Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

You’re probably familiar with the new edition to le blog at this point: MONTHLY FAVOURITES. Succinct favourites across my consumption of film, television and novels, as well as what I’ve been up to creatively.

FILM 🍿

Looking back through my Letterboxed, my favourite movie from April was easily HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE. I have actually never seen a lot of Studio Ghibli movies and so have been watching a few of the most popular ones when I can. However I have to admit they weren’t as enthralling as I had envisioned them to be, until Howl’s Moving Castle.

From the get go when we meet Sophie, and then when she is soon cursed I was intrigued and wanted to know what was going to happen next. The plot was also just interesting, the characters all so unique and the world filled with unexplained magic that kept your eyes glued to the screen. I had a very lovely Sunday afternoon with this movie.

TELEVISION 📺

There are a few things I’ve started but haven’t quite gotten into, but one that I stuck with even though I wasn’t sure was ELITE, and it quickly became the most interesting show on the rota.

This is a Spanish television series available on Netflix that I started to help with my Spanish (though I mostly just read the subtitles!). I am a few episodes short of the end of the latest series, but what’s great about it is how they managed to keep the story relatively contained over three series. Instead of a repeated murder related ‘whodunit’, it follows one event and the reverberations of it across three series.

DOCUMENTARY OF THE MONTH 🎥

I did have a few documentaries lined up to watch but the month sped past me. However I will mention that some told me about the EXPLAINED series on Netflix and I think I’ll check out a few episodes as they are bite sized and therefore more palatable when one doesn’t have the time.

BOOK 📖

It might not be fair to add this as my favourite book of the month but I am 70% of the way through and will have finished it in the next few days; A LITTLE LIFE BY HANYA YANAGIHARA. A friend of mine chose it for our Book Club, with the preface; ‘this will rip you inside out’ and to be honest she wasn’t wrong. I’m sat here now with less than 30% of the book to go itching to find out more about Jude St James – both saddened and unable to tear my eyes away as I turn page after page.

OTHER ⌨️

I have been toying with the idea of expanding my writing styles, to do more than film and television reviews. I wasn’t sure where I would post the articles I vaguely had in mind to write until someone mentioned Medium to me, which is basically an online platform for people to read about whatever topics they’re interested in, and for both professional and armature writers to write about whatever topics they’re interested in, without being bound within a specific niche.

I’ve only just gotten started (two articles written) but feel free to check out both the site and my profile if you like!

Roll on May