Wild (2014)
Reese Witherspoon stars in a chronicle of one woman's 1,100-mile solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, undertaken as a way to recover from a recent personal tragedy.
Wild feels like Easy Rider for the hiking generation and in a way it is. Except in Wild, Witherspoon is leaving a life of sadness, death, heroin and dangerous sex and seeking redemption from herself along the way. Witherspoon gives a terrific, soul baring performance in a film that captures the emotional anguish and pleasures of one woman as she attempts to heal herself.
Wild takes Witherspoon i imagine out of her comfort zone of bubbly lovable characters, in fact for so much of the time she's quite unlikable but we do get inside her head and slowly begin to warm to her especially seeing how out of her depth she is in the remote wilderness.
Beautifully photographed the film captured the loneliness of the great outdoors and the anxiety that hits you when you meet someone - at one point when she meets a hillbilly type farmer in his pick up who offers her a hot meal and a shower she says 'I was scared of you, i thought you were going to kill me', to which he replies kindly 'I know you did'.
I have to say i really enjoyed Wild all over again on this rewatch, after finding the Blu-ray in Poundland, well, it was a no brainer really.
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
Well it was Friday the 13th of August. What was i supposed to watch?
Generally thought of as one of the poorer films in the series but i've always quite liked this fifth entry about a copycat Jason Vorhees killer who is at least given a motive and reason to go on a killing spree (Kind of).
There are several good murder set pieces and they come along nice and frequent. Where it falters a little is there's nobody to really get behind until the closing stages. The character we are following Tommy Jarvis barely speaks and is totally unlikable and Melanie Kinnaman only really becomes the 'final girl' in the last reels. but despite this A New Beginning is a solid entry in the series.
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