Film 12 - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down A Dream

Some films you watch purely by accident, sometimes just because you watch five minutes of a four hour film and are determined to see it through to the end. That was what I did with this documentary about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

I was no huge fan of them before hand, not having listened to them much if at all, but the documentary was excellent and really turned me on to their music. It had the right kind of mix of new interviews, archive interviews and live footage.

Four hours was a bit long though, despite the fact that it remained interesting throughout, I struggle to maintain my attention span that long.

Film 11 - Brokeback Mountain

Needless to say... I cried. An increadibly emotional film, about two guys who just fell in love. This blogpost is about a month late, and I only got around to writing it because I watched Film 12, so the details are a bit hazy in my mind.

But I can remember the best bits, that first night of passion, the denial, the acceptance, and then finally the love. Sometimes you forget that not everywhere is a secular and liberal as London in 2010, and this film reminds you of the harsh realities of life for gay people in the south of America, then and now. You see them lose work because of it, have to hide this love story from everyone they know, and the flashback into the brutal homophobic killing which reminded them why they had to keep this a secret.

Then, near the end Jack Twist dies, and for the last fifteen minutes of the film, Ennis wanders alone, picking up fragments of Jack's life, the two shirts they wore on Brokeback, and just as Jack kept them to remember him by, Ennis does for Jack.