The Roar from the Greatest Villian - Jaws - An Amber Steele Review

Taking the risk on a small, no name director, Universal Studios had their hands full from the start. Steven Spielberg had only directed a few shorts at the time when he was given Jaws. Inexperienced, at the least, Spielberg had his hands on a tunnel to gold, but surely he didn’t think so at the time. Anything that could have gone wrong on set did. All the footage on the boat they were filming on sunk. Their main character, the shark himself, fell to the bottom of the ocean, MORE THAN ONCE! These were just a few of the things that were making Universal consider hiring a new director for the job. Where would our superior Spielberg be today, if he had been replaced? But Spielberg persevered and gave the world the first Blockbuster.

A type of Villain no one could have imagined, a villain who is never seen until more than two-thirds through the movie. A minute island off of the coast of New England, Amity holds an unassuming community who is blatantly unaware of the inevitable danger heading their way. Martin Brody, one of the newest members to the community and the new Chief of Police, is handed the first case of murder of a Chrissie Watkins. The autopsy report reads shark attack leading Brody to beg the mayor to close the beach.  But with the summer season and many tourists with money for the town heading their way, he refuses. At his final and only choice, Brody and two others head out to the ocean to track and kill the beast. 
           
There are many things that make this film interesting and appealing to such a wide audience. It thrills, scares and captivates all at the same time. With the malfunctioning mechanical shark, the allure of never seeing the shark makes the movie much more captivating. It seems that the human mind can create a much more disturbing character than actually seeing it.
           
Most people underestimate the power of a score or the help of music to set a mood in a film. This factor is probably the most important edge to the movie. John Williams takes two notes and creates a legendary and unmeasurable fear. Dun-dun dun-dun.
             

The Chaos of a Ending Race - Children of Men - An Amber Steele Review

Fertility? Gone. And the youngest human being of almost the past two decades has just been killed in a bomb explosion. The hope for humanity seems to be gone. The world in the year 2027 has been sent into a state of chaos. Britain, one of the few surviving countries, fights to maintain their hold the people of their country. The film undergoes a trek where
 Theo, our lead takes the last hope for the future of the world, and refugee, Kee, to the sea.

This movie is captivating from the start. The camera work was very mentally simulating as a film student.  At some points the actual camera would be involved into the scene, with blood splatters on the lens, etc.  For some it may “take them out” of the movie. For me, it pulls me in, as if I was actually in the scene.

The Director, Alfonso Curaron, and the Director of Photography, Emmanuel Lubezki, formulated many spectacular “oners” throughout the movie. They devised perfectly planned shots throughout the movie lasting minutes on end, with extremely wild action, perfect performances, and beautiful images. There are two shots in the movie that stand out to me, and might be the most renown for the movie: when they are in the car, and Julian gets killed and the ending of the movie where Kee and Theo are leaving the interment camp.

The director took the script he was given and did wonders with it. This movie’s cinematography brings awh to a wide variety of audiences. Personally I think we brought a very fresh and inquisitive way to look at film.

Through the Darkest Corners of Donnie Darko - An Amber Steele Review

Have you ever stopped to puzzle the idea of what would happen to the people around you, your family, your peers, or the world, if you did not die when you were supposed too? Would they even be affected? Would things change or continue in it's same monotone path? Deep in the suburbs, in a town called Middlesex, Donnie Darko lives with his family of five. Known to be one of the smartest kids in the local Catholic School, Donnie is often regarded by his peers to be an daunting outcast. His therapist also follows suit by proposing Donnie to be psychotic, and prescribing him medication for his frequent black outs and hallucinations. His main companion, we discover, is a tall demonized man wearing a bunny mask with a gun shot wound in his eye, Frank, one of his hallucinations.

Frank guides Donnie out of his house in the middle of the night, helping him evade the jet engine that is about to crash into on his room of the house. A half-awake Donnie standing in a golf course facing the menacing Frank is then revealed the coming of the end of the world. 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. By the next morning Donnie is well aware that Frank had saved his life, and that by following him we will survive the end of the world. Frank send Donnie on missions complying to extremely reckless things, both vandalize and flood the school, along with burning down a local televangelist's house.

Before I begin to analyze the films' artistic technique and camera work, I wanted to bring up the soundtrack of the film. Many songs were made famous by the cult film or whose popularity were just enhanced (Duran Duran's "Notorious", Tears For Fears' "Head over Heels" or Echo and the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon"). Even Michael Andrew's song "Mad World", that he made specifically for the film, has become renown across the world. At the same time Michael Andrew's scored the film making such melodies as "Gretchen Ross" or "The Tangent Universe" which would identify specific times or specific characters in the movie. Donnie Darko has been one of my favorite scored and soundtracked film's of all time. Purely brilliant.

My thoughts to categorizing a good or bad film dwell within the realms of intriguing me. Whether it be by the thoughts or ideas brought up by the film, motivations and actions of the characters (lead or not), and whether it consumes me helping me to forget world I live in. This film has claimed all three deeming qualities for me in just the first cut released in 2001 to just a hand full of small theaters in the U.S. thus making it one of my favorite films