The Parallax View

Parallax View was a movie that definitely was a confusing movie if you didn’t follow the movie through every scene. This is a movie that makes you think and also makes you say to yourself, “ what the hell just happened!” I feel Alan Pakula wanted to have his audience think exactly that way and to make us really think, who can we trust? This movie really did end you with ideas and thoughts since the ending was expected in the 70’s. Joseph Frady, the main character of the movie played a tremendous role of being a third rate journalist trying to figure out the deaths of so many people that were also linked together for some type of political conspiracy. His characteristics played in this movie seemed like a laid back guy who always kept his mind on the matter that was most important. He did have his humorous jokes during the movie also to make him more of a sly guy too.

This movie to me with the whole Parallax Corporation was a big part of keeping this conspiracy a theory. It seemed whatever Joseph Frady did, this company was always a step ahead of him or they wanted him right where they wanted him. The mintage of the test was something to me was very very confusing to me and just having these pictures and words going on for several minutes was just mind boggling to me.

In my honest opinion, this movie was just really confusing to me and just needs to be seen a couple more times for me to get the point. I feel Joseph Frady was just this mouse stuck in a maze with no way out for escape. For example, the part where the scene was him and this whole entire damn and forest with him being a small little part in the scene… It just was a bigger problem then one person to solve. The final ending to this movie made me even more confused because you just see this agent of some sort shoots Joseph to end the movie. It felt like I was waiting for the move , “ The Game” where at the end, everything was just a game that was played around the main character. This movie just ended with him dying a long with everyone he talked to. Also the judge from the beginning scene and the ending scene just made you think that these guys just tell you what is suppose to be said and leave you with that’s what happened so deal with it. It feels Joseph Frady never solved anything since this Parallax Corporation always covered the loose ends.

Coming Home

This movie was my favorite out of the three. The reason why is because of just all these war heroes from the Vietnam War that went through so much during the war and still having those memories come back home. For instance, the character Luke was someone who learned how to be still the same person before he left for the war but came back with missing legs. For a lot of disabled/ handicapped soldiers that once were able to walk but now can’t struggle with depression and embarrassment. For Luke, he knew what happened and decided to live with it. In the whole movie he doesn’t feel sorry for himself or feel like he no longer has a life.
What I thought was interesting is that Bob, the captain of his squad goes into this war happening to be a hero but comes out having more problems than ever. One is not being a hero which is obvious, two his wife who cheated on him while he was away and three having all this pressure from the war. I think in this case he had it so much easier then Luke who, can’t walk for the rest of his life. His daily tasks on life make it extremely harder then someone who is not handicapped. The biggest surprise of it all is that he was just in the marines too and went through the same or worse than Bob went through.
The point to this is that Luke in my opinion went through hell and back while Bob suffered a bullet wound caused by himself and not living up to his goal of being a hero in his own mind. To me it’s not the end of the world and from the looks of the movie neither did Luke.

The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye to me was a film that definitely had a twist on the end of the movie. It definitely kept you thinking that he was a friend in the beginning and a killer at the end. Philip Marlowe was an odd guy that portrayed a clever detective that solved cases by putting pieces together. He was definitely a detective that kept his eye on the most important keys of the case. Eileen Wade was someone I thought was innocent and didn’t know anything into the investigation. I was taken for a loop when I saw her at the end driving to meet Harry since she knew what the plan was the whole time.

I feel that this movie could have been a lot shorter and there wasn’t a lot of dialogue throughout the whole movie. Too me it did get a little confusing remembering everyone’s name and who they are. I would say that I did enjoy this movie better than the one last week because it kept my attention and the filming was very well put together since it was in 1973.

Easy Five Pieces - Humanities 70s

My reflection around this movie was something I didn't expect. I never seen this movie before and being filmed the way it did definitely brought out the main character trait played by Jack Nicholas. At first, I too thought there would have been a reason on why Bobby, ( the main character) acted the way he did since the entire movie he seemed a little strange to me. It seemed he was always for himself and no one else, as if he knew nothing was more important than him. Even the women Ray knew that he was different in some way and seemed to hide his true feeling about her.

When Bobby does get back to where he use to live, I thought the story was going to change on the reasons why Bobby left in the first place and come to an understanding on why him and his father never got along. Along with the ending of the movie, I feel that ending had a better mind-set for the audience then having that optional scene of him dieing. The reason why is because it expresses himself as what he did best which was to run away or find an escape route so he didn't have to face problems and resolve what was disturbing him. Overall, this movie was a great movie just being filmed in the 70's and I feel that these problems are still faced in today's society as of now.