Reviews and Ramblings

     This review is a bit different from what I normally write; however, I was not able to see the entire film, and was stuck up to the ending point you will get to. Hopefully I will be able to see it over the summer and will be able to post a 'Part two' review of it. Much of this review may seem like the retelling of the story but, I had been typing while watching, hence the reason for the different writing style. Enjoy! :-D      The samurai picked up a stick and threw it in the air. It pointed in on direction of the road and he walked around the stick, as if the stick was leading him to his destiny. He then comes across a father and son fighting at their house. It is unfourunate though, that when he is allowed a drink of water, the father, who has just unfortunately lost his son thinks of him as a beggar or stealer. Shots of people looking out their windows at him gives the impression of fear. Then, a dog walks down the road w...

III: The Blizzard      The portrayal of man against nature. Which isn’t like any of the other dreams. There is a group of men who are hiking up a mountain. Nature, which is represented by a snow storm demon, is just telling the man to take it easy and freeze to death, to die. But he is struggling and trying to make it to camp. The scene is quite dark with snow billowing all around these four men. There is also a part where it gets really bad and the snow almost seems black. I don’t recall much music or effects in this segment. However, when the main character is laying in the snow, the snow storm demon, who is a beautiful lady, is covering him with ‘blankets’ which is actually snow. The themes and elements of this particular version of the story isn’t like any of the others. Others do have demons which seems to be the only similarity. The shots are mainly medium shots of everyone. The end, the sun comes out and everything is bright and happy, etc. So...

     so, I can't sleep anymore tonight.      i kept waking up, since like, 3.      I have a lot of things on my mind right now I guess. One main one being that I may pretty soon lose another Grandma. I have more than two because of step and half and what-not. Pretty big family. This one is directly blood, though. As was the other one. So now, once she dies, I will only have one blood grandma left. I may be confusing some people but, it makes sense to me. Anywho. See, this Grandma, she has two different kinds of cancer. Breast cancer and now lung cancer, which is new. She's had breast cancer for years, shes a survivour. But it runs in the family. I'm at risk for it. And she has refused treatment since she was first diagnosed because she is stubborn, which I get from all over the place. And, she is taking care of my Down Syndrome aunt. Who is 40. And still doing well. But when she goes, my aunt wil...

II: The Peach Orchards     The girl that the little boy thought that he saw was a messenger. She was a tree spirit, but she had a message to deliver for the other Peach Orchard tree spirits to the little boy and his family. Because it was "doll day", to celebrate the Peach Orchards. But, since they had been chopped down by the little boys family, they sent the messenger to his house. After much thought, they allowed him to see them in bloom again. They danced, made music, and sung. As a way of the trees being made, in a quicker pace. All of which hypnotized the little boy. But then, he went up into them, after seeing the girl again. All of a sudden, the trees disappear, and you only see the stumps. The dolls, inside the house, and the spirits were on different levels, just as a tree is. He then saw a small, little tree in bloom, which represented the little girl. Because she was a younger generation of the spirits, but still one, she was on the level of w...

I: Sunshine Through the Rain      For some odd reason, the curiosity of the little boy over takes his mother's warning. Kurosawa's dream seems to be a warning to himself that he is about to have a major change happen in his life. The fox people are holding a wedding precession in the middle of the forest, just after the rainstorm, and the little boy is caught watching them. Something that is forbidden. In the tradition of the fox people, he is supposed to kill himself, and is not allowed back inside his home. The symbolism of the huge doors to enter the home area show how the Japanese people are forced to live in isolation. When the boy is walking through the field of flowers, the vivid colouration shows the beauty of life, and because of the task he has of killing himself or finding the fox people, it is important to understand that he robbed his own life of beauty. The use of masks in this short, as in the same as in Kurosawa's 'Throne of Blood' helps t...

A spiring/ A ssonite B eauty/ B ig Bang C lose-Ups/ C arefulness D elicacy/ D aring E ffects=colouration/graphics F ast paced=action/sex G raphics are numerous in both forms of Cinema, and extremely beautiful: -fake blood -computer graphics H orrible translationsinto English/ H orrible plots I ndirectly, both are completely involved with each other, it's J ust that it sometimes, as horrible as most American films are now, some of the Cinese films made are just as bad, or almost there. But, it's O K in a sense, because of their use of cinematographic e L ements. M any differences: N ewer ideas/ N o change in pace, usually the same stuff. O ld themes, old tales to be told/ O nly for entertainment(mostly) P ayment to the actors is very different, Q ueerly though, or maybe not so much, R eplicas in cinema are used so much, and so well, that it is possible to actually by many on the internet now. However, most of the replicas used in chinese cinema are from a S tory, or a T ale fr...

     A classic, made in 1959, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. Curtis and Lemmon pose as women in the movie (not as a drag queens, just dressing as women) because they were witness to a big-time murder back home, in Chicago. The film is in black and white, as it was originally made, though the cover has a shot of these three joksters in colour. But with the film being in black and white, it is easier to see differences in lighting and some other elements throughout. One major lighting choice that kept catching this viewers eye wasevery time the lighting was on Marilyn Monroe, it was so soft, to make her look almost like an angel, where as on any other person in the film, even other women, it was the same, dull, boring lighting that was used on the men. The main reason this was done was because she was the star of the movie and this was one of the few ways to [literally] illuminate her amongst the rest of the cast. Because of the time perio...