The Improv Video

A couple weeks ago I had my own experience with film. Hot Lunch Improv Troupe leads off every show with a video. Homeade. This was the first video that Andrew and I were in charge of making.

The key to making a successful video at a highschool level is knowing its place. The Improv Video is designed to warm up the crowd. Like John Belushi and the blues brothers prepped crowds for Saturday Night Live, the Improv video gets crowds excited and ensures that they'll laugh at anything.

How do we do it? Upbeat music, fast cuts, excited faces, and short scenes. The more riddiculous the better.

Last year one video followed each troupe members life the day leading up to the show. Another showed the life of each member after 10 years had past. Improv videos rarely make sense. While one person stayed in bed for 10 years after being stood up for a prom date, another had surgery to become a chair.

While filming the Improv video I gained experience in the true art of film. I checked each frame to make sure shots were clear and always considered the way they would look as a final piece.

We used long shots for the rap battles, and close ups for the rappers deaths. Mid range shots for dialogue and high canted shots to show Andrew's frantics. The Improv video is never difficult enough to require tracking shots, but it was fun to make none the less.

I don't want to spoil the Improv video for anyone, and people should all come see it and the Improv show sometime towards the end of february.

The Shawshank Redemption

This movie has become one of my all time favorites. It features Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. It was directed by Frank Darabont.

Andy Dufresne (Robbins) is a quiet innocent man who is convicted for the murder of his wife and her lover. He is sent to Shawshank prison, a place where "every man is innocent." There, his true innocence shields him from demoralizing prison life. He makes accomplishments within the system and in spite of the system. He makes many friends, including his best friend Red (Freeman).

(Spoiler Alert!!!)

This is a rich movie. The first thing I notice most are all the connections. Everything that happens in the movie is brought back in the middle or the end. The rock hammer snuck into prison for Dufresne is cleverly forgotten, only to be made the prime tool of Andy's escape, contradicting the earlier claim by red that "it would take a man 600 years to carve through the walls with that thing." The warden admires Dufresne for his knowledge of the bible, but never opens the book. On their first meeting, he casually says "Salvation lies within." Natural this is brought back as the place of concealment for Andy's rock hammer.

The movie even uses connections to explain parts of the movie that may not make sense. For instance, Andy's character is not the type to pine over beautiful actresses and models, yet he asks for posters of models every decade of his stay. The posters are eventually found to have covered the hole in Andy's prison wall. His love of geology and desire to carve chess pieces are the reason behind his knowledge of escape. Finally the non-existent man Andy creates as a front for the Warden's financial cheating, becomes Andy's disguise.

Shawshank has an intricate plot that shows the development of many relationships. It takes Andy through many completely different stages of prison life. He starts as the new guy, wanting to feel normal and get his inmates some beer. He goes through some rough first years, getting raped by the "sisters." He then becomes liked by the guards and starts to influence their financial life, leaving his laundry room den and becoming a librarian. Finally when he has built up his library and made him self part of the prison, he finds a way to prove his innocence. By then he has become so valuable to the warden that the warden sabotages any chance at freedom. From their his prison life comes spiraling back down, this time made rough by those on the outside. Finally he becomes an escapee, literally crawling through shit to get to his salvation.

A lot of my own knowledge of prisons were triggered by the Shawshank Redemption. They based their characters largely on criminals that existed in real life. For instance Brooks is nursing a baby sparrow or raven when the movie starts. By the end the bird is fully grown and one his only forms of company in the pre-intervention prison library. This character relates to the Birdman of Alcatraz, a criminal who had a movie made about his life that predated Shawshank. http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/stroud.htm

This movie also reminded me of Zimbardo's prison experiment. The unnecessarily rough guard was well thought out, although the prisoners were much less rebellious. http://www.prisonexp.org/

The Shawshank Redemption is just one of those good movies. Half comedy, half drama, half feel good, half feel infuriated at the injustices done.

Final Rating: 4.9

Mad Money

This was not a very good movie, but at the same time it was enjoyable. It was sweet, but extremely predictable. Three women decide to become janitors at a bank run by a strict manager. They develop a plan to steal money. It naturally escalates as two of the women's husbands are brought into and Queen Latifa's boyfriend/bank security guard also enters the mix.

Mad Money was a bit repetitive. Will they get caught? No. Will they get caught this time? No. Until finally something as stupid as day time trading is what does them in. I did enjoy the development of the relationship between the characters. There were also a lot of likable characters. Diane Keaton is the mischiefs leader of the pack who enjoys the thrill. She ironically contrasts her reserved husband Ted Danson - a sweet man who tries to be logical and looks out for the good of the others. Queen Latifa plays the single mother whose sex drive is on the fritz and can only be cured by sensitive Roger Cross. Katie Holmes and Adam Rothenberg play the young couple, who don't completely understand the risk of the theft and come close to bringing the group into trouble - though making theft and blowing up money fun along the way.

Yes, I said "blowing up money." The characters thieving comes to end with the logical conclusion of destroying the money they had stolen (not like that's illegal or anything). Holmes and Rothenberg naturally construct a Rube Goldberg machine to destroy their trailer. Queen Latifa is caught dumping money into an outdoor grill as her teenage son (who i should add might be taken away) stands and watches in bewilderment. Ted Danson is found huddling over a toilet that has been turned into a money shredder, unaware that his wife has taken half the money and fled the country.

All an all, the movie was entertaining and the characters were easy to relate to, even though it often didn't make any sense. It was the kind of movie that relies on sappy stories, random feel good endings, and lots of money being tossed into the air.

Final Rating: 2.2

The Currious Case of Benjamin Button

Sorry for my extended absence from the land of blogging. College applications really paid their toll.

I recently saw a movie called "The curious Case of Benjamin Button". The first thing I have to say about it is, "long." If Brad Pitt as a writhing midget old man wasn't bad enough, than watching it for and hour was. For a while I thought they might make us watch him live his life in real time.

Benjamen Button is a man who was born with the body/health of an 80 year old but the mentality of a child. He slowly ages backwards until he is a senile child. The biggest problem that the movie had was lack of a plot. While it somewhat followed the story of his relationship with a younger girl that inevitably evolves into love when their body states meet in the middle, for the most part it dragged. The probable reason for its length was its lack of focus.

The second problem was that it tried to be Forrest Gump, but without the intelligent political references. It simply consisted of a series of events in Benjamin's life.

It may seem like I hated the movie, but that's not true. I simply noticed its shortcomings. There were a lot of good aspects of it. The acting at times was great. It was amazing how they were able to make Brad Pitt so old and then so young all digitally. It was also amazing how Brad was able to actually make me believe he was a young kid in an Old man's body, an guy in his 20's in a semi-old body, and then a 60-year-old in a 20-year-old's body. Cate Blanchett also has a wonderful character.

The movie was funny at times and sad at others. It was even sometimes thought provoking. I actually enjoyed a lot of it. It was just way to long and didn't have enough of a plot.

Final Rating: 3.7

Art of Film

Last minute Blog Number 12:

ART OF FILM ROCKS!!!!!

Casablanca

I would like to first talk about what I saw in the first 40 minutes of Casablanca - up to the point in which we are first introduced to Ilsa Lund and Victor Laszlo. Some of my classmates in my Art of Film class have said that these first 40 minutes were boring. This reminds me of a technique characteristic of Shakespeare. Shakespeare used to make the first scene unimportant so that people can walk in late. However, I don't think that this is the case with Casablanca at all. I rather enjoyed the first 40 minutes. Why? Because it created an extremely interesting setting and a strong charachter.

The setting created in Casablanca is that of a town that is the equivalence of purgatory. People who seek to flee to glorious America find them selves in a bustling black-market-dealing town. In this town many people have found their niche and are content to remain in Casablanca. To me this is an extremely interesting setting.

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is a man who has found his niche as the owner of a popular restaurant. His character becomes a man who has an enormous amount of power in his setting, but whose power has nothing to do with government or the law. His character is expanded when he turns away a rich french customer. From this instance we discover that he is a man who uses his power virtuously and not just for wealth. When Sammy chooses to remain in Rick's hotel despite an offer of double the pay, we discover that Rick is a man who people want to be around. Rick's display of virtue is strengthened by his similarity to Sammy. To me this is an extremely interesting character. Watching both his character and his setting develop was enjoyable, not boring. This unique mixture of an interesting character and setting made me excited to see the rest of the film. It removed any natural skepticism I have against old films.

In addition, it is not as if nothing happens during these 40 minutes. Stolen passports from two dead Frenchmen are left in Rick's possession - their owner having been imprisoned. The police fill his restaurant and their is an expected arrival of a man against the law who could really use those passports.

Having said this, I do believe that the plot was furthered extensively by the montage about Rick and Ilsa's love for each other. However, like I said, the first 40 minutes are for creating the setting and the opportunity for an interesting plot. The montage is where the plot actually emerges.

Just an anecdote: This montage changed my knowledge of what a montage is

I realize now that it can be series of flashbacks that interrupt the film as well

as the traditional strip of scenes with cheesy music playing in the background.

The plot that has emerged is very interesting and leaves alot of room for guesswork. Why did Ilsa leave Rick? Who is Victor Lazlo? Why is the Titles name synonymous with the White House? Your guess is as good as mine.

Superbad

The hilariousness of this movie has been talked about for a year. Finally I got around to seeing it. It was wonderful. Some parts of the movie were immature. These parts of the movie were my guilty pleasures. There was a lot of filthy humor but there was also intelligent humor.

Held against movies like Van Wilder 2: The rise of Taj, Superbad is a king of its genre. It depicted what to me would be an ideal high school senior year evening, and it depicted three different types from three different perspectives.

The movie is constantly bombarding the audience with jokes and funny situations. Conflicts and obstacles are numerous. On the one hand there is the overall obstacle of fitting in to the social scene. This creates conflicts with classmates and leads the the obstacle of buying alcohol without being 21. This then leads to conflicts with police and people at other parties. Then on top of it all there are the conflicts between Evan and Seth (the two main characters). Evan got into Dartmouth and Seth didn't. Seth feels like Evan is abandoning him. He also takes his anger out on Mclovin who did get into Dartmouth.

Jonah Hill is hilarious and Michael Cera's humor is indescribable. They make you remember some of your more awkward high school years (which is not too difficult for me considering that my more awkward high school years were last week).

Superbad loses some points because it is always easy to get laughs from humor about sex and drugs. These laughs are cheap laughs. As leader of improv troupe I explain improv's universal goal of integrity. Staying away from humor about sex and drugs leads to smarter humor and smarter improv that can be more enjoyable to both audience and improviser.

Final Rating: 4.5