Samantha Bray- Random Post 1

War Horse

 

War Horse is a film about loyalty, love, and how what's meant to be will always find a way. Albert is a teenage boy who comes from a pretty poor family in England. He watches a colt be born and grow up with his mother. Albert's father eventually purchases the colt and says he can help them prepared and plant the land with produce to sell to be able to pay their rent. Albert names the horse Joey and strikes up a special connection with him. After much hard work and preparation, the vegetables are planted. A huge rain storm comes along and destroys the entire crop, leaving Albert's family with nothing to pay their rent. Without telling Albert, his father sells Joey to a man in the military to take him to war. Before Joey leaves, Albert puts s pennant on him that his father had earned from fighting in a previous war. Joey goes to war with the General, who eventually gets killed while Joey survives. Joey gets captured by German forces from a farm where a little girl was trying to hide and keep him. Eventually he and his horse friend run off and while the other one dies, Joey gets entangled in a barbed wire fence. In the midst of the fighting, an English soldier waves the white flag and goes to try and save the horse. A German soldier brings his wire cutters and comes to help. The two bond over saving the horse and end up flipping a coin to see who gets to keep him; the English man wins and takes him back to his camp. Albert, who is now old enough and has joined the military, hears about this miracle horse and insists that it must be Joey, so he starts using his owl calls that he trained him to come to, and Joey comes. At this point, Albert was temporarily blinded due to a gas attack. He tells the Sargent this is his horse and describes each marking on him, even though he is blind. The horse appeared to have none of the white socks or the white diamond on his head. Then, the soldiers realize he is just covered in mud, so they wash him off and find out he has the exact markings that Albert described. The war ends and only high ranked soldiers horses would be shipped back to England, so Albert's friends gather what they thought was enough money to buy Joey at auction. The little girl's grandfather insists that he buys Joey in his granddaughter's memory and pays way more money than anyone else had to offer. Albert talks to the grandfather, who shows him the pennant that was on the horse when he first found him. Albert tells him the story about it, and he realizes that the best place for Joey to be is with Albert. This is a great story about getting through hard times and overcoming the odds. Though no one else realized it, Albert and Joey were meant to be together. It was fate or God's plan if you will.

Samantha Bray- In Class Post 4

Oz the Great and Powerful

Oz the Great and Powerful wasn’t exactly what I was expecting it to be. I really expected it to relate more to the Wizard of Oz film, but it didn’t. Throughout the film we saw that the main characters all had an internal conflict going on in their lives that they needed to change. Oscar figured this out and ended up helping the people. He gave up his need for power to be helpful. The whole film showed the conflict between good and evil. We saw the witches constantly going back and forth causing problems between each other and with other people. I also thought it was interesting that Oscar gave up his life (and faked his own death) so that he would become the Wizard of Oz and protect and help all the people. Although Oscar didn’t really die, he still gave up his life as he knew it. This is like the love that Jesus had. Jesus gave up his life as a sacrifice for all of the people he loved.

Samantha Bray- In Class Post 3

Exploring Film Technique

Bunny

Bunny was a strange little clip. There was no dialogue, but after seeing how it played out, I realized that it wasn’t necessary. The woman was clearly upset about the fact that her husband was no longer alive. The moths were her guides or angels. At first she found them to be very annoying, but as the clip went on, she decided to follow them, and they ended up leading her peacefully into her death and there she was reunited with her husband. Mostly, I was just trying to figure out who would come up with something like this?

Paris, Texas

The main things that stuck out to me in the clips from Paris, Texas were techniques used when the man and woman were talking through the telephone and glass. It was great how they used the shadow type effect through the glass so you could tell who could see who and what was going on. Other strange things happened in this film, like the father and son eating in the back of the truck. Why did the creator decide to park it on the side of the road under the overpasses? In the beginning clips though, the guy seems crazy. He’s running around out in the desert and no one can get him to stop. The more he walks though, the more you can see that he’s getting closer to civilization. 

Northfork

In Northfork, the church was being moved so one of the walls was missing. Looking at the congregation, it just seemed like a regular church building, but when you looked up at the Preacher, all you saw was him standing there with a completely open background. The mountains in the background seemed to represent the transcendent beyond. Later we see a father and son going to check out a house. The house was split in half, where one side was living and one side was dead. We see it’s snowing in the middle of the two parts. The father jumps to the other side, gets knocked out, and sees angels. 

Harold and Maude

This woman kept trying to set up her son with different girls. Every time he would do something really strange to scared them away. The mom and one of the girls were sitting in the house and the girl looks outside and sees Harold and he appears to have lit himself on fire. The girl starts freaking out and screaming and runs out. Harold then comes back into the house acting like nothing happened.  You see him smirk and seem very proud of what he has done. It was cool how the film creators were able to make the illusion that Harold had set himself on fire when he really didn’t. 

Cabeza de Vaca

The one guy gets shot with a bunch of arrows and he’s holding a cross in front of him. He walks towards the light, as if it is heaven. A tribal guy does a ritual to keep the prisoner there so he basically runs in a circle and ends up right back where he started. He feels like he’s stuck in an evil place with demons. Eventually he is reborn and gets along with the people who had originally kept him captive. They realize he has a special healing power so they set him free. 

The Wall

I honestly had no idea what this clip was about. Maybe because it was animated and was all over the place, but I just could not follow it.

Samantha Bray - In Class Post 2

Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko was a pretty interesting movie. Not going to lie, that bunny was terrifying! At first I found myself really questioning what this had to do with religion, but then the more I thought about it, I think I started to figure it out. As twisted as Donnie was, I saw him as the Christ-like figure of the film. The jet engine fell into his room, and it caused so many problems throughout all the people in the community. Donnie was able to live through about the next month and see what was happening. He then realized all the trouble he had caused, and decided to sacrifice is own life in order to save all the people he loved in the community. This is just like how Jesus died on the cross for all of his people.

Samantha Bray- In Class Post 1

Wings of Desire

Wings of Desire was a strange movie to me. It was confusing trying to figure out what was really going on. The fact that they used the distinction of color or black and white to determine when it was the angels' view or when it was the people's view was very helpful. I think this story gave me the idea that I should be more carefree and imaginative. The children in the movie were the only ones that could see the angels. Adults are so seriously all the time, and have lost their imagination, so they are no longer able to see the angels. In the end of the film when the one angel finally becomes human, he meets up with another guy who used to be an angel. The guy is clearly a busy-body and almost didn't even have time to stop and talk. I think in this moment they both kind of realize that bring human instead of an angel wasn't all it was cracked up to be. This reminds me of children. When kids are young they always say they want to grow up and be an adult, but what they don't realize is how much work being an adult actually entails. As college students, we are all in this transitional stage of our lives. This is really where we are all realizing how close we are to the "real world" and how scary it is. I've gotten over the wanting to grow up stage and am now at the point where I just want to go back to being a kid!