Childhood Films Blogathon

The lovely Caz at Let’s Go To The Movies is hosting her second Blogathon this summer, all to do with our favourite Childhood Films. There are rules of course, and here they are in Caz’s own words:

The Rules

Ok so instead of saying a film can only be wrote about once, I have decided to leave that open. You can indeed write about just one film if you want. But let’s make it more interesting and pick a few films. At least 3 and at the most 25, you can do it in list format and rank them. Or just simply write your blog post around them, try to explain why they were your favourites and if you still enjoy them to this day – as I am sure some of this would have changed!

Dates

Look to have your entry submitted over the weekend of Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th July 2015 – this gives you a month to get involved!

I’m quite a nostalgic person so I’ve rambled on a fair amount about some of my earliest childhood films, but I thought that for this blogathon I could tell you about some of my most watched films as a child.

My Mum claims that I made her watch Beauty and the Beast (1991) with me once a day every day for about a whole year, but considering the fact that it’s her favourite Disney movie, I question the truth in that. I remember finding some parts quite scary, but I loved the music and the songs, and I still do to this day. In fact, I wonder if my fiance will let us play Tale as Old as Time at the wedding…

One film I remember watching a lot is Homeward Bound (1993) although I remember barely anything about it now. Was there a sad part at the end? I’m feeling a little emotional and I’m not sure why. Talking animals must have captivated my imagination, but I am sorely tempted to rewatch this now to see if I enjoy it just as much now.

At the top of the ‘watched too many times’ list is A Bug’s Life (1998). I had the sticker book for this film, and I’m pretty sure I completed it too. That must have cost my parents a fortune. at a time when I had started collecting Pokemon cards too. Anyway, I loved the moment where all the ants slowly stand up against Hopper, and OH MY GOODNESS I just realised that Kevin Spacey voiced him. Holy moly, I need to rewatch this!

This is weird, Labyrinth (1986) was released before I was born and yet I remember watching it a lot. This must be my Mum’s influence once again! It starts with a young girl being made to look after her baby brother, doesn’t it? I think I remember having dreams about summoning a goblin to take away my baby brother, ha! #sorrynotsorry

Review: The Big Lebowski (1998)

To celebrate Flick Chicks receiving 10,000 page views, we wanted to do something fun and a little different to celebrate, so we asked you all to suggest a film (or a few!) for us to watch at our next movie night. Thanks to everyone who made some suggestions, there were more than a fair few that we hadn’t seen before! We chose one at random, which turned out to be The Big Lebowski, suggested by John at Hitchcock’s World. Thanks John! I have been meaning to watch this for a long time so I'm glad it got picked :-)

How can anyone really explain the plot to The Big Lebowski? It’s a crazy film! Here’s my best attempt. ‘The Dude’ Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) lives a simple life, and is part of a bowling team with his friends Walter (John Goodman) and Donnie (Steve Buscemi). One dreadful day, three guys break into his apartment demanding money owed to them. It’s a case of mistaken identity, but in their anger one of them urinates on The Dude’s rug. Walter convinces The Dude to go to The Big Lebowski to demand compensation.  Nailed it!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of friends quite like it before. In fact, group isn’t the right word because any time Donnie tries to say anything, he is told quite rudely to shut up., meaning most of the film concentrates on The Dude and Walter, who lands The Dude in an amazing amount of trouble, but is faithfully loyal at least. I really enjoyed John Goodman in this, I think it’s the type of role he is born to play. Another favourite of mine is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character, the bumbling assistant, who had a brilliant flair of humour.

I actually have to admit, I found John Goodman's character a little irritating, I kind of got tot he point where I thought, why would anyone be friends with this douchebag!  However, this does show his great acting skills because usually I love him.   I did feel better knowing the point of this meme:

The Big Lebowski is without a doubt one of the craziest films I’ve watched. I like to think that the perfect film is realistic with a touch of fantasy, and although this sits well outside that spectrum, it’s still brilliant, and I think that’s what makes it stand out so well. From throwing a bag of dirty underwear from the window of a moving car for a group of kidnappers to surreal dreams that make you feel high, there are very little ‘normal’ moments!  I have to agree, this film is insane and completely loses the plot at some points, but it remains entertaining all the way through, so even though the plot line is completely shot you're still interested.

This is one of those films (essentially a Coen Brothers film) where you have no idea what's coming next, you cannot predict this film with any certainty, nor would you want to.   The story is not that interesting to be fair but the characters more than make up for it with sharp dialogue and quirky drug induced fantasies.

There are a few people I know that haven’t seen this yet, but no one I’ve mentioned the film to has responded with ‘what?’. It’s just one of those films that everyone knows, I think because there’s nothing else out there like it. Other than Dude Where’s My Car perhaps which I’m getting the strong feeling is actually a spoof of The Big Lebowski. How I didn’t pick up on this before is beyond me!  I couldn't believe how much of this film was taken to Dude, Where's my car?  I kind of wish I had seen them in the right order now.  The moment when they walked out of the bowling alley and said 'Dude where's my car' me and Allie just looked at each other and burst out laughing.  Nice to know we are getting to the point where we have seen enough films to spot references and nods to other films :-)

I watched The Big Lebowski for the first time about 4 years ago, when I was forced by my now fiance, telling me it was the best film in the world. It’s his all-time favourite and I can see why. I’m really glad to have had an excuse to see it again and I urge anyone who hasn’t already seen it to give it a try!

I've never been a huge Coen Brothers fan (more because I have never liked the look of their films than from critical perspective) but I think I am coming round since this and Fargo, so I may have to keep on watching.  Just shows, you can't judge a DVD by it's cover ;-)

Review: The Truman Show (1998)

Not only is this a film off the IMDB Top 250 list, but this morning it was announced on the radio that Paramount Pictures are going to be turning The Truman Show into a TV Show!

 

 

Last Saturday I half watched Bruce Almighty whilst doing some housework, and it reminded me just how much I love Jim Carrey. I loved his comedies but I also really enjoyed The Number 23, so it reminded me that I still hadn't seen this film! Cue gasps of horror...

 

*Gasp of horror* You think I would be over the gasps of horror when finding out you haven't seen something amazing by now, but I'm not!! It still shocks me!  It has been a while since I have seen this film, so I will be brief!

 

I thought the idea behind this film was fantastic, and increasingly relevant these days with the amount of reality TV show we have now. I was trying to imagine how a modern day version of this would look, but now I won't have to with the new show coming along!  Did you know this film came out in 1998 and the first ever Big Brother aired in 1999? I would have automatically assumed it was the other way round!  That means when this came out it was so far fetched and such a new idea, I wish I could watch it for the first time again before I'd even heard of Big Brother and see if my thought and opinions were different. I actually wondered to myself how that timeline worked you know! I'm happy that this came out first then! I really wish I could go back in time and see it when it first came out...

 

The film itself was great but there are a few things I never understood. Maybe Jenna can help me? Those little moments, like the light falling out of the sky, and the tiny raincloud following Truman around, were they accidents or were the crew trying to get Truman to realise that this isn't actually real life?  I think these were technical errors in the system (which were bound to happen!) but Truman happened to see them, casting doubt in his mind about his 'world'

 

Let's now go to the kind of moment I was waiting for throughout the film!

 

 

 

I read somewhere that the whole of this scene was improvised by Jim Carrey...fantastic!  This doesn't surprise me, he is the master of improv!

 

This was thoroughly entertaining, but I felt saddened by the ending (look away now if you've never seen this before). Truman got to leave the show, but he left behind what he thought was real life. How will he cope in the real world now? He has no job, no place to live, no friends! Very sad indeed...

 

I remember being heartbroken at the end of this film and it affected me for days, I couldn't forget about Truman and where he had gone and was he happy?!  I found this message board which I found amusing suggesting the various outcomes for Truman after he left the dome. http://goo.gl/iUqjF3

 

I personally like 'Because there was nobody looking out for him when he left, he was struck and killed by a bus almost immediately.'

 

Oh wow, that list is brilliant, if a little morbid in places! I love 'Surely he'd go to Fiji'!  'Hit by a cement truck' cracked me up!