First Position Analysis/Review

The documentary First Position, directed by Bess Kargman, follows the stories of six ballet dancers as they make their way though the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) competition. Aran Bell, an 11-year-old living in Italy (his father is a military doctor), travels hours to his ballet classes. He is very passionate, and very talented for his age. He is very close friends with Gaya Yemini, an 11-year-old from Israel, even though they do not speak the same language and are constantly competing with each other. Michaela DePrince (14) was adopted from Sierra Leon after rebels killed her parents. She lives in Philadelphia, and hopes to overcome the stereotype that African-American dancers cannot make in the ballet world. Rebecca Houseknecht is a 17-year-old graduate from Arundel High School and attended the Maryland Youth Ballet (which, coincidentally, I attended for seven years, until the end of 7^th grade). Seeing Rebecca in a famous documentary, after seeing her on a regular basis at the studio a few years ago was really cool and made this film much more personal. After her participation in YAGP, Rebecca joined the Washington Ballet (which she has since left to study at Towson University). Miko Fogarty (12) lives in Palo Alto, CA and hopes one day to become a professional ballet dancer. Miko is incredibly strong and flexible, and has a lot of support from her mother. Her mother also makes her brother do ballet, but he does not share the passion or commitment to dance that Miko exhibits. Joan Sebastian Zamora is a 16-year-old from Colombia. He lives in Queens, New York, ands works to support his family that still lives in Colombia. Joan Sebastian receives a full scholarship from the Royal Ballet School in London for is outstanding performance in YAGP.

Bess Kargman does a very good job developing the backstories of each of the characters, and therefore creating an interesting plot for viewers to follow. The viewer has a better understanding of each character during the competition after learning about their lives in detail. The costumes are, of course, very nice ballet costumes, and the narration really adds to the movie’s effect. All of the films shots are very nice, and there are a variety of different shots. There are many extreme close-ups of the dancers’ feet on pointe. Instead of just having the one wide shot of the dancer from the audience, there are close-ups and medium close-ups during performances to grasp the viewer’s attention. It must have been very difficult to get these close-ups, and they are all of very high quality. There are no special effects, which is good in my opinion because I think that they would tae away from the documentary. They would reduce the viewers understanding that everything in the film is real, and that these people are living the lives described in the documentary. This documentary was well done and kept my interest, even though it is 90 minutes long. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 96%, and IMDB gave it a 7/10. 

500 Days of Summer

Writer Anthony O. Scott, from the New York Times, seems pleasantly surprised by 500 Days of Summer's creatively organized plot. He starts off by giving his opinion of the movie, as well as the movie's theme that love can be confusing, and can fail in the end, but still be a good experience. Most of the review focuses on summarizing the plot of the movie, although Scott does spend some time discussing the actors and the cinematography. He likes Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt together, but wishes that Marc Webb had developed the character Summer in to a complete character. Scott felt that her character lacked depth.
For our quarterly movie review, I think that we should only have a basic structure to follow, allowing some freedom as far as organization goes. We could just be required to discuss the three aspects of film, giving us the chance to decide what to write about based on what we find important during the film. I also don't think that the reviews should be too long, as most movie goers want a short, concise review to read, not an essay.