Kiss Me Deadly

I thought that the movie Kiss Me Deadly, directed by Robert Aldrich, was strange but still okay until the end. The story line was different than any in movies I have seen in the past. The opening scene of the movie where Mike Hammer is driving down the road, he picks up a hitchhiker (Christina) who is running down the road like a lunatic and panting incessantly. She was only wearing a trench coat with nothing else, not even shoes. Then, when they are driving together, the credits begin to roll and she continues to pant uncontrollably all throughout the credits. That was a strange way to start the movie and it gave me a negative outlook for what I could expect for the rest of the movie. But as the film continued, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the story got much more interesting and contradicted my first believes until the end where I went right back to my old negative view. Kiss Me Deadly is dramatic and held my attention better than some of the other movies we have watched in class but it's too unrealistic in the end. Overall, I thought the movie started and ended poorly but was alright in the middle and it did not help me appreciation film noir at all.

Out of the Past

I thought that Out of the Past was just an 'ok' movie. It had its ups and downs but overall I thought it was must mediocre. I thought the concept of the story was interesting and I liked that it was complex and had its deep and scary moments. But I did think it got really boring at parts and would lose my attention easily. I liked the characters and their complexities but it was all just not really enough for me. Maybe its just that I don't like film noir but I do not feel like I can make that generalized statement without having more exposure to the genre. I did think the deaf kid was interesting because it reminded me of Lassie but in a human version where he is trying to communicate messages to people like Ann but he must do so without words. But I did not like the fact that he was able to see the man coming and hook him with his fishing pole. The man was coming up from behind and he was deaf so I do not understand how he could have known he was behind him so that unrealistic part bothered me. I don't think I would choose to watch this movie again but I am glad that I was able to have an opportunity to watch a movie of this genre.

His Girl Friday

There were many things that I enjoyed and also may things that I did not like in the movie His Girl Friday. Something that I did like was that it was unique. It was not like all other films of its genre and that kept it interesting because not everything was predicable like it sometimes can be in those types of films. Also, I liked the fact that Hildy was a dominant character. I would assume since this is an older movie, that the female character would be less powerful but she had so much control throughout the story. She had her own career and was making her own decisions for her life which I found unexpected but great. Something that I did not like about the movie was the speed of the dialogue. All of the characters spoke so fast and I was not used to that in movies. It was hard for me to follow along when its so fast paced all the time and as weird as it sounds it sort of stressed me out having everything so chaotic and fast the whole time. But all together, despite the specific things I did not enjoy about the movie, I did like it as a whole and thought it was an interesting movie that I was glad to have the chance to see.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This movie was so interesting to me for so many different reasons. One of the main ones being that I had ordered this movie previously about a year ago and I watched about the first 30 minutes and gave up on it and turned it off. This time around, when I was pretty much forced to watch the whole thing, I was glad I was pushed to do so. I found that I gave up too soon and I ended up loving the movie this time. Although it is so confusing at first and I still have loose ends that haven't been tied up for me, I still thought it was great. The characters are so complex and the acting is spectacular. The creators of the film made it so realistic that it almost seemed believable that a memory erasing procedure exists. Obviously it does not but the idea of it really made me think. The class discussed whether or not people should be allowed to have their memories erased and I still am conflicted by it. At first, I thought no way should that be allowed and that every memory is beneficial no matter good or bad because it molds people into who they are but as I started to listen to other classmates opinions, I saw the other side of the issue and came to the realization that some memories are just scarring to people. They may have helped people form into themselves, but these same memories may be holding people down or causing negative effects on them still and they may not be able to get over past experiences without this procedure. So once I thought about that side, I came to the conclusion that I think this procedure, if it was to be real, should only be able to be performed but only in extreme cases. Overall, I loved the movie. I thought the concept was wonderful along with the special effects and the acting. I now regret turning it off the first time because I thoroughly enjoyed the movie once I was able to see it in its entirety.