O Brother Where Art Thou

O Brother Where Art Thou is about Suave and fancy-talking Everett Ulysses McGill (George Clooney), dim-witted Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson), and easily-excitable Pete (John Turturro) who are serving time together in prison. The three manage to escape, but however along the road they meet a stranger that soon warns them that they'll find treasure, but not the sort they're looking for. O Brother Where Art thou has much similarities or comparison to the Odyssey, as these three begin their joruney, as a viewer i could see those similarities.

This has to be one of the top films that George Clooney has starred in. The plot is incredibly funny, if not slightly mad! The characters are entertaining and very well written, making you laugh at them, but also feel sorry for their struggles. Their hit song is very catchy, and the scene with the Ku Klux Klan adds tension and seriousness to the film, also in this scene there was alot of symmetry, angular shapes, and hot colors. John Goodman plays a small, but powerful part too. I liked the film the first time I saw it, but just by looking at the title before watching the film i was already automatically attracted to it. I would recommend this to anyone who likes being made to laugh, but also wants a good story line and quality acting. My favorite scene would be the beginning of the film when Everett, Pete, and Delmar try to get on the train after escaping from prison.

To me, this movie ranks right up there with the greater movies of the past decade such as Saving Private Ryan and Forest Gump. The scenery is amazing and truly gives you a taste of what a slice of life is really like in rural Mississippi. Being based on Homer's The Odyssey, it gives a modern, albeit antiquated by today's standards,and twist to a timeless tale. Everett, Pete and Delmar's journey through the tobacco bottoms and deep woods in the midst of the Great Depression is utterly amazing. Along the way they meet up with Sirens, an one-eyed Bible salesman, and Everett eventually gets home to his wife.

This movie gets 5 stars from me, especially with the music, because the music even adds more of a Southern touch to an already great movie. Also a history lesson that's not exactly on the straight and narrow is to be learned. Whether it's meeting Baby Face Nelson, seeing an up close Klan meeting, or enjoying good ol' Deep South politics, anyone who watches this movie will get something deep and meaningful out of it, this movie is easily a top 100 movie of all time, and to me a top 50.

The Road Home

Love is unshakable, and it can also make you do anything,and this film " The Road Home" portrays this. The story opens in the present, shot in gritty black and white, as businessman Luo returns to his rural hometown to attend the funeral of his father. When he suggests that the coffin should be brought home from the hospital on a tractor, his aging mother rebuffs him, insisting that they conform to custom and have it carried home by local men. Later, as Luo recalls his parent's courtship, the film switches to color and travels back in time about 40 years.

The transition from the gritty black and white to color was a perfect representation for emotions especially for love. There were also several shot or scenes in this film that i thought was brilliant and well executed. Like the scene where Zhao Di starts sewing the banner for the school and lighting behind her came through in the shot, and extenuated the character's skin tone and the color of the banner (red). Another would be when Zhao ran into the house after seeing the love of her life, she came home to change her coat. The scene was gray wash and the colors that stood out in that scene was the red yarn in the mother's hand, and the bright green yarn in Zhao's hair.

But my favorite scene and probably the longest shot in this film would be when Zhao places her plate of food on the table, then something unusual starts to happen, the foreground stands still and Zhao's plate stands out from the rest, as this was happening the background was still moving, the background emphasize the pass of time, and i don't think i have seen any shot or scene like that before. Scenes or shots in this film had symmetry, linear thought, composition, and rule of thirds, there were several shots in film that actually proves this. There was this one shot were there was a tree trunk at the center of the shot, the other was in black & white when Zhao was at the school yard crying, and there was like a repetition/linear thought of logs or sticks in rows behind her.

I thought making this film two colored was great, well executed, and cleverly thought out, because it made the viewers understand the two side or views of emotions. The grim and gritty black & white made the viewers understood it stood for sadness, and of course color for happy emotion that mostly emphasized on love. My favorite had to be color, because the color in this film popped out, it was gorgeous, and brilliantly used.The scene that i loved the black & white picture would be when the men carried the casket along the road, it represented sadness, loneliness, and thing you would normally feel at a funeral, i liked this scene especially when it was shot from a high angle.

I absolutely loved the end of the movie when Zhao runs on the road, and the camera direction just goes into an high angle shot. Then i understood what the road and the title of the film meant, the road represent the thing that stood in between or separated the love of Zhoa's life, but it also the road that makes Zhoa happy when she sees the love of her life coming down that road. I would totally give "The Road Home" a 10.

Laughing Club of India

Laughing Club of India is a funny, serious, yet entertaining documentary that takes place in India. This documentary is about a laughing club in India, where people come to laugh their sorrows away instead of crying, they share their problems and emotions. Some of them said the laughing club helped them in several ways like, a cure from a disease, makes them happy, makes them feel better about themselves, and laughter makes them think of the positives and not the negatives.

The people in this documentary had different situations or problems, but the same things they had in common, and in the sense of solution was the laughing club. Some of the situations was a woman who her husband died in the war, now she lives with 25 members of her extended family in one house. Another situation would be about a young man who has brain damage from an industrial accident, so the founder of the laughing club, a medical doctor, Madran Kataria tries to help this young man to get back to his old self again.

The shots this documentary varied, there were mostly wide shots, because frequently in every scene there was always a wide range of people, group, crowd, or population. When it came to some of the the characters' personal stories there were some medium shots, and close-ups. The scenes that i thought had the most beautiful shots, would be the scenes, where this particular lady does her laughing routine on her roof, because there were high angle shots that showed the sky,and from the shots as a viewer it showed you the city of Bombay.

I think i heard music about twice in this film, there is a lady from the laughing club that usually sings in her native language. The other time i heard music would be, when the documentary had a transition of a scene showing the city of Bombay, the people, streets, and billboards, when this was happening a fast paced music was playing in the background. I don't think lighting was used a lot in this documentary, because each scene was usually in the daytime, except if there were close-ups or medium shots then you would see the use of lighting. Costumes in this documentary wasn't really a problem for me, because i love Indian clothes, so i didn't have a problem seeing those colorful, gorgeous pieces of clothing over and over again.

The Laughing Club of India, is co directed by Adam Bartos, it's a happily lightweight saga about an unusual movement sweeping Bombay. It's mainly about informal laughing clubs, where adults gather together in the streets, or children at primary school, to act purposefully infantile: sticking out tongues, making faces like monkeys, and then laughing and laughing.