Behind the Scenes- Meet Me in St. Louis

The film that I chose for the Behind the Scenes journal entry was Meet Me in St. Louis starring Judy Garland and directed by her then soon to be husband Vincent Minnelli. This is a musical based off the short stories written Sally Benson. Sally’s original stories were from the perspective of the little girl in the film Tutty (O’Brien), however for the movie version they delivered the story mainly through Tutty’s older sister Ester (Garland). This film is about a family living in St. Louis preparing themselves for the large fair, i.e., the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World Fair of 1904. But their family is dealt a nasty card when their father, played by Leon Ames, decides to take a job in New York immediately and that the whole family will eventually join him there. The children are devastated because they realize that they have so much in St. Louis and really don’t want to miss the World’s Fair.
One of the most important back stage aspects of this film was the music. It was mainly an original score was composed by Roger Edens and the music was brought together by Hugh Martins and Ralph Blane. There are actually only 3 original songs in the entire score, the rest of the music that is either sung or added in as background music are remixes of popular tunes from the early 1900’s, which is the time period in which the movie takes places, examples include the remakes of such popular songs as Under The Bamboo Tree and Skip to My Lou. Also the song that the title was based off of, Meet Me in St. Louis was actually the song that was played during the original fair in 1904. Some of the team working on the music during the preliminary work didn’t want to include the song because they thought it was too outdated, but Minnelli vetoed the decision saying that it made the movie more realistic and true to the time period.
The original soundtrack to the movie was supposed to include a Roger and Hammerstein’s song titled, Boys and Girls like you and I, Martins and Blane didn’t particularly like the song because they felt as though it would over power the rest of the songs and in preview showing of the film some said that the film was too long, so the deleted the scene with that song it in. You can see that deleted song however in the Bonus Features DVD.
There is one other very memorable song for this movie and that is the Trolley song, the very song that Vincent Minnelli himself insisted on being included in the movie. Minnelli wanted a song about a trolley, not just a song sung on a trolley. It is from this that The Trolley Song came to be. It took Judy Garland only one take to shoot this song, it was only after the cameras stopped rolling that Martins realized that she had messed up the words but everyone eventually decided to let in go because it was magically the way it was.
Magically is a very appropriate word to describe my feelings about the movie, I thought the music in this film was very tastefully done and enjoyed every song.

West Side Story Review

The movie that I chose to review for this assignment was West Side Story. This is a tragic story of two star crossed lovers from totally different backgrounds and because of this have to keep their love a secret from the world, sound familiar? This play/movie is based, in great length off the Shakespearian play Romeo and Juliet. This movie was more appealing to me personally then the Romeo and Juliet films I have seen in the past because it was set in a more common era (1950’s) and has modern day dialect, which makes it far easier to understand.
What made this movie enjoyable for me was the many dance sequences throughout the film, beginning with the opening scene of the Jets and the Sharks dance, hop, and skip to instill fear in the hearts of the rival gang. The battle scenes in this movie are more interpretative and less violent then I had originally anticipated them being, take one of the first scenes for example, they are on the playground and they begin to fight, however, I don’t notice actual contact being made in the scene, it was all just beautifully choreographed to look like an actual fight scene. The whole movie is basically one dance flowing into another song and dance with minimal talking in between; I guess that’s why they call it a musical.
The characters chosen to play the main characters of Maria (Wood) and Tony (Beymer) were perfect for their roles; Maria (Wood) with her thick Puerto Rican accent and her attitude towards life in general was just magnificent. I especially loved the way that she showed such emotion and such attachment to the role in the last scene of the film. Tony (Beymer) was what I would call your typical American boy who has such drive and ambition to change his life for the better and love whomever he pleases without being ridiculed for doing so.
The directors Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise used a lot of low key lighting for this film which may have been a tool to foreshadow the tragic end, but also I think it added to the seriousness of the situations that were taking place during the film as well, the 1950’s were a time of great racial disputes in America and the idea that a Puerto Rican and an American could fall in love and be happy was unheard of at this time. The low key lighting throughout the entire movie adds to intensity of the racial issues that these characters face.
In my opinion, West Side Story is the best remake of the tragedy that was Shakespeare’s Romeo and Julie, I did love the acting and the plot itself as well, however I thought at times that the dance sequences and songs were a little overdone and frequent. I may be that I’m not one for musicals, but I haven’t seen enough to know for sure. I do know that I did for the most part enjoy this movie and would highly recommend it to anyone that loves the original story of Romeo and Juliet, or someone who takes pleasure in watching musicals or musical theater.

Almost Famous- Critique the Critic

I chose to critique a film that I have been thinking about seeing, but have not yet seen. This movie, Almost Famous is about a fifteen year old reporter who was given the opportunity to follow a rock band on their US tour. This film is in part an autobiography because the director, Cameron Crowe was a teenage reporter for the Rolling Stone magazine.
The critic that I chose to critique is A.O. Scott of the New York Times. After reading his critique of this movie, I’m not sure that I want to see the film as much as I had originally thought I would when I first began this assignment. Scott obviously loved the movie, and thought that the director was fabulous. “He may be the least cynical director working in Hollywood today, (Scott)” and then later, “As a screenwriter, Mr. Crowe is an unmatched comic portraitist who rarely stoops to a caricature. (Scott)” It has been my experience in the past that there usually is at least one thing that one won’t like in any particular movie, whether it be the way a certain character was portrayed or what have you, however in Scott’s critique of this movie I couldn’t seem to find any flaws, at least in his opinion, about this movie.
Scott does, quite nicely probe into the dark psychological underbelly of this movie. He states “But while he acknowledges that human beings can be cruel, self-destructive and dishonest, Mr. Crowe declines to probe too deeply into the darkness and irrationality of the human heart. (Scott)” This movie is based in the 60/70’s time era and it deals with a lot of drug use and drug abuse issues. Scott however believes that the drug and alcohol use within the move was somewhat necessary for the viewer in order for them to capture the full essence of the time period and the rock and roll lifestyle.
Scott’s descriptions of the characters in the movie, if accurate, seem pretty entertaining. They sound as though they would play off each others strengths and weaknesses and create a short of chemistry on screen that could make even the worst storyline bearable. “Although she is decidedly eccentric and a bit hysterical about the evils of pop music ("They're obviously on drugs," she fumes, pointing to the clean-cut portrait on the cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bookends"), Ms. McDormand's Elaine Miller is far from the standard uptight movie mom. The bonds between her and William are strong and complicated. (Scott)” Casting in a movie is not that important of a factor for me when choosing a movie to watch, but what is important to me is that the actors can portray their characters in a believable fashion, and that the actors that they chose to play certain roles, fit the role that they are portraying. For some reason, I cannot see Kate Hudson in this movie, maybe because I have seen her in such movies as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, but Scott seems to like her portrayal of a young groupie who will do everything but have sex with the band mates.
All in all I thought that Scott’s descriptions of the movie sounded interesting but I think he could have been more helpful if would have been a little bit more negative on certain aspects of the film.

Video Upload

This clip is from the movie elf. It is when elf is in the department store and they are getting ready for "santa" to arrive the next day. Of course Elf believes that it is the real santa and therefore gets really excited. One of the major film elements that i can see in this particular clip is the costume that elf is wearing is very appropriate for the context around which this movie is based. It would not be very believable if elf never was dressed like we usually picture an elf to dress. The other main element that i noticed in this clip was the duration of the shots when elf and his manager are arguing about the arrival of santa. The short shot and the cut from one character to the other throughout the argument leaves the audience feeling a bit anxious. It adds drama to the disagreement.

Breakfast at Tiffany's- First Blog Assignment

One of my favorite movies is Breakfast at Tiffany's . This movie is about a girl named Holly Golightly, a free-spirited twenty something who moved to New York in order to engage herself in high class living, hopefully finding herself a wealthy husband. She earns her living by unknowingly delivering secret codes to a former mob boss in Sing- Sing. In the movie, Holly meets Paul, a writer that has recently moved into her apartment complex and has a serious case of writers block. They are friends at first, but as the movie progresses and the audience as well as the characters begin to learn more and more about Holly's past life, marriage etc, the closer and closer Holly and Paul become.

I like this movie because of its easy to follow plot line and eccentric characters. The plot is realitively easy to follow which makes it more enjoyable, at least for me to watch. I think that Audreys portrayal of Holly in this movie was excellent. I love the fact that Holly is so easy going and fun loving but also has goals for herself, however far fetched they may be. I was introduced to older movies by my grandma, and i think thats there is something about Holly's character that reminds me of my her and some of her extravagant behavior.

The critics on Rotten Tomato seemed to like the film as well. The movie recieved an average rating of 7.4 out of 10. They say that this story is a perfect mixture of comedy and romance. Chic and well made, some also say however that the story line is totally unbelieveable and a little risky for its time. Most of the critics said that they enjoyed it because it was a silly little film that was made to entertain the masses, and it did just that. picture taken from http://www.audrey1.com/fashion/articles20.jpeg