30DMC Day 21: Your favourite director

Hey everyone!

Hope you’ve been having an excellent weekend, I just came back from watching How to Train Your Dragon 2 myself. Here’s another post for the 30 Day Movie Challenge, we’re reaching the last stretch right now, officially more than two thirds through. Once again let me remind you to check out Rhey of Sunshine’s blog for her side of the challenge. We’ve been attempting this challenge together.

So today for my favourite director, let me share with you how awesome this guy is …

Joss Whedon 

Source: whedon.info

Yep, I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan, ever since the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BTVS) series when I was a kid and, yes, it is my favourite cult television show – ever.

He’s probably more well known for his writing. He wrote for BTVS, he was the screenwriter for Toy Story (which won him a shared Academy Award nomination for Original Screenplay), he wrote the (highly geek/cult-acclaimed) Firefly series which I have yet to watch but totally want to, wrote and produced the refreshing horror flick The Cabin in the Woods, the lesser known Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and the one that he’s most known for now is The Avengers film series and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. television series – which he both writes and is the director of.

Why is he awesome? ‘Cause he understands the concept of heroes and villains, he is a comic book nerd, he understands women in the comic book universe, he is a frequent panelist at comic con, he is hilarious, a pioneer of the concept of a one-monster-per-episode story, i.e. an episode that is a self-contained story while contributing to a larger storyline via BTVS and he can quote an extensive amount of Monty Python. 

From his filmography you can see, he just understands what it’s like to be a nerd with nerdy obsessions.

“This idea of helplessness is appalling to me, so I would write characters who could do things,” he says, adding almost in a whisper, “because I was not one of them.” via The Guardian

Check out this speech of his to see how awesome he is as a person:

In my reflection of who my favourite director is, I realise that it has a lot less to do about the finished product that is presented on the screen (although that is important too), but I feel safe to say that Joss Whedon is my favourite director because I believe the message he tries to put out with the television series and movies he makes, that you should never underestimate a person with heroic qualities, with courage and with tons of fear but a lot more bravery to rise above it. And that is an important thing: to feel safe in what the human being behind these works is trying to articulate.

So, yes, I would be a member of the Whedonverse, where the dialogue is witty, the characters relatable, the fantasy and sci-fi poignant and where, yes I am aware of, at least 90% of my favourite characters will end up dead.

Till next time!

cumuloq ❤

trapped in the cell-uloid: pixar films

so last week i did dreamworks and this week i’m going to move on to pixar! it’s safe to say i’ve watched all the pixar movies except one, which is cars 2. ’cause i was honestly never interested in the concept of cars in the first place. but after i watched cars on tv, i really did love it, i have to admit. maybe ’cause pixar has a way of directly injecting feels into your bloodstream and a river into your tear ducts. pixar has manufactured the perfect formula for the meaning of love as a family, as friends, as innocent boy and girl crushes and so forth. they must have it quilted on a baby blanket in a hidden facility. so here are my favourite pixar films (cue an emotionally sad song from toy story in there):

1. Toy Story 3

who would have known that toys make movies behind your back? or an entire franchise too? (yes, i know, you’ve heard that one before.) i really love the toy story movies. i think i’ve watch toy story 2 more than a dozen times. i used to love jessie the cowgirl and her story on how her owner grew out of her and she was left, abandoned. but toy story 3 turns that horrible side-story into the main plot and situation of toy story 3. and, if i had not been prepared by gifs on tumblr, i swear i would have bawled my eyes out during the ending. i think we all know the feeling of having to give up the toys we love. it’s a weird feeling of growing out of them. i remember the time i told my parents i grew out of my barbie dolls and i put them in a box and had them taken away to the salvation army. toy story 3 makes me feel oddly guilty for those things.

2. Finding Nemo

now, if it wasn’t bad enough, empathising with toys, pixar adds fish into the mix. to be honest, i hate fish. i hate fish in a tank or on a plate or basically anywhere – except maybe underwater world. i have a natural itch to experiment with them and do all sorts of things that shall not be mentioned to see whether they can live through the torture. i know, i’m even worse than darla, the dentist’s niece. but when i watch this show, i’m willing to set that hatred aside. ’cause who can get mad at dory and her “just keep swimming” attitude? once again, i think this is one of the shows i’ve watched more than a dozen times.

3. Monsters Inc.

boo, mike and sulley just make an amazing trio here. and the comedy is golden. i’m honestly scared of the new one coming out ’cause i have a really strong feeling that it’ll fail to meet my monster inc expectations. another one that i’ve watched more than a dozen times.

4. Wall-E

my brother honestly teases me for this one, ’cause i really did cry during wall-e. i mean, come on! look at those robot eyes that move up and down. one of the best love stories has to be between wall-e and eve. but what i love most of all about it is that their names are just the model of their robots. there are literally hundreds of wall-es and eves out there – but they found each other! it also suggests that a relationship like that can be found for audiences too ’cause it’s just a copy of a thousand other sacrificing and adorable relationships out there. plus, it’s not everyday that you get the message of ‘save and preserve the earth’ in movies. the last one i saw was probably from the lorax. but i personally don’t think that the message was as significant as that of wall-e.

5. Up

okay, the entire story of up was not that memorable. the reason why it is so special as a pixar film, i think many will agree with me, is the few short minutes of carl and ellie’s life in the very beginning. it’s a story of loss and acceptance. i think pixar conveyed it well through the symbol of ellie(‘s ghost) as a house. carl drags this burden and regret around with him throughout the entire film, often more than not it hinders him from being able to fully move on (literally and figuratively) in his journey. the scene where he finally throws away the furniture from the house, where he is finally able to let go of some of his burden, is he able to find that there are people like russell, dug and kevin who wanted to get to know him and be friends with him all along. it’s more like the little bits like these in the film, like balloons, carried the plot of the film along.

so those are my favourite pixar films! although i do believe that pixar has many more that are worth mentioning, including their shorts like the well-known ‘for the birds’. i think on any day indoors it’s a great idea to have a small pixar marathon (hopefully with the films listed above) and lots of popcorn and chips. you’ll get diabetes in no time, trust me. 🙂

now, i’m off to watch ‘the story of luke’.

till next time,cumuloq ❤