The Color Purple

The Color Purple takes place first in the 1900s.  The main character Celie played by Whoopi Goldberg. This was her first movie that really started her acting career.  In the movie Celie started off with a hard life, a step-father who rapes her non-stop and two babies she conceived but couldn't raise. When her mother died leaving her and her sister Nettie with her step-father, and the first thing he did was sell her off for marriage. Now her husband, Albert Johnson played by Danny Glover didn't want to marry her he wanted to marry her sister. My first question was, "Why is a grown man trying to marry a 14 year old girl, and secondly why was this okay in this time?" Back in the old days [antebellum South] I understood the slavery, but black on black slavery just never made any sense to me.

Some years go by and Celie gets older, and so do all of Mr. Johnson's kids.  Celie's sister tries to come and live with them, but Mr. Johnson couldn't keep his hands off. Nettie left; she wrote everyday, [should be two words; one word means commonplace or ordinary] but Mr. Johnson hid everything from her [Celie] making her believe her sister forgot about her.  Now you know every angry man has a soft spot, someone who could bring out the best in him.  His light was Shug Avery, played by Margeret Avery, a traveling singer who was shamed away by her preacher father for creating a bastard child.  Whenever Shug came around Mr. Johnson was a lot nicer and didn't beat on his wife Cellie. But whenever Shug wasn't around Celie got beat for not being her.  Shug brought a light into Cellie: made her feel pretty, had her experience somewhat of a romance, when on the other hand Mr. Johnson just brings her down and degrades her as a woman.  When Harpo, Mr. Johnson's son brings home a wife to marry, Sophia (played by Oprah Winfrey) everything changes. They start having kids then they start beating on each other but still making babies in the middle. Later Sophia has an encounter with a white man [the town's mayor no less], and she punches him in the face she goes to jail for 8+ years.  She comes home to be a maid for the white lady whose husband put her into jail.

The second time Shug returns, she returns with a husband which hurts both Celie and Mr. Johnson because they are both in love with her. This is around the time when she learns she has two children who are living in Africa with her sister Nettie. She tries to get away, but the first time Mr. Johnson was blocking her way.  She tried to be dramatic and fall out, but Mr.Johnson doesn't care. The third time Shug came back it was time for Celie to leave; she was tired of the abuse and her step-father had passed away and left her a house and a store.  Celie makes her break; Mr.Johnson tries to get control one last time, but she breaks away.  Mr. Johnson didn't realize how big a component Celie was to his life; she cooked, she cleaned, she took care of the kids and she made sure her husband had everything he needed.

After a few years pass by, Celie has her home together and her store is up and running. Her Shug, Harpo, Sophia all living together and Mr. Johnson all by himself. He had a change of heart when he got the letter from immigration, he signed off for Celie's sister and children get to come back to the south with them.

The main lesson this story taught me is to not take my life for granted and not take my freedom for granted either.

Caitlin Willis - The Color Purple

Caitlin Willis

Intro. to Film Studies

5.30.17

The Color Purple

         
This movie was interesting because of the touchy, taboo plot. Growing up, I'd heard of this film multiple times but I'd never had the chance to watch it. After seeing it, I know what the hype is all about. This movie tells the story of a young black woman's life. Growing up in Georgia in the early twentieth century, life for Celie was difficult. Before she was even of legal age, she'd given birth to two of her father's children. In many ways, she protected her younger sister by allowing her father to rape her and abuse her, saving her sister from his monstrous behavior. It wasn't until her father sold her to another man that she seemingly lost control of everything.

          Under her new "owner," Celie had to behave as a housewife: cook, clean, take care of the children, and tend to her husbands needs, which translates to allowing him to abuse and rape her, much like her father. The fact that this movie covered such a heavy topic, with the amount of essence it did, is amazing. Often in history, we learn about how black men have struggled to grow as individuals but the focus has never been on black woman trying to evolve from the slaves and birth givers. No one has ever talked about the things they endured during the early twentieth century, like how they were left out of feminism movements and voting acts. No one talks about the black woman's struggle.

          The ending was definitely not anticipated. I personally didn't think Celie would eventually end up owning her own home, especially not the one she and her family grew up in. I was very surprised when she met up with her children and her sister but I was very happy for the both of them. I was very proud, though I didn't actually have a right to be. This movie portrays a black woman's struggle well. Despite being dragged down over and over again, Celie became an independent, strong, black woman who was happy.

The Breakfast Club By Makayla Bigard

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club directed John Hughes is in my opinion one of the best movies of all time.  It stars five high school students from very different ends met each other in detention.  "In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions" this movie stars  Brian Ralph Johnson (Anthony Micheal Hall) as the brain, Andrew "Andy" Clark (Emilio Estevez) as the athlete, Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy) as the basket case, Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald) as the princess and John Bender (Judd Nelson) as the criminal.  These student met in library for detention Saturday more as complete strangers to each other.  The assistant principal, Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason) was there to watch over them for the day, giving them strict rules not to talk and to write a 1,000-word essay describing themselves.  Bender, who  spends many of his Saturdays in detention and is known throughout the school as a criminal does the exact opposite.  He creates conversation with the other students and starts making noise, earning himself several more detentions from Vernon.  As the hours pass, the students talk, laugh, argue, and even smoke marijuana from Benders with each other.  This for me was one of the many highlights of the movie.  Every one of them decided to sneak out of detention, risking the fact that they could get caught in order to a package in Benders locker.  They begin to make there way back to detention without the principal seeing them.  The end up all around the school avoiding being caught.  Bender decides that the only way for them to get back is for him to create a distraction and get himself in trouble.  Which he does and the rest of the students make it back to the library while Bender is stuck in trouble.  

The ending scene of the movie and swear the students learning about each other. Learning that they have much more in common than they thought. The most iconic scene in my is when they are sitting in a circle and Brian aka the brain brings up a question.  He ask if they will speak to you the next time they see him in school or will they just keep walking.  It took a minute for them to answer but they all agreed to speak to each other from now on.  

The last scene is what the club is all about a group of students who may have never talked to each other in school, meet and learn that they have much more in common then they though.  The detention brought them together and created lasting friendships that they may have never had if they didn't get detention that Saturday.  

"Don't you forget about me don't don't don't"

Jaws

Gabby Jeannette
5/10/17

Jaws... a classic that everyone knows about, whether you have seen it before or just heard of the movie. Everyone knows it and what it is about.  Just because it's a classic and well known, doesn't make it great. Yes, it is attention grabbing, but that's only after the first 40 minutes when the climax slowly occurs. Basically, I am saying the movie is enjoyable, but the fact that it took so long to amp up steered me away from my ability to love it. I feel as if the plot and on screen conflict behind certain characters wasn't needed, I say this because it didn't help the story line at all just made you want to get to the end faster.

My father let me watch this movie with him when I was in 6th grade, and now first of all I'm starting to question his choice as a parent. Also, looking back on it, reviewing it, I definitely wouldn't rate it as PG. The standards for rating in this day in age are very strict. If you ask me the multiple scenes with blood and gore, swearing, etc raise the rating to at least a PG-13. There needs to be some viewer discretion!

Back to the film's set up and physical aspects, I'd say it was set up very to the point. The sets were not over decorated or too fancy. The music, John William's score, wasn't over the top. Lastly, the special effects and stunt scenes were as expected. But for a movie made in 1975, the structure of the movie was made decently well.

Since I have a bias because of all of the high definition movies that I have watched, this quality and effects were below average for me.  But one thing that I will give the movie respect for is the realism of the shark; it doesn't look fake, like a robot, or like it's copy and pasted into the movie. If you ask me, I believe that the movie as good and all the good aspect got put together once the three characters were out at sea, prior to that it was just another movie to never watch again.

 Keeping in mind the year, all and all, this movie was enjoyable for what it was. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to a friend because there are plenty of other good shark movies to enjoy. But it was good enough to where I don't regret watching it and also, I would watch it again with out complaints.

the color purple

Director Steven Spielberg's film adaptation of Alice Walker's award-winning novel The Color Purple is a great movie!  I enjoy watching this film time and again.  It don't matter how many times I watch it.  It can never get old to me. This is one of my favorite movies. 

In this movie Celie an African-American woman, played be Whoopie Goldberg in her onscreen debut, lives in the South and survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing "Mister" Albert Johnson (Danny Glover), things go from bad to worse leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. 

She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa. Scenes in this movie had me feeling all types of ways including hurt, happy , and I even thought about the funny parts . 

indiana jones and the temple of doom

For starters, i did not like watching this film because i found it boring , the scenes , the wording choice selection and more. I would say that this film is one of my least favorites . Maybe because it was long ago and people back then enjoyed it but this is my first time watching it and i did not like it. I do look foward in reading a book about it rather than watching the movie

jaws

This movie was great only because it had a lot of action scenes and what makes a movie exciting for me is action to get me going and hyped for the rest of the movie. When a young woman is killed by a shark while skinny-dipping near the New England tourist town of Amity Island, police chief Martin Brody  wants to close the beaches, but mayor Larry Vaughn overrules him, fearing that the loss of tourist revenue will cripple the town. Ichthyologist Matt Hooper and grizzled ship captain Quint offer to help Brody capture the killer beast, and the trio engage in an epic battle of man vs. nature.