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My Film February

February is always a difficult month for me. The days are cold and short, and Seasonal Affective Disorder turns my usual stoic and determined mood into one of melancholy. My insomnia, which seems to hit hardest at this time of year, doesn’t help much either. This year I decided I was going to conquer the longest month of the year by changing things up in two ways – I was not to have a drop of alcohol, and I was to watch a new film each day. This exercise was meant to keep my mind active, while my body cleaner and wallet fuller.
File:Spring Breakers poster.jpg
Below is the list of films. There are actually twenty-nine on that list, because I ended up finally seeing both Hunger Games films in one day due to the pressure of some of my friends. I am a self indulgent elitist when it comes to films, but despite myself I managed to have fun watching them. They certainly were not the worst film I saw last month – that would be Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers. I am not quite sure why I expected Spring Breakers to be any good – it’s trailer and poster suggested it would be an MTV film about busty teen girls getting laid on Spring Break while an EDM soundtrack played in the background – but for some reason I thought Korine would pull off a commentary and actually say something interesting about my generation. I was wrong. If you’re thinking of watching Spring Breakers, close your eyes and picture a girl in a bikini holding a gun. There, you have seen the movie. I just saved you a headache.
On the contrary, I find it a lot more difficult to say which of these films was the best, however. A few stick out as obvious front runners – Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, 12 Years a Slave, Another Year, Sunset Boulevard, The Phantom of Liberty… but if I had to choose just one film to recommend, it would be Secrets and Lies. I was only introduced to Mike Leigh this month and I feel greatly better for it – Secrets and Lies, the 1996 Palm D’or winner, tells the story of a working class mother who is reunited with the daughter she gave up for adoption. Her other daughter does not know she has a sister – so all of the meetings are conducted in secret. Archetypal exteriors are quickly penetrated, and instead of getting frustrated with foolish and unlikable characters, we learn to empathize with their pain, seeing even the worst of them as redeemable human beings. Mike Leigh is a director that tries to break down the walls of sardonic cynicism and viewer superiority and replace them with love and understanding. I recently watched my fourth Mike Leigh film, Life is Sweet, and I think he convinced me of that sentiment.
Secrets & Lies poster.jpgThere are a couple of Philip Seymour Hoffman films – I watched Before the Devil Knows Your Dead the day he died, a film where he played a heroin addict who (spoiler) dies. There is also a bunch of Hitchcock films – I have probably seen about sixteen now, which isn’t even half of his work. Like Woody Allen or Ingmar Bergman, Hitchcock was one of those directors who made way too many films for anyone to ever consider seeing all of them – but that shouldn’t stop you from trying.
Watching films at that pace was a commitment – I have an MA in history to write and I’m pretty far along into it, but I found the experience to be very rewarding. With the exception of Spring Breakers, I wouldn’t give any of the films I saw a negative review.

February: Don’t Drink the Water (1994), Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2006), Looking for Richard (1996), 12 Years a Slave (2013), Viva Zapata! (1952), The Immortal Story (1968), Gravity (2013), The Phantom Tollbooth (1970), Secrets and Lies (1996), Another Year (2010), UWantMe2KillHim (2013), La Grande Illusion (1937), Spring Breakers (2012), The Hunger Games (2012), Catching Fire (2013), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Young and Innocent (1937), House of Cards (Season 2, 2013), Dallas Buyers Club (2013), Instrument (2003), The Wrong Man (1956), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Badlands (1973), Capote (2005), The Phantom of Liberty (1974), In the Heat of the Night (1967),  Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), High Anxiety (1977), All or Nothing (2002), The Trouble with Harry (1955)
Philip Seymour Hoffman 2011.jpg
Such a shame.

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