Finding Nemo... Overrated much?

Not to be a bummer or anything, or a killjoy for that matter, but if you're one of those people who 'absolutely adore or think it's one of the best animated films ever' please, don't get offended. It's just my opinion. There's no space for judging here lol.

The issue of people believing that Finding Nemo is one of the best Pixar animated films ever to grace our screens, I struggle to agree with. I often see on twitter people writing "Finding Nemo- best film hands down!", and I'm like 'Really though?'. If you love animated films as much as I do, for a fact FN is not the best. It's good, but there is so much better; it doesn't even come in my top ten it's that serious.

It becomes one of those situations where you have to pretend to agree just for the sake of there not being a full blown slanging match with other people, that sometimes, I'm just not mentally prepared for. Don't get me wrong, FN is a good film, but it just doesn't challenge or spark any sort of emotion or reaction (whether its laughter or tears) from me unlike some of the others. 

For example take Up, (one of my favourite Pixar films to date, hence I may be significantly biased) a film suitable for all ages, stimulating the minds of not only young children but also us adults. Within the FIRST TEN MINUTES, I CRIED. Tears. Like real teals fell down my face. I tried to resist, but it was near impossible; it was just something that couldn't be helped. Watching the whole of FN, not once did it ever come close to getting any sort of emotion out of me. I may have gone 'Aw' in my head when Nemo was reunited with his dad, but that is it. 

Take any of the Toy Story's. Toy Story 2 when Jesse was singing that 'When She Loved Me' tune pulled vigorously on my heart strings, even though I hate to admit that. Toy Story 3 when I thought they were going to die, my god. Even at the end when Andy was giving them away I balled like a five year old. 

Monsters Inc... Don't even, you know the scene.

Wall-E: that film made me appreciate the beauty of depicting a story without using much dialogue, but emotions and feelings instead. 

Andddd I could continue forever.

Probably sound like the Grinch or something equivalent, but this is something that I really needed to get of my chest. 

I feel I have to say that I am not an emotional person, but animated films just make me feel careless and naive about the world for an hour or so. So does Harry Potter but THAT is another post for another day.

I Haven't Disappeared. You'll never get rid of me.

Oh my gaddddddd,,

It seems like FOREVERRR. I haven't written a post on here for what seems like years. I have a reason, it's a good one.

I have SOO much work to do! A levels are actually taking over my life. Uni. UCAS. Finance. Uni. Alevels. Exams. Uni. Accomodation. Finance. Uni. Rest of your life. Exams. Alevels... It just goes round in a vicious circle it's unbelievable. 

So that is why I have literally had NIL time to post anything on here recently. I haven't given up on my love of writing. No. Never. It's just that some things are more of a priority, i.e. the rest of life and failing exams not being a part of that :)

BUTTT...

I am going to be doing a couple of posts, hopefully in depth ones, on some of the amazing films coming out this summer. I've already watched Iron Man 3.... OH MA GADDD :O (If you haven't already, I truly recommend). I have to see that again though, as my excitement made me overlook the deeper meaning of the film. Plus the D Box seats I was in. 

But on the cards are;

The Great Gatsby- by my main man Baz (I love this guy). His artistic eye for detail makes me want to paint pictures.

Superman.- Hehe, Nolan returns (pew).

Star Trek Into Darkness- Chris Pine returns. And Sherlock Holmes. But he's a bad guy. We think.

Despicable Me 2- The minions return, as does my childhood.

And many more to look forward too...

I promise to write about all these films. like for real. My summer is going to be a long one, and I need to get back into the groove of things again, and get loads of stuff done and accomplished before I go to Uni!

A Present Doesn't Get Awesomer Than This.

Today my friend Kerrie gave me my birthday present. She had to have it shipped from America, so it took a bit longer. But it was SO WORTH THE WAIT OMGOSH. The reason I'm posting it on here is because its film related and its from one of my all time favourite films of ALL TIME (no worries I'll do a list of all those which fit the bill). But it's like a prized possession to me now and I love it.

HUG MEH IM A MUGGLE!!!

New Trailers Are Out & About

(Btw I don't know if this is of any interest to you, but I actually wrote this in Notes, on my iPod, on a 2 1/2 hour train journey from Bournemouth Uni; so I had endless amount of time lol).

It feels like yonks since I've written something on my blog that would be of any interest to anybody that happens to stumble upon it. I apologise I've just been soooo busy with A2 work, charity appeals in school etcetera etcetera. I'll definitely aim to do a couple during the Christmas period though; something has to be done on cheesy Christmas films at least. Ooo and on the Snowman and the Snowdog :O. It better live up to my expectations.

But I've just come to talk (more like scream of excitement) about some of the new trailers that have been released for films coming out in 2013. Mattteeeee, talk about getting the audience hypeddddddddd and excited. 

I'll begin with Iron Man 3. Yes metal man is back. Now the trailer oddly reminds me of The Dark Knight Rises trailer but I'm not actually sure why. Maybe it's because of the exploding planes and exploding buildings and slow motion clips that are in it. Or even the villain has a voice very similar, not the same, but VERRR similar to that of Bane. Or maybe I'm just still obsessed with TDKR I dunno. But h-anyways the trailer is really good. And explosive. There's so many enigma codes embedded in it that it makes it seem so much more 'darker'. It also being a 'sort- off follow up' from the Avengers just makes it seem that much better, which is always fun.

The trailer doesn't give THAT much away. I've read up on some stuff that would already be known if you read the comics, but I won't include it in this, as it may be spoilers for some people. What I gather from this, is that Tony seems to be at war with himself. He seems to be more obsessed than ever with the suits and maybe the fact is that he feels more comfortable when they are close by him (look at the scene when all the parts are by his bed). There seems to be a growth in the robots, some even looking 'bad' (sorry that was a poor choice of an adjective), and some even looking to operate by themselves without the need of someone to be in them (How?, how? how? Hmmm). The baddie in this is called the Mandarin and I therefore go no further. I don't wanna spoil it :). 

(I chuckle at the fact that this gets released in the UK (April 26th) before America (May 3rd). Ha. TDRK all over again).

Here's the trailer here if you haven't yet seen it:

Next up is Man of Steel. When I saw the FIRST trailer I nearly wet myself. I was in the cinema with my fab media teacher (she's awesome she loves films like me) on the very first day that Dark Knight Rises came out (coz you know we are die hard film fans) and the last trailer they showed before the film started was Man of Steel. But at this point I didn't know it was Superman. I recall my teacher going "Ooo what's this?", and you know we watched and watched until the end where the symbol (embed symbol) shows up. I was like :O. My teacher was like :OO. I was even more excited because Chrisptoher Nolan is the producer of it (If you didn't know already Christopher Nolan is in my top five directors/ producers of all time) and that just got me soooo geared up. The trailer is a good one; again with endless questions to be answered. 

 First of, I'm loving the soundtrack; very soothing yet with that 'mysterious' feel to it. I realised that it's the same one that they use in LODR (Lord Of The Rings). Anyway, you see 'Superman' by himself, left to his own devices, looking to be in search of finding out who he is as an individual. Then we later see him as a young boy making a cape for himself and we watch it blow in the wind a 'superhero' convention that we all know so well.
Then as you do, the trailer ends on a sort of 'Oh maa gaddd' moment where we see Superman in full acceleration to the sky.
This isn't the only teaser trailer that was released though; there was two, both the same, but narrated by different people. One by Russell Crowe who plays biological father Jor- El and Kevin Costner  who plays Jonathan Kent, Superman's adoptive father.

Here's the Russell Crowe version if you haven't already seen it:

To be perfectly honest, those are the two main ones I wanted to talk about. Because in 2013 when they come out, I'll be in the first batch of people eagerly sitting in the comfy cinema seats, with popcorn down my top and without any distractions from fellow companions that decide to tag along because I need to FOCUS (cue me trying to control the force and dodge bullets) on all the action that occurs. There's no room for chit chat lol. I have high expectations for Man of Steel as the previous Superman films have been, you know, ehhh.

Hope you enjoy what you read, much more to come!

Frankenstein + Something Weenie = Frankenweenie.

Today I went on an adventure. Into the crazyfied mind of Tim Burton, which I always love doing, because his work is amazing. Alice and Wonderland, Charlie and the Choco Factory, Nightmare Before Xmas, Edward Scissorhands etc etc.

Nothing that he does fails to interest me. He's crazy but he has his own style which I really like. 

But enough of that, the reason I'm writing about him is because I went to a Frankenweenie Exhibition at the BFI on London's Southbank to see how the film was made, story line of the film and I also got to see the actual puppets they used in the film. From what I learned, it took about two years to complete, since it's a stop motion animation it's bound to take donkey years to finish. I saw each of the characters puppets, demonstrations in how they moved and stuff like that. What amazed me was the scale of everything. They were quite big, but still quite small, Some of the props looked soooooo authentic it was unbelievable and the time it must have took to get little minute details must have been on another level.

We also had a talk with one of the animators, Mark Waring, who worked on Corpse Bride and Fantastic Mr Fox, who told us how he got to where he is, going through the process of animating the film etc etc. It would have been so beneficial for anyone who wanted to go into animation/ stop motion in the future. It just interesting to listen to. But anyway, I'll put some pictures below of some stuff I saw.

(Lol, me and my friend attempting a Weird Girl impression).

Got me some freebies as well. 

I got a Sparky mask, and a keepsake photograph of me and two other friends peering through a classroom window. Ooo, and we also grabbed a few free 3D glasses. Bargain hunting IS the way forward.

All, in all, it was a really good experience and I'm really glad I went. I'm kinda gutted that I didn't go to a lot of the other stuff during film week, as this was the last day the BFI had anything on. But next year I'm on it.

I might write a review on this as well, I wanna watch it in the half term now :D.

Edgar: "The dog is alivvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee".

Half Nelson

Since I am a proud member of my Film Club in my oh so amazing media techno college, every friday we watch films, think about them and widen our outside knowledge of the world ultimately.

Last week we watch a film called Half Nelson, which starred Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie and Shareeka Epps. I must say, I really enjoyed it. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but it was a good watch and Ryan Gosling played the part of a drug addict teacher very well.

Gosling plays the part of a young teacher who struggles himself with his own life. He's constantly dealing with a drug addiction problem, but he still manages to find some sort of energy to inspire them in anyway he can; often rejecting the actual school curriculum for his own approach to how they should be taught.

As Dan deals with his own problems, he is caught smoking crack in the girls toilets by Drey, played by Shareeka Epps, a shy girl he teaches and someone who he coaches on the girls basketball team. Drey's own life problems become evident later on in the story; he parents don't seem to be in a relationship, her mum works late hours and her brother is in prison. As a result of this a man named Frank, played by Anthony Mackie, seems to be the only one that shows that 'family- orientated' relationship with her.

The film ultimately deals with exploring the different kinds of loneliness that people seem to go through in their life. Whether as extreme as being a drug addict teacher, or being a somewhat neglected child left to your own devices, both issues are brought together with a solution attempted to be made. Drey tries to help Dan overcome his drug addiction, whereas Dan tries to help Drey from hanging around the wrong crowd that could eventually get her into serious trouble.

These two characters both play their part extremely well; they both have an unspoken bond which has a great impact in the film. the camera angles that are used also are very clever. In some ways you could say that how it's filmed is fairly unconventional, but the wide range of extreme close ups focusing on the emotions and 'jitteriness' of the camera, make it much more realistic.

Half nelson is a very honest film; it doesn't hold back on the problems that some people can go through. I would strongly recommend you to watch this, as it is something refreshing and different to watch allowing you to be more open about things. 

A nice quote I found that someone wrote about this film was that:
"These two people are better able to save each other, than to save themselves". I thought that summed up the film in a nice way.

Rating:
* * * * *

Allow Me To Re-Introduce Myself....

See what i did there with the Jay Z lyrics? Eh? Eh? (Wink wink nudge nudge).

I thought I should actually write a little about myself before I actually start fully posting anything. But I hate writing/ speaking about myself in any shape or form so I'm gonna keep this short and sweet.

Currently I am in my last year of 6th form college, and hopefully plan to go to my desired uni being Bournemouth. I wanna do Multimedia Journalism there, and their course looks amazing; I really do hope I get in. Fingers crossed.

But yeah, I wanna go into the whole journalism end of things, especially film journalism because I LOVE writing about films and characters, actors and actresses etc. I just enjoy airing my opinion, even if people don't see it, it's nice to just get it down somewhere.

So, this blog is just going to be me jib jabbing on about films that I have watched/ are watching, films that i watch in my film club in college, maybe stuff I hear in the film world about films I might comment on it and stuff, so yes please feel free to have a read, it would be much appreciated so yeah enjoy!!!

Happy reading!!! :D