The piece of media I will be reviewing is the independent short film “Two Wrongs” directed by Simon Cade. Cade is currently running a YouTube channel called DSLR Guide in which I have been tuning in for quite some time now and have gained quite a lot of insight from his videos. Therefore, I have decided to give back by reviewing his latest short film.
Watch the short film below
To say that I have found this task difficult would be an understatement. The following films that I have curated are films that have resonated with me till this day. All, with powerful underlying messages that have not only taught me life-long lessons but have also inspired me to delve into the film industry. I have also gone a bit in-depth as to how some of these films have resonated with me, however, do contain spoilers.
Please, check it out and tell me what you think about it!
NOTE: These films are in no particular order
‘Lucy’ is a movie that I’ve only just watched very recently, and as soon as I saw it advertised I knew I was in for a treat. Besides, you know that when Morgan Freeman features in a movie, it’s going to be one filled with inspiring life lessons.
Am I right?
In the film, Lucy is forced into transporting a new batch of a drug (which is supposedly synthetic GPH4) across the country, inside her stomach. An accident causes the powder to fuse with the blood cells inside her body, allowing Lucy to gradually be able to access 100% of her brain’s capacity, in a world where were only able to access 10%. With all this new knowledge and power she’s able to gain from her brain’s capabilities, she finds herself at a complete loss as to how to control it.
That’s when Morgan Freeman comes in…
One of the valuable life lessons I have come to learn from this movie is that the purpose of information and knowledge is to pass it on to others – In particular, the next generation. If we don’t, it will die with us and not be passed on to future generations in order for them to learn more about the world and help the human race grow.
Hands up if one of your favorite films is The Pursuit of Happyness?
The Pursuit of Happyness tells the story of Chris Gardner, a struggling father, that invested his life savings in medical scanners that have come of age.
Behind on his rent, bills and having his girlfriend walk out on him, Chris puts everything he has into an unpaid internship as a stockbroker. Sleeping rough, in homeless shelters, and trying to hide the devastating situation from his innocent son, things hit rock bottom. After finishing the internship, and depleting all of his funds, out of everybody that completed the internship Chris was given the job. He then went on to secure multi-million dollar deals in the next couple of years.
One of the most valuable life lessons I’ve learned from The Pursuit of Happyness is that your initial circumstances don’t determine your future. If you’re determined to be successful in whatever path you choose, and give it you’re all, you can live your dreams.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty really did inspire me to change something about the way I approached life.
Walter Mitty is a shy guy who’s worked at the same mediocre job for all of his life. He often zones out and starts daydreaming about amazing things happening around him, but they’re only ever daydreams.
He signs up to an online dating website in the hopes to chat with a girl he likes at work but had nothing to put on his profile under hobbies or experiences. After an important photo goes missing at work and his job is on the line, he goes on a journey in search of the photographer. Instead, he has experiences a spiritual life changing event that causes him to really dig deep within himself and live all the moments he’s only ever dreamed about. After traveling to Iceland, Greenland and the Himalayas (which included near-death experiences), his profile writes itself and the spells of daydreaming completely fade.
Instead, he has experiences a spiritual life changing event that causes him to really dig deep within himself and live all the moments he’s only ever dreamed about. After traveling to Iceland, Greenland and the Himalayas (which included near-death experiences), his profile writes itself and the spells of daydreaming completely fade.
What I have learned from this movie is that; all your visions can become a reality if you have the courage to pursue them. It’s no good just daydreaming about what could happen. We need to take the first step and actually pursue what we want.
When I found out Scorsese would be directing Hugo, I knew I was in for a treat. But I didn’t think the film would amount to anything of this caliber.
Hugo is essentially about an orphan who lives in a Paris railway station, tending to the station clocks during his uncle’s mysterious absence. He scrounges food from the vendors and steals mechanical parts from the owner of a toy shop, who happens to be Georges Melies.
We find out that Hugo’s father was a watchmaker and Hugo has inherited his father’s talents for anything mechanical. Years before, it is found that Hugo’s father found an intricate mechanical man in a museum, but they could never figure out how it worked. Hugo befriends Melies’s daughter, Isabelle, and together they have an adventure, one that centers around Melies himself.
This film first introduced me to the works of Georges Melies and since have become inspired to just keep making films.
What I have taken away from this movie is to; never lose sight of that initial creative impulse to achieve something and had worthwhile messages of perseverance and overcoming fears.
Let’s go to the theme park to see the Orcas. Playful, interacting with their trainers who swim with them carefree. It is a guaranteed spectacle and fun time.
Blackfish brings to the surface issues that we wouldn’t even think would be an issue in the first place. Do we ever consider, that these intelligent creatures at our theme parks spent a lifetime enclosed in a large bathtub so that we can be entertained? Imagine going to see a show of children ballerinas knowing that those children spent their entire lives locked up in a room when not performing. Would anyone stand for this? Surely not, I would hope.
This riveting and didactic documentary explores the owner’s attitudes when occasionally those animals flip out and act in an aggressive way. Apparently, it is always the trainers fault or the bad manners of the animals. When in fact, it appears that those who run those theme parks have gone out of their way to hide the truth.
What this movie has done for me is inform me about the risks involved and the rather lax legislature regarding animal rights that allow these companies to still operate and oppress animals in a truly inhumane way. This is a well-made propaganda documentary that runs high on emotion, it will truly make you contemplate the scale of human tyranny.
Much like Lucy, Limitless has a similar plot, whereby a struggling writer stumbles onto a drug that unlocks the full capacity of your brain, allowing you to have complete focus, and to be able to complete tasks and gain knowledge at an astonishing pace.
The difference is, Eddy, the writer in question, gets addicted to the drug. He starts taking it daily and abuses it by going out and making millions of dollars on the stock market, working out, buying unnecessary clothes and a multi-million dollar apartment.
Things look really good for him until the drug starts to take control of his life. He starts to get sick and realizes everybody else on the drug has had the same happened to them.
One of the valuable lessons I learned from Limitless was that every shortcut has a downfall. Eddy could have achieved everything he wanted with a lot of hard work, determination and patience, but like the others before him chose the easy way out.
Sure, eventually he does manage to fight off the drug and keep all the brainpower it unlocked. But that’s not always the case in life. Shortcuts to success, if they work at all, will come up and bite you in the behind later down the track.
Slumdog Millionaire is set in Mumbai, where an eighteen-year-old orphan from the slums, Jamal Malik, is tortured by the policemen in a precinct accused of cheating a game show. Jamal, who essentially has no education and works in a call center serving tea, is close to winning twenty million rupees.
During a break, Jamal is offered “the” answer to a question by the presenter. He doesn’t take it, and answers the question correctly.
One of the lessons I have taken from this film is that trust is a tricky thing. Misplaced trust can bring you down. However, we should never lose touch with the inner voice that gives us a hint. Most of us have been trained to ignore this sense, but it should be cultivated as another way to judge what is going on.
I enjoyed all of the films on this list. They really do leave you speechless, and for any aspiring individuals that love having new realizations in life, I highly recommend these as they are a good watch.
Check the movies out if you haven’t done so already – most likely ‘Lucy’ and ‘Hugo’. If you want more similar movies, then I recommend this curated list from Wealthy Gorilla.
To quote the opening scene of The Goodfellas “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be…” a filmmaker.
Not just “because I can’t sing and dance” – (Rocky 1977) (although that does play a significant role in the matter), but because simply put, I love making films.
What I love about it is the expression. Being able to take snippets of my imagination and showcase it in a way that I find interesting, ultimately lining my interests within the directing role. With this, a certain filmmaker has influenced me to delve into this industry, Martin Scorsese!
I won’t hide the fact that I absolutely worship Scorsese and his repertoire of timeless American cinema; since a very young age, his films have inspired, challenged and swelled me with such intense emotions of powerful anxiety that, initially, I could not pinpoint how Scorsese did what he did.
However, over time I have to come to see what really satisfies me about Scorsese’s films. It was how he showcases the human emotions and drama of his characters and immerses the audience into the characters lives. Take The Wolf of Wall Street as a prime example. We become intoxicated by the success of these characters and then, when we’ve perhaps been shown that money isn’t everything, we’re allowed to step back and judge these characters as they fall. We feel bad for them because they’ve been humanized, but we quickly learn the error of their ways and thus, we appreciate where we are in our lives, without the fame, fortune, or thrills.
This being one of the main reasons why I want to direct films. Like Scorsese, I want to change the way audiences think and feel through sophisticated characters and imagery. Even if that means changing their outlook on life, changing their emotions or even inspiring people. I guess I want to have my own unique style.
With a general interest in directing and story-telling, I am confident that I can enjoy and learn from my experience. Now, I could go on all day about passion this, and influence that, but I guess this ‘rather cheesy, but gold’ quote from Scorsese says it all.
“Movies touch our hearts and awaken our vision, and change the way we see things. They take us to other places, they open doors and minds. Movies are the memories of our lifetime, we need to keep them alive.”
Martin Scorsese – Quotes – IMDb. (2016). M.imdb.com. Retrieved 23 March 2016, from http://m.imdb.com/name/nm0000217/quotes
Nippoldt, R. (2016). Martin Scorsese. Retrieved 2 March 2016, from
http://www.nippoldt.de/en/
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Alfred Naupoto 
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