Homework Movie - Straight Time (1978)

Makin' it on the outside isn't easy when all you've known is a criminal way of life. Dustin Hoffman's character in Ulu Grosbard's Straight Time has been scrutinized since he was 12 years old. Being in the slammer for 6 years before being let go, only to be back in again, he seems to not be able to catch a break. But all the while, he has this attitude as if he's got a chip on his shoulder, so he really doesn't make you feel sympathetic to him either.

Getting out and meeting back up with his old criminal buddies isn't the best idea either, but that doesn't seem to stop him from doing it. Breaking a pattern of crime is the only way to really do the straight time the title of the movie suggests. There are some really strong performances from Gary Busey, Kathy Bates, and Harry Dean Stanton as well as the guys he's worked with in the past and their families.

So what does a career criminal do to get by? His paying job isn't much and having to get his girlfriend to help pay for dinner sends him into this recurring spiral back into his old life real fast. With a parole officer like M. Emmet Walsh as Earl Frank, there's no wonder there aren't more repeat offenders in today's prison systems. Earl doesn't hold a candle to Hume Cronyn as Captain Munsey in Brute Force. Munsey has more ambition than simply messing with one convict. He wants the Warden's job in his prison.

Straight Time is the most recent of the films we've watched this week. With advancements in story development and acting techniques, this movie is more believable than Brute Force and their way of trying to escape. Showing more than just a one sided story of prison life, Straight Time includes a more accurate picture of someone who's involved with a convict in Theresa Russell's Jenny character. She's much more believable than the "Women on the outside" in Brute Force as well. She's excited to be involved with someone from the inside, until he scares her towards the end, but ultimately she still loves him.

Homework Movie - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

The year Invasion opened up, Peter Pan is televised on national TV, Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show for his 1st time, and the Yankees won the World Series. Horror movies were becoming more sophisticated with their stories and the acting was always improving, as was the special FX. But Don Seigel's Body Snatchers took a different approach. Based on a magazine's serial story, this movie took a group of normal people and had their brains and bodies taken over by aliens.

Mind control had become the focus of this story from the get go. People began to see things about their family members that didn't seem right away and the good doctor was determined to find out what was going on, no matter what the outcome. All of this was talked about in narration recounting the story to another group of medical and police folks we see in brief scenes in the front and tail end of the movie because a sort of test audience thought the movie was too much a downer for the mainstream film going community. Kevin McCarthy plays the convincing Doctor come back to his hometown to find the mystery already unfolding in front of him and there are very little townsfolk to speak of until they show up to try and cause trouble for the Dr.

Body Snatchers set itself apart from the rest of the film clips this week because most of the clips we watched were of genetic mutations or alterations made by accident (or on purpose) by a doctor or scientist. The Doctor in Invasion of the Body Snatchers was trying to find out what happened, with no clear definition as to the outcome. This movie spawned two official remakes in 1978 and in 2007, then a few spoofs or parodies.

Homework Movie - The Wolf Man (1940)

The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney, Jr. is one of the Universal Pictures legendary monster movies from the 1940's. As a morality tale of promiscuity, this movie begins with a young man returning home to live and then he takes notice of a woman that is already betrothed to another. After finding this out, Larry still continues to pursue her even after being attacked by a wolf, stirring up panic in the gypsy camp that foretold of danger.

I enjoy the classic horror films when they began to use special FX makeup because they were so primitive and yet they still horrified people of the day because it was something they had never seen before, and only read about. Noticing the different camera setups for the transformation is something that nowadays we see because we are so tech savvy that it's obvious. Although there are only a handful of scenes with the monster makeup, they really used them the their advantage and were careful to only have one or maybe two others in the scene with the Wolf Man.

Of the early morality tales, The Wolf Man was the least upfront about the sexuality that is the nature of the beast. With Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Spencer Tracey was overly devious when it came to women. In the movie Cat People, Irene Reed was afraid of stories from her home culture about turning into a cat person once intimate with a man. These were warnings to young people to keep from being promiscuous out of marriage.

Homework Movie - David Lynch's Wild at Heart

At film school there is a standard to which our movies are judged. For directing, David Lynch is supposed to be a high standard for artistic movies with avant garde tones. I for one have a very hard time stomaching his films in general. Not for any grotesque notion, but because there's always an element of, "Here, since there's an old woman nearby, let's have her stand close to camera and wave her hands across the screen" feel to the movies. Adding elements that are nearby to the shots because he wants you to look at the film as an artist, feels pushed to me.

Looking for set photos for this movie, I came up with two shots of Isabella Rossellini and none for Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, who are the main actors because half the movie the two main actors were naked. It seemed there was a sex scene about every five to ten minutes and not much else happening. Sure there was traveling from city to city, and the main characters were being chased by several different groups of individuals, but it didn't hold the story together enough for me to want to care about anyone. It was set up as a tragic love story where the mother of Laura Dern's character didn't want them together because she didn't like Nicolas Cage's character, but that was even flimsy because I think she wanted to be with Cage at one point in the movie somewhere.

From start to finish, I examined this film with an open mind to see if maybe this movie would be like Lynch's "A Straight Story", but with no success. That rare moment didn't happen here where the story was cohesive and simple. Lynch saved that for his one Disney movie that I actually like. Yes, Lynch directed a movie for Disney at one point!

Among the other Fatal Love genre movies we watched this week, Wild at Heart ranks in as my least favorite, hands down. Movie greats such as Bonnie & Clyde are a much more solid narrative story that holds my attention at least. The characters are seperated for a time, they want to be together, and when they do, bad things begin to happen around them until their tragic demise. It's straight forward and yet still delivers a punch at the end.

Homework Movie - Bride of Frankeistein - James Whale

Continuing on the Universal franchise, Bride of Frankenstein follows the monster back into the village to find Doctor Frankenstein in order to create a companion for his original creation so they can live together outside of the regular world's way. Boris Karloff in this movie plays the Monster for his second time of three movies, with only the House of Frankenstein made in 1944 being his only in the series where he's not the monster. I was impressed to see that he was taught to speak in the role this go around, since the first Frankenstein all he did was grunt for the most part.

With only four years separating releases of these titles, the advances in makeup FX was noticeable to me as that's something I look at when watching a horror movie now. The Bride had smaller but still noticeable scarring on her neck where the good doctor operated on her that didn't look fake, but like someone skilled made careful cuts to keep the skin in tact and easily reapplied.

Something that is fascinating to me is that this was a pre-code horror movie, as were much of Universal's films at the time. Horror movies didn't get much Code attention until sound was added because the terrified screams and the chilling soundtrack made the audiences squeamish. The other movies out during this time that showed graphic violence and sexual undertones got more attention up to that point.

Comparing this movie to the clips from class, I reviewed The Island of Lost Souls again at home to get a full feeling of Dr. Moreau's, played extraordinarily creepy by Charles Laughton. Of the two doctors, there was a lot more remorse for his wrongdoings out of Frankenstein in Bride than Moreau had up to his demise. It was only through The Monster's urging did Dr. Frankenstein agree to create another so hideous to keep him company.

I did enjoy both as I could watch them more than once and still find new things in each movie. There wasn't an over stylized or graphic violence to either movie and what violence there was is now considered tame in comparison to today's gore for the sake of gore films. Back in the days of the first screenings of these films, however, the story might have been different.

Homework Movie - Fury - Fritz Lang

At every turn in this movie, it seemed to go from bad to worse in no time at all. The couple start at a separation that was supposed to be temporary that lasted longer due to a misunderstanding. As the movie progressed, so did the game of telephone that was happening between townsfolk and the authorities. It doesn't stop there when the town begins to form the furious mob (Thus the title, Fury). Spencer Tracy plays the wrongfully accused Joe that turns his calm demeanor into a vengeful protagonist when he is suspected of being burned to death by the town that took actions into their own hands for a crime that Joe didn't commit.

What I saw in this movie was a town full of people that wanted nothing more than to busy themselves with other people's business and when that wasn't enough, they took it to extremes and it got out of hand. To make matters worse, the protagonist doesn't even try to make things right for himself with the town after escaping what was supposed to be his death. Instead he gets his two brothers to file a lawsuit with the DA to charge them all with the murder of Joe that never happened.

I enjoyed this movie for the pacing of the action. It didn't really ever stop. There was always something going on that had me actually catching myself trying to keep up. The story was easy to follow, as were most of the films of that day, looking back now. Fritz Lang didn't attempt to use any fancy camera tricks in this movie, not to say that he hadn't before or since. This movie happened to be a more straight forward movie and didn't rely on them for the affect on the audience.

Homework Movie - Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages

There are several sections to the movie Haxan that I understood the first time I watched it. This documentary style movie was made in an age where superstition was related to things from the various religious practices of the time. The film maker even goes to the lengths of describing how people saw the world during medieval times as a flat surface with the stars hanging close by Earth because we happened to be the center of the universe. We know, however, that isn't the case any longer.

Some of the camera exposure techniques for this film were amazing for the time and even hold up still today, albeit in a more sophisticated fashion. The double exposures were a great tool here to trick the audience into believing that there were flying witches. Also, some of the reversing of the film to show things coming back out of the room and other clever segments were a surprise to see in a film from back then. The one thing that stands out to me the most of this film is the pleasant music that scores the piece. It sounds like a happy frolic through the picture, when the subject matter was anything but friendly. It sounds like something taken from a Disney movie.

I did enjoy the transition from medieval times into what would have been modern for the twenties. This brought the "modern medicine" and techniques of the doctors of the time to be able to diagnose for hysteria rather than suspecting people of being witches.

Upon doing a small bit of web searching, I came to find that Christopher Lee, made famous in Hammer Films such as Count Dracula and later on as Saruman in the Lord of the Rings Series, was born the same year as the release of Haxan.

Of the films for this weeks clips in class and our homework, I enjoyed watching Vampyr again at home along with Haxan. Although the two are vastly different in structure, both must have been terrifying for the time. The unknown of the supernatural of those days must have had the audiences screaming up the aisles.