Film Club: Blue is the Warmest Color (2013)

I'm a bit paranoid about spoiling films, but I'm attempting to share more thoughts along with these film posts. I admit I put off watching this for a while when I saw that it was just shy of 3 hours long. Once I began watching I was quickly drawn into Adèle's story and the level of intimacy the audience shares with her. I felt like a fly on the wall witnessing Adèle's transformation. The emotional scenes are raw and at times difficult to watch. There were even moments where I wanted to cringe. I will say, this film would've been more crushing if I had watched it during another point of my life. The cafe scene. Ugh.

Film Club: Great Expectations

Great Expectations is one of my favorite stories. This modernized version from '98 didn't necessarily receive outstanding reviews. Alfonso Cuarón even stated he has many regrets about the film and that it's one of his least favorites from his repertoire. I loved it for many reasons though. The style. The colors. The art. The soundtrack. Anne Bancroft is excellent as an eccentric Ms. Dinsmoor/Miss Havisham. The romance angle was perhaps a bit overdone and verging on cheesy, I actually felt a bit more emotion when it came to Finn/Pip's relationship with his father figure Joe. Francesco Clemente's artwork used in the film is both striking and odd.

Film Club: Fish Tank (2009)

 Mia, an aggressive fifteen-year-old girl, lives on an Essex estate with her tarty mother, Joanne, and precocious little sister Tyler. She has been thrown out of school and is awaiting admission to a referrals unit and spends her days aimlessly. She begins an uneasy friendship with Joanne's slick boyfriend, Connor, who encourages her one interest, dancing.*

Film Club: Mary and Max

Mary and Max (2009) - A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York. 

Film Club: Big Fish

A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal. 

Big Fish (2003) - A son tries to learn more about his dying father by reliving stories and myths he told about his life. 

Films Club: Submarine

Precocious Oliver struggles with being popular in school but when a dark-haired beauty takes interest in him, he's determined to become the best boyfriend in the world. Meanwhile, his parents' already rocky relationship is threatened when his mother's ex-boyfriend moves in next door. Oliver makes some unorthodox plans to ensure that his parents stay together and that Jordana still likes him.*

Film Club: Frances Ha (2012)

Frances (Greta Gerwig) lives in New York, but she doesn't really have an apartment. Frances is an apprentice for a dance company, but shes not really a dancer. Frances has a best friend named Sophie, but they aren't really speaking anymore. Frances throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles. Frances wants so much more than she has but lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness. Frances Ha is a modern comic fable that explores New York, friendship, class, ambition, failure, and redemption.*

"It's that thing when you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it... but it's a party... and you're both talking to other people, and you're laughing and shining... and you look across the room and catch each other's eyes... but - but not because you're possessive, or it's precisely sexual... but because... that is your person in this life. And it's funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it's this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It's sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don't have the ability to perceive them. That's - That's what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess"