Night of the Living Dead

George Romero's Night of the Living Dead was extremely ground breaking AND pretty good for a 1960s thriller movie. If we still had the other movie in Psycho, I would still probably watch this, because I have already seen Psycho, and it is just...meh, for an Alfred Hitchcock movie. What I am trying to say is that I am glad we watched this movie, since I have heard so much about the movie, and we got to watch this movie. Again, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Anyways, on to the prompt for the blog post. There were plenty of things that could be many political implications in the film, but the one that I am assuming of right now is that the political implication is the use of an African American for the main character in the movie who is the hero and has normal hero qualities. He can also be compared to many ground breaking people throughout history, but the one that people most compare Ben to is Martin Luther King, Jr. because he was an African American leader that was killed by a bunch of rednecks (or in Martin Luther King, Jr's case one redneck,) and was the leader of many people. You could actually compare Ben to any leader that had been assassinated. All in all, I loved this movie because it was campy, and I like some movies that are pretty campy.

Bigger Than Life...It's Breaking Bad before Breaking Bad

First off, I'm going to say, I liked this movie. Why? Probably because I enjoyed Breaking Bad and this movie is so much like it. I'm going to go off on a tangent, but did you see Better Call Saul? It's not that bad of a spin-off, in my own opinion. And Tuco is back? That is my favorite character in the series! Anyways, back to the prompt. There are a lot of similarities between Bigger Than Life and Breaking Bad. First off, they are both teachers, just Walter White was a chemistry teacher and Ed Avery is a history teacher. Both of them have side jobs, White with the carwash and Avery with the taxi cab company. And the thing that is pretty much the biggest kicker: there is a "miracle drug" that is enacted that saves their life and then turns them into monsters in their own kind. With Walter White, it was hysteria and being power-hungry with the meth that turns him into a monster that is a threat to his family and himself, but with Ed Avery, it was the hysteria (again) and the addiction of the drug with the addiction to the cortisone that (much like Heisenberg) makes him a threat to his family and himself. There was also a masculine uncle that makes the lead character look much less masculine. The only thing that was different was that there was no Jesse Pinkman that was yelling "bitch" every few minutes. I kind of wanted to see that in Bigger Than Life, but it is what it is.

Screwball Comedy

His Girl Friday was a pretty funny movie for a movie in the '40s, which I really didn't think I would enjoy, but it was pretty damn funny. Anyways, on to the blog theme. There are many subtle differences between slapstick comedies and screwball comedies, but the main difference is that women are the lead roles and they engage in the battle of the sexes, in this case it was Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant. Funny stuff. I also watched this movie right after watching Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, so I guess I will compare it to that in terms of comedic content. After watching Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, it definitely made me turn my brain on and was pretty witty in comedic relief. Getting back to the differences between the slapstick and screwball comedies, slapstick is just for comedic entertainment and screwball is to show equality towards the sexes and is a battle of the sexes comedy. What I really liked about this is that they did not use a bunch of special effects and used a lot of comedic timing to get the point across and it wasn't in-your-face comedy, it was kind of intellectual to an extent. Overall, I liked His Girl Friday because it wasn't like your typical everyday comedy where there are effects used and uses comedic timing to get its point across.