Chinatown

Out of all the films we've watched all this year this has to be the worst ending one we've watched. It was almost overly so even for a noir. Since that is the point of a noir though I can see why they made it that way. For the most of the movie it was good and the acting was pretty good, I wouldn't say great but it was good. Unlike in previous noir movies we've watched the main character JJ Gittes is a likable person as well as is Mrs. Mulray who may have been a seductress but was also the most pure intent people in the movie. The entire movie kept referring to "Chinatown" which was not truly understood until late in the movie. It is referring to the state of life that most of them live in. Life being corrupt and the ones with power win all the time and even the best of intentions will just end up getting people killed no mater how hard you try. this is fitting with the noir movies almost to the nth degree. For the most part I liked the movie until the end in which afterward I decided I never wanted to see the movie again.

Kiss Me Deadly

Of the films weve watched so far this has been one of the weirdest ending ones we've had. That aside I liked it better than the out of the past movie. The connection between Cristina and the box was never fully explained and the ending didn't make a whole lot of sense but the actors did an ok job. It was a B-movie after all though. The sex crazed woman/not actual room mate needed to go away and from what Mr K. told us about the book it was based off of, I wish the ending was like the books and the way she died...I know, I'm horrible. Depending on the ending and how you interpreted each of them, the second one we watched seemed like it fit a film noir better as for the first one seemed too happy in the fact that the got out of the house alive, but either way I think the audience was supposed to assume the world ended so I guess either fit.

Out of the Past

Out of the past was an interesting movie. I wouldn't say it was either good nor bad. Robert played a very tough guy who showed very little emotion. Throughout the movie he stayed in his role very well. Some of the scenes were over the top but something tells me that that was the point. Jane had an hard role to pull off as well, she had to play the nice girl that no one would ever suspect while still being a devious and semi-sadistic seductress. Throughout the entire movie I heard people saying they hated her. She played the role very well. The ending from what Mr. Kloby has told us about noir films was right on the money. Both the characters die together and nobody wins.

Eternal Sunshine

Eternal sunshine is by far my favorite movie so far this semester. It was a little confusing at first but you start to get the hang of whats going on in the movie as it progresses. Most of the movie is a flash back after the first scene on the train, they go back and explain that Joel once dated Clementine and that in her impulsiveness Clem had her memory erased of Joel. In his anger at what she had done he erased his memory of her. While he is getting his memory erased they show all of his memories and all the past the two of them had together and he realizes that he doesn't actually want to loose her memory. He tries to hide Clementine in other memories to save some part of his life with her but they end up finding her and erasing her. In the end they all end up meeting each other again and even with their memory erased they still end up finding each other and end up together. The movie was good at showing that sometimes no mater how hard a memory is to bare that if you didn't have it you might feel incomplete. It shows that we need the bad to have the good and sometimes we don't need to completely forget the past to start over we just need to get over the bad things. If we forget all the past we forget the good to. This movie really makes you think about yourself and life and I think that adds to the romance of it.

His Girl Friday

His Girl Friday is probably the best movie we've watched this semester. It was funny and i liked the main character she was just as the female lead of any screwball comedy should be; she was strong intelligent and had an attitude. Her husband was rather unusual in the fact that he was also strong in the screwball. The writers did a wonderful job of making the movie upbeat; even when a character tried to commit suicide the scene was still somehow a happy one... The fast pace and speedy talking were what did it especially during the scenes when something big and newsworthy happened and they were all on the phone. Walter had a very strange way of showing his affection to Hildy. He made her see that she loved the newspaper and was too free-spirited to ever settle down with Bruce and in the process keeps screwing up Bruce's life. It was a battle of whits through the whole movie and it was great.