Speed Racer!

‘Speed Racer’ is a movie that was released this year and is all about a young man named Speed Racer. The story is about the main character, Speed Racer’s, life and how it is all about racing cars. His mum and dad are business people who build race cars and his brother is a racer. Racing is all Speed would think about when he was growing up and it was all he wanted to do. unfortunately, Speed’s brother Rex dies in a very competitive and difficult rally when Speed is still a child. We are then taken into the future where Speed is now a racecar driver himself and is smashing racing records. He is then offered to race for Royalton Industries but he declines because he wants to continue to work for his dad. Speed then finds out that the big companies are rigging all of the races to get the most profit, and he is threatened to race with them otherwise his career will be over. Speed then gets the help from his girlfriend and the mysterious Racer X to race in the Casa Cristo. Speed is finally able to uncover the secrets of the Royalton Industry and finds out that his brother is alive.

This movie was based on the cartoon also named Speed Racer by Tatsuo Yoshida. The original ‘Speed Racer’ was actually japanese manga called “Mahha GoGoGo” before it was turned into a television series. Some of the producers of the Speed Racer movie were also involved in the Matrix series. Bruce Berman, Grant Hill, Joeal Silver and directer/writers Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski were all involved with the Matrix. This shows in some of the movie when there are dramatic special effects that really emphasize the drama during the races. These techniques include slow/fast motion and turning the camera completely around the subject to really give a 3D view of what is happening. This is similar to the Matrix movies and adds suspense, keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat.

There are 5 elements which can be applied to the movie Speed Racer. There is a believeable character in Speed Racer, he is a young person who has dreams and ambitions. Many people can relate to someone who just wants to follow their dreams. We are also positioned to be sympathetic towards Speed Racer because he lost his brother and it seems as though the world just wants to make his plans difficult. The urgent and difficult problem is that Speed finds out that the competition is rigged and that he will be taken out in order for the companies to continue with making their money. Speed and his friends attempt to beat the companies at their own game, but finds it near impossible, making them more desperate to win. Then Speed only has one more chance to win against them and prove what is most important. He wins the Grand Prix and he does so because he stayed true to himself and held on to what he believed in.

Enter… Zombie King

This is my first entry for my 1504ART blog, I’m using my previous account with WordPress that I used last semester for my 1501ART class. This class is about digital video foundations. We were asked to write about what we really thought of the movie ‘Enter… Zombie King’, so here is what I thought about it.

When the movie started, I thought it looked like a movie from a Youtube user because it didn’t exactly appear to be a box-office smash. The story was a bit confusing for me from the beginning (but I guess that’s because everything I see on tv everyday or at the movies is very self explanatory). I wasn’t sure what this movie was all about. I found myself losing interest quickly with it because I have a short attention span with movies, but I tried to be patient and wait for the story to unravel.

Unfortunately for me, I was unable to understand the storyline even as the movie progressed, I think it was because I thought the movie would be more about zombies than people dressed in wrestling masks. I was not sure what wrestling had to do with zombies and the characters’ behaviour confused me, so I couldn’t really follow what was going on.

I usually really try to understand what is happening in movies, but in this case I sort of gave up trying. I couldn’t figure out some of the dialogue and settings properly and the characters’ personalities. Maybe this had to do with the main female character being introduced as “the girl”, but I’m not too sure. The blood and human parts also looked really fake along with most of the violence in the movie.

Overall, my effort in trying to figure out this movie was pretty poor, and probably the only thing I have learnt from this movie is to give the next one a better chance. Next time I hope to not let the confusing story and bad acting deter me from focusing. So at least I found out something by watching this movie.