Fave Five: Talk of the Cinema

I watch a lot, but a lot, of movies. Sometimes through the exercise of pure boredom I find myself within the realms of great love stories and on journeys to far of lands I know very little about. Never the less, I love movies, be they hard core action, drama, romcoms, musicals or whatever else, a good storyline combined with great acting and directing always manages to elate me to the point of wanting to leap to my feet and offer grand applause.
It would be hard to try and list all the movies in the world that hold a place in my heart so I have decided to list just five and tell you why I love them as much as I do.

5.            For Coloured girls
This is an obvious one, I suppose. For someone who appreciates poetry, I had a field day watching this movie and since first watching it, I have gone on to watch it several more times. I think for most women in existing in the world today, there were certain elements, plots and characters we found easy to identify with, what with the narrative’s broad storyline. My personal favourite characters where Nyla, played by Tessa Thompson and Juanitta played by Lorreta Divine, I found bits of my struggles engrained within their stories and I imagine that is what the movie intended to do, speak boldly of the plights of everyday 21^st century women.
The poetry was sensational, thought-provoking, emotive and sometimes even humorous. I count my favourites as the movie’s opening poem “For Coloured Girls”, this piece was a grand amalgamation of thoughts and feelings, aiding the feeling of unison amongst women. Other peoms I liked were; Nyla’s abortion poem, My Stuff, Macy Gray’s poem, and the dialogue between Thandie Newton’s character Tangie and her mother Alice played by Whoopie Goldberg.

 

4.            Chicago
I’m a sucker for a good musical and this, with its basic storyline and effortless acting takes the cake as one of the greatest musical films I have ever had the pleasure of watching. Like for Coloured Girls, Chicago is also a film adapted from a book. Starring Reene Zellweger, Queen Latifah, Taye Diggs and Lucy Lui to name but a few members of the star studded cast, the movie tells very whimsically the story of a young married woman  who is sent to jail for killing her lover. We have this knowledge in the back of our minds the whole time, but the music and theatrics take over and leave you wishing you also sat in County Cook Jail.
Songs such as “All That Jazz” and “Cell Block Tango” have since become classics seeing people that have never ever seen the movie or the Broadway production jazz-handsings and kicking their feet wildly in the air at the sounds of these tunes.

3.            The Gladiator
Ask anyone who truly knows me and they will tell you that this is my all-time favourite movie. Awesome in all its glory, the lead, Russel Crowe can do absolutely no wrong in his portrayal of General Maximus Decimus Meridius.
Set in 180AD this jam packed story tells accounts the adventures of a man out for revenge, I know what you are now thinking and no, this is not like any other out-for-blood movie you may have seen recently and the list of accolades held by this production are evidence of that. The movie won awards aplenty, raging from best picture and best actor at the Academy Awards, best film and best cinematography at the BAFTAS and a whole lot more.
If for some unknown bespoke reason you make up the sum of the five people who have not seen this film, I beg, do yourself the favour and ensure you see it soon. It will not disappoint, I promise

 

 

2.            On The Road
A fairly new film directed by Walter Salles who previously directed other great films such as Paris, je t'aime and Dark Water. Salles once again brings joy to film enthusiasts with this tale of boundless friendship between Sal Paradise a young writer whose life is irreparably changed when he meets and befriends Dean Moriarty and his new 16-year-old wife Marylou.
This film was received fairly poorly with critics dubbing it a well-made but otherwise empty film, criticising the story line and the emphasis place on the actual cinematography over the story and yes, to some extent I do agree, this film is a visual pleasure from beginning to end with long detailed and beautiful shots selling the both the American countryside and reckless urban lifestyle of the 1940’s. My disagreement come in that I saw the plot for what it was, the story of friendship, granted it isn’t a Good Will Hunting or The Words but, it doesn’t suck as badly as movies like 300 and the American Pie series.
I am yet to read the book from which the film was adapted but, based on the movie I will most def be doing that.  

 

1.            Les Misarables
I’ve seen a lot of good movies recently and never did I think this one would be included in my favourites.
When the movie began, I thought to myself that there was no way on earth I would finish it, most of the movie is sung and I thought that would most certainly work to the detriment of the plot, boy was I wrong. Once I got into it there was no convincing me that this was not an amazingly fantastic film. The film’s cast is large and boasts big names such as Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman , Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen and Amanda Seyfried to name but a few.
Les Misarables literally translates to the miserable one or the poor ones and that is precisely the subject matter contained within this film. Anne Hathaway convincingly the role of Fantine a mother and factory worker turned prostitute. This is, although small, by far her greatest role to date and I even love the pixie haircut that came as a result.
After watching this film, I was left feeling that the struggles we endure in life are not in vain and that all things are possible through what may seem like a tumultuous amount of hard persistence. My favourite scene in the movie is close to the last scene where Hugh Jackman’s character is ushered into heaven by Fantine and the “revolutionary students” as I have chosen to call them.
If you watch one thing in the near future, make it this

Poetic Text: When You Love Me

I find love has the ability to speak two different languages, hot and cool, and still sit confident in the knowledge that it is love regardless of what ever else may be going on around it. It is this thought that inspired this poem, i hope you like it.

When you love me
Love me ferociously
brutal passion
The desire, flaming
Cradled skilfully between skin numbing lust
The friction, steady
an influx of mad hunger
Back aching
Thighs scorching
Heart smiling

When you love me
Love me tender
amid long gazes and deep embraces
let me rest easy in the comfort of your presence
restitution inside your arms
A home
Esoterically I find no qualms
Soul nourished
Spirit budding
wonderful in my heart

When you love me
Love me.

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Fave Five: Poetry on a Beat

Music is a great thing. It permits us to feel and experience, it is both a method of release and retention, it opens up new wounds all the while carrying the ability to heal old ones. If this can be said about music in general, imagine then what happens when you cross paths with a well written song, the abilities of this song are probably to the power of a hundred thousand trillion.
When an awesome beat meets phenomenal lyrics, many magical things occur and you could swear some lyrics are just plain old fashioned poetry.

Here are five songs that without fail always manage to move me and this based solely on their lyrical content, well maybe not just the lyrics but, also the perfect combination of a beat, a voice and lyrics.

5.            Janelle Monae – Oh, Maker
From the very title of this track you can’t help but be intrigued. Maker is an interesting word to use. My take is that it represents God in a religious sense and he’s being just and righteous and fair, this God is looking down on this relationship between the song’s protagonist and her lover or she is maybe making a plea to the maker to shelter and look over them and their union.
This is the ultimate theme song for tarnished and unpermitted yet unadulterated love.  With lines that read “I hear the colors in the flowers, Just like the candle snuffed at dawn, You're here, you're near, you're there and then you're gone” and “tell me did you know, This love would burn so yellow?, Becoming orange and, in its time, Explode from grey to black then bloody wine” demonstrating perfectly the turmoil of a forbidden love.

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4.            Rihanna (feat: Mikky Ekko) – Stay
I fell in love with this song the very first time I heard it. It’s poignant and emotive beat speaks volumes moving you to want to experience the elusive elations of love. You know the feeling, the one has you wanting to run as fast as you can but, in a circle that leads you to exactly where you began.
The songs is reeks of longing with stanzas such as “The reason I hold on, Cause I need this hole gone, Funny you're the broken one, But I'm the only one who needed saving, Cause when you never see the light, It's hard to know which one of is caving” painting vividly the feeling of wanting and hoping for something that will never be as boundless and fertile as one had played it out in the mind. 

3.            Miguel – Do you
With an opening lyric that asks Do you like drugs? It’s hard to not be intrigued. Miguel delivers a great and sexy song about a girl being addicted to love and even more profound, to him.
He alludes to sex being purchasable in the line “My mama said the greatest things in life are free” and this he weighs up against honest unadulterated love which cannot be bought. He speaks about the feeling of wanting, so badly to want to know this girl’s inner most being and how joyous that would be.
This is a simple song, with a simple thought process behind it but, the more you think about it there is so much substance contained within the lyrics. The use of the metaphor comparing love to drugs, the some-what reversed chronology and the almost too simple narrative makes this song a winner in my eye.   

2.            Lana Del Ray – Lolita
Upon first hearing this song my assumptions were that it was a song about love, the love of a girl for her man completely disregarding anybody’s views on their relationship. I wasn’t completely off the mark, the only thing I got wrong was that this (love) song was about a young girl’s relationship with her paedophile father. The title of the track is taken from a book of the same title written by Vladimir Nabokov dealing with the same subject matter.
The song starts of young and playful, flirty almost and goes on to gradually paint a picture of this not-so-perfect thing where she (the protagonist) is restricted “I want to have fun and be in love with you” and has self-doubt and low self-esteem issues “I know that I'm a mess with my long hair, and my suntan, short dress, bare feet”.
I wonder though about the main character’s psyche, she seems to relish the idea of this relationship, wanting so badly to please this man who is obviously taking advantage of her. You can also see though that she does want to be a regular teenager and lead a normal teenage life but is conflicted by the situation in which she finds herself through lines such as “No more skipping rope skipping heartbeats with the boys downtown” and “I want my cake and I want to eat it too, I want to have fun and be in love with you”.

1.            Frank Ocean – Summer Remains
This song is a poem. Woven beautifully, telling the tale of a man who is burdened by what is perceived as right, warm summer months, being in a heterosexual relationship, etc. All this stuff that he does feels wrong to him but, yet because it is socially accepted he deals.
He opens up in the first verse by stating that what he is about to say is the truth and nothing but, which is already in itself a form of conformity (when looked at from a legal stance). He then goes on to tell his audience about the cold of what should be warm summer days and how unnatural a thing that is. In the second verse he alludes to his recent “coming out” singing about being with a girl and the theory that states “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” speaking again to societal perceptions of a traditional relationship “When that jungle flower blooms, Leave it in the ground, Don't try to cut it out” and again this verse is ended with a proclamation of how unnatural doing the opposite would be.  He eventually revolts against the system of natural order resolving to burn in hell all the while knowing he lived a life that was of his own accord “But we're under the palm trees, Thinking heaven must be, Somewhere under these palm trees, With all the hell we're raising, At least we had the palm trees, To shade us from the ray beams, But not even the palm trees, Could save us from the flames, Summer remains”

Current Read

I've had this book for almost a year now and have never thought to read it but, yesterday the bell sounded and i'm finally delving into it. 

I'll give you my thoughts on it as soon as i'm finished reading.

Angelou Corner: Maya Angelou's Woman Wrok

I sat and thought of the many things i could write about as my first post of the year and the only thing that felt right was a poem, not just any poem by any poet mind you but, Woman's Work by Maya Angelou.
As we all soldier on and begin new journeys, be they jobs, relationships or whatever else may we hold with us the joys contained within each and every little thing we do.

I've got the children to tend
The clothes to mend
The floor to mop
The food to shop
Then the chicken to fry
The baby to dry
I got company to feed
The garden to weed
I've got shirts to press
The tots to dress
The can to be cut
I gotta clean up this hut
Then see about the sick
And the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Let me float across the sky
'Til I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes
Cover me with white
Cold icy kisses and
Let me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone
Star shine, moon glow
You're all that I can call my own.