WEEKLY FILM ROUND-UP #1.

In order to kickstart this website with daily content, I thought a weekly round up of all the films watched by myself was a good way to begin the posts.

I’m starting on a bizarre Wednesday as this is where the inspiration has come from, however I might possibly change the day of these posts to a Sunday or a Monday, depending on my schedule.

As I was so busy with starting up university last year, I didn’t get a chance to check out all of the Oscar nominees for the Best Picture award, and now, as university is finished for summer, I thought it would be a perfect time to catch up on some of the films of 2012 that I have heard many times being both praised and criticised. Therefore this week’s round up will feature last years Oscar nominees, and I’ll save the newer/older films I have watched this past week for my next round up (this isn’t only confusing me.. right?).

 1. SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK. dir. David O. Russell.
(Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro)

 I was going into this film with a completely open mind. The only thing I had heard about it was that it featured some characters with mental illness’. I was perhaps thinking that the film would involve cliche performances and characters, following in the footsteps of many previous films dealing with the same issue (I do not rate Forman’s ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ at all).
I was excitedly surprised when watching this film, however. The stellar performances from both Cooper and Lawrence made the film extremely enjoyable to watch. These amazing performances combined with the interestingly dark, yet comedic script made for one of my favourite films of last year.

2. LIFE OF PI. dir. Ang Lee.
(Starring: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan)

I think my appreciation for this film was slightly hindered by the masses of the public raving about its brilliance. Without prior praise, I would have said that the film was good, the CGI was incredible and groundbreaking and the acting was also good. However, after hearing all the positive reviews, I couldn’t help myself watching the film with my expectations higher than ever. And I really wish I could have changed this.
Starting off on the best part of the film, the CGI was absolutely breathtaking. Combined with amazing editing, this tiger who is not even a real creation has the audience sympathising through the emotion of his eyes. This film is, technologically, the most groundbreaking piece of cinema of our time and it would be ignorant to ignore that when reviewing the film. What was slightly under par was the story. I’m fully aware that this may not be the filmmaker’s fault as the film was an adaptation, but I felt that the plot lacked so much more depth that it could have held. I was losing interest, and I think that it was possibly due to the fact that we know Pi is going to survive from the outset. Perhaps featuring an older Pi at the start was a mistake, making all of his struggles out at sea not half as effective as they would have if the ending was not clarified.
Overall the film was beautiful and a pleasure to watch, fully deserving of the technological praise and awards it has received.

3. SKYFALL. dir. Sam Mendes.
(Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes)

My enjoyment of this film was the one that surprised me the most. This is one of those films that I would never choose out of a bunch, but boy, am I glad I chose to watch it.
I am not an avid James Bond fan, in fact I have seen probably less than a handful of films featuring 007 himself. This film featured absolutely stunning cinematography by Roger Deacons and was a joy to watch. The excitement levels of the film were maintained throughout and the plot twists and turns more than a day at Thorpe Park. With stunning performances from Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and of course, Daniel Craig, this film makes the audience gasp out loud both in awe of the brilliant action sequences and also with a sneaky cliffhanger at the end.

 4. ARGO. dir. Ben Affleck.
(Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston)

This film was a well deserved winner of the Oscars last year. The film gave me goosebumps several times and featured a closing half hour that is quite possibly the most tense of any movie I have ever seen. With absolutely amazing performances by all actors, a flawless plot and beautiful cinematography and scenery, this film ticks all the boxes and is a classic example of what a winner of the Best Picture award should feature.
This thriller is the best I have seen in a long time, with dramatic moments, comedic moments and breathtaking moments, there is no words that can do this cinematic masterpiece justice. Perhaps the film has so much effect as it is relevant in the terms of numerous uprising countries at the moment, giving the audience a lot of reason to empathise with the six escapees of the hostage situation, or perhaps the movie has mastered every technique of filmmaking and that is the reason behind the success. In any case, this film will definitely be one I will be putting on my favourites list and will be looking our for more of Ben Stiller’s work in the future.

OSCAR 2013 RECAP:

Right, I've sat down at my desk and told myself I'm not leaving until I finish my blog post about the Oscars in hopes of actually finishing a post in under 3 hours for once, so here goes. This is just going to be some opinions on the awards (although not many are controversial as I think this year the academy picked nearly perfectly!), and general rambling about the films involved, it could be a long one, though, so grab yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy the post!

I'm assuming if you're reading this, you know the Oscar winners already, if not, a link to them is here. I don't want to spoil anybody's fun if you couldn't watch last night and are planning to catch up.

How could I start off talking about last night's events without mentioning Anne Hathaway. I think everybody secretly knew that she was going to get the Oscar for her destroyingly perfect portrayal of Fantine in Les Miserables, however when the nominations for best supporting actress were being called out, and the clips were playing, I realised how amazing every actress was and the nerves kicked in. I was obviously rooting for Anne and was overjoyed when my worries were put at rest. She accepted her

award as gracefully as ever, with a beautiful speech starting with a heartbreaking 'It came true...', alluding to her constant efforts finally being rewarded, fulfilling a dream she has had since starting her acting career.

Her acceptance speech went on beautifully for several minutes, with her thanking everybody under the moon it seemed. Concluding her speech with a reference to the struggles of her character, Anne Hathaway proved her class and appreciation of getting the chance to beautifully portray the persona of a broken person so truly, and showed that she is aware that although Les Miserables is set in the 19th century French Revolution, people much like Fantine are still struggling with everyday life.

"Here's hoping that some day in the not to distant future, the misfortunes of Fantine will only be found in stories and nevermore in real life"

Perhaps my happiest moment of the ceremony last night was seeing Christoph Waltz be honoured with an award for his hilariously flawless portrayal of Dr. Schultz in Tarantino's Django Unchained.  

As one of my all-time favourite actors, Christoph Waltz was obviously who I was cheering on to win, and as the first winner to be announced, the Oscar's were kick started into an epic night of emotion and pride of the industry and art form that I have dedicated my life to. This was second year of winning this award in a Tarantino film for Christoph Waltz and his first thank you was dedicated sincerely to the genius director himself.

Now, if there is a controversial point that shows my disagreement with the Academy, it is the fact that Quentin Tarantino was not up for the Best Director award. Django was my film of the year. Hands down. As a self-confessed huge Tarantino fan, there may be some unknown bias inside somewhere, but the film had no flaws at all in my eyes. The cinematography, the casting, the EVERYTHING. If there is one director who knows how to get everything right when making a film, it is most definitely Quentin Tarantino, and boy, did he get it right with Django. 

However, I'm open to accept that the Academy had some reason to pick the other (wonderful, don't get me wrong) directors over Tarantino this year, and his best original screenplay award was definitely something I was undoubtedly sure he would receive.   

Now, I'm afraid I'm going to get a little British on you for a moment. Previous to this year's 85th Academy Awards, the James Bond franchise (50 years of films) had only received 7 nominations and 2 awards. I was absolutely thrilled to find out that in one year alone the franchise doubled the amount of awards and picked up two more. Sound editing was a rather uneventful award, aside from the fact that it was a tie pick and there were two winners, and the real excitement was in Adele and Paul Epworth winning the award for best original song. It was not exactly unexpected, with the whole of the film world/music world/general world basically coming to the conclusion as soon as the nominations were announced that she would win it, however, from a British point of view, the pride of seeing her stood up there with her non-proper accent, representing the working class of Britain, was enough to make my night.

I've rambled enough, I feel, and I know I haven't even mentioned the big winners such as Argo & Life of Pi, however the films, directors and actors mentioned here are ones who I have been rooting for, my personal favourites, and the ones I am more than happy for. 

Well, I guess that's another Oscar year over, and by that I mean another year of staying up until 5am and watching the live stream, then having to get up three hours later for a 9am lecture at university.

Fun, fun, fun.