Rushmore

http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies/rushmore.html _ Link to review

I thought Wes Anderson did a great job producing Rushmore and Max Fisher was a very well developed character. The review I read talks about how Wes Anderson creates characters that have many good qualities but also bad ones. Max Fisher obviously has many problems, but to some people he is a very charismatic character. He has the type of attitude that never quits and never gives up. The photo at the top shows one of the many extracurricular activities Max led. He is able to do what he loves, but it seems like he is doing this to cover up the fact that he has no friends. Wes Anderson's characters seem to always have a noticable flaw and in this movie, it is Max's social presence. He is an outcast at the school's he goes to, but overcomes this for the most part by taking control of whatever he can. This movie relates to Bottle Rocket because in bottle rocket, Dignand was a charismatic character and his flaw was his lacking intelligence. People might argue that he was smart in a way, but the bottom line is that he just wasn't a very smart guy. Wes Anderson in my opinion produces very, very average movie. Low-budget comedies like this usually never make as much money as major movies such as Lord of the Rings, but they produce enough. I do not like Wes Anderson's movies overall because they are to unrealistic combined with being touchy at the ends.

The Coen Brothaz

I was very saddened and my heart sunk at the end of No Country for Old Men, produced by Joel and Ethan Coen, when the credits unexpectedly appeared. Maybe it was because the media and everybody around me built it up to be a masterpiece, but I was let down. Even so, I thought it was an above average film, just not the academy award winning film it is. I thought they did a great job producing the lone desert feel to the setting of the film. Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem, was a stone-cold faced killer with zero compassion towards people's lives. He made the movie great in my opinion. He was a very flat character in a way because all we know about him is that he likes money and doesn't even have to swallow after killing somebody. Everything he did scared the crap out of me, and when he was in a shootout in the street with Moss I felt like I was in Moss' position and actually running away. Having Moss in the movie made me able to relate because Moss was an average guy like all of us trying to act tough. When he told Chigurh that he should be worried on the phone, and ended up looking pathetic on camera, I thought of a friend trying to act tough on the phone to another high school punk. The thing that brought the film down a level to me was that there was to climax to all the action. The whole movie I was thinking that there was going to be a twist or a car chase, but there was no climax. After seeing Moss dead, I realized there might not be a climax, and my thoughts were confirmed when the credits came up after Ed Tom Bell spoke, "And then I woke up."

Robert Altman

I didn't think any of the Robert Altman films were enjoyable to watch except for The Last Goodbye which was just mildly appealing. In The Last Goodbye I enjoyed watching the main character Philip Marlowe, played by Elliot Gould, act like a low-life but still work as a good detective. His personality captivated my attention during the early scenes in the movie where he tried so hard to get his cat food while he continued to chain-smoke. The smoking did take my attention away from the movie because I thought it took away from the acting ability of Gould. I think that there are better things for a character to do in their down-time than smoke, and I think other things would let us learn more about the character. Besides that, I thought that he was a great actor. Nashville didn't interest me at all because I have zero interest in country music. Although I didn't like it, I thought that the camera work composed by Altman was very good in Nashville. I liked the way the camera would be showing something going on, but be emphasizing a character in the background. This happened once when the woman was being shown in the background while the blonde haired guy who wanted her was singing "I'm Easy." I thought that The Player had too many unrealistic characters to be any good to watch. That type of stuff where characters such as the black cop lady act ridiculous turn me away from movies. I thought it also seemed somewhat unrealistic that the main character killed the woman's husband, and then he went on to fall in love with her. Besides these downsides, I thought that Altman brought a lot of uniqeness in the way he mixed dialogue in with different camera angles. Overall, I don't like Altman much as a director because he apparently doesn't make movies to fit my interests. Film Noir, country music, and the film industry just aren't things that interest me.