Shaft

I really liked the movie Shaft and found it very interesting compared to present day action movies. I found Shaft to be a very independent, intelligent, and yet a cool cat character; who knew how to get the job done by keeping everyone in their place without using violence all the time. Although Shaft was not a real aggressive or violent man,instead, he uses his posture to challenge his oppressors rather than force; which is seen in so many movies like "Training Day" starring Denzel Washington. Comparing these two movies, I really enjoyed not hearing all of the harsh language. Not to sound like a little girl, it really is annoying to here every other word be the f-word. Not only that, in present day action films, they wouldn't use posture as a sense of I'm "The Man" instead they would just knock you out. On another note in regards to the reading, the main character Shaft compared to present day action hero's are physically portrayed so much differently. Today, to be a masculine manly man we are pushed with the image that they have a hard, muscular body. In the 1970's audiences were marked with the image of these leading man to have lean and toned bodies, a body not all juiced up on steroids and ready to rumble.

After viewing the movie and having a class discussion about it,I have found this movie's underlying theme to be more about being a man than about racial stereotypes. Shaft was more about Shafts interactions with other men and proving to be "The Man" rather than fighting against a wall of stereotypes. While he and his other leading characters (Ben) did embody certain aspects of the black stereotype such as being a pimp, a ghetto street walker, drug dealing, and crime; I felt as though it was more about who was the bigger man to get the job done...SHAFT!

Vanishing Point

I really enjoyed analyzing this movie more than I did watching it. I love the simplicity of it all. Kowalski is simply motivated to drive fast for the love of speed, freedom, and a little bit on the basis that he made a bet (which enables he to have a motive). I loved how once he popped a pill (ironically "speed") the camera focused on his shifting into gears, making him accelerate the speed of his car. To me, this seemed like a camera trick the movie "Requiem for a Dream" later accomplished. The mother would pop her diet pills, the room would spin, the TV played on erratically. When the pills were consumed, the camera captured the immediate hype they were experiencing.

Kowalski is a simple man whose real motivation to drive recklessly fast is the pure joy of the speed and freedom it brings (and the little bit about the bet he had made, which gave him an end to his mean). I personally feel as though the crash justified his life. Nothing else he ever did really mattered. Certainly not to the amount of his high speed chase he led on state to state. People will remember him not for his achievements in the war (which earned him a medal) but for the high speed chase that resulted in his suicidal death. Like a true exploitation film, he literally went out with a bang, which shocked the audience. I noticed from class discussion that not every one found the ending fitting to the film. But in reality it was. I honestly saw this coming because I couldn’t imagine him going out any other way. Being caught and arrested was not an option for Kowalski.

I loved from class discussion that we all agreed that Kowalski is a blue-collared man who never really committed any real or serious crime to result in his man hunt by the state police. Why then were they all so apt to bring him down? Easy, Kowalski made the police force look like incompetent fools. He embarrassed them because they did not have control of the situation. It soon became a rat race on who could bring him down. Which state could get the job done and done right this time?

I loved how the reading put everything into political perspective. The roads were built by the government for the purpose of quickly and quietly transporting our troops as means for the war. Today, the roads are still controlled by the government which is evident whenever we are out driving…the speed limits. We view the roads as being free but are they really free? We buy our cars that can move 120-200 mph, yet we cannot even test them out to their fullest capability. Ugh, the temptation to rebel! So in the end, the message we are left with is this, you can have your freedom, but you cannot break the speed limit. Short and sweet :)

Dr. Strangelove

So far, this movie is really one of my favorites. I really loved how the director, Stanley Kubrick, used nightmare comedy and the ideology of the liberal consensus to present in a satirized format: the the atomic bomb scare, the paranoia, and anti-communist feelings (which were present in the 1960's).

Before I read the article, I couldn't understand why Kubrick made the President sound like such a little girl yet the most sensible out of all the other characters. As the article states, Kubrick was "suggesting that man's warlike tendencies and his sexual urges stem from similar aggressive instincts." I could see where his was getting at with the characters names being sexual, the penis-like refueling plane (which made me feel like a pervert), and the low camera angle shots rooting from Rippers pants. I'm not sure however, if Kubrick was suggesting that all men or just men in the military are sexually and aggressively charged human beings. Personally, I feel that it is all men but on different testosterone levels.

I also liked that Kubrick did not make all of the male characters trigger happy, especially Turgidson who couldn't wait for the annihilation to begin in Russia. I liked how a peer said, in class discussion, that the President appeared to have "no balls" at times, especially in his ridiculous telephone conversations. While I agree, I do feel however, that he did have some balls when deciding not to intensify the attack on Russia. When everyone else around him was suggesting to blow them up before they could retaliate against the U.S, the President was not willing to be known as a mass murderer. While the President tried to avoid being compared to Hitler, it was funny how Dr. Strangelove was such an ex-supporter always having outbursts. I felt that Dr. Strangelove's presence and his craziness symbolized how the U.S was soon to follow in the footsteps of Hitler. While Hitler annihilated almost the whole Jewish population, the President of the United States would be known for annihilating the whole human race. Not intentionally like Hitler, but it would go down in his name as the initiator of the nuclear war that ended all life.

I have been thinking about what Professor McRae asked us to think about and try to blog about:"Satire of the Iraq War." I just can't wrap my head around it. Probably because I feel as though I do not possess all the information necessary to begin to satire it's situation. I am however, extremely curious on what other peers might formulate.