Film Reviews

Citizen Kane (1941)

Citizen Kane is a 1941 film about Charles Kane, an extremely wealthy tycoonist who passed away in the opening scene of the movie. Kanes utters the word 'Rosebud' before his death. The movie's plot is about a group of journalist searching for the meaning of Kane's word and leads to them learning many things about his life from the friends and peers of Mr Kane. The movie ends with the meaning of Rosebud being revealed to the audience as it is burned away in a fire, where nobody else will discover its secret.

After watching the movie, I felt like I liked the film. The story was pretty good, and the way that they told it was good was well. The specific things that I thought were good about the movie is the final shot where we see Mr Kane's old sled named 'Rosebud' being burnt by the workers after he died. I like it because the message is something that gives Charles Kane character. And it makes his story throughout the film go full circle. Another thing that I liked is how one of the characters said that a man like Kane couldn't describe his life in a single word. But as we saw, Kane did exactly that. And I think that that line, helps give the movie its themes of how someone can be the most talked about man in the world, but people still might have no idea who they are. And how someone can be the richest man in the world, and still not have the thing that they truly desired. One part I didn't really get was the scene where there is the scandal with the singer. I was just confused by the plot and I, personally, couldn't figure out what I was missing. The second thing that I have to add onto the list of somewhat negative parts of the film relates to the subplot of the journalists and Inquisitor board looking for the meaning of 'Rosebud'. The thing that seems illogical in their search, to me, is the fact that they let those workers who were disposing of the 'worthless' stuff in Mr Kanes warehouse. I think that they would've looked for anything that could've given them a lead. But then again, if that were the case it wouldn't allow for the final shot to have the impact that it did. Overall the movie Citizen Kane, in my opinion, is pretty good. And there are definitely more things I like about the movie than I dislike.

Vertigo (1958)

Vertigo is about a retired detective (Scott) who is requested by one of his friends to follow his wife (Madeline) who he claims is acting suspicious, and seems to be suicidal. The Scotty discovers the possible connection between Madeline and Carlotta Valdes, who he thinks is her great-grandmother who is possessing Madeline. Later in the Movie, Madeline is dead she jumps off of a tower. The death is declared a suicide, and Scott continues on with his life. However, near the end of the film Scott finds a woman that looks exactly like Madeline who turns out to be an actor who worked with Madeline's husband to stage a suicide in order to kill his wife.

When watching Vertigo, there were quite a few things that I liked about the movie. One of those things that was pretty good was the plot in general as I think that it had a good amount of mystery to it. As well as having a little bit of suspense to it. Another thing I liked is when the plot twist is revealed and it turns out the person who Scotty thinks looks exactly like Madeleine (Gavin's wife) turns out to be the person who Scotty was actually looking after (Gavin's wife). So the husband could enact his murder plot on his wife. the reason why I liked it was that I was actually surprised by it and I didn't expect it. One thing with the plot that I thought was kinda odd was how the husband of the wife hired Scotty to look after her in the first place. It might have seemed like a good idea since Scotty has vertigo. Making it easier for Gavin to plot a murder since Scotty wouldn't be able to chase Madeleine up the stairs of the church. But the fact that Scotty is a retired detective should have been enough for Gavin to rethink that idea. Another thing about the movie is that the movie felt like the climax was a bit closer to the end of the movie than it should have been. I say that because when we watched the movie, the build up of the plot to the climax felt slightly drawn out and that the part of the movie after Madeleine's death seemed a bit of a time crunch for there to be a concise resolution to the story. (As I'm pretty sure where we left off in the movie was 3 minutes from the end of the movie, and it was right then that Scotty figured out about the murder scheme).

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

2001: A Space Odyssey is a movie placed in the year 2001, where humanity has begun colonization of the moon, and has furthured their progress of space exploration. The movie takes place in the Discovery One, a very long spaceship that contains a crew tasked with a mission to jupiter. the crew is assisted by the HAL9000, one of the most advanced computers made by man. The HAL9000 is advanced enough that it has been known to have never made any mistakes in its programming. But during the mission, Hal make an error in is computing when a radar of the ship is damaged the crew contemplates terminating Hal from online function which lead to Hal retaliating against the crew. By the end of the movie, all of the crew is dead, and only one is able to survive and terminate Hal from operation.

One thing I liked about the movie was the story that it told. And it was an interesting plot to follow along with. I liked the comically long ship that the movie takes place in (The Discovery One) as well as the comically long fly-by shots. Another thing that I liked was the way they used the classical music in the first 5 minutes of the film. But after that it did get old. That in fact is one of the things that I disliked about the movie, as I think that having variety with their music could make the movie a bit more engaging. Even playing different classical songs would have worked perfectly fine. Another thing that really didn't help the movie was how there were parts of complete, kind of just unexplained silence. The EVA's are a different thing because that makes sense what they were trying to do with that use of silence. But parts like at the beginning of the movie, and like the one scene near the end where there are multiple overhead shots of landscapes for some reason kind of only tested my patience with how long they were (I'm pretty sure the mountain scenes were like 7 minutes). Other than that, only a few other things stood out like the dust on the landing pad moving like their in air currents during the moon landing scene.

Jaws (1975)

I enjoyed the entirety of Jaws, and I liked a lot of things about it. The first thing was how the story was different from the other movies we have watched. Jaws didn't really have any parts of the movie that were dragged out like in A Space Odyssey, or Vertigo. Another thing was how the plot felt more cohesive rather than just a "This happened then this happened and (etc)". Jaws also has parts in the movie that really ramp up the excitement of the film by creating a dramatic atmosphere. This was basically happening the entire time Marvin, Matt and Quint were out at sea on Quint's boat searching for the shark. I think the reason for why the movie had this kind of feel to it was because while watching, I was always anticipating for the shark to pop out of nowhere, and for the characters to be thrown back into the danger they were searching for. I can't really write anything negative about the movie because there wasn't anything really bad about it in general. I guess I could talk about Ben complaining about how the movie was just a bunch of fear mongering for sharks throughout the entire movie. Overall, Jaws was a very good movie, I enjoyed the enitrety of the film's story, its pacing.