Film 10 - Casablanca

Here's looking at you kid...

What a film that was, I watched it a couple of days ago and I now know why it so often gets in lists of the best film ever. No film I've ever watched ever had more quotable lines than this one - and even ones attributed "play it again Sam" which were never actually said.

I don't often watch black and white films, and for the first few minutes it was a culture shock, but after a while I grew to see how it worked exactly with the old-fashioned charm of the characters. Characters like Rick were just the right mix of devilishly charming and with just enough virtue so you think he'd do the right thing in the end, and it was obvious why Ilsa was wanted by two men.

The ending, although predictable from my cultural point of view, was perfectly done and the final line remains the best end to a film I've ever seen.

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship"

Film 9 - Bowling For Columbine

Michael Moore is my sort of guy, a liberal in a land where the term liberal is mostly used as an insult, and according to one Morning Star article - a closet Marxist. The latter seems less plausible, but what is true is that he is one of the world's most famous documentary film-makers and very possibly one of the best.

I had seen part of Bowling for Columbine before, but never all the way to the end - thus it is eligible for this blog. We watched the whole film over a couple of lessons in Media Studies (blah, blah, blah easy subject etc - yep I've heard it all before).

America is infamous for having one of the highest gun crime and gun murder rates in the world and the high rate of gun ownership has been blamed for this, but by the end of the film Moore comes up with a new, more thought-provoking idea: The Media.

Looking at some of the examples of TV news from the US he showed, gives some idea of the climate of fear created that separates the US from equally gun loving Canada. Put simply, fear drives violence and the violence drives more fear and continues in a vicious cycle fuelled by the news media, looking for their ratings.

Film 8 - Little Miss Sunshine

After watching one and a half films I seen before (Fight Club and half of 10 Things I Hate About You) we all dozed off before waking up in the morning to continue with this interesting indie comedy.

The acting and storyline were both good and the granddad character was one of the funniest old men I'd ever seen, but the main problem I had with the film was the concept, a beauty contest for seven year olds. It just seemed so wrong and that just stopped me enjoying the end of the film as my mind just kept going back to the immense wrongness of the idea.

Suffice to say - as it only gets three paragraphs - not one of my favourite films of all time.

Film 7 - Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Teen comedies with Michael Cera in seem to be absurdly prevalent these days, enough so that now two of the first seven films I've watched this year have had him in them.

The shadow of 'Youth In Revolt' hung over this film from the moment the disk entered the DVD player, I was deeply sceptical that it could beat one of the funniest films I have ever seen... it didn't.

Despite this it was quite good, Nick and Norah made a good couple, the other members of the gay band were excellently played and the storyline was interesting.

Good... but not great.

Film 6 - Bambi

It's taken me a week to get round to writing up the bunch of films I and a group of friends watched on the first successful  film night that we've managed.

First up on film night, because me and another friend had never seen it before was Bambi... and I liked it.

Basic storyline, Bambi is born, then grows older and has kids of his own. In between is one of the saddest moments ever seen in a children's film, when Bambi's mother dies. If I look at the film with my Media Studies hat on it's an obvious use of the classical Hollywood narrative, but the symmetry with Bambi having his own kids at the end, despite being obvious was really heart-warming.

Nice kids film with some genuinely brilliant, heart-warming and sad moments is my final verdict.

Film 4 - Eating Out + Film 5 - Eating Out 2

To be honest, I watched these with a couple of friends and I remember them... very little. Two gay films, one about a guy who pretends to be straight to get the other guy and where the guy pretends to be gay to get the girl.

I think they were vaguely amusing but I'm just posting them here for the record.

I really need to get a move on if I'm going to make it to 100!

Film 3 - Youth In Revolt

Quite simply one of the funniest films I've ever seen. I went to see it about a week ago with a group of friends and we all laughed all the way through it. The plot seemed fine at the time although the more you think about it there is an element of absurdity about it, but then again how can a film in which the main character creates a split personality alter ego not be slightly absurd.

Funniest moments included:

1) Nick's alter ego trying to destroy the car and trailer whilst Nick inadvertently causes even more damage then walks away trying to look innocent.

2) Nick knocking over the cereal bowl, brilliantly deadpan acting, as Nick tried to think of something vaguely subversive and found nothing much.

3) Dodging the teachers as they try to stop him escaping the French boarding school

4) The book coming to life when he's high on 'shrooms' and the little finger moment, genuinely got the most laughs of any moment in the film

5) Nick being escorted away by the police in a dress

There were many other moments, and in many respects the film was just a vehicle for a series of vaguely connected skits. It was a pretty hilarious vehicle though.