Reviews of films, DVDs and documentaries along with discussion of the current state of the film industry.
Showing posts with label filmmaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label filmmaking. Show all posts
Friday, 12 April 2013
Playground Review
When it is done properly, it is really great, but when it is not done properly, it can sometimes ruin what up until the end can be a great film. Thankfully, Playground is on the side of misdirection done properly. The main character plays upon a lot of the ideas we have about people. As we go along in this film, we make certain assumptions about who he is and the way he live his life. His back story makes you think he is not the best person in the world. That he may be involved in some kind of criminal activity and is getting away with it. Enter the co-star, a young woman who again plays upon how we think about the realities of a young woman that is out at night. With these types of genre, most people have come to expect a twist of some kind. Film entertainment consumers have seen enough movies to know on some level that something is coming. But the mark of a good filmmaker today is in the ability of the filmmaker to keep the audience engaged in the story being told in the moment instead of waiting for the twist.
For Playground, I believe that the filmmaker Mark Kuczewski managed to do that. It is a very well written and shot film with an understanding of the material that it is trying to portray, I look forward to seeing more from them.
Check it out below or more from a lot of filmmakers at Film Annex.
Monday, 8 April 2013
The Garden of Fetish Review
Art is a strange subject these days. People have this idea of the art world and what it should be. However no one seems to have the same idea of what that is. The concept of art, as most people will tell you can be a very subjective thing. What is good for some people is bad art to another. Many people take that to mean that whatever you create with the intention of making art is by extension, itself art. There is a lot of validity in making such an argument. Some of the best art out there today was at one time seen to be strange and disturbing is praised in today’s art scene as classic.
But filmmaking is a different animal, art for the sake of making art, which is an idea held by many filmmakers today, is not necessarily the best approach because not everyone gets art for the sake of art. Many people are put off by it at first and that can be a troubling thing. You can’t wait for an audience to take the time to grow with you and appreciate your art over time in the way that a painting can be seen multiple times and appreciated more over time.
Film is an instant gratification medium in a lot of ways. You have to grab your audience emotionally in the first few minutes or you will lose them for the rest. In short films this is an even shorter period and on the web where most film is going you have seconds because of the volume of content that is out there. So art for the sake of art has trouble attracting an audience if not giving something for the audience to latch onto immediately. The Garden of Fetish attempts to be a commentary on this type of art.
Much like a lot of film entertainment today, it attempts to buck the trend of online film and storytelling by being art for the sake of art. There are definitely a lot of symbolic elements to the story that is attempting to be woven into the film that plays to that but I worry that this type of film does not give an audience what they are looking for emotionally to keep them entertained long term in today’s online entertainment driven culture. It’s a nice little film about the state of the art world today, but I am not entirely sure the filmmaker understands the art world today to speak about it that way.
Still, it is an interesting film and you should check it out if you have a chance. You can also check out more on Film Annex.
Monday, 25 March 2013
The Arctic Circle Review
Holding too much back can also be bad because it will make the audience think there should have been more to the story and the filmmaker just is not very good at telling a story. Neither could be entirely accurate, however in the world of film entertainment perception is reality. What people think you are doing is what people will assume you are doing and that can be bad if what you are doing makes the audience feel one of those two things. The Arctic Circle in a lot of ways suffers from both of these things at various points in the film, partly because it does one and then the other.
At the beginning of this film there is a clear attempt to explain the story as it goes along despite it being a film without dialogue. As a result when the film stops doing that later in the short it becomes somewhat disconcerting and you are left wondering why it did not continue. Still, one of the benefits of doing a film that is entirely silent, animated or not, is that most of the action and story happens visually. Even though it switches gears halfway through it still manages to tell a very simple and honest story about the reality of the world.
It is still worth watching. Check it out below or at Film Annex.
Monday, 11 March 2013
For a Gold Nugget More Review
Which is not to say that the CGI and cool camera angles don’t do a lot for people after all they would not have been created and they wouldn’t still be used if people weren’t interested in watching movies like that. They can be some of the most entertaining films out there. But with all the flash and bang, filmmakers today have to rediscover the art of subtlety and ambiance. Otherwise we lose the substance of the story and turns people off.
For a Gold Nugget More is a film made by a filmmaker that understands this simplicity principle. Remi Parisse & Antoine Kinget have taken to heart these ideas and produced a simple short animated film that plays off people’s basic ideas and needs. A gold farmer digging for a piece of gold and a brutish simpleton conspires to take it from him. Most people above a certain age understand the concept of money and the desire for it, and there is no shortage of people looking for the opportunity to take it in the easiest way possible.
In the way of both of them is a simple sheep that acts more like the dog Gromit then an actual sheep. But again, we have the filmmakers playing off a basic element of human nature. The need for companionship and the cute nature of animals, you don’t get more simple then that. And yet the film has an element of sophistication with it in the way it presents the animated film. These are the kind of people that should do well in the industry over the long term.
Check it out below and you can see more at Film Annex.
Friday, 8 March 2013
Biotech 8 Review
In a lot of ways, making movies today is the same way. How you say or do something in a film is a key component of film entertainment. The wrong word or phrase from an actor, whether it is scripted or not, can completely change the way a scene is thought of from the audience perspective. This is something that you have to be aware of when making something artistic, no matter what type of film genre you are working in. An upbeat moment in a horror movie only works if you do it in the right way.
Biotech 8 has in a lot of ways failed in this respect. There is a political undertone which over powers the comedy aspect a little too much. It begins as a traditional send up of a commercial. It makes fun of the corporate structure and the way people perceive some workers, but the genetically modified aspect goes a little too far. There could be other ways to deal with that subject without going the genetically modified way.
But more than that it turns into something akin to a horror movie at around the halfway mark and then tries to dig itself out of that at the end but never manages to get there. The tone is somewhat inconsistent. The politics of the film do not mesh with the attempt at comedy, which is not to say that it is not funny. It does have some moments that someone like me who is big on politics would find funny but they don`t really translate beyond that in my opinion.
It falls flat. It is trying too hard to be a comedy to really deal with the politics of the situation of either genetically modified foods or corporate views. And it is too political and takes too much of a dark turn to be really funny.
I think the filmmaker should focus on one or the other and there is a good chance that they will succeed at one or the other, or both.
Check out more at Film Annex.
Friday, 1 March 2013
TiM Review
Tim Burton has a particular type of style. When he first came onto the film scene and people noticed him, it was definitely something we hadn’t really seen before. He brought us dark tales of stories we had previously thought we understood so well. Some might say it even changed the way we are making movies today. He might have even created his own film genre. Most would agree that he was a power house in the film and entertainment industry once upon a time, a title that might not really apply to him today.
The fact that he was so prolific made him saturated and sought after. As a result, people aren’t as interested in what he does anymore. But needless to say his saturation inspired a whole group of young people to go into filmmaking. His work in animation in particular managed to get people to take the art form seriously in a way that hadn’t been.
One such person appears to be the writer of TiM. A cute little film very clearly inspired by the great Tim Burton. A black and white stop motion animation piece with an obvious understanding of what made the Burbank native great. The voice over poetry being used is both smart and simple enough to get to both an adult audience and a younger or child focused audience.
The short is simple in its story about a young boy who just doesn’t fit in with other people. Any child watching this would either understand exactly what Tim is going through or learn to treat their classmates better. But they do a great job making it great for older filmmakers as well. The rhyming of the poetry as a voice over is fun and not repetitive the way some poetry can be.
Overall it is a great little film that anyone who is looking for a good animator should get involved with. I say see it.
You can also find more at Film Annex.
Monday, 11 February 2013
DiD Review
Which is why it is so controversial. It is extremely hard to prove as existing and only happens in rare cases. And that makes it an interesting case for filmmakers to use. Interesting but like the disorder itself, hard to truly pull off. More often then not filmmakers use a green screen to make it work. The ability to use green screen and use a single person for multiple personalities is an effective technique when the story calls for a split in a character's moral code. You just have to give the audience something to distinguish between the two sides of the character's conflict.
More recently there have been a number of shows which try to use that technique to talk about DiD and it can be very effective when used properly. Unfortunately, I don't think that DiD really uses it properly. The motivations of the differing personalities is somewhat unclear. One is angry at their mother, one does not speak and the other is trying to honor their mother's memory. But the question is why?
That is never full explored in this film. Something happened to them, that much is obvious and they are conflicted about how to deal with it. But why? The fact that they are able to use green screen towards the end of this film suggests that they had the ability to do something more difficult and knew enough to make it work but they did not.
More dialogue between the differing personalities would have make it work much better in my opinion. The description explains more about what is happening in the film then the film itself. If you came to it completely blind without the description you would be very much confused as to what is going on.
Even still, it is a very ambitious film, both from a film and script perspective. I just think with a little more work it would have been even better.
Agree? Disagree? Find out below:
You can also find more like this at Film Annex.
Friday, 11 January 2013
Echoes of Innocence Review
Circumstances and technology will change over time, but high school is always just… well… high school. No one likes it, and if you ask some people no one ever really leaves it as you can look at the world and see elements of it in every day life. While watching Echoes of Innocence, I get the impression that the circumstances of today's high school student seems to be ideology. What is belief's place in the high school experience of today? Is there a place for religion and faith in the modern public system? Most people would be turned off by such an idea, but those questions in a lot of ways are more like themes to the film that are creeping around the sides of the film's main plot, much like the background scenery of the visuals or the setting of high school itself. The real story is driven by the character of Sara, a young girl who feels out of place and somewhat ostracized from her classmates. Reasons why are pretty clearly defined through a series of flashbacks which lay out who she is and why she acts the way she does. That coupled with a number of voice overs from Sara herself make her the most interesting character of the bunch, which include her best friend who is both supportive and critical, various classmates who are both put off and intrigued by her, and the new kid in school who joined the local paper and wants to do a story about Sara.
They all play a part in Sara's story but the characters themselves don't necessarily get clearly defined. More often then not they are inserted into Sara's story when necessary to give her someone to interact with. Her own journey is very much a solitary one, defined by her own actions and her own ideas about the world and what she wants from it rather then how she relates to others. This drags down the story somewhat but Sara's progression is defined clearly enough that she manages power through the weak bits. It gives her story the necessary elements not to be bored by it. Obvious parallels to Biblical elements are present but the filmmakers clearly pulled back enough so as not to come off like a preachy film. I'm honestly not sure whether that causes a problem for the film or whether it helps. I suppose it's 50/50 in that department. Still, I think the film is worth watching for anyone who wants to look back and remember the way they saw the world when they were that age. Perhaps give you a new perspective on the vision you have of the world today. I say check it out.
You can find it on Amazon, Google Play and Youtube.
Friday, 4 January 2013
Shaking Dreamland Review
It's a hard movie to watch, and not just because a problem with story and camera work. The subject matter is also really difficult. A film about a recently married man who discovers some dark things about his past and his family as he starts his own. What he discovers, which I won't spoil for anyone, would be hard for anyone to spend time watching. It's clear the filmmakers who made Shaking Dreamland aren't afraid to tackle tough issues, and that can be a good thing. Too often movies that come out these days tend to tread on old familiar territory, things like love, career, and crime.
None of these stories are present in Shaking Dreamland. They are touched on briefly here and there but the bulk of the story focuses on the more sensitive issues that are brought up. Whether they are dealt with well or not I will leave up to people who have actually experienced such things in their lives. That's not for me to say. But what I can say is that I learned something from watching this film, and that's never a bad thing. I hope that you can learn something from it too, whether you're a filmmaker or not.
You can find it at Amazon, Google Play and Youtube.
Friday, 23 November 2012
Can the Canadian Film Industry go commercial?
Don't get me wrong,
the film industry is incredibly artistic, even in Hollywood (you can read my
thoughts on that here and here). With all the creativity and thought that goes into just
producing something worth selling there has to be art involved. Otherwise it
wouldn't be interesting or beautiful or funny or whatever it is that the art is
supposed to be. But people don't always pay money for something that's
beautiful or funny or interesting. Often times the best, most beautiful things
in the world are the things you don't pay money for. At least not in any direct
sense. But an industry that's built upon the idea of getting people to sit down
in a dark room and watch something has to be built on the incentive to do so.
That incentive is usually that it's worth paying money for.
So why is it that the Canadian film industry is so concerned with the art of it all? Trying to be the opposite of Hollywood's big business model by focusing on our culture and identity that we insist is so different from our neighbors to the south. Yet despite that we live with the contradiction that we can't compete with Hollywood and the big business model. We all want the money and the fame that comes with a big Hollywood business model but have a problem with doing what we need to in order to make that happen.
Last night, I went to
see Cinecoup present a pitch to the Canadian film industry in Toronto about how
to change all that. Putting forward a business plan that in a sense sounds like
a Hollywood idea but has its own unique Canadian twist to it. And it's a great
idea. Canada needs to think more like Hollywood in its approach to film and
this will definitely move the yard stick forward to thinking in those terms.
The problem I see is that I don't think it will move the yard stick far enough
forward to really make a difference. For many in the Canadian film industry it
will be a shock to their system. It's a plan designed to get people to think
about the bigger picture. To think about where your film will ultimately end up
before you even put a pen to paper, metaphorically speaking, and to care about
whether it might actually make money.
I love the idea, I want to be involved, and I may even apply with my own project if I can put it together. But I worry that there won't be a round two for the business model. Canadians for all their talk about a difference in culture and the pride of their heritage have a much bigger culture with a lot more pride in their culture beaming content into their laps at an alarming speed. The kind of culture and pride that at least on the surface appears to appeal universally enjoyed.
I love the idea, I want to be involved, and I may even apply with my own project if I can put it together. But I worry that there won't be a round two for the business model. Canadians for all their talk about a difference in culture and the pride of their heritage have a much bigger culture with a lot more pride in their culture beaming content into their laps at an alarming speed. The kind of culture and pride that at least on the surface appears to appeal universally enjoyed.
Can the Canadian Film
Industry go commercial? I think it can, and recent changes suggests that it is
moving in that direction. But I don't know that the speed of the industry is
fast enough to really warrant this kind of program.
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
Moon Review: There are many sides to the Moon, which side are you on?
This was the case with Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl, Ryan Reynolds in Buried, and most recently Sam Rockwell in Moon. Another film in my long list of movies that I always meant to see but never got around to until now and again things are interesting. Where Moon is different from the previously mentioned films is that it used a visual effect to tell a major part of the story. Mainly that Sam Rockwell played several (two specifically) distinct versions of his character to play off of. This technique is one that is used often these days when dealing with characters who are twins or multiple characters.
The first time I remember this occurring is in The Nutty Professor with Eddie Murphy playing his character’s entire family with various prosthetics, but since then it has been used in movies like The Matrix, The Social Network, as well as TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville and the recently cancelled Ringer. This can be a really effective technique if used in the right way. It can also go horribly wrong if not done properly. Unfortunately I have seen both in the multitude of films and television that I watch. When it comes to Moon, I think that it is used properly. Through most of the film I had my concerns, but as things progressed I was able to understand why they did it.
And that’s true of things not limited to the use of the doubling visual effect when it comes to this movie. The story centers around the character of Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell), a man on a three year contract to harvest the moon’s resources for clean energy that can be used on Earth. One of the main things that bugged me about the film is the idea of a single person on a moon base. If you’re going to put a mining camp on the moon why have only one person running it? This, along with most of my questions about the film, gets answered by the end and I am left generally satisfied with the story as a whole.
What really hits home for me more than anything though is the performance of Rockwell. He manages to make two versions of himself very much distinct in their mannerisms and approaches to the situations they face that you might almost believe they were entirely different people despite their obvious similarities. The only other character to play off is the full on robotic helper droid GERTY, played through voice work by the great Kevin Spacey. And even there Mr. Spacey is able to bring a certain amount of nuance to an inanimate object that has you questioning the robot’s motives much in the way that you did in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This movie is a perfect example of how acting can make or break a film. And in the case of Moon, I definitely think it makes the film.
There are many sides to the Moon, which side are you on? I honestly could tell you because they all make such a great case.Wednesday, 31 October 2012
Another Earth Review: If you had the chance, would you go to Another Earth?
We all have questions about things. About our past, our future and how the things we do affect our lives and the people around us. But most of all we wonder if we had made different choices would our lives be different? Could we live in a world in which we could do that? These types of ideas are so often considered by time travel stories. After all, it is the perfect medium to explore such an idea as that kind of ability remains beyond our reach. Dramas too have it in them to talk about the consequences of actions and how we deal with the world. To combine the sci-fi and the drama then can often be one of the best ways of telling a story.
Another Earth is one such story. It’s one of those smaller, independent films that got a bit of traction but never managed to materialize as a strong contender in its theatrical release. I think it’s because of the sci-fi element that it had more trouble then it probably should have. Despite the emergence of fan culture in recent years and a vested interest in sci-fi fantasy as a more respected form of entertainment, largely thanks to recent portrayals of superheroes in big blockbuster films coming out of Hollywood studios, sci-fi fantasy is still generally looked down upon in the filmmaking community. Unless it comes out of Hollywood, or sometimes despite that fact, it’s seen as popular with a specific group of people but not respectable with a larger audience.
What’s interesting about Another Earth is that it in some ways attempts not to be a sci-fi film despite the basic premise of it. The story follows a young girl who makes an unfortunate mistake in her youth and struggles to come to terms with how she can live with herself afterwards. That in and of itself is a story worth its weight in gold if told properly in the independent film community. However where it most likely loses a lot of people is the fact that it’s set against the backdrop of a world where another earth has been discovered in space near our own. Even though the concept of the film isn’t hindered in any way by the idea of another earth and in many ways is not central to the story, I think it keeps people from considering a really great film.
Yes, the film did fairly well at the box office for what it did. With a budget of $200,000 the film made $1 million plus, but when I talk to non-filmmakers about it they haven’t really heard of it, and in some cases even filmmakers have no idea what I am talking about. I even failed to see it in theatres even though I heard about it months ahead of time and had planned on it since the beginning. And that’s a real shame, because having finally found a copy of it on Blu-ray, I can say that it was well worth the money I paid for it.
The story is simply told and the characters are pretty solid despite the fact that you don’t really get to know much about them. What sells it is the fact that the two main characters are very much focused on a single event, an event which we witness in the film so we understand exactly where each of them is coming from and why they do the things they do.
I actually had an idea that was somewhat similar to this in that it was a sci-fi fantasy story which centered around a single event or idea but I wasn’t certain it would work. After watching this film, I can honestly say my opinion has changed and I am going to have to take a crack at it.
If you had the chance, would you go to Another Earth? I think I’ll leave the bigger question up to you, but maybe this film will help you make up your mind.
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Machete Review: Would you like a Machete?
Then you have those films that you’re not entirely sure how to feel about them. The films that you know have a good reputation and a loyal fan base but you never really got around to seeing. I have a number of such films on a rather long metaphorical list, some of which I have actually checked out after starting my blog. One of those films is Machete and I recently got a chance to see it thanks to my ongoing quest for content I can provide to my blog. It feels really good to get that kind of stuff off my “to do” list.
Perhaps to begin, I think it’s worth saying that I am a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s work. Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2, as well as Inglorious Basterds are high up there on the list of films I really admire as both an avid film fan and a writer/filmmaker myself. I wouldn’t count myself as one of his biggest fans though. While I enjoy his films I sometimes have trouble dealing with the gratuitous nature of the violence in his work. I’m not opposed to violence in film. I’m not even necessarily opposed to excessive violence in films as long as it serves the story. What often bothers me is when the violence is a little too over the top for it to serve the story. Suspension of disbelief is a necessary part of watching a movie, but unrealistic violence, even the kind that is intentionally created within the world of the story, can be just as damaging to my ability to believe something as a character or an actor acting unnaturally in a given situation.
Robert Rodriguez is someone I am less familiar with as a storyteller, although he did make two films that I very much enjoyed, namely Sin City and The Faculty. Watching Machete however, I think it often came off like a Tarantino film directed by another director, and that’s not always a good thing. This is not to say that Machete isn’t a well done film. By all accounts the story is relatively solid, the acting was decent and the political angle is pretty much right up my alley. Where I think the film loses me though is that it’s just not my kind of film. Grindhouse films aren’t something I really ever got into at any point and Machete was an off-shoot of the whole Planet Terror/Death Proof double bill. Not every great film from the past catches my fancy. About a year or so back I managed to catch Scarface for the first time and I got kind of bored watching it.
By no means was I bored watching Machete, however it feels like they made their point early on in the film and then just kept going, and going, and going. The only thing that kept it going is the increasing need for violence to solve people’s problems. That and beautiful women going around doing stuff. As a guy, that’s worth watching, but as a storyteller it just doesn’t keep me going. So…
Would you like a Machete? Because I am thinking I might just pass on the sequels.
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
What exactly do actors want?
This is a question I have been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve been trying to figure it out for years but recently the question has become a lot more important to understand. Like most creative people, actors are a varied group with different ideas and preferences of what they do and don’t want to do as an actor or actress. But they’ve all chosen essentially the same field, acting. They may come at it from different ways, some are film and television, some are interested in the web and others are theatre focused. And there are even different techniques for getting into those fields, all of which I have looked into in order to understand the way an actor approaches each and why, with varying results.
To focus the main question though, I want to try and put forward some of the conclusions I have come to and sort of put it to other people to tell me if I am right or wrong, and perhaps where I can modify my ideas to gain a better focus.
First and foremost, actors want to work in their field. It seems rather obvious to put forward that idea but I know so many actors who are passionate about the craft and expend an incredible amount of energy, creative or otherwise, trying to get to a point where they can afford to act 24/7 and live off that. A lot of people in a creative field can say that about themselves, but as it was put to me recently, actors are in front of the camera and in some cases that can cause problems because more than anything, the optics of being too visible can make them less in demand. I imagine that’s part of the reason that Hollywood actors don’t take every role they are offered, as I am sure once you get to a certain point you’re offered more than you can handle.
Secondly, they look for work in something
they can emotionally connect to when they take it on. This is where I think
actors tend to differ from others in some ways. When a grip or a P.A. or even
to some extent, directors, writers and DOPs takes on a role, they don’t
necessarily have to emotionally connect to the material. It’s better when
writers and directors do because it shows in the work eventually, but with actors
the ability to feel the character’s feelings or draw upon something that will
express a similar feeling is such a central part to what they do that in many
cases they have to go about creating their own content just to find something
that has what they want.
And this is where I have the most trouble
figuring actors out. I know how to emotionally connect to my own material and
create characters that are, I hope, emotionally nuanced and interesting to an
audience. But between me and the audience are the actors who bring the
characters to life for that audience. Since I can’t go about sending my scripts
to every actor I meet and/or connect with, I’ve been trying to figure out how
to express the characters in a few sentences or a short paragraph. This is what’s
keeping me up at night recently and I figured blogging about it might help me
figure it out.
So far I am not really sure I have figured
it out. Are there some elements to a character description that just pop out at
actors? Are there certain types of characters that are just naturally popular
among actors or is it all an individual preference? Should I just take a shot
in the dark and hope for the best?
What exactly do actors want?
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Discuss: Why not superhero movies for our up and coming filmmakers?
A short while ago, I posted an article someone wrote that talked about the idea of new and upcoming filmmakers taking on superhero films as a way of financing smaller projects and whether or not that’s a good thing. Many of the details of the article suggest that having filmmakers, up and coming or not, doing superhero movies is a problem. That they should use their success to fuel more independent projects then superhero films. One of the examples given is Darren Aronofsky going from the success of Black Swan into his ultimately canceled participation in The Wolverine, a loosely based sequel to the film X-men Origins: Wolverine.
But why should that matter? If Aronofsky or any other filmmaker who takes on a superhero project is doing so because they care about the material and want to use their independent success on a superhero film, then shouldn’t we let them? Of course, if the filmmakers are only taking on these projects because of the paycheck and don’t really care about the film then I can understand having a problem with it. But the Hollywood system which is creating all these films isn’t really at fault for letting someone take on a project of that magnitude if they believe the filmmaker can do the characters justice.
After all, a superhero project does have enormous potential for the filmmaker in question, and I am not just talking about the paycheck or the box office boom that comes with it if the filmmakers do it properly. In some of my recent blog posts I have spoken about the idea of superheroes as a modern mythology, the idea that there are all kinds of disparate elements to the superhero story that can cross genres and be relevant to even non superhero fans. This has never been more true than in what I am talking about now. Consider for a moment, the idea of Superman. Some look at a character like that and just see an alien with powers and outdated ideals, but I see the ultimate immigrant story.
Superman is the modern retelling of the story of Moses. A child set among the intergalactic river to live with a new family, who grows up and develops incredible powers to set people free from the pain and suffering they go through every day. Batman is the story of Hamlet, a man struck by tragedy that swears vengeance against the person or people who destroyed his father and ends up consumed by it. Spiderman in some ways is a combination of both. The stories of Moses and Hamlet are considered by many to be universal truths. Why not then their modern equivalents?
Many comic books have dealt with a story similar to that of Black Swan, yet Aronofsky should be praised for one and looked down upon for another? This goes back to the bias or stereotype which some filmmakers have about the potential for superheroes or comic books in modern storytelling, a problem which largely comes out of the fact that these films have to come from Hollywood because they are too big to be played out anywhere else. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. To point this out, I need only to paraphrase a quote from Joss Whedon, a man who not only created one of the biggest films of all time and a monster at the box office, but during his spare time in the filming of which he directed and self-financed a film in 12 days based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
“The film industry has become very much about the big budget blockbuster or the small indie film, there isn’t really an in between anymore. There is no real middle ground, and I’m cool with that. I love doing both.”
And so I say, why not superhero movies for our up and coming filmmakers?
Saturday, 15 September 2012
Why did TIFF go younger this year?
The answer to most of those questions is yes, all with the exception the last one. Mainly because I’m not sure they need to do anything about it. Long time patrons of the festival might look at the people involved in this year’s films and say why do we need to appeal to a younger audience? Why do we need films starring Kristen Stewart, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens? Aren’t they all just attention grabbing Disney stars with no real talent? First and foremost I would say that anyone who insists upon saying such things probably hasn’t taken the time to actually watch any of the work of any such stars and I am a big believer in the idea that you can’t judge a person’s talent if you haven’t taken the time to give it a shot.
I’ve actually seen some of their work, including some of the films I mentioned earlier, and I would say that they have real talent. It’s a little on the rough side in some areas but they aren’t supposed to be seasoned veterans of the craft because they aren’t yet old enough to have put in the kind of time a seasoned veteran would need to appear as such. Plus in looking at some of these films, they may have actually done so. They’ve been given the opportunity in many of these films to stretch their acting muscles and turned in pretty good performances.
Some might say that TIFF has to be careful not to alienate its core audience of filmmakers. But who’s to say they did? “On The Road”, while starring Kristen Stewart, is based on a Jack Kerouac novel. Hardly the tween fluff she is often accused of doing. As I said in my review, Spring Breakers was a film by Harmony Korine maker of such films as “Kids”, not exactly someone known for creating films that teenagers are encouraged to see. In fact Selena Gomez actually encouraged her younger fans not to see it given its more adult content, even as hundreds of younger girls sat in the audience after the screening while she said it. These are not exactly films which betray many of the ideas that TIFF built its reputation on.
Even if it were, why is that so wrong? I’ve said it before and I will say it again, film is not a uniform media. It’s not required to conform to a particular idea of what a good film is or who should be in such films. Some filmmakers and their films may present themselves that way, but that’s only one of many narratives available to creators in the visual arts. The most prominent narrative is that film is a reflection of society, and if TIFF wishes to stay true to that above anything else, then it has to be willing to broaden its appeal to more than just its core audience.
TIFF has to stay relevant to the audiences of today and not all of them are 30+ filmmakers who remember Sylvester Stallone as Rocky instead of The Expendables. At a certain point you have to recognize the bigger audience and figure out if you can appeal to them as much as those you admire.
Why did TIFF go younger this year? I think that much is obvious.
Thursday, 13 September 2012
How far should you go for Mr. Viral?
It goes without saying that I see a lot of films, except for the fact that I just finished saying it. I’ve seen some really good films, some really bad films, and films that fall somewhere in between. Being a filmmaker I have seen films that have started from scratch and had trouble getting traction with an audience, I have seen films go from concept to production and then disappear into oblivion. I’ve even had occasions where films have gone on to do really well. It’s hard to tell what audiences will react to, whether positive or negative, but there are certain fundamental things which we all generally react positively to.
Mr. Viral understands this quite well. After all, it’s a film about marketing. More specifically it’s about viral marketing and the effectiveness of promoting things on the internet. It’s also written and directed by a man who spent years of his life in the marketing industry, the great Alex Boothby. I would be disappointed if he didn’t understand the basics of impulse control and how to manipulate it. What’s interesting is that as much as the film is about that side of ourselves and the potential dangers that giving in to such impulses, for profit or otherwise, the filmmakers clearly attempt to prey upon some of those basic desires within its audience as well.
For all the sex and violence and exploitation that a lot of the characters go through or have done to them, the film itself is not gratuitous. So much of what goes on that would turn the film from an R rated film to an NC-17 rating is off screen or implied more than anything. The characters get more and more depraved as the story moves forward, yet we as the audience are never entirely given a full view into just how far things have gone. Which is exactly what most filmmakers should do, particularly a former marketing guy turned filmmaker.
The story moves along quickly enough that you’re always wondering what’s going to happen next and yet you spend more than enough time with each character that you actually care and kind of worry about what will happen to them. Even as some of the characters become less and less likeable, you still care enough about them to worry about what they have gotten themselves into. This is great as well because, having read one of the earlier scripts, I wasn’t sure that they were going to achieve that. After seeing the finished product though I can see that they clearly had a vision and a focus that I didn’t really plug into at the time.
What’s interesting to me as well is that I can actually see this film being a much bigger movie if it couldn’t be done. And this is not said to detract or to be critical the film or the people involved, the actors and filmmakers did a fantastic job and I really do hope that this launches their careers, but in numerous places I could see characters being played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, or Mary Steenburgen or Wallace Shawn. I hope that the people involved take that as a compliment, because it’s intended to be. This isn’t a film that comes off like a bunch of guys with a video camera trying to make it in the industry. It comes off like a group of filmmakers with the potential to handle a big Hollywood project. I have no doubt that when it goes to the Calgary film festival and beyond it will be enjoyed by all.
How far should you go for Mr. Viral? As far as you can take it. This film is going to turn some heads, and most of the heads are going to turn to the filmmakers and ask... what’s next?
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
In brightest day, in blackest night, where should Green Lantern shine his light next?
I had the occasion to take a look at Green Lantern again
recently through my ongoing DVD rentals for this blog and I thought I would do
something a little different this time. Part of what I am going to do is review
the film itself but I am also going to talk about what I think should be the
next step in DC Comics and Warner Brothers attempts to get a cinematic universe
off the ground, because I believe that in order to get anywhere, they do have
to include Green Lantern in the process.
Recently, Zack Snyder, director of the highly anticipated
Man of Steel was asked about the possibility of a bigger plan like what Marvel
did with The Avengers stemming from the afore mentioned Superman movie Man of
Steel. He said that at the moment Warner Brothers and DC Comics were more
interested in getting their cinematic superhero characters in order before
looking into something like that but that they were open to it. And with recent
reports of attempts to get a Justice League movie off the ground, one can only
assume that the idea of where this all might be heading is in the executive
minds. But I think he was right to say that they need to get their cinematic
superhero house in order first.
This is evident by taking a look at things like Superman
Returns and Green Lantern, they may have been really well done but they left
much to be desired from both non-fans and fans alike given their general
reception. They did well in the theatres but in the world of superhero movies,
doing well at the box office just isn’t good enough. You only need to look as
far as Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Legend trilogy to see what it’s like to
do well at the box office AND be widely praised by anyone who might go to the
theatre. Green Lantern had such a problem. I thought very well of it as someone
who doesn’t know the character that well but is a big fan of superheroes, but I
didn’t love it. As a filmmaker, I could see many of the things that they were
trying to do and in some places they succeeded, but overall the story elements
just didn’t click as well as they needed to so that they could really shine.
Where I think they ultimately failed is in the use of fear
as their primary driving theme. It’s a great theme as many who went to see
Batman Begins will attest to, but it’s because of its use in Batman Begins that
it ended up falling flat. They wanted to show that fear was not the only
element or tactic that you need to use in order to be a hero, but the
characters were so often bogged down by fears that were never really
articulated well enough that they made a serious impact on the story. Not to
mention, fear is not the only emotion that needs to be put forward when doing a
Green Lantern movie. Recent years in the comics have introduced numerous other
Lantern Corps based on different elements of the emotional spectrum. I am by no
means suggesting that you should come out of the gate with all these different
Corps in a new movie, but the elements were all there in the previous movie.
There was love, hope, courage, greed, anger, compassion, and potentially even
life and death.
All of these other elements took a backseat to fear,
although there has been some suggestion that the others might make an
appearance in future installments, as a way of in some ways seeming to compete
with Batman and the powerful themes and ideals that are pervasive in
Christopher Nolan’s films even if that wasn’t their intention. This was a
mistake, and one they need to rectify if they are going to move beyond their
fear of Batman being their only superhero at the box office.
Will power, or the will to act, is often either fueled by or creates a bi-product of emotion. If I have felt the power of love, I find the will to act out of love. If I have felt anger, I find the will to act out of anger. And often doing so leads to other emotions from which to draw strength. All these elements were in the film but were not fully realized in the story itself. So I say...
In brightest day, in
blackest night, where should Green Lantern shine his light next? Into a broader
emotional spectrum of themes.
Will power, or the will to act, is often either fueled by or creates a bi-product of emotion. If I have felt the power of love, I find the will to act out of love. If I have felt anger, I find the will to act out of anger. And often doing so leads to other emotions from which to draw strength. All these elements were in the film but were not fully realized in the story itself. So I say...
Friday, 17 August 2012
Who wants to get Buried?
I’ve had the opportunity to rent a few DVDs recently and catch up on quite a few films that slipped through my gaze in the past few years. So I thought I would take a moment and review them. The first film of the bunch that got buried in my sub-conscious is the aptly named “Buried”, a film that seems ambitious from the get-go.
For those that didn’t hear about it when it came out, the film stars Ryan Reynolds as a truck driver in Iraq whose convoy gets attacked and they bury him so that he can be used for ransom by his kidnappers. What’s most ambitious about the film is that it takes place entirely within the coffin that Paul Conroy (the obviously stressed Ryan Reynolds) was in. There are a lot of film directors who focus on creating the right shot and for the right emotion, with the right lighting and colors to create that shot. In most movies that’s a fundamental aspect for the storytelling process, and to some extent that’s true of this film too. More important though in Buried is the performance of Ryan Reynolds. Truly this is a film built for an actor’s study.
How else do you explain a film about a man in a 6 foot box fir over 90 minutes being such a riveting piece of film? It’s a terrifying thing, watching a man struggling to deal with the reality of his situation. He starts off bound and blind to what happened to him, much as we, the audience, are coming into this. Slowly but surely we watch as, even trapped in a coffin buried under mountains of dirt and rock, things keep getting worse for him. Watching the truth of the situation unfold is unlike most films out there today. Many films, particularly horror films, rely on what’s just around the corner or the unknown to tell a story, and to some extent so does this film. But the beauty of “Buried” is that in some ways they are both the same thing. The uncertainty and the danger of the situation Paul Conroy is in, exists entirely in your head and where it might go stays there on the edge of your seat with you.
It goes without saying that Ryan Reynolds can be viewed as an unusual choice for a role that relies so heavily on the acting chops of the main actor. His most well known roles tend to be the romantic comedy kind and people don’t really associate them with great acting. But in this film, he proves that he is up to any challenge that might come at him. Does that mean he will always choose the right film or that the script will be up to the standards necessary to bring out such a performance? No, but when that great script does come along that lets him punch above the weight of other actors, boy does he have it in him.
It’s unfortunate that a film such as this seems to have flown under the radar for as long as it did, there are a lot of great things about it. But I can kind of understand why because of how uninteresting a film like this can seem to most people. Single shot movies tend to have the same problem so I can see how a film shot in a single location could have trouble finding an audience, not to mention the huge blockbuster that is Green Lantern (in the sense of money spent, if not in box office returns) which Ryan Reynolds also starred in which was released around the same time.
Who wants to get “Buried”? You should, or at the very least you should go looking for the film and dig it up from wherever it might be hiding.
Friday, 10 August 2012
Is the film industry being purposely ironic?
Recently I have read my fair share of articles and blogs talking about story telling in the film industry. Many of the discussions focus on the fact that there are too many sequels, prequels and remakes coming out lately. They talk about how Hollywood is creatively bankrupt and only cares about money. One of the newest articles I read started by asking if the film industry and Hollywood was out of original ideas? The irony of the article being that writing an article about a lack of originality in Hollywood is becoming less and less original the more it happens.
People talk, at length, about how terrible the new dynamic of Hollywood is and how it destroys creativity in the industry. Now I’m not above recognizing some of the films out there have problems. There are some pretty terrible films out there. I have even been known to get critical of really popular films, and recognizing that films that I’ve previously loved don’t end up aging very well. It’s not the prettiest thing in the world, even if many of the actors and actresses do. But I think it’s a mistake to think that this is a systemic thing that can’t be or doesn’t want to be fixed.
Film is not a uniform art. Heck, art is not a uniform art. There are many ways to go about it, many ways in which to tell a story. Independent or Hollywood, we in the arts all understand that, but if “new and original” ideas are the bench mark of good storytelling, then we pretty much bottomed out on original ideas three hundred years ago. And even then we were living on borrowed time. To use my previous review of The Amazing Spiderman as an example, just because a Spiderman has been done before doesn’t mean that the new film doesn’t have value, that there isn’t a story worth telling in the Spiderman character. Superheroes are the mythology of the modern age and there are so many different versions of them over the years, the films should be viewed the same.
Does that make them creatively bankrupt, or does it make the characters emotionally and creatively complex? There’s a prevailing belief within many storytellers that film peaked in the 1970s and things have been going downhill since then. But take a look at some of the films from that era and somewhat before. “West Side Story” is a musical version of “Romeo and Juliet”. ”It’s a Wonderful Life” is basically a retelling of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. “Scarface” from 1983 is a more violent remake of a 1932 film of the same name. “The Wizard of Oz” is basically the same story as “Alice in Wonderland”. The films many people in the film industry view as original ideas aren’t original at all. Yet for some reason, this time it’s different.
Many people say that the reason it’s different is because the studio system has changed. That the big time corporations that now own film studios have turned them into money making monsters who only care about profit. But is that actually the case? From what I understand the popularity of “Casablanca” prompted the studios to talk about making a sequel for it. The availability of the actors involved made it hard to do but the thought still crossed the studios minds. It would seem the only major difference between 1942 and today is that studios actually plan ahead of time for sequels and find actors who are willing to consider doing them. That isn’t really much of a change in my opinion. If anything it just means that studios are becoming better planners.
And on the subject of sequels and prequels, one needs only to look at what is often referred to as film’s redheaded step child, television, to see examples of why there are so many these days. Some stories simply can’t be contained within a 90 minute time frame. Or even a 2-3 hour time frame. Television has been known to tell a story over up to 25 hours split into individual episodes. Yet people complain that stories are being told over several films? And if it’s such a problem, why are so many major Hollywood filmmakers and actors moving into television these days?
Now I will admit there are some films that don’t need sequels. There are some films that lose something because a sequel or prequel is made of the original film. I am not big on sequels like “The Matrix Reloaded”, “The Crow: City of Angels”, and the rather extensive amount of direct-to-DVD sequels to films like “Bring It On” or “American Pie”. Not to mention all the different horror films with less than decent films. But you also have films like “The Dark Knight”, “Back to the Future: Part 2” and “Superman II”, all of which have improved on the original and did great things.
For every bad sequel or prequel out there in the film industry, there are all sorts of examples of really great ones. So when I read a blog or hear someone talk about the endless parade of sequels, prequels and remakes I can’t help but wonder where all the hate is coming from. Originality is a state of mind, not a formula. It’s not the amount of money you can put into a production. It’s about emotional honesty. Any film can be great if the filmmakers care about the material and are on the same page creatively. But I continually hear about how independent film is better than Hollywood. About how creatively bankrupt and out of originality it can be. The influx of opinions that all sound the same is so much that I just have to ask...
Is the film industry being purposely ironic?
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