Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

One of 2013’s top billed films, Dallas Buyers Club has Jean-Marc Vallée on the directors chair and has Matthew McConaughey as his lead along with Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto. This film has Leto returning to film after a 5 year long hiatus and what a way to return to the silver screen. Dallas Buyers club has been long in development with it being passed around Hollywood quite a fair bit, with Brad Pitt with Marc Foster and Ryan Gosling with Craig Gillespie all being attached to the film at one point or another. Luckily though it ended with McConaughey and Valée with them creating this wonderfully crafted film.

Dallas Buyers Club focuses on Ron Woodroof in 1985 as he finds out he has contracted aids from unprotected sex. After being shunned by his friends for being a homosexual, Woodroof goes to great lengths to get the drugs that he needs to survive. He teams up with Rayon, for his knowledge of the homosexual community and to help him to get the drugs to the people who need them the most, Eve, a doctor at the Dallas hospital, is torn by her oath to do what she can as a doctor and her morals as she knows the drugs the hospital provides just are not effect enough.

This film does an awful lot of things right. The majority of the film is based on a real story, with the likes of Rayon and and Eves stories being add in, with the future of the characters being explained in the the credits. With an exceptionally small budget for a film this big [$5 Million] they made sure that it was all used correctly. Reportedly the Hair and Makeup was only give $250 to work with. wheather this is true or not is unknown but they did go on to win the oscar for makeup. Visually the film is on par with any other film of 2013.

Dallas Buyers Club excels in 2 key areas. Acting. Story. McConaughey and Leto, winning Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, give an out of this world performance. Even visually they both lost 40 pounds for the project giving them a very Ill looking appearance. They gave believable dialogue and made me care for the characters. Story wise, which was definitely helped by the standard of the acting, is a real hard hitting story and may open eyes for people, who may not have realised how bad it was when HIV first came around. Great Film all round, worth a watch

Gone Girl (2014)

Gone Girl is the 2014 Mystery-Thriller from David Fincher and has an all-star cast consisting of Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry. The film follows Nick Dunne trying to prove himself innocent after his wife Amy is kidnapped and Nick is the one and only suspect. Twist and turns follow Nick as the media turn on him and the evidence keeps amounting up against him.

Well. Wow. This film. David Fincher pulled out all the stops for this one. The entire film as that dark aesthetic after teaming up with Jeff Cronenworth, who previously did Fight Club, The Social Network and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Fincher also teams back up with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who also worked on Seven along with a majority of Fincher’s other films. This team works perfectly and wonderfully compliments Gillian Flynn’s story, who was the original author of the book and was brought back to adapt her own story.

Rosamund Pike’s performance is absolutely spectacular. There at least one name that should be on the cards for the Oscars and it is Pikes. She controls the screen, making it her own and totally smashed it. However you can’t forget Ben Afflecks performance. Playing the part of the gullible husband, he doesn’t give a blow me away performance as Pike gave but Affleck definitely puts on a top notch show and is quite easily one of his best acting jobs.

Essentially go see this film. Don’t read anything about the plot, stay away from spoilers, watch a trailer and that’s it. The book the film is based on is also excellent however for extra twist the third act of the book being different to the film. A lecturer once said you know if you have a great shot if you would frame it on your wall. I would personally wallpaper my room with this film.