Essay: Blade Runner and Mothra vs.Godzilla

Wrote this for school this semester. Ehhh, it turned out decent. 

DOWN WITH WORD LIMITS

2000 IS NOT ENOUGH

FIGHT THE POWER

Blade Runner and Mothra vs. Godzilla: Expressions of Economic Paranoia

            Since the inception of film, directors have been using this versatile medium to express religious, political and moral beliefs, and to convey specific emotions and feelings to their audiences. Some films overtly critique governments or dictators and have explicit allegorical messages, and others are more vague and subdued in their expressions. Two films that can be seen as expressions of fear and paranoia regarding rapid economic expansion in Japan are Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner and Ishiro Honda's 1964 "kaiju-eiga" Mothra vs Godzilla. These films were made in different decades by different directors in two very different countries and contain varying subject matter, but each one distinctly expresses fear that rapid economic growth in Japan may not have a positive effect on their respective countries. Both of them use techniques of "Othering" to portray another culture as alien and unknown and warn against the perils of rapid industrialization and economic growth.

            Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner takes place in a futuristic, dystopian version of Los Angeles. While this setting may seem familiar to the film's Western audiences, the famous city where it is set is much different than it appears in the real world. The theme of rapid industrialization and economic growth is established in one of the very first shots of the film, a landscape shot of the massive, sprawling city of Los Angeles in 2019. Huge smokestacks reach up into the sky, higher than any other buildings, and spew bright flames into the air. These smokestacks are symbols of development, progress and production, and in these shots they look quite fearsome and dangerous, depicting industrial development as something that can eventually become frightening if allowed to get out of control. Many of the early scenes of the film depict a futuristic Los Angeles that appears to be overrun with Japanese influence. Most notable are the scenes where protagonist Deckard is flying around the city, being taken to the police so they can enlist his help in finding some escaped "replicants" or synthetic human beings. In these scenes, the ship Deckard is in is shown flying through the dense, heavily populated city. Long shots show the ship cruising past a skyscraper that is almost completely covered by a giant television screen showing a close-up of a Japanese woman's face. She is clearly acting in an advertisement, and appears to be dressed in traditional Japanese attire. She is only shown from the shoulders up, but it can be seen that she is most likely wearing a kimono. She is also wearing the white, pale makeup characteristic of Japanese culture and her hair is tied up with flowers in it. The screen that the woman is on occupies a large portion of the frame when it is shown and it is clear that Scott wanted the viewer's eye to be directed to this part of the screen, despite the fact that Deckard's ship is also travelling through the shot. This massive, explicitly Japanese (the screen shows Japanese kanji text instead of English words) advertisement placed squarely in the heart of one of America's largest cities shows that in the world of Blade Runner Japan has become a very powerful nation and their culture has expanded, gaining a foothold in the United States.

            In her essay "Innovation: Japan Races Ahead as U.S. Falters", writer Constance Holden says that Japan "now sees herself at the threshold of a new era of advanced technology" (751). This essay was written in 1980, just two years before Blade Runner was made, when Japan was experiencing a massive economic boom due to their increased production of advanced technology. This contributes to Scott's portrayal of Japan as a country that is very advanced and one that has culturally crossed over the United States. He defamiliarizes Los Angeles by bringing in huge advertisements in the Japanese language and creating an atmosphere of extreme multiculturalism and claustrophobia. In the decade in which this film was made, there were concerns that Japan could become more powerful and technologically advanced than America, and Scott's film reflects this real-life paranoia by portraying a future where Japan has a huge presence in America and there are synthetic humans that are capable of escape and murder. In the film, it is also shown that Asian people work on and help create the synthetic humans. An Asian man who creates eyes for the replicants is in one scene in the film, and he is shown using chopsticks to pick up the eyes that he is working on. This "disturbing commodification of biotechnology" (Yu 54) show how the replicants (and main antagonists) of the film are created, by people from the East. This portrayal of the Japanese as a mysterious Other who creates machines that have minds of their own and the ability to kill furthers Scott's expression of Japan-related paranoia and his representation of them as an Other to be feared in Blade Runner.

            Ishiro Honda's film Mothra vs. Godzilla also expresses fear and uncertainty over rapid Japanese economic expansion and contains fearful depictions of a mysterious Other, but it does this in different ways and from a completely opposite perspective. Instead of viewing Japan as the Other, a country becoming more and more advanced that will eventually overtake and occupy America, Honda's film views Japanese economic growth from within Japan, and expresses concern that industrialization can go too far. In this monster film, a giant egg is discovered after a typhoon and is eventually revealed to have come from the beast Mothra. The egg is brought ashore and very quickly sold to Japanese businessmen. This is the first instance of Honda's film portraying industrialization as negative. In an early scene in the film, the news reporter from whose perspective the majority of the film is shown confronts the man who purchased the egg. The businessman is immediately portrayed as an unreasonable man, telling everyone to back away from his egg. When journalist Ichiro Sakai tells him that he does not think that the egg can be considered private property and he should not have been permitted to buy it, he simply says that he will share it with the public, as long as they pay him to see it. In buying the egg and using it for his own financial gain, the businessman is exploiting nature that he has no right to buy, as the egg rightfully belongs to Mothra. Jarome Shapiro notes that the industrialist "is very Western in his desire to contain or control nature, rather than live in harmony with it" (182). This is interesting, because in an inversion of Ridley Scott's representation of Japan in Blade Runner, Honda depicts Japanese economic growth as something negative that is caused by Western attitudes toward nature and development encroaching upon Japan.

            Westernized attitudes toward economic expansion is not the only thing in Honda's film that is portrayed as an Other. Godzilla is also a mysterious force that appears to be bent on dismantling Japan, a "violent, yet sympathetic, force in nature" (Shapiro 185). Interestingly enough, Japan's only defense against the destruction of Godzilla comes from the very egg that is taken over by those who seek to use it for monetary gain. This symbol of nature that is being corrupted by industrialism for the sake of corporate growth hatches into two Mothra larvae that spray silk fibers out of their mouths and bind Godzilla until he is forced to retreat back into the ocean. This battle can be seen as nature correcting itself and restoring a natural balance. Godzilla came to destroy humans and their created cities, and the Mothra larvae were sent to stop him and protect the natural order of things. If the businessmen who initially bought the egg had been allowed to have their way with it, it is possible that the egg may not have hatched into the monsters that saved the island from Godzilla and he would have been allowed to rampage endlessly, causing untold destruction.

            While Godzilla is a very distinct Other in that he is a giant creature resembling nothing in the natural world, Mothra is portrayed as an Other quite differently. In similar fashion to Ridley Scott's transposition of the modern city of Los Angeles to a fictionalized, futuristic one that is almost unrecognizable, Honda's film takes a common insect (a moth) and blows it up to massive size, creating a massive, mysterious beast out of a small, harmless creature. This defamiliarization of an organism that is already known to people in the real world creates an Other that is much different than Godzilla, who is also much more mysterious in his purpose. Godzilla exists to destroy, but Mothra's role in the film is that of a guardian. Yet another group of Others in this film are the native people that inhabit the island where Mothra lives. These people appear to know a great deal about what goes on in the outside world and say that Godzilla is the Japanese people's own fault, their consequence for "playing with the devil's fire", an obvious reference to nuclear tests and experimentation. This can be seen as another critique of Japanese industrialization and economic growth having negative effects, as the leader of the tribe of natives talks about how their island used to be a beautiful, green place before the experiments began. Nuclear experimentation was a controversial subject at the time, just as biological engineering and cloning are both now and when Blade Runner came into existence.

            Blade Runner and Mothra vs. Godzilla are two films that appear very different on the surface. The only immediately apparent similarity between them is the fact that they are both easily recognizable as films in the science fiction genre. However, despite the different countries of origin and being made almost two decades apart from one another, they both contain very interesting commentary on the rapid economic growth that was occurring in Japan between 1964 and 1982. Each of these films expresses paranoia and fear related to Japanese industrialization in different ways, and from different cultural perspectives. In addition to this, both films have their own ways of "Othering" specific cultures or monsters in their respective universes, making them appear mysterious or dangerous. Ridley Scott and Ishiro Honda each made a film that is distinctly different from the other's, but both of these works contain similar subtexts in reference to Japan.

Works Cited

Holden, Constance. "Japan Races Ahead as U.S. Falters." Science. vol. 210. Nov 14,         1980. pp. 751-754. Web. Apr 4 2015.

           

Shapiro, Jerome. "When a God Awakes: Symbolism in Japan's Mysterious Creature           Movies." World and I. vol. 13.5. May 1998. pp. 182. Web. Apr 5 2015.

Yu, Timothy. "Oriental Cities, Postmodern Futures: Naked Lunch, Blade Runner and       Neuromancer." MELUS.  vol. 33. pp.45-71. 2008. Web. Apr 4 2015.

Oscar Predictions 2015

     The Academy Awards don't matter. Over the years so many incredibly deserving actors, writers and directors have been completely robbed at this awards show that it's completely impossible for me to take it seriously. It's basically a popularity contest where rich people get together and receive validation for existing and also maybe doing good acting and stuff. Sometimes it has a funny host. Sometimes it has Seth MacFarlane being himself (read: literally the most annoying person ever to exist). So why do I watch it obsessively every year? I don't really know but I think a huge part of it is that it gives me an excuse to live at the cinema for a few weeks watching all of the nominees. It also enables me to write overly long posts like this about which films I have seen and which films I think deserve to win. My opinion has credibility, I swear!

     Note that I have not included predictions for every single category, just the ones for which I have seen most, if not all of the nominees. The documentary and short film categories won't be in here as such, and neither will Best Foreign Film which sucks because I've heard amazing things about Leviathan and I really want to see it.

Welp, here we go.

Best Picture

Being the "most important" award, this is always a tight category, and one where it's sometimes all but impossible to predict the winner with any certainty. Last year I thought Wolf of Wall Street was going to take it because it's a masterpiece and Martin Scorsese is, well, Martin Freaking Scorsese. But sure enough, 12 Years A Slave came in and snagged it. Deserving film I'll admit, 12 Years was riveting and powerful (I cried) but I was totally off base in my prediction (my second pick was the phenomenal Nebraska). Anyways, for this year I am calling: 

Winner: Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

     Pretty good group competing for Best Picture this year but in my mind Boyhood is the clear winner for this one. It's simply a masterpiece. The concept is not as original as most people believe (Truffaut did it over the span of a few decades and several films with Jean-Pierre Leaud, beginning with The 400 Blows) but it is incredibly well executed and it gives the film a lifelike quality that would be impossible to replicate through other means. Linklater has always been great at his portrayals of the mundane, "normal" lives of his characters (Slacker, Dazed and Confused) but this is so much more ambitious and epic in scale. In seeing this film, we literally watch a child grow up into a young man before our eyes. It's technically fantastic and well cast, acted and scripted, but the aspects of this film that stuck with me the most were its all-encompassing totality and how relatable it was for me on a personal level. The references to events of the early 2000s, year-appropriate music, movies, fashion and slang brought me back to my adolescence, and even though I was watching main character Mason's childhood I couldn't help but be brought back to my own. Not many films have ever tackled adolescence and the process of growing up with such intimacy and emotional power, and Boyhood does precisely that. I feel as if this film is destined to become a classic, and will always be considered one of the greatest movies about childhood, and that's why I think it deserves Best Picture.

Second Prediction: Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (Alejandro G. Innaritu)

     I love love love love LOVE this movie. If it wins over Boyhood I am totally cool with that because it is SO GOOD. I think Birdman came at a really good time. A lot has already been written about it already but the aspect of it which I thought was particularly relevant and culturally important was its investigation of celebrity culture and the effects of fame (or loss thereof) on the individual. Michael Keaton is fantastic as a washed-up actor who tries to save his career by putting on a stage show, and chaos ensues, both outer and inner, as he struggles with other actors and with his own questionable sanity. Around Keaton is a superb supporting cast (Edward Norton and Emma Stone are both particularly great) and the script is full of blistering, cataclysmic arguments and hilariously narcissistic one-liners from Norton who plays a temperamental actor prone to violent outbursts. It's comical, profound and insane all at the same time, and much has been made of its technical innovations. Director Innaritu did a remarkable job structuring the film so it appears as if the entire movie is one continuous long take. In reality it is a collection of long takes strung together by clever, unobtrusive editing that can pass completely unnoticed by those not paying attention to Innaritu's tricks. It's a smart satire that can appear pretentious but is anything but, the only thing I don't like about it is the fact that dozens of films in the future are inevitably going to try to copy it and do a terrible job. Also, Naomi Watts. 10/10.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

     I swear if Bradley Cooper wins this I will personally burn Hollywood to the ground (not really, but I will most definitely be pissed). Yeah, he's talented but every single one of the other nominees this year deserves it more than him. Daniel Day-Lewis isn't competing this year so it's tough to say who's going to win this one for sure, but I certainly know who I want to win, and I DEFINITELY know who should win.

Winner: Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)

     Of all the actors competing for this award, I think Eddie Redmayne's role was far and away the most difficult. Actors in biopics often get nominated for Best Actor, which is cool, but I don't know if I've ever seen someone completely inhabit their real-life subject as well as Redmayne did in this film. I suppose there are advantages to playing someone who is still alive, as there are more resources for an actor to draw on, but playing Stephen Hawking in the first place is tremendously difficult, as the physical requirement of it alone is daunting. Redmayne portrays Hawking at every stage of his illness with equal aptitude and emotional electricity, and his chemistry with Best Actress nominated Felicity Jones is phenomenal. From perfect health to severe disability, this is an astounding performance and a worthy tribute to a man who rose above his illness to become one of the greatest scientists ever, and one of the most brilliant and respected people on the planet. He's earned this award. Also, shout out to Steve Carell and his fake nose who also was great.

Second Prediction: Beneficial Cucumberpatch (The Imitation Game)

     I've never really been sold on this guy. Everyone seems to think he's some kind of revolutionary actor who's mega-talented and steals the show in everything he shows up in. No, Benedict, you did not make Desolation of Smaug great with your 5 minutes of voice acting alone. And no, Benedict, you did not make Star Trek Into Darkness (Dumbness) anything better than absolutely terrible by being cast as Khan (seriously, why?). But damn, after seeing this I gotta admit that this dude can ACT. Another actor cast in a biopic nominated for Best Actor that does an incredible job with his subject. Crumpetscratch plays Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who built one of the first computers to crack a German code and drastically shorten World War II. Turing was brilliant, emotionally unstable and famously homosexual, and Crimpyswitch puts it all on the table to play all these sides of him well. The massive intellectual gulf between Turing and the people surrounding him is communicated particularly effectively, and post-war Turing who is being chemically castrated as punishment for being gay in England at the time is excruciatingly sad. I had never really seen the emotional range that Cabbagepunch possesses before watching this movie, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he does next. Still though I think Eddie Redmayne deserves it just a bit more. 

Best Actress in a Leading Role

      I must admit right off the bat that I haven't seen all of the nominees for this award this year. I tried to go see Still Alice the other night but the theatre had been overrun by a horde of old people and I couldn't get in. Sorry Julianne Moore, I'm sure if I had seen it you would have been a frontrunner. Anyways, I'm going to base this off of the films I have seen. Like with Best Actor, it's tough to predict this year because Meryl Streep isn't nominated. Like Daniel Day-Lewis, she (usually deservingly) wins everything. But even though I haven't seen all the performances nominated, there's still some competition here and it's a tough choice.

Winner: Reese Witherspoon (Wild)

     I haven't seen her act this well since Walk the Line. In Wild, Reese Witherspoon plays a divorced, recently drug-addicted woman who decides to hike a 1200 mile trail to "find something within  herself" and move past her failed relationships and destructive behaviour. She doesn't have much experience hiking, and faces constant challenges and struggles on her journey. Lots of things go wrong for her, and she has to find it in herself to carry on and finish what she started. It's a very transitional movie, Witherspoon's character is fundamentally transformed over the course of the film. Roles like this are pretty tricky because it's difficult to make the audience actually believe that the character has changed, especially in films such as this where there isn't a ton of dialogue (except in the many flashback scenes). But she pulls it off nicely, the physically demanding nature of the role is also handled really well by Witherspoon. She really captures the mental and physical toll that a journey like this can take on a person, and the cost of mistakes and poor planning. It's very intense, both emotionally and physically. I feel like acting in a film like this can really take a lot out of an actor/actress, and it seems like Witherspoon gave it her all.

Second Prediction: Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)

     I'm amazed Gone Girl didn't get nominated for more awards, I thought it would compete for Best Picture for sure. Nevertheless, Rosamund Pike's performance as, well, a gone girl is really quite excellent. She starts out innocent and likable enough, but by the end of this film the viewer absolutely loathes her, with good reason. Her character is a psychopath that goes to insane lengths to get revenge on her husband (who admittedly is not the nicest guy) and in the end she manipulates the media and emerges victorious, trapping him in a marriage with her despite the fact that he knows how insane she is. Pike's portrayal of Amy Dunne as she runs away and transforms herself while executing a complex master plan that would end in her husband's wrongful execution for her murder is chilling. At the beginning of the film we have no idea what she is capable of, but she murders, lies and misleads others to achieve success in her plot. The dark, disturbing tone of the film coincides with her character perfectly to create an incredible enigma of a film. No one knows what's going on behind those eyes of hers, and she misdirects and manipulates the viewer of the film as well as the characters within it.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

     This category is pretty much just as important as the lead acting awards if you ask me. To deliver a truly remarkable and memorable performance, an actor often needs to be surrounded by a cast of equally talented ones. That's why this award often goes to people who are great actors in their own right, and support the actor in the lead role they're working with. The actors nominated this year all did great jobs bringing out the brilliance of their leads. Onscreen chemistry goes a long way, and most of these actors had a high degree of it with the other ones in their films. 

Winner: J.K Simmons (Whiplash)

     I loved this movie. It's definitely one of my favourites of the year. On a less amazing Oscar season it would take home Best Picture easily. And J.K Simmons (whose first initials I just learned do not stand for "Just Kidding" after all) delivers a performance that is a huge part of that. He plays an obsessive, perfectionist jazz music teacher who uses extreme methods and pushes his student (a young jazz drummer played by Miles Teller) to the limit to get the very best out of him. He's abusive, cruel, and driven. This is a character that exists to create conflict and cause chaos in the life of the others. Simmons does this incredibly well. He spends half the movie screaming at Teller and the other half being a sarcastic jerk. He made me hate his character, but at the same time I loved how unpredictable and volatile he was, and respected his passion for creating great music and building a reputation for himself and his school. This film is very much about the student-teacher relationship and Simmons brings his character to vivid life and shows how dangerous yet effective a teacher can be when he leaves subtlety and empathy at the door. 

Second Prediction: Edward Norton (Birdman)

     HE'S SUCH A JERK BUT I LIKE HIM SO MUCH. WHY DO I LIKE HIM SO MUCH. Oh yes, Birdman again. I like it when actors play actors in films, it's often pretty hilarious. That's totally the case with Edward Norton in Birdman. I've always thought this guy was awesome, ever since I saw him in Fight Club at age 14 and he made me want to overthrow the government and beat people up. He's just really cool and likable in everything I've seen him in, I don't even know why. In this one he's a total dick who clashes with everyone and gets drunk on stage, he almost ruins everything for poor Michael Keaton but I love his character anyway. He's a destructive force that might blow everything up but might not, depending on the mood he's in. His unpredictability mixed with his insane amount of charisma and coolness makes him a joy to watch and one of the multitude of reasons I loved Birdman. 

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

     Same deal here. Supporting actresses are just as important as supporting actors. All of these actresses weren't starring in their films, but were still very crucial parts of them as a whole. I have to say here that I haven't seen Into the Woods so I don't know how good Meryl Streep is in it, but I'm sure she'll win anyway because she's Meryl Streep so my predictions are automatically wrong. Whatever, I'll make them anyway. 

Winner: Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

     It's interesting considering any actor from this film for any award, because they filmed it over the course of 12 years so there's a natural aging process that occurs throughout the film. Patricia Arquette at the end of Boyhood is 12 years older than Patricia Arquette at the beginning of Boyhood. It's fascinating watching young Mason turn from a little kid to a grown adult in the film, but his parents age too. Arquette plays his mother who seems to fall in love with all the wrong men (irresponsible musicians, alcoholic teachers, authoritarian veterans etc) and often makes less than great life choices but is always a strong positive influence in his life. She goes back to college  and becomes a teacher to provide better for her family, and throughout the film we see her go from being a  relatively new mother with two young children to a middle age woman trying to figure out what more there is to life after her children leave the nest. As the one constant parent Mason has she plays a rather large role in the film, and is a very strong influence on his life. In this sense she is a crucial character to the entire film, and Arquette plays the mother at all stages in her child's development extremely well. She's very convincing throughout the entire length of the film. 

Second Prediction: Laura Dern (Wild)

     Another one from Wild. Laura Dern doesn't have a huge role in this movie, definitely not as large as Patricia Arquette's in Boyhood, but in her small amount of time on screen she shines, and leaves a lasting impression on the film. Dern plays the mother of the main character (the excellent Reese Witherspoon, mentioned above), a very positive person who always sees the silver lining in any situation. Regardless of how badly their lives are going she maintains a positive outlook on life and makes sacrifices for her children. When her children are negative and pessimistic she is bright and cheerful despite the circumstances, which sounds annoying but she is actually a complete ray of sunshine in a film that would be soul-crushingly depressing otherwise. She is always shown in flashback scenes, and her diagnosis with cancer and subsequent death is one of her daughter's main motivations to complete her journey. Her mother would never quit, so how can she? Even though she's not in the film for a huge amount of time, she is very memorable and has a profound effect on the protagonist. 

Best Original Screenplay

     I like this category because by definition it focuses on films that are not adapted from a novel or anything else. Films that are original creations independent of other media. There are always some great movies competing for this one, it's an award for auteurs and people with fresh, new ideas. I haven't seen Nightcrawler yet (unfortunately, it looks awesome) so it won't be on here regardless of whether it deserves to win or not. 

Winner: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

     Yes, I know I'm calling this one for a lot. But with 9 nominations, I expect Birdman to win several on Sunday. As I mentioned before in my Best Picture predictions, I think Birdman is very culturally relevant. Its depictions of fame and celebrity culture make it a film that is incredibly relatable for people living in the present. Michael Keaton gets accidentally trapped outside in his underwear, Michael Keaton has to run down the streets of New York to get back to the theatre he's supposed to be performing in, Michael Keaton instantly becomes the star of a viral internet video. This is how it works today. You can do something funny and become famous in hours due to the internet. Birdman deconstructs fame and shows an actor's relationships with his daughter, estranged ex-wife, the public, and the people he's trying to work with to make a play and salvage his career. It's very intimately focused on the mind of the actor and the struggles he faces trying to remain relevant. I haven't seen that many films in recent years that tackle this, and even less that do it as well as Birdman, so I'm calling it for Best Original Screenplay.

Second Prediction: Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)

     Surprised? This film has tons of nominations as well and this is the first time I've mentioned it in this post. Don't think I'm a Wes Anderson hater though, I'm far from it. The Life Aquatic is one of my favourite comedies and The Royal Tenenbaums brings me to tears almost every time. Anderson is good. He's not reinventing the wheel or fundamentally changing the way we view cinema, but his movies are smart, immaculately constructed and have an irresistible charm that makes them a joy to watch. Grand Budapest Hotel is no exception to this, it's a hilariously entertaining journey that chronicles the life of a kid who worked in a hotel and the chaos that ensues when a valuable painting is stolen. There's more to the story than that obviously, but the film is packed with Anderson's signature dry, witty humour and his gorgeous sets and elaborate camerawork. While not particularly deep, it's a tremendously entertaining film and Ralph Fiennes delivers a remarkable performance in the lead role.

Best Adapted Screenplay

     Another note here, unfortunately I did not get a chance to see Inherent Vice. I love Paul Thomas Anderson (so, so much) and I'm sure it's amazing and very well might win this award but I can't predict a film I haven't seen so I won't be saying anything about it here. This category is also an interesting one because a massive amount of films (more than most people know) are adapted from novels and other media. Other forms of art being translated into film has been happening pretty much since the beginning, and there is a wide range of adaptations. Some are close, almost word-for-word adaptations of their source material (No Country For Old Men) and some just grab a few ideas from a novel and run with them (David Cronenberg's crazy but excellent Naked Lunch). Regardless, and cinema and other, older art forms have an interesting relationship, and there are always really good films competing for this award too. 

Winner: Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)

     Like I said before, I thought this was one of the best of the year. Whiplash was apparently adapted from director Damien Chazelle's own experiences of being in a jazz band. If you've seen this film, you know how messed up that is because the teacher in this film is insane and the abuse that the main character takes from him is definitely way over the line in any normal student-teacher relationship. I don't know how much of the film is direct experience of Chazelle's, but it's so vivid and well-written that it a lot of it very well could be. It's an intensely absorbing film that I think is going to be a dark horse this year at the awards show, it might surprise. We'll see.

Second Prediction: The Imitation Game (Graham Moore)

     This and the film above it have something in common. They were both on the Black List, an annual list made of the best screenplays that have not been produced for any reason. It's a really cool idea, and a lot of great movies come out of it. Some films are on the list because they're too crazy or offensive to be made, and some just don't get the financial backing they deserve. Well, I'm glad that someone picked this one up because it's a fantastic story that needed to be told. This year we got Fury, a WWII film about a bunch of American dudes in a tank blowing stuff up in Europe. This film takes place during the same war but is so much different. Not too many films have focused on the intellectual side of the war, and how important brilliant people like Alan Turing were to the Allied victory. I certainly never knew how crucial his work was until I saw this film and looked into his life a little bit more closely. The war was a battle of wits and intellect just as much (if not more) as it was a contest of military strength. I think this concept was what made this movie so great for me, watching Turing crack the German code and shorten the war, saving countless lives was simply amazing. I was far more engrossed in this movie than I have been in any recent war film.

Best Director

     This is a huge one for me. Being a film student I talk a lot about directors and their importance to a film. Regardless of where you stand on the validity of auteur theory (I buy it for the most part), it's impossible to deny the director's influence on a project. This award goes to the director who creates the best film, and one that could not be as great as it is had he not directed it. Some of them are artists who have crafted a distinctive personal style over the years, and some are promising newcomers who have the potential to become great. This year most of them are already fairly experienced and accomplished, Linklater and Anderson especially are both well-known and critically acclaimed directors that have been active for a while. It's pretty competitive, but I think there's a clear frontrunner this year.

Winner: Richard Linklater (Boyhood)

     Don't even pretend like you didn't see this one coming. In my mind it's the clear winner. An ambitious, 12 year long project like this deserves recognition. The film is almost three hours in length and with the amount of time they likely spent shooting sporadically year after year, I bet it was a lot of work finding the most meaningful parts and piecing them together into a coherent film that doesn't feel disjointed due to the length of its diegetic time. Linklater's camerawork is gorgeous, his actors give great performances, and his story is focused yet epic, massive but still very intimate and personal. Linklater is a director that has been on the brink of greatness for a long time and has finally crossed the line, I hope he gets the recognition he deserves this year.

Second Prediction: Alejandro G. Innaritu (Birdman)

     You betcha. I won't leave it alone. Though this film's technical brilliance is undoubtedly the product of a group of individuals, and it would not be as great as it is without the fantastic performances delivered by its cast, Birdman is still exceptionally well put together, and Innaritu's steady direction keeps the film on track and makes sure it doesn't fall too far into absurdity. Co-writing, directing and producing the film means Innaritu had a lot of creative control and responsibility for what goes into this film, and the result is a well structured, entertaining film with thematic depth that is also very accessible and enjoyable.

Best Visual Effects

     Last one. For the remainder of the awards I have either not seen the nominees or I don't know/care enough about the award itself to make a prediction. Interstellar will probably kill it in the technical awards like Gravity did last year, and Grand Budapest Hotel will likely take home more than a few as well due to the sheer number of nominations it has. Try as I did, I am a busy dude and it's unrealistic for me to see every single nominee for every single category (next year, maybe) so this post isn't as long as it could be. Which is cool because it's by far the longest one I've ever written for this blog and my fingers hurt so it's for the best. Anyways, CGI and robots and CGI robots and stuff.

Winner: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

     This was my favourite summer blockbuster of the year and it's not getting any attention because of stupid Marvel. It pisses me off, this film has a remarkable story with a great emotional core and no one ever talks about it but I sure hear a lot about which superhero movies are going to be released in 2019. Anyways, the CGI in this film is pretty perfect. The apes are gorgeously animated and incredibly realistic. Caesar is a fascinating character given life by Andy Serkis' sublime work in a motion capture suit. All the effects are so unobtrusive, I found it very easy to forget that the apes are all just computer generated images and not real animals. To me that's what makes great visual effects, the fact that they can make you forget that they're visual effects and integrate them seamlessly into the film. Dawn succeeds at that and pretty much everything else it attempts, and that's one of the many reasons I love it.

Secondary Prediction: Guardians of the Galaxy

     I complain a lot about Marvel and how they're flooding the movie market with derivative, weakly written superhero movies that pander to audiences and spawn endless sequels, and these complaints are legitimate because 90% of the superhero movies they come out with are mediocre at best. That's another rant for another day though. I saw Guardians thinking it would suck but I was totally proven wrong. It's an entertaining special effects extravaganza with great on-screen chemistry between the leads, a fantastic, groovy soundtrack, humour that works surprisingly well and an above average plot for the genre. It's a ton of fun to watch and visually it's pretty gorgeous so I would be cool with it winning this award.

     Well, that's it. I'm done. Time to wait until Sunday when the awards air and subsequently drink myself to death after American Sniper wins all its nominations. CURSE YOU CLINT EASTWOOD YOUR MOVIE SUCKS 

MAKE ANOTHER WESTERN YOU CRAZY OLD FART

     

Hannibal: The Most Surprisingly Awesome Show on TV

I don't watch much TV anymore. There's way too many commercials and 90% of the shows on it suck. When it comes to television, I'm a cynical old man at age 24. As you can imagine, I'm usually apathetic about the latest trend in TV that floods the market and pushes all the creative shows out of existence. Right now, the scourge of television is.....

PREQUELS AND ORIGIN STORIES. SERIOUSLY JUST STOP PLEASE RIGHT NOW. THERE ARE TOO MANY. WAY TOO MANY.

Oh and reality TV is also terrible but that goes without saying.

It seems like they're giving every stupid superhero or beloved story an origin series that is unnecessary and often just ruins the source material. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is one of the best psychological thrillers of all time. Did we need sequels and remakes? No. But we got them. Do we need a prequel TV series about Norman Bates and his mommy issues? No. But we're getting that too. I guess my problem is I just see these shows for the blatant, pandering cash grabs they are and even though I like some of the characters and sources they're based on I have no desire to see them. Anyways. On to what I'm actually talking about.

Hannibal is the exception to my dislike of this "genre", and one of the very best shows on TV. Every aspect of it is pretty much flawless. The acting is particularly phenomenal. As we all know, Anthony Hopkins pretty much defined the character of Hannibal Lecter for all eternity in Silence of the Lambs, and his bone-chilling portrayal of the character is naturally the standard to which anyone attempting this role will be compared to until the end of time. Despite this monumental pressure, Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, The Hunt) delivers an absolutely outstanding performance in this series. He has all of Hopkins' class and unsettling calmness, but he also brings an imposing physicality to the role that no one else could replicate. Obviously the audience knows from the beginning of the show that Hannibal kills and eats people, and this makes it all the more difficult for Mikkelsen to play a compelling character because from the very first scene we know his secret. But he succeeds with flying colours, playing a character who is professional and very skilled in his field of psychiatry, but is also a completely unpredictable psychopath who is highly manipulative and excels at controlling people due to his extensive knowledge of the human psyche. Hannibal is always in control. He works extremely closely with the FBI agents who are hunting him, and they have no idea that the killer they're looking for is right under their nose until it is far too late. It's this power dynamic that makes Hannibal so fascinating, you can never tell exactly what's going on in his head behind that cold, neutral expression. Also playing their roles very well are Laurence Fishburne as Jack Crawford, the FBI agent leading the investigation into Hannibal's crimes, and Hugh Dancy as Will Graham, an unstable FBI consultant with the strange ability of empathizing with killers and mentally reconstructing their crimes. He and Hannibal have a complex relationship that is developed incredibly well over the course of the two seasons that have aired so far. These three actors form a fantastic core cast, with a great supporting cast around them.

While the acting is excellent, Hannibal's dark, moody. unsettling atmosphere is the aspect of the show that I probably love the most. In terms of visual style and tone, Hannibal is absolutely stunning. Watching a season of this show is like a watching a 10 hour long  psychological thriller. There is rarely silence, eerie sound effects and a haunting score give the show an intense atmosphere of dread and despair. The set design is phenomenal, horrific crime scenes strewn with gore abound in almost every episode. All of these environments are masterfully constructed, and display the handiwork and "artistry" of the killers in the show incredibly well. On this note, I am consistently amazed at how much insanely graphic violence Hannibal has been able to get away with. It airs on NBC, and I don't think I've ever seen a show on network television this shockingly gory. The second season in particular is horrific, one memorable scene has Hannibal dose one of his enemies with a mixture of hallucinogens and force him to slowly cut off his own face piece by piece, feeding it to both dogs and himself. Almost nothing seems to be taboo for this show, brutal dismemberments are commonplace and rivers of blood flow through every episode. The season finale of Hannibal's most recent run has Hannibal fleeing to Europe after cutting almost all of the other major characters in the series to pieces in a final showdown and leaving them all to bleed to death. Pretty much the only main character that we know is definitely living to be in season 3 is Hannibal himself. How many TV shows have the balls to kill (or as good as kill) 90% of its main characters in one episode? Not many. Take that Game of Thrones. 

This unflinching, unapologetic use of gore combined with Hannibal's incredible cast and art design make it a complete and total must-see for any horror fan. I don't even consider myself that much of a horror fan and I love it. Season 3 now plz

Essay: The Wolf Among Us

Here's an essay I wrote last semester for a cool English course I took called Gaming & Narrative Theory. It got me an A so I guess it must be somewhat decent.

The Wolf Among Us, Player Choice and Dynamic Character Adaptation

            The Wolf Among Us is an episodic adventure/mystery video game released in 2013 by American independent game publisher Telltale Games. It is an adaptation of the Fables series of comic books, which takes famous characters from well-known nursery rhymes, films and stories and brings them together in one universe, a hidden community known as "Fabletown" in the  heart of New York City. The video game adaptation of this centers around protagonist Bigby Wolf, who is better known as the "Big Bad Wolf" from the Little Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs fairy tales. The Wolf Among Us has an interesting portrayal of Bigby. Despite the fact that he is the antagonist in the context that the person playing the game knows him in, he is very much the hero of the game. In this essay, I will argue that the player's perception of Bigby and other characters in the game is altered and defined by their previous knowledge of them in other texts, and that The Wolf Among Us is a legitimate adaptation of these characters. In her book Beginning to Theorize Adaptation, Linda Hutcheon defines an adaptation as "an announced and extensive transposition of a particular work or works" (7). The Wolf Among Us fits quit well into this definition, as it brings characters from a multitude of other works in several different genres and media together in one cohesive game universe.

            When a character is adapted into a new medium or text, they inevitably bring their reputation and previous actions with them in the mind of the person experiencing the new text, and this concept certainly affects the  perception of the character of Bigby in this game. Hutcheon writes that adaptations have an "overt and defining relationship to prior texts" (3). While her book is primarily concerned with film adaptations of works of literature, this certainly holds true in video game adaptations such as The Wolf Among Us. Bigby is defined for the player by his history in the fairy tales that he originates in.

            In The Wolf Among Us, Bigby Wolf is the sheriff and chief law enforcer of Fabletown. He uses his brute strength and skills of investigation to solve crimes and keep the residents of Fabletown safe and under control. This portrayal is extremely interesting given the previous portrayals of Bigby in the material his character is adapted from. In Little Red Riding Hood, The Big Bad Wolf is the antagonist of the story and primarily exists to deceive and try to eat Little Red Riding Hood. Having this previous knowledge of Bigby causes the player of the game to be cautious of him at first, knowing that in his background he is a villain who cannot be trusted. This is alluded to in the game as well. The characters inhabiting Fabletown all remember the events that occurred in not only their stories of origin but those of the others as well, and these events often create a reputation or image for these characters that affects the way that the other ones think of them. For example, a talking pig named Colin is often found at Bigby's apartment, and makes several appearances throughout the game. It is revealed that this is one of the Three Little Pigs from its eponymous tale, and in that particular story the Big Bad Wolf (Bigby) is clearly the antagonist. In this fairy tale, the Wolf destroyed Colin's house. In the context of The Wolf Among Us, this has happened previously and Colin often appears at Bigby's apartment because he is homeless as a result of what Bigby has done to him in the past. Colin is bitter about these events and he serves as a reminder to both Bigby and the person playing the game that he has done immoral things in the past and does not fit into the definition of a hero that most fairy tale stories subscribe to. However, it is made clear that Bigby feels remorseful about his past wrongdoings because he allows Colin to stay at his apartment. Interactions like this reveal a lot about Bigby and his character in The Wolf Among Us. It is easy to see him as a villain because of the evil deeds he has done in other works, but in this game he is quite clearly struggling with his nature and attempting to become a good "person".

            Whether or not he accomplishes this goal is entirely dependent on the person playing the game and the choices they make. Like all of Telltale's games, The Wolf Among Us is almost entirely driven by choice. An extremely high degree of control is given to the character over Bigby's actions. This ranges from small things such as choosing what he says in conversations and which questions to ask suspects, to far more profound and lasting choices such as whether to kill or spare lives or who to implicate in criminal investigations. A good example of this is at the end of the game where Bigby finally uncovers the culprit behind the killings in Fabletown. He (the player) is presented with two options: kill the criminal mastermind immediately, or take him into custody so he can face a fair trial for his crimes. Choices like this offer the player opportunities to "write" Bigby and decide what kind of character he is. It is made clear throughout the course of the game that Bigby has a very poor reputation among the other Fables. He is known for his violent temper and propensity for extreme methods that are morally questionable, but tend to yield results.

             This reputation can affect the person playing the game in one of two ways. One, it can drive them to do things "Bigby's way" and use excessive violence to achieve his goals. An example of this is early on in the game when Bigby is attempting to locate a person he has reason to believe is responsible for a murder and is attacked by Grendel, another literary figure originating in the English epic poem Beowulf. After subduing Grendel using his lycanthropic powers (Bigby is usually humanoid but has the ability to turn partially or fully into his wolf form to become stronger), Bigby is presented with the option of letting the defeated Grendel go or ripping off his arm. Interestingly, Grendel has his arm ripped off by Beowulf in the poem he originates in. This is a deliberate homage to the poem that makes the encounter with Grendel more enjoyable for players who are familiar with Beowulf.  In pivotal moments such as this, it is entirely up to the player to decide who they want Bigby to be. Doing things Bigby's way means violently pulling Grendel's arm off in plain sight of several other fables and further increasing his reputation of unfeelingly committing unnecessarily extreme acts of violence. Based on Bigby's historical context and his characterization in other works such as Little Red Riding Hood, this seems like the logical course of action, and what his character would unquestionably do in any other work of fiction. This illustrates how Bigby's past in other works of fiction affect the player's perception of him in this game. The fact that it is simple for the player to know what Bigby is expected to do and what he would likely normally do in situations such as these means that they may be likely to play the game in this way to bring consistency to his character. What is interesting about The Wolf Among Us, however,  is that the player is given the opportunity to deviate from this path and make Bigby perform acts of compassion and mercy.

             This is the other way that the inclusion of a strong element of choice in The Wolf Among Us affects the person playing. While Bigby's origins in famous fairy tales affects the player's perception of him to a certain degree, the choices in this game actually allow the player to change Bigby and make him a better person. Naturally there is no way to change who Bigby was in the past in the diegesis of the game and in other works, but if the player makes choices that are compassionate or helpful towards other people, they can begin to change the perception of Bigby within the game. A good illustration of this is the character of Snow White. She is one of the main characters in The Wolf Among Us, and originates in the famous film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow is one of the leaders of Fabletown and works very closely with Bigby in upholding the law. As her name suggests, she is by far the most innocent and pure character in the game, and often acts as Bigby's moral compass. This purity is established in the game, but can also come to the player by knowledge of Snow's character in the film she originated in. In the game, she keeps a very close watch over Bigby and often pleads with him to resist his nature and think before he acts. This can motivate the player to use Bigby to commit moral actions in an attempt to gain Snow White's approval. Despite Bigby's failings and misdeeds in the past, Snow offers him the opportunity to reform and change his reputation with the people of Fabletown. This concept of redemption extends outside the game to the person playing, because the player can turn Bigby into a strong, moral hero, which also changes the player's perception of him in light of his past evils.

            Uri Margolin addresses this dynamic nature of fictional characters such as Bigby when he says that "the properties ascribed to characters need not even form a logically consistent set, let alone one conforming to actual world regularities" (68). This means that Bigby does not need to be entirely consistent in all of the texts in which he appears, because he is a constructed character in a fictional world. Thus, while Bigby has been evil in the past, and can continue to be if the player chooses to make him so, he does not necessarily need to be this way in The Wolf Among Us to be the same character as he is in Little Red Riding Hood. Margolin goes on to say that "any given character may be amenable to a whole range of individuations, all of which are nonetheless compatible with the original" (69). In accordance with this, Bigby Wolf is an "individuation" of the Big Bad Wolf literary figure from the fairy tales from which he was adapted. This character has undergone immediately recognizable changes and adjustments from the original Big Bad Wolf, but remains an iteration of the same character simply because the game explicitly says he is and makes reference to his past in other well known works of fiction.

           

            Strengthening this argument for Bigby's legitimacy as an adapted character, Margolin says that the "later texts and the original must be related to each other both historically and intentionally"  and that the authors (in this case programmers) "must intend their readers to recognize the original version" (69). The Wolf Among Us is absolutely related to the other texts from which it adapts its characters. It would be nearly impossible for the game's writers and developers to accidentally place all of these characters in one universe with the backstories and personalities they have, so it is safe to assume that the adaptation of Bigby and everyone else in The Wolf Among Us is intentional. It is also clear that the game's writers intend for the players of the game to recognize the characters within it, because ample context and history is given for a large number of them. An example of this in the game is one short section where the player (controlling Bigby) is tasked with reading through a picture book full of depictions of the other Fables with the goal of locating and identifying an unknown woman who was murdered. While flipping through the book, the player can highlight and focus in on pictures of several of the other characters in the game, and with each there is a brief verbal description of them in the diegesis of their original fairy tale. This deliberate inclusion of references to the original texts the characters are adapted from is for the sole purpose of linking these characters back to their original texts, and reinforcing the sense of familiarity that they may already have in the mind of the player.

            When viewed using adaptation and character theories, The Wolf Among Us is a very interesting game. Being a video game adaptation of a comic book series that is in fact an adaptation, it contains a sort of "double layer" of adaptation. However, despite making a journey through three different media (some characters such as Snow White have come from films into comic books and now to video games), the characters in this fictional universe are still extremely recognizable iterations of their original forms, and contain more than enough shared characteristics with their source characters to be easily identifiable as the people or creatures that the game introduces them as. Bigby himself is shown as a human being in the game, but the way that the other characters react to him and the details revealed about his past before the events of the game make him unmistakably the famous Big Bad Wolf of fairy tale fame. Linda Hutcheon writes that an adaptation is "a derivation that is not derivative- a work that is second but not secondary" (9). This is description that applies especially well to The Wolf Among Us as a standalone text. While it borrows characters from other works, it does so in a manner that makes them new and different and uses them to create an original storyline. This game is "second but not secondary" in that it comes after the works that it draws from chronologically, but is in itself a creative work of original imagination. These characters are formed by their identity in previous works, but all come together to create an original narrative that is an effective and fascinating in its portrayals of already famous characters.

Review: Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)

Note: I have not read the novel that this film is based on, and cannot speak to its quality as an adaptation. Spoilers ahead, beware.

                I don't know why David Fincher doesn't get more respect and recognition as an auteur. He's certainly found a niche, and he executes films that fit into that niche extremely well. Psychological thrillers (usually adapted from books) are obviously his strong suit (The Game, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Se7en, Zodiac), and Gone Girl is his latest in this genre where things can go disastrously wrong or incredibly right. I'm happy to say that Gone Girl has a strong tendency towards the latter, and is incredibly well served by Fincher's style as a filmmaker and the outstanding performances by the lead actors.

              This cerebral, intense film is deceptively simple on the surface, but reveals tremendous depth once the narrative gets going. We follow the story of Nick, a man whose wife goes missing and is quickly thereafter presumed dead at his hands. A relatively conventional plot, but as the story moves on from Nick's perspective and a few of the many plot twists occur, we realize that this is anything but straight-forward. Gone Girl does the one thing that a film of its genre should: keep the audience guessing. If a person watching a movie like this can predict what's going to happen at the end and what the final twist is, the film fails at its job of surprising the viewer and creating an atmosphere of tension and mystery. Fincher's film accomplishes this task for its two and a half hour running time (which feels much shorter than it is), which is a monumental feat. The thing about Gone Girl I loved the most was the misdirection of the viewer, the film's ability to lead the audience to an all but certain conclusion and then in one or two brief scenes change everything. There were a lot of times throughout this film that I thought that I had figured it out, but I have to admit that even by the time the final scenes rolled around I had no idea how it was going to end. It's this intense form of viewer manipulation that makes Gone Girl such a success as a mystery thriller.

             The direction is also stunning. Fincher's use of very dark, eerie, moody colours reminds me of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and gives Gone Girl a nightmare-like quality that adds to the intensity and creates a mood of despair and fear. With his wife's disappearance and the media tornado that follows Nick around everywhere, his life has literally become a waking nightmare, a living hell. He's followed everywhere, and searches desperately for the evidence that will prove is innocence. But even if he does prove that he didn't kill his wife, she's still missing and his problem continues to exist. Scenes involving Nick tend to take place mostly at night, and all of this on-screen darkness inevitably affects the mood of the film, giving a deep, brooding darkness that fully envelops Nick. Ben Affleck and his huge muscles that will soon be beating the crap out of Superman do a fantastic job of playing this character, as does Rosamund Pike in her role of his wife, who turns out to be both alive and a complete psychopath. 

             Gone Girl is just a complete film. Every aspect of it is well executed and done right. It's well cast, well written, well directed and absolutely worth seeing. Time will tell how the mystery endures subsequent viewings but the the first time around Gone Girl is quite a ride.

Horror Month: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

                          Wow, what an intense movie. I was expecting this to be scary,  but I didn't think it was going to be THAT bad. I'll definitely be keeping my distance from rednecks in the future, that's for damn sure. Aside from just being scary though, Texas Chainsaw Massacre really is a good film in many ways. It's very well acted, and shot with a technical competency that makes it extremely effective at everything it does. Despite the fact that I'm too scared to leave my room right now (which is going to be a problem very soon because I've drank a lot of Dr. Pepper over the course of this evening), I really liked Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I definitely want to see it again.

                          This film follows a fairly conventional story. Five young adults head into the back roads of Texas to investigate a graveyard that has been reportedly robbed of corpses. On their way they encounter a strange hitchhiker who cuts himself, and then one of the guys with a straight razor, jumps out of the van and then draws a weird symbol on the vehicle in his own blood.  After checking the graveyard out and finding nothing, they head to an old house which used to be the summer home of one of the kids to stay for a while and relax. But as soon as they get settled in, they run afoul of a seriously mentally ill family of cannibalistic murderers, including the maniac they encountered in the van before. One of these psychos is the killer Leatherface, who is the subject of subsequent movies in this franchise. He does all the killing, luring three of the victims into his house and butchering them with a chainsaw. The other two go searching for the others, and Leatherface kills another while our final heroine temporarily escapes, only to be captured again and tied to a chair for a strange dinner with Leatherface and his family. When they cut her free to finally kill her, she escapes, jumping onto the back of a pickup truck with Leatherface hot in pursuit. 

                         At first I noticed a funny, but probably unintentional comparison to Scooby-Doo in this movie. A bunch of young adults driving around in a big van wearing bell-bottoms trying to solve a mystery.The mystery subplot of the graveyard turns out to be relatively unimportant to the plot however, and only really serves to get the characters out into the country to set up the story. I probably only noticed this connection because I was watching Scooby-Doo on TV the other day anyway, funny how your brain connects stuff like that. Anyways, Texas Chainsaw massacre has a running motif of animal slaughter throughout the film. The characters disgustedly smell a slaughterhouse near the beginning of the film, and talk about past and present methods of killing cows. Apparently it was formerly done by smashing the animal in the head with a sledgehammer, but now it is done more humanely by using compressed air to fire a steel rod into the animal's skull, killing them quickly and painlessly. When our protagonists pick up the insane hitchhiker at the beginning of the film, he talks about how much he prefers the old method, and that his brother and grandfather used to work in the slaughterhouse killing animals. This foreshadows events to come, because when Leatherface (later revealed to be the hitchhiker's brother) finds his first few victims, he incapacitates them by hitting them in the head with a sledgehammer, just like he used to do at the slaughterhouse. This allows Texas Chainsaw Massacre to be seen as a vegetarian or animal rights themed film. It begs the question: does killing animals make us comfortable with murder? Can repeatedly slaughtering cows or other animals make us develop a taste for human murder? Where do we draw the line, what animals are acceptable to kill and eat and which aren't? Obviously cannibalism is unethical, but this family of killers seems to see people just as other animals that they can kill and have their way with. It's really disturbing to think about.

              Another great aspect of this movie is the set design, and the atmosphere it evokes. The houses are derelict and lifeless. The place that the killers live is disgusting. One particularly horrifying scene has one of the characters stumble into a room filled with symbols of death. There's furniture made of human bones, animal skulls, corpses and remains, and the floor is covered in feathers and skins. The sets have a very cluttered feeling about them, which makes them more scary because when you see them you're trying to look at everything and you don't have time to process all the objects onscreen, so sometimes when the camera cuts away you're jarred into a new shot because your mind is still processing the previous one. This made the movie scarier for me, adding a new dimension of unpredictability. In terms of acting, everyone in this film gives very convincing performances, especially the actor who plays the hitchhiker at the beginning. His character was so frighteningly realistic I had to wonder for a second if they had actually recruited a crazy person to play that role.

             It's also worth noting that even though at the beginning of the film it says that this is based on true events, it actually isn't and that message is just meant  to scare people into believing that this actually happened and Leatherface is still out there somewhere. Could have fooled me.