Happy Birthday: One Year On...

One year ago from today I put my first blog post online. I started doing it as a bit of fun, not expecting for my blog to grow as much as it has! 63 posts later and I have an audience that I never thought was possible. The amount of different people in different countries that have read my posts is incredible! I have even had the organisers of the Sundance Film Festival read some of my posts! I would not have a got here without the help of my readers! Thank you guys so much! I also want to thank The Large Association Of Movie Blogs (The LAMB) for letting me into their community and bringing a larger audience of fellow movie bloggers to my site.

I was a bit unsure as to what to write about today for the 1st birthday of my blog, but I have decided to look back at my 10 most popular posts of the last year. So please enjoy!

10. The Avengers Review
I remember this day very well! I was so excited for this film and I am so glad that it met all my expectations. My review is a very happy one indeed and although I am biased as a massive fan boy! There is no doubt in my mind that this will most likely be my favourite film of the year.

9. Chronicle
Many of my popular posts I did not expect to do as well as they did and this post is one of them. I saw it on DVD, really liked it and wrote a review. It sure is a film to check out if your fan of superheroes and found footage films.

8. Ted
Ted is one of those films that I had mixed feelings on. I would definitely watch it again with a group of friends but it definitely wasn't the funniest things I have ever seen. Check out this review to see if you agree with me.

7. God Bless America & 21 Jump Street
Even though I was on holiday when this was posted this still got a great amount of hits. This is mainly due to the fact that this was the first post people saw when I had been allowed as member of The LAMB. Both films I believe are great and I recommend them both as good comedies.

6. Reinventing Romance
This is one of my more recent posts and it actually contains my case study for the end of Media Studies course. I really enjoyed writing about the subject and I am glad you guys took a liking to it too!

5. Shame
Shame is one of those film that I loved but don't really want to watch again. It contains one of my favourite actors, the Fassbender, in one of his best roles. But the subject matter of sex addiction is an uncomfortable one and is most likely why it was denied an Oscar nomination.

4. Would You Like The Good News or The Bad News First?
Another post I am surprised has done well.One of my first posts and it just contains a summary of movie news that had happened that week.

3. Alex's Essential Spider-Man
I am so glad this post did well as I worked very hard on it. I loved the fact that I was able to get fan made pictures from my readers to work on this post and celebrate our love of Spider-Man. Even if the most recent film was a bit of a disappointment.

2. Sundance London 2012
One of the best weekends ever in blog form! With help from organisers of the festival I was able to move this post up to second on the list. Whether I'll be there next year, I do not know. Being a student can be difficult in this day and age! If I can, I will!

1. What Would Travis Bickle Do?
The biggest surprise of them all! My quick angry rant turned into my biggest hit. I don't really know what else to say as i wasn't expecting this to that well. I think when I first put it on it did terribly but as the months have passed, more people have read and enjoyed it. Thank you so much!

Although things have slowed down here recently on the blog I would like to thank everybody who keeps reading it. Here's to another year!

Thank you for reading!

Sightseers Review

Over the weekend I had the chance to go to the Cornwall Film Festival, due to other commitments over the the three days, I was only able to watch one film. Thankfully though, it was a film I had been looking forward to seeing. That film was Sightseers.

From Ben Wheatly, director of Kill List comes his second film about a couple of misfits on a rather bizarre camping trip. The outline goes like this; 'Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world, but events soon conspire against the couple and their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn.'

The film goes a certain way that makes this seem like the British version of God Bless America. Again this plot type can be very controversial and is not for everyones taste. Three people actually walked out of the cinema during my screening, which to my guess is because of the amount gore and violence involved in the film. The violence is matching to that of what we saw in Kill List. The film gives a whole new meaning on the perspective of sex and violence.

The two leads, Steve Oram and Alice Lowe actually wrote the script for the film. They are also incredibly funny actors and strangely brilliant at playing two oddballs in love. The two of them really have created some cracking one liners for the film that are guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. They are a great pair and the film would not work without them. I really hope that they are picked up as screen writers and comedy actors in the near future! The supporting cast in this is great as well with some great stereotypical characters. If you want to see more of Alice Lowe she actually plays a lot of supporting characters in the new Harry and Paul series which is on BBC 2 at the moment. 

The film is very vibrant and the cinematography reflects this with some great lighting and colour grading. For a film with little budget, it sure did look good. One of the best thing about this film was it's incredible soundtrack. Mainly filled with classic 80's tunes, it really did help create emotion and some great comedy sequences.

The social commentary in this film is not as apparent as it is in God Bless America but I do think that this film was funnier. The lack of this commentary did let the film down in places and made some of the plot points seem a bit stupid in places. But overall it was a great and very funny film. Personally I preferred this to Kill List.

I had a great time at the festival even though I was only there for it's opening evening but I hope to spend the whole weekend there next year. Thankfully the film I saw was of great quality and an example of great British comedy films. That is why I am rating Sightseers a 4/5.

If you live in America then you may not have heard a great deal about this film, but I assure you that you should check it out for sure! 

If you have seen it, let me know by leaving a comment below. Thanks for reading!

God Bless America & 21 Jump Street

I am actually on holiday right now but I prepared in advance and here is a new blog post containing two new reviews. Both comedy films and both brilliant!

God Bless America
I heard about this film from the Empire podcast (which I recommend you all listen to!). They had an interview with writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait who's last project was Worlds Greatest Dad, a film which I really liked, in a strange way. It seems the director has a knack for making films around characters you should dislike but don't and that is not an exception for God Bless America, where we follow Frank, a man who is at the end of his tether after losing his job and finding out he has a brain tumour. He decides to take his own life but as he is about too he sees an episode of My Super Sweet 16 and decides to take the girl on the shows life instead. At this event he meets Roxy who joins him on a mass killing spree of people who he thinks 'deserve to die'. Including people who talk in cinemas and take up two spaces in a car park.
This is one of those films that is so wrong but so so right! Its statement on society is truthful yet the way they go about it kind of defeats the point, but it's a fun film anyway so who really cares? The film is very funny and very shocking and I enjoyed it a lot more than World's Greatest Dad. There is only one moment where I think it went a bit too far, it happens within the first 5 minutes and a baby gets killed. Just a tad too far don't you think?

Apart from that though everything else is good and there are some great laugh out loud moments and times where you think that the killing is almost justified! A crazy film that has a strong message and surprisingly a lot of heart, I'm giving this film a rating of 4/5.

If you have no idea why this film would be good, take a look at the trailer below:

21 Jump Street
I have never liked Channing Tatum, yet in this recent film I liked him a lot! 21 Jump Street is a reboot/remake of the 80's series that starred Johnny Depp. Unlike most other remakes this film acknowledges its unoriginality and takes the mick out of it.

Starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum the film is about a pair of underachieving cops that are sent on an undercover mission due to their young looks, to bring down a drug ring within a high school. The film starts off quite rushed but once the first 5 minutes of back story are out of the way, hilarity ensues.

The film is stupid but packs enough laughs to entertain thoroughly. Whoever came up with the Hill and Tatum partnering is a genius as the bromance is one of the best parts of the film! Channing Tatum should stick to comedy as he is hilarious in this! Everything else he has been in has been funny for all the wrong reasons. Skinny Jonah Hill is brilliant as usual, and this is probably is funniest role since Superbad.

It's stupid, rude, crude, hilariously funny and has an incredibly smart cameo! I'm sure there will be sequels as this was a top notch comedy, that's why I'm giving it a rating of  4/5.


Thanks for reading!