The Help

The Help is one of the best films that I have seen in a long time. It is a political/family drama. It has Emma Stone in the lead role of Eugenia Phelan (Skeeter). It is set in Mississippi, which means nothing to me but mud pie. It also stars Viola Davis and Bryce Dallas Howard.

You meet the Aibileen and Skeeter. They seem to be getting along just fine. But then there is a flashback and you see who Aibileen works for. She is the narrator throughout the film, and it gives an insight into her life. You are taken through a series of situations that the maids have had to go through, you see the things that they had to face on a daily basis and it does make you think. You see Minny getting fired for using the toilet during a thunderstorm. And then you see everything get better for Skeeter and her book. And what I think is the saddest part of this whole film; this is when we find out what really happened to Constantine (Skeeter’s maid).

The film was so well made, and well written and well directed and everything. I don’t quite understand why I find this film so amazing, but I do. The film has a cohesive aspect to it, as it doesn’t start at the beginning of the whole story, but starts at the start of the actual stories in the book, which I think was quite a smart idea. Tate Taylor has definitely outdone himself, and I think that this is one of his better films. Of course a lot of the respect goes to Kathryn Stockett who wrote the novel of the same name.

I really enjoyed this film; it was a film about one of the darker times in history (that isn’t meant to be a racist pun). The film is all about a very serious issue, but it still keeps it quite light hearted and funny. The slave trade isn’t the only hard issue that it is about though; it is about domestic abuse and illness during pregnancy too, which are both issues that affect a lot of people. Definitely worth a watch.

Friends with Benefits

Friends with Benefits was a typical romantic comedy starring Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake and Woody Harrelson, it was set mainly in New York, with parts of the film taking place in Los Angeles.

So, to start off with both of the protagonists break up with their other halves, they then meet each other, and become very good friends. But they can’t just leave it at two good friends, who both happen to be single and are of the opposite sex…oh no, so they decide that a fuck buddy relationship would work for both of them because they are emotionally bollocksed. Then of course, she wants to end it so that she can try and find her Prince Charming, so she goes on a date with this new guy, fucks him on the fifth date, he turns out to be a prick. I’m not gonna give away the ending, but surely you can see where this is going.

The film was really well written, and serious kudos to the writers, they know what kind of films sell. But in all seriousness, they could have made a film that ripped the norm to pieces with a title like that, but instead they made it like every other chick flick on the market…why?! I loved the film still, it was awesome, Mila Kunis bent over was hot, and Justin Timberlake topless is always good to get people to see a film. But it was just typical, and I was ridiculously let down.

The acting was good though, as was to be expected. The sex scenes were pretty good, without getting too graphic. I loved the sound effects when he first goes down on her. And the straight up honesty about sex in relationships was pure banter.

Hmmm, so now for my overall opinion…it was a good film that attracted the masses, but it would’ve been better without all the typical shit. But I do think that the film was great in the way that it was so straight up about guys and gash, shit sex when you’re in a relationship, and how everyone is an emotional fucktard. So yeah, I would recommend going to see it. If you liked The Break-Up then you’ll probably like this, it’s the same kind of humour. Check it out.

War Horse

“War horse, there he is, a strange beast you’ve become.” Nice quote? Yeah, I agree, bloody good film as well. War Horse is an adventure film directed by the one and only Steven Spielberg, just from that, the film is already epic. The cast of the film include Jeremy Irvine taking on the main human role of Albert. You also have Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, Tom Hiddleston, Toby Kebbell and Matt Milne, no majorly famous faces, but you’ll recognise them when you see them. The film is set during WWI and the majority of the film is in France.

Albert is a young boy and his father goes out and buys a horse, but he buys a thoroughbred instead of the plough horse that the family needs, so Albert takes it upon himself to train the horse, who he names Joey. When torrential rain ruins the family’s chances of getting a good harvest, Albert’s father sells Joey to the British Cavalry. This film is based around Joey and Albert’s relationship and mainly follows Joey and he changes owner.

This set design for this film was extraordinary. Less and less films are war dramas and even if they are, they aren’t usually based on the First World War. This film portrayed it so well though, the sets were perfect, the costumes were amazing, especially in love with the uniforms. The locations that were chosen were wise choices. No Man’s land was shown brilliantly, I was genuinely astounded by the quality.

The best part of the film for me was in No Man’s Land, where our Geordie soldier Colin and Peter, the German soldier, come together to save Joey and then flip a coin to decide who gets the horse. It was brilliant, just casually showing towards the end of the film that the simplest of things can bring enemies together for one cause.

This film is an emotional rollercoaster; it’s happy, sad and everything in between. It is a story about a friendship that literally goes through war and still remains intact. If you liked E.T. and Lassie, this is definitely a film you’ll enjoy. I wouldn’t say that this is a kid’s film, because I genuinely enjoyed it, and I can guarantee that I’m not seven years old, so yes, I’m vouching for this film and saying go out of your way to watch it.

Contagion

Contagion is a drama that was released in 2011, directed by Steven Soderbergh, it included many big stars, including Laurence Fishburne, who took the leading role of Dr Ellis Cheevers; Jude Law who played the role of a conspiring freelance journalist, the cast also included Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon. This film was set across the globe, but was mainly kept to the United States.

The film is based around the idea of a deadly disease that is very quickly spreading across the world; it follows the doctors trying to find a vaccine as well as a freelance journalist that believes there is a simple cure to it that the government isn’t telling the general public about, in order to save their own skin. It shows the attempts by the government to keep social order, and their miserable failure in this mission.

The acting in this film was amazing, as would be expected with such a high end cast, they definitely delivered. I think that everyone played their own roles remarkably well. I, personally, don’t like child actors, but even they performed very well. I think the best matched role was Kate Winslet to her character of Dr Erin Mears, she suited the role very well and I think it was bettered by the fact that she is British, but that is just my own personal opinion.

The editing of the film was pretty mint. I mean, the film flowed really well for the pace it was going at. Honestly, I thought the film started off really slowly, and it stayed like that for probably the first hour. When it started to get faster and more interesting though, the editing followed suit very well, the ideas that were portrayed were shown well and the editor did a great job, I was impressed.

The film was pretty good, for what it was. It had a slow start, but when it sped up I enjoyed it a lot more. There were many different ideas flying around throughout the film. When I saw the mass graves, I thought that they were reminiscent of WWII, and I found this to be a good, if not slightly depressing, reference. The film isn’t particularly gruesome, and the only scenes where I felt remotely sickened were those with the dead monkeys and Kate Winslet in a bag. My favourite part of the film was the last ten minutes, I thought Matt Damon was such a sweetie, and when they show the development of the disease the only thought that went across my mind was ‘YES!’.

I’d recommend this film to anyone that has a genuine interest in well made films, as for genre I’d say it was a medical drama, so maybe the kind of film for the people who watch House, and programmes alike. Also if you enjoyed 28 Days Later, this is definitely a must see film for you.

Sucker Punch

I remember seeing the advertisements for this, and thinking that the film was a total enigma, and I was right. There are more adverts on for its première on Sky, and I still have no idea what it's about, but surely this makes a film look more appealing...right?
So, I decided to look it up, and of course, the first place that I went was IMDb. Turns out this film should actually be amazing, I'm definitely going to go out and buy it. It's about a girl getting institutionalised by her abusive step father, and then she thinks up an alternative reality as her coping mechanism, sounds pretty good to be fair.
It sounds like a film that you can watch with mates, family, or even your boy/girl friend.
I'm very glad that I saw the adverts on Sky, cause this film looks AWESOME!