#2: Films I've Watched recently

Apologies in advance for the grammar errors.

Its rather difficult to know where to start since I've watched quite alot of stuff over the past couple of months. I think I'll start in my summer holiday in America as that is the most logical starting point. I didn't watch that much stuff during this time as I had a very busy holiday. My holiday was abroad so most of these films where watched on flights.

The first film I watched was James Cameron's The Terminator which is a film which I hadn't watched before. I'm not really one for action movies and I came into with probably a bit of snobbery. This is probably going to sound silly but it was a lot better than I had anticipated. As someone who has not been that big of a fan of camerons recent films I now see the appeal of his films. I kinda wish that he would make more low budget stuff now instead of making Avatar 8: The Way of the Smurf.

After Terminator I watched Love Lies Bleeding and Moonlight. I'm not going to talk about these films as it would take too long and my memory is a bit fuzzy.

As we where in Los Angeles at the time we got to bask in all the hollywood goodness. The one of the biggest highlughts of the whole holiday was to watch Singing in the Rain in the Hollywood Superbowl. I studied the film back when I did film studies and my appreciation for the film has evidently grown over time. Thats not to say I ever thought it was a bad film, rather that is one of those films that grows on you on repeat viewing. I'm not a particularly emotional person when it comes to film viewings but the ending is probably one of the few films that has been the closest to making me tear up. It also benefited from having watched the Hollywood series by Kevin brownlow earlier this era which meant that I was more much more knowledgeable about the era. Silent cinema is one of my favourite eras and is something that I have had an immense satisfaction in exploring so this film almost feels like it was made for me.

After watchig the singing in the rain I also had the opportunity to watch a special screening of the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood. Whilst I didn't enjoy this film as much as the other films I watched I did appreciate it. It felt like the most definitive adaption of the tale. One of the most defining things about the story is the colour. You can not imagine Robin Hood without his green hat and the innovation of technicolour was something that greatly benefited the story. It is though a rather boring adaption as the characters are very one note. The Disney animated film in my opinion is much superior. It was rather awkward when poeple started discussing the film after it finsished with high praise. It seems my opinion was not a particularly common one. It was also rather awkward when the host, a film critic, alluded to and then instanly side stepped the allegations against the films star Errol Flynn.

The film I watched after this was Robot Dreams. I won't dwell on this too much so all I'll say is that Robot Dreams is as good as everyone is saying. I also got to see Glauber Rocha's Entranced Earth. This was also rather awkward as I am half Brazillian and I am aware of Rocha's reputation but I do have completely forgotten how to speak portuguese so I had to rely on the subtitles. This is pretty normal but the it is an incredibly wordy film with fast dialogue so I had no idea what was going on.

On one the days we where completely free so we spent the whole day at the cinema. We managed to watch two film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Blink twice. Because of my snobbery my expectations where relatively low for Beetlejuice 2 but I was unsuprisingly pleasently suprised. I don't think though this film marks a dawn of new golden age of Tim Burton films as I've seen some poeple suggest, I just think he now has a good team surrounding him. Blink Twice though was much less enjoyable. It's a difficult film to criticise because of its extreme and shocking content means that my response to it is purely emotional rather than critical. It's probably the film where I've had the most viceral reaction towards. I came out of the cinema shaking and spent the rest of the day in shock.

These where the last films we watched in the holidays. It was now the start of my second year at University. During this time I decided to go through my unwatched DVDs. I have a rigid schedule which means that my time for watching movies is limited. Neverless I have been able to watch quite a substanial amount of films.

The first film that I watched was Jan Svankmajer's Alice. I was midly dissapointed by this but only because it is one of those films that you expect to become your favourite film ever and it didn't end up being that. I still very much enjoyed the film.

At this point I will have to skip large swathes of films since I watched a bunch of short films. The first short film I watched was Guy Maddins Night Mayor. I don't think I really got it but I think this may be due to this being my first Maddin film. I plan on watching My Winnipeg which is probably a much better starting point. Short films always tend to be more essoteric.

I managed catch the Shaun of the Dead re-release. It is one of those films where there you feel so lost for words since everything that is to say about Shaun of the Dead has already been said. Brilliant and funny movie.

I watched Be Natural, the documentary about the great filmmaker Alice Guy Blache. As someone who loves the really early years of cinema this film was like catnip. Wonderfully informative and educational! A great film to show to poeple who are unfamilliar with this period of time. It did though feel like the film was comprimised by it's more commercial obligations. The film should have spent more time with the inteviews of Agnes Varda and Kevin Brownlow instead of the producer of the Transformers franchise.

I then decided to go through the pathe stencil fairy tale silent films collection dvd that I have. My favourites of these where the Fairy of Spring and Sleeping Beauty. The Fairy of Spring is simply just a beautiful film that masterfully tells a wonderfully fantastic story in 5 minutes. Sleeping Beauty I love because it may, even if this was not the intention of the filmmakers, be a lesbian very of the iconic fairy tale. This is because the prince is quite obviously played by a woman though there could be an argument that this is irrelevant if you apply pantomine logic but thats no fun.

I also rewatched Aardmans sweet disaster babylon. One of my favourite Aardman films. Wonderfully morbid and atmospheric. Has probably one of the least subtle political allegories in the history of cinema.

After that I watched Buster Keaton's Seven Chances. Just a brilliant comedy!

This blog post is taking much longer than I would've have hoped so I'm going to speedrun through some films.

I watched all of Jan Svankmajers short films. My favourite was Virile Games. I also watched the Pengiun and House. House was Wild, delirious and confusing. By far the most fun I've had watching a movie in ages! The reason why I watched so much short films is because I don't have enough time to watch a whole feature film after dinner which is when I have the most free time. The last couple of short films I watched before I got bored of them was from Rene Laloux. There a point when your scowering through the special features sections to watch that you start to feel silly. I decided to watch some Laurel and Hardy and some italian neorealsim. When watching Laurel and Hardy I was reminded that they are some of the most overated film comedians. Not bad just boring. Weird comparision to make but they are kind of the adam sandler of there day. My favourite Laurel and Hardy film I watched was Below Zero. The Italian Neorealist films where much more enjoyable (if you can say such a thing about some of the bleakest films in cinematic history). It's difficult to pick a favourite but my favourite of Fellini is probably Nights of Cabiria. My favourite of Rosselini was Journey to Italy. The only neorealist film I have seen not directed by them was bycicle thieves which is definitely one of my all time favourite films. I have now watched almost all the Italian neorealist films I can access. The only one I haven't seen is Paisan because for some reason BFI Player doesn't have english subtitles for that.

There is not much to write after this. The most recent films I've watched is the short films of Mathew Rankins as I am eaglery anticipating his film Universal Language. It is currently christmas time so I plan on watching some christmas films. I might watch Box of Delights. I also plan on watching The Snow Queen and Queen Christina.

Again apologies for the messy writing. In future I will be more organised but because of the timeline of events I don't think I could have used the quickfire reviews structure which I intend to use in future. I am quite busy at the moment so I don't intend on fixing all the grammatical errors which I'm sure are rampant. In future I will probably be more displined in this area.