Flavours of the Month: March 2011...

LOOKS:

Born To Kill? - During my formative years, and being one of those teens who was obsessed with horror movies (not an awful lot has changed in the intervening years, then), I used to watch documentaries on Channel 5 about notorious serial killers - the real-life inspirations to some of the horror movies I would watch. This was back when Channel 5 was brand new and pretty much only showed softcore porn movies and aforementioned killer docs ... but fast forwarding to now I discovered, thanks to Sky Anytime, a series that began airing on the Crime & Investigation Channel about serial killers, ultimately concluding whether they were born to do the things they did or not. It's a fascinating series, although the constant re-use of certain footage and photos does begin to grate on the odd occasion.

Glory Daze - Apparently this comedy series about 1980s fraternity life isn't getting a second season, and you can kind of understand why, but at the same time - so far at least - it's an enjoyable enough distraction.

Shutter Island - Early in the month it was put on Sky Premiere so I figured I'd give it a third viewing, and sure enough there were still things that I was picking up that I'd missed the first two times around. I'm really quite fond of this film.

Nedroid, and Romantically Apocalyptic web comics - I'm a big fan of the Cyanide & Happiness web comic, and through them I was introduced to these two other web comics which both tickled me. Particularly the latter, which is beautifully crafted in its illustration of a whimsical, semi-deluded air to an apocalypse.

SOUNDS:

Alan Wake OST - I find this soundtrack helps me get my head into the right tone of late, as I have been mapping out my next feature length script "Allen Bridge".

Staind "Break The Cycle", and "14 Shades of Grey" - Perusing my CD collection I rediscovered these sitting way down at the bottom of the stack, having got them the best part of a decade ago. So I gave them another spin for old time's sake.

CKY Infiltrate Destroy Rebuild - I love me some CKY, I even got to see them live at my University (it was a bloody good show, too), and with their newest track "Afterworld" getting a lot of airing on my playlist, I returned to this spiffing album (the video version of the album is also bloody good).

VIBES & FLAVOURS:

Allen Bridge - My next feature length script, and I'm really planning-the-hell out of it. Characterisation, town history, motivations, impediments, the three-act-structure - the lot. I'm getting close to finishing the prep work - which has been handled on-and-off over the last 10 months (I found myself having fits-and-starts of productivity with interluded bouts of struggling) - and in the past month I've really broken the back of this thing and explored entirely new territory that I never considered when I first came up with the idea. It's been like taking a lump of clay and crafting it into a sculpture, as what was once a fairly unclear vision has evolved into a deeply considered project. Indeed I plan to follow the writing process on this blog as I go, so keep an eye out for that.

Project Gotham Racing 4 - Lacking any new games to play (plenty of interesting ones are out there, but certainly not at prices I'm willing to pay for them), I broke the cycle of first-and-third-person-shooters, and sandboxers, by returning to good old PGR.

The next educational DVD project - On the topic of Abortion, this will be the next series of educational films that I'll be putting together, similar to the likes of Just War (which was screened at the Borderlines Film Festival this month), so it's been all-hands-on-deck to gather enough footage and photographs to turn the words in the script into moving images. Naturally with a topic such as this, finding footage can be a bit of a struggle, and so we'll be going for a slightly more abstract and metaphorical approach this time around. For me as the editor it's shaping up to be an intriguing visual challenge.

My Chronological Top Ten Films of 2010:

The Book of Eli (17/1/2010):
More of a movie apocalypse than the realism of The Road, with arse kicking action, superb visuals, and a great soundtrack. It's not perfect, and the central theme might turn some away, but I really quite enjoyed it from start-to-finish.

Shutter Island (27/3/2010):
A B-Movie genre flick with the talent and budget of an A-Movie. Scorsese excelled at forboding atmosphere and paranoid asylum-bound mystery, while DiCaprio delivered yet another quality performance.

Kick Ass (4/4/2010):
Superheroes that aren't so super, but who cause a lot of violent havoc and have filthy mouths. Pure, unrestrained entertainment. Sequel please.

Inception (19/7/2010):
A mind-bending blockbuster with a thunderous score, the best trailer of the year, and the ability to mix wow-factor visuals with huh?-factor smarts.

The A-Team (1/8/2010):
One of the pleasant surprises of the year. I thought it was going to be a disaster upon first hearing about it, but it grew on me gradually, and then proved to be an thoroughly enjoyable action romp.

The Expendables (22/8/2010):
I prefered Rambo, but the sheer bad-assery of this 1980s throwback actioner employing modern techniques provided an addictive dose of adrenaline. Plus Terry Crews' shotgun was amazing.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (28/9/2010):
It's a shame it didn't do a bit better at the box office, but it was clear from the first frames that this was going to be a cult hit all the way. This unappologetically niche flick has kept coming back into my mind over the months since its summer release, and I look forward to delving deeper into the Pilgrim universe with the graphic novels.

Jackass 3D (7/11/2010):
The whole 3D thing hasn't evolved beyond a flashy visual gimmick, and I doubt it ever truly will, so a bunch of idiots hurting themselves and flinging various bodily fluids at the camera was an ideal use for this technology. An ideal audience participation experience, filled with absurdly gross-out moments.

Toy Story 3 (Blu-Ray) (23/11/2010):
Perhaps the best one of the three, but certainly tied with the original, this series closer provided guffaws and lumps-in-throats in equal measure. A visual treat with a heart-felt script to match. It tugged on your heart strings with Pixar's perfected storytelling skills and was a definite 2010 Top Five moment. That sequence in the final act alone was enough to earn it endless kudos.

Tron Legacy (2/1/2011):
The script could have used a touch more shading for certain aspects, but as a visual and aural experience it was second-to-none for 2010. The 3D wasn't employed to particularly involving effect as the neon glitz of The Grid overtook any depth-of-field snazziness with ease, and the soundtrack by Daft Punk was pulse-poundingly perfect. I really enjoyed this flick, and while the original was a very important moment in cinematic history, this sequel really delivered the goods for me.

Honourable Mentions:

The Road (31/1/2010):
This is exactly how the apocalypse would be in real life - unlike The Book of Eli's darkly entertaining movie-apocalypse - a harrowing and tough experience. It didn't quite have the hauntingly memorable quality of Cormac McCarthy's superb book, but the heartfelt father/son tale translated perfectly to devestatingly moving effect. It's a film for fathers to deal with the fact that one day they'll be gone and their offspring will have to fend for themselves, and it's a film for sons to deal with the realisation that one day their guiding light will be extinguished. Like I said - devestatingly moving.

Machete (28/11/2010):
Perhaps I had amped it up in my head too much since the release of the thoroughly enjoyable Grindhouse, but Machete didn't quite fire on all cylinders after an uproariously entertaining opening. However, despite the slight disappointment, it was filled with that gleeful grindhouse vibe and I'm sure I'll enjoy it time-and-again on home video.

The Town (26/9/2010):
Ben Affleck's heist thriller might have treaded similar boards to many other heist thrillers, but it's honest and detailed approach to Boston's criminal class, and the three superbly crafted heists made it stand above its peers who have come out in the wake of influential flicks like Michael Mann's Heat.

Back to the Future (re-release, 3/10/2010):
I didn't include this in the 2010 Top Ten as it's a re-release, but it was easily one of - if not the - best cinema-going experience of 2010. The movie is perfect already, so it was glorious to see this life-long favourite on the big screen, but more than that it was heart warming to see young parents bring their young children to see this film that had been so important to them and successfully pass their enjoyment onto their offspring.

Shutter Island...

I've been waiting for a really good mental asylum movie for a fair while now ... an odd statement to make, perhaps, but it's true nonetheless. Specifically a good horror movie set in a mental asylum, and with Shutter Island I've pretty much got it. Naturally, as what happened with Silence of the Lambs, Shutter Island is labelled a "psychological thriller" - which it is - but it's also a gothic-like horror. Sure, the horror elements may be more subtle than that of Lambs, but the same theory applies.

Scorsese has crafted a genuinely creepy flick, which manages to convince you as the viewer that maybe you're a little bit insane too. It drip-feeds paranoia into your mind slowly but surely, leaving hints and misdirections to the truth throughout. Who do you trust? Who's telling the truth? What's going on? Not as mind-bending as an episode of Lost (fortunately), Shutter Island weaves an assured B-Movie schtick with an A-Movie production. This isn't an insult, far from it, some of the best movies are B-Movies - and Scorsese has given us a film which could have easily been a whole lot less in the hands of a lesser filmmaker.

The chills come slowly, creeping up your spine throughout, but the film never descends into the "BOO!" jolts that have become so commonplace. Indeed, Scorsese has made a far more classical chiller, relying on a growing sense of dread and paranoia to unsettle his audience.

It's also a beautifully shot flick, with typically slick Scorsese film editing, and another stand-out performance from Scorsese's modern muse DiCaprio, who was clearly seeking to explore new areas with his directorial master, and he has succeeded in spades.

While perhaps a tad overlong, Shutter Island isn't so much about the intricacies or basics of the plot, but rather how you arrive at them - not so much the story, but the telling. It's the sort of film that demands, and will reward with, a second or even third viewing. Intriguing, involving, at times even mentally taxing, visually imposing and nothing short of chilling ... it'll leave you thinking about it after it has finished, that's for sure.