Sugar, Sugar

Sugar

Directors: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck

Writers: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck

Stars: Algenis Perez Soto, Jose Rijo, Walki Cuevas 

At first glance, Sugar, seems to be just another typical sports movie. Based in the Dominican Republic, the movie follows a teenage boy, Miguel Santos, or Sugar. Very quickly I realized that the story behind the film is deeper than the surface. Sugar relies on his talent as a baseball player to provide for his family. His father is deceased and the families only hope is him. That's a lot of pressure on a teenager. At only nineteen, Sugar came to the United States to further his baseball career. Not only does he struggle with being away from home, but also with the fact that he has to adjust to a new country. He had a hard time fitting in. I think everyone could recall feeling like they don't quite fit in well, thus making the film relateable in a sense. It also shows us the reality of immigration in America and why most people immigrate. They just want better, like Miguel did for his family.

           Soon after Miguel arrived in the states, he became injured, lost a friend, and was alone. Imagine what he was feeling at this point. He had a family back home to support and he was injured and feeling utterly useless. This was a smart decision to incorporate the internal struggle Sugar had with himself. At this point, he wasn't just another baseball player. He was a human being with feelings. Sometimes we dehumanize people and forget they have emotions, especially males in our society. Soon after, Sugar was back on his feet and doing what he needed to do in order to make ends meet for his family back home. He got a job at a restaurant and went on a journey of self discovery being that after his injury, he lost all confidence and ambition. He even joined a league full of people like him and found his new home, as well as himself. 

         I think this was an okay movie. It definitely isn't one I'd re watch during leisure time or rave about, but for what its worth, its okay. The story it told was heartfelt, yet didn't quite captivate me as an action film or comedy would. If you want to see a movie about overcoming obstacles and finding yourself, then Sugar is the one for you.

Man on Wire Review

      

Man on Wire 

Director: James Marsh

    Starring:  Philippe Petit, Annie Allix, Paul McGill, Jean François Heckel 

Distributor: Magnolia Pictures

Man on Wire was by far an extraordinary film. It captivated me at first glance. Personally, I am terrified of heights, so for me to see someone who's walking, running, and jumping on a wire, between buildings is insane. It made me want to keep watching and see how the hell he did it. Philippe Petit, a French man, is the main character and focus throughout the film. Petit is basically on a journey of self fulfillment. Ever since he was young he wanted to do this. It's his passion. His ultimate goal here is to get through any and every obstacle and walk that wire between the Twin Towers in NYC. He knew walking into this that what he wanted to do was definitely illegal, but did that stop him? Nope. Honestly, I can relate to this level of dedication to do something despite the consequences. Sometimes I make the sound decision to watch Netflix instead of doing homework. The result? My grade drops! Did I know that would happen? Yes. Did I still play that episode? Yes I did. The point is, this film depicts purposefulness and willpower. Petit didn't go from walking wires in his backyard to the World Trade Center overnight. In this invigorating film, the viewer literally gets a front row seat in the life and events of Petit's life and preparation to achieve his goal.

In order to really admire this film, you've got to acknowledge a few things. One, being that Petit literally taught himself how to wire walk. No one sat him down and showed him or instructed him. His talent comes from pure ambition, practice, and dedication. If that type of love for something isn't inspiring to you, I don't know what will be. Also, can we talk about the fact that he was bold enough to walk 140 across one of the tallest buildings in the world, to the other one? This man had no harness, no safety net, no back up plan, nothing. The only thing beneath him was a 110 story drop into certain death. My first reaction is, "Does he have a deathwish?" He must really trust himself because you'd never see me even attempting any foolery of the sort. 

All in all, Man on Wire was an overall great film. The timeline it covers and story it told was one of success through triumphs. I'd rate the film an overall 6.5/10. That may be confusing considering the fact that I said it was a great film, but to me, it lacked enough action and became a bit repetitive. I still do recommend anyone to watch this if they'd like to watch some crazy dedicated guy complete a risky "heist".

Rocky Blog - Karina

“Rocky” is the first film that the class saw. In the film, the protagonist, Sylvester Stallone (Rocky), is an underground boxer that doesn't get payed much and also had a side job as a money collector for a loan shark. As an underground boxer, Rocky fights opponents that have lower fighting skills.

In the beginning of the film, Rocky’s love-life wasn’t so good either. He was interested in Adrian (Talia Shire), who works at a pet store. He constantly tries to win her love but she seems intimidated until her older brother, Paulie (Burt Young), pushes her to get out of the house. Being a solitary, she hesitates at first but Rocky then convinces her to go on a date with him and later results into a relationship. Rocky's gym trainer, Mickey (Burgess Meredith), torments Rocky by calling him a "bum."

Toward the middle of “Rocky,” Apollo Creed suggests he'd fight Rocky to give him a shot at the title because he is attracted by Rocky's nickname, The Italian Stallion. Rocky takes this opportunity to show everyone that he isn’t a bum. At this point, Apollo was not threatened by Rocky. Creed’s team is concerned when they see Rocky on a news interview showing how he trains by punching meat at a meat plant and breaking ribs. Apollo is still not concern with Rocky and insteads is focused on putting a show for publicity. With Adrian’s and Mickey’s support, Rocky  

On New Year's Day, after all the training and support, Rocky was ready to fight leaving Adrian in the locker room. The fight starts with Apollo throwing hits and Rocky dodging them, then throwing a punch and knocking down Apollo. The crowd going wild and shocked, he gets up and continues to fight, taking it more serious this time. As each round passes, both Rocky and Apollo are bruised and hurt. At round fourteen, Rocky is knocked out by Apollo for a few seconds before getting up. When he picked himself up, Rocky goes in with a hit to Apollo’s ribs, breaking them. The round ends and the fighters take a break. After the brief break, they both continue to weakly fight until the last 10 seconds of the round. When the round ends, Apollo and Rocky agree on no rematch and Rocky gets by attacked by reporters with questions. As this is happening, Rocky desperately shouts Adrian’s name and looks for her. Adrian and Rocky meet at the stage, hold each other, and claim their love for one another. While the scene happens,  Jergens announces that the fight was a draw and so Apollo automatically wins by default. This huge announcement goes unnoticed by Rocky who is focusing on Adrian.

Overall, this film was interesting and engaging. The actors played good characters and the acting felt genuine. Watching the first Rocky film intrigues me into watch the rest of the series of Rocky films.

Man on Wire by Damyia Jackson

Damyia Jackson

Taking risks is a great thing to do in life but some things can be really risky. Man on Wire is a good movie, I enjoyed the ending half that I watched even though I thought he was crazy for doing what he did. Philippe Petit walked across a wire that was between the twin towers which were 200 feet apart and over 1000 feet above the ground. I didn’t think he was gonna actually survive that because it was so high and he was nervous but he even got on one knee and saluted while he was up there and he was up there for 45 minutes, it was unbelievable. I think that the purpose of the wire was a metaphor for life saying that life is so short (thin) but you still have to take control of it and don’t be afraid. He did get arrested for what he did but not for long, they let him out on one circumstance which was to do a show for some kids. Overall he represented a fearless person with no worries in the world, he focused on moving forward and not looking back and since the rope was representing life he showed that he can do anything.

Psycho By Damyia Jackson

PLOT TWIST!!!!! Marion Crane and Sam the hardware man were talking about how much they wanted to be together but they couldn’t because of his living situation and because he’s paying alimony. Their relationship was on the low because of that but Marion didn’t care. She worked at a real estate office as a secretary right along with another woman and lived with her sister. On that day at work her boss came in with a really obnoxious rich man, who was bragging about buying his daughter this really expensive house for her wedding present. Asking Marion questions about her happiness and saying that you can’t buy it but you can buy off unhappiness and just flaunting all of the money in her face. After he handed her the money her employer quickly told her that they can’t have that much money in the store and to bring it to the bank immediately. She said she wasn’t feeling well and asked to go home after and he agreed, she went straight home and started packing her things. This is where everything starts to be different and kind of plot twisting. She packed everything, including the money and quickly left, as she was driving she saw her employer walking across the street and got very nervous. She was driving for a very long time and pulled over and fell asleep, she was woken up by a police officer who was asking lots of questions and said that she seemed like she was running from someone. She later drove to a used car dealership and picked out a car she liked and the salesman told her how much it would be, she once again seemed very jittery and like she was running from someone. She noticed the same police officer sitting across the street and hurriedly paid and kept going on her journey. She ended up at the Bates motel, which was off of the main road so was very vacant for a while so the only one that stayed there was a guy named Norman. Norman seemed perfectly normal for a grown man living with his “mother”. He offered Marion to come up to his house for dinner and she accepted but when she heard what she thought was his mom yelling at her she knew that she couldn’t. He brought her some food down to the motel anyway and they talked, some time went by and they went their ways. Marion was getting ready for bed so she got in the shower, Norman had a peep hole from the office to her room so that he could see her. Time went by as she was in the shower and out of nowhere someone came in and started stabbing her to death. Marion died and Norman came back to clean her body up and he threw her and all of her belongings in the swamp near the motel. Marion’s sister was still looking for her along with the man marion was seeing and a private detective that they hired. The detective went to the motel because they had reason to believe that’s where she went. When Arbogast started asking Norman about her he got all jittery like he was lying, which he was but then asked Arbogast to leave. He then snuck into the house where Norman lived thinking that he was going to talk to his mother and he got stabbed to death just like Marion. The sister and Sam then went to the sheriff's house because he hadn’t returned and he told them that Norman’s mom was buried a long time ago but they were determined to talk to who they thought was her. They went there pretending to be normal customers looking for somewhere to stay until the lady wanted to go to the house while Sam distracted Norman until he got suspicious and ran to the home. By that time the sister had searched the whole house and was down in the fruit cellar where she thought she found the mom and Norman came running down with a knife, wig and dress on like he was ready to kill her like he did the other two. He got a psych evaluation before being sentenced and the psychiatrist said that his mom had taken over his brain because she was his second personality.

Psycho By Shanelle Lester.. P.S There Are Spoilers

SPOILER ALERT!!! Psycho made by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960 is an American psychological horror film with an interesting twist at the end of the movie. This thriller, film featured Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), Lila Crane (Vera Miles) and many other important actors. Psycho explores the inside of well  -  a psycho  - an obsessed person and how their mind works when they're infatuated with someone they really love. Psycho appears to based on a girl that makes a poor decision  -  she takes off with $40K in cash  - karma plays a role . She decided to do something that would get her in trouble by stealing, but she eventually ended up dead paying the consequences that cost her own life.

Secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) had decided to steal $40,000 from her employer in order to run away with her boyfriend  -  recent divorcee Sam Loomis (John Gavin). Along the way to Sam’s hometown of Fairvale, California, Marion started to get exhausted from the long drive during a heavy rainstorm and decides to pull over to take a nap but ends up sleeping for the whole night. While waking up she runs into a police officer who soons start to get suspicious of the strange way she’s acting. He even followed her to a car dealership where she switch her car so that she could be unrecognized. Traveling on the back roads to avoid the police, she ends up stopping for the night at the ramshackle Bates Motel and meets an overly polite proprietor Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who is a young man with an interest in taxidermy and has a fairly difficult relationship with his mother at times. Even though his relationship isn’t the best with his mother he had still fairly loved her  -  “a boy’s best friend is his mother.” While Norman was respectful to Marion and seen her as a nice person, but on the other hand his mother wasn’t so happy to hear about the woman who he had invited over for dinner. SPOILER ALERT!!! While taking a shower Marion had soon encountered a horrifying moment which would involve her life being taken away from her  -  this would go on to become one of the most iconic scenes in film history..

Marion Crane (a crane is a type of bird  -  Hitchcock’s next film was The Birds, and Norman only stuffs birds, as” beasts look unpleasant when stuffed”  -  was murdered while taking a shower, killed by what appears to be Mrs. Bates, Norman’s mom. Even though he saw the women as a nice, respectful female, he still loved his mother, and he did what he had to do. He covered up the crime scene and disposed of her body in a nearby swamp so that it wouldn’t trace back to his mother.

Lila Crane (Vera Miles) the sister of Marion was soon worried when the police had showed up at her door steps asking about her sister and when the last time she had saw her. Once the police officer had realized that her Marion had disappeared a detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam) was on the job of finding out what happened to Marion. Dead and gone he another attack by Norman’s mom, the detective was down and it was up to Lila and Marion’s boyfriend Sam Loomis to find out what happen.

SPOILER ALERT!!! The shocking truth it was Norman Bates that was doing the killings the whole time! He was so obsessed with loving his mother that he couldn’t handle the fact she was dead  -  even though he had poisoned her and his would-be step-father. He dressed up as his mother killing people so that he could be there to protect her and show her his love.

Alien 1979 By: Henry Seyue

Alien Dir. Ridley Scott
Feat. Sigourney Weaver (Riley), Veronica Cartwright (Lambert), Harry Dean Stanton (Brett), John Hurt (Kane)
20th Century Fox, 1979

     This 1979 Sci-fi thriller is the predecessor to a variety of space aged films such as "Life", as well as the "pilot film" that would lead to the "Alien" franchise, and later the "Alien v. Predator" franchise. Sci-fi is a genre that many people stray away from for the mere fact that it usually contains realistic fallacies that are difficult to ignore, or that a viewer may lack the level of imagination needed to find the genre interesting. If you find usual Sci-fi concepts difficult to grasp or outlandish, I can guarantee this is a film that you wouldn't think too highly of. However, If you are the type of person who likes to think outside the box, and enjoy the themes within the typical Sci-fi thriller such as Survival, I can assure you that this is a film that you would enjoy.

      The theme of survival is consistent throughout the film and that is something I not only love about this genre, but the film in particular. When survival is the goal, you'll often find many ethical dilemmas arise as miscellaneous minds collide over morale and rationale. This occurs very early on in the film, when our first explorer is attacked by the alien, Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) is tasked with saving him and risking the crews lives or letting him die and saving the lives of the majority. She takes the approach that I consider the most rational and by letting him stay outside. This is a hard decision because she is essentially killing someone, but letting him in could be far more catastrophic. When a rogue crew member lets them in against Ripley's orders it is assumed that he is doing what he perceives as most ethical, but it is later revealed that his intentions were far more sinister. The theme of survival is constant from this point on and the next major controversy wouldn't even be over the survival of a crew member, but rather the survival of the alien they just let on board. The dilemma in this scenario was either letting the alien live so that it can be brought to earth for examination, or kill it and living to tell the story. Again, the rogue crew member prevents it from being killed, thus further reducing the crews chances of survival. After the alien evolves and kills two of the crew members, letting it live is no longer in the conversation. Another ethical dilemma is now created. Due to limited resources on the escape shuttle they must either save half of the crew and detonate the other half as a means of killing the alien, or they all stay and try to kill the Alien while risking everyone lives. In this scenario they choose the more ethical route which is keeping everyone alive to fight the alien. This was clearly a catastrophic decision as the alien begins killing the crew one-by-one, in the end only leaving the most rational member of the crew, Ripley. She acknowledges that under no circumstance is she to let the fully evolved alien live to reach earth, and she prevents it by any means necessary. In fighting for her own survival as well as the survival of the human race, she ends up destroying the ship and all its cargo in one last desperate attempt to kill the alien. These are some of the dilemmas that makes this film so captivating. I as you follow along and put your self in shoes of the characters, you'll find yourself conflicted as well. That that's what a good film should do to a viewer, make them think. I think Ridley Scott beautifully does this and inadvertently creates a film I see as almost interactive.

     A huge part of a good film is its ability to influence those after it, and needless to say this film has influenced a whole genre of intergalactic Science Fiction. One of my favorite films of this year, "Life", gives ode to Alien in a major way and I believe it even exceeds Alien to some extent as far as the theme of survival goes. There are many similarities between these two films such as escape shuttle survivals, the discovery of extraterrestrial life, evolution, difficult choices, and ultimately the theme of survival. I think "Life" simply does three things better than Alien: creates a more believable change in the main antagonist, gives the antagonist more necessary screen time, and it ends more ambiguously. First off, in "Alien" we see the alien when it is in a fledgling stage and then it runs off, and the next time we see it, it's about the size of an adult male.I don't think this abrupt evolution does much for the film, where as in "Life" the martian is nurtured to adulthood by the crew. We actually see the martian grow every time it consumes something, so its size and strength is a bit more believable than that of Alien's antagonist. Secondly, for a movie entitled Alien, it's a little disappointing how little we actually get to see the alien. When we do see it, the character seems pretty believable, especially for the movies generation. This is something the director could've capitalized on because the alien was pretty realistic, in "Life" the martian gets more than enough screen time, it's in almost every seen. Lastly, these two films have two completely different endings. Throughout both films, the theme is survival and this concept is what keeps viewers captivated and gets them thinking. Because "Alien" ends so conclusively viewers aren't left with any questions and stop thinking. We know that Riley makes it to earth safely and kills the "Alien". In "Life" we know that the alien ends up making it to earth and the mission is a failure but this leaves room for a bunch of new thoughts as to what happens next in terms of survival of the human race. The ambiguity of it surprisingly makes it a way more satisfying ending which is strange but a great choice in my opinion.
 
     In conclusion, "Alien" does a variety of different things well. It keeps you on your toes, it has shocking twists with in it, it is  influential, and it is interactive. I consider this a major win for the genre of Sci-fi, even if you aren't a sci-fi fan I think the theme of this movie could be still come across as entertaining if you enjoy working through dilemmas like the ones created in the movie. Because of this I would give Alien A 6.8 out of 10. This isn't to say that it isn't a great film, all bias aside I just don't see it being lauded very highly outside of it's genre, along with the fact that it's been out done in recent years.