Clue (The Movie)

Clue

Release date: Dec 13 1985

Length: 94 min’s             Genre: Comedy, Mystery

Writers: John Landis, and Johnathan Lynn

Directors: Jonathan Lynn

Major Actors: Tim Curry, Eileen Brennan, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren

Plot Summery

Clue is a comedic murder mystery base off a popular game invented by Anthony E. Pratt. The game is a murder mystery game in which the player have to find out who murdered Mr. Boddy, with what weapon, and in which room of the mansion. The movie takes each character in the game and turns them into a character in the movie. Each character is even a motive to kill Mr. Boddy and a weapon supplied by Mr. Boddy himself. The weapons are intended for the characters to use to kill Mr. Boddy’s butler, but when the lights go out affairs get a little out of hand. Now the characters are locked in a mason with a killer, but the question is, who is the murder, who else is in the mason, who killed who, and who will be killed next. With three different endings and only one being the real ending this movie truly brings the sprite of the game Clue to life. With its wonderful all-star cast and its incredible use of sadistic yet tasteful humor, this is a truly young-less movie that’s story will never get old.  

Sound Effects

Sound play a big role in this movie. It is true that every movie has at least one form of sound or the other unless it is a silent movie that is and even then they sometimes have music. Clue uses two types of sounds diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The diegetic and non-diegetic sounds in this movie are amazing and give this movie a deep rich feeling that the viewer is in the room with the characters. Sounds of rain and large rolls of thunder play a big part in the begging of the movie setting the scene of what is normally the start of every classic thriller. There is no background music for most of the movie which leaves a lot of room open for sound effects, and the director didn’t miss one. In the first part of the movie, it is very clear that the sound effects are important. Whenever they pick up one of the dead bodies in the movie they drop in on the floor, and the director makes sure to pick up every last bit of it. The sound is so real that some people have been reminded of hearing someone or themselves falling in the past, so just to let you know it doesn’t sound like the dropped a sack of potatoes on the floor. It sounds more like they put a microphone on the floor and literally drop the person on the floor, while the microphone picked up every ounce of movement on the floor.      

              

         

               Sounds of screams, voices, bangs, rain and thunder make up the non-diegetic. One example of non-diegetic sound in the movie was when Yvette was in the billiard room and listening to the conversation the recorder was recording from in the other room. The charters were acting as narrators which helped to keep the story going even though we were being further introduced to the character Yvette who is in a different room. When the camera goes back to the characters in the lounge we hear Yvette scream from the other room. These off-screen sounds, and on screen sounds helps to keep the viewer on focus as they jump from shot to shot and character to character. There is an awkward moment for the characters in the movie when a cop shows up in the mason and the place if full of corpses. The use of a megaphone with its naturally off razzed sound and crackle were used like it has been in order scary movies to depict these awkward and scary moments, and what is more awkwardly scary than a cop coming to your house when it's full of murder bodies. If you haven’t seen this movie it is well worth putting on your must-see list. You will laugh and ah and not be disappointed.

Movie Magic: Like Father Like Son

Like Father Like Son

Soshite Chichi Ni Naru

 

Release in Japan: September 28, 2013

121mins Genre: Drama 

Writer/Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

Major Actors: Masaharu Fukuyama as Ryota Nonomiya, Machiko Ono as Midori Nonomiya, and Jun Eubuki as Nobuko Nonomiya

Plot Summary

                    Ryota is a hard-working business man with little time to spend with his family, and Midori is his wife and stays at home mother of their son Nobuko. The have great pride in their son when as he does well in the preschool interview and begins to take his first steps into his schooling. There is just one problem he didn’t pass his preschool blood test. The results of the blood test came back stating that Nobuko was not Ryota and Midori son, but whose son is he? Hirokazu has captured the tale of the old Japan were babies got switched in hospitals often, and a new style of family was born. In this classic tale of family, Hirokazu answers the age old questions of what makes a family a family, what make a parent a parent, and what makes a father a father. 

                                                            Thinking of the meaning

             It seems that Hirokazu wanted to depict this story as a documentary even though it is not and by using a mise en scène style of filming, he really gave the film flair. His natural style of lighting and real world scenes really helps the audience feel like they are part of these families and empathize with their story. He let the child actors improvise their lines and actions in the film for this same reason, having the children improvise their actions and words led to the adults having to improvise as well. They were told to act as if you would in real life. In an interview Hirokazu was asked why he used vertical and spiral as a tracking effect in his movie, and what he was trying to symbolize by that to which he replied, “I was not trying to symbolize anything by those scenes. Rather, those shots work to make the audience feel like the main characters do.”

                 He said that the movie was made to answer a question that was asked when talking to a colleague and to quote Kirokazu, “the question was whether blood relations make people fathers or time spent with kids.” He wanted to make people react to think, and maybe to change. He didn’t use flashbacks because he didn’t want to harm the flow of the movie. Instead of flashbacks he used photos in a camera to depict the child’s perspective. His new style of filmmaking is said to come from his experiences as a father with his daughter and growing, “ I just feel that I’m more attracted to the story of life, being alive, and trying to face life.” He wanted to leave the audience with the thought of a different way of doing things, and what they family should do next or will do next.

You can see his interview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J37rGvgRUG4

Rain Man

Rain Man

Oldies but Goodies

Rain Man

Release date: December 16, 1988

Written by: Barry Marrow and Ronald Mass

Directed by: Barry Levinson

Genres: Drama Rated: R Length: 133 min’s

Lead actors: Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise

Have you ever felt like your parents were hiding a deep secret from you? Well, Charles Babbit never felt that way but he should have. When Charles Babbit’s father died he left a 3 million dollar inheritance to a person named Raymond Babbit a man that Charles had never heard of before. Charles is a spoiled selfish and maybe, even mildly narcissistic man who sets off with his girlfriend Susanna played by Valeria Golino to find Raymond with a secret plan to do whatever it takes to get his half of the inheritance. When he finds Raymond Babbit he learns that Raymond is his autistic brother that his father hides from him. Learning that his genius autistic brother who has no concept of money has inherited his father’s 3 million dollars causes Charles to go into a hidden rage and he adult naps his and holds him ransom for 1.5 million in inheritance that Charles feels is owed to him. When his girlfriend finds out about his crazy plan she literally runs out on him, leaving him alone with a brother he never knew he had.

This sparks the beginning of a chronological road trip through the past and the present, as Charles learns that taking care of another person isn’t as easy as he thought it was. As Raymond’s character develops Charles realizes that when Charles tells him he needs something at a certain time he really needs it and he’s needs should be taken lightly, something he would have realized before if he had listened to Raymond’s doctor in the beginning of the movie. It’s no wonder that this movie won 17 awards it is a brilliantly written movie and shows how a little kindness and understanding can go a long way. It shows how relationships developed, bonds are made, and how even the coldest of hearts can be thawed. Had the story been written another way some of the meaning may have been lost.

 If Charles had known about his brother from the beginning of the movie then the development of the characters would have been unrealistic. The way the movie is written shows how life within families develops through adversity and different types of personality through all the emotions, thoughts, frustrations, love, and understanding that everyone feels for each other. This is truly one of the best films to come out of the 80’s and is a most see.