The Graduate:

A Movie Review

The graduate is a very odd movie, and one I personally did not like very much, but there are a lot of things the movie does really well, so this review will be containing my personal biases, but I have made sure to include the things the movie did well.

Plot:

The story follows Ben (Dustin Hoffman) a recent college graduate that doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, and his only "friends" are his parent's friends. His dad's partner's wife  Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) soon comes to him, and essentially wants to have an affair with him, at first Ben denies her in surprise and disgust, but eventually warms up to the idea as he sees this as a way to be different and a way to get away from his over-controlling parents. Eventually Mrs.Robinson's Daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) comes home from Berkley and Ben falls for her, and then comes the consequence of Ben's actions. His parents want him to go out with Elaine, but since he was having an affair with Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. Robinson tells him to never go out with her daughter. Eventually Ben's rebellious youth kicks in and denies Mrs. Robinson, eventually leading to his determination creating a rift in the Robinson family since he had an affair with Mrs. Robinson, causing the family to divorce. This would be nice if it just ended there, but it goes on, and the second half of the movie, I dislike as it drags on and on. Basically the second half is Ben's escapades to get Elaine to marry him, as both of them are running off of young rebellion motives. This is a real issue since Ben caused Elaine's family to divorce, and no character has a sensible motivation in my eyes, but that could just be me. This long segment with obvious plot twists eventually leads to Ben crashing Elaine's planned wedding in rather over the top fashion. and both Ben and Elaine run away, to a bus where their smiles slowly fade as they realize what they did while they rebelled against their parents' control. This plot was a real oddity to me, and is mainly what put me off of this movie, but it isn't a bad plot, beyond the second half, and it could appeal to certain audiences.

Sound & Cinematography:

Being a 90's movie, this has a very oppressive celebrity band soundtrack, this one by Simon & Garfunkel. However this movie uses their songs quite well, with “The Sound of Silence” playing at the beginning of the movie, the beginning of the affair, and the end scene of the movie, and “Mrs. Robinson” being played when Ben was driving to Berkley. it isn't all good choices however, as songs like “Scarborough Fair” were played repeatedly throughout the second half of the movie, which is another reason I did not like the second half, as the song never seemed to signify any kind of emotional connection, or symbolism; However “The Sound of Silence” works really well as a tool of symbolism, showing the lead up to a bad decision, a bad decision, and the outcome of a bad decision in the three times it is played in the movie, and the use of “Mrs. Robinson” is amazing, as it symbolizes Ben's rebellion against the authority of Mrs. Robinson's words, and his obliviousness to the pain he has caused.

The cinematography of this movie is fairly gimmicky, with clever first person perspective of the scene where Ben is in scuba gear (which is a completely pointless scene other than to show how controlling his parents are as this does not come up again in the movie) and the symbolism of the Robinson's faces being half shadowed to show how not all is known about them until Mrs. Robinson explains it midway through the first half. Also I believe that any scene where air bubbles in water were present, it symbolized Ben thinking about his life, which is a nice touch, but isn't explored much beyond the first half, mainly because there really isn't any water after the first half, but at the same time he had made his choice in the second half, so it could still be symbolizing the same thing.

All of these techniques work to show how Ben is perceiving the world around him, as he blocks out certain sounds/people, this also gets shown by some pieces of speech being muted in scenes, and the world's oppressive nature muting Ben (quite literally in some of the very early scenes). If there was one thing I truly enjoyed about this movie, it was how director Mike Nichols manipulated each of the elements to give the audience a clear idea of what Ben was thinking/feeling at all times, where that is good, there was a lot less of these mutings in the last half of the movie up until the climax, which was rather jarring to me, as it made the portions where Ben was at Berkley to get Elaine to love him seem disjointed from the creative movie that it happened to be in.

Verdict:

Overall I didn't like this movie very much, but it does have a lot of appeal for audiences. Honestly I found myself face-palming throughout the entire movie at the dumb decisions the characters make, but that could be the entire idea of the movie. I suggest watching the movie in order to make an opinion of it, as not everyone will have my pessimistic viewpoint of the movie.

Rating:

Give it a watch.

-Conner Baker

Sources Referenced:

"The Warning Sign." The Warning Sign. N.p., 5 Sept. 2011. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. <http://twscritic.com/2011/09/05/movie-project-5-the-graduate-1967/>. 
Prince, Stephen. Movies and meaning: an introduction to film. Sixth Edition ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2004. Print
The Graduate. Dir. Mike Nichols. Perf. Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross. Embassy Pictures, 1967. Film. 

One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest:

A Movie Review:

 One Flew Ovver The Cuckoo's Nest is a great movie. with great actors, themes, and writing to push the story of RP Mcmurphy's tenure at a mental institution. Specifically this movie does so many things right, but I will start with one that drew me the most, the setting. The establishing shot of the movie is peaceful and serene, with multiple straight lines to show the harmony of the scene, that is until the car taking RP Mcmurphy (Jack Nicholson) to the mental institution. Once the car enters the shot, it is traveling at a diagonal through the shot, and the camera pans to follow it, making the scenery become diagonal in the shot, from there just about every single line is a diagonal for the rest of the movie. Upon arriving at the mental institution, it also has a view from the ground floor looking up at the higher levels of the mental institution from Mcmurphy's point of view showing how small he really is, foreshadowing his lack of power throughout the movie. At this point he interacts with all of the "inmates" of the mental institution as Mcmurphy thinks it is like prison. An interesting point the movie makes is that all of the inmates (beyond the character named "chief" who is Native American, but his sheer size makes him fit into the setting more or less) are all white males from young to quite old. at this point the "antagonist" Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) is introduced. As a contrast to the inmates, every single caretaker is either Female, or African American making minorities of the time taking care of the majority of the time. also every shot of the caretakers, beyond ones that the "inmates" take advantage of, is angles upward slightly at their face, showing how they are more powerful, but they never look imposing until the end of the film. after this powerful opening the movie somewhat takes a generic route of the new guy changing the system for the entire group, and the struggle to gain their trust. This gets completely turned on it's head in the climax thankfully, but I will not spoil any of the climax, as the last scenes of the movie are very powerful, even more so than the beginning. Back to the setting, the entire institution is a clean white throughout, and very claustrophobic feeling. every shot inside shows the trademark diagonal lines of this kind of uneasy movie, with multiple screams of agony in the background of particular scenes showing what the characters think of the place through nuance. This further drives the motivation of Mcmurphy who for a large portion of the movie (he figures out about halfway in) that the people in the ward are not normal people, beyond how normal a lot of the people seem, with each being given a scene that they crumble under pressure that a sane person would not be phased by, with Mcmurphy slowly becoming insane nearing the climax. In closing, this movie has phenomenal pacing, setting, and characterization to drive its story about the problems of the psychological institutions of the time, and it is completely worth watching more than once, it is a great movie full of unease and suspense.

Sources Referenced:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest." Media Snobs. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. <http://mediasnobs.com/movie-review/one-flew-cuckoos-nest/>. 
Prince, Stephen. Movies and meaning: an introduction to film. Sixth Edition ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2004. Print
One flew over the cuckoo's nest. Dir. Miloš Forman. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher. Warner Home Video, 19971975. Film.

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid: 

A Movie Review

      Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a retelling of the tale of the outlaws Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) (as if that wasn't obvious by the title). But this review is not geared towards the story of the film (no major spoilers here, you want to know the story go watch the movie). This review is geared more towards behind the scenes elements such as camera work and coloring. As such this movie is awash with great camera work and the color use is top notch. A particularly effective bit with the camera is in the beginning of the movie, after the second robbing of the "Flyer" (the train Butch and Sundance rob coming both ways in the beginning of the movie), with the antagonists being "revealed." Which is made far more interesting since we view the movie through the perspective of the outlaws, rather than the heroes which in the context of the time, the antagonists of the movie would be the heroes in any other telling of the tale of these outlaws? Where this on its own wouldn't mean too much on its own, this film is quite different as instead of developing those characters, or even showing them for the audience to see them, the Cinematographer Conrad L. Hall in coordination with Director George Roy Hill made it so the audience never sees them, the only establishing connections the audience gets are through the chasing horses, and the hat of one of them. Along with this, the antagonists were never shot close to the camera or even at a distinguishable distance, always acting as a foreboding presence in the distance. Also each outdoor shot whilst Butch and Sundance flee from the antagonists is very stark and bleak, with many shots obtained with a boom from above them to symbolize how helpless they were in that situation. while when they get to Bolivia about halfway in, every exterior in Bolivia is very vibrant and colorful, with every interior being dark and dull, symbolizing their choices, with banks being a path of darkness, and the outside being a potential hope for salvation. Also, any scene where Etta is helping them is lit very dark, even darker than the banks, as she is basically setting Butch and Sundance up to repeat what they did before going to Bolivia. On top of that before the end of the movie, Etta mentions that she won’t be there to see them die, and leaves right before the final scenes, signifying the obvious conclusion we as the audience would come up with. Also, throughout the chase scenes the camera work is phenomenal as I mentioned earlier. A good example of what I mean is while Butch and Sundance are riding over the sand dunes early in the chase, with the camera panning, tracking, and craning to keep them in focus as they rise and fall with the height of the sand dunes, another example of how the camera is making them feel helpless as to the audience this sand dune portion seems flat, while Butch and Sundance keep dipping into the valleys in between dunes. Also, they chose a brilliant way to transition events with the use of the sepia color and using real photographs of the duo, adding another layer of depth to the film as this happens twice, once as the opening of the film (however the opening of the film includes a filmed bit in the sepia, but that was intended to introduce Butch and Sundance to the audience) and once depicting their travel to Bolivia. These work even better with the context of the story as the opening would be hard to work with if they introduced the duo and what they have done fully, and the travel to Bolivia would be more or less dead time in comparison to the pacing of the rest of the movie. My praise is quite similar to most critics and reviewers, along with the general public at the time, as the film has won several awards since its release in 1969, along with a box office revenue of $102,308,889. With this review done, I urge you to go watch this movie if you have not already, as this is a really great movie, and I will see you with my next review, Good Bye

-Conner Baker

-Sources Referenced

File:Butch sundance poster.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Butch_sundance_poster.jpg>

Prince, Stephen. Movies and meaning: an introduction to film. Sixth Edition ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2004. Print

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Dir. George Roy Hill. Perf. Paul Newman, Robert Redford. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 1969. Film.

Remember, Cite what is not yours

The Introduction: About Me

Hello, My name is Conner Baker, and I am currently a sophomore at Western Washington University. I am making this blog as I like to watch movies, and while I watch movies I find myself critiquing them and basically reviewing them. So why not take that and apply it to a blog for others to see (also this is tied to a course I am taking so the first few reviews might be a bit blunt as a result). So with that said and done, I hope you enjoy the content I post on this blog.


-Conner Baker