Star Wars Film Review

Today I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens directed by JJ Abrams and starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac. I found the film very enjoyable and overall a fantastic film, which managed to keep faithful to the tone of the original films but at the same time introduce new and in-depth characters.

The music is such an integral part of Star Wars that I found myself getting shivers as the film opened with the main theme, other people in the cinema whooped. Obviously this reminded me of how carefully we are going to have to chose our music when creating our film opening.

The film uses a lot of different shot types but most notable were probably the epic establishing shots of spaceships and new planets and the tracking shots and fast cuts of action sequences as well as the obvious high and low key lighting used to portray the Light and Dark sides.

In my opinion, Abrams managed to balance the funny, tragic, and bitter-sweet moments of the film perfectly, giving the audience the right amount of time to wipe away the tears before leaping into another space battle. The old characters felt like they had in the first films, and the new characters like Finn, Poe, and Rey, felt like they belonged. Abrams has been criticised in the past for his arguably excessive use of lens flares when directing the Star Trek reboots, but for this film, the cinematography and overall tone really fit with the original films so it just felt like them, but modern, which I thought was really effective. The film ends with quite the clliffhanger, meaning I will definitely be going back to see Episode VIII in 2017.

Se7en Film Review

Today I watched David Fincher's "Se7en" (1995) starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. The genre is thriller and so fits with the genre that we want our film opening to fit.

Overall, I felt that the film was very well shot by cinematographer Darius Khondji, using the rule of thirds throughout the film. In addition, the camera was often fixed down, allowing the characters to move around in the frame, rather than moving the camera to follow them, adding to the tension as sometimes the camera stayed fixed on the characters and their reactions rather than what they were looking at. An example of this would be when Morgan Freeman's character sees what is in the box towards the end of the film, but the audience never sees, which only adds to the suspense. Many of the shots had a long duration, which built tension in the scenes also.

An example of the use of the rule of thirds in Se7en

Music was also used very effectively in "Se7en", as the music began to crescendo whenever the two detectives were close to finding a body. The music helped to unsettle the audience, which added to the disturbing tone of the entire film.

Below is the theatrical trailer for "Se7en".

'Pan' Film Review

Last week I saw Pan, directed by Joe Wright and starring Hugh Jackman, Rooney Mara, and Levi Miller. I felt that the film was boring, strayed far too far from the original Peter Pan origin story, and was more focused on extravagant CGI than on developing a strong plot. The characters were quite one-dimensional, the motives of Captain Hook weren't clear and the casting of a white actress to play Tiger Lily made no sense. Overall, the film looked nice, with bright vibrant colours being used at every opportunity, particularly around the natives, but I felt the film had nothing more to it than that and so it is difficult to use it as inspiration for our film opening. Below is the trailer for 'Pan'.

'Spectre' Film Review

Today I went to go and see the new James Bond film, Spectre, because the release of this film has been highly anticipated and the director, Sam Mendes, has directed other films such as Skyfall and American Beauty, both of which have been highly acclaimed. Going into the film, I expected a classic Bond film with unrealistic action sequences, sexism, and excessive alcohol consumption, which is essentially what the audience got.

The film opened at celebration of The Day of the Dead in Mexico City. The frame was always very full and busy and at times it was difficult to know where to focus, however this very vibrant way of opening the film caught, and held, my attention. I don't think we would have the funds nor the time to arrange an opening that comes near to the scale and vibrancy for our film opening, and Spectre does not fit the genre we are looking into. However, near the beginning of the film there was a long tracking shot of Bond hopping across the roofs in Mexico City. We are looking at doing a long tracking shot in our opening so this is useful.

After the action packed opening 5 minutes, some of the film seemed to drag but it culminated in a very fast paced and dramatic final act. There were particular shots that I enjoyed, of the character's Bond and Doctor Swan having a conversation, during which Mendes changed the film convention of doing over-the-shoulder shots during conversations and instead had shots in which each character was centre of the frame, which I thought was really interesting and reminiscent of Wes Anderson's 'Grand Budapest Hotel'. Since we are thinking of having an interview scene in the opening of our film, this might be something we could look into further.

Overall, I enjoyed the film and found the shot choices really interesting, as well as fantastic acting from the cast, particularly Christoph Waltz as Oberhauser, Ben Whishaw as Q, and Naomi Campbell as Moneypenny.