WAR OF THE WORLDS

                        

This is about a war that is far worse than any war mankind could have ever created. A war between mankind and beings from another world. This was based on the 1898 science fiction novel written by H.G. Wells who earlier wrote The Time Machine. The movie was released in 1953 and is about a scientist that was on a fishing trip and gets called to investigate a meteor that had crashed near the town of Linda Rosa. When he gets there, he observes it and wonders why that it was so oddly lighter for its size, and why it didn’t make a bigger crater when it landed. He then tells some of the local town's people that it was radioactive and later that night some strange things begin to happen. None of the phones or lights were working anywhere in that area and at a local square dance everyone’s watches stop all at the same time and become magnetic. Even the local sheriff's compass is affected and pointed only towards the area where the meteor crashed.

The scientist and the sheriff head towards the crash site where they discovered that the meteor is no meteor at all, but a Martian space ship that tries destroy them with its deadly heat- ray that sticks up from the roof of the ship. The sound effects for the heat ray were pretty creative for a 1953 film.The sound of the heat ray was made by recording electric guitars and playing the recording backwords to create the deadly sound of the gun. The movie later won Oscars for their excellent special effects.

  

                

This film was remade in 2005 starring Mission Impossible Tom Cruise. This version’s story line was changed from H.G. Wells  original novel. In this one, it is about an inattentive divorced father, who was supposed to have his kids for only the weekend, but now he has to protect them from an alien invasion. This film also stars Dakota Fanning as Rachel and at the end of the movie they show her grandparents, who are Gene Berry and Ann Robison, the main characters from the original film of War of the Worlds. The director of the 1953 War of the Worlds was Byron Haskin and the director for the 2005 version was Steven Spielberg.

LOLITA

                                                  

Have you ever been in a relationship and the person you were seeing was a few years younger than you were? Some would be a little concerned while others wouldn’t think much of it, but what would happen if say you were a middle aged man and you fall in love with a girl that was more than twenty years younger than you were?

Well in this movie middle aged man, Professor Humbert Humbert (yes that is the character’s name) played by James Mason, becomes obsessed with young fourteen year old Lolita played by Sue Lyon. He meets the young girl during his vacation at her house that had an extra room for rent. There he also meets Lolita’s mother who is a love sick widow played by Shelly Winters who tries awfully hard to capture the attention of the professor.  After realizing he wants to always be with Lolita and yet avoid any suspicion he must marry the girl’s mother to be close to her.

Later in the movie Lolita’s mother finds out that the professor has had feelings for her daughter. Out raged she decides to leave him except in that process she is hit and killed by a moving car. This makes things a bit complicated for the professor because he must now be the father of the girl he’s in love with and also has to hide her from a mysterious stalker who is also very attracted to Lolita as well. This movie was released in 1962 and is based on the novel “Lolita” written by Vladimir Nabokov

                                                          

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

                                                   

This film is about an emotionally confused and very prideful, rebellious, middle class teenager (Jim) who has just moved into a new town with his family. He doesn’t get along with his parents; and his mother, who is very demanding to his father, is always getting criticized by her mother-in-law. In turn, his father gets pushed around by his wife and doesn’t stand up for himself.

In the movie, Jim meets two other teenagers with their own troubles at home. He meets and befriends a lonely boy named John, but calls himself Plato. Plato had lost his father and his mother was never at home but often sent him money. Jim also meets a pretty girl named Judy, who feels as though her father loves her younger brother more and that every time she tries to be more loving to her father, he disapproves.

In one part of the film, Jim is challenged by Judy’s boyfriend Buzz and his gang to a “Chicken Run” where they take stolen cars and try to race to the edge of a cliff. First one to jump out of the car loses but when they do the race Buzz gets trapped in his car and plummets to his death. Jim wants to tell the police what had happened but his parents won’t let him and he also has Buzz’s old vengeful gang after him too. This was film was released in 1955 starring James Dean as Jim and Natalie Wood as Judy.