A Review of HIGH NOON and how it creates suspense

High Noon is a movie you cannot walk away from and not just because it has Philedelphia beauty Grace Kelly. This movie creates intense levels of suspense that keep you glued to your La-Z-boy chair, waiting to see who wins the epic duel between Frank Miller and Will Kane. The whole duel only about five minutes, so the waiting isn't exactly worth it, but that's alright.

Suspense is created the whole way through. The camera regularly shifts to a closeup of a clock, with the pendulum ticking away the seconds to twelve o'clock. Background is played often, with the beat of a ticking clock. Overall, it's pretty sweet. You keep sitting there, thinking, Wow, I wonder what's going to happen? And then, BANG! No, literally, it is a bang. This is a gunfight we're talking about here.

This movie is just one of those old films that you cuddle up with on a rainy day. You could watch it over and over, and still wait till the end because you're just that gripped by the suspense techniques.

A Review of CITIZEN KANE

Citizen Kane is terrific movie. It topped the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list as well as the Sight and Sound polls of the 10 greatest films for nearly half a century, and rightly so. It is a powerful film that shows the importance of love during childhood.

The movie follows a reporter who is trying to decipher the significance of "rosebud", Charles Foster Kane's dying word. We find out that Kane's parents gave him up at an early age to a wealthy man, and he is forced to grow up almost immediately. He spends his whole life making people love him, when he does not, or cannot, love anyone around him in turn. He also most definitely struggles with love and self-respect for himself. He indulges in things because he is rich enough to, and doing things at the slightest whim makes him feel like he is doing something immature and childish, like he would have done if he had been a kid longer.

He pushes away his friends, coworkers, and both wives, and dies alone in his mansion, Xanadu. I guess the man got sick of trying to please everyone, so he holed himself up in his house and stayed there. It's really a pretty heartbreaking story, but a good one. I recommend seeing this movie, and if you don't like it, well then go back to your Wii, you uneducated teenager.

A Review of THE MALTESE FALCON

I found The Maltese Falcon to be a very boring movie. I am not really into mystery movies, so perhaps that is why it didn't find it interesting. The story was hard to follow and I was mildly confused at some points.

I don't like to sit through a movie, asking questions the whole way through, and have to wait until the end to find the answers. I like movies that are simple and easy to understand. I go to school to be confused, so I like my movies to be plain and entertaining.

I have to give credit to the acting. Of course, with a cast including Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, it is expected to be great. The actors did a great job of keeping suspense in the air, and there was no weak acting that I noticed.

Just because I did not like this movie does not mean I wouldn't recommend watching it. I'm not much for mysteries except Scooby Doo, but I'm sure this will be considered a classic for real mystery junkies.

A Review of SHUTTER ISLAND

Shutter Island is quite possibly the most confusing movie I've ever seen. I went to watch it with my father and sisters, and none of us could tell each other what the point of that movie was. I've concluded that there was no point except to mess with the audience's heads.
The movie is about U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule investigating a missing persons case on Shutter Island. Teddy finds strange things and uncovers evil-genius ideas, but nothing is actually as it seems.

No, really, that statement has never been so true. You think you have a grip on the idea, and then the whole movie changes. So you get used to the new twists and turns, and suddenly everything is changed again. It changes so many times, you lose track of the movie because you're trying to absorb what is going on.

So who stars in this horrible attempt at a film? Leonardo DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, Mark Ruffalo plays Chuck Aule, Ben Kinglsey plays head psychiatrist Dr. Cawley, and Patricia Clarkson acts as escaped psychiatrist Rachel. To be fair, the acting is pretty good. But no amount of great acting can substitute for a complicated and cluttered plot.

I will give Martin Scorcese some credit for trying to pull this thing off. I mean, the man probably had a good base idea, but throughout the project some ideas must have been misconstrued and some ideas may have been added, so it's really not his fault. I like Martin Scorsese, because he's really good looking for an old man, so I will choose to put the blame for this terrible movie on the rest of the film crew.