David Duneman

Expository Writing

Joe Serio

4/28/13

Elwood Be Down

            I did not know what to expect from Harvey when I started watching it but it turned out to be a very entertaining movie. This movie revolves around Jimmy Stewarts’ performance of Elwood P. Dowd. I believe his statement to the mailman, “Every day is a beautiful day”, is a phrase that pretty much describes Mr. Dowd’s personality. There is nothing not to like about Elwood P. Dowd; he is social, he is as optimistic as one can be, he is charming with women, he is very nonchalant, and most importantly he is real. It seems that Dowd is not all there and not really fully paying attention, but yet he is almost always doing the right thing. And Stewarts pulls off all these traits perfectly. It seems to be that the audience is almost the only people that enjoy his presence. I think the whole moral of Harvey is that life will be just fine if you believe it will be just like Elwood Dowd believes. We first learn this when the mental institution takes in his sister Veta in as a crazy person instead of Dowd himself. This scene was probably one of my favorites because Elwood is trying to tell the doctors of his giant rabbit friend the entire time but they keep interrupting him with questions and concerns. This is like a metaphor of many business systems of America, the patients are basically just a one-time thing for them so the business just wants them in and out as soon as possible, and it seems they won’t even let the patient get a word in just like with Dowd.

            I found some similarities between Harvey and The Purple Rose of Cairo. They both focused on the imagination quite a bit. Elwood imagined his rabbit friend Harvey, and Cecilia imagined Tom Baxter. Although in both these films the imaginary characters are real. I think that this is not really saying the imaginary characters are real, but rather saying that the imagination is more real than most people seem to believe.

            This movie seemed to have one section solely focused on sex. When Veta gets released from the mental institution she comes out saying that all they think about is sex and they tried to have their way with her. She didn’t even stop to think that she was thought to be a patient, but came to the conclusion that they were trying to have sex with her. And after this scene I don’t think they mentioned sex at all, or before for that matter.

            This was a wonderful movie, mostly because of the character Elwood P. Dowd, and I do believe ill watch this again in the future.

David Duneman

Expository Writing

Joe Serio

4/21/13

Not much exciting about the purple rose in Cairo

            The first thing I found interesting about “The Purple Rose in Cairo” was the irony in the beginning of the film. While all the sad things were happening at the beginning of the film, the music that was playing was some of the same music that was used throughout the movie even in the funny parts. So the irony was that they were using relatively happy music to a very sad situation. If this movie were to be summed up in one statement in the film I believe it would be, “The real characters want their lives fictional and the fictional characters want their lives real.”

            There didn’t seem to be much purpose in Tom Baxter coming to life besides the power of the imagination. Also, his two characters could be a metaphor for how most people have different aspects of their personality that could be interpreted as two separate characters. I thought Jeff Daniels should have differentiated playing Tom and Gil a bit more.

            Cecilia is the underdog character, if any woman should be able find their “prince charming” Cecilia should be the one to find him: and she does. Everyone was going through rough times during the depression but people like Cecilia had it rougher than most because of assholes like her husband.

            This was an interesting movie but nothing that special to watch it over again.

David Duneman

Expository Writing

Joe Serio

4/14/13

 The Birdcage

            The Birdcage is a very odd, colorful movie. This film obviously hits on the topics of homosexuality and transvestitism, and of course the conservative view of these topics as well.  The Birdcage itself, I believe, is a metaphor for how homosexuality is frowned upon and is tried to be hidden: and it is like a bird in a cage that way. My attention was fading in and out of the story line until the dinner scene, which was my favorite part of the movie. Two homosexual men, one dressed as a woman, trying to hide their sexuality from two very distinct conservatives: what can’t be funny in this scene? When the flamboyant of flamboyant, Al, comes in dressed as Val’s mother, things get pretty hysterical.

            Robin Williams’ character, Armand, seemed be kind of the bisexual person, having phases where he likes both genders, or maybe even fighting between sexuality’s not really being able to decide which one to stay with. Armand is like the glue that held all the important characters together. A good quirk that Armand had was that when he was nervous, especially at the dinner scene, he would spill out religious metaphor jokes that were hilarious. Not Robin Williams best character, but not bad.

            Nathan Lanes’ character, Albert Goldman, was definitely the comic relief in this film. He is always so emotionally unstable that it puts the audience in a position of power to be able to laugh at him. Albert reminded me of Jack Lemmon’s character from Some Like It Hot, not as funny but somewhere in that general character slot. Albert is the type of person that is obviously flamboyantly gay and doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him. So the two main characters have distinctly two different views on being homosexual: one is obvious in his manner of acting, and the other kind of tries to hide it from the rest of the world, well from the conservatives at least.

            Gene Hackman’s character, Sen. Kevin Keeley, didn’t add much humor to the film besides not knowing his daughters’ fiances’ parents are gay, and him walking out of the Birdcage dressed as a woman. One of the funniest things with Keeley was that he loved Albert when he thought he was the mother of Val. This is kind of a shot at people who just disregard gay folks for being gay, but when actually they could connect with that persons’ personality rather than hate their sexuality: rather than disregarding the person they should just disregard their sexuality.

David Duneman

Expository Writing

Joe Serio

4/7/13

Harold and Maude

            I can not really say I liked this movie very much, because I really did not, but there were aspects or themes that are note-worthy throughout the film. I just do not buy the whole premise of a young boy like Harold falling in love with an eighty year old woman like Maude. I believe that that kind of time gap between two people can only be sewn with money or fame and fortune. This film addresses the topic of a couple where one of them is quite significantly older than the other, but takes it to the highest extreme. This is a known topic in the news and what not. We all hear about the Hollywood couples where the dude is like eighty years old and he is dating a smoking hot twenty year old, which always raises questions like “What the hell do they have in common?” or “How could that not just be about money?” They probably made it how they did with a purpose. They probably wanted to parody those kinds of relationships, so they switched it around to where the woman was eighty years old and the boy was the younger of the two.

            I also liked the theme of Harolds’ suicidal thoughts and outcries. The first time he faked his death, at the beginning of the film, I thought he was really dead and did not want to watch anymore, but that scene served as a good tension builder and reliever into his whole theme of theatrical suicidal skits. How his mom always assumes that it is not a real suicide serves as the humor in the situation, she must have had a hell of a time figuring out that every time it is just a skit. This reminds me of the Don’t Cry Wolf story. Every time Harold pretends to commit suicide it is like he is crying wolf to his mother, sure he probably had her scared shitless the first few times but she caught on and now does not believe it, and even if he really did commit suicide she would not believe him. This theme in the film is just an aspect to make light of a dark reality.

            One of my favorite parts was the scene where Harold and Maude are shown naked in bed, as if to have just had sex, and Harold, instead of the doing the cliché smoking a cigarette, is blowing bubbles which is kind of a similar motion of breathing in and out.

            This was not a very good movie and probably not one ill watch again.

David Duneman

Expository Writing

Joe Serio

3/31/13

Young Frankenstein

            I can not say I have seen any of the Frankenstein movies that Young Frankenstein is parodying, but I still found this film very humorous. This is probably because they added much more comedy in this movie other than parody. They have many aspects of comedy that make this movie a funny one. It uses many aspects of comedy such as: repetition, surprise, parody, exaggeration and many other devices that are humorous, and they are integrated into the Frankenstein story line.

            I have not seen any of the Frankenstein movies, besides Van Helsing, but from what I’ve heard Young Frankenstein parodies Frankenstein movies very well. I thought it was a good choice of the film makers to do Young Frankenstein in black and white. It gave the film an older feel like some of the old Frankenstein movies, which helped in the parodying aspect of the comedy. Gene Wilder is always fun to watch. Playing Dr. Frankenstein he is always drifting in and out of a German accent which was probably an intended comedic style. The other German accented character, Inga, has a rather hefty accent which at times can get a little hard to fully understand, which also ads an exaggeration aspect to the humor.

            Igor was a great part of this film. His character is rather oblivious to pretty much everything around him, and his outward facing eyes staple that into our brains. When Dr. Frankenstein tells Igor he could fix the hump on his back, Igor replies “What hump?” He is so oblivious to not even notice his own body. I think this plays in his part of being a servant.

            I thought this film was quite humorous but before I would watch it again I would have to check out some Frankenstein films first so I could understand some more of the parody in this movie.