Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away there was a world that had been shown many wonders through the creation of Star Wars episodes 4,5 and 6. This world was also then later corrupted by Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (made good by Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor), Attack of The Clones (Ewan McGegor, Samuel L Jackson and Frank Oz made it okay) and Revenge of The Sith (nothing could make this good).

Now they decided to corrupt Star Wars further by making another three films. I decided not to waste the money on going to see it in cinema for an extortionate amount and I am so grateful that I did because it was shocking. I am not 'a true believer' and I can't see the need for making this film which could not have any kind of plot. Everything about it was awful, or almost everything. BB8 was fantastic but nothing else was okay. There was no enemy, the sith were gone, Luke was the last Jedi and even though Leya had the powers flowing through her she never used them so where did this evil guy train??

His lightsaber was terrible and the weapon that was a deathstar was shocking as well. I skipped scenes that were just pointless and a waste of time. I am trying to find something positive to say about the film but JJ Abrahms just made it almost exactly like what it would have been if George Lucas had directed it- the screen wipes and the same John Williams music with the same rubbish plot and unnecessary need for anything. What was the point in making this film??

The millions of people world wide who loved this film- I can't see why. If I wanted to watch a new hope I would have just watched a new hope and I would have felt a lot better about what I was watching. I loved R2 being brought back to this film and I loved that Anthony Daniels can carry on his legacy of being in all the films but that is kinda where the list of what I like actually stops.

Sorry for upsetting millions of people world wide.

About Time

A film with Donal Gleeson all about a Ginger kid.

There is more to this film than that opening statement. About time is literally about turning back time. Tim can travel in time, he can go backwards and relive the day before going back forwards to where he was before turning time. This means that he can do what we can't but would like to do- correct our mistakes and make different choices.

Previously I have not seen much of Donal Gleeson and I was sceptical of him because he was in Harry Potter and that was what drew attention to him. I was impressed with him, very much so. Normal and in many ways the perfect performance of a slightly shy, awkward guy who doesn't have many friends and has no real experience of women or love. There are some absolutely fantastic moments and some lovely moments in the film. At times I felt like the plot was slightly destroying the point of life but it was good to make a film about something that deep down we all wish for.

Supported by Bill Nighy, who is, of course, absolutely fantastic whatever role he plays, Donal Gleeson and Bill Nighy team up to deliver a fantastic show. Playing the dad that everyone wished that they could have, Nighy shows you exactly what everyone wants from a father and why having one that cares is a real blessing. You may not have friends but sometimes having someone from your family to support you is better than having friends.

I really loved the film. I will watch it over and over again so that I can laugh with it and at times sigh and want to skip a few minutes ahead to avoid the obvious mess taking place. Everyone should watch it.

The Truman Show.

It has to be American. I have never met anyone called Truman before but I am not surprised to find it in a movie, especially one like this movie.

Right from the start, without reading the synopsis or anything I got a ballimorey feel and that told me everything that I needed to know about the film. At no point was it boring because I wanted to see how far Truman would go to find out the truth but realising from so early on just sapped a little bit of the sting out of it from the start and at times did make it harder to stay focused.

Another Jim Carey film and I have to be honest and say that I hadn't realised that he starred in the film otherwise I would not have watched it so close to watching the mask. I have become pleased with his earlier performances. I don't find him comical in anyway and it almost makes me sick when he tries to be funny. Likewise I don't find him particularly serious- there's just something about him that makes him good as the guy that is always trying to be serious but somehow never manages it. Not the heartthrob, not an action hero, not even a romantic comedy kind of guy; just the guy that makes the slightly weird films with a slightly different character and trying to be his natural self on screen works for him- I can't understand why he tried to change it.

I don't really recognise anyone else in the film and I am struggling to think of a standout character. Over the years with TV series we have seen how actors playing characters that are in themselves actors really struggle. Matt Le Blanc really struggled in Friends. After Friends he didn't successfully do anything else without playing an actor- do we ever get to see what he can really do or just what the character can do?

Not my favourite film and not a film that I would search for to add to my collection of films but a good enough film with an interesting plot and theory behind it.

Casino

Robert Di Niro is back staring in a casino gangster film. The prequel to Ocean's Eleven (it's not but it should be) is something to admire. Nothing instructs you on the true running of a Las Vegas casino better than this film.

What I liked about this film was the character development. Di Niro was shown to as a young man who wasn't sure about taking on a casino but eventually agrees to do it on his term. As the film goes on he gets older and his friend gets in to all kinds of trouble that impact Di Niro as he has lost his muscle man due to a ban and being on everyone's most wanted lists.

Of course there is an absolutely gorgeous woman that Di Niro falls in love with, who is, of course, a player of wealthy men. Every man has their downfall, for his partner it was drugs and for him it was this woman. Casino is cleverly done. The film takes you through the way that every casino is run. A lot of films assume that their audience have been to a casino or at least know how the system works but we don't. For those of us that don't live in America and are under 21 we (mostly) know nothing about the running of a casino past what we have seen in Ocean's Eleven. I learnt a lot from this film.

Amelie

Having strayed away from a few of the films on the blog to add a little spice and length to the blog I have taken the bold step to go for a film entirely in French.

No, I don't really understand French, at least, not at the speed needed to translate what is being said. The plot I got from reading about it on Wikipedia and then I treated it like a silent movie but with colour. I sat back in my chair with a hot chocolate and a footstool and just watched the expressions of and body language of the people on the screen and I have to say that I really enjoyed it.

3 years on I am wondering how I have kept it going for so long. The blog doesn't attract more than about 9 views a day when a new post comes out and it is never going to be popular. I spend most of the time writing for myself to read, no one comments and no one contributes to the blog with suggestions. I didn't study film but I have found myself enjoying so many different types of film that I wasn't aware of until I started this blog. I have learnt things along the way about the genres and I hope that as the blog continues I can pick up some more language and start to write some decent reviews of the films that I have seen.

Now I must issue and apology to everyone in this film- I haven't worked out how to do accents on this keyboard and so I am afraid to write the names of the cast because I cannot spell them correctly.
This does not mean that the cast were not good- on the contrary, they were excellent and they really brought the lovely plot of Amelie to life in the way that they each played a character. Well duh, it's acting... that doesn't mean anything. Not all actors can play a character, they can play themselves and sometimes they can play a role but very few manage to bring out what's underneath in the character, bring out that wow factor that makes you at times unsure about the character and at the same time feel like you know the character in the way that Mark Harmon does in NCIS. I watched this as a silent movie and I felt like I understood the characters. The simplicity in the costumes and make up were neither too much nor too little for the characters, it gave each actor the platform that they needed with the room to perform on the highest stage.

Amelie is, entirely, a love story but one that is played out to be not entirely a love story. Hepburn esq feel to it yet there is also something there that changes the feel and leaves you a little uncertain. You cannot predict how the film is going to turn out, you want to predict that love conquers all but until you have seen the entire film you cannot be sure.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog.

Another one that wasn't on the blog list. I will get back to films that are on the blog but every now and then it is a nice change to watch a few things that were recommended. Not to mention the fact that the list was a lot shorter this year and I am more than a third of the way through it already.

Neil Patrick Harris is stunning in this short film. The cast of Neil Patrick Harris opposite Nathan Fillion, directed by Joss Whedon is just something to admire. This film is Horror picture show esq, without being as scarring and weird at times.We all have a slightly weird imagination that every now and then comes up with some wonderful ideas that we only dream about putting in to practice. This time the cast have put this idea into practice and created a very good musical out of it. Despicable Me would be proud of this creation. I am not sure which one came first but there are parallels between them.

I love the music in it. Actually, I loved everything about it and I am gutted that the friend who recommended it to me wasn't actually here to watch it with me but oh well, we'll meet up and watch it together because it is so enjoyable that I could watch it over and over again until I know all the words to all the songs.

The genius line of "Oh goodness, look at my wrist I must be going" is something to admire. The amount of times we have all wanted to look at our wrists to check the time but we know that we aren't wearing a watch- to actually pull of that line instead of settling for being bored or having to sit through something that we don't want to sit through. Watching Nathan Fillion upset Neil Patrick Harris was wonderful, almost as wonderful as how he was in Firefly.

This is a great film that everyone should watch!
I've included a link to the film just incase. The music is great and the acting is superb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vggbBdAnxhs

Grace Of Monaco

This wasn't on the list but the chance came around to watch and learn something new and I had to take it with open arms.

Nicole Kidman, who is of course very attractive, looked and at a lot of times sounded like Grace Kelly. A solid choice and probably one of the best choices of actresses to play someone as stunning as Princess Grace of Monaco.
Supported by Nicholas Farrell and Derek Jacobi as the best characters in the film, Nicole Kidman produced a truly marvelous display that showed courage and desire. Emotion was pure and something to be admired. This film was serious and the choice of music balanced that by the use of opera and Allegri's- Miserere. Every choice was sublime, perfect and fitting for the film. My only disappointment was that Anthony Hopkins didn't star as Hitchcock.

This film was lovely. I learnt so much about Monaco and about Princess Grace of Monaco. Watching this film makes me certain that I never want to marry royalty, I want a life without everyone condemning me at every turn and for breathing. I don't remember this film coming out but I am sad that I missed it when it did.

Transformers 2

I was a fan of the first film. Shia Le Bouf is constantly a sweaty boy and I am not a fan of his but even so I did like the first film.

It has been years since I watched that film seriously and now turning my eye for the first time to the next in the series I found myself almost repulsed  by the combination of Le Bouf and Megan Fox. Neither of them are in the least way attractive and it just didn't work for me. The thing that the first film swung on was the coolness of the autobots and when they tried to minimilise their roles in the films to an extent it was upsetting.

The first film left space for another film but this film was always going to be typical, predictable and irritating. I have lost count of the amount of times that I have written about producers getting hooked on this idea of having to make another film if the first one does well. When they ended the first one I thought it would be an awesome idea to have a bit of the new autobots coming to earth, get to know a bit about each of the characters and just focus on that, instead they had to go to the same plot that they had already used and killed it. I don't want to see Transformers 3.

Even Hugo Weaving did the voice acting for Megatron in about 2 hours, never actually went to the set or met Michael Bay and said that it meant nothing to him. A guy of that quality and it means nothing to him- that's got to say something about the films. There was so much wasted potential on this film and it does not surprise me that Shia Le Bouf has not done anything else worth mentioning.

I didn't mean to attack the film but it irritated me so much that I ended up doing it anyway. I miss the feeling that I got from the first film. I loved the first film, it gave me a sense of adventure and this one just kinda destroyed it. The cool characters still stayed cool but something was missing from the film.

A Walk among the Tombstones.

Liam Neeson returns in a film that I really wanted to see and never made it to the cinema to see.

I love seeing Liam Neeson with a gun cos I just get that Taken feel every time I see it. When he does action films he becomes Bryan Mills almost all the time but I was curious to see how this film would develop. Could Neeson become a different character to Bryan Mills?

In a way yes and in a way no. Hired by another character who's wife is taken and murdered, Liam Neeson goes to find those that took this person's wife. It's not quite Taken but it is getting there, only this time he has a badge because he's a private investigator.
My personal favourite part was when the ransom guys called up and Liam Neeson didn't play ball with them and basically just told them how to do it all properly. Okay, he didn't get it all his way and the bad guys had to be strong enough to fight him a little but even so, there can only be one winner in this battle.

This story had a better plot that Taken did. Taken is a pure example of why you wouldn't mess with Liam Neeson but A walk among the tombstones is an example of what can happen when a woman is loved by more than one person and I mean loved- not idolised or lusted after.

Watch it, think about it and then tell me what you thought.

The Maze Runner

Was never quite sure if I wanted to see this film or not but I had to start somewhere. It's hard to know what I think about it.

Kinda like the Hunger Games and I know that the reviews also suggest that it can be placed somewhere in between the Hunger Games and The Lord of the Flies but I have neither read the book nor seen the film so I cannot make that comment. For me The Maze Runner was something that put me off my food. A similar feel to The Hunger Games but as I have only seen the first Hunger Games film I can't comment on it past that point.

The Maze Runner is one of those stories that is almost typical of an adventure book- Kids end up in a place with no memory of who they were, after a few days they remember their names and then they just have to get by. If they want to escape they need to find a way out of the maze. It's like the Labyrinth except that there is no annoying, obnoxious girl in the film to make everything about her.

Good to see the little boy from Nanny McPhee stop being a little boy and even though he looks the same and only looks like he's about 14 he has at least moved on to making other films that don't require him to be a child. He has evolved past the point that Freddie Highmore faltered at and he has indeed become a rising star in his own right, as a young man.

It was thrilling and at times very cleverly done. I enjoyed it quite a lot but it is memorable and doesn't need to be watched again for a while.

The Mask.

I have to declare this now before you get all the way to the end of the blog and start silently swearing at me- I find Jim Carey to be really irritating.

So having said all that I can now say that I was actually very impressed with him. I found his character in Bruce Almighty to be irritating beyond belief and any other time I have watched a film with him in he has been like the Grinch. So now it's time for the argument that he was like the Grinch in this film as well and I can see why you could make that argument but he was a lot more human than the Grinch in this film. At times it was clear to see that he was playing an actual person instead of a green character. When he had the mask on I could see the Grinch and all  the other weirdness that we often get from Carey in his films but at least this was done so that he transformed person to become weird instead of just being weird like he is in Bruce Almighty.

I even found Cameron Diaz mildly enjoyable in this film. Her part wasn't as main as she tends to be and that actually made me very happy. She works better as a supporting actress than a leading lady because she tends to be ridiculously annoying as a leading lady. Opposite Jim Carey and not featuring all the time she had her moments when she was wonderful and other moments when it was just enjoyable to watch her perform. I found myself wishing for more of it- and that is not something that I ever expected myself to write.

Mask is a pleasantly enjoyable film with a cool dog and a measured approach.

How to train your dragon 2.

The first one was incredible, the second one was just as good but in a different way.

How to train your dragon 2 combats the misuse of dragons and also allows Hiccup to discover the existence of his mother. Everything was going along really well until they had to add that tragic moment where the father heroically dies. Sometimes I feel like deaths in films are unnecessary but I can understand the arguments made that it was necessary so that Hiccup could become the chief of the group. At times it gave me a slight avatar feel towards the plot but it would be a huge insult to compare it to avatar because that movie was terrible and a waste of time.

The animation was brilliant and after spending the day with some small boys dragon hunting around a museum the only film that I could conclude my day with was how to train your dragon 2. This film teaches us to not attack dragons but to see the character inside of them and treat them as we would other human beings. It made me feel bad about taking the boys to hunt dragons (but it was a lot of fun).

I guess the thing that they didn't do and probably really should have done was to sort out Hiccup and his girl and make it all happily ever after in every sense of the word but then again- hats off for not dong a silly epilogue thing where they skip ten years and the protagonist has three children and is running around tearing their hair out over what their children are up to.

That's all me from me. I'll be back with something tomorrow (although I am not sure what just yet).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9a4PvzlqoQ

Rain Man.

Bravo Dustin Hoffman! This is one of the best performances of an Autistic person that I have ever seen in film! This performance from him is as good as Leonardo Di Caprio's in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? The characters are very different and I would say that it is actually harder to perform as a character that suffers from Autism that isn't as visible as someone that behaves and appears completely different on every level. There are levels of Autism- it's a spectrum and everyone fits on it slightly differently. Leo played someone on one end of the spectrum and Dustin Hoffman played someone firmly in the middle of the spectrum.

This guy won an Oscar for his performance in this film and oh my goodness, he deserves it 120%. I love Dustin Hoffman, some people shun him a little because of The Graduate but this film is a loud statement of his talents. This film was made in 1988 and it is an early sign of his undeniable talent. I was blown away by this film. There were times when Tom Cruise frustrated me but I really enjoyed the story and developing plot for the film. Tom Cruise was a symbol of people's lack of understanding and compassion towards people with Autism but the film shows a little understanding as it goes on and that made me a lot happier. Obviously, it's not 1988 and times have changed, people are more understanding and there is more general awareness towards ASD but this film is clearly underlining the views that most people had towards autism but it also challenges those beliefs and views and helps raise more awareness and understanding towards autism.

Fantastic film.

Sin City 2

If the first one didn't scare you away and make you wonder if that was what taking drugs was actually like then the second one sure as hell tries its best.

What I liked about Sin City was the way that it was filmed. I found the story weird and at times I couldn't really follow it but the way that it was filmed, in black and white but not old school black and white and at times flicking in to colour constantly traps me and grabs my attention towards these films. I have never watched another film that has been filmed in this way. I'm not even sure that it's black and white that they have filmed in, the people look almost black and white but they can be wearing a blue coat that is clearly blue and you can tell what colour their clothes are.

Everything about sin city is intriguing and everything about the second one is equally as intriguing. They haven't changed the style of the film or anything, they have carried it on in exactly the same way and it makes fascinating watching. When I am actually watching it I feel like this is how it would be if you were watching everything through Dare Devils eyes. I know that graphic novels are weird and this is certainly no exception but at times I feel like the sin city series has stolen the lead on the league of extraordinary gentlemen.

Watching the butler guy with the deep voice (Dennis Haysbert) beat the hell out of Josh Brolin was beautiful and somewhat scary. When he faced off to Mickey Rourke I thought that he was going to beat the hell out of him as well but I guess that it must be saved for a rainy day.

The General

I promised that Buster Keaton and silent movies would feature on the blog this year and even this week and I have delivered.

A Scott Joplin/ ragtime accompanied film about a train engineer that gets turned down from enlisting because his profession is too important during a war. I find silent movies difficult and certainly I found this one difficult to watch, even if it was easy enough to follow. It wasn't that it was hard to watch as such, it was hard to enjoy. I found the quality of the acting below par. I know that it is a silent movie so there is a lot missing from it when compared to todays films but some of the acting was almost lethargic. It looked like they couldn't really be bothered with it, as if there wasn't any trick to silent acting that makes it special and something that not everyone can do. I felt so let down because I could have acted in this film without having to really try and that disappoints me when I watch a film.

The film itself flowed easily and was easy to follow but it just didn't have that wow factor that The Artist had or a few other Charlie Chaplin films. It wasn't that I was displeased with Buster Keaton, he was very good but everyone else let him down. There were some comical moments but maybe not enough to help carry the film along.

The Martian.

A film that won many awards and was nominated for even more towards the end of 2015. Matt Damon picked up a golden globe for his performance as Mark Watney in this film. It was passed my way and I had to find an excuse for watching it so that I could post a more recent film on this blog.

As much as I want to talk about Matt Damon, I more want to talk about Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 years a slave, Serenity, Love Actually). Having watched Serenity the night before, finding him in this film as a very different and somewhat less annoying character that is allowed to display emotion was really surprising but a very enjoyable experience. Ejiofor very much ran the show. Even though there were more clips and scenes of Matt Damon and his experiments on Mars it was the character of Ejiofor that was trying to pull all the strings and find new methods possible to create this rescue mission and bring the film to a good conclusion.

Although he was probably the most likeable character and one of the best if not one of the most crucial there were also stunning performances from Sean Bean (who did not die... shock horror)  and Sebastian Stan (Gossip Girl, Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Even though it was a leading role, his part as the guy that had to go outside the space ship or space station and constantly attach things or have to put his life at risk. The character that he played was a brave character that understood his part of the team in his mission and nothing more can be said to give higher honour to  a character than that. What made this film so good was that even though you knew that it was all going to be okay in the end you had to keep watching to see what crazy thing they would do next to try and bring him home.

I guess the thing that I really liked was the disco music that he was stuck with on Mars. I especially enjoyed Donner Summer's 'hot stuff' that made me dance like an idiot for a while.