Mrs. Doubtfire

This establishing shot in this movie was in a half screen in the scene after Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) quits his job and celebrates his son Christopher's (Matthew Lawrence) 12th birthday. Christopher doesn't deserve a party because of his bad report card. But Daniel wanted to keep the party a secret so the kid's mother and his wife Miranda (Sally Field) would not find out and not come home angry. She did come home angry after a neighbor called her to come home and shut the party down. After the argument between Daniel and Miranda, they were divorced. I know it sounds serious but it was really funny. Daniel wanted to stay with the kids a lot and comes up with a plan to disguise himself as a woman and work at the house as a babysitter. He got the name Mrs. Doubtfire from the newspaper article that said "Police doubt fire was accidential." On the first day of his job as a babysitter as a woman, he might of been mean to the kids like making them do chores and do homework so their mother would be happy that they are studying. In a close up and a medium shot, Daniel was bad at cooking when he tried to make meat and soup but it got caught on fire and it was funny when he was on fire. Some of the days, he played soccer with Christopher, went bike riding with the kids, learned how to cook like lobster, read the book Stuart Little to Natalie (Mara Wilson), and even cleaned the house. The only person he hates is Stuart the gentlemen caller (Pierce Brosnan) because he wants to date Miranda. At the end of the movie, Miranda was so angry at Daniel because he was pretending to be a woman. Daniel got a show called "Aunt Euphegenia's house" on TV and it made the kids laugh and Miranda laugh. Also the kids got to live with Daniel now and the sad part on the TV was that Mrs. Doubtfire was talking about what was on the mail that said that somebody's parents were divorced while Miranda was tearing in a close up shot. The character Mrs. Doubtfire looked like my grandmother, and this movie made my family laugh. This movie I give it is a 100% out of a 100 because its a funny movie.

Ben's Academy Award nominee's

The best film award should go to "North by Northwest" directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This is the best movie because about of the journey it takes from New York to South Dakota. The movie is half scary and half fantastic because of how Alfred combines movies scenes together.

The best villain award should go to Hans Beckart in the movie "M" because of the killing he does. After Hans kills girls, he doesn't remember what he did until when he sees the posters looking for the person who committed the murderers. He was a bad guy because he slays girls with a knife. He gets the girls something they want in order to fool the girls into thinking that he's good.

The funniest moment award in a film should go to the dance scene in "Little Miss Sunshine". The funniest scene is at the end of the movie is when Olive makes it to the Little Miss Sunshine contest late. It is funny because Olive Hoover's grandfather taught her that dance like taking off her suit and looking sexy. Olive's dancing made a judge angry and red faced. She was stripping and it was funny because she is a little kid trying out for Little Miss Sunshine and her family got up there and danced with her.

Bridge on the River Kwai

This movie has an establishing shot when the prisoners are working and later on when the prisoners marched down to the camp. In this movie, Colonel Saito's, idea was to build the bridge from February to May. Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guiness) keeps mentioning The Geneva Convention. In the movie, Colonel Nicholson's officers were treated badly by Colonel Saito. Nicholson wanted Colonel Saito to treat the officers like gentlemen and would help Saito build the bridge if he becomes nicer. Commander Shear's idea was to destroy the bridge by getting some help from some of the people in Asia. This film uses "Day for night" shooting by using low key and low angle when 3 people sneak to the bridge and put a bomb near the bridge so in the next morning when the train comes in high key, it would be the put when they explode the bridge at the end of the movie.

Secondhand lions

This movie is about when Walter (Haley Joel Osment) as a kid had to stay with his 2 crazy uncles Gar (Michael Caine) and Hub (Robert Duvall) over the summer while his mother is away. Lots of people want their money. They had no telephone and no television. Walter just hanged out with 2 uncles. On Walter's first day, 2 uncles scared 3 salesman away with their rifles. Every night, Hub goes outside remembering the past but on the first night, he was sleepwalking pretending to fight someone. On the second day, the lawyer came for the money and when Walter ran away upset, he tried calling his mother but his mother lied about where she is. A flashback is remembering the past. This movie is one of my favorites because of the story about Hub, the female lion that they kept, the life with Walter staying with his 2 uncles, and more. 2 uncles in the movie started buying for Walter like a sling shot and they bought plant seeds like corn. They now kept the lion and named it Jasmine. Jasmine is a very old lion and a good friend to the 2 uncles and Walter. On the last day, will almost, his mother came with her evil boyfriend that lied to Walter that the 2 uncles stories were fake, I'm not sure if this is true. When the bad guy is smacking Walter while asking "Where's the money?" Jasmine comes for a rescue by attacking him. After the attack, the lion died and the bad guy is injured. Almost to the end of the movie, Walter decides to stay with his 2 uncles and grow up there. At the end of the movie takes place when Walter's a grown up a man and his 2 uncles died in a plane crash when they were riding it all the way to their shed. Walter will always remember them and will never forget it. This movie starts off in the medium shot which are Gar and Hub riding on a plane. It ended on a long shot when Gar, Hub, and Walter goes back in the house. I give this rating a 100 because of Walter's wonderful life with his 2 uncles and the adventures that happened in the movie.

Little Miss Sunshine establishing shots

This movie starts off with an establishing shot showing Olive Hoover (Abigail Breslin) in a close up changing channels. She's looking at shows about winners and there's music playing in the background which is nondiegetic. This shot shows us that Olive is interested in winners because she wants to win a competition. This whole movie is about the road straight to the show and this establishing shot sets up what the movie is going to be about. It shows Olive is smart and wants to win. In the next scene, Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) talks to the people at work about winners. The scene shows that he loves winners but hates losers. The first scene Dwayne Hoover (Paul Dano) shows him exercising on the ground in his room. He is exercising to get to the air force and to be a pilot. This shows how he feels about becoming a pilot when he's working out. The first time we see the grandfather Edmund Hoover (Alan Arkin), he is taking a pill in the bathroom. This scene is important because everyday he needs to take medication because he is older and maybe sick. Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collitte) is in the road going to get her brother in the hospital. This scene shows she's helpful and cares about everybody. The first time Frank Ginsberg (Steve Carrell) is on the screen is when he is in the hospital after he tried to kill himself with a gun. This scene shows that Frank was upset because he wanted to fall in love with a woman so he was sad because she would not love him back. I give this rating a 100 because its very funny and the characters are interesting.

Lola Rennet (Run Lola Run)

nuR aloL nuR, In this film, everything was out of order and upside down. Lola tries to save Manni 3 times to get $100,000 to her boyfriend otherwise Manni would into a store and shout put the money in the bag or he would shoot. For the 1st time, Lola tries to get her father to give her the money but he kicked her out of the office. She was too late to give Manni the money so Lola helps Manni get the money in the store. They both try to run away but when they were surrounded by cops, the cops shot Lola. I thought the movie was a short film until I realize it was a long film, Lola came back to live at the part after she called her boyfriend about the money. For the 2nd time, Lola is alive again and when she goes see her father again, she takes the gun from the security and tells the people to give her $100,000. But the one stupid thing in the movie is that the cops think somebody else was in there and the bag of money has something else in it. I think the director did this to make the cops act stupid and make Lola seem smarter. When Manni was about to go to the store for a 2nd time, Lola shouts out "MANNI" to get his attention and when Manni crosses the street to see her he gets run over by an ambulance truck. It feels strange but its kind a sad that he gets run over by an ambulance truck which is suppose to help people. For the 3rd time, she was too late to see her father and her boyfriend sees his lost money near the biker and tries to get it while Lola goes to the casino and try to win $100,000. At the end, Manni finally got the money from the biker and says to Lola "Its ok, I got the money." And that was the end of the movie for real. I give this rate an 80 out of 100.

Chungking Express

In the 1st part of the film, the first characters we are introduced to are the Cop 223, and the woman in the blonde wig. The woman in the blonde wig murdered some people. When I saw the woman in the blonde wig, I thought she was american but she is asian. I realized she was asian when she spoke Chinese. Cop 223 buys lots of pineapples. He is considered about the woman he just broke up with. Cop 223 meets an older woman and Cop 633 meets a young woman in 2 different parts in the movie. In the 2nd half of the film, he meets a young woman, Faye that works at a snack bar. Faye always likes to go into cop 633 in the apartment and clean his room. Cop 633 is childlike in the movie. The similarity that Cop 223 and Cop 633 share is that they both broke up their loves. The characters in the first and second halves are connected because they both meet other women and the woman in the blonde wig and Faye are the other women that they met.

Jesus Camp

This movie is a documentary film where kids go to camp to learn about Christianity. Some people in this movie believe in differently than mainstream Christians. Before the kids went to camp, they were praying with three flags that shows American, Christian, and Jerusalem. They believe in creationism and that all the answers to questions can be found in Bible. Some sad moments were when the counselors had to make the children cry for their sins. When the head counselor talked to the kids about "Harry Potter" in the movie, she said that they can't use warlocks (witches) as their hero. The kids in the movie were pretending to talk to President Bush. When the kids got to Washington D.C., they prayed outside of the White House before the end of the movie.

M

This film is the director, Fritz Lang's first film to use sound. There was no music in this movie "M" except for the whistling "In the Hall of the mountain king" that comes from Hans Beckert. That sound felt like he is going to murder someone. Hans Beckert murders a lot of girls and Elsie Beckman was the 9th to be killed in the beginning of the movie. The music let the viewer know that something bad will happen in the movie. The sound I hear in the movie is when Elsie Beckman sings the awful song for the game when people get out after she says "He will chop you up". This also lets the viewer know that something bad will happen in the movie like murder. The last sound in the film that I heard was Elsie's mother saying "This won't bring back our children". I say the rating system was 2/5 because of the murder that Hans Beckert committed.

Peter and the wolf

This movie is a short film. It was a non-fearful boy who has 2 bird friends which is the bird and the duck. The cat belonged to Peter and the grandfather for years. His grandfather never wanted Peter to go to the meadow because the wolf would come out from the forest. But what the grandfather said was true because first, the wolf tried to kill the cat but when the duck was going to Peter, the duck was eaten alive by the wolf. Peter was shocked that the duck died. After Peter caught the wolf, the hunters tried to shoot it but misses and the grandfather was thank goodness not dead. When Peter and his grandfather bought the wolf to the village to make it be killed, Peter decided to free the wolf but the grandfather was not happy so the wolf left and that's the end of the film. The story and movie is different but a little similar to the story, there was no narrations, and no speaking, but there is music and sounds. I give this rating a 5/5 because it was based on a story Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev.

Good Will Hunting

One of the film's theme is Trust. Trust is when people care about someone and are able to share their thoughts on topics. Will didn't build trust when he was younger because he was being picked on by his family. As an adult, he still doesn't have trust with many people. His friends are the only people that he trusts. His friends get into trouble a lot, they come from South Boston which is a bad part of town. In the beginning, his relationship with Sean was annoying for Sean because Will didn't share a lot and was silent all day. Sean share about his wife dying by cancer. Will said Sean married the wrong wife because he thought she was mean to Sean. At the end, of the movie, Will gives Sean a letter that says that Will is going to California to meet Skylar. Skylar is Will's girlfriend. Will said that he doesn't love her because he didn't want to get hurt.

Casablanca

I believe that Rick and Ilsa love each other sometimes because they might have not met for a long time until she came to Casablanca and sees Rick working there. The scene that makes me believe this is about the memories of Rick with Ilsa in Paris because in that past, they were having a good time, they get along, and talk sometime. At the end of the movie, Rick made Victor take Ilsa his true love and goes to the airplane straight to America. He even almost got arrested but not at all so Rick said "This is the beginning of our beautiful friendship. I believe it would be a better movie if Rick and Ilsa got together forever because of their enchanting life when they first saw each other and the time they talked.

Do the Right Thing

"Do the Right Thing" is about if the main character Mookie (Spike Lee) does the right thing when it comes to treating other people the right way/ People who have racism is a bad thing because they feel like that they are different in worst than others. People who are racists feel that they are better than other people. Mookie is a pizza delivery person who gets upset sometimes because he wants more money, he has a family, at the end, he destroys the pizza place. Everybody in real life who see's violence in Spike Lee's movie has to find out if he did the right thing or not. The restaurant owner Sal was not a happy person to the blacks, he hates musics, he wants silent, some customers were bad to him because they don't follow the rules. The pictures that Sal hangs up are white people including John Travolta. Everybody wants Sal to put up pictures of blacks like at the end, Smiley went to his place and put up the picture of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X on Sal's wall. I believe Sal should put up black people on the wall so the blacks won't be angry.

Rushmore: Max Fischer

I like Max Fischer a little because of all the different qualities he has. Sometimes he is romantic and sometimes he is selfish. He is in love with the teacher and this makes him act romantic. He made a play about the army at the end of the movie so he can make everybody appreciate him and he even made some friends. The things I hate about Max was that he broke one law which is breaking the brakes in Mr. Blume's car, he is mean, and he did some mean things in the movie. He even lied to everybody in the movie. The good thing was that Max later in the movie became friendly again with Mr. Blume, he is good at making plays, but the bad thing is that he is a worst student because in Rushmore, he failed alot of subjects. I don't quite want to become Max Fischer's friend because Max can lie to me and sometimes be mean.

The Fellowship of the Ring

This movie started off in the army of Mordor where Sauron the arch bad guy dies, an elf who found the ring did not destroy the ring because it can control people's mind. For many years, Bilbo found the ring that Gollum was looking for, after Bilbo's birthday. Gandalf told Frodo to be careful with the ring and go somewhere. Sam goes with Frodo even Merry and Pippin. Later on, they meet Aragorn in a village, he took the hobbits somewhere safe. But the spirits saw them and when Frodo put the ring on to be invisible, one poisoned Frodo with a sword because they can see him but none of the people can. After Frodo was poisoned, Arwen came to help Frodo and bring him to Rivendell where elves live in. When he got there, he was better and he saw Bilbo in Rivendell. Later on, after they discuss about the ring, Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn, Sam, Gimili, Pippin, Merry, Legolas, and Boromir decided to work to bring the ring to Mordor. I thought it was a good idea that hobbits, an elf, a dwarf, and humans were working together to help Frodo because without them, Frodo would be in danger. At the end of the movie, they broke up fellowships so now its Frodo and Sam, Merry and Pippin, Aragorn Legolas and Gimili, and Gandalf. But Boromir was killed by an ork from Mordor. I love the first one the best in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Spirited Away

On September 14, I saw the movie “Spirited Away” in Japanese animations. The scenes that I saw in the movie were when Chihiro goes to the spirit world. She met some people in the spirit world including the boy that turns into a dragon. Also in that movie, no face turns bad if he was in the bathhouse but good when he is away from it. At the end of the movie, her parents are no longer boars anymore and they all go to a new home. That movie was interesting to me because it has fantasies and stories about it. But when I get to class, I might watch some scenes again in Japanese version. On September 24, in class, we were watching the special features from "Spirited Away" called the art story. In that, I saw crews editing the story in US version, the director met a Japanese director that did "Spirited Away" in Japanese version. Also, I saw some actors and actresses that were playing their characters in the movie. I loved that special features but the movie was more interesting than the special features.

Elephant

The movie "Elephant" is a very sad story about 2 mass murderers. It is based on a true story that happened sadly long ago at Columbine High School. The main characters are Alex and Eric the 2 mass murderers. Alex and Eric are two bad high school students who plot to kill people at school because they are picked on all the time. The movie starts off when John McFarland's father was drunk driving and hit one car, which made John late to school. John meets Eric and Alex in the middle of the movie, John tries to tell everybody that Eric and Alex and they tell him to run away because they are detonate a bomb. This did not happen because the bomb did not go off. In real life, on April 1999, Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold wanted to kill at the students in High School by using a bomb to destruct the building, but it did not go off, so they went to the room killing all the students, after that, they both commit suicide. The killing took place on April 20, 1999

V for Vendetta

"V for Vendetta" is a thriller. The main character is V, who is a mass murderer. V was burned long ago and because of this, he always wears a mask. V destroyed the Old Bailey in the beginning of the movie and that was on November 5th. The movie is scary because of all the violence. In my opinion, the scariest scene is when V kills some people in the movie with swords. He even killed the ruler of Britain. Another character that is in this movie is Evey. Evey is a teenage girl who lost all her family. In the beginning of the movie, V rescues Evey from being attacked, but she doesn't know him until she finds out who he really is. During the movie, she thinks that V was evil but at the end, they were together and V changes from terrorist to good. At the end of the movie, V dies from the inspector but at the end of the movie, the 1812 overture music was shown while explosions appeared in a building near the ben in England.

High Noon

Will Kane is a hero because he helped save his old hometown by guarding it from 4 bad cowboys. He used his gun and ran off shooting the 4 cowboys. After all 4 cowboys were dead, Will Kane is not a sheriff anymore and gets together with his wife. The quality Will has as a hero is that he is helpful. He helped some townspeople who needed help fighting against the 4 bad cowboys. Will Kane can remind you of your own life, or a movie. For me, it reminds me of "Back to the future part 3." In "Back to the future part 3", it also takes place in the western times. There was fighting with Marty McFly from 1985 and Buford "Mad dog" Tannen who is Biff's great great grandfather in 1885. Buford "Mad dog" Tannen shot Marty but he did not get hurt because he was wearing a bullet proof vest. The scene ends with Marty and Tannen punching each other in the middle of the field. After that, Tannen was arrested. In High Noon, the bad guys were not arrested but killed by Will Kane. He is a hero.

Pay It Forward

Last Sunday, on the 28th of September, I bought the dvd called "Pay it Forward." It was about a Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) who was trying to make his teacher Eugene Simonet (Kevin Spacey) and his mother Arlene McKinney(Helen Hunt) fall in love with each other. It started off when Trevor brings home a homeless man after school to try help people but in the next morning, his mother was so angry that her son Trevor let a homeless man stay in their house. Arlene went to the school and asked Eugene that bringing home a homeless man was Trevor's homework, and Eugene might have said no. Arlene was really a drunker, she even works at a casino. For days, Eugene and Arlene were in love with each other but the ex-father Ricky was so mean that Arlene didn't want him to stay with them. After Trevor's 12 birthday, he had an interview, a news casting at the school and he said that he wanted to help people. After that, Trevor saw a kid getting beat up by 3 bullies, he tried to save him. But in the middle of the fight, 1 bully stab Trevor with a knife. It was shocking, unhappy, and his life was over. It was a great movie, but an unhappy movie.