Showing posts with label Shailene Woodley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shailene Woodley. Show all posts

Saturday, 14 June 2014

The Fault In Our Stars | Advanced UK Screening

I was lucky enough to pre-book tickets for the UK exclusive advanced screening for The Fault In Our Stars, along with the purchase of our tickets we also get a limited edition poster and a lanyard. The poster I believe is the Spanish version, so thats pretty cool and plus I prefer it to the promotional one it just seems more ethereal looking.

At the beginning of the day I read the last couple of chapters of TFIOS because I had to yet to complete it, though it didn't bring on the water works as I was already spoiled a long time ago about the ending, so yeah that was fun. After I finished it I counted down the hours to the screening that has a 6.30pm start time at my local cinema, so my sister and I made sure we left with plenty of time!

When we arrived at the cinema a booth for the merchandise was set up along with a line formation so we ran as fast as we could to join the line, which luckily got us to the front. It's a good thing to as masses of girls came through the doors and joined the line right away, the line ended all the way down the cinema! After a few minutes each person in the line was called to go up to the booth to collect their freebies, the only bad thing was that they didn't give us bags to put our posters in. So by the time we got called into the screening we had to prop them somewhere that wasn't the floor, we don't want our posters to get dirt now do we?

Now here's where my annoyance began, so after all the fangirls battled it out for the seats, which fortunately I nagged the back row seats, they began to settle down. I was quite surprised that my local cinema was packed to the brim of teenage girls and a few boys too but obviously not as many! As the lights began to dim, the screen lit up with John Green but there was no audio, it was completely mute, I can only assume he was announcing the film to us. After that the film began... still no sound, we saw  Hazel looking to the stars again assuming she's introducing us to her heartache and then we get a few flashback scenes of Hazel and Gus. Then the title, The Fault In Our Stars, appears and the next scene is of Hazel in the hospital but still no sound, there were a few other scenes and I was contemplating complaining to restart the film again because we essentially aren't getting our moneys worth, these advanced screening tickets are pricey! But the audio suddenly came back on halfway through the scene where Hazel's doctor suggested that she should attend some support groups. Okay, so thats my rant over with, I'm just annoyed that someone didn't do their job properly and no one apologised.

Due to these unfortunate events I was very disengaged towards the film, I mean I still enjoyed it but because of that fiasco it ruined the event for me. But now lets get on with this review before I get any more miserable.

It was weird seeing the book I had literary just finished reading come to life, some of the lines were exactly referencing the book. So a very surreal experience seeing this book come to life, though it isn't the first for me! Of course some scenes were added into others but I won't go into detail about it because everyone in Hollywood has seen this and read the book by now, so I would just be repeating the same old same old...

But what I will say is that I loved the movie, everything was perfect, the script, cast, cinematography, everything, and thats hard to pull off with an indie seeing as how many things that could possibly go wrong. Though there was definitely something that it was lacking, maybe because it was just so fast paced or I couldn't connect to it, its still a thought provoking movie. But one thing that may shock you is that like many others in the audience I failed to cry, it just takes a lot for a film to break me, the last film I watched recently, well the only film of the year that made me cry was The Normal Heart. So yeah, there's that, but as soon as the credits rolled on the whole audience broke down, literary crying right, left, and centre! I was quite surprised by the amount that left, which was half the audience I'd say, missing the Q&A session after the film which began straight after the credits.

The Q&A was about fifteen minutes in length maybe longer and of course the audience were only concerned about Shailene, due to the fact she was crying through the beginning of the Q&A. The one thing I noticed throughout the Q&A was that Shailene clearly had her Tris tattoos from Divergent on, which meant they filmed this pre-recording very recently as they're currently filming Insurgent.

After the session had ended we were shown a deleted scene from TFIOS, a scene including John Green! So some of you may have to wait like me (so I can fully re-watch it this time) to see the full features of the DVD, which probably won't be released until Christmas time!

****
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I saw TFIOS on Thursday 12th June at my local cinema.
As always this is an honest review.

Sunday, 4 May 2014

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS B-ROLL FOOTAGE

The Fault In Our Stars B-Roll footage appears to have surfaced on the web today via Vimeo, it stars Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, and Nat Wolff. The Fault In Our Stars is a best selling book from the widely known Youtuber John Green, which has been adapted for film. Another novel from John Green, Paper Towns, has been optioned for film with Nat Wolff taking the lead.


TFIOSBROLL 0 from Tania on Vimeo.

Saturday, 19 April 2014

Divergent

Based on the best selling trilogy by Veronica Roth, Divergent takes place in a dystopian world set in Chicago. The society is split into five different factions, Abnegation, the selfless, Erudite, the brains, Candor, the truth, Amity, the peaceful, and Dauntless, the brave. You are born into a faction and when you reach the age of sixteen you go through a simulation test to see which faction your most likely suited to, once you know you announce your chosen faction at the choosing ceremony. However for Beatrice Prior the simulation didn't seem to give her the result she wanted, she was given a variety of results, which is a rarity to come across. People who get this type of result are called Divergent, and they're a dying breed, feared by the government because they can't be categorised into any of the factions that they are becoming targets. Beatrice must hide herself into a faction, drawing any suspicion away from her Divergence, but has she made the right choice or will she end up becoming another target.

When the casting news came out about who was going to play Tris and Four I was quite hesitant because in my mind I didn't imagine either of those two, I had attached Saoirse Ronan as being my book version of Tris so I was disappointed that she didn't get the role. But that being said Shailene Woodley had very much convinced me throughout the film that she was Tris Prior, a stubborn annoying character who despite her best efforts is trying to save the community from itself. Theo James on the other hand convinced that he was Four when we were first introduced to his character, he just had Four's presence in every scene he was in.

The relationship between Tris and Four was believable, although there could have been more of a build up because you didn't really get a sense that a romance was in the process of blossoming, however I did like the sarcastic arguments Tris and Four had in the canteen.

Tris' friendships could have been explained in greater detail because there was only a couple of scenes where we got to see Tris, Christina, Will, and Al exploring the Dauntless grounds. The same also goes for Will and Christina's relationship because really there wasn't one and thats going to be difficult to explain in Insurgent especially due to Christina's explosive reaction of finding the news that Will is dead. Even Al's crush on Tris was non existent, the reasoning why he eventually jumped to his death in the chasm because of what he had done to Tris and that she was disgusted by his evolvement with ridding her from the initiates process, an act so evil she would never forgive him for.

Peter was evidently dressed down in the evil department, he's meant to be a very evil character with every intent to harm everyone around him. However in the movie its was very much toned down, but I guess you get the idea that he's not a very nice person at all and is only looking out for himself. This was clearly shown when Tris was his opponent in the ring and knocked her out even when she was already defeated by him, he still had the audacity to knock her out to the point of unconsciousness.

Eric's casting was spot on because Jai Courtney really brought out Eric's dark side and the dominance he has over Four.

I'm glad they added in scenes for Jeanine Matthews played by none other than Kate Winslet, I'm guessing this is due to her being the top billing name.

I was saddened to learn that Uriah wouldn't be making an appearance in this film, however he will be cast for Insurgent so it will be interesting to find out how they'll introduce him. Edward's scenes definitely got shortened down for this movie, we missed some of the most vital scenes that have so much importance for the next instalments. The missing scenes I'm talking about is when Edward gets stabbed in the eye by Peter and eventually has to leave the initiation process because he can no longer compete with just one eye making him factionless.

Other than missing out minor details there were some enjoyable scenes, such as capture the flag where Tris leads her team to the capture point and retrieves the flag from the opposing team. However the only thing I didn't like about this particular scene was the colouring of the flag, it just looked very crude and out of place. I liked that they kept in the zip line even if the CGI background was dodgy, and we even got a cameo appearance of Veronica Roth if you hard enough you'll find her.

Another thing I enjoyed was the combination of musical influence within the film, as many fans know Ellie Goulding was chosen to voice Tris' inner voice and it synced perfectly together.

If your a Divergent fan I'm guessing you've already watched this film by now, but if you haven't you must go see it now whenever it gets released in your country!

****
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I saw Divergent on the UK release day, April 4th 2014.
As always this is an honest review.

Friday, 11 April 2014

ALLEGIANT TO BE SPILT INTO TWO FILMS

Lionsgate announced earlier today that they will be splitting Allegiant into two parts giving the audience a year wait between both movies, thus the never ending theme of splitting the last instalment into two films. Allegiant: Part One is expected to hit the big screen on March 18th 2016 release, whilst Allegiant: Part Two is expected to arrive on March 24th 2017.
“Veronica Roth brings her captivating story to a masterful conclusion in Allegiant, a rich, action-packed book with material that is ideally suited to two strong and fulfilling movies,” said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Co-Chairmen Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger in a statement. “The storytelling arc and world of the characters lend themselves perfectly to two films, a storytelling strategy that has worked very well for us on the two Twilight Breaking Dawn films and about which we’re tremendously enthusiastic for the two upcoming Mockingjay films of The Hunger Games franchise.”
What do you think of this new move? Like many of the fans will you be disappointed that you have to wait an extra year for the final conclusion?