Tag Archives: film challenge

Day 17: My favourite film franchise

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The Hunger Games (2012-15)

Responding to this prompt has taught me that I don’t really like film franchises. Some are diverting but run out of puff after a few films – Bourne Identity, Die Hard, Terminator, Alien, Shrek and so on. Some are great but then are flogged to within an inch of their lives – Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Batman, Harry Potter.

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Day 16: A film everyone else loves but I hate

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Forrest Gump (1994)

I suspect I’ll have some extended family members who really like this film and it gets a score of 8.8 on IMDb so I may be a lone reed. I first saw this at the cinema with my mum and dad for our annual Boxing Day treat and remember feeling trapped in my seat for an interminable 142 minutes. Two years later I experienced the same with 182 tedious, gnaw-off-my-leg-to-escape minutes of The English Patient (1996).

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Day 15: My favourite musical film

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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

I nearly chose The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), my obsession as a teenager and for the many midnight screenings I attended, or Grease (1978) or Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) or Once (2007) or The Lure (2015). They are all films I have loved and can, or have, watched multiple times. But there is something about this Howard Hawks classic, based on a play by Anita Loos, that gives me joy whenever I watch it.

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Day 14: My favourite film by a female director

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Raw (2016)

There are so many female directors who I love. If you click on the ‘female directors’ tag on the left of my blog page, you’ll see many examples; some with multiple films, others with only one.

There’s Ana Kokkinos, Claire Denis, Agnès Varda, Sophia Coppola, Mia Hansen-Løve, Cate Shortland, Kelly Reichardt, Rachel Perkins, Doris Dörrie, Maren Ade, Jane Campion, Sally Potter, Maya Newell, Lyn Ramsey and Agnieszka Smoczynska. And Lynn Shelton! I was so saddened to hear that she passed away last week as I loved Sword of Trust (2019), Your Sister’s Sister (2011) and Hump Day (2009).

I had to pick one, though, and I keep coming back to Raw (or Grave) – you can read my review here. It was the first feature of French screenwriter Julia Ducournau and I felt like a changed person after I saw it. It is surreal and demanding, gory and beautiful and ultimately about female desire and power. And vegetarians. If you don’t mind challenging films, I recommend you watch it.

And if the only film by a female director you can think of with this prompt is Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (2008), then I’ll send you a list of what to watch.

Posted as part of the 30-Day Fillums Challenge, created by me. If you want to see what’s coming up, have a look at my post here and feel free to join in by commenting each day with your own choice.

Coming Next: Day 15: Your favourite musical film

Day 13: A film that reminds me of being a teenager

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Gallipoli (1981)

I was obsessed with this film from the age of 16 until I was around 20. I collected articles on it, created artwork when I was supposed to be doing homework, fell in love with its classical and contemporary music score and dreamed about star Mark Lee (and was jealous when my friend Alison saw him play at her university union night in his band).

I could quote swathes of it – “What are your legs? Springs, steel springs. And what are they going to do? Hurl me down the track. How fast can you run? As fast as a leopard. How fast ARE you going to run? As fast as a leopard. Well let’s see you do it then!” Mel Gibson was at his likeable best but his character was perhaps too much of a rogue for my delicate adolescent heart.

It was also an education on war and the first time I had really thought about its impact on ordinary people like myself. The story is not a new one and hit many beats that are familiar now that I have watched more films of its ilk – youth, innocence, mateship, heroism, the brutality of authority as well as the enemy. It succeeds in the same way 1917 (2019) does, by picking out the personal story of two people and showing how arbitrary the line is between surviving and dying.

What film reminds you of being a teenager? It might be one that you loved as a teen or one that embodies the feel of being young.

Posted as part of the 30-Day Fillums Challenge, created by me. If you want to see what’s coming up, have a look at my post here and feel free to join in by commenting each day with your own choice.

Coming Next: Day 14: Your favourite film by a female director

Day 12: My favourite remake/reboot

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His Girl Friday (1940)

I’m cheating a bit with this one as I didn’t realise His Girl Friday was a remake until I did a bit of searching. There are so many examples of Hollywood remakes of excellent non-English language films but I couldn’t find a single one that improved on the original. There are some decent remakes of classic films but for every You’ve Got Mail (1998), a delightfully modernised (by Nora Ephron) The Shop Around the Corner (1940), you get twenty The Women (2008) (don’t even bother with it and go straight to The Women (1939)).

His Girl Friday is one of my all-time favourite films; smart and funny with whip-cracking, razor-sharp dialogue. Cary Grant is as good as he is in The Philadelphia Story (1940) but it is Rosalind Russell who steals the show. I never get bored watching it. I have to admit, though, that I have never seen The Front Page (1931), its precursor, which makes me wonder if many modern remakes might not be disappointing if the original didn’t exist.

I’m really interested to hear how others respond to this prompt. Are there some remakes/reboots I don’t know about or that I should give another chance?

Posted as part of the 30-Day Fillums Challenge, created by me. If you want to see what’s coming up, have a look at my post here and feel free to join in by commenting each day with your own choice.

Coming Next: Day 13: A film that reminds you of being a teenager

Day 11: A film I walked out on

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National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985)

Starting a trend that I have embraced to this day, 1985 was the year I first walked out of a cinema part way through a film after having paid for a ticket. I think I lasted about half an hour or the National Lampoon equivalent of three sausage jokes. I had laughed myself silly at Animal House (1978) and either I had matured in those intervening years or the NL humour had regressed.

I was with a friend and we made a collective decision to abscond and make better use of our time. What surprises me now is to discover that Amy Heckerling directed European Vacation and the screenplay was cowritten by John Hughes. The next time (and only other time for many many years) that I walked out of a film was when watching Absolute Beginners (1986) at a tiny arthouse cinema in London’s Soho; even David Bowie couldn’t make it watchable.

Now, of course, at the Melbourne International Film Festival where I might be seeing three or four films a day, it’s much easier to bail and go find some warm food or a cold drink to help keep me going. There is an immense relief in pushing open the doors and stepping into the light, knowing that you have just salvaged a few hours that would otherwise have been wasted.

I’m aware, though, that most people will sit through anything if they’ve paid for a ticket. Am I the only one who does this?

Posted as part of the 30-Day Fillums Challenge, created by me. If you want to see what’s coming up, have a look at my post here and feel free to join in by commenting each day with your own choice.

Coming Next: Day 12: Your favourite remake/reboot