We watched Gravity in class the other day, a new space thriller that follows the story of two astronauts who lost their ship and now must find a safe new way back to Earth.

The film’s plot involves two astronauts (played by Sandra Bullock & George Clooney), they are working on a space telescope when some smashed satellite debris suddenly strikes them in orbit, and the two survive but barely. They have to travel to the ISS and later a Chinese ship in order to find a new ride. The story though isn’t really as important though, considering that we didn’t really see her go up to space for a purpose, but we get to see Sandra Bullock survive and land on Earth, so that was the end of the plot line.

The Cause of her situation was the speeding satellite debris that struck her friend and her ship, the effect is that Sandra now has to travel through Earth’s lower orbit to other space stations.

As for time and space, there was definitely a lot of space considering they were in orbit. But in all seriousness the zero gravity effect made for some really interesting tracking sequences, and for high speed collisions, and difficult traveling situations.

The story information is very restricted because we barely know anything about her actual purpose for being in space, and they didn’t really have any communications with Earth in a majority of the movie. They did this to show that the story is all about her getting trapped up in Space and how it is all about her persevering and returning to Earth.

The information is entirely objective because all of the things that we did learn, it was smaller information directly related to her journey home. We didn’t learn much about anything besides like all the different things she was trying to do to get home.

Night of the Living Dead exemplifies the horror genre because it uses dark lighting to its advantage, classic zombie movie motifs, and quality special effects for the time it was created. I honestly felt pretty immersed while watching this horror classic, as the special effects were pretty good, especially because they did not overdue it, and many of the zombies seemed pretty humanoid. It was also really interesting to notice but Night of the Living Dead was less corny than like 50% of zombie related content nowadays. While they did use reoccurring themes, many of the ideas about zombies, and how the movie should be filmed; were actually the first of their kind and the quality has only lowered from this movie on out. I liked the situation they created in the movie, I liked that they weren’t constantly on the run from zombies, and I like that they weren’t easy to kill, as they barely could hurt anybody to begin with. The fact that they were trapped made the movie more interesting and honestly more scary. The situation in the basement with people dying and getting returned to kill the others inside was a classic move on the directors part, to make them feel more scared that there was a zombie in the building.

Psycho is considered a classic among-st its horror genre peers, it is a perfect example of a realistic but equally scary murder story. This film really defined what it means to be a horror movie, and therefore I believe that this movie set the standards for the rest of them. It had the creepy house on the hill, the creepy but oddly catchy Motel Bates, and people getting separated and slowly killed off. Not to mention the classic sound effects and song tracks that the producers used in order to make the film more tense.

To be specific, I personally thought all the scenes with Norman’s mother (before we knew), were very scary because it uses a non-scary figure like a mother, and made her seem like this crazy and scary old spirit.

When the full identity of Norman Bates was revealed it made for a very interesting twist. Especially for people like me who didn’t realize that he was playing as two different people.

I believe that the major themes of Psycho are, always travel in numbers, lock your door when you shower, and to not get overly obsessive with your dead mother.

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Recently we watched John Wayne’s, “The Searchers” which was a thrilling old western about settlers in Texas who are dealing with territorial disputes with Native American tribes that live in the area. The movie takes place over multiple years, and many of the characters are much older in the later scenes of the movie. It follows a cowboy named Ethan and his partner, they are looking for a little girl that was taken in a raid by a tribe, and now they are hoping to find her; dead or alive.

As for my expectations before the movie, I thought that there would be more shooting and stuff, but other old westerns truly pick up the slack for this movie. I honestly think the restrained shooting made fight scenes more intense. When too many fight scenes happen in a project, the viewer might be desensitized of deaths, making character deaths less significant. But as for all the bases that must be covered to make a movie an old western, The Searchers fits into it all. There were horses racing, revolvers and hunting rifles shooting, a damsel in distress, a whole lot of drinking, and a guy that gets a girl in the end. It is an excellent example of an old western, John Wayne had an incredible performance.

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To be honest I really hated this short film and thought it was the biggest waste of time ever, but instead of trashing it I’ll try to make something out of literally nothing. As much as any film scholar wants to break down this film and say it means something, I will never listen to them because I know after watching this that it was stupid. It had little form, most of it relied in similarly colored and framed shots, as well as a bunch of random noises that got so annoying I stopped watching; So maybe that can be taken as music? Probably not, but I don’t think this film maker has any talent, and hopes that people would think its art because it was hastily thrown together and just old enough to be considered a quality film. Terrible.

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Recently we watched the movie “Spirited Away” by Studio Ghibli. I noticed that the film mainly focused on the loss of loved ones especially in Japanese culture. I recently visited Tokyo and Osaka in Japan and I can see a straight resemblance to the small towns and scenery that I saw while I was on my trip. The producers of the movie clearly used the small ghost town to resemble an after life for the spirits of citizens. It really makes you appreciate your family and friends, and gives you a different outlook on death; as well as investing in Japanese culture within an afterlife.

The space the film makers used allowed for a lot of plot development, but also silent but yet intimate scenes with their characters, showing the tranquility of the after life that they live in. Though this can be chaotic, they used a mysterious detour to explain how fast things can change, how fast your parents may leave you, and how easy it is to lose everything you care about.

Narrative Expectations: I began by watching the original Final Destination movie, as there are 8 total movies. I knew the plot of the movie, but I didn’t really know what to expect. This Thriller/Horror film always begins with a character who has a vision or premonition of their death in some massive accident, and out of shock and fear they manage to avoid the tragedy, saving other people in the process (since they changed their actions). This movie’s situation was a large car accident on the interstate with multiple casualties. A girl getting ready to merge with the interstate has a vision of the crash and she tops in the middle of the entrance ramp. This causes all the people behind her to not be involved.

The twist is that after these events occur, all these people that ‘cheated’ death, are now experiencing paranormal activity type stuff, and one by one the survivors of the accident all begin to die in super random ways, in the order that they would have died. I think I expected it to be more corny but the director did a good job of making it interesting.

Story and Plot: I feel as that the writes tried to shoot this whole film in a shadowy eerie vibe to say as if that death was always looming over everyone, and they were very creative in killing off the characters, which involve meticulous coincidences and impossible chain reactions. Regardless though it was immersive and captivating.

Causality: Pretty much the majority of the decisions that the characters in this movie made decided if they would die soon in the movie. The cause is avoiding death’s plan, and the effect is that death will attempt to continue with that same plan, but he will now make sure it goes through.

Time: Throughout the movie the time frame remains generally in sequence as most of the events in the film happen over the course of just a few days or maybe a week or two. However many of these movies will have the main characters ‘beat’ death, but to only have it come back to kill them in a exposition part of the movie. The plot was swiftly paced and I never felt like it was a drag.

As we watched Jurassic Park in class, it is impossible to not notice a few unique motifs in the story. In many terrifying sequences, the characters of the movie were often confronted by a carnivorous dinosaur, which almost always left them frozen and in fear. I think the idea of an otherworldly threat like a dinosaur just shows how helpless all of these characters are. As they said in the movie, humans and dinosaurs were separated by years and years of evolution, and were never meant to see each other.

Another motif I noticed was the general thought that all of these humans thought they were better and smarter than the dinosaurs, trapping them in cages and hoping to make money off of them repeatedly proved a horrible idea.

Finally, I see the theme of the movie is taking a look at scientific advancement in a much darker and bloodier light. Ian says, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should”. We see new sciences and studies come out all the time, but at what point does science violate the way things were supposed to be on Earth, “Dinosaurs had their shot, and nature selected them for extinction.”

The development of Jurassic Park goes like this:

• Journey: Jurassic Park, Back to Lodge, Home
• Search: For a way off the island
• Mystery: Why was the park failing?

Jurassic Park can be digested in a lot of different ways.

Referential Meaning: Two archaeologists travel to a dinosaur zoo which ultimately fails and dinosaurs begin to roam the park as the people on the island need to escape.

Explicit meaning: The writers of Jurassic Park want the viewer to see that this idea is a terrible one and that you shouldn’t try to manipulate the concepts of life, death, and extinction. Almost like everything happens for a reason, human involvement should be minimal.

Implicit Meaning: The writers clearly wanted to say that humans should leave well enough alone when it comes to the concepts of extinction, and that everything that has happened on Earth happened for a reason.

Symptomatic Meaning: At what point is human intervention too far? It is interesting to see how John Hammond is dedicated to his achievements regardless of the cost, it gives some of the main characters a selfish villainous vibe to them. It is interesting to have two of the characters as paleontologists because they are people who have been studying dead dinosaurs and why they died and that they are no longer around anymore.

• Wall-E is a waste collecting robot left on a desolate earth in a distant future, where humans have left earth and now live on a cruise ship-like spaceship.
• The humans are probing earth to see if it has regenerated any plant life so that they might be able to return home.
• A ship lands on Earth with a surveying robot named Eve and Wall-E immediately takes interest in her arrival.
• Wall-E continues to attempt to befriend Eve, though she is very wary of him; they slowly become friendly but Eve remains focused on her task to find life.
• Wall-E takes Eve to his home where she finds a plant sprouting out of a boot, which then triggers Eve’s protocol to return home.
• As she leaves on her ship, Wall-E hitches a ride on her rocket; this is the call to adventure.
• Wall-E and Eve enter the human’s ship, where we learn more about what happened to the human race.
• Following the theme of automation, most of the ship is automatically kept by assorted machines, which serve as characters later in the movie. Not to mention that the entire ship is controlled by an ‘auto-pilot’.
• Eve manages to show the plant to the captain of the ship, who is then inspired to learn more about Earth and human’s heritage.
• After deciding to take the ship home, the captain is plotted against by the ships ‘auto-pilot’ (represented by an A-I ship wheel), who hopes to never see humans return to Earth.
• The ‘auto-pilot’ takes over and tries to stop the command to return home by making the ship rock, which causes all of the members of the ship to slide down the deck, since they are fat and can’t move.
• With everyone immobilized the ‘auto-pilot’ tries to close the plant holder, but Wall-E seemingly sacrifices himself to keep it open.
• The pilot fights with the A-I and manages to open the plant holder back up, which is then filled by Eve and the ships return home begins.
• Wall-E survives and is happy with Eve as humans finally make the trip home, where they supposedly start a new life.
• The End

For my first post I decided to write about the HBO series, “Game of Thrones” because I have been catching up recently since the final season is airing this month. After watching most of it I can definitely say that it is personally one of my favorite shows that I have watched.

The nature of the story in Game of Thrones is extremely complex. Considering how much content they have managed to create over the past 7 seasons it shouldn’t come as a surprise. I really enjoy the reoccurring theme of human conflict; whether that be a quarrel with a family from another kingdom, or to see someone fight an inner battle over a shifting identity.

I can imagine in filming the show, the director decided to use an immense amount of crane shots. It was common for the show to have a large set of extras in a crowd or army, and the elevated shots work great for that. As well as this, a smaller stabilized camera would have been used with an action shot specialist in order for them to capture intense battle scenes up close.

The directors were very careful in choosing the lighting in all of their shots. They used it a lot throughout the show to signify the spread of ‘darkness’ as in the winter that is coming. When the threat becomes imminent they used the darkness to create a different effect outside, and allows for fire lit chamber shots.

In comparison to other shows of this drama, this is like the Iphone of its kind. In filming the show many of the same directors were used that were involved in the filming of Lord of the Rings. They were the people responsible for filming the Helms Deep night battle that took place in one of the movies. These same people actually broke records in filming a battle scene for Game of Thrones in Season 8. This show also had a really deep story so it really felt well rounded.