Movies I've seen over winter break

I try to catch up a bit when we're on break. I wonder if I can even remember them all.

Philomena
American Hustle
42 (rented)
The Hobbit (twice)
12 Years a Slave
The Book Thief

Also lots of Downton Abbey, Sherlock, and the Doctor Who Christmas special.


I've been trying to think about the visual style of each because now is when I'll be having conversations about visual style as we get ready for shooting Ghost Tours. I want to say of everything listed above I liked Philomena best. It might be shaded by the fact that it's the one I saw most recently (just now), but it just felt very natural. I didn't like the cinematography of 42 at all. It just felt very fake. Katie thought it might have been her TV, but I just think it was poorly lit. I thought the cinematography for 12 Years a Slave was fantastic because it really helped tell the story. But the story is so different from mine I'm not sure how helpful that really is. And The Hobbit and American Hustle were both fine, but not exactly relevant to what I'm about to do.

The TV shows. Doctor Who: sadly mostly I was bored and the cinematography didn't impress me enough that I even remember it now. Downton Abbey: I can remember in the first few seasons of this being soooo impressed with the cinematography. Now I don't even notice it. It's just the DA style I suppose. But I think that's good because if you notice it then it's distracting from the story. Which brings us to Sherlock, a show that I love, but really they try too hard. Both the cinematography and the editing strike me as someone working on their demo reel. While Ghost Tours will absolutely be everyone working on their demo reels, because they aren't getting anything else for it, I will try to remind myself not to let it show that we're trying so hard.

I had more than one person over break say to me, "Wow, one more semester. You must be looking forward to being done." To which I responded Oh My God No! If it weren't for the crushing student loans I would never leave school at all. And I find it particularly interesting coming from people who either had done or were in the process of counting the years until retirement. I've taken a 2 year break from the daily grind to learn new stuff, and experiment, and grow. Why in the world would I be looking forward to the end of that?