As I’ve mentioned before, one of my friends had this arrangement with me where we would watch the same movie once every two weeks and then analyse it in terms of the 3 Act structure. That agreement terminated after 3 movies but we watched Matilda, Romancing the Stone and Hunger Games together under that setup. I probably liked Romancing the Stone best out of the three (that was also my friend’s favourite and why he suggested it). I thought it was cheesy but in an endearing and entertaining way. I stayed away from Hunger Games before because: 1) I only rarely venture into YA; 2) I felt like the Hunger Games premise was a bit similar to the Japanese movie Battle Royale which I watched before I ever heard of the book series, I didn’t really think the author had plagiarised the movie necessarily but I’m not that keen on a similar kind of dark premise. And since I decided that I would never actually venture to read the books after having tentative intention to maybe try it after 2 years, I nominated it for our 3 Act structure analysis. The movie didn’t hold my full attention and I really had no interest to either read the books or watch any more follow up movies (although I did snoop and read the synopsis of all the movies).
The other notable thing with movies I’ve done is that I’ve burned through all the movies with Johnny Depp in it (that are on the free movie sites I frequent, I like his acting but I’m ultimately not such a fan that I would want to track all of his work). Since the last serial post, I’ve watched Dark Shadows (during which I felt like it was the first time I’ve ever seen Johnny Depp clearly in terms of facial features; before that, I’ve always remembered him as either wearing black lipstick or black mascara) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (in which movie he also didn’t have the usual heavy make-up on). But anyway, the ‘sex scene’ he had with the witch in Dark Shadows definitely cracked me up, with the camera angles going wild and the witch raking her claws across everything in the room, I guess to convey the effect of sex between inhuman beings. I just found that hilarious. Chocolate Factory is okay; I never read the book, I didn’t realise it was a bit dark
Of the recent movies, I think that my favourites would probably be the Enola Holmes movies and the Greatest Mouse Detective. Firstly, I have a taste for new interpretations of the Sherlock Holmes classic that still retains some elements from my fond memories ever since the Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell series (that unfortunately turns into disappointments because Mary never seems to find her own feet as a detective in her own right ever though she is written to the intellectual counterpart to Holmes). So Enola Holmes fit right into that. Greatest Mouse Detective has less freshness but has more of a whimsical remembrance vibe to it.
Also, about the time when this blog post is released, I’m actually holidaying in New Zealand for two weeks. But with scheduling, obviously we are not losing touch at all.
Moonlake's Fiction Space 