Sam's Film Blog by Sam Matthews https://padlet.com/SamMatthews/FilmBlog Keeping the conversation going after the credits roll en-us 2021-06-21 18:29:06 UTC 2021-07-13 11:11:44 UTC hello@padlet.com 'Press pause' SamMatthews https://padlet.com/SamMatthews/FilmBlog/wish/1618183702 'Press pause' has become my household's most used phrase during the past year of lockdown. My partner and I watch a lot of films together but the problem with only being able to watch films at home is the ability to talk through them. So we came up with the 'press pause' signal. This meant one of us could air our thoughts without missing any of the film. Now I know for purists this is utter sacrilege. Talking through a film is outrageous and pausing it destroys the flow. I know. However, throughout this topsy-turvy year we have both enjoyed the conversation as we watch. Sometimes it is pointing out cool Easter eggs but more often than that, it is flagging a deeper issue for discussion. This has certainly been the case with documentaries such as Amend: The Fight for America and 13th and The Trial of the Chicago 7.
The pandemic put a halt to the after cinema discussion at a restaurant and whilst I'm looking forward to returning to that routine, I have enjoyed pressing pause and sharing our thoughts with one another in the moment. I think this has led me to do more reading about the film or the issues it addresses afterwards. It is so easy to watch a film, make a quick assessment as the credits roll and get onto the next activity. Pausing has, quite literally, made me pause. Sometimes we need to pause in order to press play on a conversation that cannot wait.
The pandemic has changed how I engage with film. I've re-discovered a passion for talking about what I'm watching. There has been time to really engage. 18 year-old me, who left film studies back at A-Level, is itching to be heard again. In the past few weeks, as life has picked up pace and we're back to the cinema, our film chats look different. We're dashing from our seats to the last train but we're keeping the conversation going.
So, before life starts to resemble any kind of normalcy, I'm committing myself to keeping the conversation going by writing about it and hoping you'll join in. How do you engage with film? Are you a casual cinema-goer or like to keep up to date with all the new releases? What are you excited to press play on? The long awaited James Bond flick No Time to Die or musical adaptations Dear Evan Hansen and West Side Story?

Leave your thoughts below and join in the conversation.]]> 2021-06-21 18:49:14 UTC https://padlet.com/SamMatthews/FilmBlog/wish/1618183702 Why I Love Film SamMatthews https://padlet.com/SamMatthews/FilmBlog/wish/1632128468 Going to the cinema has the same effect on me now as it did when I was little. As my legs continue to dangle off the edge of the seat, my face still lights up as the lights go down. I remember going to a friend's birthday party at the old Odeon in Coventry to see the live action 101 Dalmatians and even with the infinite potential of a child's imagination, I couldn't think of a better place for a party.
I've always found film deeply personal. Film has comforted me through loss, bonded me with life-long friends and Friday night cinema with my best friend at 16 is still a tradition going strong. Only now he is my fiancé.
Film is entwined with some of my most treasured memories. When my parents would go on the occasional Saturday date night my brother and I would meticulously choose a film from our ever-expanding DVD collection. We'd pull out all the DVDs to the edge of the shelf and slide them back in as we ruled them out. This would sometimes take over an hour as we weighed up genre, plot and performance. Looking back now I can see that this was my first foray into critiquing film. Those Saturday nights were a film education as I discovered cinematic greats like The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption and The Shining for the first time.
My Nan would take me to see a lot of amateur musicals. We'd attend a Saturday matinee at the Albany Theatre and on the bus journey home she'd tell me all about the original film version. Whenever we could we'd find the film and watch it together afterwards. My Nan would reference all the actors and other films they'd appeared in with an encyclopaedic knowledge that could rival IMDb. She'd reminisce about queuing up for the pictures years ago and loved to tell me how many times she and her own Mum had seen The Sound of Music. It probably comes as no surprise that The Sound of Music is my favourite film. For my 17th birthday I went to sing-along Sound of Music at the Warwick Arts Centre dressed as a rebellious nun. Whilst I didn't win the best dressed nun contest, seeing it on
the big screen was prize enough. In a full circle moment, The Sound of Music was the last show I ever saw with my Nan a few weeks before she passed. Honouring tradition, I watched the film a few days later. My Nan will be forever connected with the joy of this film and the memory of us holding hands during 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain' on our last viewing together will always keep me company.
This past Monday I had a new cinema experience. For the first time in my life I went to the cinema with my Dad. His last trip to the cinema was for Jurassic Park in 1993. Deemed too young for rampaging dinosaurs, I stayed with my Nan whilst my brothers went to the cinema with Dad. I’ll never forget the look of wonder on my brother’s face when he came home clutching his half-eaten popcorn. It only took another 28 years for my Dad to head back to the cinema with my brother and my Mum and I in tow. We saw The Father. Curiously, the last film my parents saw together at the cinema was Silence of the Lambs. It would seem that Anthony Hopkins is worth the admission price in my Dad’s opinion. We all enjoyed Hopkins’ Oscar winning performance, but the best part of the night was talking about it and other films whilst waiting for the bus home.
As we waited in the rain for our bus, I remembered one of the Saturday movie nights when my brother and I watched Shadowlands for the first time. Anthony Hopkins plays C.S. Lewis with beautiful restraint. In a poignant scene with one of his students he says, 'we read to know we're not alone'. I can’t think of a better way to summarise than with this quote. My love of film is intrinsically linked with human connection and never feeling alone whilst getting lost in a story made for the screen.

Why do you love film? What are your earliest memories of the cinema? Do you have a favourite film and what does it mean to you? Please share in the comments below and connect with fellow film fans. 
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