My journey into stories behind famous movie related things we take for granted continues, still focussing on the logos of the big movie companies. This week’s choice: The Universal Pictures logo. Continue reading
Tag Archives: history
The Story Behind… The 20th Century Fox logo
Continuing my look into the stories behind movie related things we all take for granted, this week’s choice is the 20th Century Fox logo. If you only hear the music it’s something you immediately relate to movies. But what’s the history of the logo? Continue reading
Manda Bala (Send A Bullet) (2007)
São Paulo, Brazil. A city in which an estimated 17 to 20 million people are living and a place where a lot of poor Brazilians move to in the hope to start a better life. It’s a city with a lot of skyscrapers, but a lot of favelas as well. The difference between rich and poor is very big, which has resulted in an extremely high number of kidnappings. Not a day goes by without at least one happening and the ransom is usually very high. To prove that the family needs to pay the kidnappers use violence and it’s “normal” to cut off an ear of the victim and mail it to the family. Continue reading
Flags of our Fathers (2006)
Images can be very powerful. The can change someones opinion or generate a specific feeling about a war. Lots of war have one iconic image which people will remember when you mention it. If you think about Vietnam, a lot of people will know the picture of a man being executed by the army. If you think about the war in Iraq, the video of Sadam’s statue being taken down jumps to mind. Countries use these images effectively to shape an opinion, even though the reality might be different.
Flags of Our Fathers focusses on the picture of American soldiers raising the flag on the island of Hiroshima. It was a picture which was used to give the American people hope, but it was also used as something to raise money to fund the war. Continue reading
Bastards of the Party (2005)
Gangs have been around for several decades. Especially at the beginning of the nineties, when gangster rap was listened to all around the globe everyone started to learn more about them. Various movies were made about these groups and outside America gangs were formed with the same names as the original American gangs (in The Hague, Netherlands there is a Crips gang as well, which was subject of the 2009 documentary Crips, Strapped ‘n Strong). Bastards of the Party is a documentary which investigates the history of gangs and what caused these groups to form. Continue reading
Paths of Glory (1957)
France, the first world war. Both the Germans and the French have dug themselves trenches and are in fierce fights to conquer just a few metres. With so little changing it’s bound to be a long trench war. Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) of the French army receive order from his superiors to attack the “Ant Hill” and take it. Although Dax makes it clear that it is a suicide mission as more than half the soldiers will be killed before they are even near their target, his concerns are noted, but the attack still has to take place. Continue reading
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009)
Until recently I didn’t know anything about the Pentagon papers. They were published before I was born and I didn’t know much about the Vietnam war (except for some excellent movies and series about it). This documentary tells the story of Daniel Ellsberg, who decided to inform the public about the decisions that were made by government about the war. He manually copied hundreds of classified documents and distributed them to the papers. It’s an excellent documentary with a powerful message. Continue reading