warrior review

warriors is a action drama based in the world of UFC (ultimate fight champion ships) which is the best league in the world for mixed matial artist's set in 2011 which stars tom hard and Joel Edgerton as the two main protagonists of the film, it was directed and written by Gavin O Conner who has also done pride and glory (a film about police corruption and when your own brother is apart of the corruption) and tumbleweeds (a film about a mother and daughter running from town to town escaping old relationships) and was produced by lionsgate.

The film has themes of family/loss of family and what you do when you lose someone close to you its also has themes of doing your best to survive the system and dealing with the cards your dealt and also the most potent ones are forgiveness and overcoming expectations and give your all to your future




The film is about the Conlon brothers Tommey and Brendon and as such theses two characters brothers as the may be are polar oppisties which is quickly established and also  the difference in the way they fight in the film so given this, they will be getting there own section to establish motive, personality and attitude to what they do but the main thing is the relationship of the two.

In the world of warrior it is exactly the same as the real world but 3 years ago as there is a war going on for oil in iraq and people in america are still loving the entertainment of sport and by far the most viloent of them all is UFC which is a more viloent version of boxing and judo and other sports.
"When you were younger you wanted to know who was the toughest kid on the block was. well i want to know who the strongest man in the world is" is the idea behind SPARTA the biggest MMA/UFC competition ever with a chance to win 5 million winner takes all prize pool with no entry fee. The rules fair fighting, to listen to the ref, win can be by tap/pin/knock out which is more common than you might think. and there we have it the stage is set now "LETS GO TO WAR".

Lets start with Brendon (played by Joel Edgerton). Brendon is a ex UFC fighter and now a family man physics teacher with two little girls the youngest of the two Rosie has a heart condition and even though his wife Tess (played by Jennifer Morrison) has 3 jobs between them they are struggling to pay for the house and the bank is threatening to take there house away after they are the ones who suggested the different financial moves and said that was most likely the best move for them was the one that is most expensive and better the bank more than them but after Brendon shows up to work one day after getting a small amount of money from winning a few fights in a car park he is suspended from school and without him working the bank will take the house so he signs up for the Sparta competition is the hope to win the 5 million dollar prize money to save his kid his house and maintain his life he has built for himself.
in the ring Brendon is a technical master for what he lacks in full out aggresion (which is most likely a trait for being a teacher for what seems like a long time) he makes up for endurance and skill when it comes to locks and countering. I thought of him as the worlds most smartest and longest lasting punching bag that punches back all his victorys we see are by tap out. he even made tap out the favoirte in the competition Coba this guy is the underdog of all underdogs which makes you wanna cheer for him even more so this is what he does. (its better if the video is muted)

his brother on the other hand is a different story as I said these guys are polar opposites.
Tommy is an ex us marine he is a big ball of aggresion and hate but there is also a mysteriousness about him where no matter how much people try they cannot find any information on this guy. what is later found out that Tommy went MIA after losing his best friend in the iraq and on the way back to the states he saves a tank from drowning makeing him a war hero and he has also made a promise to his best friend widdow that he would look after her which is his goal. Tommy has no job, he is a alcholic and a gambler but despite all this he is a warrior till the end from start to finish he fights to earn what he wants he takes no freebees.
he is a vicuous fighter and is also seen as a old viking warrior who fought in 1400 battles without losing but tommy in not this as he has an equal while warrior did not, his only equal seeming to be his brother rounds not lasting more than one round he will dominate anyone who enters the ring with then get up and walk out the ring no walkout/walk in music and will only acknowledge fellow marines within the crowd here is a little of the absolute destruction this guy can do.

the relationship between these two brothers makes family's that argue and bascilly cant say two words without arguing look like a pre-woman rights video of what the perfect family should be but they do beilive in one thing there farther (played by Nick Nolte) is useless and that he is a waste of space.
The farther and mother split up and is what sparks the rivalry between Tommy and Brendon as Tommy went with there mother to look after her and Brendan stayed with there farther to finally show him attention and to learn how to fight but now Tommy no longer sees Brendon and his farther as family as there mother died and they didn't find out until a couple months later.

the film as a whole is a big load of awsome its a brilliant peace of cinema which if feel so bad that i didnt find out about it until recently which was a damn shame as this has quickly become one of my favorite films. the cinmeatography is beautiful the music is divine but if there was one complant i wish we saw what happens after the final fight what they did with the money or what have you but i gueses i cant get it all oh well thank you for reading this and I tell you go give this film a watch asap.

fish tank by Alex Thomson

fish tank is about girl named mia while living an estate going threw a first love and the wanting of freedom and meaning in the world and deal with cards she has been given.
fish tank is a 2009 british drama film written and directed by andrea arnold the film won the jury prize at the 2009 cannes film festival. It also won the 2010 BAFTA for best british film. the film had a budget of 1.8 million pounds and runs for exactly 123 minutets they made 1,451,678 in the box office.

Mia (the main character) is violent person with her being aggressive to her under loving mother and her little 12 year old sister that smokes and is similar to  her mother while mia is not but mia early on show's her individuality through dance which she dosen't want her mother or sister to know about as she is scared of what they might say since she may act like she dosent care but she dose. she also has a very high interest in a horse in a traveller camp which in the film represent her as it is trapped within the cage or tank and it is chained to a rock which she tries to free it from. mia is a character which everyone ethier knows a mia or is a mia where they are 2 different people given the right setting and scenario in this cases mia shows her passion of dance with the amount of energy and effort she put into learning how to dance and to do new moves. mia is the embodiment of what it means to feel like a teenager with it being a stuggel thinking everything is aggasints you and it takes complete strangers to help you through a tough time. 

Enter Connor O'rigely mias boy friend of the month and all around guy (until later) he is introduced about 7 minutes into the film and he instantly seems chiming and is obviously handsome. later on he drives them to the countryside trying to make good impressions with the two daughters by giving them new experiences and shows them a wider range of music than the rap/hip hop they constantly play threw the t.v. and introduces them to Bobby Womack's version of california dreamin as well as asking mia to express herself though dance which is insulted by her sister and mother.

after mia is at a cybercafe and a few taunts are given between her and a group of girls she looks at a dancing job at a club and be causes she has finally grown a liking to Connor ask for his help for a camera (and while this is going on mia has also made a new friend but we will talk about him later) she gets a camera from connor and say they would like to have a auction in person and she becomes estatic she is finally be able to escape her life with this job. after showing perfect Connor her dance routine she is going to be doing for the auction, Connor goes to not so perfect as they have sex on the sofa and after they say they have to keep a secret the next morning Connor has dissapeard never to be seen again.

the rest of the film will not be spoiled but mia ends up leaving home like she wanted with her new friend  billy who is a bit of a car geek building his own car from other parts of other cars that he finds in junkyards of old run down cars which they meet after mia tries to free the horse for a second time and he is there to give her stuff back and a very nice relationship blossoms as she takes him to her personal dance studio as they share each other company and each others drink like a real relationship.

my final opinion of fish tank 

Timbuktu review by Alex Thomson 17/10/2014

Timbuktu is set in 2014 africa where islamic religion police came to enforce new laws on the city as well as there own version of the religion already in the country and abolish it making Timbuktu a second/"extension" of islam. This fact means people want to go against there new "enforcers" to the point where people are doing such tragic and hideous things such as playing music and being expressive which is stricly forbidden and is punishable by stoning lashes or firing squad.

so Timbuktu is not a very nice place to live but not far from timbuktu, Kidane (one of the many main characters) lives peacefully in the dunes with his wife Satima, his daughter Toya and Issan their 12 year old shepherd. Kidane and his family are being spared the chaos that prevails in timbuktu but their destiny changes after one of the favourite cattle GPS is killed after destroying a fisher mans nets what follows show the jihadists legal system at work.

the performances of the characters is amazing seemed so realistic up until the last few minutes of the film where i found it unrealistic but that was my opinion. Kidane has been living for one purpose to see his daughter again before he dies that is all he ask's and while the wife Satima is a strong mother figure carming down Toya whenever they start to worry about her farther and when he is coming home after an accident happens. Toya and Issan are also very believable characters with them helping out Staima whenever possible and respecting kidane so much to the point that they actually run after him just to give him a hug and tell him that she loves him shows what a young kid would do when they are not spoilt when they know the joy of having a family that actually loves her without being distracted by a phone or a xbox or a iPad is something to see as this is what seems to be anything that is in the media never what a family life should be of being together happily but what it could be with all latest gadgets which only the insanely rich can afford them all.

the setting for this is a rare one as you always hear about people dieing left and right in africa due to jihadist extremists and jihadist in general but this is a surreal window into what we hear about there in front of us and isn't something made up by the media and is just as shocking as they say on the media.

in conclusion Timbuktu is a very good film with showing a different social realism to what we may be used to as this is what some people have to live through everyday of there life which is shocking when you think about it with stellar performances for 90% of the film isn't bad maybe next time it could be 100% but this doesn't harm the film much but its proberly biggest fault is that the passing of the film is very slow even though it shows real life and life docent go as fast as a blockbuster but some scenes where pointless.

60 sec evlautation

this short 60 second film is not great i could of been more creative of what i did and i could of done it multiple times to see which one i would of preferred and to see if i could of done it without stuttering my words throughout but i do believe that i have given a further insight into who i am and what my personality is.

sequences

shots sizes

Get off my land review

Get off my land is a short film created and directed by Douglas Ray and star’s Robert Glenister who you may recognise from the con program hustle where he plays one of the main characters. This review will focus on 3 major points for the short film:

The plot

The characters

The realism of it all

The plot is (in my opinion) the most important part of any film if the viewers of a film can’t follow the film, then they cannot understand why the ending, that the film is building up to is worth all the fuss. This film at the start doesn’t seem to have much of a plot where it’s just two people walking into a field out in the country. One of them is played by Rafe Spall and the other is played by Ruth Wilson both of which are not doing much and exchanging very few words, with all this it is clear that the director doesn’t want us to expect much as this is a very mundane opening but this fact doesn’t take away from the film its self because even some Hollywood blockbusters have a boring start.

As the film continues then Robert Glenister enters the film who plays the owner of the land and tells the two people to get off his land as they are no longer on a public foot path, as that is what they are only aloud to walk on through his land. This entrance of a third character creates a problem that needs to be solved which then gets the audience engaged and intrigued on how the problem will develop and be solved.

This is problem is escalated when Rafe Spall says he will fight the farmer of owner for his land because he doesn’t want to leave the path and keep walking, the build and age difference of the two characters means it’s clear that the challenger would win as the farmer is fairly old but without saying a word the farmer walks back to his vehicle and the man goes back to the other person in victory. When the audience thinks that the suspense was anti climatic the farmer brings out a double barrel shotgun and shoots the challenger down. This is when the film which seemed mundane and a waste of time it turns dark and a sudden heart race even though its clear on where the movie is going to continue but that still doesn’t mean you don’t want to see what happens next.

The farmer then kills the other person to leave no possible witnesses and then looks directly into the camera and says “you know what I think this is a public footpath” meaning the problem that caused all of this was a miss understanding and caused the death of two innocent people which on first time of watching this sent a shiver down my spine and I’m sure of many peoples. That is where the film ends on the sad and dark tone but the plot was great with a boring beginning to give that much of a awesome ending when you think it’s going to be a waste of 5 minutes.

There are only 3 characters in the entire film one of them is a man (which literally the name of his character in the ending credits) who is obviously not suited to country life with him wearing trainers down muddy foot paths, struggling to climb over fences and thinking violence is a way to solve a problem instead of just doing what someone said. This character is obviously from the middle of a city and is well educated I can tell he is well educated by after walking off proudly he says “a moral hypocrisy of the land owning upper classes” shows he has had to deal with something like this before which shows means he would of have to lived around rich people and most schools and even some colleges would not teach what some words mean like hypocrisy but he was taught enough to know when he is in the wrong as he threatens a old man who is clearly older and more fragile than him all in the name of getting what he wants then believes that he was in the right until the man pulls a shotgun on him. He as well seems to only start the further argument to protect the honour of his lady friend.

The second character is named woman this character seems to have been raised in the countryside as she climbs over fences no problem and wear’s the correct shoes for what she is doing such as for walking down the path she wear’s boots instead of trainers and she knows when she is in the wrong and would of left if not for the boy causing trouble her character is sensible and not arrogant and would of walked away with her life if the boy didn’t make the problem worse she would of walked away with her life.

The third and the most complex of the characters is the farmer this character is just using his own right and following the law by telling people to get off his land that his family owned which they own which is fair enough and he is also very intelligent as he knew he would not be able to win in a fist fight with the man so he pulls out something that would of been used to fight for land which is guns but he is also quite psychotic in the fact that he talks to people that are not there and he seemed to kill them for no reason other than he challenged me so he must die and he knew those deaths were pointless because he then says that it was a public foot path which he said it wasn’t which sparked the original problem.

Finally the realism of the film is exceptional up until the boy starts talking and wants to get into a fight just so they can keep on walking which in its self is not plausible also the farmer killed two people in cold blood and doesn’t seem to show any remorse unless it is your job to kill and you don’t show any remorse or sadness for what you just did then you are not human. So in short the film is very realistic up until the 3rd quarter of the film.

To sum this all up id recommend this film to most people I know but just remember to bring the tissues and the swear jar cause those two things are going to be used a lot.

Film review avatar-Alex Thomson

The review will be on the film by James Cameron and was realised in cinemas in 2009 the film is one of the highest spending films of all time and made its also one of the highest grossing films of all time at $2.8 billion.

The main protagonist named Jake Sully is a ex marine who had to leave the army due to him being shot in the leg and confined to a wheel chair but he has the attitude of all task can be done no matter the circumstances he has the main theme of justices and learning as he must learn to his new environment to compete with the other people in his team, who are all scientist and people who actually trained for years to do what he had been chosen to do in a day. This character is different from most he does start obedient but then goes against the chain of command but he doesn’t for reasons other than love but he does it causes he feels connected to those he’s trying to protect.

On the other side of the spectrum with have the antagonist which starts out as the environment which reinforces a statement done by a main character named Colonel Miles which says “everything living thing behind that fence wants to kill you” this is boosted by the fact that a later scene the wildlife chases jake through the forest trying to kill him but as the film progresses peoples true light shines through were and Colonel Miles makes his actions seem humane by trying to reduce casualties even though he doesn’t care and just wants to kill them this character is a good antagonist as he is doing his job but at the same time he trying to seem like every other solider there at the beginning to end and he’s doing it because he thinks there are mindless savage’s.

The main themes of the film are mainly man is evil and nature is good and that tradition and that nature will always win. This is clear themes as the film progress and the changes in the characters take place and the characters that change live with the help of nature while those who don’t lose this is similar to other pro environment and environment awareness films but instead of shoving a message down our throats this film does that in a more action filled way which makes every man child scream with passion and in the side of them of tradition is that the old ways of beasts over machines and rituals and praying to a god will allow them to get the upper hand.

Is this film perfect, not by a long shot but it is a good film the acting is solid it doesn’t try to fix what isn’t broken which is the environmental message way of pitching it but because of this people struggle to take the film seriously and this made the film seem like a copy and paste of Pocahontas which conveyed them same message in a less costly way using animation over live action and cgi but this is the same cgi which allows for the same emersion and feeling in every shot as a Imax cinema in your living room.

So in short go see avatar because it is a good film (but not avatar the last air bender that show disgraced the anime and butchered a good series and left me and all other fans of the franchise disappointed).