A night with Jim Broadbent ( 'Le Weekend' Review)

So, exciting news: on monday myself and Ollie visited our local film club for a very special event; a Q&A with Jim Broadbent as well as a showing of film Le Weekend, in which he stars alongside Lindsay Duncan!

First lets talk about the film:  
Filmed entirely over a month In Paris, with a small all French crew this feature from director Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Changing Lanes & Morning Glory) is a quirky and fun tale of married couple Nick and Meg, who go back to Paris (their honeymoon destination) for their anniversary. It certainly isn't all happy and loving, in fact their relationship is very close to breaking point after all these years. I would say the film was pretty average, funny in parts but the ending was quite unended in a sense, leaving us not knowing what was going to happen between the couple. If you're looking for a fun romantic comedy this is not it, it is quite focused on the darker side of marriage and at times I definitely wanted to shout "JUST LEAVE HER" through the screen at Nick (played by Broadbent).

Now onto the night itself and the question and answer session with Jim:
The cinema was completely full, with people even standing at the back and it got so hot in there we had to open the fire doors during the intermission (the cinema is very old and still has an intermission in each showing where ice cream can be purchased!). We battled through the heat however to make it to the end where Jim Broadbent, who had watched the film with us, came down and sat behind a microphone with one of the Film Club's creators ready to answer our questions. 

The thing that was most surprising to me was how much he referred to the script; people asked him how much of the characterisation he created himself, or how his marriage reflected on that of Nick and Megs, but his answers were all to do with the script. In reality he didn't have much impact on the creation of the film, he just turned up, did a few takes of each scene over a month in Paris and then went home, which is very different to some of the stories you hear from other actors who take a year to get into and create their character, although I know this wasn't Jim's biggest film, and the character probably wasn't too different to himself (he's also been married for 30 years, just like Nick and Meg!).

Fun fact; Mr Broadbent was actually the second choice of the part of Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses! 

We had a very fun night at what will be one of our last visits to film club for a while due to University in September. For more information on the Q&A with Jim Broadbent click here for a local newspaper report of the night.

By Rosie.

Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House

On Friday, Rosie and I had the pleasure of going to London to go to Film4's Summer Screen at Somerset House. To those who don't know what i'm talking about, it's basically an outdoor cinema in a courtyard which every August for the past 10 years has shown a variety of films. The film we saw was Rosemary's Baby (our 51st film, and one of my all time favourites), but the event plays a variety of different films, from classic (The 400 Blows), cult (Mad Max 2), world cinema (The Great Beauty), independent film premières (Two Days, One Night) and teen classics (Spring Breakers). During a speech, it was revealed Rosemary's Baby had been a film Film4 had wanted to show here since it began in 2004.

I am perhaps not the best person to review the film itself as I'm totally biased, it being one of my favourites. It was the fourth time I have seen it (I think) and I enjoyed it just as much as I have before. The film follows Rosemary and Guy, a young couple who move into a new flat. However things get tense when Rosemary becomes pregnant and paranoid that her intruding neighbours want to bring harm to her unborn child. I won't give too much away but the last thing the man from Film4 who gave a speech prior to the film said was 'Hail Satan'. I totally agree that the film deserves its classic status and rave reviews, the performances are amazing, and it is so so tense and scary, yet so subtle and classy without any big obvious scares. 

The day itself was very fun. We arrived at Somerset House early in the afternoon to look around all the exhibitions and galleries (some related to Film4, such as the poster exhibition, others independent of the event). We advise you do this as it was interesting and means when the doors open later on you can just go and find a spot to sit straight away. The building is very beautiful, even in the pouring rain (which became a bit too much towards the end but didn't stop our enjoyment of the film). We took a picnic to eat during the film, with cushions and a rug to create our own little living space for the time we were there. Perhaps the most impressive thing was the light display just as the film began, which was made more magical by the rain. It was very nice watching a film in such a lovely place and seeing planes go over our heads at the same time.

Here are our top tips for Summer Screen:

1. Get there early, look around, then start queueing (from inside the venue, not on the street). People started arriving around 5.30pm when we went.

2. Take blankets and rugs, and lots of them. The floor is concrete and can be uncomfy after a few hours. However don't take too much, as remember you are taking it around London with you (Inflatable pillows are perfect!)

3. Take an umbrella. The film goes on whatever the weather (as we found out) and we would have been soaking and miserable without one. We were promised by other blogs we had read before hand that Film4 give out free ponchos which carry their logo if it rains, sadly this was not the case for us.

4. Get the best spot. We succeeded in getting out desired spot, near the back, in front of the projector, where there was a fence to lean against. We also had a good view of the screen, as being near the front you would have had to crane your neck to see the screen.

5. Be respectful of people around you. People were, mostly, however some people had their umbrellas waving around unaware they were blocking peoples view (aka the people sat in front of us).

It would definitely be something we would both do again, and it has been something I've wanted to do for a long time. I would definitely recommend going, however tickets sell out very quickly (even though they allow lots of people in; we were actually surprised at how many people were in the queue).

Ollie

From Nebraska to The Office - A few Reviews

So it's been a while since our last post but now our exams are officially over we are watching films pretty much non-stop; I thought I would kick start the blogging again with a couple of thoughts on some things we've watched recently, TV and film.

Nebraska - 

"Does he have Alzheimer's?"

"No, he just believes what people tell him."

"That's too bad."

We watched Nebraska a while ago, our 253rd film to be exact, and it follows the story of a quiet drunken father with a little dementia on a journey with his son to pick up a million dollar prize, which is in reality just a marketing scam. The film was quite different than we anticipated, laugh out loud in places, but very poignant. The creation of characters are what makes the film, set amoungst the very real black and white landscape of Nebraska. Bruce Dern who plays Woody deserves an Oscar in my eyes for his performance; a man out of touch and seemingly untouched by the events surrounding him. Woody's wife Kate was also brilliant- a very vibrant and hilarious character who brings all the humor to the film.

9/10

Lost in Translation- 

"For relaxing times, make it Suntory time."

A hyped up story of intimacy and friendship; two unexpected lives colliding into each other in the centre of Japan, this critically acclaimed feature from director Sofia Coppola (The Bling Ring, Somewhere) didn't really live up to our high expectations. The setting and cinematography was beautiful at times but for both myself and Ollie we didn't find there was much to the film. Perhaps this is quite deliberate and gave a true reflection of Charlotte and Bob's relationship as it was somewhat brief and unknown, and perhaps exploring things in greater detail would contradict the purpose of the film. Nethertheless we didn't enjoy it as much as we intended to due to many of the pointless scenes and long pauses. 

5/10

The Office (U.S)-

There is a master key and a spare key for the office. Dwight has them both. When I asked, "What if you die, Dwight? How will we get into the office?" He said, "If I'm dead, you guys have been dead for weeks."

Having watched The Office U.S through from the start of season 1 to the end of 9, spanning a total of 12 real life years, I can safely say this series beats all others. It's hilarious, emotional and you feel such a connection to the characters; you've watched them grow and change, make good and bad decisions, all while working at the Dunder Mifflin paper company. Steve Carell is brilliant in his role as company regional manager Michael Scott and Rainn Wilson's creation of Dwight is unlike any other with his no nonsense facts about bears and beet farms and his determination to be Michael's right hand man. The season finale which I watched very recently was the perfect end to the series, hitting every note we could have wanted, without overplaying any of them. The show both demonstrated and celebrated everything that made it so extraordinary. Pam, during her last talk to the camera says "There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things, isn't that kind of the point?" And it completely was. 

10/10

Also memorably watched were Full Metal Jacket, Pulp Fiction and Orange Is The New Black which were all excellent. 

Keep an eye out for an upcoming post about the one time we MET JIM BROADBENT! as well as the time we WENT TO FILM 4's SUMMER SCREEN AT SOMERSET HOUSE! (both coming very soon to a good film blog near you (aka this one))

By Rosie

THE 5TH ANNUAL ROLLIE AWARDS - COMMENTARY

HELLO.
Well hasn't it been a long time. Over 2 months to be exact, since our last blog post. We have both been very busy, both currently in the middle of crucial exams and any spare time we have we feel we should be revising, not blogging. Even film watching has slowed down recently, having only watched 8 films in the past 2 months *cries*. BUT, soon we will have a long summer to spend our days doing nothing but watching films, so we apologise for our absence to all our faithful readers (lol).

I have a lot to discuss, but the main point of this post is to talk about our 5th Awards which took place on 3rd May. This season took the longest to complete (5 months) and was the season with the most polarity when it came to the films themselves - many were excellent, many were awful, there were actually very few that were just average. To celebrate our 250th film Rosie and I went out for a lovely greasy Chinese meal in town which was followed up by watching two classic films - Taxi Driver (1976) and The Lion King (1992). Taxi Driver was an impressive and interesting watch, slightly dated, but with great themes and performances and a slick score. The Lion King was just as sad and stunning as ever, and it was the first time both of us had watched it since we were very young. Both films didn't let us down at all.

The nominees and winners of each award can be found here.

And now for my review of the winners/season in general. Rosie and I fought hard over the winners, perhaps more so than usual - for Best Film, we both loved all four nominees, however I favoured The Green Mile, she favoured Captain Phillips. We both resolved to let our other favourite Dallas Buyers Club win. Oz the Great and Powerful was a unanimous verdict for Worst Film, however I would like to give a special mention to Only God Forgives for being pretentiously bad. Another award where the decision was easy was Scariest film - although When the Lights Went out and Stigmata were both creepy, the only horror this season that truly scared the shit out of us was [REC]. For both Best Male and Best Female, any 4 of the nominees could have won as they were all amazing, perhaps with the exception (for me) of Jennifer Garner in Dallas Buyers Club. The Lifetime Achievement Award was awarded for the second time, this time to Tom Hanks for his work in 6 Rollie films. BIG LOVE TO TOMMY HANKS. Amazing films that didn't win awards include The Green Mile, Her, Life in a Day, Like Father Like Son and In a Better World.

Since the last awards the Oscars has been and gone, and we have watched 6 of the 9 nominees for Best Picture (we are going to watch a seventh, Nebraska, tonight). One nominee, Gravity, was watched last season, and 12 Years a Slave, Her, The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club and Captain Phillips were watched this season. I would personally rank them in this order: 

- Dallas Buyers Club
- Her
- Captain Phillips
- The Wolf of Wall Street
- Gravity
- 12 Years A Slave

Rosie would rank them in this order:
- Her
- Dallas Buyers Club
- Captain Phillips
- Gravity
- The Wolf of Wall Street
- 12 Years A Slave

They were all amazing, but we both felt that 12 Years a Slave wasn't as worthy winner of the Best Film award than the other ones we had seen. We look forward to seeing the remaining nominees in the future.

Here's to the next 50 films!

Ollie

4 Films that changed my life

I would like to think every film I watch changes my life positively in some way, but sometimes that is just being too optimistic. Narrowing this list down to 4 films was incredibly hard but without any further ado, here are some films that changed my life:

Life In A Day

This film comes first on the list just because it was so memorable for me, and I have watched it recently. Thousands of people all over the world film one day - the 24th July 2010. After hours and hours of brilliant editing and sound mixing (the music is beautiful and never feels intrusive) we get to see the world on this particular day and it is amazing to see different people from different corners of the world, the richest and the poorest, all doing so much on this planet in only one day. It really makes you realise what you've got, how lucky you are (as someone who lives a comfortable life in a moderately rich country) and how vast our planet Earth is and what it has to offer. This film is just completely incredible and really gets my sense of adventure going.

Halloween (films 1-8)

The other half of Rollie fashioning his idols 'look'. Which is which?

This franchise makes a very unlikely appearance on the list. It's not here for the quality of the film-making or script-writing, and certainly not here for Jamie-Lee Curtis' performance (bless her). Instead it earns its place in my top five because it marks the 'Rollie friendship' most perfectly and wholly. The films are so bad they are laughable and Micheal Myers has grown to become both mine and Ollie's favourite character. Each Myers flick gets worse than the last, but we still love it and we don't care how often we hear an awful teenage actors scream or see Michael rise from the dead. I don't urge anyone to watch the later Halloween films, the first is okay and the second slightly better, but it's all downhill from there. Long live Michael Myres.

Shutter Island

This was for a long time my absolute favourite film, and I believe it is what started my passion for the subject of psychology which I am now going onto study at university. The film makes you believe you are figuring out exactly what is going on; you are sat there thinking you are like Sherlock Holmes for the most part because you've 'got it all sussed', but then it swiftly pulls the rug from under your feet near the end and you are left dazzled in amazement. Leo DiCaprio plays the role of US Marshal Teddy brilliantly. He is sent into a mental asylum to search for missing inmate Rachel who is presumed to be hiding nearby; the asylum sits on an island and the only way off is through the docks which are controlled by armed guards. Rachel is much more difficult to find than first expected and we start to question if she even lost at all.This is a brilliant psychological thriller and well worth its hype.

The eighth day

 

I first saw this french film as a child with my dad and I regard it as my first proper grown up film (as well as Alien which I watched at the age of 9 and which scarred me for life). It is a beautiful tale of a recent divorcee's new friendship with a young man who has downs syndrome. Normally the two would never even meet, but their paths were set to cross and what grew between them was a friendship so loving and pure. This is definitely a tearjerker but also a feel good film and one which I have always remembered.

By Rosie.

How I Live Now - Review

How I Live Now, the film adaption from the novel with the same name, was the type of film we both thought we would either really love or really dislike as a 'try too hard' indie film. I can happily say it wasn't the latter. Set in what looked like the near future (the year is never disclosed), this film observes young American Daisy on her refuge with her cousins in the south of the UK, during what seemed to be a world wide crisis/war. The film jumped into the action straight away, but i think there was definitely time at the beginning to show how the country had become this war zone; nothing was ever mentioned on why these terrorists had come to the UK, who were killing everyone they came in contact with, bombing cities, and polluting the countries water supply. At times the film was very frightening and suspenseful, which I think it really needed to be to have some real strength and purpose. The love story between Daisy and her cousin (or step cousin or something which wasn't made clear) Eddie was very strange but very empowering. After getting split up during the bombing of their home, the film mainly follows Daisy and her younger cousin on her quest to get back home to Eddie. They encounter piles of bodies, extreme thirst and hunger, and the fearsome terrorists in the middle of the woods. The character of Daisy herself was at first very annoying - the typical american teenage brat, but her character grew during the harsh realities she had to face, and so grew our love and our will for her to get home to her family again.

This film acts as a frightening glimpse into what could easily be the countries future, and is really worth a watch.

UPDATES -
We recently saw the incredible Dallas Buyers Club which will be getting a review soon by either myself or Ollie. We also had a day of films last weekend which will feature in a post.
The amount of films being watched has been a little lacking since February what with Ollie's birthday last month and both of us visiting Universities or doing something amazing at weekends. We also spent a Friday night at a very exciting village quiz in which we came 9th!!
27 films later is very slowly getting completed, especially by Ollie who has hardly watched any (!), but we will be finishing it SOON.
We are also regularly going to our towns brill film club, where we have seen so far 'Like father, Like Son' - a brilliant Japanese drama, and also 'Blancanieves' - a Spanish silent film loosely based on the story of Snow White.

BY ROSIE

'The past is just a story we tell ourselves'

A review of Spike Jonze's 'Her'.

On Wednesday night, on the way to the cinema to see 'Her', which is nominated for 5 Oscars and has been much anticipated by Rosie and I, we commented that although we were looking forward to the film, we were both tired and that the McDonalds beforehand would be the highlight of the night. For some reason we both felt like we were going to be disappointed by the film. I'm glad to say, neither of us were.

If I had to describe the film, it's a complex exploration of love, and even though set in the future (I'd say around 2050), it's still extremely relevant to love today. Beautifully and experimentally shot, the film sees the lead character Theo, who has recently split from his wife, fall in love with his new OS (operating system), Samantha. I can see why some people won't like this film, it's had its fair share of critical reviews already, and it has been called stupid by some. However I feel that you should look at the film not quite literally, but look at what it's trying to tell us as viewers. That's how I felt the beauty of the film. The script is beautiful, many times I felt like bursting into tears because of what was being said. However the film also has a darker side, which is what I was expecting to be explored more - linking love, our most desired emotion, with our growing dependence on technology.

All the cast were brilliant, however small it was. Joaquin Phoenix was amazing and in my opinion, the best cast member was Scarlett Johansson, who played Samantha. However we never see her, she brought Samantha to life, and just through her voice you could feel the emotions she was feelings and almost visualise her. An original idea, a brilliant romance, with just enough comedy to not make it overly depressing but not take away the core of the film, loss and love.

10/10

Ollie

In Memory of Philip Seymour Hoffman

After hearing the very sad news of Philip Seymour Hoffman's death on the 2nd February Ollie and I decided straight away to hold a special film night dedicated to him, watching three of his best/most talked about films. I feel like Philip appeared in so many brilliant films, but his talent was never really recognised, until Capote that is when he received the best actor Oscar. And that is the film we start with..

Capote

Philip in this film is simply sublime. I think it was his best role, and having seen it when it first came out I was eager to make sure it made the cut for our Philip special. PSH plays writer Truman Capote in this biographical feature and follows the events surrounding the writing of Capote's book, In Cold Blood. As well as the film being compelling and interesting, PSH is astoundingly good in his role of Capote; his voice completely different, and his acting very true. If you only want to watch one film from this list, make it this one.

Doubt

Another critically acclaimed film starring PSH, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams; all three are brilliant. The film looks into a Catholic school and questions the very uncatholic things which may be going on inside of it; a priest (played by PSH) is suspected of an ambiguous relationship with a troubled young alter boy. I have to say Meryl Streep makes this movie, she is so good at playing hardened school principle that shes actually scary. Myself and Ollie compared the film to Matilda; Meryl being Mrs Trunchbull and the very innocent Amy Adams (playing a teaching nun) being Miss Honey. This film was quite slow, and it didn't come to a resolution at the end, which was quite nice. 

Boogie Nights

After a long night of films I wasn't really looking forward to this but I'm very glad we watched it. It reminded me ALOT of The Wolf of Wall Street which Ollie and I recently watched, the only big difference being Boogie Nights is about the porn industry, which made some very awkward watching with my dad. I really enjoyed this film, and even though PSH was a very small role, he was the star of the show, and Ollie and I couldn't help but find his character so cute. Mark Wahlberg  was very good in this; it was nice to see him in something that isn't an action shooter, and so was Julianne Moore. The film is funny but does have a very dark undertone, which is explored more in the second half of the film. A good watch.

 

Post By Rosie.

TV Reviews: House of Cards and The Bridge

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past few months The Bridge has become one of the most loved Swedish crime series to ever grace TV (and Netflix - which is the medium I watched it on). And House of Cards (the Netflix original series) stars the brilliant Kevin Spacey and won an emmy for best directing. In this post I shall be reviewing both for your reading pleasure.

The end of Breaking Bad left my very sad heart with a major gap to fill. What am I going to do with those spare hours in my day where I would drool over Jesse and be utterly flabbergasted by Walter White. There was only one way to get over this major loss, find another amazing TV series to watch. After trying Dexter and not really liking it (it was very overly stereo-typically American) I thought I would give House of Cards a try. I knew pretty much nothing about American politics and at throughout the series there were times when I had no idea what congressman Frank Underwood (played marvelously by Kevin Spacey) was talking about. This also isn't the type of series you fall in love with either. There are no characters which really connect with the audience; Frank and his wife are both very harsh people and will do anything to get where they want to be. But I suppose this is just a true representation of American politics. The story does en-capture the viewer however; I couldn't help but watch more and more of House of Cards. And with a new series coming on February 14th, I won't have to wait much longer to see more.

The Bridge is the closest I've come to finding a TV series I loved as much as Breaking Bad. The story was just unbelievably good; a body is found on the bridge which links Denmark and Sweden, meaning both countries police forces have to work together to solve the crimes of one killer which unfold before them at an incredible rate. The leads Saga, played by Sofia Helin and Martin played by Kim Bodnia are perfect in their roles of Swedish and Danish detectives. I've liked crime series in the past, Wallander, Silent Witness and Whitechapel (series 1), but the The Bridge simply outshines these by a mile. Now i'm going to go and hunt down series 2 ->

My ratings:
House of Cards (Series 1): 7/10
The Bridge (Series 1): 9/10

By Rosie.

12 Years A Slave: The new slave epic that will become the modern day ROOTS despite its flaws

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.