Top 20 Inspiring and Interesting Female Characters in Films

"When I decide to portray a part, I can never completely hide who I am, what I am. At the point of identification, the audience encounters a person, not a role, not an actress. A face to face. It's what I know about women. It's what I have experienced, what I've seen. That's what I want to share with you."

- Liv Ullmann

Remembering Kar-wai: Three Masterpieces of Wong Kar-wai (For Me)

"I'm not coming from film school. I learned cinema in the cinema watching films, so you always have a curiosity. I say, 'Well, what if I make a film in this genre? What if I make this film like this?'" 

quoted by Wong Kar-wai

Remembering Bergman: Five Masterpieces of Ingmar Bergman (For Me)

"I want very much to tell, to talk about, the wholeness inside every human being. It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then."

quoted in Ingmar Bergman Directs (1972) by John Simon.

Top 10 Most Anticipated Films This Year (Part 1)

Making lists of most anticipating films of the year is always hard. But for me, it's pretty fun. But hard, like, fun-hard type of thing.

2015 has given us some of the best like the heroically funny Spy, hauntingly thoughtful Ex Machina, and the post-apocalyptic feminist film of the year, Mad Max: Fury Road, and other incredible films to be reckoned with.

Some may have been released already because of the amount of people who want to see it, but there are few others who hasn't seen the light of day from the local distributors (probably because they deliberately want them to be in on the end of the year for the awards season).

And to collect them all, I combed down some of the films that have been getting praise here and there because of the film festivals such as SXSW, Sundance, and Cannes. So, in order for you to keep up with your "This Year's Films Bucket List", I have gathered and analyzed some of the films that may have be in your cinephiliac taste, and the result is, pretty eclectic.

Hereby lies, the top 10 most anticipated films this year:

1. Carol

Todd Haynes is finally back to the screen with the adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's enthrallingly heartfelt love story of two women in the 1950s New York. Critics loves this for its beautiful direction, the artistically divine production and cinematography, and the excellent performances of the two leads, the always stunning Cate Blanchett, and phenomenally talented Rooney Mara.

Carol might be in to compete for the awards season, since Mara won for Cannes' Best Actress this year for the film.

2. Eden

Eden, by Mia Hansen-Løve, tells a story of a French DJ who went through the up and down of his life, and mastered the art of French touch (a type of electronic dance/disco/house music in the 1990s). This film is loosely based on the life of the director's brother.

The nuances of the film, the beautiful performances (Greta Gerwig!), and the amazing soundtracks (Daft Punk!) make Eden, one of the most genuine films that Hollywood seem to forget, and the most and more deserving recognition for Mia Hansen-Løve.

3. The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos made it to the international acclaim with the absurdly dark and funny Dogtooth, where it went on winning the Cannes' Un Certain Regard in 2009. And now, he's back with the deadpan satirical comedy, The Lobster.

Sets in the dystopian future about the nature of relationships, where someone should find a partner or else they would be punished and changed to be the animal that they choose in the first place. With promising cast like Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux, John C. Reilly, and Ben Whishaw, I can say that this film is going to be as weird and as funny as it can be.

4. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

This Sundance darling film could sound like last year's hit The Fault in Our Stars with its synonymous plot, but what's different from the latter is that the ability to find joy and lively moments throughout the film.

The story is simply about a high school senior kid who got forced to befriend his classmate, the girl who has just been diagnosed with leukimia. The warmth in this film is because it's filled with newly found friendships, the way they want their voices to be heard and the heartfelt missions to make the girl welcomed and feel better in her remaining, limited life. 

With the grand winnings in this year's Sundance for Grand Jury Prize for Drama and Audience Award for Drama, this film could cause you to waste a lot of tissues for the warmth, the charm, and the genuineness.

5. Inside Out

Here's the question for this film, "What if feelings, have feelings????"

Premiered in Cannes this year, Inside Out's proved to be the best Pixar film since Up. With its exceptional story, Inside Out lurks into the mind of a young girl, Riley Andersen (Kaitlyn Dias), where five emotions—Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Fear (Bill Hader), and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) lead her through her life and its ups and downs. And with cast like this, how could you say no??

Its visual style is diverse and each time you go to the next scene, it's another level of incredibility; the inside of the human brain where they store the core memory, the world inside the brain, the Imagination Land, anything. And the fact that the special effects collaborates with the actual neuropsychology and make the visual style to be much more hauntingly fun.

The film is more than just a kids' film. Its cheerful and humorous tone of the film dig deeper to the concept of growing up and dealing with the maturity of young kids and how they cope with the ever-changing life. It's smart, it's warmth, it's emotional, it's everything you want to see as a kid, wondering how could life go on and how your childhood memories are becoming to be the fundamental base in building your greater life.

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That's it for the first volume of this post! But don't worry, there will be the following to this post later, so don't forget to check out and subscribe!

Top 12 Songs in First Half of 2015.

It's already July, which means the second half of 2015 has started.

Now that it's settled, we can all agree that the first half of 2015 had given us some amazing tunes, yeah? We got, Janet Jackson making a comeback, Major Lazer ruling all over the charts, as well as Björk's incredibly heartbreaking album, I mean, this year is heaven for all music fans in the world.

So, in order for you readers to enjoy this day, let me give you the recap of the 12 best songs in the first half of 2015.

(And again, I never do any lists with specific, biased, numerical rank, so)

1. Major Lazer - Lean On (feat. MØ & DJ Snake)

2. Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion

3. Janet Jackson - No Sleeep

4. Miguel - coffee

5. Ta-ku - Love Again (feat. JMSN & Sango)

6. Adam Lambert - Ghost Town

7. Shamir - Call It Off

8. Florence and the Machine - What Kind of Man

9. Allie X - Prime

10. Toro Y Moi - Empty Nesters

11. Years & Years - King

12. Björk - Stonemilker

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Enjoy!

Hello!

I decided to make a blog full about films (and mainly because my other blog is messy). So, here I am, and I hope it can stay on though!

Love and warm regards,

Bintang Lestada

Top 20 Films I Watched This Year.

I have one habit that sometimes makes me irked and ashamed. I usually keep a lot of tracks of films and leave them be. Mind you, that the title specifically means so, I haven't been really able to keep updating my film-seeing schedule due to school and all, so I usually download some films that I haven't been able to get in DVDs.

The fact that I'm hoarding all of these films is very demeaning because I hold films in my heart very dear, so I decided to watch one or two whenever I'm free, and fortunately, that's an amazing decision because these films open up so much about things that I desire to know more, such as gender issues, mental illness, women's intuition, LGBT, family problems, politics, quarter-life crisis, and a lot more. And lately, I discover that there are so little of women-directed films around so, I include some here, mainly because of how exceptional the films are.

But, this year's been pretty satisfying because of the amount of great films that I have watched since the first of 2015. So, hereby, I give you the top 20 films I watched this year.

(SOME OF THESE FILMS ARE NOT NECESSARILY RELEASED IN 2015)

1. ABOUT ELLY (DARBAREYE ELLY) (Asghar Farhadi, 2009)

Farhadi's long-awaited psychological thriller is finally released by US this year, and it's grippingly sensational. The story revolves around a group of friends going on a vacation, and someone's suddenly missing. The hint of this film is very Hitchcockian and it's done very masterful, a very fine tribute if he's alive, let's be real.

2. GAYBY (Jonathan Lisecki, 2012)

A woman and her gay friend want to conceive a baby, what could go wrong with that? This screwball comedy gives a freshness to the cinema, and this one is a keeper because the writing is as witty as you can get, wonderfully funny performances by the two leads, and it gives you a whole new perspective about understanding about the postmodernist world we live in now.

3. THE IMMIGRANT (James Gray, 2013)

6 words; Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jeremy Renner. (Well technically it's 7 words but still).

An innocent immigrant is tricked into prostitution life. The performances here is wonderful, if you ever want to see Cotillard in a silent film, this might be the one, because even though she's talking, her facial expressions throughout the film makes you feel things, almost like the great Greta Garbo.

4. NINOTCHKA (Ernst Lubitch, 1939)

And speaking of Greta Garbo, here's the infamous film of her with the slogan "Garbo Laughs!".

This film is actually a satire interpretation of capitalism. Garbo starred as the rigid Russian woman who's sent by the government for an official business, only to find herself falling in love with a man that she found distasteful.

5. REBECCA (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)

A classic Hitchcock, starred by the always stunning, Joan Fontaine as the new bride of a great and rich man, played by Laurence Olivier. But only to find that he's still can't get over the shadow of his first wife, and with the mysteriously loyal to the first wife maid, it's killing her inside. Probably the most perfectly narrated film of his because you can actually see the thrilling sensation building into your bones.

6. ROSETTA (The Dardennes Brothers, 1999)

I actually find this film very obnoxious, which makes sense because it means that the directors did their job right. This film pictures a very distressing life of a teenage girl with impetuous nature, trying to make her life right along with her alcoholic mother. She has a job, and she will do anything to maintain that job, even though you have to do the wrong things to make it right. This film speaks a lot about the humanity nowadays in a flip, the whole nature or nurture kind of questions.

7. BRIGHT STAR (Jane Campion, 2009)

A love story about John Keats, the famous poet from England back in the 19th century, and Fanny Brawne, his neighbor-turned-lover. Jane Campion is actually one of my favorite directors, and this is why I put her film here, because it is just, beautiful. The women in this film are truly remarkable and rich with intuition you wouldn't believe. If you're a fan of period dramas, this one is a keeper, also.

8. BEYOND THE LIGHTS (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2014)

It's like Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard, but better. With the characters being introduced, the portrayal of how media sees women, and the chemistry between the two leads, make this film a very special film for me, aside from the hot guy. Also because Gugu-Mbatha Raw, which is a breathe of fresh air.

9. TEST (Chris Mason Johnson, 2013)

Sets in San Francisco in the year of 1985. Two very different guys who work at a dance company attract each other and together, they face the world with open arms and promises even though feared with the new disease spreading around (by the time, it was AIDS). TEST was beautiful and mournful but also hopeful.

10. TIME TO LEAVE (LE TEMPS QUI RESTE) (Francois Ozon, 2005)

An arrogant 31 year old gay man learns that he has a malignant tumor that's going to kill him within a few months. Then it's followed by how he handles the situation to his family and boyfriend, and also how he copes up with his job as a fashion photographer. This is a very scary reminder that you will leave the world, alone. Overall, a very beautiful film, and it's also a philosophical view of lonely, isolated death can be whatever you wish it to be.

11. Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2015)

"Loving people doesn't save them"

That's what I caught at the first 20 minutes of the film. It's simple, but it slaps you on the face right away. It tells about a single mother who decides to raise his problematic son all alone, it was hellish, up until a neighbor comes and helps them out. This film shows layers of realistic values of family. Hope, is what you want to have in your family. The cinematography was flawless, somehow for me (the aspect ratio of the screen is 1:1), it symbolizes how tight their connection as a family, too tight it's almost claustrophobic. Once again, Xavier Dolan represents as one of the finest directors to ever appear.

12. Kids (Larry Clark, 1995)

One of the controversial films to ever expose the disturbing portrayals of teenagers about sex and substantial abuses. I actually have seen the film last year but I stopped because it was too disturbing for me, then I rewatched it again and found it incredibly stupidly stupendous. This film marks the birth of Chloe Sevigny and Rosario Dawson's careers and their brilliance.

13. Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham, 2010)

Postmodernism at its best. Shows proofs, not solution. Only the humor could dress up your life. It's very enjoyable and rather disturbing for my generation. Lena Dunham may be irritating for you, but she produces good stuff, especially for this generation, that's probably why people dislike her, because she speaks A LOT of truth in her works.

14. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011)

A teenage girl witnesses a woman got hit by a bus and caught up with the events matrix and she questions a lot about what's going on between with her life and the others that are affected by the accident. An important film with emotional rollercoaster attached to it. Should watch just because of Anna Paquin's greatness in it.

15. Days of Being Wild (Wong-kar Wai, 1990)

A better version of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. That's what I like to call it. Leslie Cheung starred as the playboy of Hongkong and the story rotates around his victims and how the heartbreaks affect the women. A very erotic (in my opinion) film, the maturity of Wong-kar Wai in portraying love and its problems HAS to be applauded here.

16. Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)

Catherine Deneuve stars as the girl with androphobia (fear of interaction with men) and she begins to go through episodes of frightful hallucinations when she got left by her sister to go on a holiday. Roman Polanski's first English-language film is astonishing, it created a really empowering film, yet somehow frustrating and frightening at the same time. This film shows us about how women are being seen in the eyes of men, which is demeaning, and this film captured the invincibility of women when they were attacked.

17. Welcome To Me (Shira Piven, 2014)

Here you have Kristen Wiig in a role you'll never seen, as a woman with Borderline Personality Disorder. She has this really weird fascination with TV shows. Suddenly, she won a lottery, then she went on having her own TV show. The performance that she delivers was unbelievable, it's wonderful and scary.

18. Berbagi Suami (Nia Dinata, 2006)

Stunning direction from Nia Dinata, the story is not only strong, but also interesting. The three different semi-interconnecting plot revolve around their lives as wives whom are stuck being in polygamy. A must watch for Indonesians to see how women are when they're in this situation.

19. Friends With Money (Nicole Holofcener, 2006)

Come on! Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Keener, Frances MacDormand, and Joan Cusack as old friends in one film? How could you reject it?

But seriously, this film may feel very light and heartwarming but it's actually very witty and dark. But since it's Nicole goddamn Holofcener, of course you would laugh at the film anyway because it's that entertaining and funny, without thinking that your life can be told by Holofcener in a very sarcastic way.

20. In The Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009)

Have you ever watched Veep?

Then watch the spinoff film from a series that inspires Veep. The story entails about the US President and the UK Prime Minister are looking to launch a war in the Middle East, so their government officials start to work together, but behind the scene, the whole situation is very messy and unprofessional, it's hilarious. Politically satire, but it actually feels like a real situation.

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By the way, this is not a numerous rank, because these films are all so amazing and great in their own ways.

Review on EX MACHINA (Alex Garland, 2015)

“One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.”