I Sat Through Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Gather round ladies and gentleman, it’s story time. I come from a movie-loving family, as you well know by now. I grew up watching National Lampoon’s Vacation every Bank Holiday. Nowadays, every Sunday the talk over the dinner table is usually themed around what movies we’ve seen that week, and once every couple of months we all get together on a Friday night for a family movie night which involves take out, and far too many pause breaks.

Our Whatsapp group will ping like crazy before these nights, with suggestions thrown in for which movie we should see. Our audience ranges from very young (under 10) to very old (sorry Grampy) with all ages in between, so finding the perfect choice is difficult. But you can guarantee every time, my Dad will suggest Lawrence of Arabia. Why? It’s his favourite movie, apparently! For years we’ve put up with this, and in turn he’s had to put up with us laughing at him. It was his birthday on 1st November though, and I suggested that we all give in and watch it together for his birthday. So we did!

Suddenly, one part of the family were ‘busy’ so our numbers were diminished. This might have had something to do with the fact my Dad announced he had a remastered version on DVD which included an interlude, bringing the runtime to just under 4 hours. Good Lord! Nonetheless, pizza was ordered, and we started the movie. Well, we started Disc 1 of the movie, because the thing is so big it won’t fit onto one disc.

Oh, were you expecting an actual movie review here? No, sorry, that’s literally impossible for me. I don't know how to review this I’m afraid. I will announce a spoiler alert from here on out however, because I truly don’t know what can be considered a spoiler in the tale of Lawrence of Arabia.

We start out with a message from the composer, who said something about his music being so bloody fantastic that any visuals would distract us, so we were greeted with a black screen and almost 10 minutes of music before we even started. Following that, confusion as we see Lawrence get his motorcycle gear on and go out for a ride. We were fairly sure a desert was involved in this movie. After that? Um. Well. He died! I mean, spoiler alert movie, GAWD.

To begin with, we all got quite invested in the story. Lawrence was a bit of a full of himself guy, but we liked his spirit and we look a liking to the guide that was with him in the desert. I think we were gearing ourselves up for a road-trip-buddy kind of movie, but then the guide got killed and we all felt a bit sad for him for a while. Who knew wells were so important in the desert? We mourned the guide collectively until we came across the two young lads that eventually worked for Lawrence. Our favourite moment was when one pompous guy shooed the pair away, and they retaliated by shoving their stick up his camel’s butt. That moment killed me!

So, some more things happened, lots of talking, some war, and the oldest of my two little brothers announced we were well over half way though the movie. Great, we thought! This hasn’t seemed so long after all. Then approximately thirty minutes later, the screen went black and asked us to insert Disc 2 to commence the interlude and the second half. WHAT. At this point our enthusiasm was shattered, my youngest brother fell asleep, and we sat quietly through the rest of the story. Even the dog had enough at that point. Let me tell you, much rejoicing was done when the credits finally rolled.

On a more serious note, the story of Lawrence of Arabia is quite fascinating, as we learnt that the whole time he was just being used by both sides, his passion taken full advantage of. The music was beautiful, and fit the moods perfectly. The visuals were a sight to behold (my youngest brother shouted out ‘hashtag silhouette goals’ so you know these visuals are on point). It was just at least 2 hours too long for me, for any of us, other than my Dad of course.

Our next family movie night is in 2 weeks time, and my Dad has stayed unusually quiet in the Whatsapp group. We’re all on the edge of our seats waiting to find out what his next suggestion might be.

So, to finally finish, I do recommend Lawrence of Arabia, but watch it over a couple of days.

Halloweenie Review: Psycho (1960)

October is coming to an end, but I felt like I still had enough nerves in me to go out with a bang. I started a modern classic, It Follows, and thought, why not end with a classic classic? That sparked me to check the IMDB Top 250 list which I’ve largely ignored for a few months, and on there spotted a movie I knew I needed to see. Psycho! I don’t know the time limit on spoiler alerts, but I’m going to discuss the entire plot in this post, so beware.

I’m fairly certain I’m not the only person out there who has never watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), but everyone in the world knows about that famous shower scene. I’ve seen it parodied countless times, most notably in National Lampoon’s Vacation when Clark scares Ellen with a banana whilst she’s showering. In fact, if you check out the references section on IMDB, it has over 1,000! That’s pretty impressive.

So the funny thing is, despite this movie being 56 years old, I actually didn’t have a clue what it was about! All I really knew was that it ended with our heroine being tragically murdered whilst having a shower. Turns out, I was even wrong about that.

Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is fed up with her life. She has to meet her partner in secret, and they aren’t able to get married because he’s had to give up his money in alimony. When tasked at work to deliver $40,000 in cash to the bank, Marion uses the opportunity to run away and start a new life. When the weather takes a turn for the worse, she is forced to spend the night at Bates Motel, a deserted little place ran by an oddball by the name Norman (Anthony Perkins) who is dominated by his mother.

I can count the number of black and white movies I’ve seen on one hand, they’ve never really had much appeal to me. That said, I’ve enjoyed every one I have seen! I think what makes them great is that there’s no glitz and glamour to distract me, the focus is on storytelling, and the storytelling in Psycho is spot on. The first half an hour or so is dedicated to building up Marion’s character, showing us why she’s taking such drastic measures. It also builds up suspense in a very successful way, when Marion is stopped by the police and the whole ordeal at the car garage, I was on the edge of my seat.

Shock number 1 for me was when that pivotal scene happened only half way through the movie. Shock number 2 was that it was Norman’s mother that did the deed, rather than Norman himself. I’d always thought it was him! The scene was still difficult to watch, despite knowing what was coming. I can’t imagine the reaction when it was first released. If only time travel were real!

The second half of the movie turns into a crime solving story, as more clues are thrown out, and more questions raised about Norman and his mother. The moment when it’s revealed that Norman’s mother had been dead for 10 years gave me goosebumps. But who was it in the window upstairs?! The final scenes got too suspenseful for me, I hid behind my blanket, poking my head out every now and again, but what an ending! 

This movie is a huge two finger salute to the trailers of these days that give the entire story away. Almost the whole of Psycho was a complete surprise to me, despite it being one of the most famous movies of all time. Not my genre at all, but a bloody fantastic watch. Is the Bates Motel show worth a watch? I’m tempted.

Review: 12 Angry Men (1957)

Sometimes, I have no many movies in my mind that I want to watch all at once that I can’t decide on just one. Time is so short! One particular night, I wanted to watch something I could guarantee would be good, and so that’s when I turn to IMDB’s Top 250 list. Within moments I spotted a movie that I had read about that very day on Darren’s blog, Movie Reviews 101, and so, deciding fate led me there, I sat and watched 12 Angry Men (1957).

12 Angry Man is a courtroom drama on a tiny scale. The movie begins with the 12 members of the jury leaving the courtroom to decide a young man’s fate, and from there, the whole movie is based on how these 12 men come to a unanimous decision. If found guilty, the man will be sentenced to death. At first vote, the jury stand 11-1 in favour of guilty, and so the man’s fate relies on Juror #8 (Henry Fonda) as he attempts to convince the rest of the group to change their minds.

I have to admit, I’m feeling like a bit of a sham of a movie blogger again. This marks my 3rd black and white movie ever, and despite reading the phrase ‘star-studded cast’ in descriptions about 12 Angry Men, the only name I recognise is Henry Fonda...sorry! Sign me up to some historical movie class, please, because I’m so out of my depth here. I didn’t let this affect my enjoyment of the movie, however. In fact, if anything I got to enjoy it without having any preconceptions about any of the actors!

I’ve had to sleep on my thoughts before writing a review, my head was so full of conflicting thoughts. This is so different to the types of movies I usually watch, and so it would be easy for me write this off. I don’t know what I was expecting in all honesty, and I initially felt disappointed that there wasn’t a more conclusive ending. But then I realised, that’s the whole point, and in fact, that’s what makes 12 Angry Men so interesting!

The performances by everyone were so great. Their heated debates were intimidating to watch, and the moment that Juror #8 and Juror #4 (was it 4? Sorry if that’s wrong) nearly fought over a fact before Juror #4 uttered that specific phrase was probably my favourite moment in the entire movie. 

It’s quite amazing how such a simple story can hook you in. As these 12 men debated the facts presented and started picking apart each detail, I found myself switching sides constantly. In fact, one of the things I found most interesting is that message boards online even now are still debating the case! 

I’d really love to know what everyone else thinks. Guilty or not guilty? I’m still on the fence, leaning towards not guilty.

Blind Spot Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

I’m back! I missed last month’s Blind Spot due to a wedding-related meltdown, but then the beauty of sharing this blog means that Jenna reviewed Terminator 2 still. I did watch about half an hour of it, but certainly not enough to comment! We’re back as a pair this month to review a movie we both loved, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).  I had this downloaded on my iPad and spent an evening watching it while on holiday abroad, I should have been out partying but I got so into it, I had to stay in and finish it!

Despite it being one of my choices for the year, I actually had no idea what it was about, I’d just heard the title so many times, it sort of stuck with me. In fact I was on the verge of dragging my heels about watching it, until Jenna told me what it was all about and I literally watched it the very next day. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) pleads insanity after getting into trouble with the law to avoid prison, and is sent to a ward for the mentally unstable. Whilst there, McMurphy meets a variety of patients, each with their own stories, and rallies them together to stand up and rebel against Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher).

I think the reason I loved this movie so much was the characters. There are so many of them, and yet the movie explores each one perfectly. We find out what their story is, what their quirks are, we witness their highs and their lows, and we just can’t help but root for them. Chief (Will Sampson) in particular was one of my favourites, I thought the basketball scene was brilliant.  There wasn't a single character I didn't love (Nurse Ratched excluded) even the scary guy from Ghost was loveable.  Mostly though it was all bout McMurphy, what a character, he couldn't have been played better by anyone, Jack Nicholson was so perfect. Nurse Ratched was eerily creepy all the way through and bloody terrifying at the end.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is such a feel-good movie. It’s also hilarious for all the right reasons. I think when mental illnesses are portrayed in movies, it’s too easy to fall into the ‘depressing’ category or ‘mocking’ in its humour, and this isn’t like that at all. My favourite scene is early on when the gang are playing cards and betting with cigarettes, and Martini (Danny DeVito) tries breaking cigarettes in half to ‘bet a dime’. It doesn’t sound funny in written words, but I was crying whilst watching it!  I laughed out loud countless times and I found myself smiling all the way through, up until the end of course.  The same as Allie the basketball scene was the one of the bestscenes but for me it was all about the ending with McMurphy and Chief, my heart absolutely broke and it stuck with me for days afterwards.

It’s so easy to see Nurse Ratched as a simple villain, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her at the same time. I mean, she was looking after that peaceful ward for goodness knows how long, and literally the moment McMurphy shows up, it all goes to hell. I actually felt a bit sorry for her until the last 20 minutes or so, when she showed her true colours. Ugh, just thinking about the ending leaves me feeling cold.

With a runtime of over 2 hours, this was just a bit too long for my poor attention span, but it felt too short at the same time. Poor movie, right? Just can’t win with me! What I think I mean though is that I’d love for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to be a TV Show, similar to Orange is the New Black, just to spend more time with each of those characters. That would be awesome, right?! I would only want a TV show if it was the same actors, if they tried to reboot it I would just be pissed!!  This felt to me like the shortest movie in the world, I just wanted it to go on and on and learn more about the characters and what happened to them after the movie ended.

I’m so glad I watched this. I’ll happily see it again.  Loved loved loved, it have already watched it again and it will have a permanent place on my re-watch list!!

Blind Spot Review: Rocky (1976)

Ah, it feels good to be back on the Blind Spot wagon! Earlier this month, Jenna and I watched Creed, and although we really enjoyed it, we both agreed we’d have probably found it better if we had any knowledge of the Rocky movies. So that’s how the original ended up on our Blind Spot list! If you fancy reading an abysmal attempt at us both trying to understand how boxing even works, check out our review of Creed here.

Rocky (1976) is the story of Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), a struggling boxer who works as a debt collector by day. When the undefeated heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) looks to set up an exhibition match to give a newcomer a chance at fighting him, Rocky, the Italian Stallion is chosen, and thus begins Rocky’s training and the wedding march ;-)

I’m just going to go straight out and say it. I wasn’t expecting to love this movie. I wanted to watch it, don’t get me wrong, especially after watching Creed, but all I was hoping to gain from it was an understanding of the story. I was engrossed from the first few minutes, and was kind of gutted when it ended, which is unusual for me, 2 hours is normally the point that I start to give up.

Rocky is such a loveable character! This is a guy who goes from using intimidation tactics to collect debts to dropping by a pet store just for the chance to spend a few minutes with the girl who’s captured his heart. What a guy!  I didn't expect Rocky to be the character he was, i expected this big ol' hardman that never lets up so to see him fall in love and be all romantic was a pleasant surprise.

Watching Rocky and Adrian’s (Talia Shire) relationship grow was definitely a highlight for me. It reminded me so much of Adonis and Bianca's relationship in Creed, they've obviously really taken note from Rocky when making Creed.  A completely clueless Rocky asking Adrian’s brother what she liked to do, and then spending $10 for just 10 minutes on the ice rink with her just melted my heart. I even spotted the line ‘Why do I fight? Because I can’t sing and dance…’ which was on Adonis’ shirt in Creed! Mega proud of myself there.  

Like Allie, I didn't think I would be bothered by this movie but I really did love it.  I got very excited when I saw the 'Rocky' steps and even sent a photo to Allie.  In all honesty, I thought it would have ruined this film watching Creed first it had the same impact as if i had watched them the right way round.  I got so excited when I saw places in this that had been featured in Creed like Mighty Micks Gym.  I much prefer Stallone back in the day when I can understand what the heck he is saying and really loved the build up to the fight, I was adamant I knew what the outcome would be....I was wrong!

Then of course we had the famous music startup (which Jenna swears sounds like the wedding march, still does!) followed by Rocky running up the stairs which was nothing short of awesome. I can really see now why this is such an iconic movie! I was told it would really gear me up for going to the gym but I was in my pajamas finishing off a tub of chocolates from Christmas at the time so I can’t really comment on that.  I have been tempted to go to the gym of late, I didn't go after this however, I sat and ate a monster roast dinner! oops!

And then of course we had the final fight. Some of the tension was taken away from me because I knew the outcome, but when you watch a movie 40 years after it was released, I think you lose the right to scream ‘spoiler alert’ at someone!  Can you believe I didn't know how it ended, the movie has been out since before I was born and I have never heard a spoiler?!

I’m torn now between saving Rocky II for next year’s Blind Spot or just watching it next weekend…!  

Great start to the Blind Spot challenge, here's hoping the other 11 are as good!

Review: Her (2013)

I think I owe this movie a public apology. Her’s release was pre-blog for me, at a time when I was ignorant towards anything attached to the Academy Awards. Naive me thought Oscar winners were nothing more than boring, serious movies loved by boffin-critics. Now of course I know much better! How bad is it that I watched this and completely forgot about it?!

Her was another recommendation from my Grampy, and before he told me a little about the plot I actually knew nothing about it. I could picture the poster as clear as day, and I don’t know what my mind had assumed it was about, but it wasn’t this!

In the near distant future, when we no longer have to read our own emails or write our loved ones letters, lonely Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is struggling to deal with his recent divorce. When he sees an advert for a new operating system, OS1, he buys it and installs it immediately. This new OS has an exceptional AI and the voice Theodore speaks to calls herself Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). As Samantha learns more about Theodore and indeed herself, the two fall in love, but encounter difficulties when trying to define what their relationship actually is.

Even knowing that this is a work of fiction, it’s still quite harrowing to think that this is where technology is leading us. Actual human contact is becoming less and less necessary, and it’s not difficult to imagine a world whereby we walk alone, but talk constantly to our devices in our pockets.  

Despite knowing the name, Her is the first movie I’ve seen with Joaquin Phoenix (gasp!). I’m not actress myself of course but I can only imagine how hard it must be to act out a script when most of the conversations you have are with a device in your ear. That said, I thought he was amazing, and I’d love to see more of his work. Can anyone recommend me anything? Gladiator? Walk the Line? Signs? The Village?  To name but a few ;-)

The supporting cast were just as delightful, from the instantly recognisable and lovable Chris Pratt to the nearly completely unrecognisable Amy Adams. Honestly, I did a double and triple take before I realised it was her. She is absolutely beautiful!

I thought the cast, particularly Johannson and Phoenix, were amazing playing the key parts of their roles in near isolation and yet they express their emotions perfectly!

Her was such an emotional rollercoaster for me. It was at times heartwarming and yet heartbreaking. It was also hilarious in parts, especially if your reaction to anything sexual is to giggle and look away, like I do. My fiance looked a bit panicked during some scenes as at the time I was watching, he had an active headset on his PS4, and had to explain to his friends what they were hearing through the mic. I was banished upstairs after that!

I found this film so bizarre to watch, its completely advanced of our technology, in a world where relationships with AI's is relatively normal.  However, it felt like a normal love story, Scarlett Johannson did such an amazing job using only her voice that you could actually understand how they could be in love.  It's scary to see how this scenario can seem so normal and yet the world its set in seem so obscure.  The technology is more advanced than our world but the fashions and people seem to have drifted back to the 80's.

I made myself laugh last night when I thought hey, could Her be the sequel to Lucy? What an awesome fan theory!!

Review: WALL·E (2008)

Despite my undying love for animated films, every now and again, one slips through the net and it takes me ages to get round to watching it. It was just last year that I watched Up (2009) for the first time, which is bad enough, but one film I’ve been putting off for far too long is WALL·E. It seems to have cropped up again in the blogging community thanks to some blogathons, and that gave me the final push I needed.

The film is set in a waste-filled future, where the situation became so dire that mankind has fled the planet on a giant cruise-ship, whilst waste collecting robots clean the planet up. Hundreds of years later, the plan seems to have failed as one little robot and his cockroach friend seem to be the only ones left on Earth, until one day a ship drops off a robot named EVE to scan the planet for signs of life.

That little plot summary is something I wrote after watching the film; I watched it the other night without reminding myself what it was actually about. The first 20 minutes or so really took me by surprise as it introduced this almost post-apocalyptic scene, and I began to wonder whether this was really meant to be a family film after all. The scene where we are introduced to WALL·E’s little bunker really tugged on my heart strings. I saw this one later than I normally would, I didn't see it at the cinema and felt no urge to watch it for ages, but when I finally did and this little chap popped up on screen there was just too many feels!

Once EVE was introduced and the location of the film changed, we were back into family-friendly territory once again. The shift wasn’t subtle, and honestly I wished we could have been on earth longer, but the second half of the film was at least more of what I was expecting. The concept of these fat, immobile humans was humorous, but a little chilling at the same time. It’s certainly not a future that could be impossible in the real world. Yet another film that poses an actual possibility for future generations, terrifying!

Back to a lighter topic though, I really did enjoy WALL·E. The love story was beautiful and surprisingly emotional, and every time WALL·E pronounced EVE’s name wrong it brought a silly smile to my face. I was also super happy to spot the Pizza Planet truck without having to look it up afterwards, I love things like that. Ohh where was it in this? I can't remember if I found it or not it's been that long since I've seen it! It was really early on when Eve was first scanning Earth for live, the truck was one of the things she scanned :D

WALL.E really showcases what I love about Disney/Pixar films, they don't treat children like idiots.  They know that children of any age deal with situations like loss and love and also deal with the emotions that are tangled within these situations.  These types of movies bring those emotions to the surface and I think highlight to children (and adults alike) that emotions are normal and the world isn't all sweetness and light fairy tales like classic Disney movies (although I do still love those!).  On top of that there is some great animation work here and the background is so detailed, I loved looking around WALL.E's bunker trying to spot things he had collected.

All in all, this was a truly enjoyable film, and I’m still kicking myself for taking so long to watch it. I’m not sure it beats some of my favourites like Toy Story and Finding Nemo, but it’s definitely up there with the greats.  I don't know about but the look of the film from the outside didn't appeal to me, it was only when I watched it that I loved it.  Another case of not judging a book by it's cover....

 

Blind Spot: The Terminator (1984)

It’s been a strange and busy old month this month, what with Jenna’s new house and my family members seemingly dropping like flies, and I’m surprised we’ve managed to get together, but we did it! This might also be the second most fun I’ve ever had watching a movie with Jenna. I was about to say the absolute most fun, but then I remembered Sharknado.  Nothing will ever beat Sharknado but this did come pretty close, especially with the exceptional CGI work! I think we’re both a little embarrassed to have never seen our pick this month, but hey, better late than never! 

We were planning on watching Platoon for this month’s Blind Spot, but time and tiredness wouldn’t allow for it, and with Terminator Genisys out next month, it seemed like a suitable swap around.

If you didn’t know already, or had simply forgotten, The Terminator has been sent back in time to 1984 with one mission, to murder Sarah Connor, who, in the future, will give birth to John Connor, who in the future leads a war against machines and computers. Future John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect Sarah...and now my head hurts. Did I get that right? Yep I think that's right...ish!

A fly on the wall would have had a great time whilst we were watching this.

‘Oh, he’s naked!’

‘Umm...he’s very much naked, oh my’

‘Where’d that other naked guy come from?!’

We also had a funny discussion over the plot twist (spoiler alert, obviously) which we had worked out fairly early on, which went something like this…

Jenna: Oh, what if Reese is actually Connor’s Father? Wait, how would that even work…

Allie: No, no, what if he was actually John Connor’s Father!

Jenna: ...That’s what I just said.

Allie: I thought you meant Sarah Connor’s Father!

Jenna: How would that make sense?!
This conversation was too funny and also spanned about 40 minutes - i.e. it took Allie a further 30 or so minutes to come up with the same theory as me but without realising I had already stated the same theory 30 minutes earlier! 30 minutes!! It was 10!

Sometimes I worry for us...but we do have fun when we watch movies together! Onto something more constructive though, I really did  enjoy watching The Terminator. I kind of wish I had done so years ago when I could appreciate the special effects, because watching them know was laughable. Some of the stop motion effects were really dodgy, but that’s just down to the time this was made. I’m sure we’ll all be poking fun at our recent special effects in years to come.  We shouldn't have found it funny because as Allie said it would have been great when it was realised THIRTY years ago, but it was a great giggle comparing the work to an episode of Thunderbirds and watching the scenes quite obviously change from prosthetic faces to real faces, real filming to stop motion!!

In fairness, looking past the graphics and CGI (or lack of it) this is a great Sci-fi movie, the concept is bloody brilliant (if you don't get tied up in time travel paradoxes as I did a couple of times while watching).  Its terrifying to think that in the future machines could take over the world.  Did anyone else think that the writers of Avengers: Age of Ultron may have taken some influence from Terminator?!  There seemed to be a lot of similarities in both the storylines and the robots.

This is a really hard one to score. If I put on a professional blogger hat and analysed the effects, cheesy dialogue, etc, then this would have a lower score, but we’ve always scored films on our enjoyment more than anything else!  As much as I took the piss out of the dialogue and the graphics I do have to account for when the film was released and the awesomeness of the story...

  

Blind Spot: My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

This month brings something a little different to the blog. Even as the grown ups we are, we both still enjoy animated films and review them frequently on Flick Chicks, but this is the first time we’ve reviewed an anime film! I was a huge anime fan in my teens (Bleach and Dragonball Z were my favourites) and although I saw Spirited Away years ago, I hadn’t ever watched My Neighbor Totoro.  I however, am a newbie, this is my first anime experience so bear with me ;-)

My Neighbor Totoro is a magical children’s film following the story of two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, who have recently moved house with their Father to be closer to their Mother who is currently ill in hospital. From the first few minutes, the girls discover magical ‘soot sprites’ living in the house, and whilst adventuring, they also come across another magical being, Totoro himself.

What exactly is Totoro? I had him down as a cross between an owl and a bear before watching the film, and then Jenna pointed out he has several rabbit features too. I didn’t expect him to be so loud! He’s still very cute, stood in the rain with his umbrella. Admittedly, it was seeing Totoro’s cheesy grin and his soft belly in every geeky shop I’ve ever been in that made me want to watch the film itself, and I definitely want my own one now! I also want a cat bus, cat bus looked so comfy!  He looked so cute and you expected him to have the sweet soft voice and this great roar pours out of him and suddenly you realise, maybe anime isn't just your everyday kids cartoon! Cat bus scared me, I'm not going to lie, I don't like animals at the best of times and this is a GIANT CAT!!  Nope nope nope!!

I think sometimes it’s too easily to be really critical when reviewing a film like this. It needs to be enjoyed for what it is. One could complain about a slow start, a lack of ‘a moral to be learnt’ which most children’s films have, but to just sit back and take in the story, it’s beautiful. It’s all about family, and friendships, and believing in magic.

Anyone can say there no lessons to be learnt but after stewing on it overnight it really hit home for me.  These children and in the middle of dealing with the possibility of losing their mother.  There lives could be downtrodden and miserable and they could spend day after day crying and missing out on so much of their childhood but no.  Their Father (although works a lot) spends his time with his children, making them laugh and telling them magical stories that their imaginations bring to life in the Totoro, Soot Sprites and the cat bus.  There coping mechanism for this very scary and real situation is to be children and jump in puddles, get dirty and imagine a magical world where they can forget the 'grown up stuff' for a while.  My Mother was ill for most of my childhood but it was never sad, I never even realised what was happening, my childhood was filled with laughter, parties, mud pies, cake making, singing, shopping trips, face paints, dancing, Happy Meals, play houses and tooth fairies. 

Maybe there is a lesson here but for the grown ups rather than the kids :-)

We watched the English dubbed version with the Dakota twins providing voices for Satsuki and Mei, as we were both too tired for subtitles, but I’d like to watch this again sometime soon as it’s meant to be viewed, just for the experience.  Apparently, after reading the trivia for this there are a few differences between the original Japanese version and the English dubbed version, mostly due to language changes.

All in all, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, and my appreciation grew for it overnight. Definitely a film I’ll see again soon, and a film I’ll keep back for any future children I may have. Now I’m tempted to see another film by Studio Ghibli...does anyone have any recommendations?

 

Review: Taxi Driver (1976)

So the Blind Spot challenge has been a bit hit and miss for me, time constraints meant I missed the first two movies but I'm trying to keep up now.  Therefore, two weeks ago we arranged the movie night to watch our April movie - Taxi Driver.  As an contender for the Oscars Best Picture, I assumed it would be amazing.

The Blind Spot Series is proving to be a great way for Jenna and I to keep putting film nights in the diaries! This month we’re trying to be healthy so whilst Jenna cooked enough stir-fry to feed a wedding party (thanks for the extra lunch by the way!) I picked up some Weight Watchers dessert and headed to hers, armed with Taxi Driver on DVD. It proudly boasted its new ‘Wide Screen Presentation’, oh boy…

An unstable war veteran, Travis (Robert DeNiro) finds a job as a night time New York taxi driver to kill time after developing insomnia.  His obsession with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) and his determination to save pre-adolescent prostitute, Iris (Jodie Foster) lead him down a dark and dangerous path.

It was so strange to see Robert DeNiro in this! I've never seen any of his older films so I had to keep reminding myself it was even him.

I feel like is should love this movie because it is so highly praised by so many people.  I have read countless reviews from both professional critics and the bloggerverse and I just don't understand it.  I just found it a bit boring, it was a interesting subject and a creative take on the effects insomnia can have on a person but it felt like it dragged. 

All the synopsis's I have found for this, imply that him being psychotic and his obsessions lead him to extreme violence, however this seems to take forever to get to and feels dragged at the beginning and the middle.  Now I know this won't be a popular opinion so please be kind :-/ but I just didn't enjoy it.  Once it gets to the latter part of the film, it starts to get interesting and I love the shoot out scenes and the hospital scene near the end.

After Pulp Fiction last month, I wanted to mull over this film for a while before I really made a verdict on it. Taxi Driver to me was like the 70's answer to Drive (although I realise that should actually be the other way round) and it took me several viewings to really appreciate Drive for what it was. I hated it the first time round. I wouldn't say I hated Taxi Driver at all, it was an interesting character story and I was never bored, but I wasn't thrilled either.

Maybe, I need to watch it again to get a better feel for the making of the film now that I know what to expect.  The actors were all great, without a doubt, one of the highlights being Harvey Keitel but I don't feel like there was much of a story to it.  The shooting, I guess was great when it was made in the 70's but now comes across a little bit cheesy to me.

I think I need a second viewing, too! Although it's going to take a serious amount of willpower to get round it it...

I hope I don't get too much of a battering for this but that's the point of reviews I guess, multiple opinions :-)

After 3 cracking Blind Spot films, maybe it was about time we had one I didn't love so much.