made the film more difficult to film, the shots were tight, and filming all three subjects at once could be challenging, but because of this, Dolan was able to draw attention to the scenes in the movie in which all the subjects are present, as well as drawing attention to the three shifts in proportions during the film. "People have been trying to intellectualize the heck out of this," Dolan explains. "I just wanted to shoot portrait aspect ratio that would allow me to be very close to characters, avoid distractions to the left and right of the frame and have the audience look the characters right in the eye."1 But really Dolan.. how are we as media and film students not supposed to “intellectualize the heck” out of it?!

Beyond the filming and aspect ratio, the storyline, plot, and narrative were so well constructed and acted out. I was fully mesmerized by the film. You are sucked into the mental health issues of a young boy, you feel the pain of a single mother, you feel hope in the companionship of a teacher and friend, you feel all the emotions that come with these things in the film. The film entitled just ‘Mommy’ was already a trigger for me, having lost my mother a couple years back. But instead of becoming something unbearable to sit through, the film became, for me, something of a representation of my own experience, through Steve’s longing for a mother he desperately wanted. I understood the mental health issues that came with the loss or detachment of a mother, and how that can lead to the unfortunate and sad ending as it did with Steve. Overall, the movie was so well put together to watch, analyze, and relate to, and was easily one of my favorite films we viewed this semester.

1 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-xavier-dolans-mommy-was-756857

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Amy

IMBd 7.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes 95%

74% Like

Madelon’s Rate: 9.2/10 (92%)

To me, Amy reigns queen…

Themes: Jazz, Music Icon, Rehab, Drugs, Unhappiness, Love, Heartbreak, Authenticity

“They try to make me go to rehab but I say No, No, No” …. These words became the anthem for many, the strength and rebellion ringing in all our voices as we sang Amy’s words. Words that to us were entertainment, beauty, and glamore, but to Amy Winehouse, these words were a reality lived. We seldom pause to consciously understand the emotions behind the songs we sing again and again. For Amy, daddy issues, drugs, and her ex-husband, Blake, cultivated a land mine of sadness, hurt, and addiction in Amy that was highly represented in her music, but too under-recognized in her own life, until it was too late. Many great artists reflect back on Amy’s life and knew she could have been a great legend in jazz, even more of a legend than she was at the time of her death. In Amy, archival footage is recovered to tell the story of the great late and great legend of jazz, Amy Winehouse.

The film traced Amy’s life, going in chronological order through her life. The beginning, the passion for jazz, the underground clubs and traveling, the come up, the ‘glow up’, finding love, falling to drugs, loosing love… Amy’s life was a rollercoaster just like many of ours, but adding mental illness and the access to drugs and the high profile celebrity status of Amy, led to Amy’s sad decent into the now late-Amy Winehouse we reminisce about. The authenticity of this film, and the build-up to the ultimate fate of Amy, left me passionate about discussing music, art, and mental illness with Emily as we left the screening. Again, another film we viewed that highlighted mental illness, this time through a non-fiction documentary representation (though not told or mediated by Amy herself), that I very much got emotionally invested in and enjoyed. I appreciate depictions and representation of mental illness on the screen, not because they are simplifications or generalization about mental illness, but because on-screen depictions get the message out there that mental illness is an issue that needs attention, focus, and discussion, and I believe film is one of the best mediums with which to represent and bring this issue to light.

367 words

*We always mourn the losses of great artists who’s lives were cut too short

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Fruitvale Station

IMDd: 7.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 94%

88% Like

Madelon’s Rate: 8.7/10 (87%)

Themes: Race, Profiling, Policing, Family, Reinvention

Because ‘Fruitvale Station’ is an on-screen, fictional depictions of a real-life event, I focused heavily on the construction of the narrative during this film. Looking at how they framed and built Oscar up as a character. During the whole first half of the movie, the filmmakers attempt to paint Oscar as the moral high figure of the film. They show him as a loving and great dad, a boyfriend trying to get better for his girlfriend, an ex-convict struggling to make a living, a wonderful and loving son, and a funny brother that takes care of his family. All of the early scenes in the film work to illustrate to the audience that Oscar Grant was a good person, so that our resulting reaction is justifiably equal to the injustice done. The writers and created want us as an audience to fall in love with the kindness, quirks, determination of this man, because in the foreseeable future, as we all know, Oscar becomes the victim. The film does a great job of provoking this emotional reaction from the audience through its narrative construction and character development. This is divisively employed in most movies to evoke reaction from the audience. The film did a good job of getting the audience angry, making a statement, giving a clear depiction of what may not be clearly interpreted from live footage of the incident and giving an idea of the personal context of Oscar that may not have be taken in context during the momentary glimpse in time when Oscars life wrongly came to an end.

One scene that grabs the audience and pulls them in close and tight, or at least it did for me, is when Oscars daughter talks to him about being afraid of hearing guns outside. “You be okay inside with your cousins”, Oscar says. “But what about you daddy?”, his daughter asks.

This foreshadowing of Oscars death by gun shot is meant to grip the audience, because hearing the words come from his own daughter makes the proceeding events even sadder to see. In reality, we may never know if this conversation occurred between Oscar and his daughter, but it was strategically placed to evoke reaction and build to the ultimate climax, making it more potent in the hearts of the audience, and truly commenting on the racial injustices of police profiling and violence. The film makes a clear message: We are all living life, trying to be good people, reform ourselves to be better for the ones we love, we all have this is common, living day by day, and ultimately ending a life based on the color of one’s skin is absolutely unjustifiable and will not go unnoticed by those in society. This movie makes this clear.

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Her

IMDb 8/10

Rotten tomatoes 94%

81% Like

Madelon’s Rate: 7.5/10 (75%)

Her her her… I’m not going to lie this screening made me uneasy. The reason being that it’s totally plausible that this is the way people will be dating in 15 or 20 years, because we already see the technology growing fast enough the support the idea. The film reminded me of the growing ‘disconnectivity’ we are beginning to experience as a result of the evolution of technology. This evolution that creates an environment of possibility where people can have a completely virtual life, experience, or relationship on a device in both isolation and around others, disconnecting that individual from real human connection in the moment when it exists. Will our emersion in online dating, with knowing the details of others lives before we even meet them face to face, leading to the ability evaluate compatibility before even making a psychical human connection, be the downfall of real connection? I guess it comes down to ‘to each their own’ in preference for dating. When I get into a crazed rant about the disconnecting abilities of media and technology my roommate reminds me that there are some people who have this preference for online interaction before human interaction. She said she owes a great deal of her relationship and its lengthy success to the first few months and years where her and her boyfriend mainly communicated over text instead of in person (they’ve been together since 6th grade b t w). If it weren’t for this period of talking over text, Facebook, or Gmail, and really getting comfortable with him, she may not have been comfortable enough to start or continue an in-person, physical relationship with him.

So how does online dating relate to Her? Because like I expressed earlier, the evolution of technology and media, and the constant updating of platforms both online and on our smartphones, allows for emerging markets for different methods of dating. Going even as far as what I would describe as ‘a relationship Siri’. It’s true, the interest for an AIS is there in technology and development, and it’s only time before AIS’s will be a reality. But as we also saw in Ex Machina, there are dangers to building artificial intelligence systems that can outsmart their creators. And I saw these ‘dangers’ in Her, dangers to the authenticity of real human relationships if artificial intelligence systems, weather in a physical body like Ava, or a bodiless form like Samantha, become standard in peoples lives.

As a side note, I thought Scarlett Johansson’s voice as Samantha was actually quite annoying and distracting to the idea of a ‘bodiless women’, because the whole time I heard Samantha’s voice I instantly conjured an image of Scarlett Johansson in my mind. I believe they should have used a less recognizable voice for the character of Samantha in Her.

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S-Town

The Mechanicals of Storytelling in S-Town

To be honest, S-Town was the first ever podcast I really got into. I’ve had podcasts recommended to me before, but I never really gave them a chance because they were missing the visual element for me, and in the digital age, that visual element has come to widely define ‘digital media’. But this podcast brought me back to the days when I listened to audio books (basically growing up all the time with my mom). The structure of the podcast drew many parallels with the audiobooks I indulged in. The expressive voice, the visualization in your head, having to go back and rewind when I blanked on listening, each episode or chapter leaving you in anticipation like a book or a TV show episode would. Brian Reed, the narrator of the podcast, framed the podcast well and had elements that worked together to tell a narrative, just as an audio book, a script, or a movie would. I think many of us dismiss podcasts for their ‘outdated’ being, and common connotations of a podcast would be that they would be about the news or politics. But S-Town had the elements of telling a story, filling in details, giving analysis, cutting out the ‘bullshit’, simplifying and explaining, giving a verbal narrative, keeping mystery and anticipation, and tying together story elements with overarching themes, information, and music.

When I came to write my own podcast script I realized how both easy and difficult it was to prepare for. The script had to be rooted in fact, well spoken, and it had to tell a story. It was fun being able to put my own spin on the script and make a dialogue with no interruptions from others. I think creating podcasts is ideal for those who are creatively looking to engage their writing, voice expression, and storytelling into a creative element without being behind a camera.