28 December, 2013

Best of 2011

Getting ready for my Best of '13 list, I'm going back and listing my picks for 2011 and 2012. Here's 2011:

Lee Yoon-ki's Come Rain, Come Shine

Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive

Manoel de Oliviera's The Strange Case of Angelica

Jiang Wen's Let the Bullets Fly

Johnnie To's Life Without Principle

Hong Sangsoo's The Day He Arrives

Mike Mills's Beginners

Peter Chan's Wu Xia

Ryoo Seung-won's The Unjust

Richard Ayoade's Submarine

13 December, 2013

Kinda Fuzzy...

Films: Yes! Expect an actual post about film by Monday.

24 June, 2013

Wonderful, Glorious

Before Midnight

Directed by Richard Linklater, starring Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy.

Many moons ago, the above trio joined together to make Before Sunrise, a film about Jesse and Celine. The former, a young American (Hawke) on holiday in Europe, the latter a young Frenchwoman (Delpy) that he would be forever linked to. Before Sunrise tells the tale of their first meeting, which was followed up nearly a decade later with the sequel Before Sunset, and chronicled their reunion. In the second sequel, Before Midnight, we learn of the duo's life together as grownups.

Much like the first two films in the series, Before Midnight focuses primarily on Jesse and Celine. However, this time around, auxiliary characters are given screen time which serves to update the audience on the lives of the main characters without voice over or heavy handed exposition. Once that is accomplished, it is Jesse and Celine, once again. Though the film is made up of characters doing things that are far from exciting or extraordinary, the dialogue between Jesse and Celine is exciting and feels familiar both for the characters and real life.

For the uninitiated, Before Midnight is a nice little film. For those who have seen the prior films, its one of those magical experiences where a fan thinks, "I'd like to know what happened to the characters," and were treated to a film that shows it.



Next time: An film that explains why man is a giddy thing...

The Turnaround

Salutations!

I've been thinking of returning to my old ways of watching films and blogging about them for some time now. Taking a little over a year off has been wonderful, and I'm falling in love with the cinema again. I'd like to share that feeling.

Expect posts about Before Midnight, Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, and many more films, soon.