Inception

A man who is looking to back with his family yet has to finish one more task: to plant an idea within a person’s mind.

Cobb must go with people’s mind’s to extract Intel for a living. This is a new way of getting into the imagination process of art. It allowed Christopher Nolan to branch into something creative while still remaining somewhat realistic. The manipulation of both terrain and objects gave the audience the belief that anything can happen in this space and if one could understand it then one could truly explore it.

The main element that makes Inception so intriguing is space. Constantly gravity and physics are being tampered with to show how the dream world is so different from own. Plus once someone is in the dream world, it is very possible for another’s imagination to seep into the cracks. Another element that was used often was time. Since the dream world was so different, Nolan could experiment with time. As we got into each level, it seemed to expand and with this I believe made the film such a great success.  Time and space is what separates Cobb from his family so when this character is exposed to this then he truly discovers the darkest parts of himself.

500 Days of Summer

A boy, Tom. A girl, Summer. Just an average girl who thought did not not exsist. Then there was Tom. The man that fell in love with her.

The film uses time in an interesting back and forth to show how two people can have very different views upon love. It starts from the middle rather than the end of the love story. From there we can see that Tom is clearly unhappy. This was not the case when he first met her on day one but on days that when we move further into the timeline shows that he has conflicting messages coming from her. This is proven false when he describes certain situations that he has experienced. It only shows that he has over analyzed it once again. The important part to grasp from this movie is that these love hate evets occured back and forth but in the way we veiwed them, it very much seemed like he had everything right. But we are viewing these things from that of Tom’s perspective.

The most important thing that made this film absolutely fantastic was timing. Marc Webb prooved that not only a comedy genre had to be good with timing but also a romantic story had to have this as well. This is understandable considering that both comedy and romance both appeal to that of the pleasurable parts of the brain rather than that of those of Sci-fi or Action. If we go back to the beginning of the film, we can also see that the director made interesting parallelisms between the two characters to make sure the audience unterstood the space that forms between them. This can be seen as something that comes natural to all of us but it can also be an element best used to describe relationships and space. Plus another factor or element I would say that made this film was how relatable the characters were to this modern day of romance. Sure many of us look fo love but it does not always play out like those cheesy romantic comedies make it out to be. 

Jurassic Park

Hammond spares no expense to build a massive park on Isla Nublar. When he invites many experts to checkout the features due to persistent investors,  these people soon find themselves in a world of trouble that has long been extinct.

Yet another film by Steven Speilberg, this was adapted from a book by Micheal Critchton that used many effects to bring the imagination to life. The film builds up to how we see the dinosaurs so that we can question imagine the size of these dinosaurs. For many of Spielberg’s films the magic is in the mystery such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, we never get to see what is inside the space ship. However we do get to see the size and magnitude of the dinosaurs, leaving nothing to the imagination.

For Steven Spielberg, this aspect of showing the dinosaurs did indeed work. It was a new thing for the time period in which the film was shown and for that it got a lot of attention. Also another aspect that made it a good film was that it had both elements of action and horror. For example, when the hunter was hunting the velociraptor, you think he was going to get the dinosaur. Then you have a moment of surprise and terror as the hunter is viciously eaten. Another facto that made this film so good was the cinematography. The perfect example being the T-Rex chasing the gas Jeep with injured Ian in the back. We see the T-Rex through the side view mirror and is now known to be a very iconic shot in film.

Jaws

Jaws

The story starts in a town named Amity. As the town begins to prepare to what looks like to be a very awesome summer, Chief Officer Brody is a bit concerned as to what has been occurring in the waters of Amity. Soon his team consisting of Hooper and Quint find that they found more than they could handle.

Steven Spielberg ran into a series of problems when he made this film so I would say that overall he made the best for what he had considering the circumstances. Turning Jaws into something of that of a mystery was a great device to use against audiences. Sound was a major factor of how this movie built up tension. The film tends to build up at first to show that everytime the shark was about to attack, he would do so at the climax of this score. Even when we get to the beach scene do we also see that Spielberg messes with our mind by throwing a false alrm in there with all of the people in the water with the kids playing pranks. However, soon after we see that the shark is indeed at the beach ready to eat.

The elements for this film are definitely dependent and signature to that of the filmmaker considering that he is known for the notorious Spielberg Face. Time and time again we see it in this film as it is to show a sign of how the audience should be reacting to this particular moment in time.One example of this is when we are at the beach and Officer Brody is scanning the shoreline when we cut to a trombone shot of his face in shear terror that there could very well be shark in the water. It helps the audience understand the tone of that particular moment in time.