Fuck Yeah! Film Reviews

Lilya 4-Ever

A realist film with a conceptual undertone. Very harrowing. Very good.
 

Tom Moore is an incredible person. THIS is one HELL of a birthday present. SIGNED BLACK SWAN POSTER BY MY IDOL DARREN ARONOFSKY.

Gawd. I am actually going to pass out.

[ignore my shit hair/taken from my personal blog]

Purchases for the day. Seen Red Road before. Incredible film. I’ve heard good things about The Mist so we’ll see.

Blue Valentine

I’ve been a big fan of Ryan Gosling since I was forced to sit through The Notebook by an ex girlfriend. He made that film bearable over the overly sentimental and cliched romance that film contained. 

So here we have him starring in another romance. But this is different, its a romance, that isn’t a romance, that is a romance. Confusing eh? The film depicts the story of Cindy and Dean through two different timelines. One period, the past, of them first meeting and falling in love and the other, the present, showing their marriage in pieces.

I think primarily the writing must be commended for managing to create such an honest portrayal of a relationship, almost entirely devoid of movie cliche and sentimentality. Both protagonists, if you can call them that, are played perfectly by Gosling and Williams, nothing seems over acted and their transition from the past self to the future self is incredible to watch as, although the same character, their mentality is entirely different. 

Visually the film is astounding, adopting quite a raw, heavily grained, low contrast look, it adds a great deal of realism to an incredible plot that benefits from this look. It seems to make quite good use of natural lighting which is something, as a filmmaker myself, I definitely appreciate is a difficult thing to pull off. Utilising the low sun for some incredible backlit shots, I cannot articulate enough how beautiful this film looks.

Often I think that the score in a film is what is driving the performances and this sometimes makes me disregard the performance slightly, however, Blue Valentine utilises a very subtle score that rarely interferes with the outstanding performances of the two leads.

This is definitely not a film to miss for those who have lost faith in contemporary romance.

4/5

Water for Elephants

Having received many mixed I decided to see this based purely on the fact that I stand by my opinion that R-Patz is actually a very good actor who has suffered from some very bad roles. I personally loved Remember Me, I think it gave him a chance to shine as the fine actor he is.

The film is somewhat problematic in that it doesn’t quite know what genre it fits into. On one hand we have a troubled romance between Pattinson and Witherspoon that tries to blend in with what is essentially a classic tale of a runaway finding solace within kind strangers (but all is not as it seems). The issue is, that the romantic side of it takes such a back seat compared to the empathy created around the story of elephant.

The structure was incredibly strange to watch. There never seemed to be any logic behind certain events, it was very much ‘this happened, then this happened’ for the majority of the film with plot twists shotgunned at you from very odd directions. Not to say that this is a bad film at all but its very hard to like it when you can see a lot of potential buried underneath a confused plot.

Christoph Waltz’s character of the ‘evil’ ring leader is one of the most problematic characters in this film. His performance is excellent as it is but it almost feels at though the director was unsure of how to portray him. We see these brutal moments of rage and yet suddenly we’re presented with an almost sympathetic view that doesn’t seem to sit right after some very tough scenes by his hand.

I’ve not read the novel so I can’t comment on whether the issues in this film are a result of a poor adaptation, however I do prefer to look at a film as a separate entity.

The film isn’t perfect but it is definitely an enjoyable experience for the most part. Sure, you’ll find yourself sighing at certain scenes and likely laugh at the incredibly abrupt ending but if you’ve got nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon, this might be an easy going option for the casual movie goer.

2.5/5

2. Mr Nobody [theatrical cut]

You’ll notice I’ve specified the cut, the extended cut is absolutely horrible and contains many plot points that are absolutely ridiculous and totally change the tone of the film.

This and Darren Aronofsky’s Pi kinda sit equally in the number one spot for me. I guess I chose Pi as the number one spot due to its much more subtle approach to explaining its meaning.

Anyway, Mr Nobody is the perfect example of how to do a romance in a blissfully original way. Transcending the normalities of the genre and embellishing it with a ‘sci fi’ element. The film itself isn’t exactly sci-fi but it does introduce many philosophical ideas through scenes that may be considered sci-fi, don’t let that deter you, I’m not a huge sci-fi fan myself so its definitely miniscule enough not to bother you.

The majority of the film focuses on the relationship between Nemo and Anna, convincingly played by Juno Temple and Toby Regbo. I’ve never seen such a realistic portrayal of a teenage relationship onscreen. You see a lot of films where you’ve curled up into a ball, shaking at how cliche and ultimately silly the whole portrayal is. You won’t find that here. You can easily see how a plot line that would possibly be more suited to an older couple can transcend age and work just as appropriately within the context of the film.

I’m hesitant to write more in case I’ve already given you the wrong idea of this film. Watch it, my favourite film. DO IT.