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My lips have lost their subject
Their words no longer meaningful or beautiful
But cruel and cold
And craving for another lover
Screaming words of pain and disgust
I long for your sweet embrace
Your soft kiss on my lips
But I fear you’ll never taste the same
That the love is truly gone
I pray that you’ll somehow see
The light you first saw in me
Perhaps that light has burned out now
Ready for another’s match
Edinburgh’s International Film Festival opened with Marc Turtletaub’s ‘Puzzle’.
A touching story about a stay at home mother who finds a hidden talent in puzzles. Throughout the film, Kelly Macdonald’s character ‘Agnes’ finds her own independence away from her closed off family life.
The character of Agnes is first introduced hosting a party, which the audience assumes is for her husband as she cleans up after everyone and brings her own cake in. Her life at first is contained within the house, looking after her husband and two sons. The first part of the film seems as if it is set in the 50’s or 60’s as the style of the house is very simplistic and old fashioned which could represent how Agnes has not fully lived her life as she is stuck in the past in the house she grew up in. There is a theme of repetition and order in Agnes’ life, foreshadowing her hidden talent for jigsaw puzzles.
Soon after taking an interest in puzzles, she ventures to New York and finds a ‘puzzle partner’ to take part in a puzzle competition. This brings a vast change in Agnes’ life as she begins to find what she enjoys but struggles to tell her family what she is doing. The film explores family relationships and new beginnings in an intriguing way.
Kelly MacDonald has an outstanding performance however some of the other characters lacked character development as the film was focused on the development of Agnes’ character. The plot was well developed and told a story of finding independence within yourself.
A beautiful story of love and loss, Saoirse Ronan’s acting stands out boldly in the role of Eilis as an Irish immigrant looking for work in America to support her family. Through tragic ends and new beginnings, Eilis goes from a young, innocent daughter to a New York woman.
As Eilis is forced to find work in America in the early 50s, she struggles to leave behind her home in Ireland. Eilis struggles living in the big city of New York and suffers terribly with homesickness. As she slowly but surely settles into American dream, Eilis meets an Italian/American man who she soon marries and is ready to settle down with. Everything seems to be falling into place, along with her successful job, up until a tragic event forces her to return to her hometown in Ireland. Eilis is suddenly reminded of the comforts of home as she returns. Once again everything seems to fall into place back at home as she is given a job and is welcomed back with open arms by old friends and family.
Eilis has to choose between her home and everything she has missed for so long, or her new blossoming life in the big city of New York. A whole new perspective on a coming of age film.
You kissed me with all the fire in your body
Did it burn out?
My body was a work of art, a pristine canvas
You messed it up with your surrealism
You told me I had the body of an angel
With the mind of a devil, luring you in with lust
From the moment our lips touched I knew it was real
Now all those songs we listened to are tainted by your kiss
There’s an empty space where you used to hold me
It kills me to think that you could fill that void so easily
My city is haunted by the ghost of our love
Every street has a dark and wonderful memory
When I saw you, your eyes weren’t the same
No longer filled with love or lust
Two beautiful ice cold voids of a stranger
It hurt like hell when you hugged me and I felt nothing
Director ‘Andrei Zvyagintsev’ creates a haunting and real portrayal of a deeply damaged and failing marriage in ‘Loveless’. A couple breaking up struggle to barely keep up a conversation about their divorce and act in almost childlike fashion, as they can’t even see how damaging it has become to their child.
The movie portrays the daily life of the adults who are so obsessed with their idea of a “perfect” life that they fail to pay attention to their own son. The twisted selfish nature of humans is explored through the couple as they try and find their missing son after he goes missing due to their ignorance. The mother continues to ignore her son, as she is constantly caring about only herself and her new relationship as she fails to face up to reality. The father only cares about his reputation and his work. The film maintains a constant tension as if something is about to happen throughout the film, even during the look into the parent’s lives.
There is an awkward and tense atmosphere when the audience sees what their lives are like. Their new relationships are what they aspire to have, and are portrayed in an atmosphere almost like a horror movie, putting the audience constantly on edge. The film focuses on the self-obsessive parents and their fake happiness.
This film is definitely worth seeing and deserves the Oscar nomination for best foreign film.
Robert Bloch’s portrayal of a seemingly innocent hotel owner takes a dark twist as the murder of a young woman takes place at the hotel.
Norman Bates is convinced his unstable mother was the one who murdered the guest while in the shower, as he suffers from a personality disorder and puts the blame on his deceased mother. A detective is hired to investigate the mysterious disappearance of the murdered woman, Mary Crane, as she has stolen money from her boss and fled in order to hide from her crimes. Norman answers the detective’s questions nervously, making the detective more suspicious of Norman for being a potential suspect to her disappearance.
‘Psycho’ explored the themes of the insanity of a man with a split personality disorder due to his dysfunctional relationship with his mother. He blames her for his dark thoughts, and inevitably blames her for the murder of Mary Crane. I really liked the portrayal of his insanity and how he thinks he is innocent due to his split personality. It reminds me of my favourite gothic novel ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ – both these novels both explore the themes of good versus evil. I haven’t seen the movie adaptation of the book, which I am looking forward to.
Going from the greatness and awe of ‘The Force Awakens’ to the latest film of the Star Wars trilogy ‘The Last Jedi’ was a massive let-down. With predictable turns and a lack of plot, the new generation of Star Wars series have taken a turn for the worse.
I was looking forward to seeing ‘The Last Jedi’ after the excitement of the previous movie in the trilogy, however I was disappointed by the predictable plot and how the characters were clearly used as plot devices with little character development. I did enjoy the strong female lead of ‘Rey’ who did develop during the action of the film. The special effects were spectacular, however despite what 21st century technology can contribute to the Star Wars trilogy, the writing and directing of the movie did not balance it out.
There was a vast amount of diversity in the film which I really liked. However, the use of characters as plot devices was what really disappointed me about the movie. Luke was clearly used as a replacement for Han Solo in order for Kylo Ren to have someone to be angry at throughout the film, driving him to want to destroy the Resistance. Two characters that outshone the rest in ‘The Force Awakens’ were Poe and Finn, however I feel they had less importance and a lack of character development in ‘The Last Jedi’ which was extremely disappointing. There were also subtle hints of unnecessary romances developing between characters, which I disliked.
Overall, I think the plot was predictable, characters were clearly dismissed and badly written however the music and cinematography were beautiful and those who love a good movie soundtrack will not be disappointed.
I loved the original Jumanji movie however I didn’t think it needed a sequel but when I saw the video game transformation of the original movie I was in awe with the action, comedy and cinematography.
Four teens that would normally never talk are forced to hang out with each other in detention when they find a video game, and get trapped inside the video game version of Jumanji as the avatars they selected. Two friends who have drifted apart are brought back together and a romance is formed between the ‘nerd’ and the ‘introverted’ girl played by Dwayne Johnson and Karen Gillan. Kevin Hart’s portrayal of ‘Moose Finbar’ his avatar character of the zoologist was hilarious as he goes from a tall teenager to the small zoologist and his best friend goes from the smaller geeky friend to the tall and muscular ‘Dr Smolder Bravestone’ and of course the ‘self-obsessed’ popular girl choses the character of ‘Professor Shelly Oberon’ is amazingly portrayed by Jack Black who’s one liners are guaranteed to make you laugh out loud throughout the whole film.
The group struggle to get along at first but soon discover they have to work together in order to get back to their normal lives. Jack Black’s character helps guide Karen Gillan’s character through the basics of flirting to distract the guards so that the team can escape, this was my personal favourite scene when ‘Ruby Roundhouse’ uses one of her character’s skills of dance fighting to take out the guards. This movie is the perfect combination of action and comedy, and is completed with great character development where friendships are reborn and romances are formed.
Part One
The unknown mystery of the night
Every street a page
A waiting discovery
Every corner like the next page
Begging to be seen
The streets seem disconnected
Not like the day with its welcoming light
But a dark river of sin and madness
Calm yet unpredictable
What connects this city’s madness?
The dim lights, the alleys, the sin?
We all know the city’s addictive toxic
Could it be the people within?
Part Two
Towering alleys swoop over the city
The good men and sinners below
The moonlight cats demonic shadows
On the city’s proudest buildings
The devil’s hour approaches
Anticipation from each window
Only those without a care in the world
Would be seen at this hour
There is never silence within the chaos
Each passing hour offers more.
Deep within the heart of the city
Is where the sin is almost pure
Part Three
Darkness swallows the city
The streets are dimly lit
By only a couple of shining lamps
In-between the light there is pure darkness
The darkness evokes mystery, excitement
But sin and murder
Spiralling streets descend into madness
Madness unfolds into the night
The people and places create wonderful disasters
Embedded into our history.
Going to see Justice League with two fellow superhero fanatics, I did not have any expectations and had only seen a couple of short trailers for the film. I have never been the biggest fan of the DC movies; Justice League did not convince me to become a fan.
In the film, Batman has to form a team of superheroes (in a very similar style to The Avengers) to which some obviously refuse and then turn up “unexpectedly” mid-battle in order to be more dramatic. Of course Ezra Miller and Gal Gadot’s acting outshines the rest of the film and their characters individually are very charismatic in comparison to Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Batman. I am not implying that his acting was bad but I think that the writing did not reveal anything about his character as he spent half the film being sad and angry that Superman was dead and barely contributed to the plot. There was no character development for Batman at all in Justice League
The overall plot was predictable and had no originality or plot twists in comparison to other movies of the same genre. The villain ‘Steppenwolf’ had the very predictable plan of taking over earth with unearthly power without any empathy towards human life. The team soon realizes they do not have enough power alone to defeat the villain and have to resurrect Superman by using the dangerous power that the villain needs to take over earth. I think that this moment was the highlight of the movie as Superman added more character to the team.
This film wasn’t all bad, it definitely had good moments and introduced two new characters well; Aquaman and The Flash, however I think it lacked plot and a climactic ending and was instead very predictable and clichéd.