The Breakfast Club, Elaine N.

This movie will always be my all-time favorite movie. In particular this movie touches on what high school is when it comes to friends and cliques . Each kid is part of a different social group: Claire belongs to the popular girls; Andrew belongs to the jocks; Brian belongs to the nerd group; John belongs to the dropouts because of his bad behavior; Allison would be a "nobody " because she has no friends at all.

It is sad that high school can be full of stigmas for certain kids. We should be allowed to explore friendships in our four years. The students I believe exhibit every type of behavior a high school student experiences . John would be the rebel for no apparent reason, every high school students at one point deal with wanting to go against every rule in the book. Claire and Andrew feel peer pressure by the other members of their cliques. A pressure every student feels, the pressure of wanting to be accepted.

Overall, this movie is all about the kids who never would have crossed paths. But at the end of the day learned something new about each other and that no one is really better than each other.  I would recommend this movie to anyone of any age it is just a good enjoyable movie, anyone can relate to.

As a high school student myself, I can fall into many stigmas. But I tend to stay away from the title by being a person with many friends and hangout with many groups. Honestly, I hate the title of being "popular", it makes me feel superior to others, which is not what I want to feel like around my friends and other people.

High school students usually go through a stage of being a "rebel" refusing authority orders. I think it is because we are  young and trying to find ourseleves.

Rebel Without A Cause (Laszlo)

Based on my first viewing of this movie, I'm not sure what to think. The plot seems to be a little hard to follow; it's back and forth between emotions and the constant music that plays throughout [consider revising; awkward syntax]. Watching this so far, I'm reminded of when we watched Psycho. Not sure if that's the music only or if it's the idea of death and the suggestion from Judy and the parents of Jim suggest running away.

I like that Dennis Hopper is in this movie, although I'm pretty sure his acting career isn't that far off the ground at it's production. Monahan was nice enough to point out that he was in the film. I've only seen him with long hair in Easy Rider and current [more recent] pictures of him with white hair.

The scene where Plato is mugged for his address book is a little amusing to me simply because they didn't have phones [be more specific] back then and my first thought was about why he had an address book with him to begin with and then it occurred to me that, duh; they don't have phones.

About the production of this movie, I have to question it for two reasons; the aforementioned lack of attention and a scene (until the point I've viewed it to now) where Jim is laying upside down on his couch and the camera shows an upside down view of his mother coming down the stairs and in the same shot, the camera straightens out. On first thought, one would think that the camera is meant to represent Jim's point of view but after the camera straightens out you can see the mother crouch down to a still upside down Jim. I've yet to figure out the significance then of the camera view.

Probably stereotypical of the time period, but the leather jackets all seem to be worn by the bad guys - the guys trying to (avenge Buzz's death?)

Man On Wire

The documentary Man On Wire is a 2008 British American documentary film. This film was directed by James Marsh, the documentary was shot in 1974 about a young man named Philippe Petite who is a self taught wire walker who was 18 at the time discovered that the Twin Towers was being built so it was his goal to walk across, he was so determined he practiced all the time. He made plans to help him succeed his goal of wire walking across the Twin Towers. I was so fascinated to see such a young man at the time so interested, determined, and dedicated to wire walking. He put all his time and effort into something he loved. He taught me a lesson watching this movie, to always follow your dreams and to never give up, no matter how hard it might be, just don't give up.

Trains,Planes and Automobiles: Elaine N.

This was by far the funniest movie I have seen that dealt with bad luck.  At first I was sort of confused on how Del was so quick to become comfortable with Neal on a plane ride. I could relate to those people who speak to you on a plane. But in reality you want to be left alone to relax and enjoy the ride. The film really had me thinking on how sometimes these bad things do actually happen to people. An example, would be the plane getting delayed, it is terrible because one just wants to get to their destination. But the weather always causes it usually being snow. Neal, I imagine has never had an encounter with someone like Del since he gets creep out many times. It was funny how Del is a crazy sleeper, snoring loud and just being a mess. But the movies not only has funny parts, there is also emotion, heart warming scenes. The last scene was finally when Neal had an eye opener moment. He realized Del's wife had passed away and he had no where to go for the holiday. 

A word I would use to describe this movie would be a coincidence because after the men always agree to stay away from each other it just so happens they end up back together. My favorite scene would be when Neal drops those 17 F bombs at the rental car place and when he finally gets home. The scene that was full of bad luck was when the car caught on fire and was still taken for a drive through the cold.
I would recommend the movie and it is really bad since its rated R, it is only because of the language in the movie. The movie is enjoyable and will have you laughing. 

Alien- Corey R.

The concept that is "leave no man behind" is not in my vocabulary. In the movie alien, 7 crew members were in hyperbolic sleep on their space tow truck, the Nostromo, when the ships motherboard, Mother woke them from their sleep to go check out this distress signal that the ship picked up. Wanting to ignore the signal because they were on their way home from a 7 year expedition in space, the crew members went back to sleep but Mother woke up the crew again, saying that they wont get paid if the dont check it out. So the crew checks out the planet that the signal came from, but upon landing, the ship was damaged. The crew was stranded on the planet until the ship was repaired. So some of the crew members decided to explore the planet. Upon exploring, they found a desolate spaceship, the origin of the signal. Ripley, a member who was 3rd in command of the ship found out the distress signal was actually a warning telling them to stay away but it is too late some of them members had already boarded the alien ship. Once they reached the alien ship, one of the crew members Kane, found a crack in the ship, inside the ship he found many eggs. Being curious, Kane observed on of the eggs and an alien popped out and attached to his face. Ripley not knowing what happened she insisted that they stay in quarantine for 24 hours until everything is set. But Ash opened the latch and let them in. Have you ever stopped to think, that if Ash never opened the door, Kane would have died out there and most of the Crew would have been save.

Psycho - Elaine N.

 

Psycho, was the best movie I have seen in black and white ! The film had me thinking so many things at once. When I saw the title Psycho, I imagined it would be the main character Marion or Sam since Marion really wanted to show their relationship publicly. Marion to me was the Psycho because she stole $40,000 and bought a new car asap. The cop that pulled her over had some type of suspicion towards because he followed Marion to the dealer, which was strange. Then, the hotel comes to play and off the back Norman is extremely weird. It was as if he had never seen a women by the way he would stare at Marion.
The way Norman would talk about his mom it would be in the tone as if very low and not much said about her.  But he was proud to say a son is a mother's best friend. Which was strange because not every son and mother relationship is like that especially because he is an adult.
When people would go into Norman's house, I knew for a fact they were going to die. I did not expect Marion to die in the shower, I thought it would be because she was in the house.
I never expected Norman's "Mom" to actually be Norman himself. I knew he was strange but wouldn't expect him to have Dissociative Identity Disorder, meaning multiple personality disorder. I liked the ending because it was unpredictable,

Prior Film Experience: Submarine

At first glance Submarine is a pretty average coming of age film with a protagonist of a sub par teen boy, whose goals are to lose his virginity before his sixteenth birthday and to keep his parents together. This movie is cliche in the sense that it kind of mocks cliches. Like every other teenager, Oliver, is self obsessed, but not in an overly obvious way. From the very beginning of the film he admits that he imagines how people would react to his death. He pictures candlelight in memory of him at his school and girls sobbing over his death. In this fantasy he comes back saying, "Don't ask how. Just know that I'm more powerful than ever." This scene really gives you the feel of the dry almost cynical humor that ensues through out the film.

 This movie focuses a lot on Oliver's budding relationship with Jordanna, who is at first seen as a manic pixie dream girl with no purpose other than to take Oliver's virginity and up his social ranking. Since, Oliver is our protagonist we view her as he views her. He obviously sees Jordanna through rose colored glass as exemplified in the cheesy montages of their time together set to Alex Turner's melancholy soundtrack (which by the way is probably the main reason I love this movie). Then we discover how dynamic of a character she is once she confesses to Oliver that she's been struggling with her mother having a terminal illness. He realizes she has her own problems and is her own person, not just an extension of himself.

This movie not only realistically portrays adolescence through it's plot and characters' actions, but is also visually honest. The teenagers in this movie actually look like teenagers and the cast isn't unrealistically attractive. Submarine is relatable, full of great quotes, and has fantastic music, that make it a must see movie.