Why are movies so addicting?

So Uni is piling up, but I managed to rent and watch quite a few movies before the work piled in, so here are some of them.


August: Osage County

7.3/10 on IMDB
64% on Rotten Tomatoes
You think your family's a pain? Watch this movie and you'll be filled with nothing but gratitude for them.

This movie tells the story of the most dysfunctional family in the world who are forced into a reunion when the father goes missing. There's drama, there's tension and there's a whole lot of emotion. The plot doesn't sound super interesting, but with the amazing cast (Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Abigail Breslin, Benedict Cumberbatch to name a few), this movie breaks your heart. It's hilarious, but in the darkest of ways as it delves into broken childhoods, broken relationships and broken people.

Meryl Streep steals the movie, with Julia Roberts closely following, but it's the intricate sub plots and the characters' complexities that really make this movie. Above all, I loved the concept of life being a long and hard cycle. The film, based off a theatrical play, delves into a mother's brokenness and the subsequent brokenness of her own children. She then recounts to her children, in a rarely intimate moment, how cruel her own mother had been to her, before realising that she ended up being the same.

I loved Susan Wloszczyna's statement in her review for Roger Ebert, ""August: Osage County" rightfully boils down to the fates of Violet and Barbara, both left ... damaged by the events. One will be set free by their encounter, the other doomed to repeat the past."

The movie/play also has some really great quotes, and the ones I liked the most were:

"Thank God we can't tell the future, we could never get out of bed."
-Barbara Weston

"We're all just people, some of us accidentally connected by genetics, a random selection of cells. Nothing more."
-Ivy Weston

"This mad house is my home."
-Barbara Weston
And this one wasn't in the movie (I don't think), but it's still a good one:

"Time wounds all heals"
Ultimately, this was an amazing film, with amazing scenes, amazing emotions, and amazing acting.


Lone Survivor

7.7/10 on IMDb
75% on Rotten Tomatoes
Another movie that I was really looking forward to after seeing one of Mark Wahlberg's interviews.

It's based on a true story about a four-man SEAL team who go out on a reconnaissance mission. They take a route through a forest up in some mountain and all seems to be going well. However, their mission gets compromised when they are ambushed by a group of Talibans. As you can see from the title, only one of them survives.

The movie was really intense for me. I loved the way it was directed because you could really just see every single injury they went through. All the bullet holes and blood splattering was gory, but it wasn't really too forced or anything. And, even though you know the ending (that one man survives, and you can probably guess who that person is seeing as Mark Wahlberg is on the poster), it's still really intense and you want to watch more. You want to see how this person dies and how even does the lone survivor get out of what seems to be a hopeless situation.

Unfortunately, the actual survival bit wasn't as intense as it was in real life. I remember watching Mark Wahlberg's interview where he described the real life guy, after surviving the attack, actually being so injured that he was paralysed form the chest down and could only escape by using a knife to draw a line over his head, crawling over that line, and then continuing this for 9 hours. Just think about that. That's pretty intense. Unfortunately, the movie waters this part down significantly and they spend a lot longer on some unnecessary things that happen after. I would have liked for them to show this, since it feels like an insult to the guy that actually had to crawl for 9 hours if you depict his Hollywood version being able to just walk out of there. I also think it insults the other three men that died, because it gives you the impression that the lone survivor's injuries weren't even that bad.

But I think what's interesting is that it begs the question: What would you have done in that situation? The group was compromised because of their own actions. They chose what they believed was the 'right' option, but it ended up backfiring immensely. I guess what I got out of that was the question, "What would you do?" Under those circumstances, when adrenalin is pumping and you can't think clearly, what would you do?


Moonrise Kingdom

7.8/10 on IMDb
94% on Rotten Tomatoes
So after blogging about The Grand Budapest Hotel, someone commented asking me if I had seen Moonrise Kingdom, another Wes Anderson film. I hadn't, but I did a quick Google of it and it looked pretty good, so I put it on my list.

Now since it's a Wes Andersen film, it was extremely quirky, just like how I expected it to be.

The storyline revolves around two twelve-year-olds who decide to, for about 10 days, run away from home and go on an adventure through the woods. The characters are quirky, the island is ridiculous and the directing is classic. Unfortunately, however, the movie was a bit slow moving; it was only 90 minutes long but I thought one hour had already gone by when it was only 30 minutes in.

Despite that, it was pretty entertaining. There was a lot of quirky humour, paired with a lot of satire and just plain ridiculous situations and plot elements. But since you're not meant to take it seriously, it ends up being hilarious (not as much as The Grand Budapest Hotel though).

I just have one thing that I was uncomfortable with.

The two main actors who play the 12-year-olds were actually around that age during the time of filming. And while they were great (and so was the rest of the cast), it was just a bit uncomfortable to see two 12-year-olds exploring sexuality. This film doesn't follow the tradition of casting people who are quite a few years older than the characters they play, so I just kept wondering how the actors' parents consented for them to do some of these things, which included groping, French kissing, being in nothing but their underwear on screen and yes, even talking about boners.

Other than that, it was quite enjoyable, but I probably wouldn't watch it again.