Gran Torino

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Gran Torino

His character Walt Kowalski is full of regret and disappointments with very little consideration for his own family. He is a bitter old racist asshole that has so many issues that he created a dysfunctional family that does not care about dealing with his selfish ways.

In his wife’s funeral, he doesn’t approve of his granddaughter wearing a short miniskirt that shows her belly button, and his grandson makes jokes saying a Hail Mary at the same time. He puts more effort into maintaining his 1972 Gran Torino, than the relationship with his real family. This selfish son of a bitch is too busy feeling sorry for himself, instead of focusing on his own personal issues.

Nevertheless, fate would have him obligated to defend his neighbors,  an Asian family that kills him with kindness and delicious food. Over the years he witnesses his own neighborhood deteriorating with gang members and drug dealers with graffiti painted on houses. Walt makes it a habit to keep himself armed at all times, as if he was still in Korea. The first time we see him pointing a gun at a gang member he says,“I’ll blow a hole in your face,and then I go in the house. And sleep like a baby. You can count on that.”  This part made me laughed especially with that Freddy Krueger voice of his.

Walt feels that his family does not truly love him. He feels they are just waiting for him to die so they can help themselves to his things. In the scene when his granddaughter is smoking in the garage she asks him what he plans to do with the Grand torino when he dies. Walt just looks at her and does not answer her question. In another scene, it seems as if his son and his  daughter in law come over for his birthday to Cheer him up and show him love. Instead we see that they are after his house and want to put him in a retirement home. Walt is old but he is not stupid, it is obvious they are inconsiderate and don’t really care about him. Later on Walt gets the results from the hospital. We can see him looking at the paper with a disappointed look on his face. He reaches out to his son and calls him. We see how the wife responds when she tells his son “He is your father.” The son does not want to talk to him. Unlike before when we see his son called only because he wanted information on tickets to a game. Now Walt needs him and the attitude is returned from his son. Walt wants to tell him but changes his mind when he is rushed off the phone.

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Walt sees how the boy next door is a good kid. He sees him help the old lady across the street with her groceries after she drops them on the floor. When Walt sees this he starts to feel differently about the boy. The boy needs a father figure his sister expressed in the scene when Walt saves her from some black guys that were harassing her. She continues to bring Walt into her family's life. Walt falls in love with the family and spends more and more time with them. He teaches the boy how to talk to other men before recommending him to a job. In the scene when he takes the boy to the barber shop he walks him through, step by step, how men talk and how to make good conversation. The boy later on shows him how much he learn in the scene when he takes him to the employer. The boy starts making small talk by saying how a mechanic charged him too much for a repair. The boy passed the test with an A+ when the employer reciprocated and shared a similar experience with the boy. He is immediately hired on the spot.

Through out the film, Walt is not in good health. We see him spite up blood. When the gangs shoot up the neighbors house he feels that the only way to help his new family is to make the ultimate sacrifice. He must feel his illness is so bad that it is better for him to go out like this, instead of withering away in a hospital or be stuck in an old folks home like his son originally wanted. That’s probably another reason why he decided not to tell anyone about his illness.

Before Walt does the deed, he needs to show the Padre his appreciation and gives him a fake confession. The reason why I call it a fake confession was because he doesn't tell him the real regrets he has. He tells the Padre how he doesn't have a good relationship with his sons, and how on one incident he cheated on his taxes. Walt just did it to show the Padre respect, to show he appreciated the kindness he had shown to his late wife. Walt started to like him and wanted the Padre to feel some satisfaction on finally doing what he’s been asking for through out the movie. It was his wife’s final wishes. The real confession happened later on when he locks the boy downstairs. In this scene I was excited  to Mise En  Scene. If you look at this scene carefully, it looks like a confession. The way the gate looks like perforations going in the same pattern as a confessional. The boy also was lower than Walt . It almost looked as if the boy was the priest  knelling. A beautiful example of a moment we should of done a freeze frame on this shot. Walt starts to tell the boy how he regrets killing boys that looks just like him. The boy was not from Korea, but does resemble the look of his former enemy. Walt continues to tell the boy how bad he feels about that, and how that will never go away. This was a  powerful scene that  explains Walt’s bitterness and why he has issues with himself and his family. These same issues haunted him for a long time, and it was finally out in this real confession.

At the end when he approaches the house, he knows exactly what he is doing. We see him in the middle of the street. He deliberately does not want to be on their property so this way he is not considered a trespasser. He also does not want to step foot on their property, so the neighbors can see what is going on, and there can be lots of witnesses. Before he makes his fast move, we are reminded of a scene early on in the movie. He shoots the gang members one by one with his finger.This was like the way he did when he saved the girl from the black guys he called spooks.

The ending was the same as the beginning, a funeral. That’s a good way to frame out the movie, another reminder tying everything together. It also reminded us on how the grand kids were not sad at the grandmothers funeral. It was a good reminder, justifying why Walt does not leave anything to his grandchildren and sons.

I don’t agree with Walt’s reasoning, even though I do understand his point of view. I feel that he should of put effort into his own family. Walt is the one with the fucked up issues. I’m sure his sons had to deal with that their whole lives. I’m so glad I didn’t have a father like that growing up. Walt is such an asshole. This is one of the best realist style films I have seen

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Full Metal Jacket

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Full Metal Jacket

This was Stanley Kubrick’s political opinion on war itself. This was not his specific opinion on the Vietnam War, but something much bigger. He reminds us of the Neanderthals fighting over the water hole in 2001 Space Odyssey. It shows how war and conflict is in our nature since the beginning of time. The question he gives us in Full Metal Jacket is: have we evolved?
We can see that Kubrick is intentionally  criticizing the “making of the American man and war hero” The first piece of evidence come from Jokers dialogue. In boot camp the first Joke he makes is “Is that you John Wayne?” He is making fun of the senior officer, asking him if he is John Wayne. Through out the film it is Jokers dialogue expressing Kubrick's opinion through his sarcasm.

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As we go from training to the battle ground, I found the transition to be very abrupt and a very clever. He showed the audience how it must of been like for the solders. I’m sure they felt the transition to be the same way, too quick, too soon, and not ready. That's why Kubrick did not want us to have a smooth transition. It was intentionally suppose  to feel uneasy, giving it a realistic style in film making.

In the scene when the sniper was finally caught, we see fire in different areas of the building symbolizing hell. The scene was dirty, in disarray, disturbing. War is messy and not so organised and planned out. The part were we see the sniper is when a young female expresses how the enemy is not always the typical bad guy. Before she dies, she is praying, another piece of evidence that the enemy is not evil. This  female represents what our so called enemy really looks like. Another evidence that Kubrick is giving us, a realist type of film and not a formalist film.

Joker has the look at the end of the film that was described earlier by the light skinned African American soldier right before the base was attack. He walks with his head up high and his face looks different in a way. He seems more serious and less funny at the end. It gives us a clue that he is thinking about what just transpired. His character does not change but a small piece of him has matured in a way. He must feel more grateful to be alive, but has some regrets in his heart. Maybe he was thinking maybe he could of done something different.

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This movie has a realist style. Evidence of this is how you didn't have your typical theme music in every scene. Most of the scenes did not have the suspenseful soundtrack theme. When the sniper was shooting at the fallen soldiers, all we heard was the gun fire and the soldier cry for help. This gave us a realistic style as if we were in the film. I felt as if I was one of the soldiers hiding behind the building witnessing this happening in front of my eyes.The usual theme music in this scene would of taken me out of the film and returned me to my set and I would of not been inside like Kubrick wanted me to be.

My father was in the Vietnam War, and when he talks about it he describes it as hell.

It was not a pretty place to be. My father told me about how the water would give him and others diarrhea, and the food was disturbingly horrible. The photos of my father and his platoon shows how young and skinny they were. This film did not glorify violence, it does the opposite. It shows us the truth about war, and with the truth we can learn, not from unrealistic formalistic John Wayne films. This anti war film can teach us the harsh reality on what happens when we send our brave young troops out to battle. And before we deiced to get involved we should reflect on this film and take a good look at what we are sending our people into.We should asks ourselves- Is this how we should resolve conflct? Or is there another way? Can we evolve?

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I'm proud of my heritage

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Most professionals that are in the film business don’t give me the time or day.Someone told me recently that it may be because I’m Hispanic. And that I am dismissed before I can have the opportunity to prove my self worth of their time. I hope this person is wrong, because I like to believe that in todays times, we evolved more than that.




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Casablanca

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This was the first time I saw Casablanca in its entirety; I usually watched bits and pieces here and there on special occasions like, Thanksgiving and Christmas, but this was the first time I was able to sit and watch it without distractions from beginning to end.
Let me start by saying that Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman displayed the most horrible kiss I have ever seen on screen, it lacked believability, and emotion. I also don’t think that they were very good actors at all, their performances seemed very theatrical ; as if I was watching a high school play done badly. The rest of the actors seem to have a better quality; like the law enforcement official seemed to have charisma and believability; everyone else in the film I did not have a problem with their performance.
Nevertheless, I believe this movie was a pure masterpiece; the way each scene carried over to the next was an art form in itself ,I appreciated some of the invisible editing techniques that were used throughout the film, like the way they started one shot wide, and then the next the same shot just a little closer before the camera moved, and every time the camera would move it would always move slowly and smoothly ; I especially liked the scene at the train station ; they made it look like it was raining, I guess to set a mood, and a atmosphere kind of feeling. The lighting also played an intricate detail on setting the mood, some scenes were evenly lit, while others were purposely dark with shadows, to help the audience understand what the dramatic emotions , and to change the temple where the story was going.
Furthermore, I felt the story pulled me in, I couldn't help but feel like a fly on the wall; even the black and white images set a time period for me, I was convinced that there was in fact a war going on in the background in the middle of this love triangle, and I did like where this story ultimately took us to; which was a lesson of morality, justice, and simply, doing the right thing; displayed by our leading man Humphrey Bogart.
In conclusion, the only other thing that seem to bother me was the very end where it seems like Rick and the officer become partners just minutes before he was pointing a gun at him and threatening to shoot him in the hart, I did find that a little stupid, but besides that the film was flawless. I would definitely put it up in my top 20 list ,if I had one.

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Passion or Obsession.

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The desire of wanting to be a filmmaker for me is a long road of disappointments. You see, I have spent over 17 years of my life shooting independent music videos, for independent musicians;thinking one day I will shoot a music video for an artist that was make a hit record. Obviously that never happened, and year after year getting my hopes up, and working harder to make every new production better than my last; improving my quality, storyboard, equipment and techniques. The artists that I worked with were in fact very talented, and just as passionate as I was. We shared something in common, which was an unrealistic dream. The difference between them and I was, there artistic expression was done with the microphone and mine was done with the camera.
I guess I was living in some kind of fantasy world; thinking life was like a movie with a happy ending, and believed that if you work hard, and you are passionate you can achieve the impossible dream. But once you get to be my age it's no longer cute to go for these kinds of dreams. It becomes embarrassing: as if I should know better by now. So I decided not to do music videos and I decided to concentrate on just completing my movie. I have been working on this film for over a year and a half, and it may take me another year and a half to complete it, but it will be done and it will come out right. My passion has turned into obsession, and
I will not conform. I will no longer dependent on anyone's success except for mine. This time I depend on me and my ability as a writer, director, cinematographer, digital editor, sound effect engineer, and lighting specialist. I refuse to accept defeat, and I will continue to make films until the day that I die; because I accept that I am completely obsessed..
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Film making is exhausting.

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Making an independent film can be one of the most exhausting things anyone can possibly do. Especially when you’re working with a limited budget. Networking with people is easier said than done. I find most people that I network with are more concerned about promoting themselves instead of working together in accomplishing one great production. Most people have no idea how much time it takes just to complete one three-minute scene. In my personal experience it usually takes 5 to 6 hours to get it right.I wish it wouldn’t take that long, but if it doesn’t look professional then we are clearly wasting our time.
Furthermore, quality filmmaking is no fun. It is not my idea of a good time. To me it is a craft and an exhausting painful craft, that I spend countless hours perfecting. I will usually begin a production day by setting up the camera, connecting the audio wireless configuration, setting up the aperture and high-speed shutter, and spend an exhausting hour just on light. Of course there are people that volunteered to help me with these tasks but they end up wasting time socializing and slowing me down. Once I’m done setting up I then rehearse with the actors. Every actor does something wrong. Whether it’s the tone of their voice, facial expression or simply the way they say the lines. Every actor needs some assistance in order to help the performance become believable.
After we wrap up a day of production. My work is far from done. I then have to exhaustingly spend hours just looking at all the footage of that day. Picking and choosing the right shots the right camera angles making decisions upon decisions. Editing is more than just looking for the right angle. You also have to consider the right performance pieces. After spending 7 to 8 hours on this editing nightmare. I then have to do audio, background sounds, audio correction, sound effects, theme music. Which adds an additional four hours of editing time.
In conclusion, you’re probably asking yourself right about now why do I do this? If it’s so painful for me then why do it at all? What’s the reason for my madness? The best way I could answer this question is, desire, passion, drive. Or maybe I’m just obsessed with becoming a filmmaker. When I was a little boy I spent a lot of my time alone, at home watching movies. A good quality production would not just entertain me in some strange way it kept me company.

Both of my parents were immigrants they both came to this country when they were teenagers they both worked very hard to learn English and became hard working Americans.My parents worked an enormous amount of hours in order to give me and my older brother a better life. Even though we were brought up in a very low income area my parents did everything to make sure that we had what we needed. I am very proud of my parents one day I will film a movie about them. They are my true heroes.
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