I’m sitting in with my legs crossed, sunlight beaming through the window above and Dad’s new off-white PC exists somewhere in the room, but he’s at work right now. None of this matters though because dwarfing me is the big box telly connected to the video player with a copy of Star Wars Episode I whirring in its body, and playing out in front of my very eyes two heroic Jedis clash with the dark and mysterious Darth Maul. Every swing of their lightsabers rushes past my ears and I can’t wait to see the two heroes I’ve been cheering for the film triumphantly defeat this ugly force. Out of nowhere Darth Maul smacks Qui-Gon in the face and stabs him through the gut. Everything falls away, this wasn’t supposed to happen, I want to rewind, reach through the screen and save him, but just like Obi-Wan all I can do is watch. The man who through the whole film has been a teacher; kind, self-assured, supportive and tough has just been stabbed through the stomach. Four year old Ed has just seen his Dad stabbed through the stomach. Tears begin to form, it’s impossible to stop them, I can’t watch but I have to see if he might still be alive. Its worse: he is alive just long enough to say goodbye, the tears become weeping. Watching the film today, I see many more of the flaws and also the charms of the Star Wars prequels. However, the fact will always remain that George Lucas was the first to force me into comprehending mortality, making Star Wars: A Phantom Menace the first milestone in My Life in Movies.
Serenity (2005)
Directed by Joss Whedon
Fast forward nine years, when I was 13 I finally got the PSP I had wanted for years. I loved that little machine, it felt like it could do everything: play games, music, you could get a camera for it and even install skype for a time. Most importantly with regards to this article, I could watch films on it. I had a few things on UMD: The Simpson Movie, Jumanji, The Mighty Boosh (yes The Mighty Boosh was available on PSP UMD), but only one got watched almost every night, only one caused an obsession that bordered on the unhealthy, only one can I still laugh at despite countless viewings. Serenity. The Sci-fi Space Western that to a teenage kid with no awareness of the original TV Series Firefly or Whedon’s other work, had no business being as captivating as it was. Every character felt so real, the dialogue could be light-hearted or extremely sincere along with the imagery. The opening scene onboard the ship is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated long takes in cinematic history, as it establishes the characters and is emblematic of the quality that continues through the film. Naturally, the cast from the show has wonderful chemistry, but Chiwetel Ejiofor provides a joyfully evil performance as The Operative and is the perfect foil for Malcolm Reynolds and his whole crew. I can’t really watch it with anyone else anymore, because I can’t help but talk along to every line. This film can claim a huge amount of credit for my decision to follow Film as a career.
Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)
Directed by Elizabeth Banks
Of course, life is not just made up of increasing joys and happiness. Sometimes you gotta deal with some shit, and within my life in movies, that’s exactly where Pitch Perfect 2 comes in. I’m generally fairly apt at ‘reading’ trailers and know what I want to use my time watching and what I don’t. However, I had enjoyed the first Pitch Perfect so much that I went against my better judgement and decided to give the sequel a chance. It’s rare that films make me angry if I’m not enjoying something I can just turn it off, but I went to go see this with my mum and couldn’t just leave her to suffer alone. The jokes are weak, the new protagonist is a wet flannel of a character and the whole thing really reeks of focus groups. But what sums up the whole thing is this.
A lost and rejected Bumper tries in vain to reassert his youth within the Treblemakers. Broken, he glances across the lake to see the woman he loves paddling towards him on a Canoe. Fat Amy looks into his eyes and begins a to sing, the mood is set, the backing music kicks in and- Wait what? The music? This is a film about Acapella. Acapella is singing without instruments. In Pitch Perfect, every song happened in a way that made sense, Becca never sang in the rain or angry danced around a warehouse, every song was a diegetic performance. This seems like an odd detail to get angry about, but having music changes the rules of the whole universe of the film, but it demonstrates how perfectly the creators of Pitch Perfect 2 misunderstood everything that held the first together. They put a musical number with instruments in a film all about Acapella. Recently The Greatest Showman has perhaps superseded PP2 in the sheer obtuseness of the filmmaking. If I see Pitch Perfect 2 again in 100 years, it will be too soon.
Sorry To Bother You (2018)
Directed by Boots Riley
More recently I’ve been a little down on cinema as a medium. Coming to the end of my underwhelming film degree, the fact is I spend far more time on YouTube and whenever I do watch a film it is usually a high concept Netflix film with mediocre execution (e.g. Polar, Outlaw King). However one day I got off my arse, went to the cinema and had the absolute joy of seeing Sorry To Bother You. It felt so good to see a film that felt ‘directed’, it reminded me why cinema is such a potent medium. So many modern films are built on shot reverse shot, but every frame in Sorry To Bother You feels composed to match the inner feelings of the protagonist. Boots Riley takes the cynical satire of the adverts in Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop and creates a whole film that forced me to look at the society it was critiquing. It’s one of those films that says what you’re thinking and challenges you in unexpected ways, on issues of class, race, gender and ultimately capitalism. It has genuinely reinvigorated me to restart writing, making, watching films of all kinds and to become more politically active.
Words by Ed Heap