The Matrix

Sebastian Peill-M
12/8/15

     That is right, I am reviewing one of the most famous sci-fi movies of all time, The Matrix. This 1999 film starred Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving. The film had a budget of 63 million, however it only made 28 million opening weekend. This does not change the fact that it is immensely popular. It has so many different aspects and scenes and effects that one could write an essay on, I am not going to do this but I will cover a variety of things in this film.

     Neo(Reeves) is a computer hacker who has been obsessed with finding him- Morpheus(Fishburne) the legendary man, who knows about the Matrix, something that little is known about. When Neo is contacted by Morpheus he is immediately targeted by the Agents led by Agent Smith(Weaving). Neo is captured and literally bugged (you have to see to understand). He then is taken by Trinity (Moss) one of Morpheus's people, to Morpheus. Morpheus gives him a choice, either find out about the Matrix or go back living his old life. Neo chooses to learn about the matrix and is hooked up to a machine to find his body in the 'real' world. He wakes up in a weird pod in which he hooked up to tubes and wires and is submerged in a goo. He is drained out of the pod and is picked up by a hovership, Morpheus's ship. He collapses on board and spends the next few months sleeping and having acupuncture preformed, as he has never used his muscles before. He then wakes aboard the ship and is shown what the Matrix really is, a computer program created by robots to keep humans asleep while the robots use their body heat to power themselves. Neo is then told that he is the One, the person who will destroy the Matrix and free all of the humans. He is then trained for hours learning all known types of  fighting and other skills. He is brought to the Oracle who tells him that he isn't the One and they are betrayed by one of their own to the Agents. The Agents capture Morpheus and begin to interrogate him, Neo and Trinity escape and get back to the real world. Neo tells them all that he isn't the One but he will rescue Morpheus, and he and Trinity venture back in. Neo and Trinity destroy the lobby of Morpheus's holding place in a very cool scene. Then they rescue Morpheus and get him and Trinity out of the Matrix, Neo is trapped and must fight/run from the Agents and in a very large twist find out that he is indeed the one, he can move as fast as he wants and can even stop bullets with his mind. He destroys Agent Smith and gets out of the Matrix, Trinity confesses her love to him and the movie ends.

First off the music, this film is not known for its music bu that doesn't change that it is still pretty epic music. Most of the music is a reprise of the opening music just played at different speeds and pitches. However sound is very important in this film, whenever there is slow motion all of the sounds are very pronounced, each bullet casing hitting the ground, an Agent punching through brick, and bullet impacts. Each character has a volume at which they speak, Morpheus and Smith both talk in low whispers. Smith however has the tint of anger and danger, whereas Morpheus is wise and thought provoking. Whenever anything weird happens the sounds correspond, a window moves like a puddle ripple and it makes a strange bendy noise. All of the sounds are very well done and chosen perfectly.

The camera angles and the effects, this is the most famous parts of this film, it would take pages to talk about them all so I will talk about some of them. There are so many different angles in this film it is amazing, you have basic portrait and landscape but then you have slow motion 360 (the frame freezes and the camera moves around the object completely, when people run on the walls the camera tilts and canters. There is an infinity shot, the camera shows an object extending forever, the pods with the humans inside. There are amazing shots in which you have an object in the foreground doing something to an object in the background. The effects are spectacular with slow bullets in which you can see the bullets spinning and slowing down. Explosions and windows bending like ripples. Peoples mouths disappearing while they try to talk and people dodging bullets in slow and fast motion. I simply can not say it enough, this film is amazing because of its effects. When Neo eventually realizes he is the One he see the Matrix as it is, a computer program, he see symbols instead of objects. He even jumps into someones body and makes them explode from the inside (they dissolve into code). The film even ends with a change from medium close to extreme extreme long shot(there are supposed to be 2 extremes there) and Neo flies up to the camera and out of shot. This film is amazing because of these effects and deserves all of its fame.

Slow Motion

What Neo sees after he is the One

Neo's mouth sealing

Infinite shot

Fast Motion

The acting skill in this film is rather good with Keanue Reeves who had already done some acting. Fishburne portrays the all knowing yet dangerous Morpheus very well and has perfected the voice that goes along with that as well. Weaving does an amazing job playing a computer program Agent, who lives to hunt and stop the One and his associates, he too has his deadly scary low voice down. Moss, or Trinity does a good job playing a girl who is afraid of her feelings at first but comes to terms with them by the end of the film, slowly letting them show more and more as time progresses, the other actors do good job as well, especially the traitor, who does an amazing job not seeming guilty until necessary for the film to progress. All in all a very good job done over all.

This is one of my favorite movies and I highly, highly suggest it to anyone and everyone
Interesting Fact 1: All scenes that take place within the Matrix have a green tint, as if watching them through a computer monitor, while scenes in the real world have a blue tint, blue was also used at a minimum in the matrix scenes since the directors thought blue was more of a real world color. The fight scene between Morpheus and Neo, which is neither in the real world nor in the Matrix, is tinted yellow.
Interesting Fact 2: Will Smith was approached to play Neo, but turned down the offer in order to star in Wild Wild West (1999). He later admitted that, at the time, he was "not mature enough as an actor" and that, if given the role, he "would have messed it up".

Goldfinger (sorry about the pictures, technical diffculties)

Sebastian Peill-M
11/30/15

This is it, the big one, Goldfinger, considered the most famous of the original Bond films (excluding films with Daniel Craig). The film was released 1964, and starred Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Fröbe, and Harold Sakata. The film had a budget of 3 million and made a gross of 51.1 million dollars.

 Bond(Connery) has been tasked with investigating the rich businessman Auric Goldfinger (Gert) who has been able to move his gold supply from country to country without getting caught. Bond meets with Goldfinger and his silent but deadly henchman Oddjob (Sakata) for the first time by making him lose $15,000. Goldfinger gets revenge by painting Bond's female companion in gold paint, causing her to suffocate and die. Eventually Bond is able to learn about a plan that Goldfinger has to "knock off" Fort Knox gold depository. It involves a deadly nerve gas being dispersed by Goldfinger's personal pilot, Pussy Galore (Blackman, yes a very strange choice of a name) and an industrial laser that can cut through steel. Bond is able to befriend Galore after a judo fight and his "charm". She agrees to help him change the plan, and notifies the CIA of her and Bond's plan. Galore does her part and disperses the "deadly" gas and Goldfinger marches staright up to the vault of Knox. He then puts a nuclear bomb in the vault, stating that if the gold in Knox is radioactive his gold's value with increase 20 times. He leaves Bond handcuffed there and leaves to escape from the chaos outside. What happens next is very famous and cliche in Bond films, the henchman vs. agent fight. Bond and Oddjob fight, Bond with his training and Oddjob with his strength and razor edged hat. Bond eventually beats Oddjob and defuses the bomb, but is captured by Goldfinger again, when being transported to the White House for gratitude. Goldfinger gives a monlogue about how he could have gotten away with it and tries to shoot Bond. He didn't consider the fact that they in a plane and Goldfinger is sucked out a window. The movie ends with Bond and Galore doing what Bond does best.

Oddjob and  GoldFinger

Galore

 The music in this film really upgraded from the previous, there is a singer preforming the opening credits, Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger. This is the first Bond film to do this, previous may have had a theme song but they weren't preformed by a famous singer. The film contains of course the same original theme song, but instead of just using parts of that song throughout the film during important or action sequences, they including new sounds. During a very tense scene you can hear the music get louder and louder or during a sneaking scene very quiet and soft music. All of these combined create a great amount of "realism" to the film.

The Laser and Bond

 The camera angles in this film were a little disappointing in my opinion. Almost all of them are from a wide angle and most are medium close to far shots. Not many scenes have portrait shots so the talking is not as personal. As with the previous films they include landscape shots to indicate and set up the scenes.

 The acting skill, this was an awesome film when it comes to lines and how they are delivered. Some of Bond's first lines include a pun after he kills someone. Goldfinger is often considered one of the most complex villains of all Bond films and Gert portrays him very well. Oddjob is considered the most popular henchman and although he is a mute, he leaves a mark with his dangerous hat and martial art skills. Pussy Galore, besides having a weird name is a very interesting character, she seems drawn to Bond from the beginning, although she says that she isn't, she is only helping Goldfinger for the money and switches side to help Bond almost too easily, Blackman, although I haven't seen her in any other films, does an amazing job in this film. Part of the reason that this film is so popular is because of the characters and their portrayal.

The famous hat scene

All in all, this a great film and deserves all of its acclaim, despite lacking dynamic camera angles, it contains extremely well portrayed characters, all of who are remembered.
 Interesting Fact: The movie was the fastest grossing picture in film history when it was released and was entered into the Guiness Book of World Records.