Perfect 10

"If you had that one extra chance, wouldn't you be tempted?"

I really enjoyed this movie because it was fun to watch. It's a different feeling when you know it was filmed where you been and it just felt more familiar, it seemed like I was watching a local true love story. At first it is very sad how she doesn't feel comfortable about her own body and how she looks at her self in the mirror. Her name is Mara, a girl who has her own line of clothing and products for real women, she shows in her adds plus size women who she believes are the true real women. Mara is married with a great husband, but apparently he wasn't the love of her life, even though to me it seemed like she had a great successful life, she did not feel that way and some how she had an empty space in her that wasn't being filled yet.

Getting a phone call from a high school girl who would make fun of her everyday was very extreme to Mara, but not because she felt oppressed by her, but because she mentioned the name of Danny. He was the dream for Mara and the best part was that he asked if Mara was going. Mara was absolutely going to her ten year high school reunion, but the worst part was that he wanted that second chance with Danny. In my opinion I could not believe she wanted to do that to herself but most important to her husband and their marriage. That is very confussing how she wanted to have that opportunity for her first love and be able to get what she wanted, but after being married with her husband, what would that mean now? What did she feel for her husband for real? But then I thought and decided that is ok to love more that one person, because it was at different times of her life. Also I can understand her a little about how she didn't feel comfortable in her body and wasn't able to be confident with herself.

I can relate this movie to the class very clearly because it shows how the perfect image should be, and the stuggle that this particular girl had when she was in high school. The way she was perceive and how young people treat this issue, but then they mature and don't see it in that harsh way. Also we can see how the really girly girls are suppose to be dressing up like, and how they are suppose to behave, and we also have the girls who might look lesbian, since they have short hair and don't dress as pink and sparkly as the others.

After the movie it was interesting to listen to the questions and answers with the producers, and the actors. It was very interesting that is my favorite thing about Siff because it is a new way to experience a project, to really know the background of the story and why it was filmed. In this case the producer wanted to tell her story about how she felt being a plus size woman and felling what she expressed through her character Mara. I do have personal experience with her story, because I would feel chubby when I was younger and I would stop myself from doing so many things in my life, and only because I was not comfortable with my body, but most important I did not have confidence.

Double Take (extra siff)

Double Take was mostly funny in many ways. But it took me a while after this movie to really figure out what was going on in the movie, it was very different than from any movie I had watched before, but then I figured that it was because it didn't give that sence of the typical movie, it was only footage from other kinds of films but all tide together to make something new. This was amazing because everything was tied together in a very interesting way, the footage will flow together, it gave out interesting information, and it also gave in sneak peeks into Alfred Hitchcock' present life. Mostly I found it very funny to watch, because of the hilarious and random things Alfred would do when he was younger.

In this movie you would see old commercials, news reports, previews of different footage of history of the world, and mostly about wars like the cold war about the bombs, footage of President Kennedy in a speech, also Cuba was involved into this because of the communist of Fidel Castro, and wanting to kill him. Well to me it was a film of sort of flash backs of the past, like in a dream. When you have a dream where it's so random and you never know what your dream will turn to. I feel like it is the same way flash backs of different things that had happened in the past but yet tied together to the present. In this case I am referring to Alfred who is the one casted in the film.

I could really relate this movie to the class concept sexism. My feeling about sexism are mostly in the middle, because I don't agree in certain ideas of sexism, but I do agree in others, but this is mostly what made me laugh, and the whole theater too. It was these coffee commercials that would come up once in a while. They were very funny now, because now to society it sounds very unreal how the roles of women, and men were played in the 60's. First of all it gave power to the male, making him the worker, the tired man who wants to come home to a beautiful wife and a delicious dinner, and good coffee. Giving the female to be that dumb beautiful wife, who can cook and have the house cleaned and make good coffee for her husband in order to get something as a compensation.

This video is one example of what was screened on the film, and they were just hilarious to me and the crowd. It is very interesting how it was during that time, it became very different now, how people start to arrange many things, and views, and ways of living simply because they don't enjoy the way they are being treated. This movie gave out many other topics, which I really enjoyed watching, it made you want to wait and wait and wait to see what would end up on, it was engaging because so much interesting footage, it makes your brain comfortable, but also makes you wan to find out more. This sort of film sort of made me think about Dada art. In a way that since this footage was already done in other ways, but for this film was put together and was shown to an originality of simply putting a bunch of other films together, and making it your own.

The Ugly American...

This movie being my first Siff film to watch was very interesting, I never had this kind of experience of being at a film were the screen writer, Stewart Stern would be present. It was surprising to me that he was actually there. That was a new experience for me, and I took more respect for the Siff festival, I saw that it wasn't only watching a movie that will only be there to see, but I really liked that even after all these years since the movie was made, they still wanted to show it and have Stewart Stern present giving him the time to express and tell his story. If I was in his place, I would have felt very honored that at this time people would still be honored to have me there wanting to listen to what I had to say.

I found this photo of Stewart Stern at a website called Northwest Film Forum.

Stewart Stern talked about his hollywood life, but mostly about his and his friends of the film's adventure and what they went through just to be able to bring along this film. Like figuring out thing there, who could they actually persive the culture and show how the lie and stituation was there. They had to get permission from the president of the United States so they could be allowed to be traveling in Asia and being accepted there. That was a big challenge they had to face, not being welcomed there. He said it cost them a lot of money, because mostly all the crops were made new just for the movie, everything was original, and it was hard for them to keep up with everything. But on the side of that, what he mostly expressed with joy was his experience he had doing this movie, mostly because he expressed that they were sent to Asia to come up with a certain kind of movie to make, and they spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure that out, but in the long run later they made up the story as they went and figured out.

Watching the film 'The Ugly American" was very interesting, it had a lot of different views and perspectives to look through. One was having the view of the Asian people and their view of an American person, how an American is being perseived, and this brings me back memories. I couple of years ago I was traveling over in europe and the people that knew I was Mexican would tell me to hide my American, meaning United States passport. Since I didn't look white like an american, and if I hid the American passport I would be safer. Why would they say this? Well because ever since that movie and since now present in my life time, the United States has had another view from mostly European Countries. It is sometimes a threat you give yourself if you show your american passport, because you never know how they will treat you, or what they will do to you. But coming back to all the different views of this film, it shows how at that time war has very present and how easy it was to kill people. The movie also showed us some culture, but mostly about the true history that those people had to go go through and their history. Maybe that move might be very interesting and beautiful made for our view, for own joy, but just put yourself in the place of those peoples persived there in the movie. These people went through that history, they suffered, they had the experiences and most important their memories. When they watch this film, they will sertainly hav another feeling to it that we will never be able to experience.