If I were to bet on which film is going to win the 2014 Best Picture Oscar, then I would be putting my money on 12 Years a Slave. While it has hot competition from American Hustle, Gravity, Her and The Wolf of Wall Street, this is the personal favourite for most people, so I was very excited to see it last night. A good film? Yes, very. Good acting? Yes, very. Did it live up to the hype? Definitely not. I liked this film, don't get me wrong - the performances from all the main cast were amazing (a scene where Ejiofor breaks the fourth wall and stares the audience out for about 20 seconds was the highlight of the film), and the pacing and directing were brilliant. But there isn't anything really new here. In years to come, I feel this will become THE slave film, however to me it felt like something I'd seen lots of times before. Another thing I liked about this film was how brutally honest it decided to be. Many films, however brutal they have been in the past, have still not captured the horror of slavery, and this I feel 12 Years A Slave did well. There were many moments I felt physically angry towards certain white characters, and so devastated for the African Amercan slaves, especially Eliza, who literally cries for weeks on end when she is split from her two young children when she is sold to Benedict Cumberbatch. A great film, a good length, couldn't have asked for a better cast, the small problem I have with this film is with the story - great as it is, the middle seems to meander around from scene to scene. I would also have enjoyed more closure, or more exploration into the effects that Solomon's kidnapping had on his family. Overall, a very good film, and definitely Oscar worthy, but not Best Picture worthy. Out of the 9 nominees, I have seen 3 - this, The Wolf of Wall Street and Gravity. I'm afraid to say, I prefer the latter two to this.
8/10
Saturday, 25 January 2014
Friday, 17 January 2014
Awards Season
Its the start of the year which only means one thing in the world of film; The Golden Globes and The Oscars are here. Every year we see all the good releases coming out now, and this year is no different, with American Hustle, 12 years a Slave and Wolf of Wall Street all released within weeks of each other. This post is going to be a little commentary on the Golden Globes winners and Oscar nominees.
First off, a little history for you: The Oscars were first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and was first televised in 1953 (it is now seen live in more than 200 countries.) The Emmy, Tony and Grammy Awards were all modeled after the Oscars which is the oldest Awards Ceremony, and most prestigious to this day. The 86th Awards will be held on the 2nd March at the Dolby Theatre in LA. For a full list of nominees click here. The Golden Globes, which have already taken place, have been held annually since 1944. The Globes celebrate both film and television, domestic and modern. In 2009 the statue was redesigned for the first time in its history, making the quality and gold content higher. To see a full list of nominees and winners click here.
Ollie and I are going to see the Wolf of Wall Street and 12 Years a Slave, two of the front runners for Best Picture at the Oscars, in the next two weeks at our local cinema which we are VERY excited about. Both of the films won the big Awards at the Golden Globes a few days ago, 12 years bagging best drama and Leo DiCap getting a performance award for Wolf of Wall St. American Hustle is also leading the way this year, I think it could very probably pick up Best Picture at the Oscars having just won best comedy at the GG. Neither myself or Ollie are going to see American Hustle in cinema, we've heard from friends that it's quite boring and apart from the big names acting, is really nothing special. We are going to wait until it come on our LoveFilm.
Something I'm very excited about seeing in the Oscar nominations is The Hunt up for best foreign language film. This won our own Rollie Award (which is definitely nearly as big as the Oscars) for Best Film this year, we absolutely loved it and it has created a love of Danish films for me after watching another brilliant Danish production 'In a Better World' a few weeks ago. I really hope the Hunt gets this gong this year, even though I haven't seen any of the others nominated.
I also really hope Leo DiCaprio gets his much deserved and long awaited for Best Actor award at the Oscars. He is my favourite big actor and has not yet somehow received this award, having being nominated for it three times in the past. I have a feeling Matthew McConaughey will scoop it this year however. Despicable Me 2 is my winner this year for animated film at the Oscars and I also really hope Gravity picks up a few, it may have been overrated but the cinematography and film in general was just epic. Ollie and I are also really looking forward to seeing 'Her' which is up for 4 Oscars and has also won Best Screenplay at the GG.
This excellent contexualised post was created by Rosie.
First off, a little history for you: The Oscars were first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and was first televised in 1953 (it is now seen live in more than 200 countries.) The Emmy, Tony and Grammy Awards were all modeled after the Oscars which is the oldest Awards Ceremony, and most prestigious to this day. The 86th Awards will be held on the 2nd March at the Dolby Theatre in LA. For a full list of nominees click here. The Golden Globes, which have already taken place, have been held annually since 1944. The Globes celebrate both film and television, domestic and modern. In 2009 the statue was redesigned for the first time in its history, making the quality and gold content higher. To see a full list of nominees and winners click here.
Ollie and I are going to see the Wolf of Wall Street and 12 Years a Slave, two of the front runners for Best Picture at the Oscars, in the next two weeks at our local cinema which we are VERY excited about. Both of the films won the big Awards at the Golden Globes a few days ago, 12 years bagging best drama and Leo DiCap getting a performance award for Wolf of Wall St. American Hustle is also leading the way this year, I think it could very probably pick up Best Picture at the Oscars having just won best comedy at the GG. Neither myself or Ollie are going to see American Hustle in cinema, we've heard from friends that it's quite boring and apart from the big names acting, is really nothing special. We are going to wait until it come on our LoveFilm.
Something I'm very excited about seeing in the Oscar nominations is The Hunt up for best foreign language film. This won our own Rollie Award (which is definitely nearly as big as the Oscars) for Best Film this year, we absolutely loved it and it has created a love of Danish films for me after watching another brilliant Danish production 'In a Better World' a few weeks ago. I really hope the Hunt gets this gong this year, even though I haven't seen any of the others nominated.
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| Click posters to take you to the films IMDb page |
I also really hope Leo DiCaprio gets his much deserved and long awaited for Best Actor award at the Oscars. He is my favourite big actor and has not yet somehow received this award, having being nominated for it three times in the past. I have a feeling Matthew McConaughey will scoop it this year however. Despicable Me 2 is my winner this year for animated film at the Oscars and I also really hope Gravity picks up a few, it may have been overrated but the cinematography and film in general was just epic. Ollie and I are also really looking forward to seeing 'Her' which is up for 4 Oscars and has also won Best Screenplay at the GG.
This excellent contexualised post was created by Rosie.
Sunday, 12 January 2014
BREAKING BAD: COMPLETE SERIES REVIEW
This is a review of the hit US TV series Breaking Bad, and yes I thought the title did need capitalising. I recently watched the entire 5 seasons (thats something like 64 hours) on Netflix in a period of 2 weeks and have since persuaded 2 people to start watching them, 1 being Ollie. I wont include any spoilers in this post as Ollie is only on the first season and i don't want to spoil it for anyone else.
Breaking Bad is the best TV series I have ever watched (I've even bought a Breaking Bad themed T-Shirt which is so wow.)
The first episode jumps straight into the action and from then on you are completely hooked. The story follows 50 something year old Chemistry teacher Walter White in his quest to make as much money as possible for his family after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He quickly forms an alliance with ex-student Jesse and they start a partnership in cooking methamphetamine. Don't be put off by this story line if you're not interested in drugs, it is so much more than just cooking meth. We see Walt completely change over a period of 2 years; he is adamant throughout that his family are always top priority. I formed such an emotional connection with the series, especially characters Hank and Jesse, and by the end I was crying during a number of episodes.
Do not start Breaking Bad if you are coming up to exams or have very important things to do, your love affair with it will completely take over your life. I now don't know what to do with mine, no series can ever live up to this. Fear not however, a spin-off series is starting in November this year centered around Saul, one of my favourite characters from Breaking Bad: Walt and Jesse's lawyer.
Better Call Saul
by Rosie.
Breaking Bad is the best TV series I have ever watched (I've even bought a Breaking Bad themed T-Shirt which is so wow.)
Do not start Breaking Bad if you are coming up to exams or have very important things to do, your love affair with it will completely take over your life. I now don't know what to do with mine, no series can ever live up to this. Fear not however, a spin-off series is starting in November this year centered around Saul, one of my favourite characters from Breaking Bad: Walt and Jesse's lawyer.
Better Call Saul
by Rosie.
Monday, 6 January 2014
Fighting for what you believe in
So we saw the new Nelson Mandela film the other day, 'Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom' and it was great. True to the amazing story with an amazing cast, this film is essential viewing for everyone. Can I start off by saying what a shame it is that Nelson Mandela never got to see this film; it displayed the story of his life and his struggles in a most beautiful touching and truthful way. Mandela did get to see a short clip of the film while it was still in production - an end scene where Idris Elba is walking in the fields of his birth place - and Mandela actually believed it was himself being shown. Neither he nor us could believe the performance given by Elba, it was brilliant. I like that this film will bring to life his story and enable younger people to learn about Mandela as I feel it is important for the sake of mankind for people to remember what he did for the world. My one complaint may be that after Mandela is released from prison, the film was perhaps 5 minutes too long. But apart from that, an amazing film bringing to life one of the best stories of our time.
The next film we watched was of a similar theme - fighting and sacrifice for your cause. The film was 1953's 'Seven Samurai', a Japanese epic adventure film (that according to IMDb is the 18th best film of all time) about a group of poor villagers who hire seven samurai fighters to protect their village from a bunch of bandits, who annually rob the village each year of its harvest. It is as interesting and entertaining as it sounds. Although over 60 years old and the language being Japanese, the film really hadn't aged that much. At a run time of over 3 hours I was kind of dreading it, but I was pleasantly surprised. The characters were all very unique and I enjoyed their backstories and the film was also surprisingly funny in parts, while remaining an emotional and touching story. Rosie didn't enjoy it at all although she gave up after 40 minutes. We may rewatch again soon so she can give it another chance as I felt she missed out. Maybe slightly overrated due to its cult status (I really enjoyed it but wouldn't say it is one of the best films of all time), this is an enjoyable way for a film fan to spend 3 hours.
Ollie :)
(with a few sentences by Rosie)
The next film we watched was of a similar theme - fighting and sacrifice for your cause. The film was 1953's 'Seven Samurai', a Japanese epic adventure film (that according to IMDb is the 18th best film of all time) about a group of poor villagers who hire seven samurai fighters to protect their village from a bunch of bandits, who annually rob the village each year of its harvest. It is as interesting and entertaining as it sounds. Although over 60 years old and the language being Japanese, the film really hadn't aged that much. At a run time of over 3 hours I was kind of dreading it, but I was pleasantly surprised. The characters were all very unique and I enjoyed their backstories and the film was also surprisingly funny in parts, while remaining an emotional and touching story. Rosie didn't enjoy it at all although she gave up after 40 minutes. We may rewatch again soon so she can give it another chance as I felt she missed out. Maybe slightly overrated due to its cult status (I really enjoyed it but wouldn't say it is one of the best films of all time), this is an enjoyable way for a film fan to spend 3 hours.
Ollie :)
(with a few sentences by Rosie)
Sunday, 5 January 2014
The Abandoned
No, this is not a title of a new thriller, it is the 'abandoned films of Rollie' (*ghost sounds* etc).
Not every film we watch we like, as you may already know, but a few don't even make the cut because we never actually finish watching them. This can be due to our tiredness (we can't stay awake through them), their boring-ness (we can't stay awake through them) or our hyper-activeness (we talk all the way through and watch only 30% of the film).This post is dedicated to those films, gone but never forgotten x
First up is He's Just Not That Into You which is a pretty below average rom-com. One of those types of films which star all the A-list celebs you can think of (Bradley Cooper, Drew Barrymore, Scarlet Johansson, Ben Affleck, the list goes on), but aren't actually very good. Hence why we never finished it, if I remember correctly we were just too chatty and the film did not excite us at all. Usually if a film doesn't do this by 40 minutes in (i.e half way through) we give up on it. I have seen this film before all the way through and it is pretty boring until the end, when all the story's come together for a big happy ending. I really wish Hollywood films would stop using loads of big names as a selling point. They are just there to cover up the very boring script.
Body Of Lies, Ridley Scott's 2008 action did not excite us either. We only watched this because our mate Leo was in it, and even he couldn't make the film any better. It was an average action, which is the genre we dislike the most. I do think however if we sat down and tried to watch this again we would find it okay. I don't think its a bad film, it just had a slow start and for whatever reason neither of us were really 'feeling it' at that current time. We'll probably give it another whirl in the near future.
The last and most recent of the batch is Mud. We tried watching this film at the weekend but just could not get into it. It has a lot of rave reviews and people loved it when it first came out but I can't really see why. Maybe because Matthew McConaughey plays a different role to his usual hardened characters. We did sit down and concentrate on the film for 40 minutes but nothing really happened. Two boys found a man on an Island and brought him some food. That was it. We had no idea what direction the film was going in and no idea what the point of it all was. So we turned it off. We had also already watched a film that night which also wasn't great - The Kids Are Alright, so we were already in a no more films mood. Mud is on Ollie's Lovefilm list so we are going to give it another try.
UPDATES UPDATES -
Wow its 2014.
Such New Year.
So excite.
This may be the last year of Rollie films (bombshell) as myself and Ollie will both be parting ways around September for different Universities. We will of course still watch films together in our holidays, and we will probably do something with the blog - we're thinking to update it when/if we watch films separately while we're at Uni.
27 films is also coming along, we know its been very anticipated and we are getting around to watching our secret 27. I now have Netflix so it has become a little easier for me to find and watch films. I'm setting a deadline of the end of March but I'm sure that wont be kept to. Also Ollie knows a lot of mine already which wasn't really the plan. OH WELL. (If you don't know what 27 films is click here.)
Post by Rosie.
Not every film we watch we like, as you may already know, but a few don't even make the cut because we never actually finish watching them. This can be due to our tiredness (we can't stay awake through them), their boring-ness (we can't stay awake through them) or our hyper-activeness (we talk all the way through and watch only 30% of the film).This post is dedicated to those films, gone but never forgotten x
First up is He's Just Not That Into You which is a pretty below average rom-com. One of those types of films which star all the A-list celebs you can think of (Bradley Cooper, Drew Barrymore, Scarlet Johansson, Ben Affleck, the list goes on), but aren't actually very good. Hence why we never finished it, if I remember correctly we were just too chatty and the film did not excite us at all. Usually if a film doesn't do this by 40 minutes in (i.e half way through) we give up on it. I have seen this film before all the way through and it is pretty boring until the end, when all the story's come together for a big happy ending. I really wish Hollywood films would stop using loads of big names as a selling point. They are just there to cover up the very boring script.
Body Of Lies, Ridley Scott's 2008 action did not excite us either. We only watched this because our mate Leo was in it, and even he couldn't make the film any better. It was an average action, which is the genre we dislike the most. I do think however if we sat down and tried to watch this again we would find it okay. I don't think its a bad film, it just had a slow start and for whatever reason neither of us were really 'feeling it' at that current time. We'll probably give it another whirl in the near future.
The last and most recent of the batch is Mud. We tried watching this film at the weekend but just could not get into it. It has a lot of rave reviews and people loved it when it first came out but I can't really see why. Maybe because Matthew McConaughey plays a different role to his usual hardened characters. We did sit down and concentrate on the film for 40 minutes but nothing really happened. Two boys found a man on an Island and brought him some food. That was it. We had no idea what direction the film was going in and no idea what the point of it all was. So we turned it off. We had also already watched a film that night which also wasn't great - The Kids Are Alright, so we were already in a no more films mood. Mud is on Ollie's Lovefilm list so we are going to give it another try.
UPDATES UPDATES -
Wow its 2014.
Such New Year.
So excite.
This may be the last year of Rollie films (bombshell) as myself and Ollie will both be parting ways around September for different Universities. We will of course still watch films together in our holidays, and we will probably do something with the blog - we're thinking to update it when/if we watch films separately while we're at Uni.
27 films is also coming along, we know its been very anticipated and we are getting around to watching our secret 27. I now have Netflix so it has become a little easier for me to find and watch films. I'm setting a deadline of the end of March but I'm sure that wont be kept to. Also Ollie knows a lot of mine already which wasn't really the plan. OH WELL. (If you don't know what 27 films is click here.)
Post by Rosie.
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