Chicago

The two movies that I watched for Chicago are Michael and The Fugitive. These movies made me portray Chicago as a fast paced city full of people and lots of crime. In the past Chicago has had a high crime rate but over the years it has steadily decreased. These two movies made me think that people can find truth and honesty even if they live in a place filled with crime and materialistic people.

Michael
Throughout the movie the main character Michael, played by John Travolta, is trying to help his friends with their relationships. His friends are all jaded due to bad relationships they had in the past whether it was a professional relationship with a co worker or a more intimate relationship with a spouse. These people eventually open up to each other only to discover new love interests and friendships.

During the movie the characters frequently analyze their past/present relationships. In the beginning of the movie all of the characters are strictly out for their job. They are simply going out to collect a story about an angel. As the movie progresses the angel becomes less of a story and more of a friend. They all learn to relax and appreciate what is around them. When the characters are in the country they are more relaxed and they have fun. When they are in the city the characters are stressed and concerned about money.

Dorothy, played by Andie MacDowell, finally has a moment towards the end of the movie where she let's her guard down about love and her three ex-husbands. It's when she is singing on stage about her three ex's and how she has been hurt by them. At the same time she is making eye contact with the man she is starting to fall for. She eventually opens herself up to him.

The Fugitive
Richard, played by Harrison Ford, is a doctor who is framed for the murder of his wife. Richard struggles through the entire movie to find proof that he is innocent but no one will listen to him, especially the Chicago Police. After fighting for his life and for the respect he deserves Richard is finally able to prove his innocence. Before this happens Richard is forced to escape from a bus accident, run from the police, change his identity, steal an ambulance, etc. The movie shows that no matter how badly you want something all you have to do is work for it and over come anything or anyone who is trying to get in your way. If Richard had just gone to jail like he was sentenced his life would have been miserable, but he overcame all obstacles, to get what he wanted. 

Chicago Fact: Murders in the city peaked first in 1974, with 970 murders when the city's population was over three million people (resulting in a murder rate of around 29 per 10,000). Then again in 1992 with 943 murders, with a murder rate of 34 per 10,000. 

San Francisco

The different types of weather that are in San Francisco are shown in both movies but at climatic/important moments. The weather is also associated with the emotions of the people.

Zodiac

I noticed that since this move took place over such a long period of time the seasons often changed. This showed the many types of weather that San Fransisco gets frequently. It seemed to me that in the beginning of the movie, before the murders took place, the sky was blue and the sun was out. As the movie progresses, and the murders begin, the weather changes to down pouring rain and thunderstorms. This is the weather for a lot of the movie because all of the people living in the city were terrified of this crazy serial killer that was on the loose. The constant weather changes are related to how the residents of the city feel. The bad weather represents the deaths and the emotions that surround each one.

This movie stars Mark Ruffalo and Jake Gyllenhaal

Just Like Heaven

This movie also involves death but it is more about discovering yourself. During the accident, when the main character, Elizabeth, dies, I noticed it was raining heavily. This goes right along with the bad weather being associated with death or sadness. As the movie progresses, as well as the love story, the weather is more clear and sunny. A time that I noticed extremely excellent weather was when Elizabeth, the main character, is sitting in the flower garden. It seems like a sunny, peaceful, dreamy place that she fantasizes about when she is at work.

This movie stars Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo.


Fact:
San Francisco's climate is based on the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean. This moderates the temperature and produces a mild climate with minimal seasonal temperature changes.
The fog that this city is well known for is caused by the high temperature of the city mixed with the cold temperatures of the ocean.

Suburbia

People in Suburbia are unsatisfied with their lives. They often feel better by watching other people's lives and wishing for bigger and better material possessions. Money, of course, does not buy any of these people the happiness they want. The connection between these movies and the city is that these people end up going stir crazy because they are so overwhelmed by the sheltered world that they live in.

Suburbia is known for it's many small houses closely put together that are sometimes color coordinated. Although the houses all look the same the families inside each of them have a different story. Suburbia is predominately white and middle to upper class. The people usually have nice things like cars and SUVs, boats, pools, etc. 

Movies that portray suburbia normally show the characters feeling trapped where they live and end up going crazy. They try to break free and get away from their unfulfilled lives. The movies will also usually follow a teenager more than anyone else because teenagers can relate and are willing to pay to watch the movie. 

The Truman Show

This movie portrays suburbia in a different way than usual. The main character does not know that his life is a television show. He continually goes on living a life that has been planned for him. He begins to realize how repetitive and habitual the place is where he lives. He sits in his car in the driveway and notices that the same man, woman and car drive by at their exact same time each day. Truman also notices that he does the same things, at the same time every day. One day he decides to do something different and that is when unusual things happen. He goes stir crazy trying to figure out the unusual string of events in his life and how he got to where he is. Eventually, he is exposed to the idea that his life is fake and that there is something bigger and better out there waiting for him. Truman is extremely mentally isolated from the world through no fault of his own.  

After Truman finds out and escapes the suburbia he has lived in for so long, the creator of the show is interviewed on television. This is the part that I found to be so interesting because the creator talks about how the show was started with a corporation adopting a baby. I think this is crazy! How could a corporations possibly adopted a baby? Then I ask myself, what is a corporation exactly? When I saw this part in the movie it made me think of the documentary The Corporation because it is all about the terrible things that corporations do and talks about what a corporation really is. The corporations have so much power to manipulate the masses that we do not even realize it. The corporations do this with product placement. I believe that Truman felt like he has being told what to do and how to think by people, or corporations, everyday. He felt trapped but eventually broke free. 

When the movie begins I notice there are white picket fences on all the house, the people are white, and middle class. Since this movie is supposed to be a television show, it is heavy on the product placement. I notice whenever Truman talks to his wife she is usually advertising a product such as a lawn mower, cocoa and kitchen appliances. Every morning when Truman is headed to work he runs into the twins who always stop him right in front of an advertisement.

  

Disturbia

This movie also portrays suburbia closely with the stereotype. In the beginning it shows the main character, a teenager named Kale, who gets sentenced to three months of house arrest. While cooped up in the house Kale watches each of his neighbors daily patterns. He starts to notice the kids that watch porn, the neighbor that's cheating on his/her spouse, the beautiful girl next door that has a dysfunctional family, and the crazy murderer. Even though all the houses have white picket fences and they all look the same, each family has issues. 

Kale feels trapped in his house just like Truman felt in his fake world. In the movie Kale explains what he has observed about his neighbors as, " The world outside my window." Both characters have a bigger and better world outside their own. Kale is physically isolated opposed to being mentally isolate from the world. 

I want to connect the the first line of the movie to my blog. The first line is Kale: "Do you think he sees us?" Jeff: "No, he can't see us. But he can feel us watching." This is a great opening line for this movie. Even though these words are associated with fishing it makes me think of Kale's neighbor. When Kale is spying on his murderer neighbor, Robert Turner, he looks right at Kale because he can feel Kale watching him. 

New York City

I noticed that both movies portray the peaceful and beautiful side of NYC by showing famous parks and monuments. On the other hand both movies show sides of the city that are not so peaceful. Despite the bombing of terrorists and the corporations trying to take over the little guy NYC will always be a beautiful place.

The World Trade Center
This movie is based on true events which took place on September 11, 2001 in New York City. The movie shows more of what would have happened if you were right in one of the buildings when it got hit. The story follows a few local firefighters into the first building. As the movie goes on it focuses on only two characters, John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno. These two men were stuck under the rubble for many hours and some how survived.

During the first five minutes of the movie the city is being portrayed as majestic, beautiful, scenic, clean, and peaceful. I get this impression from the mood the music set and from the unique pictures of the city's more famous places. It gives the feeling of the stereotypical New York by showing the parks, tall buildings, famous statues, downtown and the ocean. But soon the city begins to get frantic as the buildings are hit. During the movie I noticed that the police take the public transportation to the first building. This seems odd to me because I pictured a bunch of cop cars with the lights flashing and the sirens blaring. This movie continues on to show the audience how the men felt trapped under the rubble while also flashing to the families and showing how they felt not knowing if their husband/father/brother etc., were going to be okay.
Finally, after people are saved and the buildings get cleaned up NYC is still beautiful in the end.


You've Got Mail
This movie is about a woman named Kathleen Kelly and a man named Joe Fox who both own bookstores in New York City. The movie shows the constant battle between corporations and independently owned stores. The difference between the two is that Fox represents the big box stores while Kelly is trying to maintain her mother's independently owned bookstore. The corporations are portrayed as being 'nothing but a suit', impersonal, big, and they pressure you into making decisions. When it comes to the little guy the movie shows the independently owned stores multiple times. A line that stuck out in my mind is "Save the shop around the corner, save your soul." This stuck out in my mind because of how true it is. If we are not careful there will be nothing left but corporations and we will be forced to buy everything from the same place.

You've Got Mail is set in New York and portrays it well but I can not help but think about what the underlying message is about corporations. Not only is it the main topic in this movie but it is also a topic that is being discussed in another one of my classes. We recently watched a documentary called The Corporation which is a film about the rise of corporations since they have been in existence. The corporations are looked at from a psychological point of view where the question "What kind of a person is a corporation" is asked and analyzed. There are many interview with many corporate insiders and critics such as Michael Moore and Naomi Klein.

I noticed that both movies portray the peaceful and beautiful side of NYC by showing numerous famous monuments and parks. I will always think of NYC as a fun and interesting place even after 9/11 but I'm sure that is very different for those people who still deal with repercussions. Some people have to deal with the loss of a family member or a friend. Some people even still suffer from heath problems related to the dust and rubble of the fallen towers.
I had learned about these health issues not too long ago when I saw the Michael Moore documentary Sicko. This documentary talks about some of the volunteer workers who are suffering from health problems after volunteering countless hours at the clean up. Part of the reason these people are still sick, after 7 years, is because they are either being denied the health care they need or they do not have the money for it. These people still have to deal with 9/11.

Washington, D.C.

Both of the movies that I watched about Washington, D.C led me to the conclusion that no matter where people are in that city, they are always on camera. The city has very high security and the citizens are always on camera.

Enemy Of the State

This movie demonstrates the side of Washington, D.C. that the public does not see. Although we know that there are cameras all around us, this movie took the surveillance to an extreme. It showed how every move we make is being monitored by a camera. The main character in the movie, played by Will Smith, has a taping of a murder that a very important politician wants. Smith's character, Robert Dean, is unaware that he has the tape and as the movie progresses his life gets invaded by the NSA. They monitor Dean's life with satellite surveillance, by placing cameras in his house, taping into his phone calls, and placing tracking devices on his car, pants, pen, watch, and shoes. The NSA even goes as far as stopping all of Dean's bank accounts and exploiting him in the newspaper. They do this by looking back into his records as far as when he was in college. As this is happening his life is falling apart completely including his marriage, career and life in general.

A Few Good Men

This movie is about a lawyer who is defending two marines that killed another marine named Santiago. The reason they killed Santiago was because they were issued a Code Red, although the intent was not to kill the man. This means that they were ordered to go teach this kid a lesson by beating him up. In the minds of the two marines they did not do anything wrong because they were doing what they were told which is their job. After the lawyer, Tom Cruise, has gathered enough information about the case the court room drama begins. The movie finally ends with a dramatic confrontation between the two main characters, the lawyer and the Col Nathan Jessup, in the court room. This movie did not portray the city as full of surveillance like Enemy of the State. It portrayed the marines and the court system.

The security in A Few Good Men was demonstrated all throughout the movie. The characters always have to announce themselves and offer some kind of identification to prove who they are. There is also a lot of security during the court room scenes because there are police officers always present.

A connection that I made between the two movies was that both movies gave the impression that if you do not have a lot of power then you have a low rank. For example, in A Few Good Men, there is a part in the movie where Demi Moore's character and the lawyer are talking right before they go into court for the last time. Moore tells the lawyer that if he thinks for any reason Col Jessup will not confess to what he did than the lawyer should just back off and let it go. If he does not back off he could get into a lot of trouble. Basically, the lawyer does not have enough power and authority to overcome the Col.

This is shown in Enemy of the State when the power that the government has is used against the citizens multiple times. This power is used against any one who comes in contact with the tape of the murder. The first guy to come in contact with the tape gets chased through the city until he gets run over by a fire truck, the second guy gets blackmailed and his whole life is ruined.

Washington D.C Fact:
An aspect of Washington that was portrayed in Enemy of the State is all of the high security and surveillance. It has been proven that a person can be caught on camera as much as 300 times daily. There are cameras everywhere we go. It gives me the feeling like there is always somebody watching. A line from the movie that really stuck out in my mind is when Brill says to Robert Dean "The only privacy left is in your head."

It seems that lately the media print articles with false or exaggerated information. It is hard for me to know what is the truth and what is not. I am making this connection to Enemy of the State because there is a part in the movie where Robert Dean finds an article about himself that is mostly false information. This was an attempt by the men following Dean to blackmail him. When doing my research I found some information on a newspaper that prints articles that are legitimate which is The Washington Post. This newspaper sticks out in most people's minds for the exploitation of the Watergate Scandal. I am not sure that an exploitation like that will happen again anytime soon because too many people can be shut up easily by being paid off.

Las Vegas

After watching Ocean's Eleven and Vegas Vacation I realized that I should not " judge a book by its cover" because people and places are not always what they appear. To judge a city, or any thng for that matter, by the way it is portrayed in a movie is not very intelligent. These movies gave me two completely different views of the same city. I noticed that both movies included stereotypical aspects of the city while also portraying the idea that you can be anyone you want when you are in Vegas.

When people think about Las Vegas they most often think of all of the gambling, money, prostitution, quick marriages, drinking, bright lights, the strip, and the heat. But that's not all there is to Vegas. For instance, Vegas Vic, the neon cowboy is the world's largest neon sign, and the famous Welcome to Vegas sign was created in 1959. Las Vegas also has many other forms of entertainment besides casinos, for instance, there is the Las Vegas Art Museum, and the Las Vegas Museum of History along with many others. There is also Mt Charleston for people who enjoy outdoor activities. Other forms of entertainment include sporting events, spas, trail rides, and golfing.

Vegas Vacation

This movie portrays the city as an over-exaggerated version of what people stereotypically think of Las Vegas. I noticed that the characters in the movie are tempted to buy the services of the hotel. For example, in the beginning of the movie the first thing the receptionist at the hotel tells Chevy Chase is that the hotel has a wonderful dry cleaning service. This prominently happens in big hotels such as the ones in Las Vegas. The characters are also very tempted to gamble because they have to pass through the casino to get to their room. It shows the exaggeration of places such as the Mirage. Other exaggerations in the movie were the bright lights all around, the temptation to gamble, and the entertainment.

Ocean's Eleven

This movie portrays the part of Las Vegas not many people think about. Instead of showing the bright lights and entertainment it shows more of what lies beneath. Aspects in this movie that are portrayed are how expensive people dress, the high security of casinos, the expensive restaurants, and the power that comes with money. The most emphasis in this movie is put on the high security level of casinos and how casino owners will go to any length to insure a smooth running casino.

In Vegas Vacation, Chevy Chase wants to renew his wedding vows. He persuades his wife that the best place to do that would be in Vegas. The average number of weddings in Vegas per day is 315. It is very easy to get married in Vegas. All you need is $55 in cash and one form of ID. Unlike Oregon where you have to wait three days, there is no waiting period for a marriage license in Las Vegas.

In my research I discovered that a new hotel is being opened on the Las Vegas strip. I wanted to mention this because it is the first hotel to open on the strip in 3 years. The name of this new hotel is The Pallazo who's sister hotel is The Venetian. When I read about this new fancy hotel it made me connect to the movie Ocean's Eleven because that movie was all about the big money, the expensive restaurants, and biggest and best hotels.

There are many things about Las Vegas, Nevada that I don't know because most of the attention and facts about Las Vegas have to do with strictly the casinos and the strip. The historical parts of Vegas are not mentioned as often. Such as how it used to be a railroad town in the early 1900's or how it was originally apart of Arizona territory until 1867 when it detached to join Nevada.