What Being a Wallflower Means

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was a fantastic movie but yet very sad and depressing. The main character Charlie is a freshman in high school that went through a tough last year in middle school for not being “popular” it seemed like. The movie displayed scenes of happiness, sadness, anger, and aggression (in certain scenes). The ending of the movie, when everything came together, was heartbreaking and made me understand why Charlie was so alone and going through the depression he had.

Charlie went through a very rough childhood. What we found out at the end of the movie, was that he was sexually abused by his Aunt Helen, who was also killed in a car accident during Christmas time one year (don’t remember how old he was when this happened). Charlie also struggled with the fact that his best friend committed suicide. With having these loses can tear a person down. Even though what happened between his Aunt Helen and her passing, he still feels like it was his fault that she died getting him a Beetles record. Charlie’s depression skyrockets when Sam leaves for Penn State (they are now dating at this point in the movie). He is having flashbacks and dark thoughts running through is head. Charlie calls his sister, who suspects he is in distress so she calls the cops. Charlie passes out as soon as the cops get to his house and awakens in a hospital. This process really brought light to the movie as the healing process is not always easy, but it is worth it and will bring happiness to not only yourself but to your family as they did not lose you to suicide.

Me personally, I have been dealing with a lot of dark thoughts/depression for about 10 years and finally telling people (my brother was the first to know, then my friends and finally my parents). It brought a huge weight off of my shoulders when I finally talked to a psychiatrist. Had the motivation to tell my parents and to see speechless for me not saying anything sooner really got to me. It reminded me of when Charlie called his sister and she stopped everything she was doing and told her friend to call the cops to her house. You start to realize that when you are going through a tough time in life, there will always be someone there to talk to. No matter the situation, you have a safe place to speak your mind. If you ever need to talk to someone about a stressful day, or everything going on in your life, don’t hesitate to contact anyone. Trust me, it is a weight lifted off of your shoulders when someone knows and they can help you.

As for the class, it was fantastic!! I always enjoyed classes with Professor Schlegel. Hopefully I will have another one of his classes next semester. The movies were very interesting and not seeing most of them, I was pretty surprised at what I was watching. The other movies that we did not get a chance to watch, I will definitely get to them over break for sure. Thank you again Professor Schlegel for a great semester and for having us watch some great movies!!

Side-by-Side/Industrial Light & Magic

The “Side-by-Side” documentary was very interesting. It showed the progression of film from doing everything by yourself and waiting a few days for the scenes to come back to fix the problems, to seeing the problems right on scene with being more technologically able to see things. The big thing that was really cool about the documentary was Keanu Reeves. Reeves is one of the top creative actors in my opinion with the “Matrix” and the “John Wick” movies. The most action packed movies and with the “Matrix” with his hand being a mirror. How they did they do this?? They took a picture of his hand and put it into the computer to digitalize it. Thought this was interesting because it shows the progression of the technology of movies. You would never see this in the old movies or it would talk a lot more time to try and re-create a mirror image. With going from film to digital, it allows the actors, producers, artists, camera-man/women and all the staff to be more creative to make the movie more interesting and look better, make the shots crisper. With “film v. digital” film takes a while to come back an analyze and also doesn’t have a lot of room for storage. With digital, you can have a hard-drive that holds a certain amount of footage and it can be portable so you can film on the go!

Now on to “Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)”. This company helped produce one of the most popular movie series “Star Wars”. This was crazy to watch because seeing how they actually produce the movie and some of the scenes with painted glass and miniature figures was incredible. This is fascinating to me because as a “Star Wars” fan, the special effects and the lighting always caught my attention. Whether it was the battles between the Jedi and the Sith, the shots hitting the stormtroopers or the vehicles, or even the lighting from the planets and hyper-speed. Seeing this is a whole different level of dedication to what goes on in the movies. The work that goes on into making the lighting work is crazy. The lighting makes up a movie, whether it is Star Wars, Marvel movies, Transformers, Avatar, etc., lighting catches the audience’s attention which can make or break a movie in my opinion. If something goes wrong with the lighting or the scene, the staff would have to start over and that is a big time waster for them and money waster. Being able to concentrate and have this technology help you, also takes a lot of concentration and accuracy to make sure everything is perfect. Starting the process over for a scene can be very difficult for everyone. 

These two documentaries were incredible to watch and to see the timeline of how film and digital were different from each other. Being a company that has the power to provide the lighting for the movie is crucial and important. This helps with the visuals and effects of the movie and brings out everything with the action part of the movie or the deep talks between characters so the lighting is darker. With the Keanu Reeves documentary, it explains how the advancement of film has helped make movies better and allows everyone making the movie be more creative and have more free-range to make the movie better and more exciting.

Peele’s Horror within “Get Out”

Comedian and movie director/producer, Jordan Peele, created a horror film called “Get Out”, which shows how black men and women were treated during slavery and how the systemic racism is still going on in today’s world. Peele’s movie is considered a horror feel and I would agree because of how he brings up the point of a white family having two black servants and their daughter is dating a black man. Throughout the movie we realize why it is a horror film. Peele has the jump scares, the weird staring/evil laughing of the servants at Chris Washington. He also brings in a lot of racial profiling and the realization of what occurred back in the times of slavery.  

The implied agreement between the audience and the filmmaker is systemic racism. In an article written for the Variety, Peele states, “You find the insidious qualities that white liberals have,” Peele said. “The gut punch of the movie is ultimately meant to say that racism is a human problem and the ‘woke’ people know not to call themselves ‘woke.’” The “sunken place” that the lead character falls into when he’s under hypnosis, Peele said, was a metaphor. It’s “this state of marginalization that I’ve never really quite had a word for,” he said. “The sunken place is the prison-industrial complex, it’s the dark hole we throw black people in” (Lopez). With Peele realizing what his movie is turning into, he is able to put more emphasis on the systemic racism in America and why it should be addressed. In another article form Complex, Peele states, “In my experience meeting (white) parents, they struggled to say my name, and asked me where I was “from,” despite being from the same city as their own child. I never regarded these interactions as racist, but they drew clear lines of division between myself and my friend or lover’s. Instead of bringing us closer, it made us drift apart, as I was reminded I could never be truly part of their parents’ world. After all, this was a world where, for much of these parents’ lives, such relationships were literally against the law” (Moosa). He is incorporating his own personal experiences with racism into the movie. This is why this movie is so good.

With systemic racism, it is a form of racism that is embedded as normal practice within society or an organization. This is shown when the Armitage family has 2 black servants (one male and one female). This shows the systemic racism because even though they are in a time of “no having slaves anymore”, the family still has these servants saying that “they were helping their dying parents and did not want them to go without work” (Peele). With watching the movie and being against racism and wanting everyone to be treated the same, this threw me for a loop (also this is my thought process not knowing anything about the movie before watching it) because I thought, “this is nice they are giving them more work after their parents passed away, but the clothes and how they looked and how they were treated really messed with my mind”. With that being said, it was difficult to watch the rest of the movie. I thought when it said “horror” I was thinking the traditional “Halloween type stuff”. Peele took advantage of this movie and wanted to express what he felt needed to be changed in the world today. I was in shock to see how the movie played out and what it was going to be about. My heart was pounding, and my blood pressure was up because I have never seen a movie go into such detail about systemic racism and explain what is happening in the world with pin-point accuracy.  

There is also a possibility of the movie being a mystery-horror film as during the movie, Chris was trying to find out what was going on with the two servants and when the family had a party. Chris was calling his friend saying that some freaky stuff was happening. The mystery also blew up in my face, when Chris’s friend was trying to find where a missing black person went and was found at the party Chris was at when he took a picture of this man. He dug deeper and deeper and found out he had a different name other than the one given to Chris at the party. He was kidnapped and was put into slavery as a servant (also he was brainwashed). Trying to find out what is happening, while being terrified of people finding out you are suspicious gets a little creepy. With Chris getting worried and freaking out, this is where the horror starts to heat up. They hold an auction for Chris. Once they have a buyer, they will do surgery to implant the brain of the white male into Chris’s brain so they can control his body. The whole killing spree that Chris had to try and free himself from the process. He ended up killing the brother, dad, mom, and “grandmother” (female servant). This whole sequence was crazy and horrifying because you didn’t know what was going to happen next and then suddenly it goes quiet. Then out of nowhere, there is a body flying across the screen trying to stop Chris from leaving. Especially when the brother kicks the door shut and the “grandmother” jumps in front of the car. This whole movie was amazing but horrifying at the same time.  

Peele’s movie was incredible with the horror/mystery. It brought up an important topic in today’s society and even what was going on in the past with slavery. The horror was just right as it put fear into my brain of what the black community goes through and what they did go through back then as well.

References:

https://variety.com/2017/film/news/jordan-peele-get-out-systemic-racism-1202604824/ — by Ricardo Lopez

https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2016/10/get-out-horror-real-racism — by Tauriq Moosa

Peele’s movie “Get Out” with some quotes from the movie

Glory

Glory was about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, which was the first all-black regiment for the Union Army. It is considered a war drama. For me this movie reminds me of the Jordan Peele movies as he looks at how blacks are treated in everyday life.

With being the first all-black regiment for the Union Army, people will not support them or treat them with respect as they were getting paid $3 less a month than white soldiers. For me it reminds me of Peele’s movie “Get Out” because it shows how blacks were never treated the same and this being based on a true story makes it worse. It is hard to go from and movie like “Get Out” to a movie like this and not have the same thoughts. When we find out that a white commander was in charge of the first all-black is weird to me because I feel like it just shows how slavery was and how they were treated.

With the movie, there are a lot of inaccurate moments though. When it says that the regiment was full of former slaves. That was wrong because the majority of people were born into freedom in the North. Also, soldiers were given new boots during their arrival at camp (real story) instead of walking around barefoot like the movie states. Trying to make a movie depict a real story, but also add some fictional stuff to it can be a little odd for some people (like me). I like it if the movie is 100% a true story and accurate. No wrong statements or inaccurate moments makes a true story/movie worth my time.

Hard to write about this movie as I have been writing my essay on “Get Out” and I still have not got that movie out of my head. All in all, this was a good movie. I will definitely watch this again and pay closer attention, instead of writing an essay and watching a movie at the same time. Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman in the same movie is priceless by the way!