Friday film club

I love watching films. It's one of my favourite hobbies. I like to really get into another world that's so different to my own. I like to feel the characters problems as if they are my own. Most of all though, I love seeing what a director can do with their set and actors. I love when a director has thought hard about where the camera should be to create the best possible meaning. I love the way a director decides what colour the tint should be to suit the mood. I love noticing imagery in the first few sequences that foreshadows the ending of the film. It's lucky I do film studies then isn't it? I've recently watched a few films that have really made an impact on me so I decided to do a blog post on it. 

Rear Window

This is the second Hitchcock film I have watched (first was Pyscho) and I absolutely loved it. It has everything: love, mystery, murder, 'at the edge of your seat' moments. It's one of the cleverest films I have ever seen. It's about a man who breaks his leg and is forced to stay in a wheel chair and ends up watching his neighbours...Then he discovers something about one of them that leads him to investigate more about it. Also, Grace Kelly is in it and, in my opinion, she is the most beautiful woman ever. Her dresses in it are the nicest dresses ever (you should now know my obsession with dresses). What's also different about it is that the we are always in the same place all the way through. It's as if we're like the man guy (James Stewart) trapped in a wheel chair. And while he looks at all his neighbours (the set is incredible) they're always doing something and I find it so fascinating watching the world go by but they have no idea. Just watch it alright?

Mulholland Drive

Okay, so more recently (actually today) I watched Blue Velvet and I did like it, however, my all time favourite David Lynch film has to be Mulholland Drive. It's one of the most surreal films I have ever and I just love surreal. The story has many different plot lines that interweave which is something that I love in a film but is normally found in tv. (Which is interesting as Lynch actually wanted it to be a tv programme.) The main storyline is about a young actress, Betty, moves to Hollywood and finds a woman who forgets her own name and her past and everything so Betty tries to help her. This doesn't sound very surreal but just you wait and see. Lynch always also seems to have a bit where someone mimes a song (it's normally a Roy Orbison song) and it's always so strange in the moment. I love the way Lynch makes everyday things seem really strange because I think I have the same sort of mind as Lynch...which makes me seem pretty weird...

The Descendants

This film I actually watched a while back but it has stuck with me for a long time. Wikipedia basically said it was about 'the struggles with unexpected occurrences in monotonous life', which is a pretty much perfect summary. When I was watching this I was going through the same kind of thing and it dealt with it perfectly. Just thinking about it makes me feel a bit happier about life even if it is about the end of it. George Clooney is perfect and so is Shailene Woodley (look out for her she's going to be HUGE). Just watch it if you're going through a tough time because it's a reminder that we all go through the same bad things and sometimes we even deal with it in the same way. 

Some of my other favourite films include:

• Midnight In Paris 
• Love Actually                                                            
• Bridget Jones' Diary
• Notting Hill
• The Notebook 
• Drive
• Anna Karenina

(I love romcoms and romantic films okay! No judging. Sometimes you just need a good cry or reassurance)

There will probably be more of these to come with what I've recently watched. Please tell me your favourite films and I'll check them out if I haven't already.

M.