Seventies New York, difficult second album syndrome, and America's political underbelly - just a few of the things that have been setting the tone of my September 2017...
Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...
Saturday, 30 September 2017
Sunday, 24 September 2017
Alien Covenant - a quick review...
What's it about?
The crew of a colony ship bound for a new world are woken from their hypersleep early and follow a mysterious, scrambled message to a planet that was once home to an ancient civilisation. Naturally, they encounter biological beasties galore.
Who would I recognise in it?
Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Guy Pearce.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Prometheus had a few flaws and divided audience opinion. Some loved it, some hated it (I'm in the former camp). Its weighty ideas of mankind's origin and the earliest ancestors of the infamous xenomorph made for grand scale, intelligent sci-fi. With Alien: Covenant, however, Ridley Scott & Co have listened too much to their Prometheus detractors and scurried back to xenomorph territory - despite Scott having previously been quoted as saying that said beastie had been seen enough on the silver screen!
A familiar story unfolds before the viewer as a group of unlucky space explorers encounter grisly ends, but at least Scott hasn't abandoned all his higher-minded ideas. A rich theme of creator/creation antagonism runs throughout (dovetailing with the Engineer/Human relationship in the previous film), even if it skews into 'simply confusing' instead of 'well explained' territory on occasion...
Click "READ MORE" below to continue the review...
The crew of a colony ship bound for a new world are woken from their hypersleep early and follow a mysterious, scrambled message to a planet that was once home to an ancient civilisation. Naturally, they encounter biological beasties galore.
Who would I recognise in it?
Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Guy Pearce.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Prometheus had a few flaws and divided audience opinion. Some loved it, some hated it (I'm in the former camp). Its weighty ideas of mankind's origin and the earliest ancestors of the infamous xenomorph made for grand scale, intelligent sci-fi. With Alien: Covenant, however, Ridley Scott & Co have listened too much to their Prometheus detractors and scurried back to xenomorph territory - despite Scott having previously been quoted as saying that said beastie had been seen enough on the silver screen!
A familiar story unfolds before the viewer as a group of unlucky space explorers encounter grisly ends, but at least Scott hasn't abandoned all his higher-minded ideas. A rich theme of creator/creation antagonism runs throughout (dovetailing with the Engineer/Human relationship in the previous film), even if it skews into 'simply confusing' instead of 'well explained' territory on occasion...
Click "READ MORE" below to continue the review...
Tuesday, 19 September 2017
#FWOAN - the most difficult shot...
In my previous post I talked about "For Want Of A Nail", the short film that I wrote the screenplay for, and now I'll dig in a little deeper to one particular part of the production: the most difficult shot to capture.
There's an old adage in film making that says 'never work with children or animals', but I think we should also add dominoes to that list, and here's why...
Click "READ MORE" below to continue...
There's an old adage in film making that says 'never work with children or animals', but I think we should also add dominoes to that list, and here's why...
Click "READ MORE" below to continue...
Thursday, 7 September 2017
For Want Of A Nail
I've alluded to a project called "For Want Of A Nail" for a while now on this blog, and finally I can say a bit more about it.
A year-and-a-bit ago I wrote a short screenplay (adapted from my short story), entered a competition, got short-listed, and ultimately my script was picked to be the one that was to be made into a short film by Oakhill Productions (one of their past projects is the award-winning short film All's Well, which most recently won the audience choice award at the Veteran's Film Festival for its portrayal of PTSD)...
Click "READ MORE" below to continue...
A year-and-a-bit ago I wrote a short screenplay (adapted from my short story), entered a competition, got short-listed, and ultimately my script was picked to be the one that was to be made into a short film by Oakhill Productions (one of their past projects is the award-winning short film All's Well, which most recently won the audience choice award at the Veteran's Film Festival for its portrayal of PTSD)...
Click "READ MORE" below to continue...