Sam Raimi

Date of Birth
23 October 1959, Royal Oak, Michigan, USA


Birth Name
Samuel Marshall Raimi


Nickname
Sammy


Height
5' 11" (1.80 m)


Mini Biography
Highly inventive US film director/producer/writer/actor Sam Raimi first came to the attention of film fans with the savage, yet darkly humorous, low-budget horror film The Evil Dead (1981). From his childhood Raimi was a fan of the cinema and before he was ten years old, he was out making movies with an 8mm camera. He was a devoted fan of The Three Stooges, so much of Raimi's film work in his teens, with good friends Bruce Campbell and Robert G. Tapert, was slapstick comedy based around what they had observed from Stooges movies.

Children of Men - Opening Scene Analysis

- The scene starts with off screen sound.
- Digetic sound
- News
- GMTV/BBC?
- US
- Accent
- Loud
- Like a voiceover effect
- Radio effect
- Male & female - UK standard
- Sound bridge
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analysis of a still of people gathered round in the cafe
- Utopia
- Dystopia
- people are all old
- all dark colours
- no distictive characters
- all looking at the same thing
- we can watch the tv too as one can be seen behind
- work clothes
- woman with dog
- cafe
- muted blue walls
- policeman - stereotypical
- like BNP
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The rest of the sequence
- BBC style
- Visceral response
- woman holding arm that has been blown off
- shrieking
- ringing in ears - POV like you are actually there.

Sweet Sixteen Character Notes

Liam - He does alot of bad things and breaks the law alot. He dreams of getting a caravan for his mum when she gets out of prison.

Pinball - Liam's best friend. He breaks the law and also does bad things.

Chantelle - Liam's sister. She helps him out and looks after Liam. She doesn't get on with their mum.

Liam's mum - She is in prison and sells the drugs that stan gets for her, to the women in the prison.

Liam's grandad - Doesn't really care about iam and doesn't like him. He helped Stan beat Liam.

Liam's mum's boyfriend - Stan is Liam's mum's boyfriend. He doesn't like Liam and is a drug dealer. He beat Liam up because he didnt't give his mum the drugs.

Narrative Development Plan - Sweet Sixteen

Liam and Pinball are 'selling the stars' then in the pub they are selling cheap 'fags', this shows they are desparate for money.

Liam steals a police helmet and they run away from the policeman. In the car with his grandad and his mums boyfriend. they want him to give the mum drugs.

Stan (mum's boyfriend) and Liam's grandad beat him up becayse he didnt give his mum the drugs. Liam visits his sister and her boy with Pinball and meets Suzanne. Pinball steals a car and him and Liam and Calum go for a joyride and almost crash a few times.

Liam and Pinball steal Stan's drugs and his grandad's teeth. Liam and Pinbball start selling the drugs for themselves.

Liam buys the caravan for his mum, he has to get more money before it is his indefinatly.

Liam visits his mum and tells her all about the caravan and Calum.

Liam falls out with Pinball and goes off to sell the drugs alone with no protection. He gets beaten up for the drugs but he gets back up and fights back because he is desparate for the caravan.

Chantelle cleans up Liam's wounds and they have a heart to heart about when he was younger.

Liam and Pinball get taken to a health club where Liam meets his future 'employer' who is interested in him.

Liam sells more drugs and Tony (his boss) picks Liam up for a test.

Liam has to kill someone in the toilets of a pub. He sees its a test when everyone stops him just before he his about to stab him. They are all happy and proud of Liam and take him for a drink.

Liam goes on a picnic with his family and finds the caravan burnt down, Calum gets upset and Liam says he's going to 'kill' who did it.

He goes down to Stan's house as he thinks he burnt down the caravan. Liam throws a brink through his grandad's window.

Pinball steals Tony's car and crashes it into the health club.

Liam meets his boss and Tony gives him keys to one of the flats he owns. He asks Liam to find some good boys to work for the pizza place he has just bought, he also asks Liam to kill Pinball as he is gecoming a nuisence.

Top 10 Desert Island Films

“Stand By Me“- Film Review

The film I’m reviewing is called ‘Stand By Me’ directed by Rob Reiner, based on the novella (short story) by Stephen King. I give this film a 4 out of 5 stars as it has a good storyline about friendship and trust. It is rated a 15 as it has strong language throughout the film.

I expected the film to be about friends getting into trouble and them working together to get out of their problem. I didn’t expect for the boys to go out looking for a missing dead boys body.
This film covers many genres like growing up, sticking together and has lots of adventure. The message of this film is to stand by each other through the bad times and also hold people you love close because you never know then their going to slip away.

The story is about 4 friends living in a small town called Castle Rock in the American state of Oregan. It is set in the 1950’s as you can tell by the clothes they wear and the music they listen to. The plot is that the boys hear that theirs a dead boys body in the woods and they set off to find him to be seen as heroes for finding the body. I think the plot makes sense as it comes together as the story progresses and at the end. I think it is believable as lots of dead bodies are not found, also anyone can go out and search of a body.

The five main characters are ‘sensitive’ Gordie played by Wil Wheaton, ‘tough’ Chris played by River Phoenix, ‘mad’ Teddy played by Corey Feldman and ‘scaredy cat’ Vern played by Jerry O’Connell. I think the actors are good at their parts as they act like real friends.
The camerawork is good as they are seen on the train tracks through the woods. There is some beautiful scenes as it is in the countryside but most of it is not as it is about finding a dead teenagers body. The camera is used in a interesting way when two boys, Gordie and Vern were running on the tracks away from a train on a bridge over a large, wide river.

I enjoyed this film because it has humour and adventure. A scene I enjoyed was when they fell into the muddy water and got out screaming after finding leeches on them. A bit I didn’t enjoy was when Gordie was telling the story about “Lard ass” in the pie eating contest and people were being sick over one other.
The scene I remembered most was the one where the boys were running away from the train because the train was right behind them, the camera was used in a interesting way as they had to jump off the bridge and viewers don’t know if the had to jump into the lake below as we didn’t see where they landed.

I would recommend this film to all ages through teenagers aged 14 to elders, as the film contains frequent strong language and people who like adventure and films about friendship and sticking together.