Movie of the Week: The Social Network
It was a slow week this week with exams on for me at the moment. Nevertheless, I managed to squeeze in a few films for the first week of November. The beginning of the week was of course Halloween, so it was essential that I watch a horror film to follow up my healthy run of horror films from the past few weeks, and what better film to watch than one of the scariest films of all time: The Blair Witch Project. I followed that up with a film that gets better everytime I watch it: The Social Network! The week's solid run continued with the brilliant Tim Burton film Ed Wood which showed Burton and Johnny Depp at the top of their game.
A film that really surprised me this week, was Bridesmaids, which is undoubtedly one of the funniest film's I've seen in a while, definitely up there with The Hangover. Filled with great performances from Kristen Wiig, Rose Byrne and Melissa McCarthy, it was more than just a chick flick. Another great film that I saw this week was the absolutely demented but brilliant Australian horror film The Loved Ones which, and I know I keep saying this but if you haven't seen it, it is a must see.
The one film which let the week down was Lars von Trier's Antichrist. Now many of you will disagree with me, I know. But I found this arthouse "horror" film to be tosh. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love arthouse films, but Antichrist did not do it for me, and there are many reasons for that. First off, I found it too pretentious and self-indulgent, and those are words I don't like using very often. I felt that the provocative aspects that von Trier added into it such as the clitoris snipping bit at the end were both unnecessary and frankly an immature attempt to provoke and shock the audience. It took for ever to go there, and von Trier seemed too concerned with trying to make a piece of art (which is what this wasn't) and fulfilling his own desires, with no concern on how it affected the audience in any other way than shock and disgust. It wasn't awful, there were somethings I liked about it. It was very visually striking, the performances were decent by Williem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and some of the ideas that were behind it were commendable. I sort of liked the way that he conveys the sense of grief, pain and despair, but on the whole, I really disliked it. I'm yet to be convinced that Lars von Trier is this genius auteur that everyone says he is. Maybe Melancholia will do it for me.
For my exam study, I decided to watch David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. It was the second time I've seen it, and I loved even more this time than I did the first. But of course, it still baffles the hell out of me, which is exactly why I love it.
Here are my ratings:
Mulholland Drive 4.5/5
Bridesmaids 4/5
Antichrist 2/5
The Loved Ones 4.5/5
The Social Network 5/5
The Blair Witch Project 4/5
Ed Wood 4.5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment