Media Meditation #5: Brothers

Last weekend, my friend Mike was raving about the new movie Brothers and how he's never seen it but has heard many good things. We decided to kick back and watch it. In the beginning, my neo-cortex went to work because of all of the character's names that were being introduced. Then my limbic brain tied in because music was playing not just in the beginning, but throughout the entire movie. A shift that I noticed was the epistemological shift. At first, Tobey Maguire says how he's going off to Afgahanistan to fight in the war. During a couple of scenes in the movie, you actually see the war taking place which I'm not going to lie, was pretty disturbing. Another shift that I immediately noticed was the technological shift. The special effects they used when they were in Afghanistan, for example, when one of the planes crashed were excellent. I almost felt like I was there...everything looked so real. This movie was really moving. Everyone who was watching it got a taste of what life is like fighting for your country in Afghanistan, a completely different part of the world. This relates to the basic principle individual meaning because someone who watches this might know a person who is actually over in war right now fighting for their country. My friend Vikki has a sister named Nicole and her boyfriend is over in Iraq. I'm sure that if she watched this movie, it would have a lot of meaning to her. Another basic principle that stood out was production techniques. There were many different camera angles, lighting, sound effects like when they plane blew up, and colors. There was some humor in the movie but not a lot since it is a drama. There was also a lot of repitition. Tobey Maguire's wife, Natalie Portman repeated numerous times how she didn't want her husband to go back to war which shows what type of movie it is, a drama with real life situations. Brothers also reveals how people who come back from war will never be the same because of what they've seen...it basically changes them as a person. The producers definitely used beautiful people to get the movie a better reputation...Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman and Jake Gyllenhal are all pretty good looking to say the least. When my friend mentioned the movie to me, he definitely used card stacking because he told me how critics were raving that it was "one of the best movies of the year". I liked this movie because it showed me how there are people in our country right now who hard really facing hardships...when I'm in a bad mood because I don't have enough money to go out to eat or I'm having a bad hair day, I'll remember this movie to make me realize that I don't have it that hard. There are plenty of worse things going on in the world these days. There were certainly warm fuzzies inside when Tobey came home from war! I would classify this movie as a chick flick so if you love chick flicks like me, then definitely go and see it ;)

Here's the trailer!