Mid-term writing test - #3

Since decades now, many visionary filmmakers have tried to upgrade the scale and realism of special effects in fantasy or science-fiction movies. James Cameron (The Terminator, Avatar), Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner) or George Lucas (Star Wars) are among this class of visually ambitious film directors, but one of the better examples of recent years is with no doubt Peter Jackson. His rendition of the J.R.R. Tolkien "Lord of the Rings saga" and the reinvention of the "King Kong" story are both narratively and technically amazing achievements. As these movies showed, Peter Jackson is one of the modern masters of fantasy and special effects.

First of all, "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy is now undeniably a landmark in the history of special effects. Its complex technology helped to develop later films, such as "Avatar", in terms of perfprmance capture realism. Cameron didn't reinvent the wheel; he simply embelished it. Jackson started to work on this trilogy fifteen years ago, in 1995, when visual effects where still far less advanced than the ones we see today. The first part of the trilogy exceeded any possible expectations concerning its visual power and audacity, and made a major step forward in this domain of film. The effects employed are still highly consistent today, and are going to be for a long time. Tolkien's literary universe is a vast one, and Jackson and his crew achieved the impossible by transposing that complexity on the screen. That accomplishment is due to the great storytelling aspects of the film, but also because of its groundbreaking visual and sound techniques. They were seeking for more than standard summer fare. And they suceeded royally.

After the revolution of the "Lord of the Rings" saga, Jackson came up with an even bigger and riskier project: a remake of "King Kong". The 1933 version is by itself a highlight in the history of special effects, and is one of the first films that was using them in the majority of its frames. One could almost say the same about Jackson's highly upgraded version, which used computer-generated imagery and performance-capture technology more convincingly than any other film of its time. King Kong was played by Andrew Serkis (who also played Gollum in "LOTR"), who made the ape's movements as authentic and realistic as they could have been. This requires a strong physical presence from the actor and visually persuasive computer techniques. With the three "LOTR" films and his updated take on "King Kong", Peter Jackson easily deserves the title of one of the most visually inventive filmmakers of all time, a cinematic magician who astonishes the audience with great flair and facility.

"The Hurt Locker" - Building character through action (my review of the film)

"The Hurt Locker" from 58-year-old veteran action director Kathryn Bigelow ("Strange Days", "Point Blank") is a stunning and heart-pounding new film about american soldiers at war. Altough it has a specific setting, which is Iraq in 2004, it is not about a particular war or moment in time; it is about the men who fight that war, no more, no less.

Since its wide opening this summer, "The Hurt Locker" was highly praised by most movie critics around the world. According to calculations made by the film-buff website "They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?", it is currently ranked as the thirteenth best-reviewed film of the new century. However, it did not find an audience in a blockbuster-crowded summer, with megaproductions from "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" to "G.I. Joe", the new "Harry Potter" entry and "The Hangover". One may hope it will find the audience it deserves on DVD and Blu-Ray, because it is without a doubt the most exciting film that came out this summer, a masterful exercise in revealing character through action.

Jeremy Renner stars as Sgt. William James, a cocky and arrogant bomb disarmer with little respect for the authority of Sgt. Sanborn (Played by a surprisingly strong Anthony Mackie). The first half-hour mostly consists of scenes of him at work, constructed with meticulous precision of the different critical situations and the methods he employs to solve them. We gradually get to know this character with these scenes, not with informative dialogue but in the depiction of his behavior in the fire of action. At work, James is passionate, in the zone. His job consumes him. His superior severely criticizes his peculiar and often deliberately dangerous procedures, but after all, who is he to question a true professional's way of doing his job? This level of tension between the two characters is maintained throughout the film, and only adds up to the strong psychological foreground of a seemingly two-dimensional story.

The suspense in most of the film's key scenes therefore gains in intensity. These are flesh-and-blood characters we quickly come to identify with and care about. Bigelow films them in a way that we, the audience, can know, at any given time, where one is, how he is related to the other ones in and out of the frame, and what is at stake. Time and space elements have to be established with exactness and clarity in order to make an action/suspense situation work as realistically as possible, and that is what Bigelow is doing here. The audience does not have to figure out what is going on; everything is crystal clear. Shots can last a certain time here without cutting right away to the next and thus get room to breathe. Nothing is overemphasised with music or distracting camera tricks. Barry Ackroy's photography is lean and efficient. Everything suddenly becomes all too real, and you quickly realize as a spectator that you are in the hands of a true maestro of genre filmmaking, a focused and intuitive director who knows how to make an audience's blood curdle while so many Hollywood filmmakers have forgotten how to.

"The Hurt Locker" was written by Mark Boal, who was himself a war correspondant in Iraq a couple of years ago. He is also the man responsible for the screenplay of the 2007 Paul Haggis film "In the Valley of Elah", a perhaps more ambitious but far less convincing film about a grieving father searching for his military son gone missing just after his return from duty. If Bigelow's craftsmanship remains undoubted, some are still skeptical about the script's purpose or relevance, or the film's histerically enthusiastic critical response it received. I have to admit myself that I am still surprised (though positively) about its massive critical acclaim and major oscar consideration because it remains, in my humble opinion, nothing more than a skillfully made and uncommonly breathtaking action film. It is as much - and unapologetically so - a genre piece such as Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 white-knuckle thrillride "The Wages of Fear" (a film I find very similar to "The Hurt Locker"), or a profane potboiler with class like "The Departed" (which also unexpectedly ended up winning four academy awards). I bet Kathryn Bigelow would have fallen of her chair a year ago knowing she would get a best directing oscar nomination for this film.

Its opening statement, "War is a Drug", pretty much sums up what the film is about, and altough simple, remains highly effective. "The Hurt Locker" is definately worth seeing for the Hitchcockian sense of suspense on display and the excellent performances from Renner and Mackie. While I could not call it a masterpiece, I don't think the director's intention was to make one, and that's also one of the film's greatest strenghts; its lack of pretension. Bigelow and her team set out to make a film about men, men at war, men at work in all its sheer intensity and fierceness, ended up making a very good one, and ultimately succeeded entirely on these terms.

3.5 Stars (out of 4)

THE HURT LOCKER - 2 reviews compared

First Review: Rotten Tomatoes - Top Critics - "Chicago Sun-Times" - Roger Ebert - 4/4 (Very positive review: Ebert ranked "The Hurt Locker" number two in his list of the greatest films of the decade.)

- Throroughly well-written; easy to understand while never overly simple, always interesting
- No condescention or pretention towards the reader or the reviewed film
- Praises director Kathryn Bigelow and lead actor Jeremy Renner
- Meticulous description of the main character and his psychology
- No spoilers whatsoever; Ebert doesn't reveal any key moments or describe any situation. He is concentrating on the character.
- Praises the film's storytelling and pure suspense


Second Review: Rotten Tomatoes - Top Critics - "New York Post" - Kyle Smith - 2.5/4 (Mixed review: Kyle Smith is one of the few professionnal newspaper critics who did not praise "The Hurt Locker".)

- Shorter review than Ebert's
- Also agrees about the level of tension that Bigelow infuses in some scenes of the film
- Refers to some terms that might have the uninitiated scratching their heads (John Ford and Howard Hawks might not be known of all, or terms like "Dunder Miffilin)
- Criticizes the film for its lack of plausibility
- Doesn't refer to the actors' performances
- Refers to Bigelow in a more personal way in evoking her manly side
- Describes some situations; finds them pointless

LEARNING EXPRESS LIBRARY A - Feb. 26

Due: February 26

I - Title
1. Interest level
2. Difficulty level
3. Three things I learned
4. My score
5. Course Rating (?/10)

2. Title
1. Interest level
2. Difficulty level
3. Three things I learned
4. My score
5. Course Rating (?/10)

A Presentation of... Me

My name is Benjamin Pelletier. I am a seventeen-year-old cinema student at the cegep Saint-Laurent since September 2009, and I have been enjoying it rather well. I live in the South Shore, Brossard to be more precise, and I think the hour-long travel each morning it worth it.

My biggest passion in life is cinema, without question. For about as long as I can remember I have always overly enjoyed watching films, especially old films and art films since more recently. One of my personal favorites it Martin Scorsese's 1976 masterpiece character study "Taxi Driver", with Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster. Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage" and "Fanny & Alexander", Malick's "The New World" and Renoir's "The Rules of the Game" are also among my current favorites.

Not only have I loved watching movies since my childhood, I have now found myself pretty good at writing about them. It is also something I enjoy a lot; I always had a more analytic/critic method of thinking rather than a creative one. Maybe that is why one of my long-term goals is to get at the University of Montreal or Concordia in film studies.

One my short-term goals is to work as a volunteer at the college videoclub, and at mid-term, I would maybe like to find a girlfriend (that's a maybe). One my accomplishments is that me and my friends, last year, made a ten-minute short about life in high school. The short was screened at the graduation gala and was highly praised.