Akira Kurosawa...... a mysterious director

After finishing three of Kurosawa's most decorated films, I now know why men like George Lucas and Coppola, would help finance his projects. I feel like Kurosawa liked to leave things mysterious on purpose. He wanted to have people guessing and debating the truth vs. the imaginary.

Throughout all three movies, there was one scene that jumped out at me the most, and it just happened to be one that contained this tool Akira loved to use. The scene was the final scene from "Ran".

In this scene, "Tsurumaru", a blind Japanese man, is alone on a large precipice, with an orange/pink sky in the backround. The scene's first shot consists of an extreme longshot establishing the cliff, sky and isolation of Tsurumaru. He is indeed a blind man, left alone next to an extreme cliff with only his blind walking rod, and a rolled up scroll with a painting of Buddha on it. The painting was given to him by the last person to leave him alone in assurance that the painting would watch over him and keep his defenseless self safe.

As the scene continues, the next shot is a medium range shot that portrays him slowly walking up to the edge and when he feels the edge with his walking rod, he becomes scared and fidgets and accidentally drops his painting over the edge. The film ends shortly thereafter following a long panning shot of the sky after he drops the painting.

In doing this, I feel Kurosawa is not only trying to cause controversy by ending the movie at a point where not all problems are patched up, but also in doing this scene, I feel he is making a religious statement.

I don't know if Akira is a religious man, but I feel he may have intended to show that if we lose Buddha or God in our life, that we will be in a world-of-hurt with a lack of their presence. By having Tsurumaro drop his religious portrait, and then ending the film, the director appears to me that he is saying we are lost in our lives without the guidance of a god in our lives. Which Tsurumaru was after he dropped his portrait.

All three respectable movies. Fun unit

Shallow Hal- the last Farrelly brothers installment, but not the worst, only because there are no bad Farrelly brothers films

The film "Shall0w Hal" (2001), by Peter and Bobby Farrelly, is in my opionion, in the top ten funniest movies of the new century.

I want to start off by saying that the Farrelly brothers did an excellent job of putting their important message into the film, which is to look past the outside and evaluate a girl by whats on her insides. Leave it to the overlooked film directors who are viewed as nonsensicle goofy guys to incorporate the key message.

This movie I feel is often overlooked by my friends, critics, and people I talk to about movies. I don't know why people would look past the humor of the always solid Farrelly boys. This one did not dissapoint. Using much of the same type of humor from their other movies, "Shallow Hal" brought me to loud laughter dozens of times throughout the couple of hours. Gwyneth Paltrow, who is never looked at for her comedic qualities, I feel did an excellent job creating laughter and sorrow. She did a nice job in her overweight suit too. Also, i'm not usually a fan of Jack Black at all, but in this film, I loved him. He was sustainable and actually funny. Not too much over the top humor, only more less-forced laughs.

I think the favorite part of the film was when Jack Black (Hal) and Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow), are at a restaurant and she orders numerous, numerous food items and Hal gets very excited with his date because he is really tired of " ...the girls who just order a crouton and a glass of water". I just loved that line because it was funny, but also talked about how he doesn't notice her large size, only he loves her inner beauty.