All posts by Engagingculture

I'm a normal guy who watches a lot of movies. I love to compare techniques, cinematography, and acting, but I'm really amazed at what makes movies successful. Why does one film make piles of money while another falls flat on its face? I hope to help other normal people enjoy more good movies and avoid the garbage.

Short Film: ‘Celluloid Dreams’ of Love

Check out this touching short film, it is called Celluloid Dreams. It was written & directed by Jonathan Dillon. It has already played at enough festivals to be qualified for Academy Awards consideration, so we’ll see if it makes the cut next year. The film stars Greg Lucey as an old man who puts together a broken projector and re-watches some of the old films he made growing up. He uses them to relive the past, but we all have parts of our past that we wish we could change. I like the feel of this film. It tells such an emotional story without much dialogue. Great use of visuals. I hope it gains more awards traction.

For more info on Celluloid Dreams, visit their website. If you like shorts like this, keep watching here as I will continue to post more shorts worthy of your attention.

Weekend Outlook: Secret Life of Pets

Well it looks like Dory will finally lose her box office throne this weekend. However a new animated feature will be taking over. No, it’s not The BFG which is a quality film that suffered from poor scheduling sandwiched in between Dory‘s massive opening and The Secret Life of Pets which looks like it is going to at least have a huge opening weekend, but I doubt that it will have the kind of staying power that we saw from our favorite Blue Tang.

The Secret Life of Pets

Does anyone need to see this trailer? I have seen it more times that I care to admit. The film has created a huge amount of buzz, to the point last week that my daughter wouldn’t stop asking if we could see it instead of The BFG. I have to say that it broke my heart a little bit, because I have some serious doubts about this movie. Don’t get me wrong, I think kids are going to love it and parents are going to take them and it is going to make boatloads of money. But I just don’t think that it is going to be as good as the animated fare that we have been recently feasting on.

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2011 Best Movie Bracket

Continuing our search for the Best Movie of all time, we come to 2011. Marching backwards to near the dawn of the decade, we saw some brave and creative work coming out of Hollywood. The Artist, a silent black and white film, swept five of the top awards at the Oscars including best picture, best director, and best actor. However, I did not see it as a brilliant work so much as a bit of nostalgia to feed to an industry which is extremely narcissistic.

Plenty of others could have made this list including three great Marvel properties (Captain America – The First Avenger, X-Men – First Class, and Thor) which set things running for the current spate of superhero films which we are all enjoying. We also had the end of the canonical Harry Potter franchise with The Deathly Hallows Part 2 even though Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is trying to recapture that magic later this year. And I can’t forget Super 8, Melancholia, Moneyball, Source Code, The Intouchables, and The Help just to name a few. It was a good year, but let’s take a look at my top 3.

Continue reading 2011 Best Movie Bracket