#5 Psycho (1960) - Movie Review

I've been watching a lot of movies lately but I haven't updated my blog on writing a review. Well, my biggest problem is procrastination, I intended to write this long time ago but somehow it just got posted now.

In my 23 years of life, I haven't watched a single Hitchcock movie, what a shame. I started to look for his movies after I saw Hitchcock (2012) portrayed by Anthony Hopkins as the famous thriller director who became famous after the movie Psycho was released. It was based mostly why and how he made the movie Psycho.

Now the movie Psycho itself was released on 1960 with the main cast Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins as the famous handsome Norman Bates. Surprisingly I find this movie very convinced of the kind of thriller Hitchcock has done. Firstly there's this guilty girl on the run that ends to a very bad luck fate, second there's this handsome character that you won't believe he's a nutjob, then the suspicious people creating suspicious plot, and other stuff that most thriller movies now days are missing. For a movie that was created in the 60s, with less visual effects from now (and it's in black and white), still have this potential to make you jump from your seat and scream "no no no, do not go in there" "what is she doing?" "get back". I guess the stronger parts are the sounds and music scoring. I find this funny because the music score or the famous "ching ching ching" thriller sound made my heartbeat goes faster. Without that kind of scoring, the movie will be just ordinary. 

So what is this movie about? Well without any complicated twist, this is just simply a secretary trying to escape from the crime she committed by stealing money to somewhere far. In the middle of the way she stops in a motel run by a man, dominated by his mother, to take a rest and that's when it happens, the famous shower scene everyone.

Below contains spoilers, so if you haven't watched it yet, I suggest not to read further.

Let's talk about MURDERERS 

This classic thriller/horror movie is somehow very different from today's characteristic murderers. We can recall that today's image of a murderer is somewhat gore to hideous, meat hunger and love to have some blood splatter all over, leaving traces for the police to find. But in Psycho everything is clean, from the appearances and how nice a murderer can be, Norman Bates is the devil in disguise. Nobody can notice physically that there's something wrong in him, he likes to clean the motel, he takes care of his mother - yeah his mother, having a perfect combed hair with shirt tucked in, this is like he's a very good guy. But whooa you can't trust on this good guy, once you open him up the devil comes out.

BOO!!

I think Anthony Perkins has done a great job portraying Norman Bates as this devil in disguise. He seems charismatic and happy but at the same time once you see the demon in him, you can never unseen the creepy smile he has. 

Look at that transition in the picture above, we can see slightly a form of Norman's mother skull inside him, as if his mother still lives inside of him. I like how Hitchcock also made the transition between scenes like this one. It's a scene where it shoots Marion's dead eye to a picture of water draining.

This is a very great movie, I am pleased now that I watched Hitchcock movies. I'll try to find more of his works because I'm starting to like it, just as I adore Stanley Kubrick's movies. That's it for today.

#4 The Hollow Crown (2012) : Richard II - TV Series Review

I was just watching The Hollow Crown yesterday because I saw lots of great casts in there, especially Tom Hiddleston and Ben Wishaw. 

The Hollow Crown (2012)  is a historical drama mini series from BBC that consist of 4 episodes; Richard II, Henry IV part 1, Henry IV part 2 and Henry V. The series is produced by Sam Mendes and is directed by notable British stage directors. 

The first part is Richard II directed by Rupert Goold. The main casts are Ben Wishaw, Rory Kinnear, David Morrisey and Patrick Stewart. No wonder the casts of The Hollow Crown series are previously born as stage actors which makes the quality of the monologue stronger spoken by them. 

For not being a native English speaker takes me a lot of time to understand Shakespeare language and thus I cannot fully understand the whole conversation, just picking up some clues to understand the plot. But apart from that, the I must say that I'm visually entertained by the shots and the symmetry angles from this episode. Sometimes I enjoy seeing the cinematography in which the director is giving the audience. The shots in Richard II makes some of the script stronger by dramatically visualizing it. The locations takes place in England and it got a few beautiful shots too. Here I present you some of the scenes that I love for being so well presented and contain a beautiful composition. Mostly are the symmetry angles shots (I don't know what are they called..) and the scenery. 

#3 Karla (2006) - Movie Review

I came across this movie from fangirling over Misha Collins, and I tell you what, there's a phase where you fangirl so much on a actor you just wanna see all movies he's ever done. Let's talk about fangirl phases later...

I thought this movie is gonna be like A Requim For A Dream, you know with intense scenes and disturbing images that makes you wanna squinch your eyes because you wanna see but you don't wanna see. But it's not, more simpler than that, it's just too flat.

Karla was based on a true story about a rape murderer named Paul Bernado and his wife  Karla Homolka that took place in Canada. This movie was banned - i guess, CMIIW - from the country at some time for the controversy. The actor Misha Collins once get a phone call from one of the victims who got away and feeling devastated to hear that, he told the fans not to watch the movie.

The movie starts by Karla -played by Laura Prepon- talking to her psychiatrist about the early life meeting with Paul. As she tells the her story, flashbacks are shown as the couple start their raping murder spree and how she felt about that.

I think the way the movie was written or directed has something to do with what makes this movie not worth watching, it's completely flat and doesn't have any intriguing scenes for a murderer movie. The shots are standard it feels like watching somekind of a sucky tv show or something. Thanks Joel Bender. It will be easily forgettable since it doesn't have a particular characteristic in this movie.

The main actors infact made a chemistry so well that deserve a good direction. Misha Collins is great on portraying a bi-polar rapist who gradually end up beating his wife. His image in this movie is purely evil, he has talent portraying an evil guy or a rebel angel on Supernatural :)
And as for Laura, the famous 'That's 70 Show' redhead girl tries on stepping out of the character being blonde and evil. I thought the character Karla should be evil but why do it ends up in sympathizing her. She's involved  in the murder of her sister and she kept quite for all her husband's raping spree. She deserves a repulsion feedback. But her expression on being a tortured wife seems natural to me tho'.

Yeah I wouldn't recommend this movie so much unless you're a Misha Collins fan or if you're just curious about the controversy of Paul and Karla case.

**

#I'll update later with pics and screenshots, rn my internet is off anf I'm writing via mobile. Check out later guys..#

#2 A Clockwork Orange (1971) - Movie Review

When I was studying psychology the last 4 years, I remembered one of my professors told me a story about conditioning the human behaviour. He gave us an example of the movie A Clockwork Orange. That time I wasn't interestes in watching it because the way he told the story was kinda exaggerating.

Yesterday my mind came across this and I decided to watch this movie. And guess how amazed I am watching this movie. It's kinda hypnotic though, after watching it lots if images from the movie was recorded to my brain. Let's see what I think about it.

The movie starts with this creepy staring from a guy slowly zoomed-out in a prolonged time. That opening scene really freaks me out, I thought I couldn't continue watching. So the narrator began to tell a story about himself, Alex, who then we know that he's an ultra-violent punk who goes out at night and beat up people, rapes girls and murder them.

Apparently he's also violent and shows a lot of authority to his gang member, in which his actions got himself a karma. His friends/gang member set him up on a crime scene where later he got busted by the police and end up in jail. Spending time in jail he accepted to take an experimental treatment from the government where they say they can 'cure' his violent behaviour.

This treatment involves conditioning process where Alex is placed on a chair with a straight jacket, then his eyes were forced open to watch a series of images in front of him. The images includes a violent act, a raping scene with 7 guys, and a visual of the Nazi army marching. At first Alex doesn't feel a thing but then later on he starts to feel nausea for those images. He's keen to the music of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and the experimetal people use it too for conditioning.

It was then until several sessions his violent behaviour was cured. He starts feeling nausea everytime he tries to do something 'bad'. But then, does it really works? Through the end of the movie we can see that something goes wrong to his treatment and he came back to his natural behaviour.

This is a very brilliant movie I must say, Stanley Kubrick has done mindblowing on the viewers. This movie will make you feel repulsed by Alex but on some point will show some empathy for him in being a victim of the government illegal experiment. Yes that treatment is considered illegal because it causes the dehumanization of a person. You can't change the natural behaviour of someone and apparently Alex goes back to his old behaviour.

The artistic of this movie is very well done. It was set at a near future at that time, but for us who are already in the future would think that it took place on a somehow quirky-retro-vintage future. The props made the film recognizable such as the stand out phallic object or the female statue/milk dispenser or Alex
room with Beethoven curtain and his pointy bedcover.

As well as the directions and settings, the main actor did a great job on portaying the punk violent Alex. I never been so intricated by this kind of character before. He's like playing on your emotions, duudeee-what-are-you-doing-to-me is my reaction. My first reaction actually on the beginning of the movie hahaha.
The character Alex also symbolizes the rebel in the society full of authority from the government.

I now understand why my professor was exagerrating explaining this movie, maybe because it's so great that he could't express it better. It's like if there was an extra language for describing it he would use it.

#I will update with screenshots and images because it's not enough expressing with just words. My internet connection is off rn and I'm writing via mobile. You guys can check it later :) #

#1 Hawking - Movie Review

Just watched a TV drama by BBC about the life of Stephen Hawking in his early 20's. I have never knew how difficult it was dealing with such illness in his youth and meanwhile having that much of problem, he could manage to stand up to what he believes.

It has been years since I studied physics - especially in astronomy, honestly, I don't remember a thing about the theories they've mentioned in the TV movie. But that's not the point anyway, so it was in the 1963 where science are developing in a very high rate with new theories and believes. What Stephen believes in is that there was a beginning of time that started with a bang - now we call it The Big Bang, which on theother hand there was the professor Fred Hoyle who clearly never accepted that the universe has a beginning. "Nothing changes. Wherever you are in the universe it looks the same, because it stays the same." said Hoyle which of course the idea was denied by Hawking.

Apart from the physics theory of the beginning of time, the life of Stephen Hawking itself in the movie is inspiring. Imagine how devastating it would be to have such an illness that stops the whole function of the body except for the brain, yet Hawking has the urge to finish what he has to say about what he believes. And as for Jane, a strong woman who support the believes of her lover accepted the way Stephen is. It's just wonderful and inspiring.

The main actor, Benedict Cumberbatch, has been my favorite one since I saw him in the TV series from BBC "Sherlock" which of course, he has made a great dramatization of Hawking. At first I thought that Benedict doesn't look like Hawking at all, but he did a great job on acting this character. I'm so in love with him :)

We are very very small, but we are profoundly capable of very very big things - Hawking