The Artist (2011) : A review

Reviewing "The Artist (2011)" is a tribute to the filmgoer. It's a film about films. It's a film about silent films.

The story is set in Hollywood, 1927. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a silent movie superstar. The advent of the talkies will sound the death knell for his career and will eventually set his oblivion. For young extra Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) it seems he sky's the limit, major movie stardom awaits for her. This film on film tells about their interlinked destinies.

This film won many of the major awards globally. Cannes film festival, Golden globes and Academy awards were given to these film. In france it was nominated to ten 'Cesar Awards'. "The Artist" has received the highest number of awards than any other french film in history.

Why I love "The Artist" is it's simplicity, humour and energy. In 2011 I was in a fresh state of mind. I was not exposed to many films. I watched "Singing in the rain (1952)". But this is different. This has Jean Dujardin and his as George Valentin you will never forget.

It's a film about the beauty of film.

Take your time to enjoy this films.

References

·         Image: The Artist (2011). Format : (Jpg) Available at : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1655442/mediaviewer/rm3654791680 (Accessed at : 2017/01/29)

Love of films : Short film 3

This way up (2008)
[Animation, Short]
Adam Foulkes, Alan Smith

I will not comment on it's oscar worthiness but it's a very eerily haunting dark comedy animation with the simple plot of no respect for dead.

The beauty of short animations is they have the independence to manipulate animation and the creators have done that according to the theme.

A good short film.

References

·         Image: This Way Up (2008). Format : (jpg) Extracted from Google. (Accessed at : 2017/01/29)

Dimantha and MovieFreak

Moviefreak is my hobby. It's a blog which is more than 6 years old that reflects on my perception on my cinema. If you follow my new 3 other blogs there will be a reflection on depression and post - depression era's of my life.

This blog is my brain child of depression. After failing to participate in a law exam in 2012 May I got depressed and got sunk in films.

I watched around 4 to 5 films a day. I got addicted.

After 2013 where I shifted my career to business management and accounting I was afflicted with many bad habits including addiction to entertainment.

After 2015 July I changed with my internship. I started working on the academics and against my addictions. And by end of 2016 I have improved myself from removing from many bad habits.

But Moviefreak was my friend on utilizing my perception on cinema as a tool of building language skills, conceptual skills and reviewing.

By the end of 2016 personally I found this blog as the guiding light of increasing the perception of my addiction to cinema and how to overcome it positively.

The moviefreak has become one of the biggest projects of my life now. Though it has an accumulated hits over 1000 for only 6 years, I started marketing my blog on films since January 2017.

And I see a much more developed perception on cinema as well.

References

·         Image: Films within films (2017). Format : (Jpg) Available at : http://rateyourmusic.com/list/JohnBuckWLD/cinematic_homage__motion_pictures_that_contain_excerpts_of_other_films_within_them/ (Accessed at : 2017/01/28)

Stranger things : Season 01 (2016) - It's strictly personal

More like a rip-off to Super 8 (2011), but still you won't get any rip-off's for 80's classics like this, television series Stranger Things : Season 01 is an amazing homage to the 80's films with such style and specially it's techno music.

And why this becomes personal is as a childhood fanatic of young adult books of "R.L. Stine's Goosebumps" and "M.D. Spencer's Shivers" this is a dream come true.

Reminds me of the 80's and specially Steven Spielberg's E.T.

Overall - 5/5

References
     
- Image: Stranger things (2016). Format : (Jpg) Available at : http://tvline.com/2016/07/21/stranger-things-15-best-moments-photos-netflix/  (Accessed at : 2017/01/24)

"අලොකෝ උදපාදි (2017) " ශ්‍රි ලාංකිය සිනමාවේ ඉතිහාස කතා කලාවේ අග්‍ර පලය

"අලොකෝ උදපාදි (2017) " ශ්‍රි ලාංකිය සිනමාවේ ඉතිහාස කතා කලාවේ අග්‍ර පලය ලෙස මම දකිමි.

එය "අබා (2008)" , "සිරි පෑරකුම් (2014)" සහ "මහරජ ගෑමුනු (2015)" වෑනි ඉතිහාස සිනමා කතා වලට පසු බිහිවු දෑවන්තම සිනමා කෘතියයි.

අහි කෑමරාකරනය ඉතා විශිෂ්ටය.

චරිත නිරුපනය, සටන් හා තෙමාව ඉතාම සුන්දර අයුරින් බිහිවි ඈත.

චත්‍ර වීරමන් ගේ පලමුවන සිනමා කෘතිය වන මෙය ඉතාම
වෑදගත් වන්නේ එහි එන දෑවෑන්ත බව හා එම ඉලක්කය ඉෂට කර ගනිමයි.

Sherlock ( Season 04) - 2017 : Downward spiral

Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock is a revelation of one of the most loved fictional characters in the world.

And it has been an amazing experience seeing Sherlock Holmes solving crimes in 21st century and they managed to pull this off stunningly in the first and second seasons.

Third season was okay.

The Abominable Bride (2015) which is the christmas special was also acceptable.

But the official Season 4 was a disaster.

Now let's go deeper.

Episode 01 : The six thatchers

London environment, loved characters for 6 years, but the deduction and the vision is overshadowed by the episodes visual flair and over-reliance on technology. But it's still Benedict's Sherlock and he's awesome as always.

Overall - 3.5/5

Episode 02 : The Lying detective

The intensity, dark humour, powerful and haunting anti-heros and Sherlock's traditional and master of a vision and deduction is established.

Overall - 5/5

Episode 03 - The final problem

Makes you feel bloated by unnecessary twists and expected solutions (you know Sherlock's not going to shoot anyone ?), "The final problem" disgraces the core concepts and plots of the tv series and become more of a shallow family drama to fill in the series.

Overall - 3/5

Exceptionally dissatisfying.

Arrival : Language, time and life

Denis Villeneuve is a modern day Hitchcock, his heart wrenching unique thrillers and deep rooted character based story arcs reminds of films we loved and we missed, but he makes them in his modern tradition.

His Prisoners (2013) and Enemy (2014) are very dark and is unique filmmaking, you only see in Denis's films itself.

Sicario (2015) takes deeper roots into human condition relating to crime and drug activities which is also an addition to his deep and darker cinematic film making style.

Arrival (2016) his latest film is a sci-fi based on an alien space craft appearance and it's communication through linguistics of the alien race translated by a language specialist Dr. Louise Banks played by Amy Adams. Her performance is remarkable.

The depth of substance of the film is commendable. Aspects of civilisation and humanity like language, time and life are analysed and put to the screen in an amazing way by the filmmakers.

This film is a Denis Villeneuve film with such expansion to his tradition. Unlike other films this is more filled with hope and love. He expands into the aspects of his slow swiftly camera work rather than being haunting like in his previous films into being a more poetic and like song of nature and humanity. It's a real upgrade in his tradition in my perspective.

He explores femininity in his latest two films giving major roles to female leads.

Overall - 3.5/5