The Reel Life of Real Life

Nineteen year old Tony Manero lives for Saturday nights at the local disco where he is “the king of the dance floor” thanks to his impressive dance moves. But at home Tony fights constantly with his father and has to compete with his brother, a priest and the apple of his parents’ eyes. On top of this Tony works at a dead end job in a small hardware shop that he’s good at but isn’t passionate about. However, he soon meets Stephanie Mangano, who is also an avid dancer, and begins training with her for the club’s dance competition. Of course, as to be expected, things don’t run as smoothly as they would like…  The film was directed by John Badham and starred John Travolta. I found it really interesting to know that more than 40% of the cast made their feature debuts in this film! It felt so strange to me seeing John Travolta in a role like this just because he looks so young! I mean, his character has parents in this film! I’m so used of seeing  him playing on...

A treasure hunter (Bill Paxton), looking for a diamond in the wreck of the Titanic, discovers in a safe the nude picture of a young woman. After it is shown on television, Rose Dawson (Gloria Stuart) aged 101, comes forward. She, Rose (Kate Winslet), was that young girl on the ship. She was travelling with her mother (Frances Fisher) and her wealthy fiancé (Billy Zane) but whom she desperately didn’t want to marry. About to throw herself over the rails once aboard the Titanic, she was stopped by Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young man who had won his steerage ticket in a poker game.. They fell in love and spent every moment together until the iceberg broke the ship apart and even then were determined to stay together. I’ve been deliberately avoiding doing a review of this film because…well, above all else I don’t know where I could possibly begin! Over the years I have developed a very love/hate relationship with this film. Frankly, and quite honestly, I absolutely love and hate...

This is one of the best films out there. Set in the 1940s, his amazing adaptation of Stephen King’s novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”, centres on Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), who has been accused of killing his wife and her estranged lover, is sent to Shawshank Prison with two life sentences – one for each of “his” victims. Andy is a quiet and unassuming person and once at the prison keeps to himself mostly. However, he soon gains the respect of his other inmates and befriends Red (Morgan Freeman), the prison ‘fixer’. Throughout his time in prison Andy keeps hold of his unquenchable hope showing us there are two choices: “Either get busy living, or get busy dying”. I remember the first time I watched this film a few years ago. Mum and Dad had been telling me it was once to watch for a while. I knew there was something good about it when Mum was recommending it since this was really not a genre she would normally insist upon viewing. So I sat down with them a...

Whether we’ve seen the movie or not, we all know the story! Following the thoughtless unkind remarks made by a prince to an enchantress, as ironic punishment she curses him to spend his days as a beast, a curse which may only be broken once he has found someone to love and who loves him in return. However, there is a catch. He must find the person before the final petal falls from an enchanted rose that would bloom until his 21 st birthday. But who could ever learn to love a beast? Years later, Maurice, an inventor from a nearby village, becomes lost in the woods and seeks shelter in the Beast’s castle but rather than helping him, the Beast imprisons him for trespassing. Maurice’s daughter, Belle, a bookworm who dreams of a life beyond this village, finds him trapped in the castle and offers to take his place instead. The Beast accepts with a promise she’ll remain in the castle forever. At first Belle views the Beast as nothing more than a cold-hearted monster, while he views h...

This film takes place before Charles Xavior and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto. We go back to a time when they were just discovering their powers for the first time, and a time before they were archenemies, but instead close friends working together with other Mutants to stop a terrible threat to the world. During this process however, a rift between them surfaces, thus beginning the war between Magneto’s Brotherhood, and Professor X’s X-Men. Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholous Hoult and Kevin Bakon. I feel a bit ashamed given I’m a big fan of James McAvoy and I hadn’t actually watched any of the X-Men movies until a few months ago. And his role as Charles Xavior seems to be the one he’s most well known for... So if there are people reading this who are already huge fans of this series, you’ll have to excuse my ignorance a bit in this review since I’m writing it off of my first viewing with no particular background kno...

Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) are two hitmen who are out to retrieve a suitcase stolen from their employer, mob boss Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Marcellus has also asked Vincent to take his wife Mia (Uma Thurman) out a few days later when he himself will be out of town. Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) is an aging boxer who is paid by Marcellus to lose his next fight. The lives of these seemingly unrelated people are woven together in an intricately clever script comprising of a series of funny though occasionally bizarre incidents. Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The first time I admit I wasn’t mad about this film because I just found it so bloody confusing and so had to watch it again to try and follow what the hell was going on. The time-frame is a little muddled. It switches from one story to the other, but despite my initial disgruntlement, having watched it a few more times since then, I do see the brilliance of its s...