Day 164: Haywire

After finding out she has been sold out by her handler, Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is focused on working out why.

The story was boring, I won’t lie to you. And yet I wasn’t bored at all. Sometimes it’s just good to watch a mindless fighting film, you know? The fighting itself was impressive and well directed, I’d say. I’m not sure whether or not I liked the lack of sound in those scenes though. Sometimes music was used, or all you could hear was far away grunting. It seemed odd but interesting at the same time, so I’ve yet to make up my mind with that. The acting was passable but nowhere near as good as would be expected, considering the cast. Gina Carano is a MMA fighter in real-life and she is a beauty to watch when she’s fighting in this film. It's worth watching it just to see her, really.

The picture up top is the moment after she strangles him with her thighs and before she shoots him in the face. Intense moment.

6/10

Day 95: The Island

Ok, so the picture isn’t technically from the film but there were just too many pictures of Ewan McGregor and not enough of Scarlett Johansson to choose from. My rules.

Curiosity leads to a hell of a lot of explosions. When Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) has some questions about the facility where he lives, it leads him to discover that he and the other residents of the facility are clones who are being harvested for their organs. Pretty grim but he rallies like a champ and teams up with Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) to escape and make people aware of what is going on.

There is so much running in this film. I mean, I was exhausted just watching them. And explosions all over the shop, but it is a Michael Bay film so that is expected. Some of the fighting scenes I could believe in, y’know, they might’ve happened. But then there’s the bit when Lincoln and Jordan are on the side of the building 70 floors up and they fall off and survive. Wouldn’t have happened. I know it’s a film about cloned people yaddayadda, but you’ve got to keep parts of it believable. Loved the fighting though. Pretty much all of my notes centre around how much of a badass Scarlett is. I’m not even sure what the notes refer to since all I wrote was “Oh my, such a badass” (and other variations along that line) but I’m sure the scenes were great.

I’m not really sure what would happen at the end. All the other clones escape the facility and it’s all pretty dramatic with them running about. But what happens next? Do they just chill with their originals? When the doctor was explaining, he said something about them being like children, so what would they do in the world? Although saying that, he did also say that they removed the sex instinct and that clearly didn’t work considering Lincoln and Jordan violate the proximity rules, if you know what I mean. I don’t know, would quite like to know what they did after they escaped. Probably had lots of sex.

6/10 

Day 15: Beginners

Oliver (Ewan McGregor) appears to always be discontent with life but the pain is heightened when his father, Hal (Christopher Plummer) dies. After his mother died, Hal came out and spent his time actively involved in the LGBT community. But he had cancer and spent the last few years of his life with Oliver. When he’s told that he’s going to be dying you can see that he’s crestfallen; he finally gets to live the life he wants but it’s not going to be for long and rather than let it depress him he decides to pack in as much as he can.

A couple of months after Hal dies, Oliver goes to a party and meets Anna (Melanie Laurent). You can tell that this is the first time in a long time he has connected with another person and he looks so hopeful that he'll find a happiness with her. His dog, Arthur, is also there and has this to say about it:

She can’t talk because she has laryngitis so when she phones him after he leaves the party she communicates with beeps. I mean, if that’s not the cutest thing then I just don’t know what is. They drive around and enjoy being with each other. She takes him back to her place and they just sleep. It all seems so easy despite the fact he’s obviously very sad. I always wonder how sad people have relationships because it seems like such a difficult thing. I find it so hard to communicate my sadness to people and I think it’s gotten to the point where I’ve just given up trying. If I can’t get it across then how can I expect people to understand?

Anna holds Oliver when he’s sad and needs to be held. Which is wonderful. It’s like in that film ‘Waitress’ when she’s talking to her child saying she wishes someone would just hold them for 20 minutes with absolutely no agenda. Sometimes people just need to be held, they don’t need you to say anything comforting or try and cheer them up.

They talk about how Anna can keep relationships going since she is always moving around so much. She says it makes it easy to leave people and end up alone. Oliver says that you can stay in the same place and still find ways to leave people. He does this often, just pushes people away because he’s convinced it won’t work out and so he makes sure that it doesn’t. It seems I relate massively with Oliver, which is such a cliché but it’s true. I can’t help but focus on the fact that everyone leaves eventually, so I try to avoid investing time and emotions in them because I’ll be in pain later. But that’s a terrible reason and I am aware of that.

Hal:  Let’s say, since you were little and you always dreamed of some day getting a lion? And you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait and the lion doesn’t come. Then along comes a giraffe. You can be alone or you can be with the giraffe.

Oliver:  I’d wait for the lion.

Hal:  That’s why I worry about you.

I always forget how much I love this film. It’s so sad and so great.

9/10