The Graduate

I just finished watching The Graduate and what a great movie this was. At the beginning of the movie, I didn’t think it would be anything like what I watched. I thought that the movie was going to be about a guy that just gets done with college, and goes straight to the workforce and has a family. This movie brought a lot of comedy to the classroom. I really didn’t understand the whole point of the movie, but I think the point might be that a college student just wants to relax once college is over and have a good time.

At the beginning of the movie it starts out with a normal college student coming home from school, and it seems as if Benjamin doesn’t want to do anything at his party, besides relax. Mrs. Robinson goes and finds Ben up in his room, and from the point on I could tell that she had the “hots” for Ben. She proceeds to ask Benjamin if he could possibly drive her home and Ben agrees too. Once they get to Mrs. Robinsons, she asks Ben if he could go inside and wait with her till Mr. Robinson got home. Ben and Mrs. Robinson sit down and have a drink and Mrs. Robinson tries to start small talk. The small talk worked, and then Mrs. Robinson goes upstairs and asked Ben to follow. When they are upstairs, Mrs. Robinson asks Ben to help take her clothes off.  At this time, Ben is practically freaking out and tries to leave, but Mrs. Robinson wouldn’t let him. He finally had enough and decided to go down stairs and wait for Mr. Robinson to get home.

            As the movie goes on, Benjamin act’s freely and is starting to have a good time. Mr. Robinson told Ben, “just live your life,” and that’s exactly what Benjamin did. I could start to tell that Benjamin was getting confidence and that showed. Benjamin goes to the Tart hotel, where he decides to call Mrs. Robinson and ask her to join him at the hotel. Mrs. Robinson accepts his invite and goes to the hotel. In the meantime, Benjamin starts acting very strangely around the worker at the front desk and I found it somewhat amusing. Benjamin rents out a room at the hotel for him and Mrs. Robinson. It was Benjamin’s first time in this situation so he was very nervous and it was funny. I bet most of you readers could guess what happens next.

            As the movie goes on, it basically consists of Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson meeting up at the hotel nightly and have a “good time” between themselves and wouldn’t let others know. As everything is starting to go good, Mrs. Robinsons daughter Elaine comes home. Mrs. Robinson told Benjamin to specifically not to hang out with Elaine. Benjamin’s parents insisted that he hang with her so they do. Mrs. Robinson was very mad about this, but as the date started Benjamin was very short with Elaine and you could tell he didn’t want to be there. He brings her to a strip club and she runs out crying. Benjamin follows her out and apologizes to her. They go to the movies and Benjamin starts to like her. Ben decides to ditch out on Mrs. Robinson and pursue a relationship with Elaine. Mrs. Robinson was very mad about this and tells Benjamin she will tell Elaine everything, but Benjamin called a bluff on it. Ben personally told Elaine about the affair with her mom and she tells Benjamin to never talk to her again. Elaine goes back to college and leaves Ben heartbroken. Ben wouldn’t let the love of his life leave him, so he goes to Elaine’s college and creeps on her daily. He finally builds up the confidence to talk to her, but she was in a relationship with another boy. Ben and Elaine talk about life up in Ben’s room, and at this moment Ben hears that Mrs. Robinson told Elaine that she was “raped” by Ben which is a huge lie. Elaine and her boyfriend run off to get marry, but Benjamin wouldn’t give up. He searches all over for the wedding and finally finds it. He was able to stop the marriage and run onto a bus with Elaine by his side.

            Overall I would give this movie a 4-5 stars because I thought that it was very comical and it kept me interested. Anyone that’s looking for a good movie to laugh at, I would highly recommend that you watch this movie.

Gone With The Wind

Many people have watched Gone With the Wind, and many people have liked it and it’s become to be known as on of the greatest movies of all times. For the time period that it was made in, I give it great quality. Back then it was hard to make those quick action shots an have the camera move a lot in each scene. I think part of the reason I didn’t like the movie that much, was just because of how slow paced it seemed to me.

If your into the types of movies that are fast paced and hold your attention, then I don’t think you would have liked this movie. Though I personally didn’t like this movie, I think it showed that women were becoming more in control than what people thought they were. I thought it was interesting how Scarlet was able to manipulate people into doing whatever she wanted to do. For example, she needed money, so she went out and tried getting her money from Rhett, which didn’t work at first.

A scene that I really liked and it meant a lot to me, was the scene at the very beginning when they showed the slaves in the fields doing work. It was the way life was back then for them, and it just made me think about how amazing it has been to see where and how far black people have came from. It was a very touching scene.

Psycho

                The movie Psycho was an unbelievable movie from start to finish. First it starts out with a color symbol you can’t miss. Marion Crane starts out wearing white undies which is the color of heroism or the color which means good. Marion attends work where $40,000 is brought upon her. I could sense right then that she was going to run off to her lover Sam Loomis. Marion then proceeds to say that she will take the money straight to the bank, but I knew what she was really thinking. She takes the money to her house and starts to pack her suitcase to flee town. As she is packing, she is once again in her underwear, but this time she was wearing black underwear which is the color of evil or the color which means bad. Marion is now driving through the city about to leave, but as she stops at a stop light, her boss passes right in front of her and her conscious starts to kick in.

                Once Marion is on the road to see Sam, she realizes there is no going back, and her mind was talking to her about it the whole time. She couldn’t concentrate so she decided to pull over and sleep on the side of the road for the night. In the morning, a police officer noticed her and proceeded to wake her up by tapping on the window. At this point in the movie, I thought that the officer would notice something suspicious about her and take her to jail for a day. Marion woke up and the officer sort of questioned her about different things. Marion seemed very nervous that the officer would see the money or notice her, so she was in a hurry to leave. The officer eventually let her leave but then decided to follow her. Marion knew that she needed to get a new car with new license plates so she couldn’t be tracked. I didn’t quite understand why the cop just sat across the street watching Marion look for a new car, but obviously it bothered her and the car dealer knew it. One thing I noticed during the car dealer part was right away as Marion was walking up to the dealer, the dealer says to her, “the first of the day is always trouble.” I just thought this was another symbol. Marion rushes frantically to buy a new car, and she eventually takes off in a new car leaving the police officer and car dealer questioning her moves.

                Once Marion arrived at the motel and met Norman Bates, I knew that he was a creep just from the way he talked. One symbol that stuck out quite a bit was how Norman kept talking about birds.  I felt like from there I could predict most of the movie and I ended up predicting it right. I just had a gut feeling that Norman would kill Marion and the detective. The rest of the movie just kind of went slow for me, but overall it was a great movie and that’s why I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5 stars.

Ben-Hur

My emotions were challenged through out this movie. At the beginning of the movie Ben-Hur, I was not very interested, but as the movie progressed on I became more and more interested. I didn’t really understand the beginning of it and it never caught my attention. Most of my life I’ve been very judging and if i didn’t like something, I would just give up on it right away. Lately I’ve been experiencing different kinds of movies that I usually wouldn’t watch, and it’s opened my eyes to not judge a movie right away from it’s beginning.

Ben-Hur starts off with a pretty long overture and I truly dislike those! They bore me to sleep. I honestly like when the movie starts with action or the beginning of the story. The main reason I had such a hard time understanding the story, is because I didn’t figure out the characters names or who they were related to, and half of that is my fault but I also feel like the sound quality wasn’t as great as we have it now. I understand that the movie was in the olden times and that is why I thought it was such a great movie made for the type of equipment they had back then.

I didn’t start getting too interested in the movie until the horse races. Once the horse were about to start, I actually started to understand the movie for some reason. One symbol I would like to point out is the colors black and white. The romans raced black horses and Juda raced white horses. Basically the whole race was between Juda and his old best friend Mercelles. I didn’t quite understand why the Romans were able to have spikes on their chariot, but I think it has something to do with them always needing to win and always needing the power over everyone else. Juda was able to be smart and just race his own race and he ended up winning. I thought it was amazing how the producers made the movie look so real for how old it is and for the type of equipment they had back then. For example, when someone was being ran over by a horse, it looked as real as could be.

After the chariot races, the movie just kind of dragged on for me. I was still more interested in it than in the beginning. I finally understood the Leppers disease and how his mother and sister had it. The only thing I really remember after the chariot races is basically Jesus being crucified and then his mother and sister being healed from their disease.

    Overall, I would give this movie 3.5 stars out of 5. I would highly recommend watching this movie.