Year: 2021

What I think separates the Pan’s Labyrinth from comparable films is its unique storylines. In the film, director Guillermo del Toro combines fairy tales with political criticism. On the one hand, he tries to correct people’s long-held prejudice against fairy tales through bold creative practice, and on the other hand, he relentlessly exposes the shell of hypocrisy and selfishness in the adult world. The film’s story is driven by two seemingly unrelated plot lines: First, the fierce fighting between the captain and the guerrillas; Second, Ophelia’s adventures in the labyrinth. On the one side, the bloody and cruel real world, on the other, the mysterious fairy tale kingdom, how does the film interweave the two together? To answer both questions, we really need to dig into this movie. And those monster figures are no different than in other movies, such as the movie Silent Hill. That’s the movie’s uniqueness and similarities compared to the other ones. A reflection to del Toro in his ability to story-tell while presenting a visual masterpiece.

The moment that stands out to me is definitely the last mission and the last scene, when I first watch the movie,  could not accept it. The third task: take his brother to the maze, with innocent people’s blood to open the gate. At the climax of the story, Ophelia has lost everything, without the protection of her mother and Mercedes, and is deprived of her freedom by the captain. Pan appeared and decided to give her one last chance. He asked Ophelia to offer a sacrifice of her brother’s blood to open the gate, but Ophelia refused. She disobeyed Pan again and was determined to protect her brother. Unlike in the second test, this time Ophelia made her own choice independently, and her choice meant her real growth. But what turns out to Ophelia, cold bullet from her step father and took her life. it is striking and shocking, turns to me I feel like all this hard trip comes to a dead end. Real sad.

I personally think this movie is more unconventional. Myself, the audience did not see what I truly want. For instance, although I know it’s hard for Ophelia to get a happy ending under that circumstances. But I still do want her to have a good end. The world itself in that movie is not very clear. I can’t really tell whether the mazes or Pan are true or just Ophelia’s imagination. Whether or not there is an underground kingdom is unknown and not to be discussed, but the comparison to life’s test has philosophical implications. To put it another way, the process of man being tested is a process of growing by constantly breaking through obstacles. Dictatorship and tyranny just the tip of the iceberg of this fundamental problem. The film unites fairy tales and political criticism by looking back at the roots of the problem.

A documentary different from all the rest Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock. In this documentary you are not only learning about the unhealthy facts about McDonalds but thanks to Spurlock you get a first hand look at how this food can affect a healthy persons body. The challenge is 30 days of nothing but McDonalds food, if McDonalds does not sell it Morgan can not eat it. He must eat three meals a day and if the employee asks if he wants to super size his meal he must say yes and at some point he has to try every item on the menu. For 30 days we get front row access to Spurlocks journey to his declining physical, mental and emotional health. He discussed the issues he had with his stomach hurting, the only time he was happy was just after he finished eating a

McDonalds meal, and the consequences he suffered sexually all resulting from the food he was ingesting. The Documentary does shy away from the gross details, we see Morgan vomiting just a few days into the challenge after trying to finish a meal. The nutritionist is astonished at how quickly he is gaining weight and his average calorie intake is about double his needs amount to maintain his starting weight of 185 lbs. at the end of the challenge Morgans weight was 210 lbs. he gained a total of 25 lbs. in just 30 days. 

The moment in the movie when Spurlock’s becomes depressed and unhappy with his life, not having intercourse with his girlfriend anymore and he is obsession with eating McDonald’s. I noticed his portions increased as the documentary went along. As he’s depression increased his consumption intake increased. This was very striking to the audience because he started off as a funny, happy, go lucky guy. To see Spurlock, go from very happy to be depressed and gaining weight was shocking to see that the food you’re eating can in return ruin your mental health. The entire movie is shocking, but it delivers the information in a way everyone can understand. Spurlock at one point in the film was interviewing people on the streets and the lack of nutritional knowledge many people have is a serious issue. Many people can not tell you what a calorie is and they say they know McDonalds is not healthy but still eat it anyways, which to me seems like they do not know just how unhealthy it truly is. 

The genre of this documentary film are a mixture of drama, comedy, and shock-realism. In such a heavy film (no pun intended) there are moments of brevity because Spurlock is genuinely very funny and entertaining and that also helps the film succeed.The movie stye is conventional and the audience is able to see everything they need to see. The documentary presents the information in a comedic way to keep the audience interested. The comedy keeps you focused and adds to the illustration of the movie through imagery of McDonald’s. The imagery comes from different artists who show McDonalds in different lights through an artistic lens. The film is clear and shows how the two girls suing McDonald’s for their obesity and put it as a test of Spurlock and although Spurlock did not end up obese it was only a short 30 day trial. The film does not demonstrate that the world is good, fair, and just because at the end of the trial the girls were not favored and lost and could not prove that McDonald’s caused their obesity.

Joker (2019) takes a different approach to a DC film. It’s not a superhero or comic book movie, it’s a movie with a comic book character. Joker is a movie first, comic book second. This isn’t how other movies in the DC catalog go about their films. Justice League was a Superhero Movie, it was promoted as having superheroes first and a movie second. Justice League is an action movie without anything to say or tell. Joker has a message to give to its audience, that message being that society doesn’t help those who need it. Joker has few similarities to other comic book movies, even those outside DC. There isn’t really a similar comic book movie, DC or Marvel, that follows the same film structure that Joker does. Most of the DC or Marvel catalog are action movies, while Joker is a film that is structured like a character study.

As a film, Joker is a conventional film. As a comic book movie, it’s straight out of the left field. The audience sees the full transition from Arthur Fleck to Joker, and how society does not care for those like him. The ending gives a possible origin story for Joker, which is different from most other Joker origin stories, those involving a vat of acid and chemicals. The world of Joker is very clear, it’s uncaring and unsupportive. The world around Arthur Fleck is the origin of Joker, a man turned evil due to his surroundings. The society around Arthur Fleck is one that the film criticizes, in fact, that the basis of the film as a whole. Joker is a critique of our modern-day society and its inability to help those with mental illness. Arthur Fleck’s actions are seen as morally ambiguous. Is it his fault for his actions, or is it the society around him that gave him nothing else?

The actor who portrayed Arthur Fleck, Joaquin Phoenix, gives a perfect performance for this type of joker. Many of the people who entered the theatre of Joker (2019) expected a Jared Leto, Jack Nicholson, or Heath Ledger Joker. In fact, Jared Leto, the actor who played Joker in Suicide Squad and Zack Synder’s Justice League, was mad that a different joker film was made with him as the lead. Joker (2019) wouldn’t have been as good as it was if it starred Jared Leto. The film was created with Joaquin Phoenix in mind for the role of Joker, With the writers even going to say that “The goal was never to introduce Joaquin Phoenix into the comic book movie universe. The goal was to introduce comic book movies into the Joaquin Phoenix universe.” – Todd Phillips

Joker is a character study of a man set in a society that doesn’t want or care to help him. Character studies aren’t a proper genre or at least, you can’t sell a movie with a genre as broad as a Character study. Joker is a Character study, because the writer, Todd Phillips, outright said it was a character study, similar to films of Martin Scorsese. Joker is a Drama, a series of unfortunate events towards Arthur Fleck that led him to his transformation into Joker. Joker as a name applies in a different way to this joker than the others. Other jokers are called jokers because they have a clown aesthetic. Arthur Fleck is called Joker because society sees him as a joke. 

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a surrealist comedy film. It breaks the fourth wall very often, which is nothing new for surrealist comedy. Other surrealist comedy films, such as Airplanes! (1980) break the fourth wall all the time. However, unlike Airplanes!, Monty Python and the Holy Grail break the rules of filmmaking constantly. One of the rules of filmmaking is that every scene should either move the plot or develop the characters. So many scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail are just there to waste time and those scenes are hilarious. The rules of proper filmmaking just do not apply to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, no other movie has done this as well as Monty Python. Scenes that waste time, actors playing multiple characters in the same scene and constant genre changes are all different filmmaking rules that shouldn’t be broken but Monty Python ignores this and pulls it off perfectly. 

The style of the movie is somehow incredibly modern for being made in 1975. The jokes, gags, and humor were incredibly ahead of their time. There is one scene in particular that the style that is most prevalent. At 32 minutes into the film, the genre of the movie changes from fiction to documentary. The scene is a famous historian, that’s the name given to him in the scene, is retelling the story of King Arthur and his knights. This is quickly interrupted by one of the knights riding in from off scene and killing the historian. The time frame is mixed up. Is this happening during King Arthur’s story or in the present? This also shows the film’s ability to contrast with itself. The scene starts with under dramatics, simply a historian retelling a story. This leads into a knight killing him, overdramatic, and then back to under dramatic as his death is met with the silences of the forest he is in. 

This film is incredibly unconventional. It breaks every rule of filmmaking and turns them into hilarity. The film shows just enough of what it needs to do to the audience in order to make the jokes work. The ending resolve’s no one’s problems. It is a literal cop-out, with Arthur and his knights being arrested by cops and the film ends. No conclusion, no climax, all hilarity. The world of the film is unclear and ambiguous and downright confusing. The film mixes up its setting, time period, and the context in nearly every scene. The movie makes no sense and uses that lack of context, in reality, to be hilarious. The film is so abstract and absurd that you can help but laugh, it revels in its bizarreness and never lets the audience go from the confusion. As soon as the film starts, it attack’s the audience’s scene of context. And it refuses to let up in that attack.

Joker (2019) was a masterful film that not only broke the stigma that DC movies were facing at the time but all comic book movies as a whole. A stigma of simplicity and overly action-packed. DC movies before Joker’s release, the likes of Justice League, Batman V Superman, and Wonderwoman, were very simple movies with simple themes and received poorly by general audiences. Joker is none of these things. Joker was a box-office masterpiece earning 18 times the amount of money that went into its budget. From a 55 million dollar budget to a 1 billion dollar income, it was a financial success unlike any movie of its type. Justice League didn’t even come close to Joker’s profits or budget. Justice League only released 2 years before and had 6x the budget but made half of the profit Joker did. Justice League still made money, don’t get me wrong, but it could not compare to Joker’s success. If comparing just the Domestic box office success, then Joker was the 9th highest-grossing movie of 2019, but it had stiff competition with the likes of Avengers: End Game, Frozen II, and Toy Story 4. For the movies it was up against, it did a splendid job financially. 

Joker as a movie was liked by many of its audiences, many calling it the best film of the year along with the best DC film of all time, But that’s a pretty low bar compared to the other DC films. Journalistic reviews were afraid that the movie would cause riots, mostly due to the unfortunate and unfavorable community surrounding Joker as a character. This was only before the movie was released and afterward, most journals praised the movie for being different from other comic-book movies at the time and even to this day. Scholarly articles were targeting the possible misrepresentation of mental illness that this movie can be seen as having. Kamran Ahmed, a psychiatrist, was concerned that this movie would incorrectly connect violence and mental illness. She was worried that this would cause our society to see mental illness as something that causes violence and we would see less help for the kind of people that joker, the character, was supposed to represent.

Something that caught my eye during my watching of the film was Joker’s attire. The suit that Joker wears in the film, A red two-piece suit, an orange undersuit, and a green scarf, was a very strange outfit for Joker to wear. Jokers in other mediums usually wear purple suits, it’s almost iconic to his character. Green hair, clown paint face, and the purple suit is the outfit most jokers wore. If it was a tv show, movie, animated film, comic book, it’s usually those elements. But in 2019 Joker, they changed it. They changed it because this joker is not like the ones before. This joker needs to be different from other Jokers yet still recognizable. The purple suit didn’t fit this character. purple represents corruption, extravagance, and impatience, which are many of the character traits most jokers in any medium show, but not 2019 joker. This joker is angry at the world for not helping him. This Joker is passionate about making other laughs. This joker is malicious towards others. Anger, Passion, and Malice, all traits represented by red, just like the color of his suit.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail was an attempt to bring the British comedy group, Monty Python, into the US. Monty Python and the Holy Grail saw some success when it first came out, but it really gained its fame years later. The internet loved Monty Python and the Holy Grail and its surreal comedy. Many of the amateur discussions about the film praise its ability to turn its lack of budget into comedy. A quote I saw on a youtube video about Monty Python was “When you can’t afford horses, just create one of the greatest gags in history.” This is in reference to the coconut gag present in the film. Most Journalistic articles talk about how the film’s comedy is nearly identical to modern-day comedy, while Academic articles talk about how Monty Python and the Holy Grail breaks cinematics and editing rules in a way that is comedic that no other movie really has done before or after to the same success or level that this movie did.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail came out in 1975. Its budget was a comparable small 400,000 dollars. It made a total of 5 million dollars, which is 12.5 times the budget. This is a small amount of money compared to the monolith that was Jaws, released in the same year. Jaw’s budget was 9 million and it made 472 million dollars or around 50 times the budget. This is not really a fair comparison because Jaws was financed by Universal Studios, while Monty Python and the Holy Grail were financed by some surprisingly well-known rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. But, these rock bands only gave a small amount, being 43 thousand and 29 thousand dollars respectively. The budget that Monty Python and the Holy Grail had, in my opinion, made the film better. 

The lack of budget required the movie to be far more creative in order to compensate. The lack of budget brought so many hilarious gags and jokes into the film that wouldn’t be there if they had a higher budget. It was stated by the crew that they could not afford a horse, so they used coconuts to make the same sounds like a horse. This might be the most famous gag from the film. This gag of coconuts isn’t just a visual gag, many characters in the film point out the lack of a horse. The film constantly sabotages itself like this, the genre of the film constantly changes, characters can change the score while in the scene, actors playing many different characters while in the same scene, the time period constantly changes, overdramatized scenes when nothing happens, and the last scene being a literal cop-out. The film’s lack of budget leads to all these hilarious jokes and gags that wouldn’t have been there if their budget was any higher.