Snowball, Superbowl, and Snowday

To say this was a busy weekend would be an understatement. Between the Snowball and Super Bowl, I didn't have much time to marathon through as many movies as I would have liked to. Luckily though, mother nature pulled through last night and we got a snow day! I took this as a sign to watch some more movies. Over the course of these three days off, I was able to watch and take notes on three movies. Saboteur (1942) by Alfred Hitchcock, Natural Born Killers (1994) by Oliver Stone, and The Shining (1980) by Stanley Kubrick.

All three were great movies I thought, but my favorite of this bunch is Natural Born Killers. I didn't originally have Oliver Stone down as one the directors I wanted to study, but after watching this film I think I might need to make some room for him. Stone's extremely controversial film follows two star crossed lovers and their month long murder spree across the American southwest. The film is highly critical of the American media and how they tend to portray villainous criminals as "cult" heroes. The movie is a psychotic, bloody mess and is very reminiscent of a Tarantino flick. That's probably due to the fact that Tarantino is credited with writing the original script before selling it to Stone. The movie is edited schizophrenically, e.g. scenes switching from color to black and white randomly, shots transitioning from one to another through a short (1-10 second) animated action segment, and frequent frame long flashes to Satan and other demonic figures. The highly stylized action and strange editing techniques has landed this movie on my favorites list. 

The Shining was my second favorite in this trio of movies. This popular horror film has been called one of the greatest horror movies of all time by many critics. Unfortunately for me, I'm not a huge fan of the genre. Jack Nicholoson's performance as Jack Everett is what made this movie for me. He perfectly portrayed his character's transition from troubled family man to psychopathic madman. Jack's slow descent into madness is one of the best character evolutions I've seen in a movie. Paired with Kubrick's masterful camera work, this movie has quickly become my favorite horror movie to date.

That makes Saboteur by Hitchcock my least favorite of these movies. But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. It was still a great film just not as powerful as these other two. This was one of Hitchcock's earliest American movies and it's definitely not his greatest. It follows the story of a airplane manufacturer that is wrongly accused of sabotage. The film contains many of Hitchcock's trademarks such as his classic "right under your nose" scheme and dark humor all around. The characters weren't the most memorable, but it was still an interesting take on a spy movie.

I think from here on out if I really want to succeed in my studies I need to pick a director and finish their filmography before I start a new one. I'm going to be continuing my study of Kubrick before I dig any further through Hitchcock's collection or any other director.