FILM REVIEWS
KES
Kes is a British movie set in England directed by Ken Loach. The story follows the character Billy Casper whom is from a working-class family. He lives with his mother and brother and endures bullying when at school. After finding a book about birds he takes a keen interest in handling, training and caring for birds. After finding a young kestrel Billy then decides to train and keep the bird.
The cast is known to be filled of non-actors/actresses, this is a common technique carried out by Loach with the idea to try and get as genuine response as possible from the non-professional cast.
The audio in the film is terrible. It often distracts the viewer from the story of Kes. With the cast already having a difficult accent to understand the audio should be of better quality to help the viewer understand what’s being said. This could be due to the age of the movie.
NIGHTCRAWLER
Nightcrawler is directed by Dan Gilroy and it shows the story of a man, Louis Bloom (Lou) who is looking for a job. He finds himself in a job where he rushes to crime investigations to capture images of what’s going on to then sell to the press. Over time we realise that this character is a psychopath that has become way too good at his job. As we continue through the story we see how the job alters the character and how obsessed he is to achieve his goals of capturing the images and selling them on. Throughout the movie it is difficult to figure out who the antagonist is, but we start to question the main character even though the viewer would be routing for him, this shows some great script writing in my opinion.
PEEPING TOM
Peeping Tom is directed by Michael Powel which carries the viewer through the eyes of a serial killer. The story follows a photographer called Mark Lewis who uses a movie camera to film women as they die to capture their fear. Throughout the story we see that his backstory helps to explain his actions, as his father was a scientist who used his son as a subject. His father was obsessed with capturing moments of his son’s childhood – capturing fear, and other emotions. When he grew up he found himself inheriting part of his father’s work as he is obsessed with watching other people’s lives.
THREADS
Threads is a movie directed by Michael “Mick” Jackson, the movie shows what life could be like living with the long-term effects of nuclear war. We are shown the downfall of society and the attempt to try and rekindle how life used to be. The bleak look into what the world is like strikes quite a fear in the watcher as this “what if” movie could very much be a reality. The story follows a number of characters and how they are living in this world. The characters range in age so to ensure that the viewer can relate to at least one character in the story. We are shown type writing and/or narration to help the viewer understand how much of a time gap there is throughout the movie.