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!

Sundance London 2012: Video Blog

This is the first ever video blog for Alex's Essential Movie Blog! This video is about my time at the Sundance London Film & Music festival and the films I saw. For a full write up of my time there, read here: ‪http://alexmovieblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/sundance-london-2012.html‬



The music is from the band Orlando Seale and The Swell who also played at the festival, you can check them out here:

‪http://www.myspace.com/orlandoseale
‬
www.facebook.com/orlandosealeandtheswell



Thanks for watching, please like and subscribe!



The Avengers Review

Finally the review of one of the most anticipated superhero movies of all time, The Avengers or Avengers Assemble if you are from the UK like me. We luckily got to see the film before those living in the U.S.A and we got an extra word! Though unfortunately they get an extra post credits scene, but don't worry I won't go into detail about that, as this review is spoiler free!

So after a long weekend at Sundance London and a frustratingly delayed train journey back, I finally got to see the film I have been waiting years for! Never have I been so excited for a film! But was it going to live up to my expectations? Thank you lord it did! I have never had so much fun at the cinema before and I doubt I will ever again!

The film follows a group of superheroes; Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Hulk who are assembled by head honcho of S.H.I.E.L.D, Nick Fury. He has no superpowers apart from being Samuel L Jackson! Other members of the group who are not 'super' but rather kick ass include Black Widow, Hawkeye, Maria Hill and the incredible Agent 'Phil' Coulson. The team are assembled as The Avengers and together they must face an army brought to Earth by the god of mischief, Loki.

For those who believed that Mark Ruffalo would not make a good Hulk you are so wrong! Although Edward Norton was brilliant, Ruffalo just completely blows him out of the park! He is also the first actor to play the Hulk via motion capture. Unlike previous representations of the gamma monster, this Bruce Banner is not as tortured by the man inside but has learnt to keep him away for as long as possible. How you ask? Well you will have to watch the film! Robert Downey Jr once gain captures Tony Stark perfectly but does not steal the show. The Hulk does that, he provides moments of great action and humour.

In fact the whole film does that! Joss Whedon really has created a film that contains everything we love from previous Marvel movies and amps it up a notch! His direction and writing is spot on and the film visually looks beautiful. Not just the special effects but cinematography also! The best bits about the film are the conflicting relationships between The Avengers, don't worry they all fight each other at least once, Hulk vs Thor being a highlight. But the two characters that don't fight are Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. Their relationship is brilliant, being two geniuses they instantly connect and the constant push from Stark to try and get Banner angry is brilliant! I would be happy if the next Marvel project was a Iron Man & Hulk movie!

Another thing that makes this movie great is that Captain America is actually quite cool. Although he does need to back down a bit and stop being so over confident when he wants to fight Iron Man, a fight he will so obviously lose. No Cap, just no. But apart from that, Captain America feels like a superhero who isn't just a do good whining soldier. There is a very cool moment where he knocks a grenade back to his enemy using his bare hands. Thank you once again Joss Whedon for making the Captain America we all want to see. Thor is pretty awesome also, but he already was pretty cool. And like in Thor he gets to say some pretty amusing lines.

My down point of the film is that the phrase 'Avengers Assemble!' is not used and neither is 'I say thee nay!' used by Thor. These little things would have made me nerd out even more but never mind. Apart from that The Avengers is pretty much flawless as a superhero movie. Those who compare it to The Dark Knight should give up. Yes they are both superhero film but they are in completely different categories when it come to style!

2012 is already so much better then last year! If you are going to see any films this Summer, this looks like the one to go to! Bring on The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises! I'm giving The Avengers a rating of 5/5.

Thanks for reading and remember to stay until the end of the credits so you can nerd out just a little bit more!

Sundance London 2012

So it is the end of the weekend. A weekend that was amazing and inspiring. This weekend I went to Sundance London the film and music festival hosted in the O2 Arena. Over the last 3 days I saw a total of 6 films. In this post I will give my full write up of each day and then hopefully in the next week or so my video blog will be up about the event. So let’s start with day one:

DAY 1 – FRIDAY

The festival actually began on the Thursday but unfortunately my dad and I were not able to make it up to London until the Friday. We started off the day by having a look around the O2 Arena and ended up in the Sundance Inc Club where we had a few drinks and watched a couple of live bands. The first live band we saw were a competition winner sponsored by Gibson Guitars. They were an unsigned band named Orlando Seale and The Swell. They had 10 members who played a range of instruments, this included flute, drums, guitars and an awesome string section. The band was incredible and I have no doubt that they will go on to do great things, their music was a mixture of genres including, indie, pop and folk. I found an instant connection to the music and immediately bought their CD after they had performed. You can check out the band here. In terms of music they were definitely the highlight of the weekend and recommend them highly to everyone. We only saw one film that day, and that film was Safety Not Guaranteed. What a way to start off the first day of the festival. This was actually one of the best films of the weekend and I have also read reviews that say it could be ‘the film of the year’. The film follows a magazine reporter and his two interns on a journey to find out if a man can time travel after he had placed an advert in paper looking for a partner to go with him. The advert in the paper is actually real and happened a while ago and turned into something of an Internet phenomenon. The screenwriter Derek Connolly saw potential in this and the idea for this film was born. The film was mix of sci-fi and romantic comedy and it fulfilled all expectations and more! The characters were all cast brilliantly especially the character of Darius played by the brilliant Aubrey Plaza. The film was very funny and very touching and you are left throughout wondering if this man can actually time travel or is he simply mentally unstable.  All the characters were well written and loved even though they are all misfits and have their flaws. I can’t really say anything bad about this film apart from that it took me a while to see the relationship between two of the leads but by the end I loved it. Being able to meet the director Colin Trevorrow afterwards really confirmed that this film was made by the right people who really cared about telling this story to the audience.

DAY 2 – SATURDAY
On Saturday we saw 3 films. The first being For Ellen, this film was about a young rock star named Joby who travelled to a town to meet with lawyers to discuss the divorce with his wife and who will get the custody of his child Ellen. The film had a great cast with Paul Dano proving yet again he is one of the best actors around. The story was also great and had so much potential to be better then it was. Because unfortunately this film was not that good, it was very slow and was filled with scenes that dragged out too long or made no sense to the narrative at all. The director So Yong Kim touched upon other subplots including the breakdown of his band and how his experiences were changing what music he wanted to play. These were well set up but after that they were not touched upon again. I would have loved to hear one of his songs as it would have made sense of the character he was, because he could have been anyone, not a rock star. The film had a great story with so much potential which was wasted and in the end created a slow and boring film. The second film of the day was LUV, which was about an 11 year old boy who in one day takes a trip out with uncle and ends up witnessing a side of Baltimore which a young child should never see, we watch the events unfold that witness this boy becoming a man in one day. The film and the story was great and had one of the most emotional and compelling performances of the weekend which was actually from 11 year old boy, Woody played the by the incredible Michael Rainy Jr. The young boy puts on a performance better then the rest of the cast which included the extremely talented Danny Glover, Common, Dennis Haysbert and Michael Kenneth Williams. When the film ended I had enjoyed it but found some of the set pieces a bit unbelievable, but the director Sheldon Candis gave a talk about the film and how it was loosely based on his experiences with his uncle and how it was a coming of age ‘fable’. The man was incredible and his talk made me love the film even more. Shelodon described the film as ‘a gangster film with love’, which is true, but to me it was much more then another gangster film. The final film of the day was the 25^th anniversary of the screening of the cult classic film Rivers Edge, this was a special event made possible by MGM who also gave away some pretty nifty goodie bags including a studio blanket. The film is about a group of friends who’s loyalty is tested when one of the members kills his girlfriend. Many of the audience had seen this film or were big fans, this was my first time. I really enjoyed the film and saw it as black comedy that raised questions on society in that era. Crispin Glover played a weird a wacky druggy named Layne and actually came out after the show with director Tim Hunter to talk about the filmmaking experience. I liked the film and it came across to me as an adult’s version of E.T.

DAY 3 – SUNDAY

The last day of the festival and it ended in style. I got to see two more films, a panel and Robert Redford stood a couple feet away from me at one point. The first film of the day was Liberal Arts, this film was written, directed by and starred Josh Radnor. The film follows the character of Jesse who is invited back to his old university for a retirement dinner for one of his old professors. While he is there he meets and starts a relationship with a student who is 19 years old. There is a difference of 16 years between the couple. The film strikes up the themes of age, love and most importantly morals. It was one of the best films of the festival and really was a brilliant and touching story. My Dad said that it might possibly be one of the best films he has ever seen and nearly made him cry. Most of the audience were welling up near the end and made you want to do something more with your life. One of the best things about the film was the cast and the great chemistry between them all especially Elizabeth Olsen and her characters relationship with Jesse. I asked Josh Radnor if the chemistry was hard to find in actors and he replied that he would rather work with actors he got on with, rather than because of who they are. My favourite scene was between the two actors and they are reading the letters they have been sending to each other, they talk about classical music and why it is surprisingly good. The whole scene is edited really well and is accompanied by the music which just makes it even cooler. After this film we saw the panel Making LUV that gave director Sheldon Candis even more time to talk about the making of his film. The talk was really inspiring and made me even more determined to fulfill my dream of becoming a filmmaker. He also talked more about the young actor Michael Rainy Jr and how he was a godsend to the film and how without him the film would have fallen apart. The last film of the festival I saw was 2 Days in New York, this was the sequel to the excellent 2 Days in Paris. This time the character of Marion lives with her new boyfriend Mingus played by the hilarious Chris Rock. The plot is similar to the first one, in terms of the testing of the couples relationship, especially when Marion’s dad, sister and ex-boyfriend come to ‘The Big Apple’ to see them. The consequences are very funny and you will not get bored once. The new addition of Chris Rock really helps the push the sequel into new heights, some of his one liners are brilliant; ‘KKK Bunny’ being one of them. Julie Delpy wrote, directed and starred in the excellent film, unfortunately she couldn’t make it to the festival but either way this was a great end to what was one of the most amazing weekends of my life.

Well I think I chose well, when it came to my first ever film festival. I saw some amazing films and met the most inspiring people! There was one thing that stayed the same throughout all the films I saw, this was that they all had incredible stories. This is not something you get as much in mainstream cinema these days. There was always an advert before each of the screenings where Robert Redford would say ‘Imagine a world without stories.’ Films are about telling a story and these films did this and more! These films had heart and should be the ones that are dominating the box office. I haven’t just seen some incredible films this weekend, I have also been told some incredible stories which will stay with me forever.

Thank you for reading! If you attended the festival please let me know if you enjoyed it as much as I did in the comment bellow! Or feel free to email me at alex-moppy@hotmail.com

My video blog for the festival will hopefully be up in the next few days along with my review of Avengers Assemble.

Thank you Sundance London!

My Favourite Films from Previous Sundance Film Festivals

So as Sundance London is just around the corner, I thought it would be a good idea to let you guys know my favourite films from the festival since it started in 1978. Obviously I have not seen all the films that have been screened there but I have seen a few, so here are my top ten favourites:

Submarine
This film is funny, touching and just genuinely great! It is a directorial debut for Richard Ayoade and he has started well! The director will also be at Sundance London so hopefully he may be able to give some tips and advice on his film making style. I have reviewed this film before and that can be found here.

Mean Streets
Martin Scorsese started his well known fame for bringing us the greatest gangster movies right here! The film has everything we love about the gangster genre and mixes it with a pretty awesome soundtrack. Although dated the opening credits sequence still remains one of my personal favourites.

The Kids Are Alright
This is also one of my favourite films. I think it is brilliantly filmed with a great story and an issue which has not been explored much by other filmmakers. The cast are spot on and they perfect every scene. Especially Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore who are standouts among the cast. But with a start and end that is soundtracked by two of my favourite artists, MGMT and Vampire Weekend, how could you go wrong?

Memento
The film that brought Christopher Nolan into the limelight. Starring the underrated Guy Pearce, this film has it all, action, romance and thriller of a plot! Yes it is crazy and messes with your mind but it sure does deliver! Has the man ever made a bad film?

Blue Valentine
This film is one of the most depressing films ever made, but it sure is good! Standout performances from Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a couple who's relationship is going down the drain. The film also gives us plenty of flashbacks into seeing the start of their relationship. Truly a great but depressing film!

Bronson
This film proved to me that Tom Hardy is a hell of an actor! He is almost unrecognisable in his role. The film is dark, violent and surprisingly funny! I have reviewed this film before and you can find that here.

(500) Days Of Summer
Another one of my favourite film. I love films that recreate the romance genre and make something new, original and exciting. This film is edited together brilliantly with comedy, great casting and some awesome tunes! The director Marc Webb is now about to film my most anticipated film of the year The Amazing Spider-Man.

Reservoir Dogs
One of Tarantino's best and also considered one of the best indie films of all time, started at Sundance. Could we see another breakthrough hit or future big star director premiere at Sundance London? I have reviewed this film before and that can be found here.

Four Lions
This is one of the best British comedies to come around since Hot Fuzz. It is hilarious and rather controversial, everything us British love about a comedy film! Who thought a comedy about terrorists could be so good!

Super Size Me
I could do this list without adding a documentary from the Sundance Film Festival! This is arguably one of the best documentaries ever made, it also had a big impact on audiences and the fast food industry alike. It certainly made me think twice when ordering a giant Big Mac!

So that concludes my list. Other films that didn't make it but should be given a mention include:
Donnie Darko
Napoleon Dynamite
American Psycho
Hump Day
Take Shelter
The Guard
Perfect Sense
Unmade Beds
Moon
World’s Greatest Dad
Thanks for reading! Feel free to follow me on Twitter @SuperAlexMan or subscribe to my YouTube account and watch my short film!

Come back Monday to see the review for a movie I am extremely excited about, Avenger Assemble. And then after that you can watch my first ever video blog for Sundance London!

See you then!

Sundance Comes To London

Next week London hosts the first ever Sundance Film Festival that isn't in Utah. The giant indie festival is held in Utah each year and premieres some of the biggest indie films soon coming to a cinema near you. About 120 films are screened at the festival, in London we get to see 14 of them, we also get a range of short films and panels one held by the creator himself, Robert Redford. I have been lucky enough to acquire tickets for my birthday in January and after a long wait, it is almost here!

I have the top ten film package and sharing those ten films with my Dad. So that's five films and exclusive passes to the Sundance Inc Club. This is my first ever film festival and I cannot wait. The films that are coming sound great and so does the host committee which features people such as; Danny Boyle, Edgar Wright, Helen Mirren and Richard Ayoade. Excited is not the word to describe how I am feeling right now. As a budding filmmaker it will be great to here from the masters and hopefully get some advice on how to break into the industry. This could be a life changing experience!

Bellow I have listed the films that I am going to be seeing and why I am anticipating them:

Safety Not Guaranteed
Three magazine employees head out on an assignment to interview a guy who placed a classified ad seeking a companion for time travel.

My Verdict: This looks very funny and has the possibility to be a touching film also. It also stars that guy from New Girl! I am really excited about this one!

For Ellen
A struggling musician takes an overnight long-distance drive in order to fight his estranged wife for custody of their young daughter.

My Verdict: Paul Dano is one of the most underrated young actors at the moment. He nails every role! So he is the main reason i'm excited about this one, but the supporting cast is great, including Jon Heder and Jena Malone. Should be a good one!

LUV
Over the course of one day, a shy 13-year-old forms a bond with his troubled uncle.

My Verdict: The director Sheldon Candis seems like a very down to earth guy, he also wrote what could be a very personal and emotional story. Really looking forward to this, it also stars Danny Glover and Boardwalk Empire's Chalky White, Michael Kenneth Williams.

Liberal Arts
When thirty-something Jesse is invited back to his alma mater, he falls for a young 19-year-old college student and is faced with the powerful attraction that springs up between them.

My Verdict: Although  I may not have loved Martha Marcy May Marlene I did love Elizabeth Olsen and I cannot wait to see her in another film. This looks like it could be a really good love story that makes audiences question age differences between lover. And for the ladies, it also stars Zac Efron. Looks like good one!

2 Days in New York
Marion has broken up with Jack (Two Days in Paris) and now lives in New York with their child.

My Verdict: Sequel to the great 2 Days in Paris which I watched the other day and liked very much! This time Jack is gone and a new boyfriend played by the brilliant Chris Rock! And if that doesn't flick your switch the main character Marion played by Julie Deply once again, writes, directs and produces! Should be a great end to what could be an incredible weekend!

So if you are also going to Sundance London then you might see me there! If not then I am going to hopefully film the experience and release an Alex's Essential Movie Blog - first ever video blog!

Thanks for reading!