Three Kings: An anti-war movie

This is a link to a critical article describing the intention of the David O. Russell in his production Three Kings. The author of the article, David Edelstein, a film critic for Slate.com, states that Russell had interviewed veterans from the first Gulf War. The veterans states that they were sickened as they encouraged Iraqi insurgents to rise-up against Sadaam Hussein and could not intervene when getting slaughtered by him. Edelstein points out that the torture's purpose is to demonstrate, "for the naive American what the Iraqi says is the war's real aim -- protecting oil reserves -- by pouring a ladle of crude down Barlow's throat." The author moves on to say that Russell is doesn't see much of a difference between the Iraqi soldiers and the American soldiers by showing the Iraqis with American products. The article gives more examples to show that Three Kings is an anti-war film.



This picture is a shot after George Clooney's character saved Troy (Mark Wahlberg) from torture.

GLADIATOR AND THE MYTHS OF ROME.

This article covers the relation between the fall of the Roman Empire as portrayed in the film Gladiator. Wiseman (the author) claims that although the movie is not historically accurate, it is true to the Roman myths. Maximus is like the Roman heroes of the ancient world that inspired citizens of the empire to be honorable and lead good lives.

Saving Private Ryan

There are many great movies that I could choose to work with this semester; however, I am choosing to work with Saving Privater Ryan. Saving Private Ryan is an ingenious film by Steven Spielberg. Spielberg, who has worked on such films as Jurassic Park, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Back to the Future, has added an element of first-person perspective to classic war genre films. Saving Private Ryan stayed true to the typical ideology of war-genre movies, but with the interesting cameras angles and perspectives, Spielberg was able to capture the soldiers views and thoughts as well as place the audience into the 'shoes', per se, of the soldiers. It is a great movie, and I suggest that everyone watch it if they already haven't.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120815/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bIFH7c9yQM

Kingdom of Heaven

This movie was about a central character bailian (played by Orlando Bloom), who was a small blacksmith and worked to become a knight after his father took him to Jerusalem. He became a hero to the christians as saladin's army was marching on to jerusalem. He lost the ultimate battle but was able to win the hearts of his fellow citizens in Jerusalem.

I think the following quote best summarizes the character of Bailian;
"As he did in GLADIATOR, Scott explores the theme of a man who chooses his fate, instead of accepting the fate given to him at birth."
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809719782/details

I think this is a good movie as we can analyze the movie using at least three of the corrigan's six approaches to film. The first approach I can take is historical. as the plot of the movie revolving around the Crusades has been written about in the western and middle eastern societies. There can be a debate here because the movie shows more of a european thinking of the crusades. The formalist approach will be good as well because not many can argue that the movie does have very good battle scenes. The director, Ridley Scott, lives up to his acclaim to deliver a good movie. You can get a glimpse of it in the trailer of the movie. We can also do a genre analysis and see how this movie fits into the genre of epic action movies.

Kingdom of Heaven

I am seriously considering on writing the final project on Kingdom of Heaven. The film is set during the Crusades in Jerusalem. The main character is a blacksmith named Bailin, played by Orlando Bloom, travels to the Holy Land, and ends up leading the citizens of Jerusalem to defend themselves against Saladdin and his army. Throughout the movie, Bailin finds his father Godfrey a knight who has fought in previous Holy Wars. His father teaches his son what it means to be a knight and a leader. The final battle is very similar to that of the battle for Minis Tirith in the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. I think this is a great movie, for its genre, history, formalism, and idealogy of the Middle Ages.