The Birds

Plot Summary

The Birds is a horror film, the story mainly follows a young women named Melanie Daniels. She visits a bird shop in San Fransisco to pick up a bird she has ordered for her aunt, there she meets Mitch Brenner, a lawyer looking for a pair of Lovebirds to give to his sister.

After they have met Mitch leaves and Melanie is interested in him. She buys the Lovebirds and fins Mitches address in Bodega Bay in California. She delivers the Birds by sneaking across the bay by boat and leaves the Lovebirds in Mitches house. But on the way back a Seagull swoops down and cuts her head.

Over the next few days more bird attacks happen. At Mitches little 11 year old sisters party, a flock of gulls attack the children.

As the film progresses the Bodega Bay School is attacked also by Crows.

After this Melanie goes to a bar and rings her father, a nespaper publisher when more people become interested in the matter. A fisherman says one of his boats was attacked by gulls. Some people begin to get scared and leave when The Birds attack again. A man is knocked unconcious while filling up his car when the gasoline pours out onto the street. Disaster strikes. Thousands of birds of every kind attack the town. Melanie is attacked and hides in a phone box. Birds try to get in and smash the glass. She is rescued and is taken home after the birds have gone away

When they get home they board up the windows and stay inside the house. In the night the birds try to ger in by ripping up the wood from the door and smashing through windows. Mitch eventually stopps them and they all go to sleep.

The film ends with them driving away with thousands of birds watching.

REVIEW

The Birds was made in 1963 by Alfred Hitchcock. It is a supence/horror film based on the 1952 short story by Daphne Du Maurier. I think that The Birds is an exellent film, the effects and techniques used to make it as real as possible are good. The film is quite frighening and disturbing in parts which is fantastic!

Also the thing that makes it different is that there is no soundtrack even in the scary parts. If there was music in the scary parts it would have made it corny with the dramatic music used in the 60's, also it adds to the realism because there is no music.

The part that I find boring is at the begining. I think they could have made it shorter and less slow. But there is a good side to these begining scenes. The scenes at the start are just like any old 60's film, it starts when the main character is buying a bird from the bird shop. It makes you think "Oh, this is an ordinary happy film! Yay!" But as the film progresses, the mood changes into a dark scary, disturbing film about birds attacking people and the attacks become more violent and deadly.

So, as a conclusion, I think The Birds is a pretty, darn good film.

Saving Private Ryan

PLOT SUMMARY

Saving Private Ryan is a war film set in the Normandy Invasion. The film starts off with an action packed 25 minute opening of the Normandy landings on Omaha beach. Soon after the landings have finished Captain Miller and a small group of soldiers have taken over the german bunkers and fortifications on the beach, they are informed that a Airbourne Paratrooper has been lost and his to brothers have been killed on D Day. The mens mission is to find Private Ryan and bring him home.

They travel and fight through Normandy until they find him. They lose some men on the way sadly. When they find Private Ryan in a ruined village with other soldiers they tell him about his brothers. Private Ryan then doent want to leave and is angry. So Captains Millers group of men have a decision to leave or stay and help. They eventually decide to stay and help fight. The Germans arrive and they fight. The Americans are outnumbered. The Germans have loads of soldiers and Tanks and all the Americans have is a few men with a couple of guns and TNT. Just as they thought they had lost planes arrive and destroy all the germans, more US troops arrive and the battle is over.

Review

Saving Private Ryan was made in 1998, directed bt Steven Spielberg. The special effects are extremely realistic and gory. I believe that Saving Private Ryan is one of the best well made war films made. The actors where chosen wisely, Tom Hanks is a great actor and a believable soldier alongside all the other cast members including Tom Sizemore and Edward Burns. The battle scenes, especially the Normandy Landings are violent and realistic and gripping.

I think that it was a good idea to start the film with the Normandy landings because it sets the period well and gets you into the film.

This war film shows you the horrible reality of the second world war and how difficult it would have been for soldiers in the war.

Facts about the film

• The D Day scenes were filme on Ballinesker beach in Ireland.
• The film was nominated for 11 academy awards.
• 40 barrels of fake blood were used to simulate the effect of the blood floating around in the water on Omaha beach.
• The Landing craft used on Omaha beach included 12 actual WW2 examples.
  

Lord of the Flies (1990) review

Plot Summary




The Lord of the flies is about a group of young Military Cadets that plane crash in the sea just off an uninhabited tropical island. They find fruit and fresh water. Piggy, a fat boy that wears glasses finds a conch shell in the water. Ralph, the main character uses this to round up the boys so they can have a meeting. They all first decide to build a fire on top of the mountain so ships may see them. Then they build shelters. Jack goes off hunting and soon things break up. Jack creates a tribe of hunters. They forget about the fire and go off hunting all the time.





Ralph's and Piggy's group consists of mostly little ones and they try to keep the fire going.



In the night Jacks tribe sneak to Ralph's groups shelter and break it up so they can steal their survival knife. Sadly Piggy's glasses are broken in the process.



While hunting one of Jack's little hunters finds a cave where the captain they brought along is mad. The boy is so scared he takes his spear and stabs the captain.

Everyone thinks it was a monster so they kill a pig, cut it's head off and place it on a stick in front of the cave. Jack says "This is a present for the monster."


Jack's tribe make a big fire so the can roast a pig they find. Ralph and Piggy's group visits them and the Little ones join Jack. The tribe performs a strange and insane tribal dance around the fire.


Meanwhile Simon finds the pig's head and then enters the cave. He finds that the captain was in there dead and runs off to tell the others.

In the night Jack's tribe sneak up on Ralph and Piggy and steal his glasses.

Near the end of the film the tribe burn up the wood and chase Ralph through the forest.




To see the film Trailer click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvmi3oZ_vH8



The film is really different to the book, here are some of the differences.


Difference between the film and the book

• The children are American's, but in the book they are British.




• In the film they are military cadets but in the book they are school children.




• In the film Ralph is always nice to Piggy, but in the book he isn't so kind to him at first.




• In the film the children don't use phrases like 'Biguns' or 'littluns'.




• In the film the boys are brought ashore by a liferaft, when in the book Ralph and Piggy emerge from the crashed aircraft on land.




• In the book most of the boys don't know eachother because there are two different schools. In the film there is one school and everyone knows eachother.




• In the films there is a lot of strong language. In the book there is hardly any.




• In the fire that accidentally spreads out of control, a littllun supposedly dies in the fire.



• In the book the boys are between 8 years old to 12 years old. In this film they look like 11 to 13 years old.

FACTS ABOUT THE FILM

• The leading actor Balthazar Getty who plays Ralph, fell from a tree in Tarzana, California and broke his arm just before the filming of Lord of the Flies. The producers wanted him as the lead roll so much that they wrote the broken arm into the script. You can see his broken arm in bits of the film.
• Danuel Pipoly who plays Piggy recieved two award nominations one including best young supporting actor.

I really like this film. The acting is superb, especially Danuel Pipoly's acting who playes Piggy. If the filmakers had kept to the book it would have been even better and if they used less bad language. I think they captured the death scenes well, they were really gripping and realistic. The film had me shocked at first with the scenes when Piggy cries after the other boys break and then steal his glasses.
So, Lord of the Flies is another of my favourate films. Hopefully one day, someone will make an even better remake that is truer to the book and is British.

The Godfather Trilogy review

The Godfather films are very long films but are really gripping, which some directors can't pull off without boring the viewer. The Godfather part 1 was made in 1972. It is the best in my opinion out of the three. It is set in the late 1940's, perhaps 1945. The Godfather part one is about a powerful mafia family in New York called the Corleones led by Don Vito Corleone or the Godfather. He is a wise man and is very powerful and rich.

Plot Summary For Part One

The film starts off with a wedding, the wedding of the Dons daughter Connie. The Don has loads of visiters and people asking advice from him. Michael, the youngest son of the Don is in the US Marines. He has come back as a war hero and comes to the wedding with his girlfriend Kay Adams. Fredo is the second oldest and moves to Vegas and works in casino's near the end of the film. Sonny is the oldest and can easily be angered and stressed. The Don is out shopping in the market place when he is pursued and shot five times by Solozzo's men who wants him dead. The Don does not die though, he is sent to hospital and survives.

Michael orders the murders of the heads of the Five Families so he can be The Godfather. He does and the film ends there.


The Godfather part one review

I believe the Godfather part one is one of the greatest films ever made. The film has a great cast and the acting is great. The film is violent and some parts are gory and its realistic also. Especially the death scene in the restuerant when Michael shoots Sollozo and the Cop. There isn't much swearing but it still should be a 15 rated film, I dont think it should be an 18 though.


The Godfather Part two
Plot Summary

The Godfather Part two starts off with scenes from Vito Corleones early life. His Brother and Mother is killed by Don Chichio in Sicily. Vito is hidden from him and is migrate to New York in America. There he lives and gets married.
Then the film goes back to the 1950's to Michael Corleone. Michael is now marries to Kay Adams nd has a son. In the night Michael and Kay are attacked by machine gun fire. We find out that Fredo betrayes Michael and sets Michael up. Michael is very angry with Fredo.


Scenes keep moving backward and forwards to Vito's early years. Vito is fired from his bakery job because Don Fanuchi's nephew takes it. Vito then kills Fanuchi in his house during a Parade. He shoots him in the chest the in the cheek then in the mouth. Vito then becomes more wealthy and becomes a Don. People come to him for advice and pay him.
Then the film goes back to Michael Corleone and he finds out about Hyman Roth and how he betrayed him, and Fredo was helping him.

Review of The Godfather part two

The Godfather part two is my least favourate of the three films. I think the story is weaker than the first and I find parts a bit boring. The thing I do like about it is the scenes about Vito when he's younger. But I dislike the story with Michael Corleone. The special effects are better and more realistic, like Don Fanuchi's death. But I still prefere The Godfather part one to part two. Another reason I dislike part two is that it is set more in the 1950's. I think modernising it a bit more spoils the film in my opinion.

The Godfather part three plot summary

The Godfather part three is set in 1979. Michael is now in his 60s and is feeling tremendous guilt for the things he had done in his past. He has almost retired from his post in the Mafia. His adopted brother Tom Hagen is dead and his old house has been abondened for years. Michael and Kay Adams have been divorced since 1959, he has returned to New York and has two children who are grown up, Anthony and Mary. Michael creates a charity in memory of his late father, the Vito Corleone foundation. 100 000 000 dollars has been raised for the betterment of Sicily. Anthony does not want to join his fathers buissenes but wants to be a singer. Michael is in conflict with Joe Zaza, who has made Little Italy into a slum and is a drug trafficar.

Joe Zaza attempts to assasinate Michael in a helicopter attack along with some other rich mafia people but fails. He escapes and Vincent Mancini (The Dons nephew) helps michael. Vincent wants to marry Mary but isn't allowed. He kills Joe Zaza while Michael is in hospital after a Diabetic stroke. Michael retires and asks Vincent if he would like to become the Don of the Corleone Family, only if he lets Mary go. He agrees and becomes the Don.
At the end of the film michael is nearly killed by an assassin dressed as a monk.

Godfather part three review



Part three is my second favourate of the three films. It has a lot of action in it and is sad near the end. The acting is good also, Andy Garcia as Vincent Manssini does a very good performance. The one thing that I found a bit strange is when the man stabs Luchesi in the throat with his own glasses. It simply would not be possible. If the glasses were metal it might be possible but still you would need to apply a lot of force to penatrate the throte with plastic or blunt metal. But, Hey! Its the movies! Anything's possible!

So, believe The Godfather Films are the greatest films ever made. They are exiting, violent and very well made bt the director Francis Ford Coppola. If you havn't watched the films, I suggest you do.

To watch the Coppola Restoration Godfather Trilogy trailer click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIL7RR8pssQ