The Reel Life of Real Life

This film is absolutely AMAZING.  Directed by Sam Mendes, Lester (Kevin Spacey) and Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening) are on the outside, a perfect husband and wife, in a perfect house, in a perfect neighbourhood. But inside, Lester is undergoing a midlife crisis, slipping deeper into a hopeless depression. He soon develops an infatuation with one of his daughter, Jane’s (Thora Birch) friends, Angela (Mena Suvari). Meanwhile, Jane develops a friendship with a boy next door named Ricky (Wes Betley), who lives with an abusive father (Chris Cooper) and videos her through his window.  I love this film so much!! I really do. It is without a doubt one of the best you will see! The narration in the opening scene by Kevin Spacey sets the atmosphere perfectly. I’m a fan of narration like this in movies anyway but whatever it was about this I liked a lot. Maybe it’s the fact he says “In less than a year, I’ll be dead” – That’s bound to peak anyone’s interest! You get a...

This film is class! " The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist, " – words uttered by con-man Verbal Kint, as he refers to the enigmatic criminal, Keyser Soze. Throughout the film Verbal attempts to convince the police that the mythic Keyser Soze not only exists, but is also responsible for drawing Verbal and his four partners into a multi-million dollar heist that ended with an explosion in San Pedro Harbor leaving few survivors. The question is - Who is Keyser Soze? Directed by Bryan Singer, written by Christopher McQuarrie, and starring Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, Chazz Palminteri and Pete Postlethwaite.  I loved this film more than I initially thought I would. The first time I watched it I found it quite confusing between the complexity of the plot, and all the different names of characters being mentioned because they’re all quite ‘different’ names. But it’s so go...

Despite this film first opening with a disappointing $6 million in sales, within the following weeks it generated great word of mouth amongst movie viewers, allowing it to steadily climb to the number 1 slot until it became the highest-grossing movie of 1988. When car dealer Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home where he discovers that he has an autistic older brother named Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives. This is such a good film! I can't imagine anyone not liking it. Just both the acting and cinematography are wonderful. I didn’t really like Tom Cruise's character, Charlie, but I don’t think you were supposed to! Money was...

When retiring police Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) tackles a final case with the aid of newly transferred David Mills (Brad Pitt), they discover a number of elaborate and grizzly murders. They soon realize they are dealing with a serial killer (Kevin Spacey) who is targeting people he thinks represent one of the seven deadly sins. Somerset also befriends Mills' wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is pregnant and afraid to raise her child in the crime-riddled city. This film is unreal. It’s chilling, creepy, and written fabulously. I absolutely love the way it's constructed with the whole thing around the seven deadly sins being the backdrop for each murder. I think the way it’s done is really clever. I love how you can see how much thought went into the writing of the plot. But it’s so original! It’s horrible but bloody brilliant! I love the title sequence in this film. I just think it’s really cool. Sort of creepy. I found this a lot easier to get...

Directed by Alan Parker. David Gale (Kevin Spacey), a college professor and long-time activist against capital punishment, has been sentenced to death for raping and killing a fellow capital punishment opponent. Four days prior to his execution, reporter Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet) has been asked to interview him. Over three days Gale proves his innocence through a series of lengthy flashbacks.  Laura Linney also co-stars. I sort of randomly decided to watch this film yesterday without really knowing anything about it other than Kate Winslet and Kevin Spacey were in it, so I said ok let’s see what it’s like. But oh it was so stressful to watch. And heart breaking. I was literally at the edge of my seat towards the end. Not figuratively speaking, literally the edge of my seat with the tension. That’s only ever happened to me for one other movie and that was ‘Ghost’! I get far too engrossed in films… I don’t regret watching it but I couldn’t sleep at all last night aft...

When the FBI fail to develop any leads as to the identity of a brutal serial killer operating in the mid-west chief Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) assigns trainee agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) to interview convicted psychopath, Dr Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). Crawford hopes to wrong-foot the dangerous cannibal by sending an unworthy trainee and Starling must attempt to gain profiling information from Lecter without revealing too much of herself. Directed by Jonathan Demme and based on the novel by Thomas Harris. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen it and I’ve only seen it the once but I just thought I might as well do a review on it! But oh my, where does one start? Ok. Technically I didn’t like this film because, I know everyone says that the conversations between Starling and Lecter are the best bits from the film; really tense and frightening or really great, but omg I found them kind of boring. Personally I just could not get into the film. I don’t reall...

Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is a taxi driver with strong opinions about what is right and wrong with mankind. For him, the only exception out of New York City is Betsy, a worker on the presidential nomination campaign of Senator Charles Palantine. He becomes a bit obsessed with her, but when their date ends badly and she refuses his apologies, he cynically realises that “she is just like everybody else” and decides he has to do whatever he needs to make the world a better place. One of his priorities becomes saving Iris (Jodie Foster), a twelve-year-old runaway and prostitute who he believes wants out of the profession but is confined to it by her pimp and lover Matthew. Directed by Martin Scorsese, this is a bloody good movie! I liked Travis’ character. I don’t normally seem to like Robert De Niro’s characters very much but I liked him. There was something kind of humble about him and there wasn’t any real pushiness like in many of Robert De Niro’s characters. I felt sor...