Weekly Journal Blog Update Movie Review 4: Coraline

For the past few updates I have discussed with you all about various interesting movies. From this post update I will start to change my format of writing and give you something more detail every week as passed down from my film studies class.

For this post, I will introduce something that is important from the film industry that is called "Genre". Now some of you might ask, "what the heck is a genre?" or probably never even heard of it. Genre is a form that categorize films or group different film types together to prevent confusion between different films. A theory that I have found from genre this topic itself is called the semantic/syntactic approach.

This approach includes Semantic, which is a list of common traits and attitudes, characters, shows, locations, sets, etc, bringing us very much to the visual aspects of the film; Syntactic, which consists of constitutive relationships between undesignated and variable placeholders, pulling us to very much the thematic aspects of the film. This approach is mostly use as a Genre Analysis and the use of the two components of the approach is essential as it go both ways.

There are 3 conditions for a film to process into a genre. Condition number 1, the film must possess general semantics and syntaxes that are particularly found in corresponding genres. Condition number 2, the genre of the film needs to be audience based, following the expectations of the industry. Condition number 3, genres itself exists as a paradox for being conservative and innovative at the same time, as long as they repeat "formulas" to display old conventions while modernizing new ones.

Now you have a brief idea what genre is, let's get back to the movie for this week :)

                                                                                                                                                                   

Coraline, a dark fantasy movie film based on a children's novel written by a British author, Neil Gailman. This movie is about a girl named Coraline, while exploring her new home, uncovers a small secret door, behind it lies an alternate world that resemblances her own, the only difference between the two world is that this alternate world seems to be better, at least that is what Coraline thinks of it.
She felt a surge of jubilation upon her discovery of the alternate world, until "Other Mother" aka The Beldam and the rest of Coraline's parallel family try to make her stay in the alternate world forever. Coraline needs to use all the resources she can find and the courage to go back to her own life with her original family.

From this film, I've captured 2 different genre which is Horror & Fantasy. Horror that involves supernatural beings and psychological sub genre. Evidence can be found in scenes such as the Other Mother got real pissed off when Coraline disrespected her by not apologizing for yelling at her, thus letting the Other Mother to transform into this weird, anorexic, monstrous look and drag her into a secret room through a mirror. In that secret room, lies a bed covered with blanket and in that blanket, there's something glowing inside it.

Coraline called out to it, the blanket then removed itself to reveal the lost souls of the ghost kids. The ghost kids explained themselves why they are being trapped in the secret room and how the Other Mother tricked them by giving them everything they want and let her sew buttons into their eyes, only to find out that everything was a lie and the Other Mother ate their physical body up. They also told Coraline to find their eyes back so that all of them can be set free and not trapped within the alternate world.

The director also adds in German Expressionism to further dwell deeper in the ambiance of horror in the film. German Expressionism is an artistic genre that originated in the Europe, and is broadly defined as the rejection of Western conventions, and the depiction of reality that is widely distorted for emotional effect ( Darsa, 2013). The settings for the film is usually dark, low-key lighting to keep the mysterious feeling and fear factor arousing in people's mind. Jump scares are also applied to jolt the audience when they least expect the expectation.

Fantasy genre in this film involve things such as imaginary world with some location, events or people from the real world. Evidence can be found in scenes such as Coraline discovered the magic tunnel through the small little door that links the real world to the alternate world. As Coraline steps into the alternate world, she discovered the Other Mother but with button eyes. She sends Coraline to find her Other Father at the garden outside as she prepares a feast.

Coraline leaves the house and venture out to the garden to look for her Other Father. Upon her arrival to the garden, the garden suddenly came to life in terms of the plants started to glow with different colors, even frogs illuminate lights and flying bugs can talk. Everything seems so surrealistic and magical to Coraline.

The Other Father with button eyes, sitting on a praying mantis look-a-like machine coming from the other side of the garden to save Coraline from being tickled by the strange plants. He then brings Coraline high up to the sky and let her see the whole garden which literally shaped like her face with all the plants glowing in and out with those various colors. This way of applying the genre brought the entire animation more lively and it captivates the attention of the audience more.

All in all, the director and the animator pulled off a successful effort on this movie, creating an animation that is unlike any other usual happy vibes cartoon. I would recommend this to those who expect a little bit of light and dark twisted elements in the movie.

This movie itself portrayed many different aspects of value, depending on how would you look at it. The obvious ones would be "not running of to places where you are not familiar as unknown danger lies ahead" and "appreciate your parents now before they are no longer here." For me personally, I would think that this movie goes way darker or deeper than just those values.

If carefully observed in another perspective, this movie relates to our society now. Coraline is like all of us, the innocent child who have the need to have luxury and attention; the alternate world represents the materialistic of the society, it has everything we want and we need, in the same time a trap that leads us to self-destruction of our own self worth and dignity.

Reference Links:
1)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327597/synopsis
2)https://news.artnet.com/market/art-house-an-introduction-to-german-expressionist-films-32845

Weekly Journal Blog Update Movie Review 3: Final Destination (2000)

Final Destination (2000), a slasher/thriller movie about a young adult man, Alex Browning who takes a trip to Paris along with his classmates from French class. A premonition hits Alex’s mind and in it, Alex sees the plane blow up into pieces after it leaves the plane trail at the JFK airport. He started to be frantic about it and urges everyone to leave the plane and soon 7 people including Alex, are forced down the plane as they cause a chaotic situation in the plane. Watching as the plane go “BOOM ! ” into a fireball, Alex and the 6 people luckily survived and briefly cheated their death, but the inevitable fate of death will come and claim their lives very soon, in a different pattern.

I have selected few scenes that I am amused by from the movie for the way they shot the film and the application of mise-en-shot.

First scene: Plane to France “KA-BOOM !”/ Tod’s Death Scene

This scene takes place in Alex’s premonition. It started out with the plane jerking, sending panic moments to the passengers. Alex was so worried that he sweats out like a waterfall and respiring heavily. As soon as the plane takes off to the sky, they all are more relaxed than before.

 A short while later, the scene shows that the engine of the plane started to have faulty, causing interruption of electricity and power. As the engine condition worsen by every second, the plane started to jerk violently than before. Bags and luggage tumble out from the luggage compartment while the passengers are all screaming with terror.

The emergency oxygen system in the plane released the oxygen mask, indicating that the plane is in serious problem. Everyone was in a chaotic mode, trying to grab and wear the oxygen mask to stabilize themselves while the whole plane is going haywire. The plane started to explode in certain parts which causes some of the passengers to die instantly by flying out through the plane. In the end of the premonition, everyone ends up burnt to crisp by the combustion of the airplane.

The director have succeeded gaining my attention on this movie by using various shots of ECU (extreme close up) and ELS (extreme long shot). One very good example that can be raised is that before any “accidents” occur to cause catastrophic damage, they will film ECU on certain parts of the small details of a larger object to show how such a force of impact can cause just by losing a screw or a warning from a beggar that is not take heed of.

Take Alex’s best friend Tod for an example, in the premonition he was the first to die. Due to the intervention from Alex, he was able to cheat death. Soon after back at his own home, he was doing his usual routine before bed ( according to my assumption ). Little did he know that “death” has plans to take his life. The intention of killing Tod is shown through the use of ECU on the process of how small details lead to bigger catastrophe takes the life of Tod by hanging him dead with the clothes liner.

One scene in particular before the few seconds of Tod’s horrifying death, the camera shot the scene with a high angled shot of Tod being suffocated with the clothes liner wrapped around his neck.With a high angled shot, it creates an effect on audience which is vulnerability and weakness, showing that Tod has no power over his own will as he struggle to survive.

Second Scene: Train and Car Crash / Billy’s Death Scene

After the death of Miss Lewton, Alex and his 3 other friends take off in a black car only to have it stall on the railroad tracks. Carter, Alex’s friend got stuck inside the car as the other 3 get out from the car to escape the oncoming train. He made the decision to get out from the car after being convinced by his friends. Alex intervenes and help Carter to escape his death. Billy, Alex’s other friend on the other hand got his head decapitated by a piece of thin metal from the car wreckage.

The interesting part for this scene is letting the audience feel the impending doom that Carter was experiencing from an oncoming train. The DOP ( director of photography) uses ELS ( extreme long shot) to shot the duration for the train to hit the car, building up audience’s tension and fear. Efficiently using every frame along with pace of editing, the director was able to play with the shots and add more details of the impact between the train and the car, giving the crash more intense feeling.

The ECU shots in this scene further provides the evidence how “death” traps Carter in the car by locking the car door and disable the function of the seat belt to prevent Carter to free himself. The camera position also captured how the black car was stuck in the railroad track, leaving itself vulnerable to be crashed by the oncoming train.

This movie can be considered as a unnatural type of horror film. This can be proved in the movie as there is an invisible external force at work, killing the survivors of the plane explosion slowly one by one. The mortician that Alex and his friend, Clear encountered when they sneak in to the morgue, told them that they have already cheated death by escaping the plane explosion and “death” aka Grim Reaper who’s appearance is unknown now has a new design prepared for them. “Death” this character can be subjected as an unnatural being that sets fatal accident to its victim.

In a nutshell, this movie displayed a various ways of human can die may it be a voluntary action or environmental factors. Many related unexplained death real cases out there can be related to this movie as we would not know the real truth of the whole case. This movie also delivered a hidden message if used another perspective to watch the movie, “You can always run and hide, but you can’t evade the inevitable fate of death when the time comes.”

Reference Link:
1) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195714/synopsis

Weekly Journal Blog Update Movie Review 2: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, a movie about a bass guitarist, Scott Pilgrim comes from a band called "Sex-Bob-Omb." Scott Pilgrim is a dude that has no trouble getting a girlfriend, but the only problem was that he don't know how to get rid of them after. When Ramona Flowers skates into his heart, Scott finds out that she has the most troublesome baggage of all: an army or a league of ex-boyfriends or Ramona likes to called it "Exes" who will stop at nothing to eradicate him from her list of suitors.

I have chosen two scenes that I was impressed from this movie to write about as some of the scenes intrigued me in the way that I perceive the movie as a gamer or a normal audience.

First scene: The fight between Scott Pilgrim vs. Matthew Patel (Evil Ex #1)

Scott arrived at the battle of the bands and sees Ramona. Also there, are Wallace (The gay roommate), Stacey (Scott's older sister), and Jimmy (Stacey's boyfriend). Wallace constantly hits on Jimmy from time to time for the entire night to hope that he could seduce Jimmy over. Out of the blue, Knives Chau (Scott's girlfriend before dating with Ramona Flowers) arrived too, making it extremely awkward for Scott as everyone put their attention on him. He evades the awkwardness by running back to the backstage.

Crash and the Boys, the opposite band playing against with The Sex-Bob-Omb band, played a great set which terrifies Stephen (Lead Singer of Sex-Bob-Omb) thinking that they could not follow up against their competition. They go up to perform and in the midst of performing their set, Matthew Patel crashes into the room and attacks Scott. It turned out into a big fight. Scott asks him why they are fighting. Matthew replies that he is one of the seven evil ex lovers of Ramona Flowers. And by the rule of video game world which they live in, Scott must defeat all seven evil ex lovers of Ramona Flowers if he wants to date with her. Scott then defeats Matthew with a single punch and bursts into a bunch of coins. Scott and Ramona leave on a bus where she explains that they are now dating but he must defeat all of her evil ex lovers. With Matthew down, six more to go.

The director successfully set up an interruption scene for the band, Sex-Bob-Omb's performance by having Matthew Patel to break in to the scene from the top of the roof yelling "MR.PILGRIM !!!" and introduces himself in the most dramatic way possible which is really not expected in a way. Having a different way to start a physical battle, the director requested Scott to react towards Matthew's incoming onslaught by saying with a clueless expression "what do i doooo ~~~" in a slow motion state while Wallace tells him to fight, thus causing Scott to defend himself quickly and reversed Matthew's attack by punching him in the face, leaving a shocking expression on Wallace, Stacey, and Ramona's face.

The director proceeds to bring more intensity to the fight scene to attract audience's attention by having Scott to fight Matthew like in the video games, where Scott flies up to the sky punching Matthew with an uppercut, delivering a beating on to his face relentlessly with a hit combo meter of 64, ending the hit combo with a sucker punch to the face, causing Matthew to fall to the ground with his face facing on the ground.

Another interesting factor from this scene is that whenever Scott and Matthew are having their fight, they would have what I would call a "pause" situation. The first pause situation happened during the fight is when Scott pause the fight between Matthew and himself, asking Matthew if they are fighting over Ramona Flowers. The second pause situation happened when Matthew punched twice, kicked Scott away and skipping back with a little dance number on his feet. Wallace proceeds to ask Matthew about his outfit choice, another random guy standing opposite Wallace asking Matthew if he is a pirate, then Scott repeated the random guy's question. Matthew tells them that being a pirate is the new trend nowadays.

The third pause situation is when Scott locks Matthew in and asks Ramona if she really went out with him, Ramona then tells the story of Matthew and her, causing Matthew to continue attack Scott with weird magical fireballs all of a sudden. The "pausing" effect catches the audience's attention or annoys the audience in the manner of focusing the reason why are they pausing the fight for, to realize it is something important or something that waste the time of your life.

Second scene: The fight between Ramona Flowers vs. Roxy Richter ( Evil Ex #4)

At the after party of the Clash at the Demonheads, Scott feels threatened by Ramona's past in the same time upset that all Ramona's evil exes keep trying to kill him. Roxy Richter suddenly appears out of nowhere and punches Scott in the back of his head. After Scott knowing Roxy is one of Ramona's evil exes, Roxy proceeds to attack him but is quickly grabbed by the foot by Ramona. Scott makes the conclusion that apparently Ramona went through a lesbian phase for a few weeks.

Ramona decides to defend Scott herself by pulling out a gigantic sledgehammer from her purse and fights Roxy. Roxy tells Ramona that according to the rules, it only counts if Scott fights her, but he declines to fight a girl. Ramona grabs him and uses his body to fight Roxy. They defeated Roxy successfully. Scott is still upset about having to face off with all these exes and is thinking of leaving Ramona. She gives him a list of the rest of the evil exes he has to defeat and leaves.

This scene gets on my interest in terms of their play-on-words, lame jokes, actors' movement, and weirdest way to die. To cite an example, Ramona stated that she and Roxy have that lesbian phase is just because she was a little "bi-curious", Roxy then retaliates by saying that she is "bi-furious" which basically there's no such relation but rhyming related words only, showing that their bisexually curious in a way and furious in a way. Roxy also said to Ramona "Back-off ! Has-bian !", the term "has-bian" relates to Ramona being a thing of a past to Roxy, further insults Ramona indirectly being a short term lesbian.

One funny lame joke comes right in as Roxy and Ramona are fighting. Wallace tells Ramona to kick Roxy in the balls which reference to guys' feeling after being kicked in the ball ( private area ) where it actually made me burst into laughter as a dude because I know how it feels like :( . Besides, the director really directed both actresses' movement well in terms of fighting each other by using dynamic movements like acrobatic, flexible moves along with the special CGI ( computer-generated imagery ) effects that enhances the weapon both Ramona and Roxy uses such as the giant sledgehammer and the sharp whip-blade belt.

In the end of the scene which I find it really weird is that Scott prods Roxy's back knee before being squashed by her, causing Roxy to seizure and having an "orgasmic" moment then bursts into a pile of coins. Ramona explains that when she and Roxy are making out, she found out that her back knee it's her sensitive spot, causing Scott to be disturbed about it. Having a death like that makes me wonder, what could the writers be thinking when putting this particular scene in.

In conclusion, I enjoyed the whole film thoroughly. The director gives a romantic spin-off with effects from video game to present the story with a bright and fresh perspective, along with some lighthearted jokes here and there. Effects like showing the words "craaash, kpok !, krow !, krak !, pow !, wack !, and sock !" while the characters are fighting hits the feel of nostalgia of reading back old comics. Jokes such as "I have to go pee due to boredom", "you made me swallow my gum ! That's going to be in my digestive tract for seven years !", and "he punched the highlights out of her hair ! (like literally, in the film they show the dude punch the highlights out of the Asian girl's hair)" had me laughing while I rolled in my seats! I have to say that the director of this film understands how teenagers or young adults think and knows how to put it on display on the screen.

Reference Link:

1) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446029/synopsis