2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey was a very intriguing and interesting movie even though it had some slow parts, I really enjoyed it. The shots were mesmerizing and like nothing I've seen before. I love the shot where Dave is running through the ship and the camera is following behind him. In this part it makes it seem as though he is running in a circle even upside down and the ship goes on infinitely. Another interesting part was where a woman was walking upside down to get to another hallway.

After watching it I honestly had no idea what happened through any of the movie and had to look up the meaning behind it. Thee are many different meanings with each part of the movie and everyone had their own interpretation of it. During the Jupiter mission Hal the computer views the men as "matiness machines" and they are at the end of their evolution. Even for part of the film they show what the ship looks like through Hals POV. I think this part could mean that machines are taking over the world and humans don't really matter any more. Basically, I think they are saying that all humans do is work for machines. Then, the computer Hal makes a mistake showing that there is still a need for humans and we are more than just machine operations.

Casablanca (1942)

Even though this is a very iconic film this was probably my last favorite film we have watched. If I paid more attention to it or maybe if I was older I would be able to understand it a little better. The reason it was not my favorite film was most of it was just middle aged men in suits talking to each other. I usually watch everything with subtitles so I can read what the characters are saying if I miss something an since we didn't watch it with subtitles it was very easy for me to loose interest and not pay attention to dialogue. There is great contrast in this film that gives it a "balance of grays, blacks, and whites" which is important in a film  with no color (Bordwell and Thompson 161). Casablanca was not only a very iconic film itself but it inspired another iconic film, Star Wars. One similarity between the two films is Ricks Café in Casablanca becomes the Cantina in Star wars. Another inspiration from Casablanca is Humphrey Bogart’s character is an "important model for Harrison Ford’s performance" (Robey 6). Even though I didn't love this film I will definitely go back and watch it gain and pay attention to the dialogue more in the future.
 

Citizen Kane (1941)

 Citizen Kane is about a reporter is assigned to decipher the last words of Kane (rosebud) through many people who knew him throughout time. Welles and the editors created patterns when editing this film. One pattern includes two similar scenes where "Kane seems to win public support" during his run for governor and campaign for Susan's opera singing (Bordwell and Thompson 322). The pattern in these two scenes are the alternating shots of the speaker and audience members or listeners. Another trick Wells did during editing this film was the shock cut. A shock cut "creates a jarring juxtaposition" which could include a crescendo in the music and graphic discontinuity  (Bordwell and Thompson 324). This film wasn't my favorite film of all time but I could definitely appreciate the wonderful shots and editing done in this film.

Mr. Robot (2015- )

Mr. Robot is about a computer programmer named Elliot Alderson. By day he works for a company that protects other companies from being hacked,  but by night he is a hacker. The thing that separates him from other hackers is he only has good intentions by doing it but  he soon finds himself getting into bad situations. While doing all of this he also struggles with many mental illnesses such as social anxiety and schizophrenia. This is one of the most interesting parts of the show because parts of it are filmed as if your in his brain and can hear his thoughts. In order to create this illusion Rami Malek (Elliot) has to do many voice overs. In one scene he over dosed on drugs and was in a lot of pain. In order to show this they filmed it with many cuts and from many angles. They then pieced them together and jumped from cut to cut very quickly showing many angles of his body  to make the situation seem more chaotic. Since this show is based on computers they need to film the computer a lot. I'm not exactly sure how they do it but I read that when filming people typing they actually jut pre type it and just backspace It then play it in reverse which I found Interesting. This show was extremely well written with many plot twists that will make you want to continue watching. After Finishing this show I can definitely tell why it won a golden globe.