Last week Friday we had a screening for these two films (the former in a joined-up 63 minute cut) in one of the nearby villages. The event was a fundraiser for the Climate Justice Fund, and proved to be very successful indeed (plus it got my name in the local paper for the first time in years, which was nice).
The hall was packed out with people who came to see the screening, so much so that we had to cram in some extra chairs so everyone could get a seat. As for the films themselves, they were received with rapturous applause - something which you're obviously rather chuffed to receive, but which also makes you go all a bit "aww shucks".
A number of people even came up to personally congratulate me on the quality of the films themselves, with which they were very impressed - so that was rather nice too. It was also very interesting to hear from other people who were also involved in the project itself - by means of providing additional voice overs and so on - and it was great to see that everyone 'got' the film. They understood the intention, and they really responded to the style and construction of the film, the aim of which was to help draw the viewer in and keep them constantly interested - mission accomplished on that front, I'm pleased to report.
The event itself had a very strong community vibe to it. Lots of people chipping in to help out, lots of people making tea, a whole table of home-cooked goodies, and a variety of home-made crafts on sale, so it was great to see first hand a rural community coming together under one roof to sit down and watch films I'd put together.
Friday, 27 November 2009
Thursday, 26 November 2009
"Doing Our Bit" - feedback...
I've been meaning to blog about recent feedback to this film and "Skinner" for a while now, so I'll blog about the response to the latter in due course. For now though, here's some of the responses we got to "Doing Our Bit" - the entry for the 1 Minute To Save The Earth competition.
"Nic’s film, I thought, is very good, straight to the point. So pay attention everyone!"
"Great film.. Some good tips in there. Short and to the point."
"Catchy, simple and memorable. Just what’s needed."
"Like it too. It’s not rocket science - it’s common sense and we can all take heed and do it."
"Love the soundtrack - helps get the message across - that doing our bit isnt boring! Lets cut the crap and just do it…you, me, everybody. Thats what this film says to me. Yes. Bring it on…"
"Simple and effective."
"Little things matter - times 60 million (uk population) they are no longer little - times a billion or more, (population of the west) they become enormous."
"Stand out job, Nick & Co. Looking forward to your next project!"
"Cracking video joe and nick- food for thought for all of us."
...
As for the competition, unfortunately we didn't make it into the short list - which was supposed to be 20 videos (15 chosen by judges, 5 chosen by votes) but inexplicably the short list, when it went up online, was 27 videos. There seems to have been some controversy from some of the entrants over which videos got picked and why, and then even more inexplicably, long after the deadline a further 5 videos were added to the short list making it a short list (that was supposed to be 20 videos) of 32.
Naturally you can only be disheartened when you don't make it, but regardless of the methodology used to pick the videos, as well as the rather strange ignorance of the short list size as set out in the Terms & Conditions, I feel we made a cracking little video with a good, solid, positive and constructive message that set itself apart from many of the videos submitted in its own way (disclaimer - that's not me dissing other people's videos).
"Nic’s film, I thought, is very good, straight to the point. So pay attention everyone!"
"Great film.. Some good tips in there. Short and to the point."
"Catchy, simple and memorable. Just what’s needed."
"Like it too. It’s not rocket science - it’s common sense and we can all take heed and do it."
"Love the soundtrack - helps get the message across - that doing our bit isnt boring! Lets cut the crap and just do it…you, me, everybody. Thats what this film says to me. Yes. Bring it on…"
"Simple and effective."
"Little things matter - times 60 million (uk population) they are no longer little - times a billion or more, (population of the west) they become enormous."
"Stand out job, Nick & Co. Looking forward to your next project!"
"Cracking video joe and nick- food for thought for all of us."
...
As for the competition, unfortunately we didn't make it into the short list - which was supposed to be 20 videos (15 chosen by judges, 5 chosen by votes) but inexplicably the short list, when it went up online, was 27 videos. There seems to have been some controversy from some of the entrants over which videos got picked and why, and then even more inexplicably, long after the deadline a further 5 videos were added to the short list making it a short list (that was supposed to be 20 videos) of 32.
Naturally you can only be disheartened when you don't make it, but regardless of the methodology used to pick the videos, as well as the rather strange ignorance of the short list size as set out in the Terms & Conditions, I feel we made a cracking little video with a good, solid, positive and constructive message that set itself apart from many of the videos submitted in its own way (disclaimer - that's not me dissing other people's videos).
Monday, 23 November 2009
2012 ... or how to crack a walnut with an atomic sledgehammer...
Originally I hadn't wanted to see this in the cinema - I was going to wait for DVD. However, the closer it got to release, and the more times I saw the trailer, the more I wanted to check it out just for the sheer guilty pleasure of it all.
Plus, it's got John Cusack in it - and it's always worthwhile watching Cusack on screen. In fact, after getting back from the cinema I caught the last 30 minutes of High Fidelity, and it just made me love that flick even more - it gets better and better every single time I watch it, and Cusack's brilliantly in-touch performance just gets better each time.
Anyway, plot wise you know what you're going to get. If you've seen Independence Day as well as The Day After Tomorrow, then you're all set to know exactly what's going to happen, and who is going to die when (and indeed why). Disaster movies seem to have a similar moral strength (perhaps harshness) that slasher movies have, but instead of blood and guts, it's huge ass buildings falling over, exploding, and exploding while falling over.
That last part though - that's exactly why I went to see 2012. I wanted to see a bunch of shit crumble like dominoes. I wanted to see a crazy amount of money being spent on a luridly over-the-top slice of disaster pie ... hell, nevermind the slice, 2012 is the whole goddamn thing in one gulp.
Honestly, if Emmerich ever makes another disaster movie after this I'd be surprised - he's done everything he could possibly have done, and some of it is even hoisted out of other disaster movies. Then again, many slasher movies play out in the same way...
2012 has come in for some harsh criticism since its release, and I think some of it - some, I stress - is undeserved. It's been moaned about that characters 'get over deaths too easily' - well that's bullshit, because the entire movie is a non-stop rollercoaster of shit falling over, so there'd literally be no time to stop and cry about it. Then, despite a little scene at the end, none of the survivors are going to be whooping and hollering for joy or sitting around having completely forgotten their loved ones. It's just that we don't see that on screen, and quite frankly there's no need to, especially in a movie this bloated and long-winded.
It has been said that there are too many characters, and too much soap opera storytelling - and I think that's right. It still works, and you still are able to follow who is who, but it's not necessary.
Storytelling though, when it does pop its head up from under the clouds of volcanic ash, crumbling suburban streets, and tidal waves, is obviously quite blunt. Then again, 2012 - like its predecessors - is just blunt anyway, it could never be anything else. It's impossible, surely, to interweave so many characters and so much action into two and a half hours without being blunt about it.
2012 is like cracking a nut with an atomic sledge hammer, but to be fair, it still cracks the nut.
As such, the variety of "goodbye" scenes still pack some punch. You sit there and think "what if that was me?" and "what would I say and do in that situation?" and as such it does tug at the heart strings a little bit ... in a blunt and totally unsubtle manner, but this is a broad strokes kind of movie. Blockbusters rarely do subtlety - so why are some folk so surprised that 2012 is as blustery and concrete as it is?
It has also been said that it's the most expensive comedy ever made, and that some of the humour is intentional - obviously, this witty sideswipe came from a (formerly, at least) broadsheet newspaper. I think some have been taking this movie too seriously, because when I was watching it I just couldn't see any way in which those making it could ever go more than five minutes without cracking up laughing themselves. There is tons of intentional humour throughout, and it's bloody well necessary, because if this was genuinely played straight it'd be the most spectacularly depressing movie ever made.
Just think about it, you're being thrown scene after scene of families being torn apart by disaster. You're seeing mass-scale destruction - events which are killing countless hundreds of thousands of people in seconds. There are many scenes of desperate, wild-eyed people trying to escape their looming fates, to get their children to safety, and so obviously there's always the need for some humour now and then to lighten the load.
Even the big scenes of destruction have an air of intentional comedy about them, they're so ludicrously over-the-top that Emmerich couldn't have been doing anything but guffawing heartily at the sheer chaos he was inflicting upon his viewers once the film was complete.
2012 isn't a well crafted roast beef dinner with all the trimmings, it's a cheese burger bought from one of those vans towed behind a 4x4 - there's always a time for both meals, and they both hit the spot with the same force, they just go about it in different ways.
I mean just look at the film I watched prior to 2012 - Moon - a gentle, subtle, intensely thoughtful piece of filmmaking which has gone straight into my top films of 2009 list. 2012, while it won't be going into the same list, still kicked the ass of The Day After Tomorrow, and still provided the "ooh, big thing fall down!" mass appeal, blunt force populism that everybody likes now and then.
Is the writing particuarly good? Not really - it's workman-like at best. Is the whole 2012 thing anything to get fussed about? No, especially as the Mayan calender doesn't predict global cataclysm. Is it enjoyable anyway? Of course it is - it's got John Cusack in it, and it's got Woody Harrelson stealing every single one of his few scenes as another beautifully whacked-out oddballs ... plus, a ton of shit falls over and explodes.
Anyone who was surprised by anything they saw in 2012 must have been kidding themselves. You know the rules of these kind of movies, and you know exactly how the plot is going to turn out. You know that really stupid, ridiculous, never-gonna-happen-in-real-life-ever things are going to happen (repeatedly). You know that children and dogs can never be killed (although two Russian rich kid blighters in 2012 were a pair of shits ... even still, their bastard father's moment to save them still holds some of that universal charm - a father saving his children - an ideal that traverses all social classes and societal splits).
Indeed, 2012 is just that - it's a universal theme kind of movie - and it even addresses this a couple of times. Cusack's hang-dog failed writer remarks that one billion Euros per seat is disgusting, but as the Russian oligarch drawls simply, if you were a rich man, wouldn't you do the same to save your children?
There is some actual, real ideological meat to chew into with this movie - you know, beneath all the shit falling over of course. It may not be subtle, it may not be especially deep, and it's surrounded by as much lunacy and as many epic plot holes that any human can take, but it still has something simple and universal to say about the basic, deep down human instinct for survival, the want for a connection to a society, and for the want to save the ones you love - and indeed, to say what you've always wanted to say before it's too late.
I'll say again, it's far from a great film, but I've seen so many films worse than this, and an atomic sledge hammer still cracks the nut.
Plus, it's got John Cusack in it - and it's always worthwhile watching Cusack on screen. In fact, after getting back from the cinema I caught the last 30 minutes of High Fidelity, and it just made me love that flick even more - it gets better and better every single time I watch it, and Cusack's brilliantly in-touch performance just gets better each time.
Anyway, plot wise you know what you're going to get. If you've seen Independence Day as well as The Day After Tomorrow, then you're all set to know exactly what's going to happen, and who is going to die when (and indeed why). Disaster movies seem to have a similar moral strength (perhaps harshness) that slasher movies have, but instead of blood and guts, it's huge ass buildings falling over, exploding, and exploding while falling over.
That last part though - that's exactly why I went to see 2012. I wanted to see a bunch of shit crumble like dominoes. I wanted to see a crazy amount of money being spent on a luridly over-the-top slice of disaster pie ... hell, nevermind the slice, 2012 is the whole goddamn thing in one gulp.
Honestly, if Emmerich ever makes another disaster movie after this I'd be surprised - he's done everything he could possibly have done, and some of it is even hoisted out of other disaster movies. Then again, many slasher movies play out in the same way...
2012 has come in for some harsh criticism since its release, and I think some of it - some, I stress - is undeserved. It's been moaned about that characters 'get over deaths too easily' - well that's bullshit, because the entire movie is a non-stop rollercoaster of shit falling over, so there'd literally be no time to stop and cry about it. Then, despite a little scene at the end, none of the survivors are going to be whooping and hollering for joy or sitting around having completely forgotten their loved ones. It's just that we don't see that on screen, and quite frankly there's no need to, especially in a movie this bloated and long-winded.
It has been said that there are too many characters, and too much soap opera storytelling - and I think that's right. It still works, and you still are able to follow who is who, but it's not necessary.
Storytelling though, when it does pop its head up from under the clouds of volcanic ash, crumbling suburban streets, and tidal waves, is obviously quite blunt. Then again, 2012 - like its predecessors - is just blunt anyway, it could never be anything else. It's impossible, surely, to interweave so many characters and so much action into two and a half hours without being blunt about it.
2012 is like cracking a nut with an atomic sledge hammer, but to be fair, it still cracks the nut.
As such, the variety of "goodbye" scenes still pack some punch. You sit there and think "what if that was me?" and "what would I say and do in that situation?" and as such it does tug at the heart strings a little bit ... in a blunt and totally unsubtle manner, but this is a broad strokes kind of movie. Blockbusters rarely do subtlety - so why are some folk so surprised that 2012 is as blustery and concrete as it is?
It has also been said that it's the most expensive comedy ever made, and that some of the humour is intentional - obviously, this witty sideswipe came from a (formerly, at least) broadsheet newspaper. I think some have been taking this movie too seriously, because when I was watching it I just couldn't see any way in which those making it could ever go more than five minutes without cracking up laughing themselves. There is tons of intentional humour throughout, and it's bloody well necessary, because if this was genuinely played straight it'd be the most spectacularly depressing movie ever made.
Just think about it, you're being thrown scene after scene of families being torn apart by disaster. You're seeing mass-scale destruction - events which are killing countless hundreds of thousands of people in seconds. There are many scenes of desperate, wild-eyed people trying to escape their looming fates, to get their children to safety, and so obviously there's always the need for some humour now and then to lighten the load.
Even the big scenes of destruction have an air of intentional comedy about them, they're so ludicrously over-the-top that Emmerich couldn't have been doing anything but guffawing heartily at the sheer chaos he was inflicting upon his viewers once the film was complete.
2012 isn't a well crafted roast beef dinner with all the trimmings, it's a cheese burger bought from one of those vans towed behind a 4x4 - there's always a time for both meals, and they both hit the spot with the same force, they just go about it in different ways.
I mean just look at the film I watched prior to 2012 - Moon - a gentle, subtle, intensely thoughtful piece of filmmaking which has gone straight into my top films of 2009 list. 2012, while it won't be going into the same list, still kicked the ass of The Day After Tomorrow, and still provided the "ooh, big thing fall down!" mass appeal, blunt force populism that everybody likes now and then.
Is the writing particuarly good? Not really - it's workman-like at best. Is the whole 2012 thing anything to get fussed about? No, especially as the Mayan calender doesn't predict global cataclysm. Is it enjoyable anyway? Of course it is - it's got John Cusack in it, and it's got Woody Harrelson stealing every single one of his few scenes as another beautifully whacked-out oddballs ... plus, a ton of shit falls over and explodes.
Anyone who was surprised by anything they saw in 2012 must have been kidding themselves. You know the rules of these kind of movies, and you know exactly how the plot is going to turn out. You know that really stupid, ridiculous, never-gonna-happen-in-real-life-ever things are going to happen (repeatedly). You know that children and dogs can never be killed (although two Russian rich kid blighters in 2012 were a pair of shits ... even still, their bastard father's moment to save them still holds some of that universal charm - a father saving his children - an ideal that traverses all social classes and societal splits).
Indeed, 2012 is just that - it's a universal theme kind of movie - and it even addresses this a couple of times. Cusack's hang-dog failed writer remarks that one billion Euros per seat is disgusting, but as the Russian oligarch drawls simply, if you were a rich man, wouldn't you do the same to save your children?
There is some actual, real ideological meat to chew into with this movie - you know, beneath all the shit falling over of course. It may not be subtle, it may not be especially deep, and it's surrounded by as much lunacy and as many epic plot holes that any human can take, but it still has something simple and universal to say about the basic, deep down human instinct for survival, the want for a connection to a society, and for the want to save the ones you love - and indeed, to say what you've always wanted to say before it's too late.
I'll say again, it's far from a great film, but I've seen so many films worse than this, and an atomic sledge hammer still cracks the nut.
Moon...
I had wanted to see this in the cinema, but first it never came to our local cineplex, and then when it did arrive briefly we just couldn't get an outing organised. However, I pre-ordered the DVD and I just checked it out the other day and damn - it's a good movie.
Straight into my top films of 2009 list, this flick plays like old school 1970s science fiction, the kind that happens to take place beyond our planet, but which tells a (good) story that isn't really about the setting or the technology. Films like Silent Running (an excellent 70s sci-fi flick) is where Moon situates itself, and that should justify pretty damn sharpish why it's a great little film.
Sam Rockwell gives another interesting and entertaining performance, the use of models (touched up with CGI) gives it a retro air that really works for it, the script is tight and really gets you thinking, and the direction is similarly spiffing.
A seriously quality piece of filmmaking.
Straight into my top films of 2009 list, this flick plays like old school 1970s science fiction, the kind that happens to take place beyond our planet, but which tells a (good) story that isn't really about the setting or the technology. Films like Silent Running (an excellent 70s sci-fi flick) is where Moon situates itself, and that should justify pretty damn sharpish why it's a great little film.
Sam Rockwell gives another interesting and entertaining performance, the use of models (touched up with CGI) gives it a retro air that really works for it, the script is tight and really gets you thinking, and the direction is similarly spiffing.
A seriously quality piece of filmmaking.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Say Anything...
I had a bit of a John Cusack movie fest a few weeks ago, and I spoke about how I got Better Off Dead, and Say Anything mixed up. I was looking for 'the movie with the ghetto blaster above the head' moment, and got my wires crossed and saw Better Off Dead - fortunately, that was a good little flick.
Anyway, Say Anything was on Channel 4 the other night and I ended up watching the whole thing before bed on Sunday night. I had intended to just watch it in stages, but by the time I was half way through I was so invested in the characters that I just kept going.
It's a cracking film, it really is. It's well observed with detailed characters, and as you should all know by now (as I've said it a bunch of times) anything with John Cusack in it is worth seeing (it's why I'll probably end up going to see 2012 soon - well, that and simply wanting to see stuff fall over for two hours).
I found myself connected to these characters, and it made me yearn for my teenage/student years. Little moments here and there reminding me of those years gone by, all delivered spot-on by Cusack who - as usual - gave an honest and inspiring performance. It almost feels like a forerunner to High Fidelity which came along a decade later, and that's no bad thing at all of course.
I also found it quite enthralling as I've been busy re-drafting a script (which I talked about the other day), and they both skirt similar territories - so Say Anything is helping to inspire me to finish off the last tweaks and start getting that script sent out there.
Say Anything gets a big old thumbs up from me. It's a 1980s teen-com with John Cusack in it. What's not to like?
Anyway, Say Anything was on Channel 4 the other night and I ended up watching the whole thing before bed on Sunday night. I had intended to just watch it in stages, but by the time I was half way through I was so invested in the characters that I just kept going.
It's a cracking film, it really is. It's well observed with detailed characters, and as you should all know by now (as I've said it a bunch of times) anything with John Cusack in it is worth seeing (it's why I'll probably end up going to see 2012 soon - well, that and simply wanting to see stuff fall over for two hours).
I found myself connected to these characters, and it made me yearn for my teenage/student years. Little moments here and there reminding me of those years gone by, all delivered spot-on by Cusack who - as usual - gave an honest and inspiring performance. It almost feels like a forerunner to High Fidelity which came along a decade later, and that's no bad thing at all of course.
I also found it quite enthralling as I've been busy re-drafting a script (which I talked about the other day), and they both skirt similar territories - so Say Anything is helping to inspire me to finish off the last tweaks and start getting that script sent out there.
Say Anything gets a big old thumbs up from me. It's a 1980s teen-com with John Cusack in it. What's not to like?
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