Rayona

This story just sickens me. I hate hearing about child molesters in the news and reading about it is just as bad, I know that it is not real but the author is able to capture/depict what took place and it is horribly accurate from what I have gathered from the news and whatnot. I have a hard time understanding how Father Tom was able to get so close to these children without the families becoming suspicious. It is obvious that his position in the church helps, but if he comes out of nowhere and molests Rayona, it just seems that he has probably done it before. If he has done this before, I would think that there would be signs of touching or words said that might give him away, but I guess not. It just seems that kids now are way more willing to come forward and report what happened to them. As the story keeps going, it seems as if Rayona just cannot get away from Father Tom, he shows up everywhere, but this is probably because he is paranoid of her telling people about what he did to her. Rayona from what I have read seems like she just wants to get away and have Father Tom disappear more than she wants to tell on him, but I've been wrong before. Overall, this reading was not very enjoyable due to the topic and I hope that it gets better as the book goes along.

Golddiggers

I can't lie, this movie had me lost for the majority of it. For the entire movie, I was trying to figure out how the play that the girls were doing related to the Great Depression and for the life of me I could not connect the two. I could see the similarities in that people were struggling money wise and that happy families or couples at the beginning of the play were split up due to the fact that the men where away at war. Other than that, I did not see a correlation.
One of the things that I found interesting about this film was the lack of color. The movies of this time were able to have color. I don't understand why this movie did not use color, it seems as if the color would have added so much. Even though the color was lacking, the sound was leaps better than the previous films, characters could be heard clearly and the songs did not crack and the singers voices were pretty good.
Something that caught my attention was when Brad came over to play his music for the producer and the girls and he started playing the piano. It was clear to me that he did not know how to play the piano and was just pretending to push keys. This seems odd because I do not think that producers had the technology to do sound overs or insert certain music into the ongoing scene. So my thoughts were, was there someone else playing the piano at the same time, or was that entire scene lip-synced? I thought that the lip-sync option would probably been too difficult to lip-sync the entire scene and song.
Other than that, I found the plot entertaining and really enjoyed the prank that Dolly's friends played on Brad's brother and the old man. The woman who was supposed to be the comedian and add humor to the film did that sort of, but it did not really work for me, I found her extremely annoying. Overall the movie was pretty good.

Babyface

This movie was steps above Scarface when it came to sound. There was music, singing, and background sound in many of the scenes of the movie. It really seems as if the producers had gotten the technology down and were able to use it to the fullest. Voices were pretty clear and the viewers could make out the sounds of cars, printing presses, and trains. All of these new sounds happening at once made this movie that much better and seem like real life.

One of the things that I found interesting was the use of irony, in that her name was Powers and all she really wanted was money and power. Then there was the scene early on in the film when she met with the old man. He told her to leave town and take advantage of men to get what she wanted. Lily's response was, "Where am I supposed to go? Paris?" and that is exactly where she ended up going. I'm pretty sure the writers knew what they were doing with these things, but if they did not than that is funny.

The next thing that I noticed was the use of panning upwards. This was done to show the greatness and success of the city. When Lily started to work for the bank, it was also used to show her rise in the company. There were windows with job titles on them, as Lily used her bosses she kept moving up in the company. After using about four to six men she reached the top and was working for the second in command. Lily was always on the move, she never stayed set in one place for long, she was always on the prowl for a man in higher position.

Men in this movie were portrayed as being dumb and easy to persuade into anything. This was done through Lily just having to bat her eyes at the men and she had them wrapped around her fingers. After she was through with the men she tossed them to the side and was cold as ice, especially when those men came back to see her because she was the only thing they had left. Each man got to see how she ruined her former "lovers" life, I just do not understand how man after man could make the same mistake. Someone should have put a stop to it. Overall the movie was pretty good.

Crazy Sisters

After reading this week I have really started to notice just how weird and bizarre the two sisters are. For one thing they found it amusing that when their father died he dried up and weighed about 50 pounds. They joked about how he probably looked like one of the saints who don't decay. I'm so glad that I don't have any relatives like this, because I would be freaked out by the two of them. Another thing that I noticed is that their father was a geologist and study the land around Tuscon and while he had the girls he pointed out things about the land, I feel that this will somehow come back and have something to do with the rock snake of Sterling's tribe. As the book goes on, we have learned more about Zeta and Lecha, it has become clear that Lecha and Seese are very similar. Both of these women have drug problems, have some sort of problem with their babies, and were dependent on men at a younger age. Even though the twin sisters are supposed to be alike, I find them to be very different. Zeta to me seems like the nice and responsible sister, while Lecha is the twin who is care free, irresponsible and somewhat evil. This can be seen through the story of when Lecha leaves right after her son is born and Zeta is left to take care of a baby that isn't even hers. This book is full of messed up characters, I wonder if we will ever be introduced to one.

Scarface

After learning about the 1930's movie code, I was on the lookout for things that should or should not be included in the movie. If I had to rate the movie on how well it followed the code, I would give it about a 50 percent. The movie producers did a great job in not showing the murders of the characters and keeping the murderer and the victim out of the same shot, as well as eliminate profanity. However the part that they did not follow was the showing of guns, trafficking of drugs, and glorification of the bad guy.

One of the other things that I noticed while watching the movie was that there was no music at all. This seemed odd due to the fact that all the other films we had watched were filled with music. The new sounds were great to hear and that might be the reason why there was no music, they might have not wanted to overpower the voices. The only thing that resembled music in this movie was the whistled that Tony did right before he killed someone.

The last thing that caught my eye was the amount of smoking that the characters in this movie did. I know that smoking was a lot more popular during this time, but I was wondering whether the cigarette and cigar companies had a role in this, because they used to use famous people to advertise their products. Every time a cigarette was lit, the match was thrown onto the ground, the cigarettes were also thrown onto the ground when finished. This made me wonder whether or not the ground was covered in cigarette butts and matches, and if it was I would feel bad for whoever had to sweep it up.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie. Characters that actually speak did wonders for the story, before sound there was hardly any dialogue shown in the film. This made it hard to get an idea of what was really happening in the movie. The sound completed the film.

Redskin

My bad, I totally lost time and forgot to post before 9. Hopefully this is okay. During the film Redskin, I noticed that there was a lot more text for the viewer to read. Other films that we have watched there really was not any text to read and if there was, it was short. In Redskin there was on average a text to read every few minutes. This increase in reading seemed to me that the producers of the film really wanted the audience to come out of the film with one idea and story. In other movies the story was left up to the interpretation of the audience. I think that this film was one of the first to push movies into more of a narration and one base line.
Another thing that I noticed was that the screens with the text were different. While with the Natives, the screen was larger and it had a design, but with the whites the screen was half the size and only black and white. I really do not understand why this was done, there does not seem to be a reason.
One of the other main things that I noticed was the use of makeup. During the film, the story fast forwards like ten or more years and instead of getting all new actors, the characters were dressed up in makeup to make them appear older. Other movies that were watched before this, there was no makeup used for the characters besides powder to make people's skin color lighter. Wing Foot's father and the other main characters were dressed up in makeup that gave them wrinkles and gray hair, all of this made the tribe members look old. Also later in the movie Wing Foot is out in the desert and he discovers oil. When the whites come looking they find Wing Foot who looks crazed. This is done through dark makeup around his eyes. The makeup also makes him look sickly and close to death.
This film did many different things that I had not seen done in earlier films. This was a very interesting film to watch and was not hard to watch.

Within Our Gates

While watching the film, I saw many interesting things. One of the things that stuck out the most was the use of color for the characters. The main characters in the movie who were black were very light skinned, while those who had smaller parts were darker. Although it may have not been on purpose, the movie gives the view that only lighter colored skinned blacks were educated and important, while the darker skinned blacks were the ones who were uneducated and had small parts. It almost seems like the film was going against what it was actually trying to promote, that is that blacks are equal to whites and need to be educated just the same. What the use of lighter and darker colored blacks, it appears as if blacks themselves were not able to get over the barrier, so how is it that whites are supposed to treat blacks equal when blacks cannot treat each other equally?
Another thing that stuck out about the film was the use of flashbacks. I thought that the use of flashbacks was unique in that many films of the time did not or could not use the effect. What the flashbacks in this film did was fill in the story line later on. This effect helped explain the part where Sylvia decided to leave the South to go to the North to raise money for the school so it could stay open. After this scene I was left with the question of how much money she needed to raise, but due to the fact that flashbacks were used, the film showed a clip where Sylvia got a letter from the school saying that it needed $5,000. This small flashback helped answer my question as well as add to the story.
Both of these things stuck out in my mind throughout the film, they added aspects to the film that I did not expect to see.