#14 ‘Welcome To Marwen’/’The Book Thief’

Movie night date – 03/07/19. Post date – 10/07/19.

Damn Liam, back at it again with the late blogs! It’s unintentional, but winter makes life a little harder re: looking after grandmother. It’s harder to get her out of bed when it’s colder, then the day starts later and takes up more time…anyway, you get the point. Anyway! In between watching the movies and writing this, I made it another whole year older so yeah; that happened. But because of that, I had my sister in town to join me for the first movie (She’s a big baby who can’t stay up past midnight…just kidding, she was busy helping me look after my grandmother and had to be up early so I could have a break and sleep in. Thank you for that by the way) and I watched the second one alone. The first one was the 2018 movie ‘Welcome to Marwen’ by Robert Zemeckis, followed by the 2013 movie ‘The Book Thief’ by Brian Percival. Let’s jump into them.

Welcome To Marwen – 2018 – Robert Zemeckis – 116 Mins

This movie was one of those early morning can’t sleep Youtube surfing trailers discoveries that caught my eye because of Robert Zemeckis. I only knew him off the top of my head from one of my favourite series’ ‘Back to the Future’. I didn’t realise he did a lot of other movies I’ve seen like ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’, ‘Forrest Gump’, and surpisingly ‘Monster House’. A quick look over his filmography added one movie to my list that sounded interesting. So look out for ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ in the future. Sounds like a funny film. Anyway, ‘Welcome to Marwen’ is a story about Mark Hogancamp, a artist who likes to wear womens shoes who was assaulted because of it and is dealing with memory loss and PTSD from it. I went into the film knowing a general premise, where as my sister was going in completely in the dark. I was thoroughly shocked when the Dreamworks logo came on after, followed by my sister asking if it was animated. The visual effects and transitioning in this film were very impressive, especially given the movie won three awards at the Visual Effects Society Awards this year. Regardless of the interesting story and amazing visual effects, the film was what people call a ‘Box Office Bomb’. Regardless of that, I hope people find this little gem and watch it.

One of the outstanding things I found from this movie personally was seeing Steve Carell in a role that isn’t overly comedic. The first movie I remember watching with him in it was….it actually might be tied between either ‘Bruce Almighty’ or ‘Get Smart’. Regardless, both funny movies. While funny moments are brought up through the film, it is for the most part rather serious. I’m sure more serious non-comedic Steve Carrell roles exist out there, but this one being my first gave me a fair bit more respect for him. Mark Hogencamp’s love interest Nicol baffled me for a while. For most of the film I thought she was being played by Julianne Moore, when in reality being played by Leslie Mann. I don’t know, I just kept seeing her as Poppy from ‘Kingsman 2 The Golden Circle’. She did an amazing job as well. It also made me smile to see Gwendoline Christie in this movie, considering I only know her as Captain Phasma and heard of her as Brienne of Tarth. I would like to see more movies with her in them.

One of the interesting things about this is that all the people from ‘Marwen’ are based on people Mark knows or admires. Hilariously, one is based on a adult actress. Less hilariously and more interestingly, the person who is in that role is the director’s wife, Leslie Zemeckis. So the reason I watched this movie was because of the director and it certainly didn’t stray from the series I knew. There is a scene where the props, effects, and the music are very reminiscent of ‘Back To The Future’. It was a cool little ‘huh’ moment in the middle of the music. As always, the music was amazingly done by Alan Silvestri. All up, I’d say this movie is a solid movie with a strong message about all the things it covers. Would recommend as a good little movie.

The Book Thief – 2013 – Brian Percival – 130 Mins

I remember seeing ‘The Book Thief’ in the theatre…or cinema…or at the pictures, whatever you prefer. At the time, I never clicked as to who the narrator was and all the hidden ‘Ohhhh…’ moments they reference to when I finally re-watched it for this night. It had been so long, but somehow I remembered the main story. I like this film since the story follows the stories of non-Allied Forces people. Like…I find it interesting to hear the points of view of the “enemies” as they are generally all portrayed as the bad guys. It makes us forget that not all of them are. While I recognise the story is fictional, I still like it. The only other film I remember seeing that in is that one with Tom Cruise in the German resistance…I don’t remember where I saw it or a whole lot about it. A quick Google search makes me think it was ‘Valkyrie’. Maybe I’ll end up watching it for this at some point. Anyway, back on track!

One of the hilariously awesome things I love about the story is the first two books that Liesel reads. The first one being the one she ‘borrowed’ from the grave workers at her parents’ funeral. I can’t imagine learning to read from reading about digging graves, especially so soon after the loss of parents. The next book is ‘The Invisible Man’ by HG Wells. Such a stark contrast in works, really. I haven’t read ‘The Invisible Man’, but I like HG Wells works. Need to read more of them. It’s also a cool bonding experience for the new father and daughter. Not a lot of films come to mind that I have seen Geoffrey Rush in, but he does amazing work in this. Another quick use of Google tells me I’m an idiot for not remembering him being Barbossa in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ series and in ‘The King’s Speech’, and less memorably in ‘Green Lantern’ as the fish head looking guy whose name escapes me…Tomar-Re apparently.

So this movie has more amazing music by the well known composer John Williams. I would happily have the soundtrack playing in the background as I worked. This movie also has a sad yet kind of happy ending. In part because of the narrator’s thoughts on what happens but also because of how unintentionally it all happens. Sophie Nélisse does an amazing job as Liesel. I hope she is still doing more films and gets some bigger roles. Other than these thoughts, there isn’t a whole lot more to the movie. It is a very solid movie; Brian Percival, be proud of what you made. Huh, he hasn’t done a whole lot, and even less since ‘The Book Thief’. Other than Downton Abbey, not a whole lot at all. Maybe life isn’t giving him a good hand; you can never know what’s going on with people 100%. I hope he gets to do some more stuff because it was a very good film. Another recommendation.

Closing Thoughts

So my efforts to do this earlier aren’t going well…ah, screw it. These will just come out whenever they can in the time of the week before the next one. However next week, which is to say tonight’s movies, are gonna be both around the one theme of Vincent Van Gogh, an amazing Post- Impressionist painter. Quick ending tonight, but dinner calls! As always:

Hope you’re having a wonderful day and keep smiling.