Brother

Danila was a great character to me. He was a very stirdy character and was smart about the situations he was in. The great thing about his character was that he does not kill just random people. He really only kills other villins or bad guys that derserved what they got. This makes his character very likeable. He also does not wish to go out there and create violence, he only does it when it is necessary and when he is faced by a violent foe. His background is very important in the movie as is fills in the holes of the story. He was so creative with his weapons so a veiwer of the movie might think how could he know all this about weapons but because he has served in the army you can assume thats where he got these skills. From this film I can see how a lot of mob movies and even games like grand theft auto use this movies plot and character as their building blocks for creating a good mob movie or game.

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

In the movie you could see that each of the three main women in the movie are looking for something completely different in life. You don't know to much about Tonya but I think she was looking to find real true love. She found it with a man that was obviously not very rich as they were always saying "what should we buy first a t.v or some furniture." But money or fame did not matter to Tonya. Lyudmila was a golddigger type of girl. All she wanted in a man was fame, power and money. She was a girl who never thought of the consequences and she was lucky as her man did not leave her when he found out the truth, even though later on they break up because he becomes a drunk. Katya was more of the Innocent type of girl. Her man focus at the time was studying as she was working hard to get into college. She was not really trying to find a man but was dragged into a situation with her best friend which she fell victim to. She fell for the man named Rudolph but it turned out bad as she fell pregnant and Rudolph didn't want the baby and also didn't want the relationship when he found out Matya worked in a factory. She became a very strong independent women because of this and also the most successful of the three.

Ivan's Childhood

This movie is one I liked because it was kinda suspenseful. The suspense is easily created when the movie is about war. The theme of war in movies creates some tension because at anytime someone could get killed from different various ways. When it is a boy who is put in the dangerous situations the audience's tension might be a little higher then if it was a full grown man. Nobody wants to see a child or anyone at a young age die in the hands of war. I wasn't sure how it ended but if I understood it correctly the boy ended up getting hung. I also like the way that the movie shows how war has changed the boy. In the scenes when you look back at the past you can see that the boy looked more healthier as well as happier. He was always laughing and being a good boy in his memories. In the present the boy is short tempered and really skinny and does not really take orders from nobody.

Mirror

I definitely did not know what was going on with this film. Once I was lost I tried to understand the film but could not. Things that I noticed that must have a great importance to the film is that the movie flips from color to black and white and does this a couple of times throughout the film. Not sure why but I'm guessing that it has something to do with presenting two stories or something to do with two different lifestyles or something to do with two lives. I also did not understand the part which was not in the woods, it was somewhere that prints papers or something. That whole scene lost me.
Also at different scenes I noticed that a huge gust of wind would appear and did not know why they did this but I'm guessing it was not accidental. In one of the earlier scenes when the doctor came and visited the woman (the main character, I forget her name) I noticed when he started walking away that a huge gust of wind suddenly appeared. It made me think that the doctor was going to turn around and go back to the lady but didn't. I also remembered a couple of times during the film there was a lot of wind so I would like to know why that might be and if that has any importance.

Ivan the terrible

I enjoyed this movie as it had a lot of action for a old school film and i always kept wondering what is Ivan going to do next? If I had seen Battleship Potemkin and then Ivan the Terrible I would have never thought they were both directed by Eisenstein. Because it was such a huge step for directors to switch to sound in film, I think he had to completely change his technique to be successful. The montage in his two films were very different, in the first film he used a lot of cunning symbols to represent certain meanings like when he used the lifebuoy to represent something that could save a person not the cross or God. In the second movie he does not have to be so cunning and he can use speech to convey certain things to the audience.

Burnt by the Sun

I enjoyed this movie. The thing in this movie that I could not really understand was the random fake fireball or whatever it was that appeared twice. I was thinking about it and i noticed that it appeared when the thought of suicide was in the air. When Mitya was telling the little girl the story Marusia became really unstable and she ran to the top of the house where she threatened to kill herself. Kotov talked her out of it and the ball exploded and diffused. The fireball again appeared at the end of the movie where Mitya commits or trys to commit suicide and instead of exploding this time it just disappears and vanishes. I was thinking that maybe the fireball stood for their emotions and when the fireball explodes on the tree it is like all Marusia's feelings of sadness or hatred are let out. In the scene when Mitya commits suicide, the fireball comes in and leaves but doesn't explode. It just vanishes and i think that might be Mitya's life force as he dies the fireball shinks.
I also liked Nadya's character as she was very cheerful, innocent, playful and smart. You could see Kotov's best side come out when he was with her.

Circus

I enjoyed watching this movie until the end quarter of the movie. It kind of seemed that they rushed the end of the movie for whatever reason. When Marion tells her heart-broken lover, Ivan, that the letter was meant for him he understands way too easy that it was just a mistake. He was just really sad and she breifly tells him it was a mix up Ivan does a flip and other crazy stuff and does not even question her. Maybe it was meant to be funny or corny but the rest of the film to me was fairly serious especially on the romance part of the movie. The rest of the ending really annoyed me as well cause it was just like an advertisement for the USSR. I also think it was a very misleading advertisement as well. Racism is everywhere and the movie takes it overboard when they say that the USSR is not like USA and excepts everyone. Then really randomly they are all marching on the street somewhere with loads of people marching with them as well & it all seemed too much.

Chapaev

I think the audience might have watched the movie over and over again because it had interesting characters and a good story line. Sound in this movie is an advantage because it makes it easier to make a more in depth plot. I think people in the day liked Chapaev because it has a little bit of everything in the movie, it has action, comedy, drama and a bit of romance. The characters are also very likable so that the audience is more attached to them.
A part of a movie that could not have been done so effectively was the scene where the Red Army squadron was all singing as a group, more like a family. While they were singing you could just see everyone was at peace and it showed Chapaev’s kind side. Some of the comedic parts of the movie could also not have been done in silence. For the joke to be amusing you not only rely on the actual words he says but you also rely on the tone of the actor’s voice. Also if a person does something stupid like bump their head, sounds makes it so much funnier. I think silence would make the plot of the story so much shorter and simpler. It is a lot harder to show parts of movies that don’t have a lot of animation in a silent film. A talkie film can have a lot more deeper meaningful scenes where they don’t need extra movement in the scene to keep the view entertained, rather the view is more entertained about what the character says. It also creates a build up into the more action packed parts of the film.
At first Chapaev hates having Furmanov around, as Chapaev feels that Furmanov doesn’t know anything and is just going to get in the way. After a while Chapaev realizes that Furmanov is a smart man and opens his mind to Furmanov’s ideas. They become friends and when Furmanov leaves he is saddened.
In this film I think there are a couple of the characters that are heroes. First obviously is Chapaev who is also the main character of the film. As the movie goes on I think Petka starts off in the movie as a not very intelligent especially on the battlefield. Towards the end he becomes a hero in the movie as he sends his love away once they are getting invaded but he stays behind and helps Chapaev battle it out. He also pulls Chapaev out of the battle, reluctantly, when is was apparent that they had lost and Chapaev had been injured. He also makes his final sacrifice when he stayed on the beach front giving his life to try and save his friend. The Reds were seen as the good guys noticeably in the scene where they give the peasants their animals and goods back when the Whites have previously robbed them of these.

Man with the Movie Camera

This movie was very different from anything I've ever seen. The only thing I really liked was the music that was definetly catchy and it kept me entertained for a while. It seemed completely random to me except the fact that it started early in the morning as there was no one in the streets and as the movie progresses you see some people waking up and the streets start to flow with more and more people.
The whole movie just seems really experimental with all different types of camera techniques that may not have been used in movies before.

Irony of Fate

The whole style of comedy is different from US's comedy. The movie does not have comedic lines throughout every part of the story. It starts off very serious and isn't really funny until he meets up with all his friends in the bathhouse. Then the movie is funny in many various parts but also gets very serious especially when romance is involved. The comedy is a different type of comedy. Alot of the comedy is in the actions of the actors. It involves alot of conincidence which puts the characters in very funny situations making the jokes different. In american comedies they use more foul lauguage to create comedy.