Film Friday | Mixed Bag

Some films I've watched lately:



+ L'Illustionnise: A really sweet animated film by Sylvain Chomet who also directed The Triplets of Bellevue which I loved. The movie revolves around a struggling illusionist performer and a young lady he meets while travelling, who seems to think he is a real magician. It has a great subtle sense of humour about it and ends on a very realistic note.

+ Tucker & Dale Vs Evil: One of those movies you have really low expectations for and end up pleasantly surprised. The main characters in the film, Tucker (played by Alan Tudyk who I've loved since Firefly) & Dale are good spirited best friends on vacation at their dilapidated holiday house who are mistaken for murderous hillbillies by a group of obnoxious college kids. I laughed a whole lot. Nice subversion of the crappy college-kids-camping-in-the-woods-and-get-murdered genre.



+ Breakfast At Tiffany's: This might come across as a bit controversial, but I thought this was an example of one of those movies you have really high expectations for and they just aren't met. I think it mostly stemmed from my dislike of Holly Golightly. I get really frustrated at the manic-pixie-dream-girl persona that removes any real, solid, strong attributes from women in film. It's a well made film, but I found the characters and (lack of) plot uninteresting. I really wanted to like it.

+ The Tree Of Life: Another controversial entry - this film gets two hearts for me for the beautiful imagery, but not much else. I watched this film at Film Society and probably 25+ people walked out before the hour mark. I like to get closure on a film, even if I'm not enjoying it, so we stayed. It was interesting to see Brad Pitt as such a character that wasn't very likable and there were a few moments that I enjoyed that revolved around the children playing. I just found the whole movie very self indulgent, attempting to be huge and affecting and convey the meaning of life. It just ended up feeling like a big cliche made perhaps by the director for himself and not for an audience. There's a big chunk in the middle of the film of probably 20 minutes of landscape and wildlife images, and I'm still not sure why. Please let me know if I just didn't get it!