Jaws

To start, Jaws is quite the masterpiece for new, or modern, Hollywood. It uses many techniques that were new then, but standard now. Jaws is about a shark that terrorizes a beach town by picking off citizens one by one. Chief Brody needs him captured, now! With the help of a boat captain and an oceanographer, the three go sailing to find this shark and kill it.

I thought the movie was phenomenal, to put it lightly. I'm a fan of longer shots and not so quick cuts. It puts more work onto the actors and tests their actually skill. Instead of keeping in character for two seconds and then having a lunch break. Longer takes require them to keep in character most of the time, which is what they're on set for. Going on from that, I feel the camera work was spot on perfect. Right off the bat, the cinematography was superb. Never showing the shark is iconic for this film and it obviously did well. Jaws also contained a lot of smooth transitions from one character to another, or even one focal point to another. When Brody drives away in his yellow truck, the camera stops panning when we see the town sign - a perfect introduction of the setting of the movie. Exposition at its least, I feel. Another example would be when Bordy is at the beach and thinks he sees something in the water. We see him, then a person walks by, cutting to the water, and then another persons walks by, cutting back to Brody. This is one of my favorite cutting techniques. Most movies do it with trees during a chase scene, notably Sherlock Holmes 2 and Harry Potter 7.

I kept seeing some great foreshadowing elements throughout the movie. Some may be intentional, some may not. But here's what I found:

• Chrissie (the first victim) sticks her leg up while swimming and slowly sinks down playfully. A huge insight on what the shark will do. Bring you down. 
• The little boy on the beach with red trunks. You can tell he'll be the next victim for a couple reasons. The camera focused him a lot. Also, his bright red trunks that scream blood. Almost nothing else in the movie is as bright a red as that, except blood itself. 
• When Brody is learning about sharks in his book, during the semi-montage scene where he flips through the pictures, one of the pictures has a shark with a tank (Oxygen? CO2?) in its mouth. This is the way the shark dies at the end. 

So, I thought those were quite interesting and I think Spielberg did an outstanding job making this, even at such a young age. Up until today, I still look up to Spielberg as an inspiration. I haven't read the book, but since Benchley had his hand in the film script, I feel it is a really good adaptation. However, I don't know for sure. Either way, I consider this film one of few masterpieces of New Hollywood. 

Night of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead (1968) was quite the treat considering it being an old movie. I'm not a fan of old movies, but this one caught my attention for a couple reasons, one of which being the first ever "zombie" film. Also, I found it interesting the main lead is a black male in a horror movie. The stereotype for many horror movies these days is that the 'black man dies first.' Well, apparently not. He died last in this one. That's right. Learn to get your stereotypes from the right movies. Thirdly, the biggest twist is the fact that everyone dies in this movie. There is no heroic savior at the end, or a romantic kiss with explosions in the background. Everyone dies, plain and simple.

Night of the Living Dead is about a group of people getting trapped inside a house while savage human-eating people from the graves try to overrun them. It all starts as a joke, but when things take a wrong turn, havoc is brought upon Barbra...and eventually the people in the house. The movie is in black and white even though color has been past introduced. Then again, so is Schindler's List and The Artist. That choice is up to the Director and it's been holding up well. Along with the grayscale color choice, the music was also a good fit. The music determined whether to be scared or not and came and went right on cue. Another thing I noticed was the obvious use of handheld cameras instead of tri-pods - another Director's choice, I assume. Why should the the camera be still and perfect when the characters are frightened for their lives? The camera should reflect the characters in a horror film. Another thing I liked about the camera-work was use of crooked, diagonal, and low set-ups.

The dialogue was very fluent and didn't seem scripted, which is what most writers try to go for. One thing that bothered me a bit was the fact that the zombies seemed a bit too smart. How did they know how and when to pick up rocks? Then again, that goes against what I said about the black man dying first. Who's to say zombies are not smart? Who made it up? Nobody, I suppose. And how did zombies know to stay away from fire? How did they know it might hurt them? I'm not sure. I'll leave the zombie lore to the experts.

My final notes are these: George did a spectacular job making this movie come to life...from the grave. Get it? Never mind. Either way, I really enjoyed this movie and it remains to be one of my favorites from the '60s.