Massive Apologies

Hey everybody.

I am very very very sorry that I haven't posted up anything for... well or a week or so, and nothing substantial for longer than that.

I've been in the process of a filming/editing/sound recording for a short animation, alongside working on my portfolio for my Filmmaking/photography venture.

No- I have not neglected film, but I haven't had time to really think about it in a wider sense due to working on my own.

I started watching Peeping Tom yesterday, but had to crack on with editing the film.

NO EXCUSE.

Anyway, in order to post something brilliant today to make up for it, I shall simply provide you with one of the finest rants in the history of cinematic debate: renowned British film critic Mark Kemode's tirade upon the filth that is Sex and The City 2.

FELA!

I'm really excited about going to see Fela! this Thursday.

If you don't know, Fela! is a live cinematic broadcast of a stage musical actually taking place in London, which explores "the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti".

All I want to know is: how the hell am I supposed to dance my face off in a packed out Odeon?

Mondays: metal over credits

FADE IN-


Casey, a semi-attractive twenty-four year-old PGCE undergraduate, is running through a cave. She's about to be torn limb from limb by a pack of deformed zombie nazis spewing blood from their eyeballs. A dead end!... What's she going to do?


She scrambles up a ten foot wall. Thank God- this should hold them off for another few minutes. But NO- these are zombie nazi ANGELS! One by one they float up to the ledge, the swastika scars carved six inches deep into their chests glowing luminous blue, skulls snapping with brown decaying teeth. She kicks one in the head- which cracks off and smashes onto the cave floor below.


There's too many of them. Casey resigns herself to the afterlife, helplessly watching the swarms of zombie nazi angels flood the sky from above, descending onto her like a chattering cloud of death flies. She closes her eyes.


BOOM! The ceiling explodes. What was that? Slowly, a giant robot lowers into the cave. The head is made of transparent glass- through which Casey can make out... Toby! She screams out his name- to which he skilfully uses his chiselled, handsome head to give her a reassuring nod. He pulls a bunch of levers to make one giant robot arm rise stiff to the ceiling in a salute, which splats a dozen flying zombies into the cave roof in a shower of blood. 


They descend on the robot in their thousands, trying to break through the armour. He has disappeared under the mass of their snarling, biting bodies. 


ZZAPP!! Goes the electrolysed armour. The zombies all fall to the ground in steaming chunks of rotting meat. Casey screams with joy. The robot marches over to her, a hatch opens up and she crawls in. Toby is there waiting with open arms.


'It's all over,' he says with a smug grin. 


She wraps herself around him, but her face betrays her. She knows it's not over, not forever. But it might be for today... and that's all that matters...


FADE TO BLACK.


CUE: REALLY BLOODY ANNOYING HEAVY METAL MUSIC.


And here's my point:

I am FED UP with heavy metal playing over the credits of films. PARTICULARLY horror films. A film crew invests so much time and energy into creating a cinematic event that it makes my spine crack when all the tension and thought-provocation of a piece is dashed as soon as the story is over by a tacked -on soundtrack which jolts you out of the experience.

The credits are a time of thought, then reflection. Initially you remain in your seat because your brain is still involved in the story and you are coming to terms with it having left you, then after those few minutes your psyche shifts to the reflective zone... asking questions (hopefully) and filling blanks.

A thumping metal track completely erases your ability to think about what you've just seen. It is like the screen is screaming GET OUT OF THE CINEMA AND GO HOME THIS WAS JUST A FILM WE HAVE YOUR MONEY NOW.

The first time that this really got to me was at the end of Resident Evil. Okay, not such a good film to warrant thinking about afterwards but I remember really wishing that the director hadn't latched on to this idea that heavy metal makes stuff suddenly a lot more 'cool' and 'extreme'- like blood and guitars are the perfect combination. That film could have been terrifying if done a lot differently, but branding it as a kind of 'cool product' really objectified the audience.

In fact, movies adapted from video games all seem to come packaged with a thumping six-string squealer soundtrack. Well, all apart from Super Mario Brothers. But that was still shit.

I've got no beef with heavy or speed or death or nu or whatever brand of metal music you like. No I'm not a fan- much preferring a spot of Burt Bacherach- but each to their own, you know.

Just keep it out of my end credit sequences.

NINTENDO 64 Movie tie-ins

Following on from my sepia-toned skip down 32bit Street yesterday, I thought I'd carry on the trend with a reminder of the finest 64bit movie-game tie-ins on Mario's three dimensional flagship.

Fact: so powerful were my childhood persuasion skills that I managed to convince my little sister to part with about six months worth of her pocket money to go halves on a Nintendo 64. She had no interest in games whatsoever. Mwah ha!

1. Your-mum's-wet-dream Pierce Brosnan's last good movie before the screen adaptation of a nauseous west-end ABBA show, Goldeneye reinvigorated the James Bond franchise. It featured plotting Russkies, a woman who uses her thighs as a nutcracker for your head, and Sean Bean being evil.

The game was one of the best shooters ever, redefining the genre for the console market. Multiplayer was where all the real fun was at. Throwing knifes on Stacks, Oddjob vs Jaws, License to Kill. Six cans of Stella, takeaway pizza. Yes yes yes.



2. I've never been a Star Wars geek, and Shadows of The Empire wasn't really a movie tie-in, but this was brilliant and it made money off a successful film franchise, which is why it deserves to be in this list. The space battles were fun as hell and fighting Boba Fett/his space ship on the floating platform was fun. Shame about the clunky controls.



3. You know what... I can't find any more. I literally can't find any more.

Nostalgia's not what it was cracked up to be.

Everything in the past is SHIT.

SEGA MEGADRIVE Movie tie-ins

Our generation is the first in history to grow up with home video game entertainment.

Back in the monochrome years kids would have picture puzzles, or hoops with sticks, or play variations of bowls (now consigned to old men in chequered shirts in the foothills of Southern France). All of these things would get boring fairly quickly, which meant that not long after commencing said game all the children would have the urge to go outside and socialise, most likely to play 5050 bunker in a peasouper, subsequently catching the black death and dying not long after.

Thanks to the modern age we're not forced to socialise anymore. Bloody hell- there's no need to leave bed. Why make real friends when it's much more fun to tomahawk a noob in the chops from halfway across a jungle map, then reap hell from the skies in a spinning 'Death Machine'? I don't know, maybe it's just the growl of Ice Cube that gets me wet, but there's something about laughing at how uncreative other people's playercards can be that's so smugly self-satisfying.

Of course, it all began for me with the Sega Master System (which I later tried to nick from some family friends when I deemed them too old to need one as much as me). Then I had the Nintendo Gameboy. Then the Sega Megadrive. Then the Nintendo 64. Then the Sega Dreamcast. Then the Ps2. Then the XBox 360.

The sum total of all of these circuit boxes, from new, probably comes to over a grand. That's not even including the games and the extra controllers and the memory cards and the keyboard/mouse for Dreamcast internet and the online fees and the wireless adapter and all that shit.

My life's not worth over a grand.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to get to isn't one comparing video games and cinema. That's an article I'll need a lot more time to write. My point is this (though I should have reached it in a more fluid way):

The Sega Megadrive had some very very good movie tie-ins.

Editor's Note: Blogger has malfunctioned. What was intended to be interestingly formatted has been reduced to... a list. The respective videos follow the writing.

1. Alien 3 was the first of the Alien movies I saw, though in retrospect it is certainly the weakest. Highlights included an exploding dog, the late Pete Postlethwaite throwing a flare at the alien shouting "come and get me you bastard", Dillon's sacrifice, and the birth of the Alien queen... through Ellen Ripley's chest.
   In true video game form, all of this is dashed in lieu of a standard- but surprisingly brilliant- 2D platformer. The aim is simple: save inmates who have been suckered to the walls by alien goop before the chestbursters call for breakfast. Of course, "saving" doesn't require any tactic more complex than just strolling by in a awkward two-dimensional style, leading me to question whether the lazy bastards could have possibly maybe 'moved a pixel' to wriggle themselves free then found their own bloody way out from the infirmary?

2. Disney tie-ins have gained a rep for being bollocks of late, but The Lion King was early proof of the potential in sucking the udders of a franchise sow. My favourite part was the struggle with all three of the control pad buttons to get adult Simba to throw a hyena off a ledge. Memorable also was the mini-game dashing Pumbaa left and right as Timon dropped various technicolour bugs from a log. Awimba-whey!

3. Occasionally game studios earned production studios vast amounts of money by developing their own bastardised version of a successful film. In this case, a game studio earned a production studio vast amounts of money by developing a hybrid freak cartridge which bastardised TWO successful films. Thank God for Robocop vs Terminator.

4. Prince Ali, fabulous he, Ali Abaaabaaaaaaaaa... Another Disney tie-in, okay, but Aladdin was bloody brilliant. So satisfyingly bold and colourful. Scrambling around Agrabah as a filthy handsome street urchin never felt so purposeful, though I bet he never had the foresight to think he'd be rugging princess Jazz in the moonlight that same week, eh?

5. In Jurassic Park you got to play as a velociraptor.

BYE!

REVIEW: The Social Network

The nearest cinema to me is half an hour's drive down the carriageway, lost amidst an industrial estate of vast, sad, corrugated-steel warehouses. If you can't drive (like I can't drive) then you're faced with a thirty minute walk, followed by a twenty minute train journey, followed by a Tolkien-esque mission through a valley flanked by council estates where kappa-clad fourteen year-olds scream around on miniature dirt bikes like floating chainsaws. Past this: the long, dystopian road through the factory zones- past tyre outlets and garden centres- down one-man-wide alleyways swamped by discarded crisp packets and Volvic bottle bongs. The Odeon sits on a man-made crest, looming over the tarmac flatworm like the haunted house of Disneyland.

Thankfully for poor souls like me a local theatre now shows movies for a short run, albeit a little while after their official release. Many times I've seen my days flash before my eyes on that old movie run. Indie kinos save wimp lives. Fact.

The Social Network was on the menu last night; a film having received nothing but praise from the journos, most interestingly for Aaron Sorkin's screenplay (note: when a script gets exceptional praise, it practically guarantees the film to be worth time).

David Fincher's biopic on the inception of Facebook and the following lawsuits to hit creator Mark Zuckerburg between the eyes didn't sound like the pacy 'thriller' it turned out to be. If you read my blog two days ago then you'll think I'm a liar for saying I only saw TSN last night because THIS IS exactly what I wanted.

Sorkin shuffles the narrative like an old-hand card dealer. We have the Winklevoss/Saverin lawsuits framing the story, cutting to and from the events building up to them at lightning speed. For a wordy piece, this film packs some snap- and being set predominantly at Harvard University intelligently steers away from teen-comedy cliche. Rather, the use of music alludes more at first to a horror before lapsing into the foreboding synths and computerised beats of a techno-drama.

Jesse Eisenberg- resembling an almost-man genesis of Michael Cera- plays Zuckerburg as the intense supernerd hell-bent on world domination but hell-bent against selling out. His focus and ruthless intelligence reminded me of the kind of guys you see (or seldom see) in school scratching their eyes like weasels- einstein haircuts- secretly inventing a hydrogen explosive which can only kill rugby players. His vulnerability isn't the allure of money, but the allure of the cool. Led by the Pied-Fonzie Sean Parker (the creator of Napster, played charmingly by Justin Timberlake), Zuckerburg chases the dream of Silicon Valley, compromising his partnership with hopeful businessmen Eduardo Saverin in lieu of the rapid success promised by his new wildcard bezzie.

Many people have already seen this film and concluded that Zuckerburg was a self-centred arsehole who sold out all of his friends to get rich. I must admit that I do see cracks in the idea that he "doesn't care about money", particularly because I don't believe that somebody who doesn't care about money could possibly become the youngest billionaire in the world. Still, at least from his portrayal in this film, I'd assert that Zuckerburg just wanted to use his loaf to make one of the most successful web programmes in history, and in order to achieve this he had to make some sensible-seeming decisions.

Saverin- whose character has the most dynamic range in the film being both the success and the betrayed- comes across as a man whose inexperience and lack of commitment/insight (to the scale of Zuckerburg's at least) cost him the full rewards of his efforts. By distrusting Sean Parker's ingenuity and not following Zuckerburg to California he missed out on the genesis of Facebook from monster to mega-monolith, foolishly thinking that a nineteen-thousand dollar investment would secure his almost fictional role as co-CEO.

The Winklevoss twins provide most of the comedy relief in the film. Their arrogant and childish determination paid off big-time in real life, though on-screen it seemed like their battle was almost lost. Somewhere around the hour-mark, in a scene incongruous with the rest of the film, the twins lose a rowing race in England. What was Fincher thinking of there? Forgetting this, Armie Hammer did a great job of playing both brothers. I was convinced that they were different actors.

Unless you have to endure two hours of hacking through savage jungle trails to get to your local cinema this week you HAVE to go see The Social Network. This is a great film, so do believe the hype. I've never seen a biopic so sharply scripted with compelling, interesting dialogue, nor with such a clever, contemporary narrative structure.

Despite the fact that you probably use Facebook every day you might not be aware of what actually happened in order to make this phenomenon of social networking an intrinsic part of your life. It seemed to happen just like that, didn't it? Now you don't call your friends. Now you don't give people your phone number or your email address. Now you don't even 'poke' people; you 'like' stuff. Even if you don't bloody like it you 'like' it.

The Social Network isn't going to change the way you use Facebook, but it's definitely going to help you understand where it came from and where we are in the world today.

On top of that... it's a bloody good film.

    

VAT Rise

Today, Value Added Tax increased from 17.5% to 20%.

I think that this was better than raising income tax or national insurance.

It forces people to be more economical with how much useless shit they buy.

Biopics- SORT IT OUT!

Today I've been thinking about biopics and how I don't really like them so much.

Most of them seem to have one thing in common: they sacrifice a decent storyline for the sake of cramming in as much of the significant events of the person's life into the film as possible.

The writers of these films seem to forget what actually makes a film compelling in lieu of what they think the audience wants to see, inevitably failing to sustain anything beyond a parody of real life.

Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll (2010) was damp, despite Matt Whitecross's interesting choice to frame the narrative within some sort of ghostly dream diary concert. Andy Serkis did a decent impression of Ian Dury, but the story just jumped from event to event in Dury's life with little regard for original or realistic character development.

"Ian Dury does heroin." Oh, he must be an addict now. I felt no sympathy for the character. If you're going to depict an arsehole you have to find a way to give him enough warmth- fictional or not- for the audience to side at least a little bit with the guy.

W. (2008) was one of the few films I've turned off before the end. Stanley Weiser clearly compiled a list of the main things that happened to George Bush then typed out the screenplay in sequential order. There is no tension or character development whatsoever. People change suddenly from scene to scene to suit the storyline, which itself repeatedly takes huge jumps forward through time. Bush, ironically, was a cartoon character.

Control (2008) was probably the first decent biopic I've seen (unless you count Goodfellas as a biopic of Henry Hill, of course). Though highly depressing, it had character development and story that- while covering the main events pre-Joy Division and during the band's career- felt like it could have been an original screenplay borne from the desire to evoke the gloom and melancholy of late 70s Manchester and the endurance of an epileptic condition.

In its favour, the depictions of Ian Curtis and the rest of the band were frighteningly true-to-life, particularly (and most importantly) in the recreation of their music and stage performances. It wasn't an incredible film, but certainly a good one.

Of course, the events were on Control's side. Ian Curtis' story was short, so the film had to be. There were not decades of plot points to cram in, but only three years. And this is where I make a suggestion for biopic writers with a subject grander than two hours allow: choose a short period within the life or career of this person/band/whatever- preferably the most interesting part- and dramatise it cinematically.

Alternatively, do something conceptual like cast six different actors of alternating gender to represent different stages in the artist's life, a la Todd Haynes' I'm Not There (2007).

Fuck it- do whatever the hell you like.

Just don't forget that cinema is about storytelling- NOT cashing in on somebody's fame by making people pay good money for a glorified video timeline.

Twenty Four

Today I turn twenty four.

I am now officially a man.

There is only one way to express how I feel today...

Dance to the Radio

I've just bought Control (2007) on DVD.

Here is the real Joy Division with Transmission.

How can this not stir something deep within your soul?

All I want for Christmas is...The Road on DVD.

This Christmas I decided to buy The Road (2009) on DVD for pretty much every single member of my family.

Boring? No. Everybody has to see this. It's one of the best adaptations from a novel of the past ten years, maybe more.

Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalypto-depresso follows a man and his young son as they traverse the charred landscape of North America. Their aim: to survive. Of what few people are left on earth, most are desperate and violent. Gangs of cannibals roam around looking for survivors.

John Hillcoat's film evokes every ounce of the novel's escalating desperation. He focusses on the humanity of the characters, drawing mood from the hellish environment on their sombre, almost hopeless journey.

At times the film is horrific. At times it is beautiful.

Not one too cheer you up, though.

I'd strongly advise that you read the novel first. If you're adverse to literature, I can assure you that it is short and the language is very sparing. You don't want to go into the book knowing what happens.

If you're not going to read the book, however, then nothing shall be taken away from your experience of this brilliant, brilliant film.

(psssssssssst! Only six quid in Tescos!)

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp/Edward Scissorhands

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, naff-cinema crime-fighting team, have begun to wither.

In a partnership resembling a prehistoric Hollywood studio contract combined with Manchester United's player loan programme, they've collaborated on seven (soon to be eight) features since the inception of Depp's career in Wes Craven's A Nightmare in Elm Street in 1984.

Their latest, Alice In Wonderland, was the actor/director's first foray into the third dimension; a fluff re-imagination of the classic tale that saw Depp goofing as an imbalanced (both physically and mentally) computer-generated Mad Hatter.

Burton is one of the most imaginative film directors of the last twenty years. Still, the repetition of his choice of actors, which includes wife Helena Bonham Carter, is becoming tedious. No longer are their roles as fresh and bewitching as they used to be, and the style of direction has become- though a trademark- predictable and samey.

Everything started in 1990 with Edward Scissorhands, a darkly comic fairytale about loneliness, exploitation, love, and envy. Brilliantly original in both story and style, it starred Depp as Edward, the 'human' creation of an aged inventor- incomplete but for his hands, instead possessing long, razor sharp shears. Whisked from his tower by an over-empathetic Avon saleswoman he tries his best to fit into the garishly dull suburbia and soon he discovers that his individuality and creativity brings new life to the townsfolk; but not everyone wants him there.

Depp's performance ignited a career that would see him hailed by many as one of the finest actors of our generation and his mug is firmly slapped across the bedroom ceiling of every fifteen-year old girl in Christendom. Brilliant it is. Uttering only something like 172 words during the whole film, he twitches, snips and pouts his socks off, perfecting physical comedy in several hilarious spurts of deranged panic (waterbed+giant scissors= ha ha ha).

Winona Ryder- Burton's pre-Carter kooky gal in residence- knocks socks off as dreamy teenage daughter Kim, for whom Edward falls in... love? Her buttery shhhh-shy voice and puppy dog eyes excuse the daft unconditioned yellow mop, which pales in comparison to the barnets of her neighbours- over-tanned chicken-coop alpha-females shifting out of identikit bungalows.

She could steal from my department store any day, mate!

Following the sublimely macabre Beetlejuice (1988), Burton used this film to cement his screenwriting/directorial style, depicting a combination of the bizarre, the fantastic, the vulnerable, the crazy, and the down right chicken oriental. Additionally, Edward Scissorhands opens with an almost identical shot to the opening of Beetlejuice with a long birds-eye tracking shot over an elaborate model replica of the town setting.

Talking of which, the set design is unbeatable and thank days that this was visualised before the improvement of CG because I just know that it would all have been done the easy way if made today. The various towering hedge sculptures are amazing (and real), though I shall forgive for there not actually being a castle on a giant mountain right next to the set.

Vincent Price gave a memorable last performance in the movie before his sad passing in 1993, his last ever scene ironically being the character of the inventor dying on-screen when presenting Edward with his hands. The role was said to have been written for the actor, who enjoyed a long career- most famously in the horror genre, thanks to his distinctive voice.

The only thing that I don't like about this film is the cheesy bracketing of the story with an old lady Winona telling it in a form of a fairytale to a little girl in a bed ten times too big for her. It's not just the fact that Tim Burton suddenly turns me into a gilf-lover every time I watch this movie, but that it almost ruins the magic of it, you know? 

Sorry, I'm lying. 

I don't like it because when Winona tucks the little girl into bed and it zooms out through the window towards Edward's castle and it's all beautiful and he's there snipping at the ice sculptures and there's one of Kim then Danny Elfman's choral score floats over the top, it soaks up all the love in my soul and I start crying because its so sad that Kim and Edward can't be together.

Oh, all right. Bollocks to you. 

It's really because Me and Winona can't be together, alright? Are you happy now?

Bloody hell.

So what's next for Depp and Burton? Dark Shadows: "a gothic-horror tale centering on the life of vampire Barnabas Collins and his run-ins with various monsters, witches, werewolves and ghosts." Very much Burton territory, but I'm skeptical as to what Depp can bring to this role that he hasn't in previous collaborations. True, his canon contains more variation than a box of quality street, but highly problematic for this actor is that the status of his celebrity makes every role henceforth unmistakably a Johnny Depp Performance. He seems to have lost the ability to disappear into a character, which is exactly what he has been so highly regarded for.

It's the drunk pirate that did that, didn't it!

Anyway, this leads to me to consider other director-actor dream teams over the years (since the studio system that is, when contracts used to stick them together for a determined number of flicks).

Most notably for me has been Martin Scorcese and Robert De Niro's cinematic relationship, though since Gangs of New York Marty's pinned the best mates birthday badge to a rougher, matured Leonardo Di Caprio. Alfred Hitchcock was fond of James Stewart. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg extend beyond movies into producing pals. Christopher Nolan's right hand man looks a lot like Christian Bale.

A good, lasting actor-director combo is a hard thing to find, especially when the artists are both at the top of their game. 

All I'm saying is that I don't want another 'New Tim Burton and Johnny Depp Movie'. I want another great, original movie that you can lose yourself in that is directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp.

Ya dig?