Movies In Your Spare Time: My Angel Experience

My Experience Watching Angel 

As you can see from a pervious post on Fish Tank, I am a very big Michael Fassbender fan.  I believe he is an incredibly passionate actor and is very versatile.  He has shown through many films that he can play any character, and be very successful at it.  Fassbender to me is one of those actors that is very very like-able.  Naturally, I decided a while ago that I would watch all of Fassbender's films that I could get my hands on.  The film Angel is unknown by most people and so this is where I heard about it.  

The movie Angel is a British film from 2007 that was based on the novel by the British novelist, Elizabeth Taylor.  Directed, written and narrated by François Ozon, Angel is about an aspiring female (Named Angel) writer who hits the big time on a novel she wrote when locked in her room.  Angel then leaves her small town where she felt like an outsider and continues her career as a writer.  After several more successful novels, Angel meets an attractive artist that changes her life.  I would go on to tell you where the story goes from there, but I do not want to spoil anything.  Let's just say that the ending is very shocking and unexpected.  It is up to the viewer to decide if he or she believes it is a sufficient ending to kind of an odd plot.  Like I had said before, Michael Fassbender is featured in the film, while Romala Garai stars in it as Angel.  Same Neill, Charlotte Rampling and Lucy Russell are also in the movie.

Once again, I am the biggest drama-romance movie junkie.  I eat all of that forbidden love stuff up like its ice cream.  I just can't get enough of it.  This movie is the perfect example of that.  This film is obviously not very well known, and it also hasn't done so well with the critics.  On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 50% critics' "Fresh" rating.  It is also a very very ver low budget film.  In fact, there are points in the movie where the actors are set in a buggy, traveling to another part of the country.  In those scenes, the green screen is absolutely atrocious as can be considered laughable.  Its so bad, that I wonder if this effect is actually intentional.  You'd think that I would hate this film after mentioning all of these negative things about it, however, I love this film.  I have fallen in love with the twisted love story and the dark life Angel lives.  I love everything else other than the filming of this movie.  Obviously, I am able to look over the poor quality of the movie because of my obsession with everything else the movie has going for it. 

One of those amazing aspects of the movie that I am obsessed with is its themes.  Angel is a film of courage, hard-work, and following your heart despite what others may think.  The character Angel goes against all gender roles and decides to pursue what makes her happiest: Writing.  She is completely ostracized by everyone she knows and yet she doesn't care at all.  She knows her purpose in life and she does everything to fight to be able to do it.  It really is inspiring.  I believe that a lot of teenagers can learn from Angel and her determination from the beginning of the film.

I have several favorite scenes from this movie but there is one in particular that stands out to me.  At the end of the movie, there is something huge that happens that is very dark and again, unexpected.  I wish I could talk more about why this is such a shocking and odd scene but I am sad to say that it would spoil the movie for anyone who is wanting to watch it.  For now, all I can say is that Angel turns out to be very similar to Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Since I can't say anything more about this scene, I will discuss another that I just think is very romantic in the film.  It is a scene between Angel and Esme (Michael Fassbender) where the two of them are sitting in Esme's art studio.  His art studio is very old and says something about Esme's success as an artist at this point.  Esme and Angel talk about Esme's art and why is it so different from other artists at the time.  His art is described as just "smuges" that are put on a canvas using too dark of colors.  Angel tells Esme that she likes his work and sees his artistic esthetic and things sort of take off from there.  Like usual, I will include the trainer for this movie as well as this scene at the end of this blog post.

Lastly, I would like to talk about the cinematography of this movie and the style it used for filming.  Above I had mentioned that this was clearly an extremely low budget film.  This film wasn't created to make a ton of money in the box office.  It was just meant to be a pleasant movie about an interesting plot from an old novel.  I believe it was more of a film that was for people who loved the novel and for the director himself.  Because of this movie's purpose, it didn't call for the best special affects and the best visual appeal.  The lighting in this movie is very basic I would say.  Even though the plot is very dark and depressing at times, the whole movie isn't ALWAYS dark.  The camera angles that were chosen to film this movie aren't anything to rave about either.  There are many times where the camera zooms into someones face to a close up, but that really is the only special thing about the camera angles.                       

Overall, I clearly loved this film.  I love the twisted, romantic plot of this movie and do not have a hard time overlooking the low-budget look to it.  This is a movie for people who know their specific film preferences, and adore a dramatic couple hours looking into this woman's life.  I am very glad I decided to watch this movie.

 

Movies In Your Spare Time: My The Longest Yard Experience

My Experience Watching The Longest Yard

Until now I have been reviewing and posting only about movies that are very dark and serious.  I figured it was about time that I lighten up the mood of this blog for once.  What other perfect way of doing this is there other than watching a goofy Adam Sandler movie?  The Longest Yard is one of Sandler's classics and one of the most popular movies that he is well-known for.  I have been meaning to watch this movie because I have grown up in a family that is OBSESSED (like even my grandma and my mom are the queens of fantasy football) with football.  Lucky for me, The Longest Yard was on t.v. one night.

The Longest Yard is about a professional football player named Paul Crewe who was kicked out of the NFL and put in prison.  He is told by the prison warden that he must put together a football team consisting of crimminals to play against the guards that work at the prison.  The movie then goes on about the struggle the prisoners have throughout preparing for the big game and during the game.
There actors that are featured in this movie are Chris Rock, Nelly, James Cromwell, Adam Sandler of course, and many other actors with minor parts.

Even though The Longest Yard is a very goofy, silly movie, it does have some valuable themes that are displayed during the film.  The biggest of all the themes is one of perseverance and standing up for yourself.  The convicts are consistently harassed and put down by the guards and yet they rise to the occasion and (spoiler alert) win the football game.  They put in hard work into practice and actually deserve the win that they get at the end of the movie.  Again, although this is in no way a serious movie, it has some nice themes to it.

There is not a single scene in this movie that really sticks out in my head that encompasses all that the movie is about besides the scene where they actually win the game.  As a viewer, you are genuinely happy for the characters and are excited to see that they succeed.  I believe that a movie is successful if the directors and actors can convince the viewers that they care about the characters.  This movie does a very good job doing that considering the "good guys" are convicts.  I will include a link to this scene down below, along with the movie trailer.

When it comes down to cinematography and the way Peter Segal (The Director) decided to film this movie, it is very simple.  This is a typical comedy movie with slap-stick elements.  There is no emphasis on sound, lighting, or acting.  The main point of this movie is to get people to laugh.  NOT to get people to appreciate the artistic qualities in the certain shots used in each scene.  I have to say that there are times when the camera gets right up in the action of the football game that are very cool.

Overall, I did like this movie.  Even though it is not my typical genre that I would seek out, I got some good laughs out of this movie.  I enjoyed watching it on a Saturday afternoon when I needed something somewhat "light" to watch.