Ètre et Avoir

This sweet and subtle documentary is sure to entertain - and perhaps deeply touch - anybody who cares about children. Which should be all of you.

Don't be put off by its French name; Ètre et avoir simply means To Be and to Have. Not having known that before now, I like it. It's a sweet little sentiment that matches the film perfectly.

If you ever have the opportunity to watch this documentary, absolutely give it ago - especially if you have kids, want kids, or care about children and education in the slightest. Probably the best way to go into it is completely oblivious, as I did, but it may suit you to know what it's about first. I'm about to tell you.

Man Of Aran

Nearing 80 years old, this documentary still holds great artistic merit, with the beauty and spectacle of the scenery coming through despite the aged film, along with its distinctive editing style.

If I have a regular reading audience (and my friends assure me that I do), this is not the sort of film they would want to see. This is the sort of film you only see if you have a serious interest in the scholarly appreciation of cinema; ie. Film students.

Since I am a film student, and I will be spending a huge chunk of my class time watching films - both obscure and immediate - I'm going to try change up my blog a little. I'm going to post about every film I watch in class. I'm going to reflect a little on what the film is and why it's significant, but I'll try to do so from the perspective of someone who likes movies... but not that much. I'm talking to you Facebook friends: I'll tell you whether or not you should see this movie. Starting with Man Of Aran.

No doubt you will not have heard of Man Of Aran before. That's ok we're in the same boat (Haha, in-joke. There's a boat in the film). It's a little over an hour long, and depicts a group of people who live on a barren spot of land off the west coast of Ireland. It was made in 1934, and is a work of fiction but functions as a documentary. The film features the titular man and his family living off the Aran sea, using pre-modern equipment and techniques to conduct simple tasks such as fishing, potato growing, boat-mending, shark hunting...

Fargo

The Coen Brothers knack for quirk and charm amidst heavy drama and viscious violence is extremely evident in this classic familiar-but-fresh crime thriller.

This will be the first of several catch-up posts that I put up over the next few weeks - including what looks to be a mega-epic post about batman - as well as many many short posts on films I watch in class. Time to knuckle down, I've got a lot of writing to do.

Fargo is a dark comedy/crime thriller about Jerry Lundegaard (William Macy), a used car salesman who has his wife kidnapped, in order that his father-in-law will pay a hefty ransom for her return. He plans to skim a chunk off the top to pay off his debts. What could possibly go wrong?

Basically, everything. Between Jerry and the two goons he hires, every stage of the plan is mucked up by poor judgement, bad timing, the intervention of others, or some other happenstance that leads to a string of murders, and a full-on police investigation into this web of incompetance and deceit.

Serenity

Awesome story, awesome characters, awesome world. This TV series was definitely worth resurrecting - go and watch it!

It's been a long time since my last post, and even longer since I posted about Firefly, but I've finally finished it. So here's a review of the movie that completed the story after the series was cancelled (for reasons I cannot fathom, since this show is so good!)

Basically this film plays out like a much longer episode of the show, which is both good and bad; on the downside the budget is still small by blockbuster standards, so while the effects are slicker and grander, they still feel a bit cheap and tv-ish. That's the worst of it though - all the best stuff from the show is all here; the dialogue is snappy, the characters are well defined and universally interesting, including all the new ones we're introduced to, even when they have precious few minutes of screen time. The universe this franchise inhabits is fantastically real-but-not, with a vibrance and believability overpowering any stretches of credibility.

Dear Esther

Poetry in video games? Yes please!

It's been well over a month but I'm finally dragging myself back to the writing chair. And I've really missed it, it's actually a really comfortable chair. With its high back, leather padded arm rests and smooth swivel... admittedly, it's the exact same chair on which I do everything else with my life, but it's nice to be back here for the sole purpose of writing a blog post. I'm sorry internet, I've let you down. I'm sure you're all very disappointed in me.

By coincidence, this is also the chair which I sit in to play video games. Which is what I'm writing about again today.

How about that.

This week, because it was on special on Steam, I played Dear Esther.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games is fairly complex for a teen fad series - with solid story, acting, action and characters - I look forward to seeing the next few!

All that build up and finally it's here. This is probably the darkest teen book-made-movie I've ever heard off - it puts all the most interesting elements of The Twilight Saga to shame - in just one film! I'll say right from the start that in light of other popular teenage franchises, the popularity of this series is a positive thing.

Prior to seeing this film, I had just an inkling of what it was about; A bunch of teenagers are forced to fight to the death in a reality tv show in the dystopian future. The hero was a girl. I wasn't that excited for a movie about this - it would probably end up as a dumbed-down, kiddie-friendly Battle Royale, right?

Well, honestly, I can't comment on the Battle Royale comparison, because I haven't seen that movie. Let's be clear though: Battle Royale is not a Japanese Hunger Games; the Hunger Games are are a Western Battle Royale. But dumb and kid-friendly the Hunger Games are not! Take the rating seriously on this one parents, there are some brutal things in this film that your child may not be ready to see. There are also some really smart things in this film.

Burnt By The Sun

In 1930s Russia, Kotov, a Colonel of the Russian Revolution is living it up with his beautiful wife and daughter, and their crazy family. But politics intrude, as the Great Purge slowly begins to intrude upon their happy life...

Set in the late 1930s, in the final few years before WWII, Burnt By The Sun follows a Colonel (Comdiv) of the Russian Revolution who falls victim to the 'Great Purge' - when Stalin had many of his former fellow revolutionaries executed without trial. A period characterised by paranoia, police surveillance, persecution and repression... Burnt By The Sun represents it as strangely peaceful.