DESPICABLE ME 2 - Review

On Saturday night Ollie and I went to the cinema to watch Despicable me 2. We were both very excited and had a right to be so after recently watching the first and loving it! I did go in thinking 'this cant be as good as the first' as sequels usually aren't. But i have to say it was very close between the two. It was cute, funny and had an ending which made me an Ollie cry a little bit...

I would probably give this a 9 (the first a 10) as i think the plot of the first films was a little better, but the second was still brilliant! I am now looking forward to the minions movie!

I also now want my own army of minions and Gru as a dad.

Over and out
Rosie. x

Unexciting, unpleasant and ultraviolent: My review of Lawless (2012)

You know the film you're watching is pretty bad when less than an hour in you count down how long is left until the end. I thought I was actually going to enjoy Lawless, I enjoy American inter-war/prohibition films but this really could've been a story shot at any time in history. It didn't capture the time period at all and the plot was just all over the place. It tried to be a romance, revenge story, bromance and historical piece at the same time and the result is a tangled and uninteresting film that I really gave up with after half an hour. It really was just unexciting. And the lousy plot tries to cover itself with graphic violence. This adds nothing to the film at all. And I really have no idea of Gary Oldman's purpose in the film. Overall a lazy and nasty film that I wouldn't recommend at all. Points go to the directing and cast I guess, but yeah. Didn't do it for me at all.

Overall verdict: 4/10

Ollie x

P.s - 27 films later update. I am currently on 9 films, 1/3 of my way through, and I think Rosie is on about 8 too. I've found some great films already and the challenge is going really well. We'll keep you updated!

Rollie is moving (sentimental post get the tissues)

Now as you may have heard if you read Ollie's last blog post (its here if you didnt!) I am moving house. This marks a very big change in the Rollie way, my home has always been the film night house and mine and Ollie's friendship started there, thats why it is such a big deal to us. Granted, I'm only moving around the corner but it really is a sad time for both of us, we love my house, and we spend a lot of time there (due to the fact we never get invited out anywhere apart from the cinema and wetherspoons with each other!). But film night will continue to all of your joy! We will be hosting a farewell film night and will welcome the new home of Rollie with open arms (kind of. lol not really). 

So now I'm going to talk about some of the highlights of our Rollie film nights. The first night of course marked a big stepping stone in the creation of Rollie films. I was home alone and seeing as Ollie lived round the corner I invited him over for a film. After looking through my vast dvd collection which must contain near 1000 films we narrowed it down to 2 possibilities. Who better to decide which one to watch than my cat Charlie. so we put the films on the floor and he ran over to Taken - our first Rollie film! And from there the films nights grew- we were bored, had little to do with our weekends and both loved film. We quickly came up with the Rollie name (Rosie +Ollie incase you didnt get it you fools) and we set to work on watching films! 

We have since had 2 Rollie film awards- one when we reached 50 films, and another at 100. It is very heartbreaking that the 150th wont be in my home anymore. Another highlight was our first trip to the local cinema together, watching Paranorman, and we have since kept every cinema ticket from every film we've seen there together. We've also watched some great film collections- such as the Halloween series which we are near finishing, as well as the Hannibal series. Now these may not be the best films ever but we love them, and the amount of jokes we make and spew out while watching them is ridiculous, they are our trademark Rollie films in a way. 

Our love of films has grown with the love we have of each other (in a non-sexual way) and even though it is inevitable that one day we wont have these film nights anymore, we are enjoying them while they're here.

Speak soon

Rosie xxx

<3

To Kill a Mockingbird: a near perfect film

The 'maniac': Boo Radley

 By Ollie

Yesterday (Tuesday, yes, I know, a strange day for a film night), Rosie and I met and looked around her NEW HOUSE (it's so sad we're leaving our current premises, this weekend we are having a Farewell Film Night for the house which we will post about sometime after) and afterwards sat down to watch a good old film. Yes, old, Rosie did actually allow it. It was the 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee's novel, 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. I'd heard great things about this film and wanted to see it for a long time, so at long last, I rented it from Lovefilm. It also fits in well with our current history topic of American civil rights so I think this was one reason why Rosie allowed us to watch an older film.

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and like my title suggests, it was almost a perfect film. Even Rosie liked it. It dealt with issues such as racism, discrimination, innocence, fear, and exposure to limelight, and dealt with each issue very well. The cast are great, even the child actors are quite good as usually child actors from the 60s are as annoying as tinnitus, and the film produces loveable heroes such as Boo, Tommy and Atticus and villains such as the rape 'victim' and her husband. Surprisingly scary for a 1962 drama film, the film would've benefited with being 10 minutes shorter. The first 50 minutes, which seem irrelevant to the plot until the final few minutes of the film, do go on a little too long, and I'd rather the extremely engaging courtroom scenes to have been longer than these sequences.

Overall, the film, which is emotional, evocative and has wonderful characters, is near perfect for the above reasons. It is one of the best black and white films I have ever seen and I would recommend it to anyone who has a heart.

Overall verdict: 9/10

3 films I hate that everyone else seems to love

Hey guys, bored on a Monday afternoon so thought I'd do this!

1. Inception (2010)

With an amazing cast and what seems a good plot I was very excited to see Inception at long last when I watched it late last year. However I was left bitterly disappointed. This is for me, the most overhyped pretentious rubbish I've ever seen. It tries to be 'deep' and succeeds, so much its hard to understand whats going on. That's not always a bad thing, of course, and the protagonists try to explain what is happening throughout but when its for 95% of this drawn out film it is. Inception seems to be so liked because of how 'deep' it is, however I have seen far deeper films in my life and theres a fine line between being deep and being completely unenjoyable. I know film goers are hardly unintelligent but its a victim of itself by trying to be too clever.

2. Rear Window (1954)

I love Hitchcock however this really isn't his best like many people say is. In fact it's one of my least favourite films I've seen from the 50s. The plot itself is quite boring - the premise of observing others and what people do behind closed doors is interesting but there is nothing clever about this film. Murderer gets caught at the end because someone proves he killed someone - wow. Hardly groundbreaking. Don't get me wrong it's not an awful film just very lame compared to Hitchcock's other masterpieces and the love story between James Stewart and Grace Kelly's characters is completely unneeded and takes you away from the plot a bit. It was just very long... so long...

3. Ratatouille (2007)

Ratatouille? One of the best childrens films ever? No. You must be joking. I could name about 50 better than this. An annoying protagonist you can't sympathise with in the form of the rat isn't the best start really. It gets progressively worse as the film goes on, it is literally about a rat learning to cook. There's no moral story to this for children to take home and learn from, it is literally just a story about an annoying rat who wants to be a chef. It doesn't sound that bad, but when its currently regarded as one of the best 200 films ever made on IMDb it's quite shocking. Maybe I just didn't like it because I'm an adult, but I love Despicable Me and Wreck it Ralph so I don't see that as why I don't like it.

Ollie xxxx