Spin-Off Blogathon

Sati over at Cinematic Corner is hosting her first Blogathon, and it's a really great one. Basically, the task is to choose a minor character from a film who you would have liked to see get their own spin-off and then explain why you think they would be deserving of their own feature and what it would be like.

I do feel like I've cheated a little bit as my choice is an incredibly important part of her film's plot and could be considered more of a supporting role. She does conform to the requirement of only having between 1-5 scenes in the film though, and was the first and only choice I felt I could use for this post.

Couples and Tunnels

I've been AWOL for a little bit recently, mainly due to working more than usual as well as visiting Liverpool and London, which is why the blog's been light on updates.

I've still been watching as many films as I can but I just haven't had the time to put together a decent, thorough review for any of them. I'll try my best to get some finished and published soon.
My main priority right now is working on making a post that ranks every film I've watched from 2013. I've got a list of films that I feel like I need to watch and add to my ranking before I publish it, but I'm excited to put that together.

On top of that I really want to take part in Sati's awesome Spin-Off blogathon, and Ben over at The Movie Man has been kind enough to nominate my blog for the Liebster Award so I need to post my response to that and pass on my nominations.

You can find my Tumblr here and my Pinterest here.

Prisoners

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Hung Up On DeHaan

- I've been really bad with my film watching recently. We've been in March for a full week and I've only watched one film.

- That film was Kill Your Darlings and I've been on a come-down for quite a while after seeing Dane DeHaan gay it up. I'm legitimately in love with him. He could play the biggest maniac//sociopath and I'd still go there. TBH all he seems to play is maniacs and sociopath's so yeah, I'd still go there.

- In more Dane-related news, I stumbled onto some pictures of him on the set of Life, where he's playing fellow babe James Dean. I've not been overly convinced by this casting, he could clearly act the shit out of playing James Dean but I'm not sure he can look like him.

- He looks great here though. Still not overly Jimmy D-like, but better than I expected. 

(Finger-sucking scene from Kill Your Darlings that actually almost killed me)

- The new Annie adaptation has a trailer and it looks terrible. 

- My expectations were low but it didn't even meet those. Quvenzhané doesn't look to be bringing any of that wonderful charm she had in Beasts of the Southern Wild and they've clearly made an effort to make the songs sound contemporary, but they sound like crappy covers.

-And seriously, Cameron Diaz looks terrible. I didn't understand that casting in the first place but she's just giving too much camp//OTT ridiculousness in this trailer. It's cringeworthy. 

- A much better trailer came in the form of the new Arkham Knight announcement. 

- I know it's not film related, but I'm crazy for this franchise and this trailer is fantastic and has got me so amped for the new game. I'm going to have to give in and buy a PS4 so I can get this. 

You can find my Tumblr here and my Pinterest here.

Kill Your Darlings

Kill Your Darlings
John Krokidas // 2013 // 104 mins

What I Watched in February '14

If you couldn't tell, I used February to work my way through all of the major Oscar nominees that I hadn't seen yet. My film viewing has been down a lot compared to last year cos I've been trying to focus on blogging more and reviewing a higher number of films, and I've also been on a Breaking Bad binge.

23 films in total.

5 of these films were re-watches.

Who is Adelle Nazeem & other post-Oscar thoughts

    

The Oscars have left us for another year. Last night was extremely predictable, but lots of fun and I had a great time staying up for it even though it did mean going to bed at 5am.

- I predicted 18 of the 24 winners correctly, and of the six I got wrong four were my alternate choices for the winner so I think I did pretty well. The predictability of it all worked in my favour.
- Gravity rightly swept up all of the technical awards, and it was great to see Alfonso Cuar ón get Best Director.
- Steve McQueen's excitement and jumping around was adorable, it's great to see the winners show genuine surprise//appreciation when they get acknowledged.
- Lupita winning was the best, I'm so happy for her and she was as wonderfully gracious and beautiful as expected. Her dress was also gorgeous.
- Right up until the last moment I was terrified it was going to be Jennifer Lawrence's, so I let out a pretty big squeal when Lupita's name got called.

- Ellen was hilarious. She maybe wasn't as great as I was hoping for but she was still excellent and provided so many great moments. The way she got everyone in the audience involved and her banter with so many of the stars was tons of fun.
- Getting pizza for everybody and that instantly infamous selfie were huge highlights. Apparently she broke twitter with that, but mine carried on fine. What a way for Meryl Streep to lose her twitter virginity.

- The man candy collection was incredible, with presenters including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chris Hemsworth, Zac Efron, Channing Tatum and Chris Evans.
- I was surprised at how many of the presenters stuffed up their lines actually, and only Charlize Theron managed to work the falter very well, she was cute as hell.
- I'm also not sure why exactly Will Smith, who was in one of the worst films of 2013, got to announce the film that won Best Film. I think it'd be nice if they did something similar to the acting presenters in having the previous years winner hand over the award.
- And then this happened….

- SERIOUSLY!? This man just needs to stop. How can you stuff up the one tiny job that you have to do. It's not even like Idina Menzel is that hard to say, but if you know you have to introduce somebody you'd practice even if their name was John Smith.

- It did lead to a great slurry of tweets from celebrities though trying to decode what the hell Travolta actually said, I think the general consensus landed on Adelle Nazeem. 

- Thankfully Menzel killed it singing Let It Go. 

- Seeing all of the Best Original Song nominees performing made the snub of Lana Del Rey hurt all the more. I still stand firm that that award was hers. 

- P!nk also amazed me performing Somewhere Over The Rainbow. She was an unusual choice for sure but she was great. 

- My biggest surprise of the night was Spike Jonze getting the award for Original Screenplay. The only other awards show I managed to watch this season was the Bafta's so I was all prepared for the insufferable David O. Russel getting the statue.

- Her was my favourite nominee so it was great to see it getting some love. I didn't think it had a chance of getting anything so I was very pleasantly surprised. 

I'd like to finish off this post by addressing the greatest, most perfect-wonderful-magnificent  achievement of the night. The Academy didn't give a single fucking thing to American Hustle, and I love love love them for it. Suck it O. Russell!

My Oscar Predictions

Better late than never, here are my predictions for who will come out on top tomorrow night. 

Last year we had an Oscars event at our Uni house and everybody got a voting sheet to predict who they thought would win. I actually guessed the most correctly and won (which I was extremely smug about), so here's hoping I do as well this year even though I'm not really competing with anybody this time around.

It should go without saying that in quite a few cases these are educated guesses rather than a representation of who I would actually like to win.

2014 Oscar Predictions