The summer so far has been long and dull and involved a lot of lying around watching films, so I thought it might be an idea to do a few short reviews before I do some travelling and actually leave my pit. I’ve watched a lot of old favourites (Lost in Translation, The Royal Tenenbaums, Paris Je T’aime) but I’ve also got around to watching movies that I’ve had on my bucket list for a while.
Fish Tank is a gritty British drama film about a 15 year old girl living on a council estate and her relationship with her mum’s new boyfriend. Michael Fassbender stars as the new Irish boyfriend who intrigues Mia, the 15 year old girl, although she comes across as rude and stand-offish towards him. What I enjoyed the most about this film is the tension that builds up towards the end and how involved I got with the plot and the characters. It stayed with me long after I watched it and I found myself recommending it to everyone I spoke to in the next few days.
I found myself up at 3 in the morning a couple of weeks ago watching a film about the man who invented the first vibrator and although I still don’t know what made me watch it, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Starring Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Rupert Everett, Hysteria is a romantic comedy set in the 1800s which provided a lot of laughs and was surprisingly light hearted for a film about female masturbation.
I finally got around to watching Midnight in Paris and I knew I was going to enjoy it from the outset. Paris holds a lot of intrigue for me, like many 19 year old girls who haven’t travelled much. The opening shots of Paris, the fact it was written and directed by Woody Allen (one of my favourite filmmakers) and the idea of being thrust into the 1920s was enough for me to fall in love. The film had a beautiful soundtrack, Marion Cotillard was breath-taking throughout and the famous writers/artists were acted just the way you would assume them to have been. I will definitely be returning to this film again and again.
There were two reasons I wanted to watch The Place Beyond the Pines and those reasons were Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper. Although I was slightly disappointed that Gosling was only in the first half an hour of the film, he left a lasting impression and Bradley Cooper was absolutely fantastic. This is quite a lengthy film and I did find my concentration wavering at points, but it was a clever storyline and the end scene was my personal favourite, with the movie playing out to Bon Iver – The Wolves (Act I and II).
It’s been a while since I sat down and watched Star Wars, but this week my friends and I got together and watched The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (Return of the Jedi is a perfect hangover cure, in case you were wondering). I don’t need to say much about these films, everyone knows they’re fantastic and they are such classics, but I really forgot how much I enjoy Star Wars and how much they hold my concentration. After we finished The Empire Strikes Back, I was so ready for Return of the Jedi, and after we finished that, I wanted to sit down and watch the rest of them. Hats off to John Williams as well, for one of the most epic and memorable soundtracks ever composed (which has constantly been in my head for days).
Source:
http://handonfilms.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/my-junejuly-in-films/