The Butterfly Effect (Eric Bress and J Mackye Gruber, 2004)

The title ‘The Butterfly Effect’ refers to an example of chaos theory, and the idea that every single little thing we do can shape our future drastically – for example, does the small flap of a butterfly’s wings create a tidal wave somewhere in the world, eventually? What would happen if we could go back and do things differently? How different would the outcome be? Personally, I love the idea that every tiny decision that we make, without even thinking, can have such an impact on us; I often pass a lot of time thinking ‘what if?’, and for this reason, the film had a big effect on me, leaving me unable to sleep because I was so wrapped up in these hypothetical situations!

The film follows Evan (played predominantly by Ashton Kutcher, but also played by Logan Lerman and John Amedori as his younger self). As a child, he has black outs whenever he’s put in a stressful or uncomfortable situation, which include being forced to take part in child pornography by the abusive father (Eric Stolz) of his childhood sweetheart, Kayleigh (Amy Smart); being strangled by his institutionalised father who is then killed in front him; seeing his dog burned alive by Tommy (Kayleigh’s brother); and killing a woman and her baby while playing with dynamite with his friends. He is advised by his psychologist to keep journals, and when he rediscovers these, years later, he also uncovers the ability to travel back in time and is able to relive these traumatic parts of his past.

However, every time he goes back in time to change something (always with good intentions), he comes back to the present day a changed man – at one point, he finds himself crying over Kayleigh’s grave, after she kills herself; one time, he is an amputee; another, he’s an inmate, imprisoned for murdering Tommy. The people around him are also affected; Kayleigh ranges from being the most popular girl in a sorority to being a prostitute. All he really wants is for him and Kayleigh to be happy and together, but something always seems to go wrong. On top of this, years’ worth of new memories causes him severe brain damage, and eventually he realises that everyone’s suffering, in every scenario, is ultimately caused by him in some way.

There are four potential endings to this film; one is a rather cliched ending where he walks past Kayleigh on the street, she stops and looks at him for a while as though she knows him, then shrugs it off and walks on.
The generic ‘happy’ ending is where they cross paths on the street, and Evan introduces himself to Kayleigh, asking her out for coffee.
A more open-ended alternative is similar to the one where Evan and Kayleigh pass each other on the sidewalk and keep walking, except this time Evan, after hesitating, turns and follows Kayleigh, leaving it ambiguous.
The last possible ending is where he travels back to his own birth and strangles himself with his own umbilical cord so he was never born. Considering how wonderfully complicated the film is, I prefer this ending, as the others seem a bit of a let down.

The acting in this film is incredible; Ashton Kutcher portrays pretty much every ‘side’ to a personality possible; and I love the way the film is shot, because each new scenario seems to represent a different genre, showing how versatile the actors are. The different genres means there’s definitely something for everyone in this film, yet it’s still quite easy to follow despite how complicated it is; I would quite happily recommend it to everyone, with hesitation.

This is a song by one of my favourite bands, set to clips from The Butterfly Effect; this is actually one of the reasons I watched it in the first place.

Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)

I first saw Children of Men a couple of years ago in English, and it stuck with me for a long time. It came into my head randomly a few days back, so I decided to rewatch it, and it’s still just as good as I remember it being.

Based in 2027, in a world of infertility and chaos, Theo Faron meets a pregnant young West African refugee named Kee. He promises to accompany her to ‘the Human Project’, a scientific group who are dedicated to curing infertility. However, a group named ‘the Fishes’ discover Kee’s secret and attempt to use the baby as a political tool in the upcoming revolution. Theo, realising the danger, tries even harder to get Kee to safety. Eventually, after a long struggle, Theo gets Kee to the harbour where the boat, the Tomorrow, approaches them. However, Theo announces that he was shot in the fighting, and slumps forward. Kee tells him she will name her baby Dylan, after Theo’s son who died of pandemic flu, making for a very emotional ending. It is uncertain though, whether or not she gets on the boat, and whether or not ‘the Human Project’ even exists.

I actually loved this film, it’s hard to get across how much I love the plot and the whole idea of it… The film is based on a book by P. D. James, who should clearly get the credit for the idea. However, Alfonso Cuarón, one of my favourite directors, takes the book and puts it on the screen perfectly. Cuarón has recently directed a new film called Gravity, which I can’t wait to see!

The cinematography in this is brilliant; at one point, some ‘blood’ lands on the camera.
It makes you feel so much more involved, and almost scared, as suddenly the action is so much more ‘real’. This was the first time I’d come across this technique and I thought it was great – since then I’ve seen it a couple of times, but I always think of Children of Men when I see it.

The attention to detail was probably my favourite thing about it though. Since I originally watched it as part of an English lesson, I had to watch a clip several times, and every single time I watched it, I noticed something new.

Dredd (Pete Travis, 2012)

Although this is totally not my kind of film – violence, guns, a lot of blood – I still watched all of it, mainly because I was intrigued by the camera work. Dredd, based on a comic book named 2000 AD, contains some stunning cinematography effects and visuals. The main thing which has stuck in my head is a close up of a man receiving a shot to the cheek. It’s brilliantly graphic, showing the cheek blowing outward in a spray of blood and bits of flesh. The whole film is brutal and violent, but the way it’s filmed, particularly in slow motion, means it’s difficult to look away. The scenes are all visually amazing, and while the plot isn’t actually very interesting, the film still got great reviews.

Dredd is set in a future America, a dystopia called ‘the Cursed Earth’. An addictive new drug called ‘Slo-Mo’ has been introduced, which slows the user’s perception of time to 1% of their normal perception.  The idea of the ‘Slo-Mo’ drug allows for really good slow motion scenes… The drug is best shown when Ma-Ma (a drug lord) is in the bath and has clearly taken it.

The law is enforced by the ‘Judges’, who take it upon themselves to act as judge, jury, and executioner. A girl is being trained as a new Judge (Rookie Anderson), alongside Judge Dredd, and she is seen to have psychic powers, which the Judges find incredibly useful.
When the drug lords hear that the Judges are after them, their building is closed down, trapping Judge Dredd and Anderson. Everyone is warned to stay inside their houses, and a massive fight between the drug lords and the Judges ensues.
It is all very violent, vivid and detailed, and psychic Anderson picks up on the violence – while the Judges can block it out and get on with their jobs, her extra sense doesn’t allow to forget things as easily. At the end, after she and Dredd take down the drug ring and escape, she walks off, despite having passed her initiation.

Doctor Who – The Day of the Doctor (Steven Moffat, 2013)

23/11/13, The Day of the Doctor, has finally arrived. Happy 50th birthday Doctor Who!

I will openly admit to anyone how much I love Doctor Who, although recently I’ve felt like it’s gone slightly downhill. So as I settled down with my KFC to watch the 50th anniversary episode, I was half excited and half nervous, in a way. Steven Moffat had the chance to completely ruin Doctor Who, and if I’m honest, I was fully expecting him to.

Thankfully, he didn’t! Even though Gallifrey was never destroyed like everyone has believed for the past fifty years, Moffat didn’t change too much of the Doctor Who past, which I was worried he’d do. Instead, he changed the future, and has actually set up a good few more series just with this one storyline, should he wish to.

Although my original response was that it was a disappointing episode, I’ve thought back on it and actually it wasn’t that bad; it was more of an anticlimax, particularly with all the hype around the episode. Having said that, I loved all the special Doctor Who programmes the BBC showed in the run up to the 50th anniversary… particularly Never Mind The Buzzcocks with David Tennant as the host. David Tennant, to me, will always be the ‘real’ doctor, just as 70s children, like my parents, would say it’s undoubtedly Tom Baker. Luckily for them, Baker made an appearance at the end of the episode as a slightly quirky, mild-mannered gallery curator.

I didn’t fully understand how Zygons fit into the episode at all; it came across as almost disjointed, like two separate episodes which had been badly put together. The supposed ‘queen of England’ was played by Joanna Page, a brilliant Welsh actress… but personally I think this was a terrible choice. Why does the queen of England have such a blatant Welsh accent?
The rest of the casting, though, was great. John Hurt played a convincing doctor, and the return of Billie Piper was clever; many Doctor Who fans had been complaining about the return of Rose (me included), as it shouldn’t be possible. When I realised she was just an image for the weapon of mass destruction’s ‘conscience’, I understood. This was well played by Steven Moffat, as it created hype amongst ‘Whovians’, along with the rest of the British public. Doctor Who is such a timeless British classic – I’d be interested to find out the viewing figures.

My favourite thing about the episode was definitely the chemistry between Matt Smith and David Tennant. Their personalities melded together perfectly, and seeing them both together, the way each of them portrays the doctor, summarised my ‘Doctor Who’ childhood (and adolescence).

Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)

Donnie Darko begins with Donnie, a schizophrenic teenage boy, being led outside by a strange figure in a bizarre rabbit costume, who introduces himself as ‘Frank’, and tells Donnie that the world is going to end in twenty eight days. When Donnie returns home, early in the morning, he finds that a jet engine has fallen and crashed into his room.
Following this first troubling vision, Donnie sees Frank more and more, yet doesn’t seem to get distressed by it. His parents get him a psychologist, and he tells her about Frank. He then goes on to flood his school, and later burns down a house, under instructions from Frank. He eventually admits to his crimes during a hypnotherapy session with his psychologist, and tells her that Frank is soon going to kill someone.
One night, Donnie and his sister throw a party at their house. Donnie suddenly realises that there are only two hours left before the prophesied ‘end of the world’, so takes Gretchen, his girlfriend, and two other friends to visit ‘Grandma Death’. She had previously given Donnie a book, The Philosophy of Time Travel, so he thinks she can help him. However, she is an old, frail woman, and as the group turn up at her house, they are attacked by their school bullies. As the fight breaks out in the street, a car swerves to avoid ‘Grandma Death’, but runs straight over Gretchen, killing her immediately.
The driver of the car turns out to be his sister’s boyfriend, named Frank, who is wearing the same horrific rabbit costume as in Donnie’s visions for his Halloween costume. Donnie shoots him with his father’s gun.
After this, the events of the previous twenty-eight days are shown in reverse order, until it reaches Donnie sat on his bed, the night the film began. The engine crashes into his room, this time killing him. The film ends with Gretchen cycling by Donnie’s house and seeing the chaos following Donnie’s death. A boy asks if she knew him, to which she replies she doesn’t. She catches Donnie’s mother’s eye and waves, as though she knows her but cannot remember where from.

I watched the beginning of Donnie Darko during summer, but we totally misjudged the time we had and I ended up only seeing half of the film. Since then, it’s been on my list of films to watch, which increases every day, and I finally got round to it yesterday. It was okay; I think it would’ve been better if I’d watched it all in one go, as the suspense was kind of lost… I felt like the ending was a bit rushed too, and a bit muddled and badly explained.

The filming for Donnie Darko took 28 days; oddly, the same amount of time as Frank allowed before the end of the world.

Chronicle (Josh Trank, 2012)

I also watched Chronicle yesterday, a film about three teenage boys who gain superpowers… and then spent the rest of the evening trying to move objects with my mind. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

The film follows Andrew, a social outcast who films everything on his camera. His only friend is his cousin, Matt, who invites him to a party one evening. There, he meets Steve, who leads Andrew and Matt to a strange hole in the ground. Despite Andrew’s reluctance, they go inside it, and later discover that this encounter has given them all powerful telekinetic superpowers. To begin with, they use these powers for fun, but when Andrew gets angry and sends a car off the road, Matt suggests they should have rules for using their powers. Andrew then enters the school talent show to help him appear ‘cooler’, and instantly becomes popular. However, along with his difficult situation at school, Andrew has also been helping his mother battle her illness, and dealing with his alcoholic father who often beats him. When Andrew goes to buy his mother’s medicine but does not have enough money to buy it, he starts abusing his abilities, and a darker side to this shy, introverted boy comes out.

The entire film is shown as though Andrew and his friends are filming it. Some of the shots are quite shaky, as a hand held camera is always used, but this effect helps the audience to really connect with the boys, as it feels much more personal and direct. It also helps make it seem slightly more believable… it absorbs the audience into the film, and at some points, it feels as though anything is possible.

The effects used in this film are very clever; a lot of high tech equipment must have been used, as there are many situations where the impossible is shown; for example, the three boys discover they can fly if they concentrate hard enough, and there are very well-filmed scenes of the three of them high up in the sky. They also make things levitate, and they can move objects using just their minds. At one point, Andrew crushes a car which is slightly behind him.

I think Chronicle was very cleverly filmed. The fact it was all shot from their point of view helped to involve me in the film, and I think it’s a very clever technique. I remember seeing the trailer for Chronicle and wanting to go and see it at the cinema, but I never got round to it… I wish I had, I can’t help but think this film would be amazing on a big screen. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it.

Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

So, for the past week or so, I’ve been doing NCS so I have something to put on my CV… it was great, but the amount of time spent away from home means I’ve been neglecting my blog a little bit. However, I’ve found that whenever I mention I’m studying media, people automatically recommend a film I should watch, so I watched a couple of films today, purely so I could blog about them. That’s dedication. 

I decided to start with Inception, since it was the first one I watched today, and probably also my favourite. I love films that make me think, and this one confused me so much. Every time I thought I understood, they threw in something else to confuse me more… The basic gist of the film is trying to get inside people’s heads; the film is based around a man named Cobb who can enter people’s dreams and convince them it’s all real. There’s also some problem around his wife but I’m ashamed to say I genuinely cannot explain that bit, mainly because I don’t understand…
The Wikipedia explanation is as follows: “Cobb reveals to Ariadne [his apprentice] that he spent “50 years” with Mal in Limbo constructing a world from their shared memories while seemingly growing old together. Returning to the waking world, they found less than three hours had passed, but Mal, convinced she was still dreaming, committed suicide, all the while trying to persuade Cobb to do so by incriminating him in her death. He fled the U.S. and left his children behind, ostensibly in the care of his father-in-law, Prof. Stephen Miles.”
If that makes any sense to you, I’m impressed.
Cobb and his team are hired to use their skills to take down a company. They try a new technique; getting inside someone’s head and planting an idea. The film is shown as a dream within a dream within a dream, which can be very difficult to follow.

And yet, despite the ridiculously complicated plot, it was brilliant. I understood enough to be able to follow, but not too much for it to be boring, and massive credit to the writers for that.

The camera work in this film was absolutely amazing. In one scene, the hallway rotates, and I’m still unsure as to how this was filmed and edited! I have a basic idea that I’ve gained from the internet but the filming is just as confusing as the plot.

They often use a hand held camera to film really busy scenes, so it feels as though you’re really there. It’s so absorbing, I found myself ducking and moving to avoid things which clearly weren’t a threat to me at all… Particularly in scenes where people are falling or moving, the camera often moves with them so the audience can properly follow the action.

A lot of it is filmed in slow motion, because dreams do not play out in ‘real time’. You can have a two hour adventure in head within a five minute nap, and the director picked up on this to explain which stage of the dream we were supposedly in.

Overall, I think this film is incredibly clever. I plan on watching it again to hopefully understand the last few bits which I haven’t quite ‘got’ yet, but honestly, I quite like the fact I don’t really get it. The camera work, the editing, the acting and the writing are all brilliant, and Inception has quickly worked its way into my head.