Cinema trip extravaganza!

It's been a fair cinema-going sesh of late for me, a bunch of the lads and I all finding time, at the same time, to dish out £6.20 for some movie-going-fun.

First up was Rambo, a mish in itself. The target cinema was closed due to having no water (sounds random I know, but it's a legal thing) so it was a complete 24-style barge-it to the next nearest Cineworld. Fortunately Ben was familiar with the city and guided me to the car park near the cinema. After a panicked run to the cinema itself, then tickets, then seemingly a never-ending succession of fucking escalators (being someone who's got a big problem with heights - I honestly think it's a balance problem, I find it difficult enough standing sometimes, ha!), there was just enough time to ditch some fluid and walk in - literally as the distributor logo was coming up.

Perfect timing indeed ... although having not adjusted to the dark, we pawed around like a bunch of idiots to find seats. However, the movie was fucking awesome - pure, hardcore, properly adult, old-school 80's style action'tainment.

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Then of course it was Diary of the Dead, as previously blogged about, which was my first ever time cine-going full-on Billy-No-Mates. Despite the projection fuck up at one point, it was awesome. Long live Romero!

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Next up - the next day in fact - off to see Vantage Point, in a proper gang as a few mates going extended ever-further until we had a right convoy on the go. An average film, good entertainment, Quaid was awesome, but the 4th and especially 5th rewind started to extract the piss and test patiences ... as one mate said, the sort of film you could have easily waited to rent on DVD. Still though, plenty of chuckles and lulz were had on the car-rides to-and-fro ... and in the end, isn't that half of the fun of a cine-trip anyway?

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Most recently - Drillbit Taylor - not the best laugher with Apatow & Rogen's names slapped on it, but not that bad either. A solid amount of larfs were had, it all works out (obviously) and certainly good night-out fodder ... but not Superbad level comedy. You do feel that perhaps DT is somewhat neutered as a PG-13/12A flick, but it's still a good chuckle in numerous places.

And yes, many lulz were had on the ride to-and-fro, including some Drillbit Taylor-inspired high school/sixth form reminiscing ... at first about the awesome new episode of South Park (the one about "Cheesing") and videogames, but mainly about the lass' who retained our attention throughout that time ... ahhh memory lane.

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And yes - part two - another trip is in the planning stage. Most likely In Bruges, which looks pretty darn funny.

Peace out chaps.

111th post spectacular!

Well it's been a good day. First off, an awesome episode of South Park. Then a very promising meet & greet (more on that in due course, as-and-when), and now:

http://www.planet-scicast.com/
view_clip.cfm?cit_id=2706&tab=directors#tabs

Or search for "friction" or "sticky books".

I helped my mate Ben film this little physics experiment for a competition, although I didn't have to do that much, I basically moved the camera a smidge and acted as his helper monkey, hehe. However - good news is, so I've been informed by the man himself, it's been selected or some such exciting word for 'the next stage' or whatever you might fancy calling it - in other words, good stuff.

There's some event being held for this competition in London. Ben will certainly be attending ... I might be, but who knows ... what with my freelance lifestyle it's tricky to make plans for a month in the future, as well as the extortionate price of train tickets. But I'm certainly keeping my fingers crossed for Ben's cool video, it's one of those little things you can try at home easily, and it's something you'd have never thought of or heard about before - I know I'd never heard of such a thing before, and it was pretty cool.

So all-in-all, a good and productive day.

68 reasons why Children of the Living Dead sucks arse...

Following hot on the heels of the bitch lists for Day08 (the Day of the Dead remake) and Yawn04 (the Dawn of the Dead remake), here comes the bitch list for Children of the Living Dead (supposedly the 'real' sequel to Night of the Living Dead ... to which the world sighed and rolled their eyes). As any self-respecting dead fan should know, Children of the Living Dead is a shite-fest, but here's why I think it's a load of ropey old gash: The Children of the Living Dead Bitch List: 1) I'm already underwhelmed, ha! 2) No muzzle flash for us, please. 3) Atrocious ADR, heck, the audio is just laughable in general. Still no muzzle flashes...I smell cheap. 4) Some of these zombies are actually dying without headshots, and from indiscriminate scattergunning. 5) Nobody seems to be talking on set, or on screen the majority of the time! At least Savini is awesome. 6) Finally! Muzzle flash! "Surprise" - indeed I am, that word literally came from nowhere. 7) Oh my crap those grave stones are stupid ... just stupid ... I mean really stupid. 8) Lead zombie ... lulz were had. 9) That zombie came from out of plain sight! And that magazine fell out of the gun. Why waste a shedload of ammo? How did you miss Abbot Hayes - the lead zombie? How can a marksman miss so much? Did this zombie just laugh? Damn it's strong...and now the best part of the movie has been killed off (Savini's "Hughes"). 10) There's so much Night of the Living Dead poaching going on right now... 11) Seriously, I've seen cheapo Euro-zombi flicks knocked together more professionally than this. 12) 14 years later ... that's how long the first 15 minutes feels. Now we're ripping off Texas Chainsaw Massacre now? 13) Jesus, the audio is really bad... 14) Groups of teenagers all smoke, drink and bicker with each other copiously, and there's always one complete twat in said group. FACT...apparently. 15) So twat-face was one of the kids in that barn - presumably all herded together by Abbott Hayes...lame. 16) Heading off to a concert ... more TCM plagiarism. 17) An exceptionally lame car crash happens because they were staggered by that stupid Abbott Hayes zombie walk. 18) Since when are coffins left open at a funeral? Also, why specifically just one? 19) What?! This myriad of coffins are still above ground?! Common sense must have been left behind a dumpster somewhere. 20) Immaculate dead bodies - despite being smashed up in a van that rolled off a cliff. 21) Why are these coffins locked so tight, yet absolutely not underground? 22) Weird-ass jackal laugh. 23) Hayes bites the dead ... and then they resurrect? Common sense is getting a solid gang-raping here. 24) "Not again!" - then why didn't you bury the coffins straight away instead of leaving them unburied in a field?! 25) Hayes seems to think he's Michael Myers. 26) One person is supposed to bury five loaded coffins?! 27) Thick & fast cliches, thick & fast CSR - common sense rape. 28) How long are Hayes' fingers?! 29) But if he's creating his own zombie army, why bite someone and then bury them?! 30) Another year later?! So a third of the movie is all preface? Also, despite 15 years movement in time, everything still looks exactly the same - cars, fashion, everything is 2001 - lame. 31) Christ this movie is bad...in all aspects...ugh... 32) Hayes has has a drooling problem by the sounds of things ... middle of nowhere ... ideal for a car dealership, I'm sure. 33) I can't believe all these people got duped into being in this turd bonanza. 34) Jesus, this ADR is atrocious...if people talk on camera, it's out-of-synch, otherwise most people talk off-screen or are turned away from camera! 35) Set...crumbling...actors...eating it all... 36) How on earth can they profess this garbage to have anything to do with Night of the Living Dead?! 37) We hear rain ... but we don't see it. You know what else we hear? Jackal-laugh. 38) Why move your car a few feet from your parking space, stop it, and then go into the motel reception? Do we really need a scene (especially one that long) so the latest protagonist can find a diner? 39) So the Hayes army are leaving a dead dog as what, a warning? Lame. 40) This dialogue is melting my brain...it really is. 41) Abbott was raised as Alana, eh? Christ this film blows. 42) 'How would you like to go out on a cliched, uninspiring date with me?' *sigh* 43) Apparently the hard-of-hearing answer the phone by shouting "what?!" 44) Yeah, just leave the room filling up with gas, don't try to stop it or anything because clearly that would be stupid, right? Why call somebody to turn it off, when you can just turn it off yourself - like you finally did? 45) According to that list there needs to be a body in the coffin? According to common sense there should be one there, you nob'ed. More sucky dialogue gushes forth. 46) Sucky date ... to a cemetery ... the rape of common sense is unstoppable! 47) Massive shadows for night-time, eh? Suddenly day time again - is this concurrent to the sucky date? Did they just cut out the sucky date? What's going on? 48) This town has no idea how to bury coffins, two feet down? Geez. 49) Later, at the "OFF ICE", somebody off-camera illuminates another sucky zombie scene with a torch. 50) Next morning - no blood or left overs to be found ... the entire plot has suddenly become exceptionally imcomprehensible. 51) "Zombies?" - because that's what you'd honestly say in real life. 52) Lamest car action ever, ridiculously sped up. 53) More lame day-for-night, another scene lit only by a torch. 54) "Help me lock the doors" - let's NOT see them lock said doors. 55) Immediately the fuzz arrive ... zombies are scared of the light? 56) Why is there a diffused filter inside, but not outside, on the camera? 57) Dead phones eh? Cliche much? Dead battery - but the phone suddenly works. 58) Another torch-lit scene, accompanying more atrocious dialogue. 59) "Living zombies"? An attempt to link this pile of shite to Romero's intensely superior Night of the Living Dead. 60) Suddenly everybody was a kid in that barn 15 years ago ... christ this movie is a mess. 61) Despite two previous zombie outbreaks, the fat cop guy struggles to convince the gun toters it's happened again, then they're all entirely convinced...the incoherence knows no bounds. 62) Everybody runs out like an idiot into an incredibly lame battle. 63) Why does that guy commentate on everything he does? 64) Hilarious roaming flame illuminates Abbott Hayes, who just stands around moaning. This happens several times in this absolutely cack scene. 65) Hayes suddenly appears in the dark with that daft waitress, but doesn't attack her, then he's gone. I'm absolutely flabbergasted by the sheer volume of stupidity. This movie is a complete and total mess, it really...really...really is. 66) "Don't make contact with their teeth" ... lulz were had. 67) Abbott Hayes is STILL farting around in the dark. 68) Thank FUCK this garbage is over...except for the shite credits. I can't believe I forgot how awful this sad, pathetic excuse for a movie is...I mean really...it's astonishing.

Southland Tales:

Donnie Darko - a recent classic entry into the annals of cinema history. Southland Tales - the difficult second album. Unfortunately, this is not a tale of triumph over expectation-laden adversity, but a land where you just go south. Check out that pun-fueled title word-play, yo!

Anyway. It's a real shame to be honest. There are ideas within Southland Tales than would have provided a fresh and interesting film, but alas it's all rather scattergun. It's a meandering and unfocused mess, it really is. It swings violently back and forth between being shoved up its own arse (e.g. all the Bible quotes from a grimace-loving Timberlake) to moments of inspiration (e.g. the musical number, with Timberlake, set to a track by The Killers).

Central themes, such as that of the Patriot Act gone OTT and the eclectic exploration of the so-called Southland itself work quite well, but they drown under a torrential downpour of self-aware camera-mugging. Everybody in front of the camera seems all-too-aware they're starring in a cerebrally-challenging epic, and end up delivering their lines with that sense of smug, dry and elongated grandeur that either works (when done well) or sticks itself right up it's back passage (when overcooked) ... Southland Tales exhibits the latter.

Despite this, there are interesting turns from Johnson and Scott, which just about hold your attention long enough to survive the sedate pace. There's nothing wrong with a sedate pace - as long as you know what's going on, and you care about what's going on - but here you often find yourself struggling to either know what's going on or to bother caring if you really want to find out what's going on.

Donnie Darko was similarly confusing, but at the heart of it lay a back-in-the-day high school nostalgia trip, something anybody can grab on to. The trouble with Southland Tales is that seemingly nobody (except perhaps fellow Southlanders), can find anything real-worldly enough to hold on to in order to weather the stormy plot.

It feels like there are at least two movie's worth of plot swirling around in Southland Tales, but it all lacks enough coherence to make you care, or understand, or both. It seems that Kelly has unfortunately gotten a bit carried away and birthed a bloated child you struggle to care for. It's a fate that has certainly befallen many filmmakers before him, so this isn't a Kelly bash-fest, far from it. Southland Tales is admirable, but annoyingly messy. Hopefully his next feature will re-assert his well-deserved status in the industry.

Diary of the Dead...

What's it about?

A bunch of film students - people who actually know how to hold a camera steady for a change - are out and about in the woods shooting a mummy movie. Cue Romero having a bit of fast & free fun with dialogue regarding fast monsters sucking copiously. Soon enough though, over the radio, fecal matter starts getting flung at cooling devices, as a genuinely palpable sense of tension descends upon our protagonists.

After a literally wonky start, the director of the in-movie documentary The Death of Death goes into disaster coverage mode - something any filmmaker can relate to, the overpowering need to document chaos for future dissection. We begin to see the cracks in society take hold as the lack of concrete information causes our film students to panic while their blackly-comic arse-kicking professor tags along, hip-flask at the ready.

As the film progresses, society begins to fall apart. Some immediately fall victim to the undead, some come-a-cropper against human foes as the government attempts to cover the whole thing up.

Any good?

The central theme of a media-saturated society are present and central in Diary of the Dead. One man's ham-fisted is another man's up-front & honest. Fellow filmmakers amongst the audience should especially find depth in the subject matter, I know I did. The constant, swirling media circus is a beast of both good and evil. Some use their cameras and the internet for sick kicks (e.g. the rednecks), and some use it to provide the truth (our protagonists) as the government attempt to hide it from the people.

The gore - oh the gore - while the frequency is much lower than Land of the Dead, the "ho-ho-ho-YES!" factor (as I like to call it) is nothing but strong. Each major gore scene is a memorable one (and at times immensely entertaining for the genre fans).

It bounds along at a fair pace, you neither feel cheated nor over-fed with the running time, and once you get used to Romero's change of pace (it took me a good 15 or 20 minutes to get settled) it's all solid stuff.

Any bad?

It's low budget, we all knew that from the start, and while Romero and Co are clearly having a great laugh being fast, free and loose, the acting can at times show it's indie credentials. Some moments are better than others, would be a fair description. While some characters can appear wooden, or perhaps just wet behind the ears (in terms of acting experience), others keep you drawn into the movie at hand.

As a filmmaker myself, I did notice several moments where the 'first person perspective' mode was broken. Usually moments in editing, such as a scene being cut together from apparently one camera, but if it had been for real it would have been two cameras. It's hard to explain to the uninitiated, but as one of those 'on the inside' you do spy several such moments that break the FPS framework. However, the FPS aesthetic is an incredibly hard gimmick to pull off successfully - fortunately Romero handles it well enough to keep you wrapped up in proceedings.

There are certain elements that feel a tad forced (e.g. the narrator explaining the use of (non-diagetic) music to scare the viewer), and there are times when certain characters do stupid things ... or a scene might feel somewhat forced (the, admittedly quite entertaining, woodland chase sequence near the end being one example that doesn't quite sit comfortably within the film).

Overall?

A solid effort from Romero. It's nothing exceptionally new - Blair Witch stole the FPS thunder years ago, after all - but it is interesting to see GAR take something 'old' - his zombies - and inject them into something new to him - the FPS aesthetic.

Despite some rough edges (certain characters or scenes throughout), it provides the viewer with quality entertainment. Horror with a brain - something which is sorely lacking in today's world of:
A) Slaughter movies such as Hostel or SAW IV, which go for the gut but not for the brain.
B) Action-Horror movies such as the Dawn remake, which often mash the two opposing genres together clumsily with, again, no consideration for higher thought than "that exploded, cool".

A must-see for Romero fans, without a doubt. Land Haters are more likely to 'do a 180 opinion' than Land Lovers perhaps. A solid effort, and a fair 3.5/5 score (with a 0.5 either way if you want to be particularly fussy or fawning).

Diary of the Dead! Woo!

I'll post my thoughts on the film later, but put simply I dig it. I think I liked Land of the Dead more, but Diary was still great fun - and definitely had the more entertaining gore gags ... and the jabs at running zombies throughout were supoib.

I figured I'd post about the experience first though. After months of waiting to see the film, and counting down the days to it's release - today, March 7th 2008 - I finally got to see it. I nipped over to my nearest Cineworld for the 2:40 showing and was somewhat surprised to see two other people in the cinema. A fourth came in just after me, and then the film started.

Half way through, the fourth person left - clearly it wasn't his cup-o-tea - but while that was somewhat entertaining in itself (3 people fled Land of the Dead when I saw that on the opening day, September 23rd 2005), it didn't detract from the fun of the film.

What did, for a short while anyway, was when something wiggy happened with the project and the image dropped a third of the way down the screen, so that the bottom third was cut off. So some certain text written on a chalk board couldn't really be seen properly.

I was thoroughly British about it all and figured a reel change would be coming shortly, but a few minutes later I yelled towards the projection booth to "SORT THE PICTURE OUT!" - but nothing was fixed.

Oddly enough, when I saw Land of the Dead the opening credit sequence was shown in the wrong aspect ratio, a 2.35:1 image stretched vertically to fill a 1.85:1 space *sigh*. But while that didn't disturb things at all, this dropped image was a bit of a nuisance.

A minute or so later, one of the other viewers asked me if the image was supposed to be like that - no, not it was not - he tapped on the projection window, but nothing. He went outside and fetched someone and finally, the picture was fixed. The projectionist obviously fucked off elsewhere during the reel, but remained there throughout the rest of the film - precisely - do your fucking job! *sigh*

It wasn't a major disaster at all, kind of a funny story. You could see all the important stuff, and Pan & Scan is a worse experience by far...and I've seen tons of those, so I can deal with it, ha.

Anyway, then I was able to relax fully into the film and rather enjoyed it. At the end, the bloke who'd fetched someone to fix the problem, said he wasn't too keen on the film, but I said I dug it - and I do. On the way out I even had a brief conversation with a young woman who was working there and told her what the film was like when she asked...I was quite surprised, and pleased, to see other Romero fans in the flesh in the form of complete strangers. I recommended the flick, weighing it up fairly. I hope she enjoys the movie when she gets to see it.

While the other two viewers tried to get their money back, I just left for the car. Despite the projectionist fucking up, I wanted my money to go to those behind the film, because it was rather spiffing...and here I am, back at home a couple of hours later blogging up some thoughts on the experience.

Roll on the DVD - I do hope it gets the proper treatment, Land unfortunately got a bit of a bum deal DVD wise. Double disc presentation please!

A quality spin-off...

I've been into Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles of late, and while I dropped a dose of "pfft" on it's ass when I first heard news about it, I've actually been pleasantly surprised.

For one thing it completely ignores Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which was a complete load of gash quite honestly and just smacked of cash-in rather than being of any real purpose. Chronicles on the other hand, despite it's tongue-flappingly-long title, actually explores the universe further. We get to see before and after Judgement Day, we explore the characters from the first two movies further - making good use of that rubbish-bin-toppling, Pepsi-and-Lolly-Pop-chugging intern at Cyberdyne (who is nameless in T2). At least that's who I interpret the character of Andy to be, at least.

We get to catch up with side-characters from the movies, but several years later and see where they are now. Aside from the franchise-fan 'in-jokes' as-it-were (although they're references technically, not jokes at all), it's just a quality show on its own. It can get a bit Dawson's Creek from time-to-time whenever John is turned into too much of a teenager, but this isn't too much of a distraction.

It's taken a while for it to get into full swing and really understand what it is, but Chronicles is firing on all cylinders (well, the odd bit of Terminator one-liner-ing aside). By all means, do something interesting with a property such as Terminator (and now we finally have that), but avoid crap, gurning, mocking cash-ins ... i.e. Terminator 3.

Bring on a second season for sure.

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Oh and my Xbox360 seems to be working fine. It actually runs quieter than it used to, and the power button feels better to push...if that makes any sense...I've got a small fan on the way to sit behind it, just to keep the temperature more stable back there, which will hopefully stop any silly-buggery-ness. Roll on GTA4 and Alan Wake!

Inspired by fellow blogger Danny (The Underground Slacker), I've finally thought of a name for my console - Mason. For some reason I've been obsessed with this name of late and have used it in 3 of my recent scripts.

Talk, talk, talk ... chat

Today was an interesting change of pace - today I was in front of a camera, instead of behind one.

Indeed, twas Sean's presenting practical thingymajig, or part of it...I'm not entirely sure, but it was at least part of it. So there was the man himself, his brother and my chum Ben, and myself.

Ben was a guy from the government trying to spin his way out of the surrounding apocalypse (which provided the context for this chat show piece - the title of this post being the name of the fake show) and I was playing a zombie film director hired by the government as an advisor, but one who was obsessed with the nitty-gritty - namely, that the enemy on the street are not zombies because they can run, lol.

Needless to say, I was into the mini-role with gusto. I blanked out the cameras aimed at us, and the monitor displaying the action completely, and just focussed on the moment at hand. Much like the dentist, it was all over quickly and painlessly - and I actually had fun too, any excuse to talk about zombies, as I explained to Sean and Ben...any excuse.

Complete Contempt...

Well almost...Contempt of Conscience is almost finished, it's just got some final editing to be done and then it'll be getting out there, stay tuned for more info as-and-when.

With another project on the horizon, I've also been looking into getting some more letters out there, applying to various freelance jobs and whatnot, so that's an on-going thing.

Otherwise, on March 4th I should be going on a road-trip with Ben "BenZee" Connell to Cardiff to help his brother Sean "Trapped" Connell with a project he's got going there, something involving him being a presenter (to show off his presenting skills or something), and we're there to help by being 'guests' on his 'show' which takes place during an apocalypse apparently. Should be fun.

Finally, I'm starting to wind up the thinking about Signing Off to get nearer to the 'doing of' it. Hopefully during the Easter break I'll be able to get together with Sean and hike into the nearby hills to shoot it ... either that or Brokeback Mountain 2: I Still Can't Quit You ... or maybe I'll just stick with Signing Off, ha!