The Place Beyond The Pines (13.05.2013)

The Place Beyond The Pines (2012)

Director - Derek Cianfrance

Starring - Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper & Eva Mendes

3.5 stars

In a moment of fateful panic, the lives of two families become unwillingly intertwined.  This is premise behind Derek Cianfrance’s dense drama that is taking the world by storm.

I must say, the commercial hysteria behind this film didn’t prepare me for the 140 minutes of solid, raw drama that I was about to divulge. Anyone who watches this film because they are fans of Ryan Gosling or Bradley Cooper or are just expecting to sink their teeth into the latest drama out in cinemas are leaving themselves open to disappointment. Those who are more in touch with Cianfrance’s other pieces of work, or are hoping for more of a ‘Blue Valentine’ type feel are much closer to the hole.

Like Blue Valentine (Cianfrance’s 2011 feature, also starring the Gos), this film is based in suburbia and the plot advances largely through character development and interaction. It explores so many issues throughout its entirety, breaks itself up into three very clear and concise acts and presents a number of thought provoking ideas. All of this on the back of an all-star Hollywood cast which has some of the lesser lights playing outside of themselves more so than the A-graders.

Gosling’s character Luke is a tattooed, chain smoking motorcycle stunt rider who travels around the country with the circus. During a return trip to Schenectady, New York, he revisits Romina (Eva Mendes) only to discover that she had given birth to his son since he last saw her. With a renewed sense of purpose, Luke quits his job with the sole purpose of being able to provide for his newly discovered family. With work scarce, he turns to robbing banks, an idea he picks up from Robin (Ben Mendelsohn). It’s this new line of work that ensures he crosses paths with policeman Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper) and their eventual meeting will set both them and the people in their lives on a completely new path forever.

The overall narrative breaks itself down into three very clear sections and there are parts throughout that ensure this two and a half plus hour beast can be a bit of a hard slog. There are so many issues explored throughout that it can get difficult to understand where the whole thing is headed. Whilst it was an extremely gratifyingly thought provoking experience, sometimes it was tough trying to figure out what it was exactly that Cianfrance wanted to portray and explore.

Another slight disadvantage of having a clear cut three act narrative was the fact that the overall process felt a bit jerky and was filled with a number of emotional shifts. This can also be construed as a positive as the film continuously kept you on your feet. There was so much depth in every scene (emotional depth) and the narrative was filled was a plethora of layers that you really had to dig through to grasp the full experience.

Despite its flaws, this is a real winner for film lovers of all ages. There is so much more than meets the eye and Cianfrance doesn’t waste a scene or a line. The actors come to the party and work through the depth of the script with expected class. Any movie that has you thinking long and hard about it is a good one in my opinion.   

Gosling and Copper are fantastic – but we expect that now. I don’t think either of them really pushed themselves to new lengths in this film. For me it was Aussie Ben Mendelsohn who really stood out. His character, Robin, turned out to be somewhat of a father figure to Luke (father-son relationship is a key issue explored throughout the narrative) and his performance was quite inspiring as he was able to show many facets of a character who on the surface appeared quite reserved and happy to stay in the shadows.

The Place Beyond The Pines is deep, honest and has a wonderful ability to continue to tie back to events of the past and illustrate how they’ve affected the future for every single individual. It explored the eerie fact that every action has a consequence and those consequences will continue to rise their head throughout everything in life. Despite some of its flaws, it really does possess some breathtaking aspects of cinema, narrative and acting. To really sink your teeth into it, it will certainly require more than one viewing but it didn’t really inspire me rush to go at it for a second time just yet.

Guess who's back?!

I'm well aware that it has almost been two years since I last contributed to my own blog. With that said, I'm proud to announce that I'm back and ready to turn this into something special.

The reasoning behind my hiatus was that I had been freelance writing for a website and part of the deal was that anything that was published there wasn't allowed to be published anywhere else. Pretty simple really. As it turns out, they have elected to turn their business in a new direction and in the process have decided that using freelance writers isn't something they will continue with.

What does that mean for me? Well now I can go back to using my own space and my own syles. The only editor I need to get past is myself (excuse any spelling and grammatical errors) and my love and spark for film has never been stronger.

Stay tuned for my big return piece in the coming days. What better way to do this than by reviewing The Place Beyond The Pines which I saw on the weekend.

Thanks to everyone who has been supporting me on this journey for the past five years. Your support and advice is paramount and doesn't got unnoticed!

Let's get watching!

The Hangover Part II (16/06/11)

The Hangover Part II (2011)

Director - Todd Phillips
Starring - Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms

4 stars

One thing is for sure… whatever I write in this piece will have absoloutly no effect on whether people choose to watch this blockbuster or not. This notion sits comfortably with me. It’s not often that a movie event like this hits our screens and being such a fan of this visual art form I most certainly welcome the buzz. The Hangover was the biggest comedy to flex its proverbial laugh out loud muscle in recent years, and with its popular cast remaining in check, a sequel was always going to be sure to hit the ticket boxes hard.

So put simply, the boys are back. A bachelor party goes horribly wrong and our three heroes are forced to retrace their steps from the night before or else they are in more trouble than they initially thought.

The formula is simple, and is almost exactly the same as the original film, only this time… we go from Vegas to Thailand, we’re searching for Teddy (Stu’s brother-in-law to be) not Phil, face tattoos replace missing teeth and the strippers offer something a little bit different to marriage. This is half the fun. Nothing stray’s too far away from the original but with some genuinely funny writing and some brilliant work from the actors (Zach Galifianakis is once again at is his pants wetting best) you are more than happy to overlook the somewhat predictability of the storyline.

There really isn’t a lot more to say about it. It promises big laughs and it delivers. If you liked the first one then you will be sure to like this one too but just don’t expect it to be something completely different. You will be blessed with the opportunity to repeat lines from this movie with your mates and have hours of laughs because of it. A genuinely funny movie and a truly pleasurable and entertaining experience.

Insidious (17/05/11) [Archive]

Insidious (2010)

Director - James Wan
Starring - Patrick Wilson & Rose Byrne

4 stars

If you’re like me, you’ll be sure to search high and low for a good horror movie. Nobody likes to hear the word ‘good’ used when describing their in-depth thoughts on a film, but there is something about the term ‘good horror movie’ that gets the ears perking of all those adrenaline freaks out there. As a kid, I used to hate horror films. I wouldn’t be able to sleep for extended periods of time and being alone in any respect was a petrifying thought. Now I’m a little bit older, I love the stuff, and there is nothing quite like a good horror flick in a darkened cinema on a massive screen with quality speakers surrounding you to ensure there really is no escape. Sure, watching them at home with your mates and drinking every time ominous music is heard can be fun, but there’s nothing quite like the real deal. Insidious gets the tick of approval from me, and when the boys who originally created the Saw franchise are in charge (directed by James Wan and written by Leigh Whannel) you know that you’re in for a treat.

On it’s exterior, Insidious can appear to be your ‘run of the mill’ horror film. Young family with kids, big new house with plenty of creaks and some sort of haunting that is plaguing them all. It does have a Paranormal Activity type feel to it but it is in no way a rip off and does eventually take it’s own direction. What’s actually haunting this family (or more so there young son Dalton) isn’t actually the big twist. It’s explained with ample time to go but the process of fixing it still has terrifying consequences. In fact, the entire concept and story line is quite compelling and not the ridiculous and cliché stuff that you can become accustomed to in modern day horror. They introduce new knowledge to the audiences about spirits and astro walking and all kinds of other terms that are justified well enough for viewers to continue on track. So as the family tries ridding their son of this curse-like state and bring peace back into their home, all kinds of stories from (the father) Josh’s past come to the fore. The pieces of the puzzle all start to fall into place (as you would expect from this team) and it becomes edge of your seat viewing.

I will more than happily put my hand up to say that I was genuinely frightened watching this. There was more than one occasion where I whispered to Winga, who was sitting next to me, ‘I’m so scared’. And that’s the beauty of it. Like any film, to truly enjoy it and get into what the director wants you to feel, you really do have to just let yourself go. Get lost in the moment and in a horror film especially, this can really make or break what you take out of it.

The constant question is raised by people who can’t stand this genre, ‘why do you like to deliberately scare yourself?’ It’s valid, and to be fair, I don’t know why I put myself through it half the time. There’s something so exhilarating about getting the blood pumping and adrenaline flying that makes me crave some more. I can one hundred percent guarantee that for me, Insidious most certainly filled that void. It gave me my horror film fix and nowadays that seems to be getting harder and harder to find. I find myself in a position where I put my hands over my face, leave my eyes in the clear and underneath my palms I am just smiling and thinking two, almost contradictory, thoughts – ‘why do I do this to myself’ and, ‘God, I love this’. I’m not going to begin justifying this thought process but I seem to get some sort of (sick) gratification out of it so I just go with it.

As I said, these boys know how to do horror. When they do it, they do it properly and I will promise to continue to seek out more and more of their work over the years. Seriously, if this is your cup of tea, you will not be disappointed. I was still shaking some time afterwards and Joffa almost tripped down the stairs on exit. Now that is what you want to get out of a movie.

Sucker Punch (13/05/11) [Archive]

Sucker Punch (2011)

Director - Zack Snyder
Starring - Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish & Vanessa Hudgens

3.5 stars

I don’t think you can watch Sucker Punch once and walk out of it understanding everything about it in its entirety. It’s actually been a couple of weeks now since I’ve seen it and I’m still scratching my head a little bit. I don’t mind that. I don’t like it when you don’t understand the film’s ending or you get lost half way through and as a result it turns out to be a complete fizzer. I understood Sucker Punch (or so I think). I at least understood it the way director Zack Snyder wanted me to. I could follow the story line well enough to enjoy the narrative but there are elements to this carnival that I’m still wrapping my head around.

One thing I was completely sure about was the aesthetic brilliance of the whole thing. To put good use to a cop out word, it really was visually awesome. Probably the best thing I’ve seen since Avatar in terms of the visuals. It was wonderfully shot and edited, the scenery was top notch (albeit very much manufactured) and cinematography was quite marvellous. To go with all that the music was also of kick ass standard and did a brilliant job to coincide with the whole feel of the narrative.

The actual plot is not so important. In short, Baby Doll (Emily Browning) has been institutionalised by her abusive stepfather and devises a plan to escape from the mental facility. She devises a plan and manages to progress through it by going into an almost hallucinate-ive state and passing certain challenges in these completely other worlds. This is where the fun with the visuals comes into play. Along for the ride is a group of girls who want the same thing; Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung).

Although this sort of action type stuff isn’t normally my cup of tea, I still did like it. Although it’s impossible not to describe it as ‘cool’ and ‘awesome’, it still got the mind ticking. I think the biggest question you ask yourself is, ‘what’s actually real in all this’. It’s not a bad question to be burdened with on exit and there are certainly worse films going around. If not just for the visual entertainment of it I’d recommend you go see it. If that doesn’t interest you, then how about going to see some bad ass chicks with guns who play by their own rules? Winner, winner. If THAT doesn’t sway you, then I don’t know why you’ve read this far.

The Adjustment Bureau (04/04/11) [Archive]

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

Director - George Nolfi
Starring - Matt Damon & Emily Blunt

4 stars

This movie, straight of the bat, is a little more than meets the eye. On the exterior, it can easily appear to be a love story. The catalyst behind every major plot point is due to the characters acting on the desires of their heart. Fighting to preserve a love that may or may not exist. Think you’ve seen it before? It’s probably because you have. I urge you to find a film that doesn’t possess at least one love story in its plot. Whether it dominates the narrative or not, love is always there, and The Adjustment Bureau is just another example where love is a major issue that is addressed. Fortunately, this is more than just a story of forbidden romance.

So what is more than meets the eye for this film, you ask? Anyone who knows me would know that I could easily dish out 4 stars to a film that has a good love story. This couldn’t be more truthful, but for this one, it wasn’t the romance that had me hooked. And this is where the other sceptics come out to play. Anyone who has heard anything about The Adjustment Bureau knows that it revolves around events that don’t actually happen in the normal world. Everything we have come to learn in the past 2000+ years of civilisation on this planet suggests that there is no such thing as a team of unique, slightly supernatural beings who control every little event in your life. A group that abides by the plan that has been given to you and ensures to make slight adjustments if you start to teeter of track. This is not how life works… or so we think? Now, I’m not suggesting that this actually does happen. In fact, I know that it doesn’t. No, this George Nolfi directed feature has not in anyway brainwashed me but I do applaud the way he went about justifying this bizarre notion. Anybody who has at least a little bit of imagination can sit back and think to themselves ‘hmm, this really can be happening’, and BANG, just like that you are able to enjoy this film on another level because you aren’t constantly thinking, ‘yeah but that can’t happen’. It was this aspect that got the ball rolling for me and eventually led into a very enjoyable cinematic experience.

So that’s what it’s all about. Two people meet and hit it off. As fate would have it, they meet again, only this time it is not according to plan. This second meeting was not supposed to happen and as it turns out, the pairing of these two individuals puts their very futures largely off course. So what do you do? You adjust it of course. You bring in the bureau and ensure that they don’t meet ever again. You explain the situation to one of them and make sure he knows that if he blabs about the adjustment bureau he will have his memory erased. Pretty shocking consequences. This is when the story hits off as the question of how hard will you fight for love is asked.

Both of the leads, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, were sensational and brilliantly casted. I think this movie suited Damon wonderfully. He was never out of his comfort zone and was again playing a role that we are so accustomed to seeing him in. Blunt worked well off Damon and really ended up standing out from it all. The on screen chemistry worked a treat and the narrative’s overall success was really born out of the believability of this pair’s relationship.

As I mentioned earlier the idea of this adjustment bureau wasn’t all that difficult to get your head around. It was in no way confusing but so often film goers who aren’t open to the (sometimes far fetched) possibilities in this world will sit there hating every second of it because in the feeble little minds they know this is not actually happening. Still, I thought the process was justified suitably and the movie was able to soar because of this.

The last half hour was pretty action packed and I really can’t remember sitting on the edge of my seat like that for some time. They’d thrown the line in the water, I gobbled it up and I was hooked. I couldn’t wait to see what has going to happen next, what has behind the next door (see the movie, you’ll get it!) and more importantly, how it was going to end. It’s this feeling of exhilaration combined with the plain old unknown that gets the blood pumping. There’s nothing like that feeling when you’re sitting in your chair in front of the big screen. It’s what going to the movies is all about.

So I genuinely do give this the tick of approval. I remember first hearing about it months ago and immediately typing it in my phone in my ‘to watch’ list. It was a long time coming, and the yearning to watch a film for months and months is often a dangerous thing as your expectations, unbeknown to you, cheekily begin to creep up and up. Rest assured, expectations were met, movie was enjoyed and a good time was had by all. I guess it was just part of the plan?

2010 - a year in summary

2010 - a year in summary

Since 2001 I have collected movie tickets to every film that I see at the cinemas. I keep them all in a small notebook (one per page) and I write the name of the movie along with the date. Don’t ask me why I do this. It’s something I started a decade ago and couldn’t imagine not doing now. Anyone who has been to the movies with me would know how adamant I am about keeping my ticket. Due to this, I have it very easy when looking back on what I saw in the year. Since 2008, I have rated my top 5 films of the year that I saw at the cinemas. I have kept this to myself (for the record, the winners for the previous two years were Slumdog Millionaire and Avatar – just a couple of small ones you may have heard of) but come 2010, with a few (courteous) people admitting to reading my reviews when I write them up, I thought it would be appropriate to make these choices a little more public.

First things first, this is obviously a very subjective list. Criticism is always welcomed but I am by no means proclaiming that the higher rated films are better made movies. It is merely a case of how they affected me personally and how much I enjoyed them. I have also cut this off to the movies that I saw at the cinema. Although I have seen other flicks that were released in 2010 not at the movies but to keep it more clear cut and maintain a more level playing field (watching a movie at the cinemas is always going to be a greater atmospheric experience) I will keep it to just the movies I saw at the cinemas.

Just so you know what I’m dealing with and the field that I am choosing from, here is the list of movies that I saw this year. In chronological order: Mao’s Last Dancer (12/1), Invictus (24/1), Bran Nue Dae (3/2), Valentine’s Day (11/2), Shutter Island (18/2), The Hurt Locker (25/2), The Blind Side (1/3), Brothers (21/3), Dear John (30/3), How To Train Your Dragon (2/4), She’s Out Of My League (18/4), I Love You Too (11/5), New York I Love You (19/5), The Back-Up Plan (22/5), The Losers (10/6), Get Him To The Greek (20/6), Animal Kingdom (22/6), Mother and Child (23/6), Toy Story 3 (27/6), Predators (13/7), Inception (22/7), The Waiting City (2/8), The Ghost Writer (26/8), Charlie St. Cloud (28/9), Eat Pray Love (11/10), Buried (21/10), Paranormal Activity 2 (28/10), Saw VII (31/10), The Social Network (4/11), The Town (11/11), Lebanon (6/12), Due Date (9/12), The King’s Speech (30/12).

So of that list of 33, I have come out with a top 10. This was a difficult process.

10. How To Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders)

Not being the biggest fan of animation, this one was a nice breath of fresh air for me. A very fun and enjoyable plot combined with some witty humour and inspiring character

growth ensured that this one will go down as one of my favourite animated films.

9. The King's Speech (Tom Hooper)

The new kid on the block and it’s all the rave at the moment. The King’s Speech was the last film I saw for 2010 and was aided by some absoloutly brilliant performances by Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth. A very interestingly shot narrative but emotionally poignant and a beautifully captured story.

8. Buried (Rodrigo Cortes)

My love for Ryan Reynolds helps to bump this one up the list but it is a love that is truly justifiable. How can you not respect a film that keeps you gripped until the end when you never once leave the confinements of one man in a single coffin? Reynolds is brilliant in a unique and challenging role and this different and risky idea worked a treat.

7. Get Him To The Greek (Nicholas Stoller)

Bursts into the top ten (and almost crashes the party for top five) on a pure comedic level. The gut busting combination of Russell Brand and Jonah Hill ensures that laugh out loud moment’s come too quickly for you to even catch your breath from the previous scene. The film itself doesn’t need to pride itself on narrative structure and character development as much because it relies (successfully) on making their audience piss themselves. At the end of the day, people go to the movies to be entertained and unless you have a funny bone of steel then this is sure to tick the box.

6. The Waiting City (Claire McCarthy)

The best Aussie film of the year for mine and was very, very unlucky not to make my illustrious top five. Had the premise for a pretty sound narrative but was directed and portrayed in a way that was truly captivating. Nothing that was revolutionary cinematically but so emotionally engaging none the less. There were probably only two other films that I found more emotionally poignant in 2010. It’s a film that has stuck with me and although fictional, it just seemed like a story that had to be told. The passion for telling this story came out strongly in Claire McCarthy’s directing and the ability to portray the numerous character developments was also a real treat. Joel Edgerton was brilliant and Radha Mitchell also very good. It was a fascinating take on relationships, love and the ability to cope in an array of circumstances. A real winner.

5. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)

I’m not really jumping out on too much of a limb here by placing this beauty into my top five. It cleaned up at the Oscars last year and for very good reason. Not being a real fan of wartime films at all, this movie still had the ability to speak to me and convey a real message through the screen. Unlike any war film I’ve ever seen, The Hurt Locker had this incredible ability to portray the circumstances in such a clear, realistic and believable fashion. It was also able to place the audience in the minds of those who choose to put themselves in these positions and have people understanding of why the elect to do so. T

his was done through incredible filmmaking and an amazing portrayal of human emotion that is so rare in

the cinematic world. On top of all that, Jeremy Renner put in a colossal performance that I believe was worthy of an Oscar himself and it was his contribution to this wonderfully crisp masterpiece that really helped to mark it so proudly in the history books.

4 – Inception (Christopher Nolan)

The only real surprise about this one being in the top five is probably that it wasn’t placed higher. Inception was no doubt the blockbuster movie event of 2010 and all it had to do was live up to half of its hype and moviegoers would be impressed. As it turned out it probably did more than that. I’m yet to find someone who was disappointed in Inception and I am no exception. First things first I do love a blockbuster event. Being a movie lover, when a well-hyped film comes out it’s a bit like the sporting equivalent of the beginning of a finals series. Anything that can live up to big hype should get marked extra points right away. What I loved about this was the whole movie experience. It was a treat for so many senses. I loved the aesthetics and scenery of it all, the score was incredible and the cast was a closet A-grade line up (excluding the obvious A-grader being Leo). I was fascinated by the originality of the idea and loved how the narrative never got boring in its two and a half hours on screen. Most of all I loved the way Christopher Nolan created a film that treated its audiences as intellects but in a way that didn’t bombard them. He forced a lot of assumed knowledge on them and trusted the fact that they would be able to follow without having dumb proceedings down. I’ve never seen another film that gets this balance so right.

3. Mother and Child (Rodrigo Garcia)

This was such an incredibly touching emotional journey. It so powerfully captured the relationships of (as you would have thought) mother’s and their children in a way that I’ve never felt before. I never expected to understand some of the situations that these woman go through on screen, and although I’m not suggesting that after watching it I know exactly how they would feel dealing with adoption, parenting and other various relationships, I certainly feel closer than I ever had. Kerry Washington puts in one of the performances of the year as she abosloutly rips her role to shreds and helps to ensure that this sometimes dry and insensitive film maintains its heartbeat. It’s her contrast with the characters of Annette Benning and Naomi Watts that helps to highlight the true love and spark that exists in the beauty of childbirth and how motherhood can be such a life defining process. Sometimes you will walk out of a movie feeling entertained, humoured, satisfied, educated or even just content that you’ve just killed two hours doing something better than lying on the couch. Mother and Child touched me in a way that perfect story telling is supposed to. I felt breathless trying to take in what I could from the film and left the theatre knowing that I had been treated to something pretty special.

2. New York, I Love You (various directors)

Interestingly enough, this is the only film in my top 10 that I have actually seen more than once; such was my craving to check it out again. It’s hard for me to sit there and totally rave about this one because a part of me can understand why people wouldn’t love it the way I do but for me it has changed a lot about how I watch films. What I loved so much about New York, I Love You was the way it made me think and in turn, the way it made me feel. I left The Rivoli with about a million thoughts running through my head about life and the people in it and how fascinating every single moment can be to certain individuals. It made me realise that everybody has a story to tell and although it may not mean something to you and me, by golly it means something to them. The interesting part about this notion is that it is the unwritten rule about all forms of cinema. You sit in an audience and watch someone else’s story unfold. It wasn’t until I watched New York, I Love You and saw all these short stories, some which seem small from the outside but so poignant on closer inspection, that I realised that these situations are happening all around me, every single day. It was such a refreshing realisation that had me appreciating every asp

ect of what I was being treated to on screen. It’s a film that I will always fall back on and still be able to feel the same way I did on first inspection. A real find for 2010.

1. Brothers (Jim Sheridan

On a cloudy one Sunday afternoon in March, I walked out of a cinema at Knox and said to Winga and Doodles, “that’s the best movie I’ve seen this year”. It wasn’t a massive call with the year only being three months old but as a sit down and write this eight months later, those words still ring true. As fate would have it, this little talked about drama starring Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal would join the prestigious company of Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and Avatar (2009) as MJ’s number one film of the year.

It was probably the heaviest emotional journey that I went on this year (in the comfort of a cinema seat of course), which says a lot about the meticulous filmmaking job done by the cast and crew of Brothers. It’s not easy to dish out some of that material, deal with some of the issues and portray some of those sequences and to get it all so right. That was the beauty of it though; it was all done so, so right. I guess the essence of the film is still a war story, but more a case of dealing with the post traumatic stress elements of it. It’s such a touchy subject, and so easy to get it all wrong that my respect simply grows for Jim Sheridan for nailing this emotional journey. There were moments that were harsh and brutally poignant and the incredible cast kept every scene ticking along with renewed life. Tobey Maguire played a very difficult role extremely well and I saw him in a light I’d never seen him in. A sign of a truly great performance. Natalie Portman also worked wonders on screen and if that wasn’t enough, it was Jake Gyllenhaal who stole the show for me. His incredible portrayal of mass but believable and heart warming character development is as well performed as I’ve seen on screen. To go along with these applaudable performances was the amazing effort of 11-year-old Bailee Madison who strung together one of the best efforts I’ve seen from a child actor ever. Her role played a vital part in the narratives flow, the character developments and emotional journey as a whole.

It was hard to find something that I didn’t like or respect about Brothers. It’s the reason you go to the movies. Some people will always think of going to the cinema as entertainment; a form of being distracted from their lives for a couple of hours. If that’s you, then great. Never lose sight of the fact that films are made to entertain their audiences. But that is just a part of it. Seeing a film, for me, is always going to be appreciating an art form. Cinema is the greatest art form in the world in my biased opinion. When you sit back and realise the work that has gone into making a film, it is hard not to agree with this. Every element of a film is planned and worked on in a meticulous fashion of perfection. Every shot is planned with perfection, every speech is spoken with perfection, every line is written with perfection. So many people take so much time and put in so much effort to find this perfection that it’s impossible not to appreciate this medium as the work of art that it actually is. For me, that was the only approach to watching Brothers. Wish an unashamed respect for what has been created, and what I’ve just witness. A remarkable film, and one that will sit with me for a very long time.

So there you have it. Why bother checking out the Golden Globes or Oscars? All your movie goss has been analysed and discussed right here!

That’s 2010 ticked off, can’t wait for another bumper year in front of the big screen in 2011! See you at the movies!

MJ 10/01/2011