Catfish

I saw the trailer for this a while back when i went see The Other Guys in New York, and ever since then i've been dying to see this film. The suspense in the trailer is what intensifies the suspense you feel when watching the film, which i thought was very clever. But it was no trick. Regardless of whether you've seen the trailer or not the film is extremely tense. It's a documentary made by three friends, two film makers and a photographer. The photographer has started up a facebook relationship with a mother and her two daughters and the two film makers are documenting it all. The relationship with the eldest daughter elevates  and he is eager to meet her incase a relationship were to blossom in doing so.
I wish i could say more than all of this but it really is brilliant film making. Emotional, tense, funny; it truly is a great film and worth the wait. Why anybody would question it's reality i will never know. 5 stars.

Somewhere

Somewhere captures the loneliness of an over-indulgent life very well in the character Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff). The first twenty minutes or so captures it particularly well, not only because nobody really talks enough to classify anything as conversation, but also because his days are repetitive. Alcohol, Strippers, his ferrari and sex are what make up Johnny Marco's days, along with hanging around his funny mate Sammy (Chris Pontius). Johnny lives at the Chateau Marmont Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, which was enough to make me go and see the film because it's my favourite place to stay fullstop. His daughter Cleo (Ellie Fanning) from his ex-wife visits him and her presence highlights Johnny's flaws. She cooks and cleans and is generally much more grown up than her father, and when her mother calls Johnny to ask if he can look after her for a few weeks his journey to becoming a normally functioning person begins.

The performances aren't really outstanding but Stephen Dorff does pretty well in being emotionally isolated, and in a weird way i couldn't stop thinking he showed some similarities with the young Mickey Rourke. I don't know if that's just me. I'm not saying he was powerful in any way like Mickey Rourke, it was just the quiet way Dorff carried himself, it sort of reminded me of his character in Rumble Fish. I think perhaps Sofia Coppola could have had us connect with Johnny Marco a little more as a character, as his transformation seemed all a bit to sudden. However, it is a great film and very artistic. 4 stars.

Black Swan

Ballet is not exactly something I get too excited about, especially if there's a film about it. If it weren't for the fact that Vincent Cassel stars in it I wouldn't have thought about watching this film at all. However, I would be lying if I said the trailer didn't interest me, but how many trailers have advertised a film falsely? A lot. So I wasn't going to risk having to sit through a chick flick ballet film that had been disguised as some sort of dark emotional journey that the main character Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) goes through to fit into the role of the white and black swans of swan lake. Vincent Cassel plays Thomas Leroy, the head of the Ballet institution and Nina's teacher of some sorts. He puts in a very good performance as the manipulative mentor, as he uses sex as a tool to draw out Nina's Black Swan. She already personifies all the qualities of the White Swan, and as she makes progress toward finding her dark side, problems arise. She initially has a disorder where she scratches herself obsessively and on top of that she has some sort of eating disorder, and as she makes progress in the role of Swan Queen these disorders spiral out of control and she starts to hallucinate. The arrival of Lily (Mila Kunis) doesn't help either, as her style of dancing is just what Nina needs to emulate if she is to dance the Black Swan; and the hate that her dance role model Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) starts to feel for Nina for pushing her to retirement by taking the limelight puts her under extreme pressure.
Brilliantly dark film-making by Darren Aronofsky. I enjoyed it thoroughly due to it's intensity and... I don't know...fucked up-ness? Fantastic film. 4 and a half stars.

The Town

Who would've thought that Ben Affleck would make a good director? We all know he can write through his contributions to 'Good Will Hunting' and the brilliant 'Gone Baby Gone', which he directed also, but still it's Ben Affleck. Joking aside, 'The Town' is a top draw film that I enjoyed very much. Oscar winner Ben Affleck delivers in all departments: the script is great, the directing also, and his performance as the main character is flawless. It would be pushing it to say that he could win the Oscar for best actor for it, but best director or screenplay? You never know. One person who could get an Oscar out of this is 'The Hurt Locker' star and Oscar nominee, Jeremy Renner. His portrayal of the psychotic Jim is extremely tense, as he shifts emotion effortlessly throughout.
I'm not sure if it's only me, but I look forward to seeing what Ben Affleck comes up with next. In a way he's similar to Shane Meadows, except his films are made on a much big bigger scale. Some of you reading might be thinking, 'What are you on about you mug, that's a ridiculous comparison!' Well, Affleck, like Meadows, keeps his stories very close to home, even though he never lived directly in Boston. What I mean is that his subject matters are gritty and realistic, and relate to the places they're set in. He's original in this sense and that's why I look forward to seeing his next projects. 4 stars for this one.