Review of Sicko

This is a total review of the film Sicko, by Michael Moore. I will be looking at this film as a whole, did I like it, how was it made, and who was it talking too. I will start by saying this was a good movie (Documentary). The main focus of the film was to show the health-care system in the U.S versus that of other countries. If you have seen any of Michael Moore,s other films you will see that they are from a more liberal point of view. That is the only part of Michael Moore movies I dislike, they only show one side of the story. All of that said, it is an entertaining movie, that has a really important message that many people have an opinion about.
The movie was made as a documentary, so you can not try and critique the acting because the only person paid to be in the film is Michael Moore himself. The film is easy to follow, the director describes all of the settings and people being interviewed. It was really interesting seeing the different shots that he got and the editing that was done to add emotion to the film. As the director is showing the big insurance companies in the U.S. the music is low, but loud enough for you to hear it. You find yourself focusing on the words that Michael Moore is saying and the very clear message that is being delivered. He does a great job demonstrating the very poor climate in Cuba, and how primitive the hospital is, compared to the state of the art hospitals in the U.S.
This film's goal is to get Americans discussing the health-care system and its flaws. The director strongly pushes his views on the issue and distorts them to further make his point. He does a very good job at doing this, for people who share in his opinion this movie is a strong statement for change. This point is illustrated in the film at many spots; the mother from Detroit that goes up to Canada to get he child a check-up for free, by using a friends address; the Americans living in France that tell the camera how wonderful the system is and how they will stay in France for the health-care. The point is finally driven home, with great theater, by telling the story of the Sept. 11 rescue workers story. The story of three rescue workers from ground zero, all three suffering from respiratory problems from breathing the dust and contaminated air at ground zero. He explains how they can not afford to get treatment for their problems and the financial help from the government has stopped. So Michael Moore takes them down to Cuba to get them help. They are able to get seen and treated by just coming through the doors. This is a great way of driving home his point because he uses a Communist country, that is poor and ruled by a dictator. I thought that was brilliant by the director, to use American heroes and a country we do not trade with. I enjoy movies that like to make a social or political statement because even if I believe what I am watching it is fun to play devil's advocate. The health-care system in this country needs some improvement and Michael Moore shows this point with great evidence, but my question is what is he not showing us? The socialized medicine in Canada, England, France and Cuba seem like the perfect system. How much does it cost? How will my taxes change? Will a socialized system affect research and the technical advances in the field? These are the questions that the film does not answer and what are keeping this film from being good to being great. The film does not paint the whole picture. The average person who goes to see this movie for entertainment value will leave the theater or turn off their TV with the opinion that we need to go to a socialized system. Michael Moore has then done his job, he has gotten the everyday person to agree with him. I found the movie to be fun to watch and very entertaining, but incomplete, most of the people who I discussed this with liked the movie and shared in his viewpoint. That is what makes these types of movies so successful, people just share in the directors point of view, not forming their own opinion.

The Art of Watching Films. Briggs, Dennis. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. 2008

Review of The Dark Knight

I really enjoy watching action movies, and The Dark Knight did not disappoint at all. The movie begins with a bank robbery, the only major thing you notice about the robbers is they are all wearing the same "joker" masks. The robbers start killing each other one by one only saying that the "boss" told them to do it. At the end of all of the action the only robber left is the Joker. That whole scene really jump started the way the movie was going. The acting in this movie is really interesting. The role of Harvey Dent played by Aaron Eckhart is a really fun character. He starts out playing a district attorney that is going after all of the organized crime in Gotham. He is strong willed and very driven. He is in love with Rachel, the longtime friend of Bruce Wayne. He is a man of passion and has a drive to do the right thing. All of that comes to an end when the Joker kidnaps both him and Rachel and gives Batman the choice of saving only one of them. Batman chooses to save Dent himself and have the police save Rachel. Only Batman was successful in saving Dent. After Harvey has to listen to his love die he turns his aggression towards rage and being vengeful towards police commissioner Gordon and Batman. He kidnaps Gordon's family and tells batman to choice which one lives and which one dies. The full transformation of this character is done extremely well by Eckhart. You feel really proud at the beginning of the movie that he is a good guy and at the end you feel sad for him and you feel betrayed. You feel betrayed because a man that has dedicated his life to stopping crime turned to crime so easily.
The other character i would like to discuss is the character of the Joker played by Heath Ledger. This character has some complexity in his mannerisms and the way he manipulates the police, the crime lords, Harvey Dent and Batman. The main goal of the Joker is not to get rich or to be the most powerful man in Gotham. He main goal is to create total anarchy in the city and to bring Batman down to his level and make him a murderer. The Joker is a schizophrenic psychopath, that like most criminals, has an objective. He is good at making people choose the path, he always creates a choice for his victims, whether that be the people on the two different ships at the end of the movie or Batman choosing to save Harvey Dent or Rachel or the people choosing to kill the man or blow up the hospital. I really like all of the little complexities of the character, the way he would jump around and get excited every time someone would talk about Batman. The way that he would always lick his scars on the sides of his face. Heath Ledger won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for this role, and while some people think he just won the award because of his death, I think he won it because this was the best acting job of his career.
The article that I found for this film described how much Ledger immersed himself in this role. The article was written by Kristopher Topley, he describes that Ledger never came out of character while he was on the set, filming or not. Topley quoted Aaron Echhart in his article, saying the actor would ask Ledger a question while they were on the set and he would respond instinctively in character. He talked about how much Ledger had come out of his own shell and opened up to play this character. The article also says that Ledger did research into victims that have scars on their face. His research found that they lick there scars, he did this in the movie. That type of research and performance really shows how much work Ledger did to prepare for this role, and it really comes out on film.

Heath Ledger. Tapley, Kristopher. Daley Variety. Vol. 301. Issue 45. 12/8/2008

The Art of Watching Films. Boggs, Petrie. McGraw Hill. New York, New York. 2008.

Review of Pulp Fiction

This is one of my favorite movies. I like that this movie makes you think about everything that you are watching and listening to. Until I read our text book and the article "Shepherding the Weak: The ethics of Redemption in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction", I really didn't understand the true complexity of this film. The way that the film editor has to intricately cut each scene so that they over lap with the whole nature of the story. The way that this film is made so that each major scene is its own story, broken up from each individual part by a black screen with a new story title accompanying each story. As you go through and watch each scene and make your way through the movie you start to see the whole movie coming together. The very first story in the movie with Vince and Jules going to the apartment to get the brief case and the story of how Jules and Vince had to call the "cleaner" and get the blood out of the car from the guy they shot that was helping them get the brief case in the first story. The way that this movie intertwines itself with every shot and dialogue. The movie also incorporates strong use of color in the movie. The use of colors is really unique, from the use of very dull, to black and white, colors for the murder scenes to the use of really fun and bright colors through out the rest of the movie. The way that the director had Vince and Jules wear some really out of character clothes while they were getting cleaned up, to the really bright colors of the 50's restaurant.
The dialogue in this movie is a great component to the film. The use of colors and editing is really important for this movie, but the script and dialogue between the characters is what makes this movie really good. The way the subjects are discussed in the movie make the view responsible for answering the questions, or makes the viewer think about the question in their own way. A good example of this is when Vince and Mia are on their date and she asks the question “why people feel so awkward during a time of silence”, while this is just a very basic question for two people on a first date, she asks it to a guy who is taking out the bosses wife.
This film is really strong in bringing the audience into the dialogue, as expressed in the previous example, or by having the audience laugh at the argument of two hit men that are on there way to kill somebody. This is expressed in the movie when Vince and Jules are talking about being able to get a beer in McDonald's in Amsterdam, and discussing the different condiments that countries put on french fries. (Shepherding the Weak…)
Overall this movie is really entertaining and is worth a rent at the video store. I had seen this movie a couple of times before I had taken this class and the amount of stuff that I got out of film after reading the text book and the accompanying article for this assignment, I appreciated this movie even more.

Shepherding the Weak: the Ethics of Redemption in Quentin Tarantinos “Pulp Fiction”. Davis, Womack. Literature Film Quarterly. 1998 Vol. 24 Issue 1 p.60

The Art of Watching Films. Boggs, Petrie. McGraw-Hill. New York, NY. 2008

Review of Slumdog Millionaire

I really enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire. It was definitely not what I was expecting, i went into this movie knowing very little about it. I always find movies more enjoyable if you go into them knowing either very little or nothing at all. This movie is set in India, the majority of the movie takes place in Mumbai. The set of the movie is really aw-inspiring. The use of the slums of the big cities and the vast country side that is shown through the use of the train system, that seems to be heavily used and very over crowded. The Taj Mahal is used also as a set and shooting point. The camera shots are also very interesting, the director uses a lot of wide angle and zoom out views of the cities to show the viewer the true sprawling nature of the slums and what people truly live in. The best two shots that the film has are the birds eye view of the slums and the shot of Jamal and Salim sitting on a floor in a skyscraper that is on the neighborhood that they grew up in. It was really interesting to get another view point of the Taj Mahal, as foreigners we see the structure as a national monument to India that is treated exactly like all of the monuments that we have. The view point that the director shows is that of stealing and cheating. The scene of Jamal and Salim stealing shoes, giving fake tours, taking pictures and stealing purses shows what it takes for some of the really impoverish people of the society to live.
Another aspect of this film that really drove home the point of a child from the slums making it to the big time is the costumes that the actors are wearing. It starts right away showing the children in the slums wearing rags and dirty clothes. It shows the adult men wearing really dull colors and the women wearing bright colors, but both are still bleak and desperate looking. As the two boys grow up and there lives start taking different paths there wardrobe changes with them. Salim grows up with a life of crime, so he has on nicer clothes and has nice accessories, Jamal grows up living a life that is honest and very uninteresting. He wears very common and normal clothes. It really set apart the different worlds that the boys lived in at the end of the movie, with the world that both boys came from at the beginning of the movie.
Reading the article by Christine Davies, titled Wagging the slumdog; she had some very interesting viewpoints from the people of India about this movie. While the whole country was excited and proud of the film from their country winning all of these international awards, there was another group that thought the movie cast a negative light on there country and the city of Mumbai. I disagree with these people, I think that most people know that there are people living in other countries that live in poverty. People know that there is crime in other countries. I think that the director just tried to make the movie as realistic as possible. The revelation was not that there is poverty and crime in India, it was how vast, and truly, common it seemed to be.
Overall I would recommend this movie, it was both entertaining and educational. This movie showed a side of India that I had neither seen or read about.

The Art of Watching Film. Boggs, Petrie. McGraw-Hill. New York, NY. 2008.

Wagging the Slumdog. Davies, Christie. New Criterion; Apr2009, Vol. 27 Issue 8, p31-33, 3p