Review IV - Clerks

Review IV
Clerks (1994)

I watched Clerks many months ago, re-watched it again a week ago, and again last night. It's definitely become one of my favourite movies. It was directed and written by Kevin Smith, and it stars Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson as two best friends who work at a convenience store and a video store respectively.

Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) works at a convenience store - but not today. Today he has planned to sleep in and play a hockey game. Unfortunately, he's called in to replace someone who's sick. He agrees with the promise that the boss will be in at twelve. Things go downhill from there. Randall Graves (Jeff Anderson) is constantly pestering Dante instead of working at the video store like he should, customers are constantly bothering both of them, Dante's girlfriend is revealing maybe a bit too much information about her past, Dante's ex-girlfriend is getting married, and a bunch of other funny situations ensue, including Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) hanging out in front of the stores.

Unlike Jane Eyre, Clerks has fabulous writing but not the best acting. I would say the school plays I have been in have matched acting skills as most of the acting in this film. It really depends on the scene, but sometimes, dialogue is just delivered with such lack of emotion, and it obviously shows it was scripted. Still, I don't find it a major complaint because the dialogue that is written is really good. The scenes that come up are hilarious and original, and the "philosophical" (I can't think of a better word) views on people is really top notch. If you have to deal with people for your work on a daily basis, you can relate to this film. If you enjoy a bit of dark humour, you'll most probably like this film. I can't emphasize enough how well this film is written. Just go watch it! I also would like to warn you that this film is in black and white. I never had a problem with black and white films since I watch older films that were only ever shot in black and white, but some people have a problem with it. Trust me when I say you won't be begging for colour in this film. It's not like it emphasizes on colour ever, and honestly, don't make a black and white film stop you watching it. Many, many good films are in black and white, and this is one of them.

This is an extremely short review, but I honestly don't have much else to say about it. I'd give the film eight stars on ten. Like I said, the acting is really not that good, but the writing is superb, and the acting is not the worst either. If you're looking to be entertained, check it out. I've also watched both the version with the lost scene (funeral scene, for those who are wondering) and without it, and I prefer the one with the lost scene. It just adds an extra part of hilarity.

Pirate Bay torrent (with the lost scene!)

Review III - Jane Eyre

Review III
Jane Eyre (2011)

I took a class about abusive women last term, and our only oral presentation was to present a piece of literature (a film, a song, a poem, or a novel) to the class and show scenes of abuse between women. My friend chose to do the novel Jane Eyre because he could not think of anything else to do it on. I thought the premise seemed interesting, so I read the novel. I really enjoyed it. We had spent the semester reading both Mansfield Park and Pride and Prejudice, two Jane Austen novels. If you are not familiar with Jane Austen, all you need to know is she lived between 1775 and 1817, in an era where women did not have the liberty to work or vote or be independent, so her novels focused on women having to get married, and obviously them being pressured to marry rich. However, I find her novels lack a lot of substance. Mansfield Park had the most bland characters imaginable, except for one character who was "evil". Pride and Prejudice did a lot better, but (spoiler) I found the fact that Darcy completely changes his character for Elizabeth a bit too unbelievable for my taste. He was an ass, and I know people - you can't just change yourself in one stroke. Sure, he could have improved, but love does not work like that. Still, at least Elizabeth could speak for herself in the novel, unlike Fanny in Mansfield Park. I can't blame Jane Austen for the story because this was how it was, but Charlotte Brontë went further in her novel - she was able to write about a more independent woman, and I enjoyed the character of Mr. Rochester. He was rich, but he was not the person everyone was after. He was not the most handsome, nor the most intelligent. He was cocky, arrogant - a typical Byronic hero. I finished the novel recently, and I decided to check out the 2011 adaptation of the novel directed by Cary Fukunaga and starring Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre and Michael Fassbender as Mr. Edward Rochester.

The plot of the film and novel revolves around Jane Eyre. She is an orphan who initially stays with her aunt after her blood-related uncle dies. She is despised there as she is always considered beneath everyone in the house, whether it be by her cousins (John, Eliza, and Georgiana) or even by her aunt. She is quite plain looking, and not necessarily the most intelligent. Eventually she drives her aunt to send her to a boarding school. She is abused there, but she makes a single friend, who dies of tuberculosis. Jane Eyre continues to stay at the school, eventually becoming a teacher, but she decides to take on a job as a governess (or private teacher) to a little girl at Thornfield Manor as she is tired of being at the boarding school. There she meets Mr. Edward Rochester. As the two fall in love, however, weird circumstances arise that drive Jane Eyre to question her love.

I would say that I gave a more detailed synopsis than the whole film provides. We never learn her cousins names, except for John, but we see him once, and the two female cousins in the background once, and we never see a great amount of abuse between Jane Eyre and her aunt. We skip over a lot of the abuse at the school in the novel, and it is never explained why she leaves the school. It is indicated she decides to teach the little girl, Adèle. We get a glimpse of her possibly being a teacher, but I find if you never read the novel, you never would have guessed necessarily. I find the whole story is a bit rushed. I understand they couldn't keep everything, but I found in the end the characters all kind of lacked substance. This is not because of the acting - I thought Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender did a wonderful job - but the writing itself. We see Mr. Rochester being an ass, but I find we never go into a lot. I find Jane, even her, lacked this need to be a free woman that was a pretty important role in the novel. As for, spoilers kind of, St. John Rivers (played by William Hurt), but by the looks of the trailer, I think this one holds up well. It isn't overly cheesy and sticks to the novel well. Still, as I said, it really lacks in the characters, and the ending, oh the ending... It ends too abruptly for my liking. It does not end like the novel, and I think five minutes more would have done the film a bit more justice. As well, I think (SPOILER!) Bertha should have been seen more, and when she was seen, I did not picture her like that.

Overall, I'll give this film a seven on ten. The acting, costume and set design were wonderful, but the story itself is lacking. Stick to the novel for real writing.

Review II - Battlefield Earth

Review II
Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000)

If you haven't heard about this film, I'm not surprised. The only thing going for it is that it has been dubbed one of the worst films ever made. If you hate watching bad movies, though, you would definitely stay clear of this. It was directed by Roger Christian and stars Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker, and John Travolta. If you didn't already know, John Travolta is a scientologist, and he is outspoken about his beliefs. For this reason, he decided to help finance and produce a film adaptation of a L. Ron Hubbard (founder of Scientology) novel. What was produced was only half of what the novel consisted of, but a second part would never be made because of the bomb the film was at the box office. The film in question was Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000, or simply Battlefield Earth for short.

The plot is set one thousand years into the future and revolves around an alien species that has taken over Earth for that amount of time. Human beings (known as "man-animals" by the aliens) are going extinct, but one alien in particular, Terl (John Travolta), believes the "man-animals" can help them mine the gold they want. He thus decides to teach one man, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper), the language of the alien race and the lost information of his ancestors. Soon, however, the aliens meet their match when the human beings decide to take a stand and take back Earth as their own.

I honestly didn't think this film was that bad. In fact, I thought it was funny. I realise it wasn't aiming to be a comedy, but John Travolta's acting was perfect for a good laugh. Not to mention that Terl (Travolta's character) is a complete dolt for teaching a human being all the knowledge of his ancestors, as well as the language of the Psychlos (the aliens). He makes a big deal out of explaining that in the original fight between the humans and the aliens, the fight lasted nine minutes because the humans were no match. However, and I'm going to spoil the film in this sentence, the humans take down the Psychlos' planet, yes their planet, in a short amount of time by seizing the aliens' equipment. I never read the novel, so I don't know how accurate the plot is to the original story. If this is L. Ron Hubbard's writing, then the plot holes come from his novel, not the screenplay writers. Still, the idiocy of the plot adds to the hilarity of the film, and I legitimately found myself laughing more often than I do in most comedy films. Not to mention that some things took ages to happen, and other times, a plot point would pop out of nowhere, ignoring everything that was already there.

The film was two hours long when it could have easily been a lot shorter. I didn't actually watch the film in two sittings so maybe that's why I didn't think it was too bad. I could imagine, though, that in the theatre, it seemed very lengthy. It was, but I didn't see much of a problem with the length. Still, I don't feel I can properly judge the film on its length because I didn't watch it the whole way through.

Everyone also complains about the dutch angles throughout the film. I'm not a cinematographer, so maybe that's why I wasn't bothered by the dutch angles. I mean, it was strange that everything was tilted a lot of time since dutch angles are used for specific reasons in films (for tension or to show the delirium of a character, for example), but, again, it was something to laugh about. There was also a very strange use of slow motion. I'm not a fan of slow motion because most people do it wrong. Here, it is used for no reason it seems.

Overall, I would give the film a five out of ten. I found it funny, and it was entertaining throughout the film. However, everything I found funny is what is wrong with the film - the acting, the plot, even the way it was filmed. Maybe if it had just come out, and I had no idea what to expect, then I would be mad, but I watched this filming knowing it was bad. I knew everything that was wrong with it, so I didn't expect anything. Not to mention it is a film based on a novel by L. Ron Hubbard. No offense, but with just that information, I would not be expecting anything. Although the film does not promote Scientology, it is still based on a novel written by the man who created it. If you're interested in the film, don't go into it expecting anything. If you do, you'll be very disappointed.

Pirate Bay torrent

Review I - J'ai tué ma mère

Review I
J'ai tué ma mère (2009)

The Cannes International Film Festival (aka Le Festival International du Film de Cannes) is one of the most publicized and important film festivals to occur around the world. Film makers are invited to have their films compete in a selected category, and judges are chosen for each category to pick the best film. This is obviously a very competitive festival and only the best directors are selected. This year's festival began yesterday with a showing of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, and it will continue up until the 27th of May. One of the films being showed was created by a Québecois who gained fame when his film was selected as Canada's feature film for the Best Foreign Film category at the 82nd Academy Awards. Not to mention it was nominated twenty-seven times for awards, and won ten other ones. All this was accomplished by a twenty-year old man at the time named Xavier Dolan. The film he wrote for, acted in, and directed was J'ai tué ma mère, or I Killed My Mother in English. Since Dolan's Laurence Anyways was selected to compete in the category Un Certain Regard, I thought I would review J'ai tué ma mère. Now, bare with me, I haven't watched the film in a little while, but I did see it a few times so I should still be able to review it.

The film stars Anne Dorval, François Arnaud, and Xavier Dolan. It is considered a semi-biographical film, and it's a dramatic film. It tells the life of an adolescent, Hubert Minel (Dolan), living in Montréal with his single mother, Chantale Lemming (Dorval). His relationship with his mom is... well, not very good. The two have personalities that clash, and the film is filled with scenes that show their conflicting relationship, whether it be with them yelling at each other, or just the tense atmosphere that fills the room when the two are together. It doesn't help that Hubert is homosexual and going out with a man, Antonin Rimbaud (Arnaud) without telling his mother. The film just goes in depth of a mother and son relationship, with the bad and good extremes.

I really liked the film. It's a pretty simply premise, not anything super complicated, and the acting and writing is great. I'm not the biggest fan of the ending because I find it just ends and is left a little too ambiguous for my ending, but as I said, it has a great atmosphere to it. When Xavier Dolan and Anne Dorval are yelling at each other at the top of their lungs, you feel it. Even when they aren't talking, as I said before, you feel it. You see how they try and get along, but the two just end up in conflict. I have a great relationship with my parents, but my older sibling had a tough time getting along with my parents when they were in their adolescence. I see the realism in the story with the constant contrasts of a parent-offspring relationship. I also have friends who admitted they were gay, and it isn't easy. One of my friends told me they couldn't tell their mother they were gay because she would have blown up in their face. Another one was more at ease with their bisexuality, but said they would never talk about it with their parents, and surely not their mother. Again, I can see the realism in the story with that aspect. I mean, it is a semi-biographical film (Dolan is gay in real life), and it is a look on Dolan's life, so it makes sense it feels real, but Xavier Dolan was really able to capture that. I experience the hardships of school, but could I demonstrate it on the big screen? Not likely.

Out of ten stars, I would probably give it a seven point five. It's been a while since I watched it, and I really did like it, but certain elements seemed lacking at the end. I find Hubert's boyfriend was not brought to his full potential in the writing, and as I mentioned, I found the ending just too ambiguous for my liking. Still, it's worth looking into. It's better than the average film, and the acting is top notch.

Pirate Bay torrent

Welcome

Hey everyone! My name is Alex, and I love films. I love foreign films, dramatic films, action films, science fiction films... Honestly, do I have to continue? Give me a film, and I'll watch it. Another thing I love doing is watching critic videos like The Spoony Experiment, and I love reading reviews for different films like Head Injury Theater. Basically, I was destined to make a blog or something related to films eventually. Now, I know I'm just another reviewer for films on here, and to be honest, I'm not anything special. Still, I love watching films (and every so often a television series!), and since the Internet is already full of critics, I figured why not add to the big garbage pile of people's opinions?

This blog will be updated whenever I finish watching a film and have time to write a review. I'm not going to go out of my way to review bad or good films - I'm just going to review anything. To be honest, I usually end up watching pretty boring movies because I tend to go on IMDb, look up an actor or director, and then choose a movie or a television series based on descriptions. As well, what is made more often - a really good film or just a mediocre one?

Anyway, that being said, I'm done school for the summer, and I have a list of films and series I've been wanting to watch. I'm sure you'll hear from me soon enough. 'Till the first review!