Beast of f the southern wild

The main character, Hushpuppy was a six year-old girl who lives with her dad in the Bathtub. The Bathtub is a southern Delta neighborhood that I think was at the edge of the world . Hushpuppy  father had a serious illness so he's really hard on her and teaches her how to take care of herself because he knows he isn't going to live much longer. I assume something happened to her mom because she used to talk to her but she never appeared in the movie or anything. Once a frozen ice cap melted it went downhill from there. When Hushpuppy finds out her father is dying she went to go look for her which was really upsetting to watch.  A man takes her to a nightclub where she meets a woman in a kitchen who she talks to and dances with. Then Hushpuppy goes to see her dad before he dies and eats her last meal with her father that she'll ever have. This was really one of my favorite movies of this quarter because you could really see how strong she was after losing her parents and being so young. It reminded me a little of Crooklyn because Hushpuppy was able to accept her dad's death and stay strong like Troy with her mother's death in Crooklyn.

Crooklyn- Michelle Negron

The movie "Crooklyn" directed by Spike Lee was a comedy/drama about a lower class family growing up in the ghetto."Crooklyn" was released in 1994, The main actress. Zelda Harris, played the role of the younger sister named Troy. Troy was the heart of the family. Although I had to watch this film twice in order to get the whole plot of this film, I eventually caught on. She's raised with her four brothers and their mother and father took care of them. The mom was one of my favorite characters in the sense that she was so straight to the point with her kids. If you thought she was going to take no for an answer, you must of thought wrong cause what she says goes and there definitely was no way around that. I love how even though she was dead, the film kept bringing her back to the kids making them feel like she was always watching them.  Troy was definitely my second favorite character she was funny and her personality was amazing. I could relate to her in a sense where I have siblings and when my little sister was born I had to change her diapers, wash her clothes, give her baths and clean up everything after her. When Troy's mother died, in a way she passed the torch to her as the glue of the family. I thought this passing of roles was incredibly powerful and integral to the story of this family. In general, I think this a great movie that positively shows an regular black family, which in my opinion that has gone threw struggle and much pain. I would recommend this movie to everyone, no matter the race. 

Winters Bone, or the slow roast that came out less than Perfect

 In the movie Winter's Bone we see the story of Ree (played by Jennifer Lawrence before losing her talent) and a struggle to keep her family in one piece. After Ree's mother becomes traumatized and unable to care for her little brother and sister, she must give her aspirations for being in the army away to become the family's main provider. Unfortunately she runs into trouble when her former drug dealing gone snitch dad mysteriously disappears, leaving the country police wanting Ree's house or her dad.  While tracking down her dad she gets beaten down by both her dads old gang and her own uncle. She thinks her dad is dead, but unless she can prove it her long time family home gets evicted. The movie tries very hard to be a down to earth mafia movie…. then forgets the motivation in the final act. Of course I’m referring to the part where they literally have her cut the arm of the father off to give to the police, leaving more questions than answers. First off, how in the absolute hell did the cops not question why she has the arm of her dead father that none of the previous officers could find. Secondly, The movie jumps from Ree and her uncle (Teardrop, no i didn’t make that up) to the old family just showing her where her dad was. Not to mention the same group that gave her the black eye she has throughout the whole movie. Honestly their reason to show Ree to her father's rooting corpse was literally our reputation as shady drug dealers are in jeopardy, so we’ll show you where we killed your dad to better it. In my opinion it is one of the weirdest sequences I’ve seen in a movie which is far from something to brag about. Anyway the movie ends with Teardrop realizing the gang was the ones that killed his brother because reasons., and him giving Ree the banjo before Ree’s sister plays her Uncle's former instrument as the screen cuts to black. I’ll admit it’s not the worst movie in the world, but I’d being lying if I said I enjoyed it. At least Jennifer Lawrence isn’t as annoying as she is in: American Hustle, Passengers, any X-men movie, any Hunger Games movie, and the Beaver. Unfortunately though, it will just be another one of her movies that I wanna throw in the trash.

Chicago: The Epitome of the Musical #PIReviews

Chicago: The Epitome of the Musical

By: Cameron James Smith

    If you want to hear my true thoughts on this piece, they are right in the title. This title can be interpreted as me praising this film as the musical to watch, what musicals should be, or my personal favorite musical; it is none of those. Walking in to this film, my thoughts on musicals were simple: over-the-top, played out, annoying, badly acted, and forced; walking out of this film (the best part), my thoughts remained the same. This... thing delivered on every plot expectation, every cliche, and even showed me things that I wish I could forget about (let's just say, I will never see Richard Gere the same way again). More so, the camera work was flashy and annoying, the music was an appropriated and bland approach to that of the era it was based in, the acting was cringe-worthy, and the attempt to be cool and edgy came off as forced and uncomfortable to watch. The worst thing about this film, however, is that it actually had a good theme/message that it could have went to town on, but flopped on! More on that later, though.

    I will say a few things: the two lead actresses (Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones) were good looking, and it did seem like they were trying to make their part; the dancing/choreography was impressive at times, and did somewhat reflect the time/era in a positive light; and the plot/story-line wasn't all that bad. For all this, however, it lacked a lot, which was mentioned earlier. Furthermore (and going back to my previous point), this film actually did have a positive and realistic message: celebrity in-criminality and the idolizing of evil doers is a real thing, and is wrong. On the other hand, the message was crystal clear from the start and continued to shove it down the throats of the audience -- something I cannot stomach! It's approach to being edgy and humorous, along with the annoying camera work/zooms made this film seem more like a corny propaganda piece than a musical satire. If you want a better example of a film utilizing this same message, watch Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers; it is much more worth your time and viewing.

    In conclusion, if you like this film, if musicals are your thing, I'm completely fine with that; this does not undermine your credibility as a person or as a film enthusiast. In fact, you'd be in the majority -- this film has an 86% critics score and an 83% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes! This was all just my opinion, but then again, I am by no means as a musical fan (I think that's been picked up on by this point), so I guess you could say this film "had it coming."

Crooklyn

This film honestly kept my attention at all times. It wasn't my favorite but I liked it. Its about a 9 year old girl named Troy who lives in Brooklyn with her family. Troy went through a bunch of hardships with her family as a young girl. Her parents were having relationship problems and problems with money but eventually things were resolved a little later in the film. In the movie Troy is also facing problems other than watching her parents go through bumps in the road like getting caught stealing and constantly arguing with her brothers. She even ends up having to live with her aunt, uncle and cousin during her summer. After receiving reading a letter from her mother she ends up going back home to live with her family, come to find out her mother was diagnosed with a severe form of cancer.Unfortunately she ends up passing away which was really sad to me. I really like the after effect it had on Troy though because she got some thicker skin and matured from her tragedy with her mother. She almost took on the role of her mother. 

Winter Bone

Jennifer Lawrence AKA 17 year-old Ree, takes care of her sick mother and brother and sister that are younger than her. Her father is a drug dealer that has been missing for a while. A cop shows up one day looking for the dad saying that the he put up the house/property for his bail. This meant that if he didn't show up for the trial date they would lose all of it. She immediately started looking for his whereabouts and asks around for help to find him. Each one of them warned her that shed get hurt looking for him and did end up being beat up quite a lot. Eventually with all her determination she ends up finding his dead body.

This was also another one of my favorite movies this quarter.  Ree had to help cut off her father's hands which kind of freaked me out. But it was really interesting how willing she was to do whatever it took. She played her character so well you couldn't tell that it was even a movie really. 

Crooklyn; Kaysha Carrasquillo

Kaysha Carrasquillo
1.7.17
Intro to Film Studies

                             

Crooklyn

Although I had to watch this film twice in order to get the whole plot and message of this film, I eventually caught on. Crooklyn was released in 1994, by Spike Lee this film was based on an African American family that didn't have much but each other. The main actress Zelda Harris played the role of the younger sister named Troy. Troy was the heart of the family she kept track of her older brothers, and took on responsibilities that her mother would normally do. She wasn't told to take on these responsibilities at first but she learned anyways. Growing up in their household wasn't easy at all, both parents would argue a lot, and their mother seemed to complain about everything because without her things wouldn't get done around the house, so she wanted the kids to take on and learn chores, so that it can make things easier on her. Surprisingly being the youngest sibling, Troy had a lot on her plate when it came to her family and home, but it all happened for a reason that her and her siblings didn't see coming. Like we all know, in these times the mother takes care of the house, but what they didn't know was their mother was coming close to her death bed. She became very ill, and ended up in the hospital around this time that she was sent to the hospital Troy was sent away to stay with her aunt and cousin for the summer. Being away helped Troy better herself as a person because she had others to fall back on, and didn't have everything put on her with her families situation. Once she came back her mom quickly passed, and it all came to sense that she was basically in training to take her mothers place once she was gone, yes she had he father but she would be the mother to nurture her three brothers the way her mother did. This film took on a strong, lead of a female role.