Finding Nemo

Watched: 3rd April 2015

Top 250 Position: 168 (correct at 03/04/2015)

Rating: 8.2/10 from 553,425 user votes

Who's in it:

Albert Brooks

Ellen DeGeneres

Alexander Gould

Wiilliem Dafoe

Brad Garrett

Alllison Janney

Austin Pendleton

Stephen Root

Vicki Lewis

Joe Ranft

Geoffrey Rush

Andrew Stanton

Elizabeth Perkins

Nicholas Bird

Bob Peterson

et.al.

Directed by:Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich

Year: 2003

Duration: 1hour 40 minutes

Accolades: Won an Oscar for Best animated feature film, also nominated for Best original screenplay, Best Music and Best sound editing. 

Plot:

Would you prefer the children's plot or the adults? I'll do both just in case.

Children's - Nemo and his dad (both clown fish) live in the ocean, one day when Nemo and his school friends are on a school trip Nemo gets caught by a fisherman and taken to a fish tank in a dentist's office (in Sydney, Australia) where he needs some fellow captive fish plotting their escape from the tank. 

Can Nemo's father (Marlin) and a friend he finds on his adventure (Dory) find Nemo before he becomes the doomed pet of the dentist's niece, Darla?

Adult's- (I know this has been said beofre) An over protective dad watches on helplessly as his son is abducted. Father then journeys long distances to track down his son taking with him someone with short term memory loss.

Interesting facts about the film:

-If you watch Monster's Inc (2001) closely you will see a stuffed toy version of Nemo in one of the room's in the film.

-The Planet Pizza truck from Toy Story (1995) can be seen in the movie (I'm not telling you where, it spoils the fun!)

- The role of Dory was written specifically for Ellen DeGeneres.

- The director of the film also voices Crush, the sea turtle. 

- Various references to other Pixar movies can be seen throughout, how many can you see?

Review:

So this comes from the Pixar group of films, the first of their movies, like most, that I saw was Toy Story and back then it was a bit of a spectacle almost 'look its an aminated movie where they didnt draw everything by hand, computers did it! But by the stage that we get to Finding Nemo the water looks like water, the fish look like fish and there is a lack of that 'computer look' about it. If you know what I mean, wherease first Toy Story sometimes looks a bit computery.

I remember buying this film from the Asda store that I used to work in, and watching it with my then best frend. Things have changed a little since this time I'm glad to say, though I do miss the discount at Asda!!

There are many famous names and voices in this movie, that I'll be honest I didnt know at the time, but now 12 years later I do. To me Ellen DeGeneres was an unknown when I watchied this miovie for the first time, I was the idiot who watched her chat show for the first time and thought 'I know that voice from somewhere'. Thanks to IMDB my confusion was short lived. 

I very unsecretly love Dory, with 'just keep swimming' being one of my life sayings, it gets you though most scenarios good and bad that you might face. I'm even looking forward to the sequel (currently titled Finding Dory) which is due for release in 2016. 

I like with this movie how, like some of the other newer Pixar films, there is a wisened old timer who makes it their mission to teach the youngter of the story important lessons. 

Generally this film can teach us a lot of important skills, like if you get caught in a net, swim down; and fish are friends no food.

On a more serious note this film can be easily watched by all the family, there are still things that I notice the more I watch it and there is humour that both children ad adults can appreciate. Like the children fish mistaking the name for a boat being a butt, and the irony of Nemo's dad being an unfunny clown fish.

The sufer dude turtles are cool too. 

My rating- a very good 8.5, I've even watched it again since. 

A good film for all the family, though there are some scary bits if you are only a little person. 

For more information about the movie visit- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266543/ 

The Departed

Top 250 Position: 45 (correct at 03/04/2015)

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 from 724,199 votes

Who's in it:

Leonardo DiCaprio

Matt Damon

Jack Nicholson

Mark Wahlberg

Martin Sheen

Ray Winstone

Vera Famiga

Alec Baldwin

many, many more know names and faces

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Year: 2006

Duration: 151 minutes

Accolades: Won four oscars. Winning Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Also a further nomination for Mark Wahlberg for Best Supporting Actor. 

Plot:

Set in Boston against a backdrop of deceit, hidden agendas and identities in the Irish/American gangster scene. 

Two young cops take on two different roles as informants. Billy (DiCaprio) is placed undercover by the police to infiltrate Frank Costello's (Nicholson) gang while Colin Sullivan (Damon), who appears to be a clean cop is in fact working deep undercover for his own agenda of an informer for th Sullivan gang. Neither is aware of the other's existence with the files for Billy being kept under close guard by Sheen and Wahlberg's characters. 

Who will find out the other's identity first as both sides come to realise there is a mole in their midst, could it be be the difference between life and death?

Interesting facts about the film:

This movie is the winner of the Best Picture Oscar with the most uses of the word 'f***', being used 237 times. 

It is remade from a film in a foreign language (originally in Cantonese), and is the only film to have been done so that has gone on to with an Oscar for Best Picture. (Remade/adapted from 'Infernal Affairs')

Review:

So being only the second Martin Scorsese film I have ever seen (the first being The Wolf Of Wall Street last year) I approached this film with a little trepidation, not knowing quite what to expect especially seeing as it is a gangster based movie; which out of normal preference I would avoid in favour of 'something girlie'. 

However I was very impressed by this movie. The plot is very good and kept my attention throughout, the plot was easy enough to follow which helped. The acting in this is superb, I am completely surprised that the actors for the main roles were not more widely recognised and did not win Oscars in their own right. In particular I think Leonardo DiCaprio was over looked (and not normally being an advocate of his work this is a fair assessment of his skills in this film), but from doing a bit of background research into this it seems that the decision may have been mutually taken not to put him forwards.

The emotions shown in this movie feel genuine some how and helped the movie keep its jumpy edge and the tense parts of the plot. 

You really start rooting for 'the good guys' through most of the movie with intermittent times of hoping that the bad guys might get away with it. You even start to doubt who is 'good' and 'bad'.  

Unlike many gangster-ish movies this was also easy to watch as it wasn't all dark backgrounds and half lit sets, it was easy to watch everything that was going on and you didn't feel like you were missing something that might be going on in a dark corner. 

Just about everyone is in this, with every few minutes (at the start of the movie or when characters are introduced obviously) moments of going 'oh look it's so and so' or 'do you remember them from...?' This doesn't distract from the plot in an way as everyone acts for their roles in this movie and you forget them from their previous work which unfortunately isn't the case for every movie I have seen.

The departed is a reference to fallen officers which is half explained through the story line. 

There is also a spot of romance for the characters in the form of Famiga's character, who Damon's character has to hide his true identity from as well as those he works with.

This is definitely worth a watch, especially for anyone with a preference for gangster/police drama type movies. 

This movie is worthy of its eminent place within the top 250, I'm even at little surprised at how low down the list it comes. But then I haven't seen everything above it yet. 

Let's see what is between this and the number one spot.  

This movie is blooming good if you ask me (sorry for the English-ness there) and I would very much recommend it. 

My rating: 9/10 (the only reason not giving 10 as I have not seen all of the top 250 and there may be something better out there)- sorry!

For  more information visit: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407887/