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!

Ruby Sparks

I am a sucker for romance films with some kind of genre twist, I wrote a whole case study about it for my media studies course! So when I heard about Ruby Sparks I knew it was a must watch and that feeling was solidified when it got such good reviews in the states, but now it is out cinemas over here in the UK and after the screening I was glad it had hit all expectations, but still took twists that I had not seen coming, making it different from any other romance I have seen before.

It's been six years since the directorial team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris brought us the incredible Little Miss Sunshine, it has been long awaited there next project and it was definitely worth the wait. Ruby Sparks is about a novelist struggling with writer's block and finds romance in a most unusual way: by creating a female character, Ruby, he thinks will love him, then willing her into existence. The script for the film was ironically written by Ruby Sparks herself, Zoe Kazan. Zoe Kazan is also the real life partner of Paul Dano who plays the novelist Calvin. No wonder the two of them had great on screen chemistry!

The directors had a host of stars to play with in this film, such as Steve Coogan, Antonio Banderas and Annette Bening, they are all great fun even though most of them don't get that much screen time. Though it is Dano and Kazan who make the film work, not that we were expecting anything less. Has Paul Dano ever had a bad performance?

The story in this film is great, it's kind of sci-fi element creates a lot of fun to be had and a lot of thinking about morals and life from the audience. The script is great and there are some really great lines that make you think about your own life and relationships and brings a great new perspective to them. What makes a perfect girl? Would you change anything about your partner? These great questions are asked over again throughout the film and depending on what kind of person you are, shapes how you feel about the characters. I found myself switching sides a lot throughout the film.

I love the theme of morals and doing the right thing, the film reminded me a lot of my favourite film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there were a lot of things similar to this. Though the film was less arty then Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind it did however go much darker, much darker then I thought it would and this was just emphasised by the unnerving soundtrack.A scene in the final act also feels like it has come from a horror film, but don't worry this isn't all doom and gloom, in fact it is quite a feel good film by the end of the rolercoaster ride of a journey. A journey enforced with an incredible cast, script and very natural visuals that almost make this film feel as if it was real.

The film unfortunately is not as good as Michel Gondry's masterpiece, neither is it as good at the directors previous work Little Miss Sunshine. It is not a bad film but it did not grip me in the way the other two did. It is still however, up there with a lot of the best romance films and is definitely another contender for best films of the year, that is why I am rating Ruby Sparks a  4/5.

What did you think of the film? Genius or pretentious? Another great indie romance or just another quirky girl love story? Please comment below!

Thanks for reading!

Crazily, not stupid, very lovely film!

So yesterday I finally got round to watching a film I have been waiting eagerly to see, Crazy, Stupid, Love. And I will start by saying that it was brilliant! The plot is quite complicated but don't be put off! It's about a man named Cal (Steve Carell) who is going through a divorce with his wife, whilst in a drunken depressed state he meets ladies man Jacob (Ryan Gosling), who helps turn his love life back around by helping him meet new women and become a bit of a player. Now Dan's son has fallen in love with his babysitter but the babysitter is in love with Dan. Still with me? Jacob soon falls for Hannah (Emma Stone) and Dan starts wanting his wife back but she is now seeing David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon). Take a deep breath. Ok.

So it all sounds kind of complicated but actually works really well, with a such a large cast some characters don't have a much time as would have hoped especially Emma Stone's character who is hilariously awkward when she is about to sleep with Jacob, but apart from that it is really well written. Which is surprising considering the writer Dan Fogelman previously wrote kids films Cars and Tangled.

The film feels a bit like American Beauty and The 40 Year Old Virgin combined at points and that is no bad thing at all! The great thing about this film is that even though it is a romcom us guys can actually sit throughout all of it without being forced by our girlfriends and wives! Finally a romcom that appeals to both males and females.

I love a good romcom that is unique and appeals to a wide audience, (500) Days Of Summer did it very well! The directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa have tried this new 'hybrid' genre before with I Love You Phillip Morris, which personally for me was pretty awful. So now they have finally redeemed themselves with this funny and emotional look on adult relationships.

And if that isn't enough to persuade you to see it, these two words may... Ryan Gosling.