Films to Be Buried With: The Resurrection

This time last year I stole the format of one of my favourite podcasts to be used as a blog post. Each week on 'Films to Be Buried With' host Brett Goldstein tells a guest they've died and then gets them to talk about their life in film. Since then Brett has added a new format that allows him to have returning guests subtitled 'The Resurrection' and so this week I'm stealing the new format! 

You died by tripping over an uneven paving slab, falling into the road and getting hit by a lorry but good news, you've been brought back to life!

Excellent. I've had a very busy year given I've been dead all this time!

Everyone wants to know all about your life but they want to know about your life through film. What was the last film you saw?

At the time of writing that was French lesbian drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I'm going through a phase of more arty films right now and this critically-acclaimed film was one of them. It's so brilliantly well made and the ending is really touching. 

The last film I saw at the cinema was Free Guy starring Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer, a comedy-adventure movie that is a lot of fun, though I didn't enjoy it as much as some of my other recent cinema visits. 

Who should play you in the film of your life?

There aren't a great deal of well-known actors who are around my age that would fit the bill. The one that springs to mind is Nicholas Hoult. He's certainly better looking than me but he's a British actor around my age and I think he'd be excellent at portraying my general awkwardness. 

What's the most romantic film you've ever seen?

I'm not really one for romance and on the whole avoid romantic films. The aforementioned Portrait of a Lady on Fire is certainly very romantic but I think I'll go for La La Land as it really effectively shows two people falling in love, you can almost see the initial attraction develop into something more. It does have something of a bleak ending but I kind of liked that about the film- very few relationships on film really show what happens after the lead couple get together and this one does, giving us a realistic sense that reality rarely has a fairy-tale ending. 

What's the best film you ever saw that you never want to see again?

My feeling for this question are films like The Killing Fields and Schindler's List which are both incredible films depicting a really awful moment of human history. I would say that everyone really ought to see both of those films at some point in their lifetime but only once- they contain a darkness that is often difficult to watch. 

What's the best action film you've ever seen?

I do love a superhero film and some come close to being my answer here but I'm going to go with John Wick: Chapter 2. I really like the John Wick films where Keanu Reeves kills hordes of bad-guys and has the ability to use any item as a weapon. The action in them is just incredible; it's almost balletic in the way it's performed and though the world is so heightened it's hard not to watch Reeves and believe that he can really do this stuff. Credit should go to director Chad Stahelski who worked for many years as a stuntman before using his stunt skills to develop films behind the camera. 

Which film do you think you could have made?

I wouldn't have a clue how to do anything with special effects or action sequences but I think I could make a good fist of making a comedy. Though it contains a few special effects, with the right team I could have made something akin to What We Do in the Shadows, the vampire mockumentary written by and starring Taika Waititi. The idea of taking horror tropes and putting them into a comedy is something I really like and the film is mostly the characters interacting with each other. More than anything that film works because of the quality of the script- I'm not sure if I'd have the script or not in this hypothetical scenario but if so I could probably have a go at making the film and if not I could have a go at writing a script in a similar vein. 

What's a film you have pretended to like to impress people?

I'm not sure I've ever done this! I'm actually quite into classic films and international films and I like most of the films people tend to cite as the greatest films of all time. I will happily say when I don't enjoy a film and so I can't think of an example for this question!

What film have you never seen that you think is mad that you've never seen it?

Die Hard. Everyone loves it and I have been actively trying to watch it for several years now but it's not on any streaming services and I've never seen it in second hand for sale (and I often peruse the DVDs in charity shops and the like). I'm sure I'll watch it one day but it feels like it is actively avoiding me. 

What's a film that you love that you don't expect anyone else to like?

I struggled to come up with an answer for this but how about Sherlock, Jr. a Buster Keaton film from 1924. It's a silent black and white film so I wouldn't expect most people to like watching it but I think it's so brilliantly well made and so much fun.

What's the film that you would show a lover as a test to see if you should be together? 

I have the perfect film for this and that's JoJo Rabbit. If they've not seen it before the film would test both whether they have a sense of humour but also gives opportunities to see if they react like a normal human being to emotion. If a potential lover watched the film and didn't like that too would be an enormous red flag. 

If you could show a child one film what would it be?

Wall.e. It's one of Pixar's best which is really saying something but it's messaging on how we should look after the planet is both really important and really well done. Also it's just a great film!

What is the film that made you the most uncomfortable?

This would probably be Korean film Oldboy which contains a scene where a man eats a live octopus. It's both really cruel to the octopus and utterly disgusting and I've never felt more uncomfortable watching anything. 

So you're back to life but you might die any day. In your will you can leave one DVD- what DVD are you leaving?

I'm going for Life is Beautiful, an Italian film which somehow manages to be both a joyous romantic comedy and deal with the Holocaust at the same time. Whilst it has it's moments it is more re-watchable than the likes of Schindler's List and in a similar way to JoJo Rabbit uses comedy to deal with really dark themes. It's a film hardly anyone has heard of but I'd really recommend watching.