Chicago Sun-Times:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19930226/REVIEWS/302260301Looking at the Chicago sun- time’s review of falling down, Robert Ebert begins his review by comparing how other reviews of falling down are going to compare the film to earlier movies about why men go berserk and out of control, but he seemingly goes against the norm of doing this and expresses that the film is actually about a great sadness and desperation. The tone used by Ebert throughout the review is formal and controversial as he talks about sensitive issues, such as racism and how ethnic minorities are generalised in the film.
Ebert focuses on the structure of the film and the chronological order in which events occur. For example, “D FENS gets stuck in traffic, gets out of his car in the middle of traffic etc.” However Ebert doesn’t simply write what happens, he compares the scenes shot to other films similar to falling down, such as “The director, Joel Schumacher, deliberately shoots this scene as a homage to the famous opening of Fellini's "8 1/2," but instead of finding himself floating up into the sky, like Fellini's hero, the man gets out of his car, slams the door, and goes walking alone across Los Angeles” showing that Ebert is putting his own extra knowledge of similar movies that may have inspired the opening of Falling down.
The main content of the review is the plot and Ebert addresses this to the audience fully by introducing the main character and which actor is playing him: “Michael Douglas” who also is the unique selling point of the film. Surprisingly Ebert doesn’t express his view on Michael Douglas’s portrayal of the main character and focuses on the character itself. Ebert shows signs of sympathy for the main character who is only referred to as D-FENS in the movie, conveying that not only has he lost his job, he has been stripped off his identity, and says, “By the time we meet him, he has gone over the edge. But there is no exhilaration in his rampage, no release”
Representation of race is also addressed by Ebert and although he does see how the film can be seen as racist as most of the D FENS man’s victims are not white, he looks at the issue on a wider scale of how one may feel seeing an individual looking happy and most importantly employed and Ebert sees this trend as he said, “If you don't have a job and the Korean shop owner does, it is easy to see him as the villain. It takes a little more imagination to realize that you lost your job because of the greedy and unsound financial games of the go-go junk bond years.” Therefore it is clear that Ebert doesn’t see the representation of race as negative.
The location L.A (Mise en scene) is only briefly mentioned in the review and no further information is revealed and the use of camera, editing and more in depth analysis of Mise en scene is not mentioned in the review.
Overall, Ebert creates a positive review of Falling down and praises Schumacher (the director) on the intelligence of the plot, especially at the end of the film, where the climax of the movie was how one would expect it to finish in real life; he rates the film three stars.
Time Magazine:
The Times Magazines review of Falling Down, Richard Schickel writes in a way that entertains the reader and at the same time educates the reader too. By Richard Schickel doing this he creates an informative review, balancing the positives of the plot and the negatives surrounding the plot. Richard Schickel begins the film review with one sentence revealing his overall impressions of the film, “THE BOTTOM LINE: An unlikely Tarzan of the urban jungle feeds on, and feeds, our worst fears about city life.” By starting the film review with a strong opinion it’s already gaining the attention of the audience and making the audience think about the film.
Schickel’s review of Falling Down is mostly based around the plot of the film and introduces Michael Douglas as the main character playing the individual that is only referred to as D FENS. Unlike Robert Ebert from the Chicago- Sun Times, Schickel focuses on the character of D FENS rather than focusing on Michael Douglas and his previous achievements. Schickel clearly conveys the contrast of the character D FENS from looking, as Schickel noted, “Everygeek”, to snapping into this psycho in quick succession. Also, Schickel also focuses on the cop named Prendergast, another contrast with the Chicago Sun Times, who only focused on Douglas. Schickel, as we may have noticed from his review, doesn’t hold back and we can see this when he refers to the cop as a “Loser” and although he manages to state that the Cop has qualities such as, “Good Humour” he finishes his analysis of the Cop by saying that he is a forgettable character due to the strong and overshadowing main character.
The location (Mise en scene) is only referred briefly but follows the trend of Schickel being negative, such as referring to LA as a “Urban Nightmare” The representation of class is briefly mentioned in the review and Schickel seemingly attacks the middle class as only middle class people can imagine the stereotypical race that is associated in the film.
Overall, Schickel from the first line foreshadows what the reader should expect from this film and the last line concludes what Schickel has been thinking about the film, which can be seen in his quote, “To the degree that Falling Down encourages this mind-set, it is a dangerous and morally stupid movie.”
BBC Films:http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/12/07/falling_down_1993_review.shtml
Falling Down is reviewed by Ali Barclay, a film reviewer for the BBC. Barclay begins his review by noting the brief synopsis and explains the narrative mentioning how Michael Douglas’s portrayal of D FENS is sympathetic which is quite surprising as the two above film reviews fails to notice this and just call him a mentally ill individual or as Times Magazine refers to him a psycho. Barclay goes on to say that Douglas turns out a fine performance and is the only film review that I analysed that mentioned Barbara Hershey was casted into the role of the estranged wife and praised her performance.
Ali Barclay also unlike other film reviews, used big bold black font on some of the text in his review and if we only read these bits, the film review would still make sense, such as, “It is a worrying and unnerving reflection of our society, which will certainly make you wonder about the quality of life you strive to maintain.” This could be that the film review is aimed at working class people who may not want to read all of the text and therefore can read the bold writing and still gain an idea whether the film is good or not.
Overall, Barclay takes an unbiased approach and states the positives and negatives that is surrounded with the film, unlike Schickel, who was bias with his film review and mostly noted the weaknesses of Falling Down.
The poster looks professional and looks really good.Also the review looks very good as you have a professional layout. you just need to add some pictures on the review. You also missed an apostrophe on the poster :)))))
ReplyDelete