Kill Your Darlings.

Kill Your Darlings. (2013)

again with the two faces.

Oh boy. Where to start?

The film is quite the mess. 

"A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs."

There's something a little off-beat about this beat generation film - ba-dun-dun-chh! Okay, terrible puns aside though, this was a very peculiar film to say the least. It felt like a very specific film, that director John Krokidas knew precisely what kind of film he wanted to make - and then failed entirely. I could see what he was aiming for, the troubled artists smoking endless arrays of cigarettes, inhaling and injecting any drugs they can get their hands on, franticly typing away at typewriters trying to churn out "something beautiful" whilst one of these soundtracks play in the background - upbeat jazz, soulful blues or weirdly out of place modern music. Want to know how it turned out? Exactly as it sounds, pretentious as fuck.

please just ... stop. talking. forever.

There are exactly 0.5 likeable characters in this film. I say 0.5 because Radcliffes character of Alan Ginsberg is probably the least detestable character - hell, he even has some moments where I wasn't actively rooting against him! But the rest of the characters are pretty damned unlikeable. Like DeHaan's portrayal of Lucien Carr. Every time he opened his mouth I wanted to roll my eyes and sigh and infinite sigh. Like, okay, I get that he is meant to be a great thinker and an unstoppable creative force and a deep soul of touching poetry and manic genius and oh my god can he speak one sentence that doesn't sound like he is reciting it from a random instagram picture with an "inspiring" hashtag.

The first half of the film came off like a mad scramble to get the characters to where they needed to be. All guns a-blazin', the characters were wafted in front of the audiences faces, giving us the briefest taste of who they were, before squeezing them into the boxes in which they would reside for the rest of the film, desperately trying to give off the illusion of development. Everything happens so quickly that it definitely felt rushed. It is eager to get started with the drug taking and rhythmic typing of typewriters and booze and sex; to begin pulling in and out of focus of distressed looking apartments with peeling wallpaper. Not that there is anything wrong with this look, it's just that it's everything we've already seen before. Also, a great tension of the film that could've turned out to be an interesting twist was given away in the first shot of the film. Sure, it works in some cases, a film shows its hand straight off the bat and the audience is left yearning to know how it all happened, but this film certainly didn't pull it off. The murder is treated as a distant after-thought, as the film dedicates itself to a display of male bravado and discovery of sexuality.

this is the pace of the start of the film

Style is definitely prioritised over substance. Which kind of pays off because,at the very least, it looks good. Despite the manic pacing of the first act of the film, there are numerous sequences that prove that it can demonstrate its ability to put together a nicely shot, nicely paced, nicely edited scene. Aesthetically, it is enjoyable, but for a feature film, that isn't enough. Fans of the film will be overwhelmed with the choice of pretty looking screen shots when they inevitably take to creating fan-posters, shipping-gifsets etc. and posting them on tumblr. 

The acting isn't awful. It was interesting to see Radcliffe post-Potter as I think this is the first film I've watched where is isn't the magical boy wizard and I think he (kind of) manages to hold his own. I didn't hate his character, so that's saying something, I guess. I'd seen DeHaan once before in the 2012 sci-fi thriller 'Chronicle' and I thought he wasn't bad. He seems to be appearing is a lot more films at an increasing rate, so I expect to see him more in the future, but in this film, I wasn't sold. I'm not sure if it's the fault of the direction and the script that DeHaan received in order to play his character or the way that DeHaan chose to play Lucien, but good lord, I really did not like his character in the slightest.

I don't really have much to say about this film. It's pretty solidly 'meh'.

you said it sista.

Look, I'm not going to actively advise you to avoid this film. It's watchable - for the most part. Stick it on in the background whilst you do something significantly more important, like clipping your toenails or possibly painting a self portrait. Just be sure to leave it on silent though, cause the pretentiousness does get a bit much at some points.

Blue is the Warmest Color.

Blue is the Warmest Color. (2013)

I watched 'Blue is the Warmest Color', a while ago. I wrote a quick review about it on a blog that I've now privatised. It was only a short review because I had paired it up with a few other films and I wanted to go into a bit more depth about it. I'll probably do the same with those other films too, but anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. It was two in the morning when I watched this film because I was having trouble sleeping and I'd wanted to watch it for a while. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this film is three hours long. So when it got to four in the morning with no signs of wrapping up, I paused the film and watched the remaining hour the next day. So yeah, moral of the story, if you're going to watch this film, make sure you've got the time!

"Adele's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adele grows, seeks herself, loses herself, finds herself."

Oh boy is this a slow burner. Like, painstakingly slow, my god. It's not particularly plot driven, it's much more about the characters and their lives and how their lives change and evolve over time. Mainly riding the bus and eating spaghetti.

that's 78% of the film right there.

Blue is the Warmest Color has been described as the film that took the Cannes Film Festival by storm. The film is the first to have the Palme d’Or awarded to both the director, Abdellatif Kechiche and lead actresses (Adele Exarchopoulos, whose character is of the same name - the girl eating the spaghetti - and Lea Seydoux who portrays the blue-haired Emma) making both actresses the only women (apart from director Jane Campion) to have ever won the prestigious award; and it's not difficult to see why. I read on various articles and heard in various interviews with the actresses only read the script once, the rest of the dialogue was improvised based on what they knew about the scene. Also, real life footage of Adele was used (like riding the bus and eating dinner and stuff, hence why the main characters name was changed from Clementine to Adele because people would call her by her real name in these clips).  Because of these very specific filming techniques, it did feel like I was watching real people rather than actresses acting. As a result of this, I was extremely invested in these characters lives. The film spans a huge period of time, so we as the audience get the chance to watch these characters grow - as individuals who are still finding themselves and as a couple as they try and find their feet.

There was a lot about this film that I was able to connect to on a personal level, and I would hope that everyone would be able to, regardless that this is a story about two girls falling in love it's ultimately a coming of age story, something that everyone can relate to. The dramatics of high-school - the struggle to maintain friendships with people who don't understand you; the want to grow out with the confines of those people and the high-school institution; the initial excitement when you meet someone new and different and interesting. Something that film did excellently was making me feel things for the characters, which is something I often feel a lot of films fail to do for me. I will watch a film and something will happen to the characters and I simply won't care. But in Blue is the Warmest Color, I cared. I wanted to stand up for her against her friends, I wanted to comfort her when everything goes wrong. Don't get me wrong, these characters aren't perfect, not by a long shot. These characters are extremely flawed, which creates another layer of human realism. Adele makes mistakes, as does Emma. As does every character in this film. The two leading characters involve themselves in arguments in which neither is right, but both are too stubborn to admit.

hahaha, our story is going to break your heart!

It also helps that it's actresses that i've never seen before, so that definitely helped me get involved in the story. If it were people like Keira Knightly and Amanda Seyfried, I would be highly aware that they were acting - not to insult their acting abilities, just that in this type of film, I would be very aware.

I feel like anyone who has already seen this film is waiting for me to mention the somewhat infamous sex scene, lasting a whopping seven minutes and is just as graphic as all the reviewers have lead you to believe. The scene lasting as long as it does is somewhat unnecessary, coming off more as 'straight guy's fantasy of two chicks having sex', and less the passion-filled climax (for a lack of better words) as it might have been intended.

desire to dye hair blue ... rising ... riiiiising

Another thing I wanted to mention was the fact that this film is an adaptation of a graphic novel by the same title. After I watched the film, I immediately went online an bought a copy of the graphic novel for myself (and it really didn't disappoint). The fidelity of the film is arguable, the bulk of the main structure is still in place, but to be honest, it's a pretty independent piece of art. The actresses breathe a different light to the characters and the overall tone of the film, I would say, differs greatly than that of the novel, written and drawn by Julie Maroh. There are quite a few events that take place in the novel that aren't featured in the film and I do wonder why they made that decision, because the novel is absolutely beautiful (I would highly, highly recommend reading it). But similarly, the film was equally, but differently, excellent. It did dishearten me greatly to read that the actresses had such a horrible time during filming - an article which i'll link to here (clickity click.) But despite their awful filming experience, it all paid off because what happened was that at the end of it all, they created a wonderful film. Not to talk it up too much, of course this film does have it's flaws that I will nitpick at. There are points that the dialogue seems unnatural, there's a scene towards the end of the film that feels totally out of place and it is perhaps a bit too long than is totally necessary. But saying that, for the most part, the dialogue feels real, the characters feel like real people and there are some scenes in particular that I thought were outstanding (especially the one in the garden with the cinema screen in the background - not spoilery, just so that those who have seen it know which one i'm talking about).

Would recommend for those with a lot of patience, enjoy character development, are a sucker for sexy french accents and want their hearts ripped out!

Until next week, non-existent readers!

Well hello there.

As you may have gathered from the title, this is yet another film review blog written by a film student that'll get swept up amongst the various other thousands of film reviewers that are probably more worthy of your time.
Let's get introductions out the way -


Who are you?
My name is Rhona, I am a second year film student at university and I will be your host.

seen above, me! kinda.

I've opted to use a drawing someone did as me to represent myself because all real life pictures of me are either one (or a combination) of the following:

1. I'm pulling a stupid face.
2. I'm drunk.
3. I still had long hair and braces.

Trust me, no-one wants to see any of those.

Why did you make this blog?

A combination of a few things (I like lists, does that show?).

1. I am a film student (as previously mentioned), therefore I watch a lot of films and subsequently have a lot of opinions on them. 
2. I'm an aspiring writer - although I want to focus on fiction, this blog will encourage me to write more, which is always handy.
3. This blog will also allow me to hone my skills in looking and writing about films in a critical manner (gosh, doesn't that sound like a barrel of laughs?) so hopefully my essays for university won't be quite as shitty.
4. I had a blog prior to this but it was all jumbled up with posts about different things, like my life, my time at university, music reviews etc. and I wanted something that was solely film oriented. 

I disagree with all of your opinions.

Something which you are entitled to, just bear in mind that everything I write will be a product of my own opinion. If you feel particularly strongly about anything that I've written (in the future, seeing as I've not written an actual review yet), go blog about it.

So do you have like a schedule or some specific films you're going to talk about?

I'll aim to post once a week, but seeing at this is still on its babylegs, i'll see what days and stuff feel right to post on. As far as content goes, it's just whatever film I've recently watched or feel like talking about. Deal with it. 

I like the stuff that you write about, can I find you anywhere else?

Why thank you! Of course you like my stuff, my opinion is clearly better than yours and I am a flawless writer. Duh. 

Other places that you can view my writing includes a blog run by a friend of mine (Ben, picture below). I recently did a collaboration talking about the Oscars and I hope to be posting over on his blog once a week as well, so if you need another fix of my sweet sweet, nourishing reviews, head on over to The Pop Culture Cynic (mmhmm, clickable linky goodness).

and here's my good buddy Ben- AAAARRGH. 

I think I've covered all my bases fairly well, don't you? Glad you agree. Even if you didn't agree, it's too late, I've taken your disagreement as an agreement. Hush.

I'll see you lot soon, but that's all for now folks!