Some days of university really remind you that you’re there to study full time. You spend all week doing assignments, making notes and attending lecturers, and the moment when you can stop seems unreachable. But you make it, you submit the essay, commute home, make dinner and finally sit down but then it hits you. You have no idea what to watch. You wouldn’t often think of your lecturers as being film connoisseurs, but it actually makes sense. As experts in their own fields and academics, their opinion on moving pictures just might serve some purpose, and not just the film lecturers.
500 Days of Summer (2009)
Dave Devenport
A seasoned journalist like Dave has vast experience in news production. He’s worked in TV and radio, where he is used to working with cameras to find the best shots. You’d expect him to have excellent film taste, and he certainly does. Dave describes the film as “a bit of a trashy rom-com, and nothing like Oppenheimer, A Beautiful Mind, or Killers of the Flower Moon. But it’s an easy film to watch and something which I have enjoyed over and over again, a bit like watching Elf every Christmas.” One of the most fascinating things about the film is the time jumps as Tom reflects on his time with Summer. You get to see the whole story, but in a non-linear way. It’s hard to not enjoy a film where Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays another hopeless romantic, especially with its soundtrack which Dave highly praises. I said I love the Smiths.
Er ist wieder da (2015), and Shrek (2001)
Luis Harrison
From a politics lecturer, I would expect no less than recommendations of two highly political, award-winning films. Er ist wieder da (Look Who’s Back) is a film where Hitler is miraculously resurrected in modern-day Berlin, to which he is horrified to find it’s liberal society. He becomes a YouTube sensation and makes his way onto television, where he begins to attempt to seize control in Germany. “This might seem like a really weird and shocking film, and it is, but I suggest it because almost ten years later, I think it feels more relevant than ever.” Across Europe, fascism still very much exists in politics such the AfD party in Germany. Luis notes that the “film makes the very timely important point that genocide could happen again and that we must be aware of this.”
Shrek is a revolutionary Marxist tale of an ogre’s assertion of their right to their land against a fascist colonial regime, led by Lord Farquaad. Not many films can live up to the success and legacy of Shrek. It was so popular that it even made it to West End.
Head (1968)
Dr Peter Mills
An expert on popular music studies, media and English, Peter recommends his favourite film, starring ‘made for TV’ band, the Monkees. The film explores the band’s realisation of their individuality as they try to prove to themselves that they have free will, yet all of their actions were predetermined by a script. This is especially interesting as the band was originally created as a fictional band for a TV show. “Head is a feast for the ears, the eyes and the mind.” Peter loves the film so much, he wrote a book about it called, The Monkees, Head and the 60s.
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If only reading lists were like this. Besides, when is it ever a bad idea to rewatch Shrek?