Top 3: Comic book films

DON'T JUDGE ME FOR MY FIRST CHOICE OF GENRE.
It's not a proper-proper-genre, but I had a hard time choosing films so I've gone with really specific categories to ensure that all the best ones get a mention on here. Brilliant. Glad that that's out of the way.

Let us begin.

IRON MAN (2008)

This will probably be my favourite film in this category forever and ever. I have always had a soft-spot for Marvel (much to my friend Maariyah's dismay [she's a DC gal]) and have enjoyed every Marvel film I've ever seen. The fact that more are on the way this year makes me squeal with delight. The fact that the first of the lot is Iron Man 3 just makes me want to jump up and down and flail a lot until I've actually seen it.

The main thing about this film for me is how spot on the casting is. It's a widely accepted fact: Robert Downey Jnr is Tony Stark. The two are so interchangeable that sometimes I can't tell them apart. Or I choose not to. Gwyneth Paltrow stole my heart with her utter bad-assery and loyalty to Stark. I hated Obadiah (that's a good thing) - Jeff Bridges' over-charming-ness caused suspicion right from the start, and in the end was a pretty great protagonist. And if anything, the soundtrack to the film sold it to me. It's so fitting and appropriate and indescribably perfect...

One of the many things I loved about the adaptation of Iron Man was it doesn't appear to be a typical, clichéd superhero flick at first. The first minute of the film introduces the Tony Stark that fans of the comics are familiar with (a lovable knob, who's rich and up himself in an amusing way) and then they suddenly chuck him into a really grim situation. Following a quick how-he-got-there section we follow a his struggle to do the right thing and survive doing so, with a stranger and a weird sciencey thing plugged into his chest to keep him alive. Then he gets out and it's all heroic and he avenges the death of the aforementioned stranger who helped him through the hard times and blah-di-blah. Considering how dark that part of the film is - what with the imprisonment, torture and general they-might-kill-him-any-second atmosphere - it's really easy to watch. Injections of comedy, which is normally just anything that Stark says, are placed in the right moments, and even though you know that he's one of those people that most of us tend to despise you can't hate him. 

And then the rest of the storyline is generally awesome! And what really makes the film great for me is that it is a brilliant way to begin the whole Avengers storyline. All of the films of the Avengers are interlinked and it's so beautifully calculated and executed that it must be real. It's easy to get invested into this series of films, and Iron Man starts it all off.

WATCHMEN (2009)

This slightly underrated film is another of my favourites. Watchmen is unbelievably true to the original material, and deserves to be remembered as a classic comic book movie. I watched the director's cut, and it was so long and dense that I thought I'd probably have to watch it in parts. When I first watched it, it was completely new to me - I had never heard of it but the trailer had intrigued me so I sat down and gave it a go. I couldn't turn it off. I find it easy to get into a film, but this time I was really conflicted. I'd started watching it at midnight, thinking that I'd turn it off at 1am, but 1am came and I couldn't bring myself to it. I needed to watch it and fit the pieces of the story together and absorb everything to understand what was happening. The beauty of the characters is that they are all just human. They don't have special powers (with the exception of Doctor Manhattan who is the big naked blue dude in the image above) and are just extraordinary people. Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias is a super genius with a muddled past, Nite Owl is the geeky good guy who plays by the rules and Silk Spectre and Silk Spectre II (mother and daughter) are the brilliantly heroic, sexy BAMF-y female heroes who are the only women in this gang of beefy hero guys. Not all of the goodies are goodies, however. The Comedian is very dark and antagonistic, despite being on the good side, and Rorschach is a vigilante with a creepy ink-blot style mask, sinister voice and an unhealthy determination to fight crime. It's refreshing to have personalities on different ends of the spectrum all in one group, and makes for very interesting interactions between them.

Other things that make it awesome:

-the fighting/violence is good. That probably sounds a bit odd, and, of course, that style of fighting isn't to everyone's taste, but I thought it was pretty decent. It's more graphic than the comics but that's no issue, really. If it's not what you like then just skip over it.

-the visual effects are marvellous. They managed to DESTROY NEW YORK CITY. AND BUILD A THINGY (I don't really know what it's meant to be) ON MARS. THAT'S, LIKE, A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PLANET.

-one particular theme in the film made me think a lot about where I stand morally. Towards the end of the film the villain (I won't spoil the film for you) justifies his actions by saying something like "I've killed millions to save billions". I honestly couldn't say what my opinion on killing for the greater good is. It's tricky. Quotes like that made me question myself, and think WHAT IF THIS and WHAT IF THAT. It's really quite mind boggling. 

If you're willing to sit through 3 hours of intense crime-fighting drama and can cope with the flashback-ing then give it a chance. 

I'll end with a witty little quote.
"For someone that calls himself The Comedian, I can never tell when you're joking." - Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS 

This is just a film that I could easily watch over and over again without getting bored of it. (Although, one day I probably will get bored of it, due to the amount of times it gets played on Sky Movies...) It's a brilliant reboot of the X-Men franchise that I was brought up to enjoy. I loved all the other films. Even that one where they ruin Ryan Reynolds' face. (Why would you want to do that?) But, as a teenager, this one is my favourite because it's so fun and quick paced and there isn't a time where you would want to skip over to the next bit because it's all relevant and good and and and stuff.

I'm going to be honest with you, I'm a huge fan of the Cherik bromance. The chemistry between all of the characters good and makes it so much easier to like all the characters. The sense of community is great, and even though there are immature conflicts between them, which is bound to happen to a group of people thrown together at random, they all support each other right until the bitter end. Kevin Bacon (known to non-X-Men fans as "that bloke on the EE adverts") was great - a deliciously smarmy villain who is simply fighting for his cause; the cause that is justified rather well by the people who believe in it, even though to us simple non-mutants is just evil. Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence shine brightly in the film, really pulling off their characters well and making them their own, rather than just lifting things from the other films. Costume and make up and effects are all great and not overdone, making the film believable and modest while boasting a fantastic cast and beautiful locations. 

Little things about the film really make me giggle. Some of the jokes in the film are great tributes to the other films and comics if you know what they are, then you appreciate the film for what it is - it may be a reboot but it's not a mimic of the other films, it's different and original and new. Also, Michael Fassbender's accent is just as confused as Banshee is when it comes to women; his Germish accent (German/Irish) leans more to the Irish side, even though his character is German. But when you wouldn't have questioned it when watching it because his performance as Erik is just so damn gripping and moving, even though (in my opinion) he's quite a disagreeable character. 

What I can never forgive them for is the cutting out of this scene. It's not very long, and was so hilarious and helped me to appreciate just how powerful Charles' telepathy is, how funny he is, and - for the odd people out there - gives an indication of how close Charles and Erik are. Who knows?

{I realise that I got a bit lost when giving my opinions about the films, but I'll post it any ways. I'll get better with time, right?}

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Apologies 2.0

{Bearing in mind that hardly anyone reads this any way so I'm only really apologising to Hannah, my number 1 fan and the person who has pressurised me into continuing with the blog posts (thanks for that, by the way, HanHan)...}

So, my Restless review is still hidden away in draft along with a review of Dancing on the Edge and a few of the BAFTA/Oscar nominated films that I planned to do as a BAFTA/Oscars special, which, as you can see, did not happen. I think I'll rewatch a few of them before posting them. I need to rewatch them as part of some extension work for History any way, so I get to watch some brilliant TV and get my work done while doing so - win win!

It turns out that all that time I spent "revising" instead of concentrating on the blog and my brilliant cinephile hobby was a waste, because I got a beautiful variation in my grades for the 3 exams that I sat. But, I've come to realise that I desperately need to start working super hard to get good grades so I can study History or History with Film Studies at University. Luckily, part of this 'working hard' lark is my EPQ which will be about films in some way. If anybody would like to help me decide just what to cover in my project that would be lovely.

The format of my next few posts is as follows: every few days I will be posting my top 3 from any genre you can think of [musicals, comedy, action, etc.] as well as my top 3 films for things like special effects and music or ... whatever. Sometimes I'll throw in mini-series because to me they are just a collection of films for TV. I'm not quite sure when the first one will go up, so it will be tonight or tomorrow.

One note before I finally click 'publish' {I've been writing this tiny post for two hours...} - I'm planning on starting a photo blog too, just to show off how awesome my life is. I'll post a link around here when it's up and running.

SO LONG, FAREWELL.

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Apologies

At Christmas time I was completely inspired to write and write and write. In fact, I had so many ideas saved into draft that I could have posted something every day until July. But then reality caught up with me. *queue violins*

January was a tough month for me. I hate to sound whiny, but EXAMS ARE POO. I had a whole THREE exams - [the fourth was cancelled due to bad weather and has been postponed until May, *cries*] - and I'm pretty sure that I've failed two of them due to lack of understanding/revision. I know that I'm very lazy and easily distracted but I couldn't answer any of the questions on my M1 paper. My friend (whose name rhymes with Looby) had five exams, and another had none. Everyone, bar the lucky sods with no exams, was stressing out for at least a few days and it's not a great atmosphere for blog-writing. During this period of darkness I drank a lot of tea and ate lots of ice cream and watched nearly all the films available on Sky on Demand.

To compensate the lack of reviews/opinions I started a "film 365" on my Tumblr blog "evadelect0rskaya", where I post a picture of a film that I've watched every day for a year. That's going relatively well, although I've fallen behind with film watching because of my current workload (and love of sleep). But hopefully all of that will change by the end of the month!

I have lots of films on my "to watch" list, and lots of things to say about recent things on the telly so this blog will be alive again. I have a campaign project that I will talk more about in a future blog post as it involves me making my first proper film with my friends, will be starting a video diary of my trip to America next week and will be gushing lots of relatively spoiler-free reviews on here regularly by March.

To check out my film 365 to see what I've been watching click here*.
The first of many reviews shall be posted later on tonight, and will probably be on "Restless".

*(Note that I have not posted comments of ratings out of 10 etc. on these posts because I am lazy in case I choose to review them later on )

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Fiona's week in film #1

My first term of 6th form is now over (finally!) and I've watched lots of films this week to celebrate that fact. The great thing about the last week of term is that normally we watch films and eat biscuits instead of actually doing work, so as well as a brilliant staff pantomime this year we watched some pretty good films, too!

Monday

...wasn't particularly interesting, as we were still "doing work", but when I got home and grabbed my Dad's iPad and starting watching "Cambridge Spies" (2003). "Cambridge Spies" is a four part BBC drama about 4 of the Cambridge Spies who, like, became spies and stuff... You get the gist. I only had time to watch Episode 1, but it was quite enjoyable, and had all the good elements of a BBC drama: humour, some sort of heart breaking romance, seriousness and SUSPENSE. I'll make an effort to watch the other episodes some time soon, it's worth watching just for the cast and the pretty Cambridge scenery (although, there will probably be less of that as the series goes on... *sad face*).

Tuesday

...In French we watched "10 Things I Hate About You" (1999), because, obviously, it's very relevant to French AS. It's one of those films that you can't not love; Heath Ledger and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are adorable and most teenage girls cannot resist a romcom with good looking actors in it (I speak with experience). The only possible bone I have to pick with it is that it's based on "The Taming of the Shrew" and some things just don't seem right to me. I mean, obviously it's been modernised but Kat Stratford was not tamed much at all, was she? It was too romantic to be true to the original story. I don't know if that's the point but it bugged me a bit. Oh, but I did blub a bit at the poem. THE POEM.

Wednesday

...I watched "Wisdom of Crocodiles" (1998) at home. Nothing particularly special, it was a bit hard to follow at first - which may be because I was half asleep whilst watching it - but I'm into those kinds of psychological thriller films that can creep you out and make you think without the horror element in it too. Jude Law, who plays the main character, wasn't too bad, but overall the film can only be described as OK and little more.

Thursday

...In French we watched an actual French film, "L'arnacoeur" (Heartbreaker). I'd already seen it before by the recommendation of my film maestro and fabulous French partner, Sophie, so I already knew that I was going to enjoy it. We ate the film with cloudy apple juice, lemonade, cakes, biscuits and cherry loaf and laughed at the utter cheesiness which oozed out of every pore possible throughout. The soundtrack is particularly uplifting, and (as a big fan of Dirty Dancing) I approved of shirtless dancing and fluffy romance, as well as witty humour throughout. Je l'aime.

On top of that, in General Studies the majority of our year - bar the unfortunate people who take Critical Thinking - got to watch The History Boys "because of the famous quote about general studies". Having not watched the whole film the whole way through before, I was very excited to finally see it. Despite it being hard to watch due to a bunch of unenthusiastic chatterboxes sitting behind us, I thoroughly enjoyed the 40 minutes we got to watch. As soon as I got home I watched it 'till the end, and honestly cried because the ending lacked Dakin/Irwin sexy time. Dominic Cooper is great at the whole charming sleazeball thing, so I'm glad that I share the name of his girlfriend/friend with benefits. And Stephen Campbell Moore is wow. I just loved his character so much.

Friday

...We watched the second half of L'arnacoeur and swooned over Romain Duris' dancing. A great way to spend the last lesson of the term.

I also managed to watch the first 10 minutes of "The Holiday" (2006), which is one of my favourite Christmas films - I still consider it to be a Christmas film despite it's lack of Christmassy content. It's got Jude Law in it, who can complain? It's sad to think that I have had an Iris crisis (yes, I just made up that term) in my life so far, and possibly still am. When Kate Winslet cries over a guy, you want to cry with her, although not necessarily for her guy this time. I'm a big fan of Rufus Sewell but he's a lot more charming without the curly mop thing. If you haven't seen it, see it. You'll want a Mr Napkinhead in your life, too.

Saturday

...I watched "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" for old times' sake. Unfortunately noticed how ridiculously bad the younger cast members were (except Tom Felton. He wasn't too bad, probably because he'd been in two films prior to Harry Potter). But, of course, my inner Potterhead didn't care. Wingardium leviOsah.

The other film I managed to watch was a film called "Never Let Me Go" which was fascinating. I do adore Carey Mulligan, and Andrew Garfield with his English accent does make me giddy. Then Keira Knightley is there too. It's got a really interesting plot, and the beautiful images throughout the film made it pleasant to watch even though the story is somewhat dark.

Sunday

...I don't know what I was thinking. I just thought "Oh, that Jeremy Irvine is a cutie, I need more of him in my life." and decided to put "Now is Good" on. I'd had a long day, dropping my brother off for a squash course in Coventry, wheeling my Nan around M&S in the panicked Christmas shopping crowd, the busiest shift at McDonalds I've ever had (and apparently the restaurant had ever had, too). I'd already watched the Homeland finale, which was HELL. It just started off so happy and beautiful and ended HORRIBLY (the story, not the episode, Homeland is always flawless, no matter what). I was a mess, mentally. So I whacked on the film thinking that Irvine's face would cheer me up.

I've read the book that the film is based on, and loved it even though some of the content in the book was like WOAH GIRL CALM YO'SELF. The film was much more appropriate, but it completely broke my heart. It wasn't necessarily the best film in the world, but it's one of those films that requires some chocolate and a humongous box of tissues to be handy. The story is about a 17 year old girl who has suffered from leukaemia and decides to stop treatment and live the rest of her short life to the max. I didn't expect much from Dakota Fanning considering she's American *shudders* but she pulled off the accent, so I couldn't really fault her performance. She wasn't quite who I'd pictured playing Tessa, but she didn't do a bad job, so I shan't complain. I absolutely fell in love with Adam (Irvine), and you just have to watch it to understand why. He's just utterly perfect. A girl's dream. My dream...

To me, though, the chap who plays Tessa's daddy, Paddy Considine, deserved the biggest pat on the back. He's really great, he managed to shine brighter than most in the film and I just wanted to hug him by the end of it. If I could see him through my tears.

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New project!

Hello, reader, and Merry Christmas.

Over the past few weeks I've been on a little stressful roller coaster as I've had to balance a lot of things on my flimsy paper plate. Unfortunately, writing reviews fell off said plate, and I don't want this to carry on. I've been involved in a few small internet-y projects over the past few months that have been a bit of a disappointment, so I want to do something in which I don't have to rely on anyone else for a while, although I may need help along the way.

My idea is that once a week, I'll post a list of films that I've watched with mini reviews and pictures etc. alongside any reviews that I post. This will be done on Sundays/Mondays (ideally). I used to try and watch a film a day, but I've had so much work to do that it isn't possible any more, so I'll bung TV episodes and specials in the pot too, just to spice things up a bit. I'll be re-watching many things too, just because I enjoyed them so much.

It would be awfully nice if people would help me out by recommending films and series to watch, too!

That's all for now, I'll be posting my first one later on tonight!

{P.S. It doesn't feel like it's Christmas tomorrow, does it?}

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and... ACTION!

I thought my first review should be about the thing that I watch from the small hours to the small hours every weekend and every week day when I am "doing my homework". Anyone who follows me on twitter will know or can probably guess that it's going to be about Two and a Half Men. It used to be my guilty pleasure, but now it's a part of the daily routine. I don't quite know what about the series is so addictive. It could be how unbelievably relatable Alan can be , or how much Jake resembles my brother, Jake. Maybe it's Ashton Kutcher's existence. Whatever it is, I'm hooked.

I may be a whole series late in saying anything about it, but let's not dwell over that small fact. The NEW Two and a Half Men [Series 9, onwards] completely surpassed all of my expectations. I didn't think that anything on the planet could be funnier than Charlie's laid back, cynical sense of humour, but Walden is so adorably naive that I couldn't stop watching. My family are glad that I finished the 9th season in no time at all because they had to sit through it with me. They enjoyed it, Jake in particular, but they were too caught up on the current plotline in Eastenders to be patient with my obsessive viewing habits. SOD 'EM!

I have to be honest though, there are some things that ruined the season for me and made me miss Charlie more than I thought I would. The main thing is Walden's girlfriend, whatshername (let me google it... ZOEY). She's so annoyingly British in it. Unfortunately, after wikipedia-ing her (yes that's probably a verb now) I've learned that she is actually English AND a member of the royal family by marriage. I'm scared to say what I was going to now in case it's treason...

#YOLO

(Did I just say that? Oh dear... I'm going to regret that...)

Well, I really rather dislike when actors over exaggerate their accents or mannerisms when they are acting. It happens all the time and it makes you wonder, are they native or just pretending? I'm hardly ever convinced. What's even worse, though, is when they are actually attempting the accent and they fail miserably. I've lost favour with many actors over this, sadly. The most recent being Anne Hathaway in One Day. She's normally fabulous, yet in this film her accent distracted me from the great story that I'd adored in the book. I was tearing my hair out by the end of it because everything was perfect except for the failed Yorkshire accent. There's a load of examples I could use but you're probably sitting there with a couple popping up in your head already so I shan't bother. The fact that you are now probably thinking about it and can think of one is proof that I'm not crazy.

Other than the annoyingness of the love interest in the 9th season not much else bothers me. Walden, after a few episodes, seems really predictable: charming, lucky, rich, perhaps the angel version of Charlie, BUT every episode got more ridiculous and you never can quite know what Alan or Walden will do next. Alan seems to be less human and a million times more pathetic without Charlie around and despite the ridiculous things he does to get money without looking desperate (as if that ship didn't sail a umpteen seasons ago) he's still funny, just in a more cartoon character way. It's nice to see him, Jake and a lot of other characters being more involved than before, though. Even when, admittedly, most of my attention is on Walden's face - especially when shaven - I have begun to see how Alan's mind works. If he hasn't lost it.

I'm very much looking forward to the rest of series 10!

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Pilot

Good evening, all!

I'm at that age when you have to start thinking about what you want to do with your life, and honestly I'm not dealing with it very well. I assume that most people my age are in a similar situation to me and trust me, I sympathise. I really, really do. I'm at 6th Form college and I'm studying Maths and Further Maths, Physics, History and French. It's a varied mix, and when I tell my friends what I study their jaws drop because they either hate science or think that I'm crazy for studying French. I don't quite know what was going through my head when I chose these subjects. Perhaps the idea of being an engineer sounded promising and decided to glue itself to my brain, whilst my favourite subject, History clung insistently to my heart. And French? French is good. C'est chouette! C'est pas mal! I do enjoy it, even though I accent sounds German and I can never remember anything.

But 3 weeks into the first term and I am still hopelessly confused. I adore Physics but can't stand the lessons, Maths seems like effort, History is great and French is hard but the lessons are fabulous. I've started to regret not taking English, even though I know that certain topics within it would kill my brain cells slowly and painfully. And whenever I get home I'd rather get on with my hobby, watching films, than anything else. Which is why I am here!

On a whim I've decided to write a blog post for film reviews, reviews on TV series and episodes and give my opinion on anything that I find interesting. I just thought that it would be appropriate to do a pilot post first, so hopefully I'll be writing posts on a regular basis to keep me sane. I must say that despite the common idea that people who watch films all the time are unhealthy and/or lazy but I firmly disagree. I find it completely educational and I must be the only person on earth who can't snack while I watch films. I still go outside on occasion and I eat regularly and every once in a while I am prised away from the laptop or television to do my homework.

Without further ado, Fiona's Bugle!

((In case you don't understand the title, it's a clever use of The Daily Bugle from Spiderman.))

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