Invasion of the Body Snatchers

This movie has the most real people that I've ever seen in a movie. They are not polished, they don't have special skills that will make them better able to defeat the threat and they don't have archetypal flaws that can be exploited. The characters are just people who happen to be there at the time. The film really makes you believe that this could happen to you, that the whole world could change and go completely crazy and that you could be left with an imminent threat of individual extinction. It wasn't really a directly terrifying film, but I think that it's one of those things that will sit in the back of your mind and bother you for the rest of your life. That's how Tremors was for me. The film isn't scary at all (I didn't even find it so as a child) and at times it was even funny, but to this day I sometimes still find myself rushing across open ground so that I won't be caught there.
Invasion also has some very interesting camera angles and monster make up. It went along w/ the theme of the film that everything could appear completely normal, but there is just something a little off about it. There is one point when Donald Sutherland's character is coming through this doorway. His sticks his head through first to make sure that there isn't anybody on the other side. The camera angle makes is such that he looks, at first, like he's coming up through a trapdoor. But, he's really just coming through a regular doorway. At another point, Lennard Nemoy's (sp?) character is walking to his car. Behind him the street must be on a hill or something like that because it's tilted relative to his body. As the camera follows him, you can't really tell that it's a hill (at least I couldn't) until he reaches his car and you can see that his side of the street is level relative to his body. The make up during the growth of the podpeople is cool too. They start out looking very fetal and covered w/ this grey hair. Then they gradually come to look exactly like the people that they are copying. The details are exact, right down to a bloody nose, a scar, or a pompous mustache.
One thing that I did not like about this film is that the group kept trusting people, even after they realized that people were being exactly duplicated. I wouldn't trust anyone that I hadn't been w/ the entire time. That just doesn't make sense to me.
I also didn't like that the whole helpless female heroine thing that they had going on. It was more subtle than in other films, but it was still there.
An interesting point that they made at the end of the film was to follow Donald Sutherland's character around during his daily routine. At this point you can't tell whether he is a podperson or whether he is just pretending to be one. Don't worry, I won't give it away. But, the point is that life is pretty much how it always was. Except that there was no crime or pain or war. There was also no love. The podpeople said that they had the same memories that the original person did. Did the original people really die? Or, were do they still exist, but in a different form?

Nosferatu

This film contains some of the most impressive scenes that I have ever seen. However, in between those scenes are interminable stretches of film. The basic plot is the first 10 pages of Dracula. It also veered off into side stories that didn't seem to fit at all. It is a silent film, so any dialog was present only in writing. Sometimes this was written in the first person narrator style. The problem is that we are never told who the first person narrator is! Another issue that I had w/ the film is that the main female character, who was supposed to be the 'heroine' of the film, was so damned unlikeable. Except for about three seconds in the beginning she was depressed and crazy for the entire film. Also, none of the characters were very reallistic so you couldn't feel sympathy for any of them.

Resevoir Dogs

Quentin Tarantino is a bad actor and his movies, for the most part, are completely pointless. Everyone dies in this film, very bloodily too. I don't see a point or a message, there doesn't even seem to be that much of a plot. If you haven't seen it, there's no point in doing so.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Blue hair? This is supposed to be one of those "deep" films where you start to question things about your life. In this case you are supposed to question things about your relationships w/ other people. If your memories of the one you love were erased, would you still love them? The answer to that question, I think, can be found in Alzheimer's patients. No, if you can't remember someone, you can't love them. I suppose you could love them in the sense that you should love everyone.
Anyway, that's kind of a stupid question. I guess a better one is how much our memories make up who we are. Should I erase a bad memory? There are days when I wish that I could forget the day my mother died. But, that is a day that changed who I am. I would not be the me that I am now if I hadn't lived through that day. This is a change that could either be good or bad, I'm not sure.

Santa Sangre

I was really disappointed that this film is in English. There is no reason, that I could tell, for it to be and many reasons for it to be in Spanish. The director and all of the actors were Hispanohablantes and it was filmed in Mexico.
Other than that it was really interesting. There was some debate between the audience members as to whether or not Fenix actually killed all of the women in the graveyard scene. I don't know that he did. They all looked alike, so it could just be that he was imagining it, he was crazy after all.
The symbolism of the eagle was also very interesting. It is the symbol of strength, pride, and also of Mexico City. It is quite clear why Fenix's father wanted to tattoo an eagle on his son's chest. However, Fenix's fixation on himself as an eagle isn't as clear. Why would he envision himself as something that is so clearly associated with his father. Fenix idolized his mother,why wouldn't he envision himself as being something related to her.