i know since there's only a couple weeks of 2013 left i should be enjoying these last couple days, but i can't wait for 2014 to get started since it looks like a great year for movies. there's some incredible titles that i'm excited for, including her, x-men: days of future past, the monuments men, 22 jump street, captain america 2 (despite my disappointment in the prequel, i'm hoping that the russo bros and scarlett johansson will give this movie a much needed boost) and of course, the grand budapest hotel. but before we get ahead of ourselves, here's what i've been watching since the last time i posted.
ip man (2008)
i've been meaning to watch this for awhile now, since it was recommended to me by a ton of different people that knew i loved martial arts movies. i was pleasantly surprised by the movie! i'm not sure what exactly i was expecting, but ip man was a refreshingly straight forward and enjoyable martial arts movie that had great fight scenes, a compelling but simple story and a touching ending. ip man is a semi-biographical film about 'yip man', the first martial arts master to teach the wing chun style.
the kings of summer (2013)
i'm not even sure how i heard about this movie, but it was an nice respite from the snow and cold outside. the premise is simple: two teenage boys, who are sick of their lives at home decide to live in the woods. goofy, endearing and stupid in the same way that teenage boys are, i feel like this movie didn't quite live up to its claim of being an "instant classic", and i could have done without that weird italian kid character and the ever so typical love triangle plot (why not a homosexual love triangle instead? consider this) and really just had the movie focus on exploring the forest and living in the forest, it would have been much better.
gravity (2013)
so i never ended up watching this in theatres because it seemed way too intense for me, and boy i was right. i was on the edge of my seat and sweating for the entire duration of the movie. i'm a huge fan of cuarón's children of men, so naturally i had high expectations for his latest work. gravity was truly a one of a kind film experience and while i regret
not catching it in theatres, i don't think i could have been able to handle that kind of
intensity. though i certainly enjoyed the film and was absolutely stunned by the cinematography, i honestly don't think i could watch it a second time.
bleak night (2011)
another great recommendation from sangha, who loves nothing more than a film where sad boys cry for at least a third of it, bleak night is an unusual, intense film. reminiscent of we need to talk about kevin, this film is told in flashbacks, following the friendship between three boys in their high school years. both the way that the flashbacks are woven seamlessly into the present, as well as the strange events that unfold throughout them, create an almost surreal atmosphere. i'm honestly not sure what, if anything, i was supposed to take away from the film other than a profound sense of despair. if you like films similar to we need to talk about kevin, himizu, and new world, you would probably enjoy this as well.
thor: the dark world (2013)
going into the theatres i had low expectations for this film, especially since the first thor film wasn't exactly my favourite. i felt that the dark world struck a good balance between being entertaining and light-hearted without being goofy, and had great action sequences that weren't too cliched (well, as far as super hero movies go) or dragged out. the pacing and story were much better than the first, and they did a good job of acknowledging the events of the avengers and the first thor. the dark world achieved what it set out to do, and if that doesn't make for an enjoyable film, i'm not sure what does.
the hobbit: desolation of smaug (2013)
i might have to watch this one again since i had such a bad experience with the audience in the theatre, but i definitely enjoyed it as much as the first one. every time i go to the theatre to watch the hobbit, i'm always sitting near some idiot. when i watched an unexpected journey, the guy in front of me wouldn't turn off his phone and this time around i had to sit through a kid and his dad's inane chattering. i did eventually tell them off around halfway through but they wouldn't let up. people are the fucking worst.
idiot children and their parents aside, i personally found the quality of this film to be surprisingly a bit sloppy, as if they were rushed to complete it. with an unexpected journey, you could hardly tell which scenes were CG and which were real, but in desolation, some scenes looked unfinished and the pacing too rushed. i'm surprised that i even noticed these things, as i wasn't looking for this kind of thing in the first place. overall though, the barrel scene was a lot of fun, and i thought the addition of tauriel was a nice touch despite her character being entangled in a love triangle. that's not to say that a female character or any character at all can't be romantically involved with another character, it's just that i'm tired of seeing the female character's plot be centred around a love story. peter jackson did a fantastic job portraying smaug in all his terribleness, and i love that he found a real reptile to play smaug. now that's dedication to art.
i'm probably going to see it again sometime next week, i think it'd be nice to watch a film without having someone talk over it, don't you think?
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