Blue Velvet- Review! and then some

In this weeks class we watched the film Blue Velvet.  This film was so bizarre that I couldn't turn away.  This film encompasses the same stylistic drives as film noir.    Jeffery Beaumont, home from college to visit his sick father, is caught up in a compelling mystery that drives him to investigate on his own.  While walking home from the hospital, Jeffery finds a strange object hidden in the grass after further examination we find that it is a human ear.  Distraught, Jeffery rushes the ear to the police and asks them to investigate.  The detective asks Jeffery to remove himself from the investigation because it is private information.  Unable to keep away, Jeffery solicits the help of the detective's daughter Sandy.  Sandy tells Jeffery that she overheard her father talking about a specific apartment as a site of interest.  It is from here that the real nail biting starts to happen.  This movie is great at keeping its audience in a state of suspense.  The film spirals from crazy to freakishly bizarre as the movie progresses.  This movie seemed to be more on the Hollywood side, but had many of the bizarre characteristics that would make this film seem more Indie than Hollywood.  One thing that made the movie a bit hard to watch was the acting, it was either overdone or bland.  Nothing special there. 

Things that I have noticed througout the film. 

1. I'm not going to lie, Frank Booth played by Dennis Hopper, really scared the crap out of me.

    2. Laura Dern has by far the ugliest fake cry I have ever had the misfortune of seeing.

    3. The song " Blue Velvet" has been stuck in my head since the day we watched the film.

                                      I like the Lana Del Rey version better.

Little Miss Sunshine

This week's assigned reading was Indie Opposition: Happiness vs. Juno.  In this section, we learned that not everything that is presented to us as "Independent" may not be completely independent.  We read about how  even though a film may come from a independent film maker, the film maker may be making the film under a production company that gives the film maker a big budget.  These films are so similar to Hollywood films that they are actually blurring the line between Indie and Hollywood films. 

In this week's class we watched Little Miss Sunshine .  I think that this film by far, is my favorite film we have watched this semester.  I believe that the reason for this is because, it is more of what I am used to seeing in Hollywood-style films.  Although this movie was not completely similar to the big budget studio films we are used to seeing at the theaters, it is typical yet quirky enough to pique the interest of any film goer.
To be completely honest, I can not decide whether to categorize this film as Independent or Hollywood.  This film definitely contains elements of a mainstream Hollywood film, but then it contains all the quirk that is characteristic of Independent films.  The way the story flowed was very Hollywood  like, with no unconventional methods of story-telling or episodic narrative structure, and was very straight forward.  Even though the story line was very streamlined, there movie was filled with quirk and oddities that are characteristic of Indie films.  The characters themselves are the only source of quirk in this film.  One example of this is the uncle Franks suicide, for someone who was distraught enough to take his own life, he seems to be very positive.  Another example of the quirk in the film is the family's display at the pageant.  Olive is not as glitz'd up as the rest of the girls in the pageant and to some, she sticks out like a sore thumb.  I thought that Olive was actually the prettiest girl there because she was natural, and not wearing three wigs.  Her performance was truly unique thanks to her Grandpa, and soon into her performance the whole family joins in.  Another example that I thought was hilarious was when the family stole grandpas body.  Now that is something you won't see in a Hollywood style film!

Wendy and Lucy

In class last Thursday we watched a movie called Wendy and Lucy.  At first I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when we finally began to watch the movie, I was drawn into the story.  The story is very raw and realistic, and definitely makes a statement about one element of society that is typically not focused on in major Hollywood style films.  I think that this film really addresses a major social problem in society, which is poverty.  It tells the story of a poverty stricken woman named Wendy, and her journey to Alaska.   The story literally follows Wendy through her days in a town that she was “Just passing through”.  We are shown everything that happens to Wendy, and we also see the sacrifices she made in effort to preserve her life.  We watch her sacrifice her money, loose her car, her dog, and calculate her money after every transaction.  This movie really lets you see first-hand how bad poverty can be.  In today’s economy almost everyone is hurting financially, people are struggling to pay bills and are working more and barely making ends meet, and these people actually have jobs.  Imagine how bad it would be if you were homeless, no job, hardly any money, and no family.  We tend not to look outside of our own little bubbles and focus on how bad we have it, when in reality there are people that are living in much worse conditions.  This film really makes you think twice about what you have, and forces you to realize that one day, you may lose it all.  This film definitely brought a (TON!) of tears to my eyes.   It was interesting to see poverty through a young woman’s eyes, things become more real (for me at least), when I see someone who near my age group going through this hard time.  When I heard that the film maker said that the movie was not supposed to be political, it dropped a few points on the creative scale, in my mind at least.  When watching the film I strongly felt that main idea of the film was to make a statement about poverty in America, the political viewpoint made it more interesting.  Knowing that this was a just a personal film made it a little more lackluster for me.  I thought the film maker was trying to creatively send a message, but I guess not.

Overall, if you’re looking at this film from a political viewpoint, it’s amazing.  But if you are looking to watch it for kicks there really isn’t much going on for it, in my opinion.