Alejandro Jodorowsky

  Lately I've been following the works of the artistic filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. He's been said to have influenced the works of directors David Lynch and Nicolas Winding Refn. Back in the late 60s is when he began to debut his film career after studying theatre and mime under Etienne Decroux. He contributed alot to the genre of surrealist cinema and was a founding member of the anarchistic avant-garde Panic Movement of performance artists. His first feature titled Fando y Lis caused a huge scandal in Mexico which led to it being banned. His next film El Topo which was released in 1970 later being labeled as an "acid western" combining the traditional qualities of a western with 1960s counter culture.  El Topo is a very cool and bizarre film about a lone ranger played by Jodorowsky himself who embarks on a quest of enlightenment encountering very odd and memorable characters along his journey. He travels across a desert in search to defeat the four great gun masters in order to become the greatest gunman in the land. This movie was considered the first ever midnight cult film. John Lennon praised this movie and promised to fund Jodorowsky with $1 million dollars for his next project titled

"The Holy Mountain". The Holy Mountain also spread throughout the underground cult film circuit. It was characterized by its oddly unique characters and psychedelic scenery. It was describes as a surrealist exploration of western esotericism. He has also written books and regularly lectures on his own spiritual system, which he calls "psychomagic" and "psychoshamanism" and which borrows from his interests in alchemy, the Tarot, Zen Buddhism, and shamanism.

Oscars 2014 Recap

   To start off I was very pleased with the selection of films for best picture this year. Im glad that "12 years a slave" got best picture, I think it completely deserved it. The selection of actors and the performances in that movie were stellar. I'm proud for Lupita Nyong'o for her award winning best supporting actress, she's a very beautiful and intelligent woman. I really liked the blue dress she wore it made her look stunning. As for the best actor I predicted wrong thinking that Chiwetel Ejiofor would take away the oscar but Im proud of Matthew McConaughey for his achievement which makes me want to see Dallas Buyer's Club. I would also like to see Jared Leto's performance in that movie which earned him an award. I think Cate Blanchett gave a good performance in Blue Jasmine from what I can remember from that movie. Im still a bit ticked off that Gravity won 7 oscars, (talk about being very one sided...) Alfonso Cuaron should not have one best director, in my opinion 12 years a slave was a better directed movie. The Gravity also shouldn't have won best cinematography because mostly everything done in that movie was in front of a green screen, it shouldve gone to either 12 years a slave or the black and white black comedy Nebraska. Paolo Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza looks very interesting. I was also disappointed that best original song went to the commercial hit Frozen and not the moon song from the movie Her. Im very glad that 12 years a slave got best adapted screenplay and Her got best original screenplay. I loved the ideas and concepts and were presented in Her, having a very touching yet unusual story in a very likely kind of future. Its been a great year full of great films and I'm very interested in what is yet to come...

Beaches of Agnes movie review

   Beaches of Agnes is a documentary about French filmmaker Agnes Varda and her life growing up in France. Varda uses a wide variety of techniques, combining still images of people, including her past friends, collaborators, lovers and family, with what Claude Lévi-Strauss might term bricolage of garage-sale items, trinkets, and colorful memorabilia juxtaposed in creative combinations, and combines beautiful images in a collage format which revolves around the theme of beaches. In the opening shots, she has assistants film her bringing mirrors to a beach in Belgium which she used to visit as a young girl; one mirror is on the sand as a wave washes over it. She captures a creative French artistic sensibility with a sincere and playful appreciation for the beauty of film and art. Many of the images appear to be like old impressionist era paintings. Varda used clips from her own films and used them to convey her style. She uses people to re-inact various events from her child-hood in a lot of the sequences.

  The look of the documentary was very surreal and avant garde. I give credit to whomever composed the beautiful images of this movie. It was very informative yet very artistic. Overall I give this movie a grade of -A.

Wolf of Wall Street review

    The Wolf of Wallstreet is a heavily star-studded feature with an ensemble cast of Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Mathew McConaughey, and Jean Dujardin. Set in 1987, Leo's character Jordan Belfort takes the job of a stock broker at a Wallstreet firm with Matt's character Mark as his boss. Already this movie is set up to be a movie with great performances. Anyway Mark encourages Jordan to lead his company into a steady lifestyle of casual sex with the colleagues and cocaine use. As the movie goes on Jordan meets a whole line of other businessmen who invest in pure corruption, only stealing money for themselves. The graphic nature of drug use and sex in this movie led me to actually think what was going through these actors minds during the making of this film. In some scenes the actors looked as if they were really getting  high and doing crack. This gave the movie a very Scorcesesque kind of edge very similar to some of his past movies like "Goodfellas". In fact this movie felt like a nod to that movie with themes like corrupted men, drugs, scandal, tipping off the police, and old fashioned housewife abuse. Going into this movie I felt like I filled up the whole theatre getting the nods and little gimmicks of Scorceses' past movies, being a film buff really made me stand out in the whole audience laughing.

  Overall this movie was highly entertaining and true to its directorial style. It was entirely shot in digital format making the picture nice and sparkling clear truly capturing the grand performances of the actors. Alot of people would be put off by the gratuitous sex and drug use in the movie but I consider that the beauty of Scorcese's film. I give this movie a grade: A.

"Inside Out" Documentary Treatment

     For my next film project I've been assigned to do a documentary over any topic of my choice. I've decided to analyze the topic of teen depression and through this documentary I want to explain and bring to light that people suffering from this affliction aren't alone. The reason why I chose the title to be called "Inside Out" is because I want people to grab their thoughts and emotions from inside and express them outward. For the interviews Ive gathered a group of students who are brave enough to testify to their own experiences with depression and anxiety and what their friends have gone through. I'm also going to interview my dad who is a family practitioner doctor who deals with many patients who suffer from anxiety and depression as well.

   Im going to conduct my interviews in a certain way when its just the person talking and the question appears onscreen before-hand. I want the documentary itself to be in black and white because the feeling and idea of colorlessness is what I associate with depression. At the end of the documentary I would like to put a telephone number for mental help.

"Beyond The Valley of the Dolls" Movie review.

 
    Within the past half year or so I've had this freakishly outlandish movie called Beyond the Valley of the Dolls grow on me. The film was made back in the 1970s back in the golden era of hippies, rock'n roll, sexual revolution, experimentation, and exploitation. Directed by the great Russ Meyer, commonly known for his fem-sploitation flicks has crafted a psychedelic mess of a soap opera combining the genres of Rock musical, comedy, blaxploitation, art house, and horror. What really stuck out at me is that the screenplay of this movie was written by one of my favorite movie critics Roger Ebert which makes the movie even more investing. The plot basically revolves around the characters Kelly, Casey, Petronella, and the manager Harris who are apart of "rock group" The Kelly Affair accompanied by numerous subplots and other campy characters they get involved with upon their arrival to Los Angeles to find fame and fortune. John Lazar's performance of Ronnie "Z-man" Barzell's character is a major part of the reason why this movie sells to me as true 70s camp entertainment. This character is an eccentric record producer who instantly attracts and persuades the main protagonist Kelly MacNamara to sign a deal with him to be their new manager leaving Harris out which spawns a major conflict in the movie. The course of this movie plays out as a story with interwoven plots and stereotypically different characters. The film's dramatic and violent final act is what makes this a memorable and distortingly surreal experience.

  Overall this movie is purely enjoyable schlock that is by no means supposed to be taken seriously, people will miss the point. All you should do while watching this is to suspend your disbelief and embrace the cheese. At the same time this movie is in its own way quite heartfelt and concludes with a nice philosophical message which is partly what makes this film so memorable. The color palate used in this movie is bright and gorgeous, I personally dig vintage technicolor. This movie is meant to be seen more than once for it's highly rich in its story. I give this movie Grade: A.

Blackfish Documentary review

     
     Blackfish is a very sad, disturbing, and at the same time effective documentary. The documentary focuses on the lives of killer whales who are held in captivity away from their natural environment to perform in front of crowds their whole lives. The documentary featured several interviews from trainers and employees from Sea World that have decided to come forth by telling their side of the story. One killer whale, Tilikum was the films main focus due to the reason of his history of aggression towards his trainers. There were several incidents in the past not only involving Tilikum but several killer whales at Sea World and throughout the globe lashing out at their trainers even brutally killing them due to high stress being accumulated while in captivity. This documentary showed the abuse that was being afflicted on these intelligent and naturally harmless creatures. Many of these large animals are locked in dark cages barely large enough to accomodate their size often leaving scars and abrasions. These animals are caught in the wild when they are young and barely premature to look after themselves, their mothers are separated from them and killed in some cases. This list of abuse goes on and on...

   Overall I was quite impressed with the way this documentary was presented and really affected my emotions leaving me feel really sorry for what these intelligent creatures have to go through. It really does make me wonder how these animals are being held captive being exposed to high levels of stress leaving their trainers at risk of these animals lashing out. It leaves me to question if what they are doing at Sea World, exploiting these animals for entertainment purposes is really humane or not. In either case  I will never go again or look at it the same way, I find the whole act barbaric in a way. I highly recommend anyone who is a film maker or animal lover to watch this movie. The only question that remains is how this will affect the audience attendance at Sea World in the future. Grade: A-.