Nick and Kaitlin’s Infinite Movie Playlist

Alas the final quarantine post is here. I don’t know about you guys but I’ve been so bored I’ve taken to walking. Like seven miles a day type walking. I highly recommend the Butler Trail, it’s ten miles total but I like to just go to the South Lamar bridge and back to my place. My knees hate me.

This is the end scene of this movie. I’m hanging up my blogging cap, probably for good. If I ever were to return to the idea, I’d make a lot of changes. There’s something about being forced to produce as part of an academic setting that just sucks life out of creative posts. If I were to do this again under my own will I wouldn’t choose to host it on WordPress. I find the site clunky and hard to use to produce content that I could be proud of. I think other hosting websites provide more clean and sleek options for free while I think if I really wanted to create something I could be proud of I’d have to dip into the paid themes. I think I could have better promoted my page if I was actually proud of what I had created but it felt like I was following a formula someone else made for me by requiring an external link and an original photo. It felt stifling and therefore I didn’t want to properly promote something I wasn’t totally happy with.

I felt best during this project just in watching the movies in order to produce the reviews. There is a difference between watching something just to see it and be entertained and another to understand the characters and choices made by the production team. I think of all of this the thing I will take away if enjoying that process of analyzing films to gleam more than just entertainment. By analyzing films made by others I can better produce my own by feeling out the depth that others might look at my films with. I think one of my favorite YouTube series is made by FoundFlix and he does an Ending Explained series where he breaks down the plot of horror films. I think I’d be interesting in that kind of narration and commentary of films in the future.

My site stats did honestly surprise me I was really only expecting to see traffic from my TA (Hi Hannah) coming to grade my posts but I actually did get more hits than that. Maybe it’s just Hannah refreshing the page but both Hitchhiker’s Guide and Grand Budapest got four hits, maybe even my professor read my hot takes! I think these were most popular because they were more recent films and might be searched more than the others. It was also around the blog review assignment and maybe someone else from the class was looking for a blog to review. I did get five hits from my promotions on Twitter which was pretty surprising for me. I didn’t do anything super jazzy, I tried to do more than just “check out my new post” but nothing top notch so I thought that could be cool.

I used a new Twitter account for this assignment to keep professional tweets separate from my quarantine thirst traps but if there is any interest in those my personal Twitter can be found here. My Instagram is found here and hopefully you can see my name in lights one day.

Another day, another cat movie time. I swear, one or both of us are coming out of this quarantine with separation anxiety. Today we’re watching “Ex Machina” by director Alex Garland. I think this movie comes at a weird time for us, we all thought the future would look like the high tech life lived by Nathan Bateman but in actuality it looks more like The Walking Dead or The Hunger Games. In this future they’re deciding the ethical problems of living with AI while we’re deciding the ethical problems of hoarding toilet paper.

Caleb Smith is a programmer for Blue Book who wins a competition to spend a week with the CEO, Nathan Bateman. His house is in the middle of the woods and is extremely high tech. Caleb is given a keycard that will open certain doors but not others. Nathan says they’re almost completely alone at the compound. Only a single servant named Kyoko is in the facility. Nathan then reveals to Caleb he’s truly here to help determine if a robot he has created can pass the Turing test. Nathan has created a humanoid robot he has named Ava. Caleb must interact with Ava and she passes if he can forget he is talking to a robot.

As Caleb and Ava interact, they both begin to feel romantic feelings toward each other. Ava says she knows how to temporarily shut down the power to the facility, blinding Nathan’s cameras so they can talk privately. She uses this trick to tell Caleb she thinks Nathan is a liar that should not be trusted.

Caleb spends time with Nathan and grows annoyed with his drinking and narcissism. Nathan says he intends to upgrade Ava which essentially erases who she has become and all her memories of Caleb. Overall annoyed with Nathan’s behavior, treatment of Kyoko, and plans to essentially murder Ava, Caleb decides to get Nathan drunk and steal his key card. Caleb accesses Nathan’s computer and sees footage of Nathan interacting with previous models and finds out Kyoko is a robot herself.

Caleb begins to suspect that he may not even be human but a simple cut to the arm reveals blood and not wires. Caleb tells Ava what Nathan plans to do to her and she begs to be saved. They decide they’d get Nathan drunk again to change the security protocol so during an outage the doors will all unlock instead of locking.

Nathan confronts Caleb after hearing their plans via battery operated camera. Nathan says that Ava manipulated Caleb into believing she liked him in order to get him to help her. Nathan said this was the true test and Ava showed real intelligence by being able to manipulate him. Ava cuts the power and Caleb reveals that he knew Nathan would be watching and had already made the changes to the security system the day before. Ava leaves her confinement and Nathan attacks Caleb.

Ava and Kyoko together murder Nathan but Kyoko is killed in the process. Ava uses artificial skin from previous models to hide her mechanical parts. She dons a wig and a dress. Ava walks passed Caleb, locked in a room by himself, and takes the helicopter meant to pick up Caleb. She escapes and blends into normal society.

This movie I think is actually incredibly beautiful. On the surface you think it begs you to ask what humanity really is but I think it has a deeper question. I think it asks of the viewer how much we really trust each other as humans? Nathan, while a jerk, was a human being. Caleb chose Ava, a robot, over Nathan. In the end was Nathan really lying when he said Ava was manipulating Caleb? She left him there with pretty much no hope of being found since Nathan and Kyoko are dead and the only other beings on the compound. She never really did intend to leave with him and live a life with him. He did truly fall for her and believed in her more than he believed in the human being standing in front of him. I think the film brilliantly makes Ava charming by showing how excited she is to learn and how strange it is to be something that was created and not grown while showing Nathan to truly be a disgusting narcissist that has more money than empathy. But only one of them is human so is Caleb supposed to side with someone that, to his credit, has pretty much always been genuine with Caleb or with something that isn’t even human and may not even have the capacity to feel things?

Caleb chose to side with the machine and it had beautifully deadly consequences.

Another day, still at home. Mostly. Today we took a quarantine hike before I was forced to watch “Land of the Lost” by director Brad Silberling. While this was called a classic by Nick, it was actually nominated for Worst Picture in the 30th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards. I guess that should truly show that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately I think this is a movie so bad you have to appreciate it.

Will Ferrell is Dr. Rick Marshall, a paleontologist that believes in quantum paleontology. He believes in time warps as a solution to the fossil fuel problem. After an interview with Matt Lauer goes wrong, Marshall ends up working a low-level job.

Holly Cantrell visits Marshall, showing him a 265 million year old fossil of Marshall’s personalized lighter. She shows him a crystal that radiates tachyon energy which convinces him to build the tachyon amplifier he designed. The pair go to the cave where Holly recovered the fossil. They take a tour of the cave with Will, the gift shop owner. Activating the amplifier, the trio falls into a time warp. They’re transported to a desert, in which they can see items they recognize from multiple eras. They see some creature about to sacrifice one of their own and they intervene, befriending Chaka, an ape-like creature.

They encounter a t-rex which Marshall goes on for quite a while about how stupid it must be to have the brain the size of a walnut. The dinosaur they’ve named Grumpy chases them to a cave where they find the remains of other humans that became trapped here. The t-rex throws a walnut at the cave which actually in this place turns out to be huge.

Marshall gets a telepathic message of some creature begging for help and he races to find the sender of the message. The group meets Enik the Altrusian. Enik claims to have been exiled by Zarn who plans to overtake Earth with Sleestak minions. Enik says Marshall can save Earth if they recover the tachyon amplifier that they lost upon entry.

Looking for the amplifier, the group enters another desert and observe some smaller dinosaurs attacking an ice cream truck and its operator. The little dinosaurs are chased off when Grumpy and an Allosaurus come to battle it out to eat the ice cream truck driver. The two larger dinosaurs notice the group watching but only really chase Marshall through the desert. Marshall manages to kill the Allosaurus with liquid nitrogen which reveals that the Allosaurus had actually eaten the amplifier. Before they can retrieve it though, it is taken by some kind of flying dinosaur.

The group follow the flying dinosaur to its nest where the amplifier sits amongst a bunch of dino eggs. Marshall has to attempt to get around all of the eggs without waking any of them causing them to hatch. When Marshall picks up the amplifier, it stops playing its signature show tunes which wakes all of the babies. In order to stop them from crying and calling mother, the group continue the song themselves.

While Chaka, Will, and Marshal celebrate the retrieval of the amplifier Holly does something useful and investigates. She finds a message from Zarn that reveals it was actually Enik that planned to destroy Earth. Holly is captured by Sleestaks and is judged for assisting Enik. The boys finally notice she’s missing and attempt to save her. Will and Marshall set out to find her and send Chaka to get Enik.

Will and Marshall rescue Holly and learn Enik is actually the villain. Enik appears and takes the amplifier as Grumpy shows up. Marshall tries to face him alone and is swallowed whole. Holly leaves with Will and Chaka to get the amplifier back from Enik. When they seem overwhelmed by Sleestaks, Marshall appears riding Grumpy. While being digested, Marshall unblocked some blockage and befriends Grumpy once he makes it out the other side. The group overtake Enik and open the portal to Earth. Holly and Marshall leave while Will stays behind stating that he belongs here and needs to stay to close the portal to prevent Enik from attacking again. Marshall returns to Matt Lauer’s show and proves himself a success with his new book Matt Lauer Can Suck It.

Honestly, this movie probably does deserve the Razzie nomination. Holly is infinitely smarter and more attractive than Marshall but somehow she falls in love with him. My favorite line from the entire film is Will asking Marshall if he ever gets tired of being wrong to which Marshall responds “I do I really do,” which isn’t something you typically want to hear from your male lead that supposedly discovered a whole new branch of archeology.

It’s a dumb movie but I think that is where the beauty is. It is easier to laugh at something that doesn’t take itself seriously and I don’t think there is a serious line in the entire movie. I don’t think the creators intended this but I think it is nice to see characters that are supposedly making scientific advances being funny and goofy. Not everyone that has a brain can be Sheldon Cooper and that is I think the underlying shine to Land of the Lost.

Roger Ebert is one of the original, and longest lasting, American film critics. I find that I rarely agree with critics and to a degree that could be a generational gap. I was born in 1999 while Roger was born in 1942. I’m also a snot about old films or movies that take themselves too seriously.

Before even looking into his specific review of “The Silence of the Lambs” I can already tell we have some taste differences. Some of his movie of the year picks include “Juno”, “The Social Network”, and “Crash”. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all of those films, they were released the same years as “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, “I am Legend” and “Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” which I find to be top competitors for movie of the year.

Ebert describes Clarice as the center ring while Hannibal is the sideshow. Maybe it’s my morbid fascination with serial killers due to my dad being a homicide detective in D.C. my entire life, but I think the most interesting part of the film is Hannibal. Clarice has little interest to me because she’s just another person. Just another FBI agent while Hannibal is part of a very select group.

Ebert believes Clarice and Hannibal to be two sides of the same coin. People ostracized by society for being a killer of being a female FBI agent. What? What kind of comparison is that? How is being a woman the same level as being a literal serial killer that ate people? It’s hard to be a woman in a man’s world as I’ve experienced on film sets myself but I don’t think I’m ostracized to the degree of a cannibal.

Ebert gives Hannibal way more credit and empathy than I think the character should realistically be capable of. He gives Clarice credit for persuading Hannibal into helping her but I read it as Hannibal getting off on her innocence. He knew the whole time who Buffalo Bill was but made her work for it. He gives Hannibal the ability to feel empathy as Clarice explains losing her parents. Again I just don’t think it’s realistic to create this relationship between them. Hannibal as a serial killer should not feel this empathy for her and would not help her for any reason other than personal gratification somehow.

His love for the film is clear, and I appreciate his in-depth analysis of the subtle ways filmmakers make you feel fear via the soundtrack and motifs. Overall though I got very different impressions from the characters. In my opinion their relationship was predatory. Hannibal was using Clarice for specific reasons and made her divulge personal stories in order to help her. She was being used by Hannibal just as much as she was using him. Maybe this is a reflection of era or even regional differences. Ebert was born in Illinois and I was born in Maryland. On the East Coast we tend not to trust one another. I’m also a woman and I keep an eye out for predatory habits.

Ebert will always be an iconic critic, but I have to say he’s wrong on this one.

Good evening from quarantine beach! I made the trip from Maryland to Florida hopefully without a run in with Miss Rona. The airports were actually annoyingly full of old people blatantly ignoring social distancing. Maybe they’re Vogons!

This week was actually my pick. I know I know, it breaks the rules. There are only so many movies I could watch on my D.C. to Tampa flight and someone, Nicholas, wasn’t answering their phone. I selected classic film “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” directed by Garth Jennings was released in 2005. The film was based on the novel by Douglas Adams, first released in 1979. This film has a wild plot that gives more questions than answers, so I won’t be giving as thorough of a synopsis. In order to explain it I’d probably end up rambling like a toddler.

Our story centers on Arthur Dent, who seems very content with living simply. He loves his house and rarely strays from a typical British lifestyle. Even when offered a date in Madagascar with Tricia, played by Zooey Deschanel, Arthur refuses in favor of his comfortable and known lifestyle. Tricia is swept off her feet by a man using a spaceship pick up line to which Arthur rolls his eyes that it worked for her. Arthur wakes up to find him home is being demolished in favor of building a highway. He protests and is helped by friend Ford, who brings beer for the construction crew to stop them from taking down his home, for now. Ford reveals he is truly an alien and today is the day the world ends but he plans to save Arthur to repay a life debt.

Ford holds his thumb out and they’re both whisked away. It turns out they’ve become stowaways on a Vogon destroyer ship, destined to destroy earth in favor of a hyperspace highway. Arthur learns exactly who Vogons are, generally gross and boring bureaucrats, from a book Ford has been curating called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Ford and Arthur are discovered by the Vogons and are cast out into the void of space. In the same moment, a giant object appears around them. This turns out to be a shapeshifting spaceship lead by Tricia, now known as Trillian, and Zaphod, the man she left Arthur for. Zaphod is actually president of the galaxy who has kidnapped himself and stole the spaceship in order to find the meaning of life.

The gaggle cut a deal with Zaphod’s political opponent. They get coordinates to a mysterious planet that Zaphod believes holds the answers they need, while Hummer gets a point of view gun. As they leave Tricia is captured by Vogons for kidnapping the president. In captivity, Tricia learns that Zaphod signed off on the destruction of earth. They rescue Tricia and head for the mysterious planet on which they will find Deep Thought. Deep Thought was a super computer created to find the answer to life. When the answer turned out to be 42, they asked Deep Thought to create a super computer that’s capable of calculating the question to which 42 is the answer.

Arthur meets the creator of earth, who shows him they’ve built a second one exactly like the one he just lost. He is taken to his little house, exactly the way it was when he left it. He finds his friends inside enjoying a feast provided by inter-dimensional beings that had originally commissioned the creation of earth. They believe Arthur’s brain is the key to finding the question and attempt to remove it but Arthur is able to squish them with a teapot.

They aren’t out of the woods yet, Vogons are still looking for Zaphod. An army of them awaits outside and a shoot out begins. The gang is saved by a depressed robot using the point of view gun on all of the Vogon army. They become much too depressed and give up shooting. Arthur looks at the life he used to have and decides to choose adventure and explores the galaxy with his friends.

If you thought that was complicated, watch the movie and you’ll really see that was the abridged version. I didn’t even try to explain Zaphod’s two heads. This film has instantly become a favorite. There is a comedy and lightness that absolutely puzzles the viewer. You see yourself in Arthur because he’s normal and wants to be normal but is thrown into just about the least normal situation. The Vogons are truly disgusting and clearly have an advantage over these ‘criminals’ but are so caught up in red tape they never manage to capture Zaphod, as both a rescue from his kidnapping and as punishment for kidnapping the president. The president that is himself. Zaphod is a ridiculously annoying character full of vanity but he originally gets the girl with promises of adventure and something more exciting than a pint down the street. We could also see ourselves in Tricia, someone who is desperate to break normality that they’d rather go with a two headed idiot than someone they could be truly compatible with. The characters are exaggerations and their adventures are far from relatable and yet it offers a new perspective on our own lives. No matter which character you learn most from you’re still learning from them in a humorous way. Maybe you learn to bend some rules from the Vogons or to be less self-centered from Zaphod. No matter what, you learn something from this guide.

Next up let’s talk about how my opinions compare to that of Roger Ebert, one of the most acclaimed film critics of all time.

Happy quarantine everyone! Things have been a little crazy for both Nick and I. I traveled this week to Maryland to see my dad and then to Florida to see my mom. Traveling during a global pandemic sure is something else. Remember to wash your hands often and don’t touch your face!

Small change of plans due to pandemic, instead of watching “The Sandlot” I watched “The Grand Budapest Hotel” because it was at my dad’s house and Nick had the DVD at his house back in Texas. Instead I had Nick pick from the selection of movies at my dad’s house. This also changes our plans for the next few movies.

“The Grand Budapest Hotel” was released in 2014 by director Wes Anderson. The film was also written by Wes and used photochrom prints of alpine resorts as inspiration for set design. According to The New Yorker, “Anderson takes a joyful yet aching delight in recreating the styles of bygone days”.

Generally, I think that review holds true. The story uses a framing device in which a writer meets with the current owner of The Grand Budapest Hotel, Zero Moustafa. Zero tells the story of how he became the owner of the hotel. The film flashes back to 1932 when Zero was a newly hired lobby boy at the hotel.

Zero comes under the wing of my personal favorite character in the movie, Monsieur Gustave, the hotel’s manager. Zero joins Monsieur Gustave as he travels to Schloss Lutz in order to mourn the death of one of Monsieur Gustave’s mistresses. Gustave is left the Boy With Apple painting in the Madame’s will. Her family decides he doesn’t deserve the painting, so he steals the painting and leaves with Zero.

Back at the hotel, Gustave was arrested for the theft and the murder of the Madame. Thus begins my favorite sequence in the entire film. Gustave serves time in prison for the crimes. Gustave, a generally eccentric person, befriends a rather terrifying group of gangsters. With the help of Zero, they are able to sneak tools into the prison in order to dig an escape. I find the escape to be particularly amusing. They make it out where Gustave meets with Zero, who forgets the perfume Gustave requested.

The pair return to the hotel, which is now overrun with military looking for the escaped Gustave. After a chase, it is revealed that there was a second will on the back of the Boy With Apple painting. This will, invoked only in the case that Madame was murdered, leaves the entirety of her estate to Gustave.

Gustave, now fabulously wealthy and the new owner of the hotel, travels with Zero. Encountering military on their travels, Zero’s refugee papers are burned. Gustave attempted to defend Zero but ends up getting shot and killed. Zero was his only heir and thus, new owner of the Grand Budapest Hotel.

That’s the end of the film, which I loved from start to finish. The character dynamic between Zero and Gustave is incredible. They are incredibly similar in the way they speak but they aren’t exactly the same they are still able to learn and grow with one another. If any of you have seen this movie, you’d notice I left a plot line out of my synopsis. I cannot stand the Agatha storyline. If you haven’t seen it, Agatha is Zero’s love interest and eventual wife. I just don’t care for it. I know Agatha’s role in the bakery led to the tools being smuggled into the prison but I just don’t see the point of her role.

Besides the Agatha storyline, I adore this movie. I think the humor is subtle but it still has a strength in the movie. There is drama and tension that I think is lost in a lot of comedies. The relationship between the two main characters is incredible. They are similar enough that their relationship feels genuine but distinct enough that their conversations are interesting to see.

Overall, I highly recommend watching “The Grand Budapest Hotel” for the drama but truly for the comedy. Next post we’ll be seeing “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. Stay tuned!

Nick and I gathered this week with our favorite stuffed sloth. The first film Nick selected was “Silence of the Lambs”, directed by Jonathan Demme in 1991. Nick picked this because he believes it is a cornerstone of American horror films and it was a tragedy that I had never seen it. Silence is about a young F.B.I. agent using a known cannibal to understand a new serial killer that skins his victims. Personally, I’m not a huge horror fan. I love the lore and the stories that are created but I’m also a huge scaredy cat. I’m easily afraid of these types of movies but I think that was part of Nick’s point in picking this movie for me. I don’t have a special movie snack for this one because I recently got my wisdom teeth removed so my snacks are limited to mashed potatoes and ice cream.

Silence opens on Clarice Starling, our heroine of the film, running through the woods. I find this to be a particularly strong opening since we really have no idea why she’s running. It almost gives the feeling that she’s being chased and the audience should be afraid, especially with the accompanying score. Clarice isn’t in fact running from any danger but she’s actually training for the F.B.I. when she’s stopped by Jack Crawford. Clarice is assigned to interview Hannibal Lecter, a known cannibal but also a psychiatrist. For me, the basis of a good film is a believable plot and this makes or breaks the entire movie. I don’t find it believable at all that they would allow a cadet to interview a serial killer that has to be restrained the way Hannibal is. For me this is a pretty unbeatable road block. I don’t think the F.B.I. realistically would rely on Clarice who is just a student. Once you notice the stretch they take the rest of the film just doesn’t quite feel right. It’s not that Clarice wouldn’t have the knowledge to figure out how to work with Hannibal or that she couldn’t find the killer in the end but more that she never would have gotten the opportunities to talk to Hannibal or investigate the way she is in the film.

Clarice should have never been able to offer the deal that she presented Hannibal with. The way she discovers the anagram feels again implausible. From here, I think the best part of the film is the actual crime solving. Clarice discovers that the skin pieces are patterns for dresses which were specifically made by one tailor. This moment I really love because it has elements of cool crime solving as opposed to taking unbelievable stretches to put a young woman against a violent serial killer.

In the end, Buffalo Bill was found and killed by Clarice. I can see why this would be a classic despite how many leaps I think they made with the plot. There was a tenseness that I don’t think was typical of the era. The pressure between Clarice and Hannibal is unimaginable. I think the writers sacrificed the reasonable plot to put someone soft and innocent against the cold calculating Hannibal character. I don’t agree that the sacrifice was worth it, there were more characters that could have been implemented to create that kind of tension. There were elements that I appreciate but this movie wasn’t for me.

Next week we’re watching The Sandlot, a much lighter note. Check back next week!

I’m Kaitlin Broadbent! I’m twenty years old and originally from Maryland. About nine months ago I met Nick Manzi and we’ve been inseparable ever since. Nick is born and raised Texan so we’ve had to deal with little cultural differences the entire time we have been together. He is super into sports and has grown in a culture that highly values sports whereas I have pretty much never cared about or been interested in sports. Nick finds it hilarious that I’ve never had Whataburger. Besides our cultural divide, Nick seems to believe that there are classic movies my childhood is missing. He always tells me I’m the worst film student because I haven’t seen any movies. Well I’d like to give his movies a chance.

I’ve asked Nick to pick ten movies he thinks I should have seen in my childhood. Together, we will watch all ten and I want to keep track of my opinions. He is partially right, for a film student I haven’t seen a whole lot of the classics. I want to take this as a chance to go through and see why these films are considered classics, at least in Nick’s opinion. I also want to have some awesome movie snacks and share those on their own page under Snacks. I hope anyone that has seen Nick’s picks can find humor in my opinions and anyone that hasn’t seen these movies can get an idea of what the movies are about. I feel as though a lot of people younger than me may not have seen these as well and can hopefully gain a little insight about these films.