Review: An American Tail

Happy 4th of July to all my American followers, I thought we'd start July with a very American style week. We're gonna start of with talking about a film that I feel should describe Americans haven't been there in ages, but from what I've been told and hearing about the place and people, I feel its pretty accurate but correct me if I'm wrong. 

The story is about a family called the Mousekewitzs a Russian-Jewish family who live in a tiny little house in Russia until one day circumstances arise and they have to move to America. That's the holy grail, they talk about it like its this perfect all amazing place, where there's no cats or anything bad and the streets have cheese everywhere. Fievel who is the main character one of the kids gets lost on the journey from Russia to America and he makes friends with the locals, like Tony, Honest John, Bridget and many more they help him find his family along the way.

I love this story so much, the fact that its about immigration a topic that has been discussed not only in America but everywhere and for years and its been inserted into a children's animation is wonderful. As it teaches children but also adults that no matter who you meet you should try to help as much as you can, because you never go what someone may or may not be going through its also something you should just do. The art of the film is wonderful, and the music is beautiful too but the real big thing here is the story and characters.

Its so political aswell, one of the characters called Gussie Mausheimer who rallies the mice against the cats, she reminds me off Emmeline Pankhurst in a way. There's also another character called Tiger who's a cat but a nice one as he is a vegetarian apart from fish and befriends Fievel and joins the search to find his family. Its made by Universal Pictures and directed by Don Bluth who has been in competition with Disney as who's the best or not. Personally I'm a Disney gal only because I've grown up with Disney but I do have some very fond happy, nostalgic memories of Don Bluth's beautiful stories.

Don Bluth actually worked with Walt Disney on Fox and the Hound but wasn't happy with the way things were done. So he set up his own studio luckily he's quite a well connected guy and is friends with Stephen Spielberg, who helped produce it. This film was one of Don Bluth's first and one of his best its so wonderfully written and I love that its called 'Tail' and not 'Tale'. It's also so underrated, I barely hear people say how much they love this film or maybe I might not be listening either way its amazing film and people should watch. Especially adults as, in the UK and America aswell immigration has become a huge topic well its always been a huge topic and the simple matter is if someone is in need you help them regardless. 

                                                                   
I'm so happy I watched this film, as its so wonderfully made with a beautiful message to give to anyone. It just shows that films can have such an impact they're not just some fun mindless thing you can watch and forget about it. They can tell stories and change your perspective on things and also really nails what I think about immigration and how you should treat people. Overall its a wonderful story that needs to be watched and told again and again. 

Review: Pearl Harbor

So I've been watching alot of films that people have told me to ages ago, but I never got round to it. This film is one of them, plus it has Kate Beckinsale in and she's an actress that doesn't get talked about enough, well from what I think anyway. Its also a Period Drama set in the 1940s and who doesn't love that? What the film is about is a love triangle between childhood best friends Rafe, Danny, and Nurse Evelyn played by Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale, all during the run up and battle and aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

That's basically it, in terms of the story line purpose of it all, its just a love story during the war. The reviews of this film I saw, and the ratings it got on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB was just ridiculous basically its an either average film or crap film. But don't take that as gospel truth because its a matter of opinion at the end of the day. I do agree its not the best film I've ever seen, I mean I love the costumes but thats a given and the battle action scenes of Pearl Harbor, but again with the budget they had and it was apparently a bigger budget that actual Pearl Harbor itself. I mean that could be hear'say but the money was showing on the screen definitely. 

In terms of characters and storyboard wise, I hated it. I love the actors in this film, I think they're brilliant and have no doubt can act, as I've seen them in better roles and better films. I hated Kate Beckinsale's character Evelyn she was just so wet and she had a really crap personality. I couldn't relate to her and usually I will try to find anything in a character that I can relate to, even a Villian or the Hero but with her I just couldn't. I found her bland and with a love story I don't know about you guys but I wanna fall in love with one of the couples, but I didn't like her at all. The only positive thing I can say about her is first of all its not Kate Beckinsale's fault its the writers, and she looked beautiful in the film her costumes to her hair and makeup, but that's being a model not an actor and in her defence, she's an actor she turned up did the job very well and got paid then went home.

I didn't get Danny and Rafe, they again were extremely bland and irritating brilliantly acted but I hated the script it felt very robotic and it became a little too slick. Some minor characters were just awful, Jennifer Garner played a part of a nurse in this and I didn't like at all, she was this stereotypical awkward nerd and I didn't get what kinda part she played, was it supposed to be comical? Because I didn't find it funny at all. There were some characters that died and not to sound horrible, but I didn't care I didn't like them at all. They all seemed very generic, boring, bland just really crap uninteresting characters. It's gonna sound abit weird but I'm actually glad that I've found a film that I don't like because I always try to find the positive side to films with this I did, but the majority of which I care about films which is the story line and characters both of which this film just lacked in. 

You could tell that this film was trying to be the Titanic of its time, it being a Period Drama and a Romance with a big budget its obvious what it was trying to be. I don't hate that but I just felt with it being Pearl Harbor they could've had more substance to it like they could have given Evelyn more of a backbone and made Danny and Rafe less pushovers. One thing was all three characters were on the same level in terms of strength and blandness. I loved the action scenes but they had to spend money on them because history nerds would throw a hissy fit and a riot would happen saying that 'Its not accurate!' now that does annoy me because of course its not going to be 100% accurate to the event its a film! its done in a filmmakers mind and put out there in a story. If you want accuracy of an event or a person then watch a documentary about it or read a book. Although there was inaccuracy in this film, but I mean again that's gonna happen, just like with book to film adaptations. 

I feel like this film showed me that just because a film has a big budget doesn't mean its automatically gonna be an amazing film. Because with the big action scenes, and the amazing costumes and extras and all that, if the story isn't good and the characters aren't relatable then no matter how big the budget it means nothing if the plot is crap, then its a crap film. Because in my opinion a great film is a brilliantly written story line and fantastic characters, nothing to do with budgets or genres thats how I feel about it anyway. The technicality of the film with the shots and camera technique was brilliant. I love the flip between the panoramic shot to it being from a soldier's perspective or an injured person's perspective. I would've preferred abit more consistency with the shots and camera technique. 

Also and this is gonna make me sound like an old lady but the film was way too long that what it should be, its 3 Hours long and that's quite long in terms of film I think the only film I know that's that long is Lord Of The Rings, but that's based of a book that's huge. I know that this film is based of the Pearl Harbor and is very important in history but I don't think it should take that long. As I've seen War films and they're not that long and have way more added on to them than this film. Overall I liked some aspects of this film, but not the reasons as to why I love films like story line and characters. 

Peppermint Friday Review #32: Imperium

This week's been weird I haven't watched that many films, but I have watched alot of TV as I've really gotten into that recently. But I watched this film last night and I just need to talk about it, Its one of those films. Its called Imperium and its got Daniel Radcliffe and Toni Collette and its about an FBI agent who goes undercover in a white supremacist group. 

The reason I watched this film was not because I love Daniel Radcliffe and I think he's a great actor, but the story is intriguing to me. Now before people go crazy at me and say 'Oh you're a racist how could you be interested in that?' I'm not interested where I wanna join cus I don't believe at all, but I'm interested in the sense of 'why do they believe that?' 'what makes them think that way?' kinda interested. I loved this film I don't think I've seen a film quite like it before, and that's great because I love individuality in a script and a concept of a story.

Daniel Radcliffe's character Nate Foster is a very nice, friendly, threatening and basically Switzerland and he had to evolve into a completely different person to who he was before. His head is shaved he's got a tattoo and shouting racist remarks and just is total opposite to what he was at the start of the film. But he still remains very friendly, and easy to get on with kinda person, Nate has to find someway to relate to these people, and understand why they do what they do. His ultimate main goal is to get to Dallas Wolf who is this radio talk show host, as he is a prime suspect to an attack somewhere. 

The community the group developed seemed very nice and friendly, like Nate and the people he was with went to BBQs. There were kids there and families and very friendly and opening place. Although this is fiction, so some truths are stretched slightly, but I found that interesting and really fascinating to watch as I didn't think it would be like that, I thought it would be very much like an American version of This is England, and it is but its not entirely there are some very nice and sweet characters like Gerry who is a happily married man with kids and at the end you feel guilty because you relate to Gerry and he seems like such a genuine guy and it does bode the question should you be friends with someone who believes in something quite controversial?

It did disappoint me slightly as I was expecting it to be really good and eyeopening, and I was interested and really liked it and I'm not sure what I was expecting but I just thought it would be really controversial and off the cuff story I've never seen before. Also I kinda wanted to see it from the White Supremacy perspective, because noone's agreeing with them, well I'm not I just wanna know why and get an intelligent response not just 'oh because'. But I really liked it, I guess my expectations were high, but I did enjoy it and everyone was really good. I especially liked Johnny he is a teenager who believes everything the White Supremacy believes in and in the end he is a changed man his attitude has changed and no longer believes in it. So I like that it has those characters that see change as a fresh start and leaving your former beliefs isn't a bad thing at all just a start to a new life. 

I love films like this, and what I mean by that is I like watching things that I can't relate to at all, I watch them because I'm fascinated and wanna see if I can relate to them in some way, because its such an opposite thing its brilliant and I find it intriguing. I love where its set aswell, its filmed in Richmond, Virgina and it just looks very nice and chill. You usually see films that are filmed in America that are set in New York and Los Angles, so its refreshing to be set in Virgina. Overall its a very good film, I'm so glad I watched it because there are characters who are brilliant, like Johnny, Gerry and Nate who are all brilliantly written, This post might seem controversial, as this film is controversial but I wanted to talk about it because its unique. So if you're like me and fascinated by this then watch it, if not that's fine too. 

Peppermint Friday Review #13: Gummo

This is a weird one, as I had to watch this again because and I know this is gonna sound abit stupid to say but I didn't get it the first time, as if I didn't watch it properly but it was so weird I didn't know what it was about. The film is about....I'm not sure the outline plot on IMDB is 'Lonely residents of a tornado stricken Ohio town wander the deserted landscape trying to fulfill their boring, nihilistic lives.' But this story has a hundred different plots and it doesn't necessarily consist if that makes sense. 

Its like short films, improv scenes and home movies collided into one, there were bits of the film I thought 'thats interesting' not that I liked them but found interesting, but also there were bits that I hated and they were the constant images and scenes of dead cats or cats being shot and chase. That kinda stuff makes me abit uncomfortable because I love cats and animals, and I cannot stand to see animals particularly. I can kinda understand and see how the Director/Writer wanted it to be portrayed as the boys were just bored and wanted something wild to do, or because they were very poor and had bad families, could be anything for the reason, I don't know but that creeped me out. 

The Director/Writer of the film is Harmony Korine who made the recent film Spring Breakers, but other than that I'm not that familiar with his work. But that doesn't mean anything, one thing that I found fascinating was the bunny boy throughout the film, he provided an air of mystery throughout the film, particularly when the boys are shooting him with pretend guns, bunny boy doesn't say anything and thats one of the reasons why he's a mystery of course and the character sets out to be a mystery.

One thing that made me cringed so badly, and just makes me cringe in general was the girl in the end who shaved off her eyebrows and that makes me cringe, and I don't know what it does but I hate it. Anyway I thought she was quite nice, because it felt that she didn't realise herself if that makes sense. She was just really genuine, throughout the film I mean the majority of the characters for me anyway didn't really feel real, they might for you and thats great. I loved the soundtrack of the film, as it was added like lighting is makes the scene.

Put it this way I will never forget this film, as it dented itself into my memory. Not for good reasons not for bad, I mean it did feel like an Indie film, and in some ways it was and it did feel like allot of improv was in the film, and apparently it was. Its very organic this film, and its different and incredibly unique and that is always a good thing, but I didn't like the amount of dead cats there were in the film, but also they were lacking in the wardrobe department for guys, as most of the men in this film were shirtless. Not that thats, bad or good, merely an observation. The cast in the film didn't go on to other things, and it felt that they were real people not actors, apart from Chloe Sevigny, and she was married to Harmony Korine. Anyway this film is weird one, but I included it as the main character is a teenager. But I can reassure you all that next week, will be lighter.