Griffin is The Player

The movie we watched last week was very different: The Player. The opening scene was just brilliant, it was so cool to watch even as just an audience and not someone studying films. But because I knew that I was suppose to look out for things, it made that long 9 minute shot even more amazing.

The film has different genres that bring the entire movie together. There's suspense, noir, and because of that our main character is an anti-hero.

Griffin Mill was quite the interesting character. He had a lot of awkward scenes/moments in the movie for example when he is talking to June on the phone, and he's basically walking around her house creeping on her. Another time when he is sitting at the police officer's desk, and the camera does an extreme close-up to his eyes. This wasn't creepy, in fact I thought it was a brilliant way to show the perspective of what Griffin is feeling at that moment. I think the biggest thing I learned from this movie is that subtle things, and things in the background speak louder than the actual dialogs said by the actors.

It seems to be a running theme of watching movies which talk about the movie industry itself. And it seems like every movie is trying to relay the same message: Film Industry is fake, and not all glamor with happiness at all. This is mostly seen by the costume of the characters. Griffin gradually started to look darker. His clothes became darker, and his hair was more un-kept. There was a scene where he is sitting on the couch, he simply looked evil and tired (really weird combination). Another character, June who ended up marrying him in the end, was almost the complete opposite. She wore white all of the time, even at the funeral for her dead boyfriend. She represented an innocent and angelic person in the movie.

The story was also very convoluted. It came to a point where Griffin had killed David Kahane who happened to be June's boyfriend, but after time goes Griffin and June are in love, and Griffin is totally neglecting/ignoring his girlfriend Bonnie.

I really liked this movie, I think the movie got my attention from the beginning, because it looked so different that I felt it was really important to watch. Because often you find movies that even if you start watching it five minutes later, you haven't missed much, but this movie seemed important every minute of it. Another concept that I loved was how the police station was set up, and how it was completely not like normal police station set-ups in normal films. I laughed so hard, when Griffin continued to walk into the main room which actually wasn't the place he was suppose to go. And then when Detective Avery is having a casual conversation about tampons. That entire set-up was priceless.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching this movie. But I must say, I wonder how I would perceive the films that we watch if not in the environment we watch it in. For example, if I watched this movie at home on a Friday night, would I still be able to catch and analyze and understand the movies that we watch? So on that note, does the environment in which we watch a specific film play an impact on how we remember the film and how it affects us in general?