Anticipated films of 2010!

OK well I’ll talk some crap about the some films this year that are intended to be big hitters at the cinema.

Starting off is:

The Wolfman (12/02/10)

Wolf

A remake of the classic original Werewolf story. I liked the trailer however for some reason it doesn’t interest me that much, but I wouldn’t seeing it if I had time (and an orange wednesday ticket).

Watch Trailer

The Last Airbender (13/08/10)

M. Night Shyamalan.

Ok Well i don’t know much about this, but it’s based on a popular anime show “Avatar: The Last Airbender” British favourite Dev Petal is back on our screens in a higher budget film, but probably less serious than his depiction of an Indian Slumdog. However apart from the fancy teaser and the impressive actor, I can’t help but think how bad Shyamalan’s films have been since 6th Sense. They have all gotten progressively worse, but will that end with his previous and excruciatingly boring “The Happening” I’m either going to be pleasantly surprised, or wanting shoot myself…

Watch Teaser

The Green Hornet (22/12/10)
Michael Gondry

That's right... Seth Rogen!

A late comer in the year, but still a very much anticipated film. Ever noticed that Seth Rogen had been slimming down drastically over the films… Well this is why, so he can play a bit more of a serious role as Superhero The Green Hornet. And if Seth Rogen doesn’t entice you, Austrian star-turned legend Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds) makes a return to the english speaking cinema for the second time in this film.

Alice In Wonderland (05/03/10)
Tim Burton

The Mad Hatter

“Tim burton with Johnny Depp, and, oh, what’s that?

thats right you guessed it… Helena Bonham Carter, what are the odds…”

I have to be honest, there lil gangbang threesome pisess me off… Johnny Depp is fucked up, Tim Burton is twice as fucked up, and well Helena plays the same fucked up mental character she always does. Either way, unbiasedly the film does look good and Tim Burton brings his usual gothic with saturated contrast of dark and vibrant colours.

Watch Trailer

Twilight Saga: Eclipse (30/06/10)
David Slade

Yeah, this comes back with an enticing plot full of “werewolf  V vampire V  volturi” war. Also with a few cast touch ups, we see the M Night Shyamalans favourite B-list star Bryce Howard taking over the role of Victoria.

Clash Of The Titans (26/03/10)

Louis Leterrier
Sam Worthington and Liam Neeson in more badass roles in the remake of Clash Of Titans. This is creating some hype and I can not wait to see it.

Watch Trailer

Tron Legacy (17/12/10 – expected to be postponed)
Joseph Kosinski

Disneys’ Tron Legacy set to be the next 3D epic following Avatar. it follows ‘Flynn’ on his journey to uncover the secrets behind his fathers death within the computer gaming programme. Which looks really good!

Watch Teaser

Harry Potter And the Deathly Hallows. pt 1

Warner decided to make this book into two films so that every detail can be used, yay!…  what a load of fucking BULLSHIT they’re milking it like a cow on cocaine! I’m not the biggest fan of harry potter, but i will be watching it.

Other films: Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, Prince of Persia: Sands Of Time, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of Dawn Treader

Back to reality after all that new year drink!

I feel like I have been neglecting the blog for a while now, so I hope everyone reading this had a great new year and is enjoying being back at university/work! YAAAY (ok maybe a bit too much enthusiasm). Well I have now finished a documentary I have been working with my single camera group about the EDL protest in Nottingham on December 5th, Unfortunately we are not allowed to post on youtube for legal reasons as the protesters felt that they preferred if it stayed privately within the university and also the fact that when you click “Upload” on Youtube, you’re really saying “Go on take all rights to my video, I’ve put in loads of hard work so you money grabbing bastards can have it free of charge and do what ever you like with it”

Ok So for the next project I’m taking a break from sound… I know shocker, however not a massive break from sound I’m still composing music for it. The project brief is pretty much anything on ‘relationships’ and being Director this time I have the most creative control, having to produce the vision. I am really excited about it and love the idea to direct, also I’m taking it upon myself, as it seemed fitted, to write the script (not all by myself as input is being given by other members). I have currently three ideas that I am putting forward to my group before I write a script, I haven’t done so yet so posting this seems a bit rude of me but hey I dont think they would mind much.

Idea 1: Supernatural Themed
So this idea is based around Two brothers that have something different about them a very mysterious background, We follow one brother  who has a girlfriend, it will be one day condensed to 10 minutes, a normal day for them, get up, eat breakfast, maybe sex (obviously not explicit porno-type sex more PG-13 sex)? watch TV, talk, cuddle blah blah blah very mundane, but what is not normal, is the girlfriends slight features and general movements that send her boyfriend to chilling flashbacks of him and his brother.

Idea 2: The-type-of-independent-film-that-actors-do-to-seem-less-novelty-and-more-serious-but-still-happen-to-wind-up-in-some-stupid-overly-exaggerated-film-like-G.i Joe-after-winning-oscar Themed.
Lovely sweet, girl maybe a bit of a bitch now and again, is abducted by overly obsessive stalker, it’s obvious the stalker has some major mental issues, maybe even mild autism. However even though he did abduct her, he really does show her how much he cares for her, and surprisingly love blossoms from such an unusual situation, or is just stockholm syndrome? An internal battle of morals, love, and obsession send both characters on a road of one of the most complex and unusual patterns of compassion and relationships.

Idea 3: Done-Before-Yet-Original Themed.
The title of idea 3 might throw you off a little and you may find it more confusing than a book written by a female but you will understand.
A man has severe schizophrenia and his new helper from the Schizo-foundation helps him to come to terms with his illness and help him to realise he shouldn’t be afraid to get out of his own little world and see the bigger world for himself. Back to the title of the idea, I am a bit wary of this as it is very easy to get trapped in the mentally ill-type narrative and an extremely conventional theme with students however they are always the best if something about it is original – maybe from editing technique to narrative structure aslong as one of them has something that is original it can be brilliant!

Feel free to post ideas or give some feedback, I myself is more heading to number 1.

Top Films of 2009!

Just a small post, After seeing my friend Doc’s ‘Top Five Films’. I had been reminded to do my Top ten! and as its now sales everywhere hopefully this can give you a few ideas if your buying DVD/BD

1: Inglorious Basterds

2: Avatar

3: District 9

4: Star Trek

5: The Hangover

6: Transformers 2

7: The Forth Kind

8: The Proposal

9: Terminator Salvation

10: Fantastic Mr Fox

Other films worth mentioning, The Last House On The Left, Paranormal Activity, Surrogates, New Moon, Wolverine, 2012, Bruno, Haunting In Connecticut, Couples Retreat, Taken and Role Models.

Worst Films of 2009:

1: G.I Shit [Joe]

2: Harry Potter and the shit. [Half Blood Prince]

3: Orphan (30 year old dwarf hooker posing as a child… dare I say more?)

4: The Ugly Shit [Truth].

5: Watchmen… bore.

6: The Jonas Brothers 3D (Never seen it but did I really have to?)

7: The Final Destination 3D (Hopefully THE FINAL destination)

8. The Uninvited, shit.

9: 500 Days of Shit [summer]

10: Friday The 13th (fail)

Joel’s Top Five and Ellie’s Top 9

James Cameron’s Avatar Review

Well the wait is finally over and the film was released last thursday to all cinemas. I’ll give a brief plot summary.

Promo Poster

We follow a man named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), he is assigned to a program called Project Avatar, where he will temporary transfer his mind into an Na’vi (a humanoid indigenous species) on the planet Pandora. The purpose is to set up a democratic relationship with the race to sort out an agreement to take some of there expensive minerals  in return for technology and knowledge. However this race aren’t so keen on the humans (or aliens in this case) and are firmly happy the way they are. The money-hungry humans don’t take no for an answer and Jake Sully is left on a internal journey to find out who he is, and whose side he is on.

The Plot:

The plot is somewhat predictable, however what is new is the situation and environment, which gives the essence of surprise to the plot. Even though its predictable you will still love the narrative. It touches a lot on American racism and consumerism, to the extent that the Americans don’t give a damn about the Na’vi, their planet or their beliefs, theres money involved they will kill them all if they have to. You actually hated the humans and wanted them to lose every fight. A film that makes you hate your own race is probably worth seeing!

Visual Effects:

Now this is the big attraction in the film. With the budget of $500m you will be expecting spectacular effects, and trust me you wont be disappointed. A lot of people are wondering why it cost so much, because ‘it just looks like a normal animation film.’ Well its blatantly not pixar! The reason it cost so much was the method. It’s nothing new but has never been used on this scale, James used the same technology as Gollum in Lord Of The Rings, actors dressing up in green suits with dots around their faces, so the actor acts out everything and the animated Na’vi follows exactly, by exactly I mean to how they run, jump, and fight to every subtle facial expression.

Neytiri played by Zoe Saldana (Star Trek)

This method was even used on the extras in the film, the Na’vi characters that had no main role. This gives a believable factor to it and you often forget they are actors. One flaw was the animation of the different species in Pandora, some of them seemed, rush, underdone and obviously much lesser effort compared to the Na’vi. I see lack of ‘Photorealism’ that Cameron had claimed, however it is close to photorealism as we probably can get with a 500m budget.

Neytiri (Saldana) and Jake (Worthington)

3D:

Don’t see this in 2D!! The production had made their own 3D cameras to give a better experience, give the film some justice and see it in 3D it will not be the same in 2D! This is the first film to ever incorporate 3D properly, by that I mean, none of this gimmick crap where everything just has to point out of the screen! It was used and you hardly noticed it, “Whats the point in that?” you ask, well it is because it was used properly and kept that realism and escapism factor to it! The only time you should notice the difference is when you see the same thing in 2D and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have the same effect.

Cinematography:

Brilliant, bright colours of Pandora that contrast to metallic artificial grey colours of the humans. What better way to show how evil the human race is. Most of the time the scenery is animated, and animated beautifully with saturated vibrant colours in the day and neon-like fluorescent enchanted colours by night.

The score:

Normally I wouldn’t mention the score in it’s own paragraph, but it’s James Horner, Cameron’s favourite music composer, who also scored Titanic, and it was pretty obvious it was the same person. He had one year to score the film where as most composers get 4 to 6 weeks, he failed to come up with anything new and all I heard was the titanic music with a jungle beat. It would of been nice to hear something different something that could make Pandora distinctive.

Leona Lewis did the soundtrack, the newly released music video is below, you can almost here Celine Dion in there somewhere

“I See You” (Theme from Avatar) by Leona Lewis in HD Video by Trailer Park – MySpace Video.

Overall: 9/10

Extremely impressive, going to see it for the second time tomorrow! Would of got a 10/10 if it wasn’t for the lack of detail in the different species and the predictable plot.

Joel’s review from The Linc (to come)

Animation and stuff…

In my digital media class were working on an animation with the breif “Something I head the other day” Im working with my two housemates Natalie Morgan, Joel Murray and also Nikos Skiathitis, all of the research is on Joels blog here. I’m focusing on sound and camera, so with my creative mind I came up with a small composition.

The narrative of our animation is a young blue bird in the tree, after witnessing its siblings flying away with ease the bird tries and tries to fly but can’t in an attempt to fly the bird starts to plunge to his death until it realises its wings and flaps them to fly, it soars fast through the forest, dodging dark inhabitants and enjoying the aesthetic atmosphere, until a bigger bird eats it… and it’s dead.

To listen to the Music go to my iLike page and it is “The Bird Demo 05″

The Twilight Saga: New Moon Review

Well, having enjoyed Twilight FILM (hated the book) but enjoying the New Moon book, and having housemates whom was excited about watching New Moon (Directed by Chris Weitz), it seemed logical to watch it on opening night… and deary me what a bad choice that was…

Poster

First though, i’ll tell you about the film before ranting. We are told the story of how Bella copes with losing Edward after an incident with Jasper (Edward’s vampire “Brother”) who nearly attacks her due to a drop of blood from a paper cut. Bella seeks comfort in Jacob, who also doesn’t fall far from the supernatural tree. Jacob turns out to be a werewolf.

The general look of the film was much better than that of Twilight were the scenes were tinted with blue coloration, this one was more of a browny tint but not to the fact that it distorts the film. The effects were fantastic! The wolves were perfect and particularly liked the fight scene between the two wolves, it was brilliant! I really liked how they set the plot out, however I don’t think Weitz kept in mind that Twilight didn’t include everything, for example Bella says to Jasper “It’s not fair for you to use your mood control Jasper” In the first twilight it wasn’t explained that Jasper had mood control abilities. I really really liked the Volturi scene, it is one of my favourite scenes of the film. The Volturi ,especially Aro (played by Michael Sheen) who was very courteous yet very evil at the same time, they all seemed so evil and creepy and gave that medieval look to the conventional vampires. The fight was awesome and really liked the blurring effect it showed how fast they were unlike the first film!

What I didn’t like, the fight scenes needed to be longer they were too short and didn’t really balance out with the drama. The overly saturated yellow eyes, the fact that the vampires are trying to fit in with humans, the saturated yellow eyes didn’t work. A bit longer of the cullens and a little less wolves, the wolves were a massive part of this film which they should of been, but there was so much Jacob and the wolves the cullens part in the film seemed so small and needed a bit more explaining, a little bit more of there way of life with Bella, especially Bella’s and Alice’s friendship…

Rant time… Annoying, teenage girls that just wouldn’t shut up every five minutes they either laughed at something not funny, gasped at something that wasn’t shocking or screamed at the slight show of arm… you could imagine the reaction of a topless Jacob… I can still hear the ringing…

Overall it was well produced, well acted not brilliant though, good cinematography and brilliant special effects with a just about satisfying mix of romance and action to keep you interested, but it wont be the best film in world. However if you are under 16, female and a bit of a book freak, you might be running around the cinema like a psychotic ASBO on cocaine.

7.5/10 I think is a generous rating.

(Joel’s Linc review coming soon)

My new project Script Work “The Synthetics”

I am currently writing a script as part of building a portfolio for work experience over summer and to get into the Vancouver Film School in Canada.

My new story takes you to a dystopian corrupted futuristic world, inhabited by malnourished humanoid beings (they could be humans, haven’t decided yet but they do look like and act like humans) who appear with white-grey skin and bright white-blond hair, looking like this:

Concept Art for Narla/The Race (pretend the brown hair is blond!)

After the Extinction (the death of all life), whats left of the beings, live in tiny cities surrounded by oxygen vents, living off electronically charged Atoms which are injected into them every month. However there are rumours that these atoms called “Energons” are not doing what they think they are doing. In the dictatorship based government, research into the conspiracy theory is prohibited, to even be caught to speak of such rumours is subject to death of the officer’s choice.

In this world we follow Narla, an upper-class citizen and a professor at a university who experiences first hand of the harsh controlled dictatorship of her world when her good friend Kiana, who tries to warn her, is viciously murdered. Narla has always been different, with bright blue eyes which are a rarity among these beings, also has a warming aura about her. She soon discovers that she is not just different but extremely special which comes with sudden enemies, the government. Narla escapes the city in search of a rebellion and a way to stop the government from controlling them and tries to find out why they are controlling them.

But as any other script… nothing goes easily, including love-interest conflict, fights, jealousy and many other obstacles!

To read my script please download here. Only 46 pages are done and PLEASE IGNORE MISTAKES, I haven’t proofread it yet and im not proofreading it until ive finished it!

If any problems, questions or general comments, just post me!

The Fourth Kind Film Reviews

With my latest orange wednesday fix I went to see the film “The Fourth Kind” directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, whom is also the interviewer to Dr Abigail Emily Tyler. It stars Milla Jovovich who portrays the majorly disturbed Abigail Tyler.

It starts off with a powerful monologue from Jovovich explaining that she will be portraying Abigail Emily Tyler, and that each scene is backed up by ‘real life archive footage’ which is ‘extremely disturbing’ which to be honest, real or not real it is disturbing!

The film follows Abbey Tyler who carried on her late husbands work on sleep deprivation. In the small isolated town of Noma, Alaska certain patients are having the exact same experience and under hypnosis present some horrifying secret into their sleep patterns. Each hypno-session had a split screen of the dramatisation and the archival video/audio, it was a very interesting concept and was very well done, you felt interested yet freaked out by what you were seeing on screen.

It appears this film implies that the patients are being taken by sumerian (the oldest recorded language) speaking aliens however, the use of the word aliens was only used by a skeptic friend of Abbey’s those whom claimed to be taken never said aliens, but rather said ‘them or they’ very interesting I found, however didn’t really understand the reasoning for this, until they spoke in biblical terms referencing genesis. Those who spoke sumerian were haters of jews, during the end scene of the film you hear the sumerian voice with subtitles saying “I am God” followed by Abigail Tyler in the interview saying the thing wasn’t god, the thing was powerful enough to pretend to be. Was that put in place to tell us that those abducted also didn’t think they were aliens but rather, demons? especially as they never refer to them as beings from another planet.

This film has gained its hype very much like the blair witch project, claiming to be a real true to life story and what you believe is your choice, however universal studios wont claim whether its a fake story or based on a true story along with the ‘archive footage’ to be real or not. It’s not real which I started to realise when they showed a man shoot his wife and two children which was apparently ‘real’ if it was why would anyone actually show that, they could of just dramatised that bit. However although I don’t believe the archival footage to be real but rather a ploy for money. The story is based on the mysterious disappearances of Nome, which many people believed to be ‘aliens’ after being investigated by FBI they claimed it was ‘Alcoholism’ and ‘Bad weather’ hmm… ok that makes sense? you drink in the cold you mysteriously disappear with no trace, happens all the time! Not that I am saying aliens did take them, but have the FBI not heard of that crime normally associated with missing people that one called ‘Murder’?

Now I’m babbling, this film whether stories are true or not, it is by far the freakiest film I have seen in a long time, the ending will leave you cringing in fear yet with interest.

I am giving this a 8/10 for its brilliant new concept and originality, thrillingly creepy scenes, clever advertising and fantastic acting by Milla Jovovich, and whoever played ‘Dr Abigail Tyler’ (all ‘archival’ footage actors are uncredited’). It would have got 10/10 if one they did actually get real footage and two if they didn’t change Nome completely just look here:

Film portrayal

Errr.... Hang on there...

What kind of director doesn’t at least make the locations look similar or actually film there…

Need a second opinion? Joel’s review is posted on the linc.

Paranormal Activity Film Review

This is a fairly new film, it was made in 2007 for screenings and film festivals where people allegedly left the cinema half way through out of fear but it has now opening 27th November in commercial cinema’s everywhere. It’s an Indie film Directed and written by OrenPeli and starring his friends Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat . It’s done using a handheld similar to Cloverfield and Blair Witch Project, however much less shakey and normally placed on a tripod. It was filmed on an extremely low budget of $15,000.

So Micah buys a camera to record any goings on in the house that Katie is claiming to experience. Micah whom is sceptical of such things quickly realises the problem is worse than he thought.

This film will not make you jump, it will not scare you, you may not scream, but you will be freaked out and maybe disturbed. I was stupid enough to watch this film alone, which maybe why I was more freaked out than I would of been watching it with other people. This film differs from most horrors, you don’t actually see anything, no monsters, no visual sightings of ghost. Which I think makes it more freaky, one of my favourite scene’s is when Katie is dragged from her bed by the unseen force, it was done with great acting skills and you end up questioning whether this is a real document or not. Unlike blair witch project with its terrible acting.

Apart from the experiences you see how it is effecting there relationship, and the acting was really good considering most of it was improvisation. Unfortunately I haven’t seen the ending that is in cinemas, I have seen the original ending and from what I have read, It looks like I have seen the best ending.

Overall 7/10 for brilliant acting and great production skills however it was very slow in many places and I was close to losing interest at points. There is a scene where they look up a woman who was possessed by a similar entity which in my opinion was best left out, it took the view of not knowing anything about the entity or what it can do but 2 thirds in this scene appears and ruins that sense.

Fantastic Mr Fox. Reviews

Latest critically acclaimed film of the year is Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr Fox” receiving over 90% positive reviews on RottenTomatoes.com. It’s directed by Wes Anderson whom is unknown and generally bad mouthed in the industry for his weird films.

It’s a Stop-motion production which was a breath of fresh air compared to the recent Disney plastic looking sugar coated crap we are usually bombarded with. This film was not something I was interested in seeing but you know I can never turn down orange wednesdays, and I was very pleased I went to see it! This film includes an impressive cast of top notch actors including George Clooney, Maryl Streep and Michael Gambon and follows the character Mr. Fox whom gave up hunting to have a risk-free family life due to the news that his girlfriend is pregnant.

You follow the story of a fox and his family. Mr Fox (Clooney) moves into a tree house with his family which is close to the three biggest and most evil farmers in the county. Mr Fox and his sidekick steal from each of the farmers. The farmers than get to together and plot revenge to stop Mr Fox.

It was nicely put together with a very well done mix of comedy and family values. This film is sure to please everyone whether you laugh out loud or enjoy the moralistic films. The film is slightly darker and more morbid than your average animation however this only adds to the brilliance of it. The animation is fantastic! It is old-school but it is so much better looking than what Disney Pixar is vomiting up these days. The voice cast was excellent and the storyline is brilliantly done and is a great adaptation. There are few flaws, the fact it is americanised a bit too much for my liking, for example all the bad guys being British and all the good guys being American, slightly insulting to the british written book. The word “cussing” is used instead of swear and is the root of many jokes, however I thought and the people I went with thought it would of been best taken out.

Overall it is a light-hearted brilliantly made film for people of all ages.

8/10

You can also read Joel’s review of the film on The Linc (URL will be available when it is posted)