MYST POST #3: White Men Can't Jump

Sports Movies are either a big miss or a SLAM DUNK for me. (I know I hate myself too).

But to be honest as I've grown up I've been able to identify that many sports movies are fine, but formulaic and terribly predicable. But that doesn't mean there haven't been good sports movies, many of my favorite movies growing up and still today are sports movies, I love the genre. A League of Their Own, Remember the Titans, Rudy, Hoosiers, Rocky 1-4 and 6 (and if anybody asks about Rocky 5, just say, "I don't know what you're talking about," and leave the conversation).

And I think I may have just added another one to that list, not to the one with Raging Bull and Hoosiers because it's not a feel-good inspirational flick or a hardcore drama. But I will add it to the list of sports films like The Sandlot and Caddyshack, because those movies and this have great memorable characters, have fun with their sport, and are great comedies.

White Men Can't Jump is the story of a white basketball hustler (Woody Harrelson) who cons people on the stereotype that white men can't play ball with black players. This catches the attention of Wesley Snipes who's a con-player himself, and the two team-up to double their hustles and their winnings. The best part about the movie is the witty dialogue and the chemistry between Snipes and Harrelson which is electric to watch. Snipes is so much fun to watch as the self-proclaimed and arrogant star of the Los Angeles outdoor hoops scene, and Harrelson is just as fun as the self-righteous yet equally stubborn athlete. The plot is great too by taking the normal sports genre formula and not going exactly by the book. There's double crosses between the two supposed friends, there's real stakes that you can feel, and it doesn't have an entirely satisfying big insertional ending that many people come to expect out of the genre. And this movie by far has the creative and funny trash-talk of any sports movie. Ever. With great lines like, "Oh man shut your anorexic malnutrition tapeworm-having overdose on Dick Gregory Bahamian diet-drinking ass up," and, "Yo mother is so stupid. It would take her 1, no. 2 hours to watch 60 MINUTES!" This is by far one of the funniest sports movies I've ever seen, and its got some of the most fun and engaging characters and clever scripts I've seen in a while from any film. Although something does happens that drags the movie in the second act, and although the ending isn't completely satisfying (which is cool for once), it also isn't fully realized and the film doesn't exactly finish with the same energy and verve it started with. But these things still can't detract from White Men Can't Jump being one of the best sports movies I've seen in the past few years. It's got great writing, characters, and some pretty compelling basketball scenes using long and wide shots to show the skill of the players and to see the full action of their pickup games. Overall, I had a ton of fun with this movie and I give it 4/5 stars.

MYST POST #2: Chappie

I loved science-fiction growing up. Everything from Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back… Star Wars: Return of the Jedi…

Ok I liked Star Wars growing up. Ok I liked Star Wars a lot. But as I've gotten older, I've learned that sic-fi has more to it than Action and Wookies. And through watching films like Aliens, Blade Runner, and even the recent Interstellar, I've learned that sic-fi can be used to tell amazing stories and transport you to different worlds. Much like Chappie's director Neil Blomkamp did with District 9.

I am a huge fan of District 9, the sic-fi allegory to apartheid that took place in South Africa is still one of my favorite films of the past 10 years, combining incredible special effects and action, great fleshed out human and alien characters, and an amazingly relevant film of that was a welcome return of classic science-fiction, in that it used a different world in a different time, to expose current societal issues and problems. I then saw Elysium, which still had great CGI and action sequences, but a little lacking in the character development department and the plot, when you strip away the new characters and setting, really kind of mirrored that of District 9. So although Elysium was little bit of a letdown, I was still super pumped for Chappie.

And after having seen Chappie, I can say that this, while more engaging and interesting than Elysium, still left me wanting more, and even a little disappointed at time. 

Neil Blomkamp still brings the visual flare that he's always had, and the final action sequence is spectacular, Blomkamp has not lost his touch here. But as soon as the plot starts to move forward, the great idea that Chappie started out with soon seems to spiral out of control. The basic plot of Chappie is this: In the future, police have been replaced with robotic officers, but when the creator of these droids steals one and reprograms it to have artificial intelligence, "Chappie" becomes a robot that can feel and think for himself. And that on paper sounds so cool, a robot learning to think and feel in a world that may not be ready for it. But soon the plot devolves into clichés and too much attention is given to bad characters. Those bad characters being Ninja and Yolandi. Ninja and Yolandi are a rap/hip-hop group from South America and have never acted before, and it's very apparent. Although they start off kind of cool as these gangsters with a little heart, they soon devolve into cartoons who actually are more among than cool and soon you begin to notice that there aren't many redeeming qualities about them. And then the movie makes a huge mistake by leaving Chappie to try to become a gangster with these two for more than half the movie instead of with Chappie's sympathetic and compelling inventor, played by Dev Patel. And the only human character that's awful is Dev Patel's really. Hugh Jackman is the villain in the story who is against the unpredictability of artificial intelligence, but acts like a typical high-school bully even though he's supposedly a competing scientist, and the only thing that makes him a compelling villain is his mullet. Granted, I think Jackman's a fantastic actor, but he is very poorly directed and his dialogue is hard to swallow at times, and the same thing happens to Sigourney Weaver who has literally 15 minutes of screen time and is just boring to watch. But maybe the biggest redeeming quality of Chappie, is Chappie. Played with voice-acting and motion-capture technology by Sharlto Copley, you do get a fantastic performance in which you see this robot go from being a baby, to an awkward gangster, to a loving son and companion. There are some great moments of seeing Chappie grow up, like when he watches "He-Man," and learns to be like him in morals and likeness. But these moments are few and far between and they should've been the main focus of the story. Overall Chappie has two good performances and great special effects and action, but the plot is a mess, the movie doesn't know what it wants to be, and every other character is either cartoon, boring, annoying, or a cartoon. If I had to describe Chappie in a word, it wouldn't be "bad" or "messy," I'd just have to say, "disappointing." I give Chappie 2/5 stars.

Formal Film Study: Comedy Classics that Break the 4th Wall

You know when you're watching a movie and you get so engrossed by it, that you feel like the characters are talking directly to you…

And then you realize that they are literally talking to you, and it turns out you're actually not going crazy like you and your parents thought you were. And then you have to cancel all your therapist appointments and psychiatric evaluations and you have to stop it just turns into this whole thing that I don't even want to get into.

Yeah we've all been there.

But honestly I've always found it so radical whenever a movie and its script decides to have some guts and chooses to break the 4th Wall as a storytelling tool because it's a hard form to pull off. It's because in a movie in which the main character talks directly to the audience and takes them through their story, you have to really be engaged with said character. Because if your main character is unlikable, or is doing things that put you off to him/her, and you can't find anything that wants you to keep listening to this specific character, then the entire rest of the movie, no matter how well written, directed, or acted, is hard to watch and seemingly in the gutter.
Now one thing I noticed about these three films is that one of the reasons that I personally consider them comedy classics, is because each their main characters are likable, relatable people that you immediately root for and sympathize with, and these movies all have great introductory scenes to that make you root for them. With Annie Hall, the opening monologue by Woody Allen's character Alvie Singer is at first jarring because we're not used to starting a movie with the main character talking to us directly about the story of the movie we're about to watch. But once you get past the initial shock value, his character (although maybe exactly like Allen in real life) is very natural, fleshed out, and quirk. He instantly comes off as the lovable loser type, but with a sarcastic and cynical outlook on life, until you see him talk about Annie, and you see the sincerity in his face and tone, and you become interested because although this guy (a guy who buys a book titled, "The Denial of Death") seemingly has a lot of trouble enjoying life, you can tell that was never the case when he was with Annie. Or like in Wayne's World when after their taping of Wayne's World Wayne instantly wakes up and starts talking to the audience like it's nothing, which was awesome because how causal Meyers treated the audience as if we were one of his fellow rock enthusiast knuckleheads. And Meyers absurdist comedy writing meshing with his SNL improv makes for a man child we just can't help but love. And with John Cusack it's a very different opening from the other two, as the camera pans to a close-up of his face listening to an old punk record as his entree face fills the frame as he talks about how much more dangerous heartbreak and misery is in songs rather than violent movies and video games. And asking funny, yet very true philosophical questions like, Do I listen to pop music because I'm miserable? Or am I miserable because I listen to pop music?"

The all these films are shot all have strong similarities when it comes to using color to reflect their character's emotional state and cinematography. They all use an average medium shot when characters are in conversation so that we can see everyone, and it's also just big enough so that if the character looks out at the audience or steps out of the audience for some kind of aside or soliloquy, it's not jarring and fits screen's frame nicely. While Wayne's World is full of bright colors because of the nature of its goofy tone and happy-go-lucky characters, High Fidelity uses a darker color palette because of the obvious tragicness of John Cusack's history with women and how love keeps eluding him or how he keeps messing things up. And then there is a nice blend of colors in Annie Hall, because we get to see the grimy, damp, and condensed colors of the neurotic and busy busy busy city of New York, and then the wide open shots and bright colors of southern California to reflect the openness of Californian culture and its feel of "free love."

But the final thing that I noticed between all three was that they put the idea of breaking the 4th all to use in a way that regular movies can't be done. They all have great moments of complete insanity or ridiculousness to show what the main character wishes would happen in their lives, they have their dream sequence, and then immediately after they are ripped from their ideal situation and brought back to reality. In Wayne's Word we have the use of multiple endings, where when we think the movie ends, Rob Lowe's character Benjamin the businessman has won and now is on a tropical vacation with Wayne's girlfriend. As we're thrown off by this completely dour ending, Wayne and Garth literally roll into screen as if on a conveyor belt and decide that they don't want this, and change it to a Scooby-Doo style ending. But then when they then pull the mask off of Benjamin and as always in Scooby-Doo, they find out it was Old Man Withers the owner of the haunted amusement park, they finally decide to do the super-ultra-happy ending. Here, Cassandra (Wayne's girlfriend), gets an unrealistic 7 album deal and Wayne is able to do Wayne's World again free of corporate control. Here, we see how breaking the 4th Wall allows for comedic effects and gags that you can't get out of any other comedy or script that doesn't have the rules of world where the characters can break the 4th Wall.
In High Fidelity we see this when his girlfriends new hippie boyfriend (played to perfect mellowness by Tim Robbins) comes to John Cusack's record shop to tell his character Rob that he needs to stay away from his ex-girlfriend and Tim Robbins' current one. In the confrontation you see Rob lose it and tell him off with expletives that only high-schoolers could think of, showing some real confidence to Rob's character. But then  as soon as Rob tell him off, the movie makes a quick cut to the same conversation between the hippie and Rob, telling us that his blowup never happened. You then see him try to rush the Robbins and and starts spouting phrases and ridiculous threats that had to be scripted they're so elaborate, as his friends hold him back and the hippie flees. And then its cuts back to the same shot and point in the conversation, in which now his really shy and reserved friend, throws a phone at him, as they begin to beat him to death and then grab an air conditioner and smashing his head with it. And then it cuts back to that same point in conversation and shot again, and the movie tells us (without literally saying anything) showing us that all these scenes never happened and that these are all the things Rob wish he had the guts to do.
And in Annie Hall we see the famous scene in which Alvie and Annie are stuck in line for the movie, and during heir one-take (which I thought was very impressive) of their 3 minute scene, we constantly are listening to this snob of a self-claimed movie critic talking about the indulgences of filmmakers that makes us all want to gouge our ears out Oedipus style…if Oedipus gouged his ears instead of his eyes. But then Allen asks the audience what we're all thinking in, can you believe this guy? As then the movie does something unexpected, the snob leave the scene and starts talking to the audience too defending himself. And then Alvie responds by saying that he has no idea what that actor in the movie thinks of his work, then pulling said actor out from behind a poster to back Alvie up. Here we see how Alvie wished the world worked, by wishing that he was always right and that opinionated jerks always got what they deserved.

So as you can see, it's not easy nor the lest bit formulaic to make a movie that breaks the 4th Wall, but win done right solid production techniques, likable main characters that can capture an audience's attention and sympathy, and makes of some great gags with the 4th Wall breaks, then you may just have a comedy classic on your hands, much like these.


By Jackson Dockery

Film Studies Group Project (1935 Movie)

The Bat (1935)

Writers: Austin McNichols, Billy Bizub, Chris Ayers and Jackson Dockery
Genre: Horror
Studio: Universal Studios
Director: James Whale
Actor: Boris Karloff, Henry Travers and Deana Durbin
Color or B/W: Black and White
Make Up Artist: Jack Pierce

The Bat (Plot Synopsis):
The setting begins in a widowed, failed science professors basement as he searches for the cure for Polio and good fortune. (Boris Karloff) Robert Carmicheal begins his research on bats injecting each with mild doses of polio. Meanwhile the experimental vaccine is being combined with the bats DNA to make a deadly combination. Out of carelessness Robert leaves one of the bat's cages unlocked one night. The very next morning Robert enters his layer one of the bats bites Robert and he begins to pass out. After hours of being out cold Robert wakes up to find the bat lying dead next to him and his daughter (Deana Durbin) Marylin concerned and afraid. Although Robert appears the same he most surely is not. A day passes and Robert is sitting beside Marylin smoking a cigar and watching the local news. On the news is a report of a gruesome murder of the Jeffersons, a family that lives down the block. Sickened by what has happened Robert rushes out the door to see the crime scene and what has happened in their quiet suburban town. At the scene the whole family is being carried out in body bags while the Jefferson's dog (who is still alive) begins barking rapidly at Robert, but is restrained by local law enforcement. After coming home Robert begins his work again in the lab and injects his last bat subject with his blood. That night Marylin hears foot steps in the house, curiously she walks over to Robert's room to check up on him, however, his bed is empty. Marylin reaches for the phone to alert the police when a hand comes and grabs her wrist. Flinching Marylin looks up to find Robert covered in blood with  a knife in the other hand. Fearing for her life she begins to run. After running away Robert begins to chase her into the street it is there Robert is hit by a car and killed. The next morning Marylin is in the police station with (Henry Travers) Police Chief Officer Brady, when asked what research her dad had been doing she mentioned how he was trying to cure polio. Officer Brady then mentions how all the other bats had died except for the one with Roberts blood and had been cured of it's disease.

Does this fit the Hays Code?
No, because the violence, gore, and makeup for Karloff that we would initially want to use would probably be banned. So instead, we'd have to tone down these things, using things like off-screen deaths, and having dead bodies in a scene but only showing the characters looking at them and not the literal body. As far as the violence we could make use of shots of the location of where said violence is happening with detailed sound effects to show the dichotomy of something terribly violent and awful happening in this small, supposedly safe suburban town. Perhaps even use one of Hitchcock's techniques and use shadows to show the terror of the scene.

Why did you choose this staff/production company?
Well first of all we chose horror because horror was an exciting new film genre really taking hold in the 30's drawing in big crowds of both adults and a younger audience alike. So in order to find the best producer of horror we simply looked to the studio who was churning out horror classics like nobody's business, while also creating some iconic characters such as the Invisible Man, Frankenstein, and Dracula: Universal Studios. We chose James Whale and Jack Pearle for their excellent work together on Frankenstein, and we also got the monster himself Boris Karloff so that people could really see him portray a monster without needing insane makeup like that of Frankenstein. We chose Henry Travers because he was a solid supporting character actor in the 30's and fit the role of a small town cop nicely. And we chose Deanna Durbin because of her rising star status in the 30's and her diversity as an actress in that she was able to do light-hearted musicals and hardcore dramas at the same time, and became such a big star that her movies later saved Universal from bankruptcy.

What would you have done differently?
I would have chosen to make Boris Karloff the cop, make his role bigger, and then also cast someone even bigger in size with at least decent acting chops to play the madman. This is because I would have loved the idea of a monster movie in which Boris is not the monster. The tagline for the movie would then be able to read, "You've seen become a monster. Now see him fight one." I feel like the mass audiences, from the popularity of Frankenstein, would have jumped at the idea of seeing Boris in a role they were not accustomed to him being in, but still seeing him in a genre of movies they were accustomed to seeing him in.