Coming Home.

Coming Home was a very moving story. Jane Fonda plays Sally Hyde an Army housewife, who's husband is in Vietnam. With a lot of free time on her hands now, she starts volunteering at the local vet hospital. At the hospital she meets Luke Martin (John Voight) an injured Vietnam vet.

I thought the evolution of Sally through out the film was the most touching for me. It was interesting to see how her change. In the beginning she lived a very sheltered life and was very well off. Once she starts spending more and more time at the hospital she sees how little she did with her life before and she starts to change for the better. By the end she has become her own person that worries about others and can live on her own. Before she lived on the Army base, her husband took care of her and she had money and didn't even know what was going on in the outside world. It is always a good to see a character change for the better during the course of a film. I think it makes me connect with that character when they change into a better person, it makes me think that I can change for the better if I want to.

Now while I would never be one to condone cheating I understand how Sally and Luke ended up in a romantic relationship. He made her see the world in a different way and she made him feel like he wasn't a freak. And I think Sally realized how shallow her life was with out Luke. I really thought I connected with their romance and when I say that it is very surprising because I normally hate romantic films.

The Long Goodbye

We spent a long time in class talking about how "moral" Phillip Marlowe is. I have to disagree with this. First of all, he kills, Terry Lennox, a guy that used to be his friend. I understand that Lennox lied and got Marlowe into some trouble that he had nothing to do with. But Marlowe took the risk of getting involed when he gave Lennox the ride to Mexico. Did he really think that no one would find out he gave Lennox a ride?

Also I don't find much gratification in Lennox's death, or at least the way he died. How is Marlowe still considered moral when he goes all the way to Mexico just to kill Lennox. He could have taken his $5000 and never worried about Lennox again. Maybe this is just me, but when it comes to morals, if you can avoid killing someone you do. Granted it is a movie, and normally I love movies where a lot of people die, but when you are putting someone on a pedestal for thier outstanding morals you probably shouldn't have him kill someone that obviously doesn't need to die.

Week 1

I picked "70's Film and Culture" because of the influence the 70's film has on our lives now. Films like Jaws, The Godfather, The Exorcist, and Star Wars all came out in the the 70's. What would our lives be like without films like these. You can barely get though a day, especially at our school, without hearing a Star Wars reference.

I love horror films and the 70's was a huge changing point for horror. Film makers moved away from the classic Gothic movies to gore. Rather than Dracula and Frankenstein we were found watching Halloween, The Exorcist, and Carrie. The culture of the 70's is a very important part of why horror films changed in such a way. With the sexual revolution, censorship laws loosening, and a new film rating system, horror movies got to push the limits. We started seeing, more blood, more gore, and more stories with real life lines making horror films more realistic than ever before.