08.01.12 |
∞
Given all the press over The Dark Night Rises, articles and analysis on director Chris Nolan have reached the point of absurdity. Yet the British Film Institute’s work here is standout and well worth your time. I loved author Joseph Bevan’s analysis of trends throughout Nolan’s work. For instance, Bevan suggests video games influences Nolan’s work:
While it’s hard to imagine him adding to the regrettable lineage of video-game film adaptations, he has paid direct homage to newer games in his last two films. The elevated shots of Bruce Wayne’s speeding Lamborghini in The Dark Knight mimic the player’s view in Grand Theft Auto, while Inception’s infiltration of a snow-bound compound echoes the Splinter Cell games, as well as the Japanese game Metal Gear Solid.
These resonances also occur at script level. Inception’s dream levels are structured like the levels of a game, while Memento – with its emphasis on a lone hero picking up clues while working his way around strange environments – is reminiscent of myriad point-and-click adventures.
07.30.12 |
∞
Excellent, thorough roundtable discussion over at popular film site Mubi.com. Clearly the three critics discussing TDNR are not big fans, with one going so far to call Chris Nolan’s range “from borderline hack to mildly competent”, something I completely disagree with.
This piece is standout in its discussion of TDNR’s politics. I agree completely with a lot of their takes: Nolan’s politics on display are often self-contradictory, very murky, and ignored when it’s inconvenient for the action on display. As Slashfilm’s David Chen argued, The Dark Night Rises is clearly making some rough political grabs, but by the end it’s an incomprehensible stance.
07.20.12 |
∞
Cool story over at Movies.com on how author Katie Calautti’s friend landed a bit part in the ultimate summer blockbuster:
Movies.com: So when did you realize it was for real?
AD: My agent said, “The paperwork looks legit!” And then I went in for a costume fitting and by then they were in New York. And then I was like, “OK – it’s totally legit” – because their offices took over an entire building and the costumes took over an entire floor. There were hundreds of Army outfits…
Movies.com: What was it like on set?
AD: They had hundreds of extras there, because in the scene there’s a lot of people yelling and screaming. Christopher Nolan shows up and he chats with Bale, Gordon-Levitt and the DP. Eventually Nolan asks me, “Do you know your lines?” And I said, “Yeah” and repeated them. And he said, “Alright, don’t worry about your lines, just get the point across.”
07.19.12 |
∞
Spike Lee, talking to Vulture’s Will Leitch on the recent popularity of Tyler Perry movies:
SL: I would not call it a syndrome. Thing is, those box-office numbers prove there is an audience for those films. Yet, at the same time, I think there is an audience that would like to see something else. At this moment, those other films have to be made outside the Hollywood studio system. This comes down to the gatekeepers, and I do not think there is going to be any substantial movement until people of color get into those gatekeeper positions of people who have a green-light vote…When I first started making films and I would have Hollywood meetings—and I know this for a fact—they would bring black people out of the mailroom to be in the meeting.
WL: That doesn’t still happen, does it?
SL: I do not know. But I will say the best chance of me meeting somebody of color is the brother man at the gate who is checking to see if I am on the list.
Great, revealing interview with a director who generally has a less than ideal relationship with the press.
07.19.12 |
∞
Seriously awesome interview with the notoriously private former Batman. A very loose, eclectic conversation here: Keaton discusses his rumored rejection of Batman 3, fly fishing in Montana, drunken escapades with Quentin Tarantino and much more. I loved his thoughts on playing the same Elmore Leonard character Ray Nicolette in two different movies (Jackie Brown and Out of Sight):
Keaton: Yeah, I’ve never seen that done — ever. And I hope I’m not getting too esoteric about this, but it was almost like postmodernism.
Daniel Kellison, Grantland: If people are still reading this far into this article, they’re obviously pretty big Michael Keaton fans — I don’t think you can get too esoteric for them.
Michael: What I felt was: It’s like he exists in the world. He might show up in your barbershop, you know what I mean? Different studio, different script, different story, different director. Everything is different, and all of a sudden, this guy shows up again. And I thought, Man, it would be cool — I’d just like to show up again somewhere else.
07.14.12 |
∞
A wonderful look at the title sequence from Se7en. I still remember my experience in the theater with the film rather vividly; that staccato-edited macabre opening was amazing, dare I say influential later on when I started designing at work. Just look at the detail noted here:
The typography itself – which would likely break several guild legibility rules in modern times – was hand-etched into black-surface scratchboard and manipulated during the film transfer process to further smear and jitter it. This transfer was then cut up and reassembled during post production to add a final layer of temporal distress.
07.06.12 |
∞
Staff over at The A.V. Club discuss the plot devices and mistakes that take you out of a film’s story. I chuckled at this choice by Marah Eakin:
Mine’s super-petty, but here it is: I hate when a character drinks from or carelessly wields a clearly empty “hot” coffee cup in a movie or TV show. Most people would just be a little annoyed by this, but it makes me question the whole production. Couldn’t they bother to put some water in those cups? And if they aren’t paying attention to even middling details like that, then what else did they ignore? Are the characters developed? Are the sets how they should be? Did they edit the whole thing together well?
07.05.12 |
∞
Tim Grierson, writing for The A.V. Club:
Now he’s back with “Magic Mike,” which I think is a revelation in how it shows McConaughey playing with his persona and twisting it…buff and tan, McConaughey’s Dallas isn’t as young as his boy-toy dancers, and you can feel that conflict inside this aging man-child, who isn’t quite ready to admit that his time in the spotlight is fading. Like McConaughey’s characters in “Lincoln Lawyer” and “Bernie,” Dallas wants the attention, and in all three performances there’s a poignancy to that desire because none of them can see how faintly ridiculous their lives are.
Seriously, McConaughey was the best part of Magic Mike. He kept the film grounded and it was a blast seeing him jump into his part so readily. Hopefully, as author Grierson surmises, McConaughey will continue to evolve and take bigger risks.
07.05.12 |
film |
∞
I love Blu-rays. They’ve got great visual quality and serve as a counterpoint to the high prices, loud audiences and endless ads at mainstream theaters. But Blu-rays are dying in the rental market with à la carte streaming taking its place, a more limited and often inferior substitute.
I’m aware that a defense of any disc media can appear shortsighted as tech shifts to mobile and the cloud. Streams clearly have several big advantages, most notably their convenience. But for the cinephile in me, Blu-rays for now are an unparalleled experience. There’s fewer artifacts or compression and no visual stutter from a bump in your internet connection. Almost every Blu-ray soundtrack delivers 5.1 surround. Also Blu-ray color depth and saturation trounces the content I stream from Amazon and iTunes.
Yet Blu-rays feel virtually inaccessible for rental. Netflix queue times are laughably bad; I’m averaging about two months from the time a new release movie is available for download or Blu-ray purchase, and when I get it from Netflix. I live in New York, a worldwide film hub, yet most local video options are long gone. Nearby self-service boxes from Blockbuster and Redbox have little selection.
This no-win situation is probably exactly what studios want: pony up $20 or more for an outright Blu-ray buy or suffer inferior quality (and no special features) at $5 for a 24-hour download rental. We deserve better.
Unfortunately, there’s no signs of the trend changing course. The studios set the rules. Distribution patterns for physical media take forever to change. If anything I’d expect more unskippable trailers and less content on rental Blu-rays to make the situation even worse.
So Blu-ray as a rental format appears dead, but movie streams and downloads don’t have to suffer the same fate. Hollywood has the chance to prevent a lot of problems (while cutting piracy) with a few changes in its download and streaming content:
Provide higher end streaming options that offer less compression and more special feature tie-ins. When I have to play a guessing game or run Google searches to find out if your “1080p HD” version is butchered by artifacts or other shortcuts, I’m out the door. Even at a slightly higher cost, I’d happily pay a $1 or $2 premium for an enhanced stream.
All films get 5.1 surround where available. It’s true if you listen from your laptop or mobile device, this doesn’t change much. But home theater packages have bumped up their quality in recent years at lower price points. Surround tracks can make a huge difference, and not just with blockbuster action films (e.g. the atmospheric surround touches in “Mulholland Drive” are pretty masterful.)
Cut the price of HD back catalog titles by at least $1 or $2. Why is the classic comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles only a buck less than a new release on iTunes? I know the “one simple price” mantra is popular for Blockbuster and the iTunes music store. But this is a very different market; a movie rental stream is a watch once, low investment impulse buy (just look at the popularity of Netflix’s instant streaming.) Tap into that by keeping the back catalog priced low.
Online delivery is clearly film’s future. Yet that medium, much like we’ve seen with music, has the ability to disrupt the Hollywood studio system. It won’t kill it, because they still hold most of the content (i.e. why the same few studios have ruled films for decades.) This, combined with growing frustration by consumers on increasing content restrictions along with pirated torrents being easier to access, can significantly harm Hollywood. If the studios don’t adapt and change, the market will force them to.
07.03.12 |
∞
Warning, spoilers below for TDNR:
I’ve read way too many reviews and breakdowns of the final entry in Nolan’s Batman trilogy, but Matt Rorie’s – former head writer at Screened.com – was one of the funniest and most astute with regard to the film’s many plot holes. A few real zingers:
“Hey, I know that we only have hours to stop Bane and find the bomb, but I took a while to rappel off this bridge and paint a big Batman sign with gasoline on it. Because of hope and stuff. Oh, and that thin ice that has been the death of everyone who’s been exiled from the city? Why don’t you go ahead and set that on fire while we’re all standing on it.”
or:
Why do people have guns if no one ever wishes to shoot them? The entire film is filled with people with perfectly fine firearms who instead choose to run at each other and use said guns as blunt instruments. I mean, the entire police force is armed and ready to take on Bane’s army…and then they just rush them and get into a fistfight?