The Place Beyond The Pines: Short & Instant review.

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Writers: Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio & Darius Marder

Staring: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper & Eva Mendes

The concept of ‘effect & cause’ is not a new one for cinema,  it is most common with films like Magnolia or Crash, films that follow the convoluted multi-character storylines and developments which connects the stories of an ensemble cast someway, somehow. This film however not only simplifies it by just focusing on the actions and reactions of two characters rather than a handful cast but also revolutionises it by deepening both their individual stories, even continuing to tell it long after the characters have left the screen.

I can’t talk about it too much without spoiling a story that you simply must see for yourselves so I’ll just go for the fundamentals.

The film stars Ryan Gosling, a traveling motorcycle stuntman who turns to bank robbery to support his son who, for a year, he had no knowledge of; and Bradley Cooper a rookie cop who is launched into ‘hero’ status after his path collides with Gosling’s.

Acting: superb and powerful yet so subtle and never overdone. Nothing about anyones performance seems awkward or makes you feel uncomfortable.

Script: Of Course behind great acting is great dialogue and every character in this film expresses themselves perfectly without being predictable or cliched. 

Sound/ Score: The use of natural sound and quite percussion to create mood and flow in this film is so inspired that one could mistake this for an avant garde film rather than a hollywood film and in all my years of cinema going I have never known a more perfect song, Bon Iver’s Wolves (Act I & II), to end a film.

Honestly I can’t say more, this is a film you HAVE to see, I say anything more and I spoil everything. Yes it’s a good two and a half hours but damn, does this film squeeze every minute for what it’s worth and you will feel by the end that not a moment was wasted.

Not the best review of a film and it certainly doesn’t do this film any justice, I’ll have to see it a second or maybe third time to be able to give it an in depth review without spoiling the story and of course because I MUST see this film again, it’s just that riveting. If I have to give scores I give this film full marks 10/10 and number 2 in my top five films of all time. 

Alarm set for 11 and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.

Honestly thought I’d be seeing this with my lady… C’est la vie

Love, Cinema & Insperation

Let me tell you a little about my motivation. You know I say I wanna be an Oscar winner. Really, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’m 21 years old, very very young, but already I’ve seen my fair share of life, what it has to offer and what it can do; how good it can get and how horrifying it can become.

The world has really become a cesspool for the majority. We got girls acting like two dollar hookers, but guys who think they can fuck a girl without her say so. We got politicians tellin’ us lies with one hand and cheating on their wives in the other. We got kids getting beat up by their class mates for nothing and parents covering up their shame with drink. Billionaires hiding away all their money and Anarchists burning down their cities of birth. The world is going to hell. But for me, personally, the worst part, the thing that puts so much pain into my heart that sometimes it’s so unbearable to think about I need half a bottle of whiskey to think of something else; People, billions of people around the world, say ‘I love you’ a hundred times a day and the words don’t mean shit.

‘I love you’ is the biggest told lie in the world today. That and ‘I agree to these terms and conditions’.

I want to change that. I have recently just started to put the finished touches on a film I have been writing since the 1st of May 2011. This film is the second film I have written and will be the 3rd and final in a trilogy of films I am writing. All with unrelated stories, unrelated characters but with a recurring theme. LOVE.

You see, I’ve been told ‘I love you’ and I came to the realisation that those words that were said were lies. To be told those words and find they mean nothing, I don’t care what your stance is on love.You can give me some existential theory on it, give me some fuckin’ philosophical view point, you can come up with a theory that love doesn’t even exist and we’re all just animals made to fuck. I don’t care. Having someone tell you they love you and to find out it’s a fucking lie… That hurts. It hurt so much I drank for a year solidly. I almost killed myself. You would have never known me, you would have never heard of me. And I’m not the only one.

People around the world stick in loveless marriages ‘for the kids’ or because they still have love in their hearts even if their partner doesn’t. People sit in front of a gun in their hand or with a rainbow of pills or on on the edge of a bridge because of unrequited love, forgotten love or a lie they were told. Every single day, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY, too many people die because they’re being lied to. Love shouldn’t be lied about but it is… Yeah it may be because she doesn’t wanna hurt him or he thinks he will actually fall in love with her one day but there should be NO REASON to lie about love. Alas, it happens. Everyday.

That’s what I want to change. The 3 films I wanna make are part of a ‘Green Ribbon Trilogy’, named for the green ribbon tattooed on my arm and the green ribbon that sits in my top drawer, given to me by someone who lied to me once. These films will depict 3 outcomes of love: The good, the bad and the ugly.

What happens when you find the one and they don’t find you.

What happens when you find the one and they find you.

What happens when you find the one and they find you and then you lose them [In that order].

These films will depict love in ways that have NEVER been depicted. Ways that your Hollywood rom-coms don’t… WON’T show you. Ways your parents never told you about, ways that you only hear about when you hear of a suicide attempt, or an alcohol problem or a mental illness. The wordless beauty of it, they shame of it and the sheer violence of it. I’ve been through too much for a 21-year-old. In the end, I had to forget a whole 3 years of my life, which brings me pain. I once knew the most beautiful girl on this Earth. An angel sent from whatever God/ Gods that is up there to give me salvation after years of bullying, depression and self destruction. And I fucked it up so bad that I forced myself to forget her. A whole 3 years of my life, patchy and foggy. Let me tell you. That isn’t great. It makes me a very small and pathetic man, but if I never did it, I wouldn’t be taking my pills, I wouldn’t be getting better, I wouldn’t have stopped drinking myself to black outs every night and I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now. I may not even be alive.

But people are still in that dark place, drinking, abusing hard drugs, cutting themselves, because of lies. Because of ‘I love you’. It shouldn’t be that way. I don’t want to show people what love is. There is not answer to that. I spent three years trying to figure it out and by obsessive trying to be the best at it rather than just feeling it, I pushed the woman I love loved away. No. I want to show people what love can do, what it’s effects can be and HOW to love. Not with justification, not with fancy gifts or loud noise, not even with words. Just with love. If you put a fancy ribbon on a box full of diamond it doesn’t mean you love a person… You share a comfortable silence in the night with a person… As I did once… Well. You get the idea.

The point is, the first 3 films I want to make, the films that will cement my name on the ‘walk of fame’ won’t just change how people write and direct films, they won’t just break narrative and directing rules that have been in place for over a hundred years, they won’t just change the face of cinema, it will change everyone.

People won’t lie any more. I can’t stop world hunger, I can’t stop holy wars, I can’t stop recessions, but I can try and change the way the world sees love. I don’t want people to lie any more. I don’t want ANYONE to go what I went through. I don’t want another suicide because of a divorce, I don’t want to see another broken home because of a lie. I don’t want to see another scar on an girl or a boy who don’t deserve it. I don’t want anyone to become who I became, who I was for a year. Who part of me still is.

I hope that one day a man will go see my film, maybe by himself or maybe with a friend from work, come out of the cinema, phone his wife or husband or significant other and just simply say “Hey. I just wanted to say that I love you.”

And mean it. I want to change cinema and the world.

All we need is love. John Lennon said that. He was a smart man. But let’s not let him down any more. I hope I can make him proud and make ‘Love’ true, once again.

And for those who still mean it when they say it. Keep it up. You people may be the human races last hope at something beautiful after humanity destroys itself….

But that’s it. I want to make films because I know what a lie can do. But I know what the truth can do. I want t bring out the truth.

I also want a Ford Mustang.

Thanks Bunni.

Facebook Friends Versus Tumblr Friends

Ever since ‘rediscovering’ myself, when I go to the cinema [not counting the last 2 times, I don’t think going with people you LIVE WITH counts] my life is CONSTANTLY THIS:

But I try and be social and reach out with facebook statuses to people I actually know: The result of the can be seen in fig 1.1

Fig 1.1:
Me: Hey guys I actually know. Wanna go to the Cinema on Friday to see Prometheus?
Facebook: … … … … … …

It would seem that people who actually know me really don’t care about me at all. Maybe it’s the video games and Star Wars. It’s like a cancer to people who want to be ‘socially accepted’ [what does that even mean today?!?!].

But Tumblr… Well. Just look to fig 2.1

Fig 2.1:
Me: Hey guys I’ve never met. Wanna go to the Cinema on Friday to see Prometheus?
Tumblr: OMG YEAH!
Tumblr: I’ll have to get a plane to come see it with you but I’m game.
Tumblr: What a Promithingy? Meh, I don’t care, I just wanna hang out with my buddy!

Now this may be a little bias, but I’m pretty sure 90% of my facebook don’t give a shit about me, furthermore I will be keeping an eye to see if anyone else more ‘popular’ would make the same request. I’m expecting he/ she would be inundated with countless replies and yeses. And before anything about this is said [“Oh you’re being negitive again Dwayne” Yadda yadda yadda] this has happened before…

The Avengers. One person asked if people wanted to see, everyone clambered over each other to see it with them, after a few minutes of the status update [I might add]. I make the same request to my friends and after waiting for a few hours, no replies and some lonely geek goes to sit in the cinema on his own… [I still enjoyed it though!]

Again.

I wish the person who called me cute last night didn’t anon… Made me feel pretty special.
That’s a privilege I can’t afford these days…

Ah well. I’ll probably enjoy it so much I’ll forget how socially awkward it is to be forcibly forever alone… I am very jealous of everyone else’s life. I won’t go as far as say I hate mines, but I hate that I don’t have theirs…

And I’m partially blaming my ex for this…

Forever alone. Cheers Buns.

[EDIT] I’ll be trying the same ‘experiment’ with The Dark Knight Rises… I’m pretty sure the same thing’ll happen… And people sometimes ask me, “Why do you miss someone who hurt you so badly?”


Cause I’ve got no one else to miss… Or go to the movies with…