Can You find Romance for Me, Zombieland(2009)

          So, I talked about how scary and funny from this movie. However, I got asked where were the parts showed romance from the Zombieland. For this blog, I am going to discuss about the romance which everyone love to watch and it also makes people feel shy. Not only that but also I will touch a little on comedy and road film.

Theory Discussion

(1) Romance
         First of all, what is romance? Well, it meant something would make people cry,touch and shy. For me, romance not necessary only for a couple but also it can see in family. Just go ask yourself a question, will you feel shy if you try to speak out the word of 'love' to your mommy and daddy? Of course, the answer is a YES! But why? Let's continue this in next paragraph.

        One of the main reason to explain this is because they are the one you really loved just as couple who loves each other. So, love becomes the key at this moment right now. Besides romance brought us the feeling of romantic, love was also one of them. There are two types of love in our human being which are family and couple love. 

        As I mentioned before, say 'I love you' to your mommy and daddy will be the example of family love. For myself, I prefer to show my loves to my family through action like help them to do housework, get them a drink when they back from work and so on. Haha, how about you; have you done these before?

         Next, let's take a look on couple love. So, how a couple forms? Basically, it can be form in two person with different gender. From the book Cinema Studies: The Key Concept (2013) written by Susan Hayward, she stated that ideological function of gender is to fix us either male or female and is the first in a series of binary oppositions that serve to construct us as male and female in page 176 with line 28-30. 



       For a movie, there is a triangle that shows how romance can be build and romance cannot perform well if a movie does not use 3 of them. What are these things that important for a romance movie? 

Lightning used in romance
       I saw many romance movies and they did have the same lightning used which most of the situation were in dim condition. This was because of this kind of light can bring us the feeling of relax and peaceful. In Zombieland, there was a part which Columbus and Wichita danced together and you can see the surrounding light was actually dim yellow. 

Props used in romance
       Now, I am going to ask you a question. What are the things that usually a movie tried to use so it can relate to romance? For me, I will think of a ring to ask girl to marry him, a bouquet of flower, a red wine manufactures in old time and so on. But why? This is because these are things that show your love to someone you really love. For example, Wichita asked Columbus to have a drink which red wine and they danced after having some of the drink. 

Music used in romance
       We have lightning and props...However, music is also one of important part that cannot miss out in a romance movie. Just like most of romance movie, Zombieland also included romance background music when Witchita and Columbus dancing together. The music had cleared their mind from the zombie attacks and argument in car. Try listen to some romance music especially piano, you will feel your brain refresh and comfortable. 



Romance part of Zombieland
       These are the part I felt touched and want to cry when Columbus imagined that the time Tallahasse spent time with his kid. This is family love. 

 







      

       These are the part that explained Zombieland used the triangle that I mentioned to show romance.

(2) Comedy
     To define comedy, it is a term that makes people laugh and excited. The objective for putting this term into a film is because it wants to amuse and entertain through actor's action, languages and so on. There are several type of comedies which included slapstick, screwball, black or dark comedy and parody. However, Zombieland contained only two of them which were black or dark comedy and parody.

     For black and dark comedy, it can say like when the film showed something very nervous or panic scene like chasing by a group of zombies; it also showed the comedy at the same time like Woody was playing like a kid sitting in roller coaster and he shot zombies at the same time. The whole scene should be very serious but it made comedy at the same time. 

     The other one as parody can be discuss in how to catch ghost but zombie in Zombieland. Some of scene copied the action that made in ghostbusters like how they made fun when catching the ghost. For example, how Woody killed the zombies and Columbus did double step on the zombie which also can be seen in ghostbusters. Although they had the same action, audience still enjoyed because it was interesting.     

    In addition, funny can't leave from comedy since it is a family of comedy. To me, funny not only bring me laughs but it impressed me in my memory for longer time. Compare to one of the famous movie called Conjuring, I still can remember the some contents of the film after enjoyed the movie for after a few weeks. However, it needs some times for me to think back the content of Conjuring. Have you had the same experience as me?    

(3) Road Film

     Road film is a film that targeted on one thing which is road. For what I knew, road film usually used when the setting needed to more one to another place and mostly in car scene. For example, 4 of them in Zimbieland took turn on driving to their destination (Pacific Park). 

     In the middle of driving, they chit chat with each other about how sweet were their families. As there was a scene extreme close up to the side face of the character, the camera was placed beside the car window. Yet, there was also a scene showed the 4 characters with front car engine and this shot by a truck in front of their car and it stick with their car together in order to balance the camera. 

Conclusion
       Just like what I said last week, the movie was awesome and good. Furthermore, Zombieland had reached the triangle requirement I mentioned which we can see in romance movie. Also, it had included some of elements which are comedy and road film that are ineresting. Thank you and don't forget to say 'I love you' to someone you loved. 

References

S.Hayward (2013), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and New York 

  

   

The Scary and Funny Movie, Zombieland(2009)

Hi, good to see you come to my blog again. The film of this week was very interesting because it was scary and funny movie. For me, I was a kind of timid character and afraid to watch horror movie. However, Zombieland(2009) by Ruben Fleischers was not scary that I expected after watching it.

Synopsis

            It was story about a famous country which was United States (USA) suffered a serious virus. This virus would cause people to become a zombie. Jesse Eisenberg (main actor) with Emma Stone (main actress), Woody Harrelson (a fearless and cowboy looks man) and Abigail Breslin (Little Rock) were planned to stick together until reach their own destination. On the way to the destinations, they betrayed each other. Will they surrender to the zombies or will they survive until the end? Who know…?

Theory Discussion

(1) Genre 1

Semantic/Syntactic Approach
     Semantic approach is something happens logically like you got a stomach ache if you ate something expired food like Columbus and his team look worried when there were many zombies in Pacific Park. This sounds meaningful because people should worry when they are having hardship experience.

     However, syntactic approach more on unexpected thing such as zombie in the Zombieland, superhero in Marvel movie which are not true in our real life. Due to this kind of approach, people started to think of syntactic will become semantic one day because they believed what the movie did can actually happen in real life. 

Case Study:

(i) Horror
       There are some genres which can discuss for this movie which they are horror, sci-fi and action. Let us talk about horror now. Just ask yourself a question ‘what do you feel when you will chase by a big group of zombies?’ We no need to think too much, the answer must be run away as fast as possible. As you are running, your heart rate increases and it will make you feel panic. So, what I thought the purpose of director made this movie was wanted to bring the audiences to experience panicked by the characters inside the film.

       There are some characters which can refer as horror type such as Frankenstein, Werewolf, Dracula, Vampires, Witches, Zombies, and The Mummy. For Zombieland, it used zombie as the character and considered as unnatural type of horror. Also, most of unnatural film focused more on bodily mutation. For instance, blood suckers, pests, creatures growing within body and altering the normal states. Furthermore, the threat in Zombieland said to be external to actors and actress inside the movie because they injured when fighting back to the zombie. 

(ii) Sci-Fi
       Sci-Fi is said to be one of the branch of the horror. This is because scientific-friction (Sci-Fi) film usually scientific, visionary, comic-strip-like and imaginative. The words 'bodily mutation' used for zombie because their body changed according the viruses they infected and also their genes as well which can see in science field.  

     Not only that but also, Sci-Fi also consisted the characteristic of complete with heroes on impossible quest which we can see in Zombieland. For example, Columbus and his team tried something impossible to escape from zombie attacks which normally people cannot do.   

(iii) Action

    

Zombieland also considered as action film because there are scenes that showed the continuous high energy physical stunts and activities. For example, zombie chase, fight zombie and escape scene. Every of these scenes were needed non-stop motion, spectacular rhythm and pacing to make it happens.   



     





Moreover, action also cannot lack of violence. For violence, it can explain an action that is very horrible which can make one side of person or thing injures. For Zombieland, we can see how Woody killed many zombies in his mercilessly.



(2) Sound       

     For sound itself, it divided into two types which they are diegetic and non-diegetic sound. According to Susan, diegetic sound defined as the source of sound is visible on-screen whereas non-diegetic was the source of which is not visible on-screen and usually exists in post-production.

     For instance, the car engine, people talking and zombie's sound are some of examples of diegetic sound which we can hear from the screen and live shooting. However, the background music such as panic and nervous cannot be hear when live shooting because this is the sound that can only hear after the live shooting.        

      

 Analysis of the theory through the film

       So, how do we relate these two theories to the film? In the book Cinema Studies:The Key Concept (2013) with page 240 and line 5-6, Susan wrote that mise-en-scene is the expressive tool at the filmmaker’s disposal which a critic can read to determine the specificity of the cinematographic work. Before discuss the sentence, mise-en-scene defines as what we see from the movie itself. So, why Susan said that miss-en-scene as an expressive tool?

            

       To answer this, the reason for this mise-en-scene is want to attract audiences who are watching the film. Normally, mise-en-scene would think by the audiences after the movie ended. Just like most of us, I am not thinking about how they shot when watching the film but I cares more on what the contents about. For Zombieland, I think that it was good setting because the flow was smooth and simple which allowed audiences like us to understand the story of the movie. Also, props in the movie they used were mostly real and they made audiences to feel more realistic.

            

       Furthermore, this scary film has the nice costume and makeup features. For example, the face of the zombies and the clothes of zombies. Next, most of the scenes in this movie were shot in night time and this was where a horror movie loved to do because the mood that would bringing to us was scare. To make the characters look more afraid, an extreme close-up was used to capture the expression from them. Besides this, their behaviours and movements also vital because this will determine their actions whether consider natural or not.

The best part of the film

      I loved this scene because it was climax of this movie. At that time, I was thinking that whether those two girls get infect or not.

The dislike part of the film     

      I felt disgusting when watching this part because the zombie was eating the dead body and even scooped organ out to eat.        

Suggestion to the film

From the book Cinema Studies:The Key Concept (2013) written by Susan Hayward with page 206 and line 36-37, she stated that bodily mutation movies were very much a central preoccupation of the unnatural horror type movie. I agreed the statement because it is good that shows the stages to become a zombie rather than just show a zombie look from beginning to the end.   

Conclusion

Last but not least, the theories used by this film were horror Sci-Fi and action. The mixing of these theories were actually good because it had showed to us that a horror movie can add on not only Sci-Fi but also action which made this film looked wonderful. Thank you and enjoy the day!

References

S.Hayward (2003), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and New York

Old American Film, Requiem for a Dream(2000)

          

         
   

       Phew...Boom...Boom...Boom! Hi everyone, Chinese New Year(CNY) is coming soon and if you were the one who played fireworks then you should know what I mentioned for the first sentence. So, what our lecturer brought the movie before we celebrate CNY? The film was called Requiem for a Dream which was released in 2000. However, this was my first time to watch and I felt that its graphics look like my favourite old movie James Bond. 

Synopsis of the Film

       The movie was started with 4 characters who they are Sara Goldfarb, Harry, Marion Silver and Tyrone. They encountered the same problem which is taking drugs. For Sara, she increase the pills suggested by doctor because she was impatient to see the effect. Then, Harry, Marion and Tyrone want to make money so they also stepped on the black market which was selling drugs to other in order to make money. In the middle to become thin and make money, they have to take the drugs mostly every 1 or 2 days because they will experience pain to their bodies if they skip the drugs. So, what happened to them at last? Who was going to save them or they don't?  

Theory Discussion
(1) Film Form 1
       In most of the movie, it used the term form as pattern because professionals found out that our human can remember a pattern easily after seeing one time. For example, I remembered very clearly to the jump cut of scene showed the eye, cigarette and money because they gave something in pattern form.

       Then, formal expectation is also one of the film form can be seen in this movie. For example, a movie will try to use jump cut to move another part of the scene that something not dominant when there is a climax. This is wants to attract people and people will create expectations and sustains them in time just like the scene jumped to Sara after showing the other 3 how they encountered the problems they faced. 

       After that, we can also discuss about the function, motifs and development of a movie. For function, it can be explained the purpose of the film. For example, most of the movie added on some background music and sound effect (SFX) to make sure the narrative can deliver to audience vividly. 

       Moreover, a movie needs a motif which also can called theme. This is wants to ensure the other elements stick to the point so that the movie remains its position but not out of the theme. The last one will be the development. Development is very important because it is a process just like film production to make a successful movie. 

(2) Editing
       There are three type of major editing which they are continuity editing, soviet montage and jump cuts. For a continuity editing, it is By the book Cinema Studies: The Key Concept (2013) written by Susan Hayward with page 119 and line 24-25, she mentioned that this editing can be considered as an event follows 'naturally' on from another. It also can be explained like the shot of the scene is considered as one shot but no other cuts include in the scene. For example, they tried to escape from cops. The scene not showed cut by cut but they used one shot to show how Tyrone to be caught. 

       Next, soviet montage is the term that related to how the shots are put together to compare their differences. There are five types of montage but the only montage can be seen in this movie was intellectual montage. It used the collision of contrasting images to express abstract ideas and it will become metaphor which people need to guess what is the meaning behind the scene. For example, there is a shot showed 4 character lied down in the same way but different location. This is wants to show the effect of taking drugs and what the situation were they faced during that time by comparing them at different location. 
    
      On the other hand, the editing also included jump cuts which has a big different compares to continuity. This editing used cut by cut way to show deliver the message. For example, if a movie used too many continuity editing; the length of the movie will be longer and costly. To minimize this problem, this editing is a must to use in a film. For example, there was a scene shows very quickly and this considered as jump cut because the scene normally needs to show the normal speed but they speed it up. 
    
(3) Film Form 2     
     Narrative is very important for every movie and it must show in formal system which means everything need a plan and follow the sequence. What kind of narrative considered as formal system? For example, Classical Hollywood Cinema (CHC) is the one which refers to the cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production from 1930s-1960s. 

      There are some elements which are cause and effect logic, plots and story, character motivation and closure and resolution. Firstly, cause and effect is very easy to see in Requiem for a Dream which was the cause was they wanted achieve their dreams quickly and the effect was they ended with lost their not their own images but also there was a warning to their health because of taking many drugs. 

       Secondly, the plots and story will be the setting of the movie. It tried to show what is the flow of the film and what is the props they are going to use. For example, the flow of this movie was narrated how the 4 character chased their dreams in shortcut way and they received something bad which the effects that I mentioned before. 

       Thirdly, character motivation also one of significant element for CHC because the character played the role to help in narrative of a movie just like Requiem for a Dream. Next, the last element will the closure and resolution; this is the part that represented the intro, climax and ending of the movie. If a movie lack any of these 3, the movie is not considered as a good movie because audience may not know what the message of the film.  

The best part that I loved 

     The best scene that I loved was the scene focused on four characters and they were lied in the same direction and position. Not only that but also the surrounding for them were dark. This showed that the director wants to explain that how hardship situation were they at that time. This also alert us that we should not follow their shortcuts to achieve our dream because anything have to scarifice to get what you want to such as Sara wanted to become thin and ended up with her illusion problem. 

Moreover, I loved the Marion acted when she was holding many bags of heroin and started to laugh. In this part, I think that she was crying instead of laughing. This is because she already sold her body to someone else and she not loves the one but Harry. Let me ask you one question. If you marry to someone which you not love, will you be happy when you are with him or her? Of course, the answer was no. For Marion, she already lost dignity after selling her body and she used laughing to cover the her sadness side.

Conclusion

I really enjoy when watching this movie because it is meaningful to our reality. Although some of the part was boring, the movie content was actually good. What I learnt from this movie was that a dream is not for us to requiem but to chase. In shot, you will never get your dream by saying but you have to action RIGHT NOW! Thanks for reading my blog.       

Reference
S.Hayward (2013), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and New York.