Incredible!
Saw it a little while back, amazing that I could forget about it. Glad I found it again.
p.s. After blogging at Ticklebooth for almost two years, I still don’t have a good way of collecting bookmarks.
Touching the Stairs
A story of genuine heroes who don’t know the meaning of the word lift… Or do they?
Written and directed by Michael Wright at Partizan London.
Watch it. (Flash Video)
Review of Atonement
The book by Ian McEwan is one of my favorite books of all time. Surprisingly, the movie lives up to the book. I expected the film to be decent, not great, as I haven’t heard much of a buzz for this film. However, after seeing it, I’d be shocked if this film doesn’t get a Best Picture Oscar nomination.
One of the fears I had about the movie was it would abandon the beautiful structure that McEwan devised to tell the story. Thankfully Christopher Hampton, who wrote the script, not only keeps the structure but also manages to keep some of McEwan’s poetics. The scene where Briony sees her sister and Robbie near the water fountain is exactly how I had pictured it from all of the various perspectives.
A lot of credit should also go to Director Joe Wright. This easily could have been a film that we as an audience could watch from a distance. Instead, almost everything is seen through the eyes of a character. Everything is laced with a character’s subjectivity. To switch perspectives, there is no fade to black or any other visual device. It is a stream of consciousness that switches back and forth. So well done!
The biggest difference, in terms of emotions, is the beginning of the second half of the book/movie. The book’s second half numbs you to the pain from the 1st half. One of the greatest scenes in any book I’ve ever read. The movie sadly disappoints here, why wasn’t there more walking? more brown? more carnage?
The acting ensemble is solid. I am not entirely convinced of Keira Knightley as Cecilia, however, James McAvoy as Robbie is picture perfect. To many, this might seem like another stuffy costume drama. This is as modern as any film you will find. From the story to its character to the film’s style, there is a lot of risk taking. Go see it, this is one of the great tragedies of our time.
The Story - Listening to Nazis
I am a big fan of Dick Gordon. I am always amazed how one program can find that many great stories. Anyways, in a recent episode, Gordon interviews Henry Kolm, a Austrian Jew who witnessed the Nazi invasion and had to flee to America as young kid. Incredibly, as a adult, he was recruited by the American armed forces to interrogate captured German officers.
Currently, it is impossible to get through any respectable news program and not hear how America should interrogate (torture) its captured militants . Kolm has plenty of insight into of all of this. His experiences on his life and also torture are priceless. Kolm is against torture, besides it being the wrong thing to do, he believes you can never trust information that comes from such methods. But another point, a more subtle one, is that war has changed drastically from less than a century ago. Kolm doesn’t think the Al Qaeda’s of the world should be treated as soldiers because they are fundamentally different from Nazi’s. War and how it is conducted is on the slide, after a brief show of civility, we have regressed into being…idiots.
Listening to Nazis page - Download the show (download will start automatically) - Subscribe to the podcast
Like a Bird on a Wire
I am amazed there isn’t an easier way to do this. The voice-over is eloquent, especially the end quote. A segment from an helicopter documentary “Straight Up!”
Anika’s Odyssey: Land of the Taniwha
We rarely post games here, but this one deserves it. Not that it is very innovative, nor challenging. But this little point-and-click is just like an illustrated book for (grown-up) children. You open it, and for ten (twenty, thirty…) minutes you actually are into it.
Play it. (Flash)
Protagonist
Incredibly interesting.
Explores extremism and the limits of certainty. Inspired by Greek drama, this visually inventive documentary weaves the stories of four men - a German terrorist, a bank robber, an “ex-gay” evangelist, and a martial arts student consumed by personal odysseys.
Reminds me of the Errol Morris film “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control”, which was great.
Barack Obama’s Speech at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner
Powerful speech, will it be a turning point for Obama?
Tir Nan Og
Another variation on the Father and Daughter theme, not as touching, but very suggestive.
Directed and animated by Fursy Teyssier. Original soundtrack by The American Dollar.
Watch it in hi-res or lo-res. (Flash Video)
The Life
It is more of a poem than a film, directed by Jun Ki-Kim. About the glory of work.
Atonement trailer
One of the best books I ever read. I wonder if the movie can live up to it.
Blind Painter
Incredible story.
University of North Texas (UNT) student John Bramblitt paints beautiful works of art in vivid colors, despite the fact that he’s been blind for years.
Sure, sure, who cares right? But when you the man’s work, it will blow your mind. It is hard not to believe that things happen for a reason after hearing stories like this.
Review of Across The Universe
My Wife and I went back and forth on what to movie we should see this past weekend. A lot of last minute negotiating went on, we would say things like “if you see your movie this weekend, then you have to see my movies the next two weekend.” This went on for a while before we finally settled on Julie Taymor’s Across The Universe.
I accepted because it runs along similar themes that I am working on in my script. My wife liked the trailer. Looking back, the trailer is not a good indicator of how good the movie is. The trailer borrows a lot from the graphic oriented montages, which to me are the weakest elements in the film.
Director Julie Taymor is a genius with theater costumes, masks and props. If you think I am misusing this word genius, I suggest you look at her book on her work with costumes. She went on to direct the Lion King on Broadway and features such as Frida and the Oedipus Rex. I haven’t seen Frida but Oedipus Rex was a disaster. Subtlety is not a suit that Taymor possesses. So when I read that Across The Universe was structured around Beatles songs, I rolled my eyes. This ploy was either going to be painfully cheesy or emotionally powerful.
Walking into the theater, I warned my partner that the film was going to be visually striking but emotionally cold. The film’s visual sense lives up to my billing. There has not been a film in recent times that possesses such visual poetry. Taymor is clearly more adept in speaking visually than aurally. There is dialogue but most of the power and meaning is deferred to the Beatles songs. A very smart move because I believe without the songs, the film would have been decidedly stilted. The Beatles gives the film a sense of warmth and familarity. Their lyrics are ingrained in our collective psyche, in the best parts of ourselves: the idealistic, the hopeful, the communal. The film not only channels those feelings but also gives it a story thus bringing out the colors of the lyrics that I have not witnessed before.
I have heard “Revolution” so many times but I have never realized its true meaning. I just kinda went along with the song but clearly had not paid attention to what and who Lennon was attacking. Both me and my wife commented about this afterwards.
My favorite scene in the film is when T.V. Carpio sings “I want to hold your hand.” It happened early but I knew when I saw it that this was going to be my favorite scene. To explain why this was special is difficult because the magic lay between the performer and the camera / microphone. I was transfixed, I looked around and saw the same. I don’t want to hype this moment too much, see it, tell me if you feel the same way.
The first half is a classic, a great film. The second half is riddled with over-directing. The graphics play out like music videos. As matter of fact, I rolled my eyes every time the graphic department took over the reins. The spoken word all but disappears. One song leads to another. Some songs should have been deleted (excellent example: Dear Prudence). It was all too excessive, much like those times. However, I am not sure the aesthetic was meant to infer that.
All the war scenes feel silly, like high-school theater. Bombs blow, guns shoot, soldiers scream on crimson skied backdrops with dramatic footlights. It reminds me too much of the scene from Rushmore when the high school puts up a play on the war in Vietnam. The hospital scene (featuring Salma Hayek) is another clunker, the lowest point in the film.
The well casted team of actors did all they could. Music video acting can be limiting. The editor carves out a performance from the little-quirk-expression basket. A note about the editing, I wished someone had told the editor that he didn’t have to use every angle that was shot. It is perfectly ok to use a couple of shots in a scene or to stay on one shot. The audience doesn’t have a watch in its hand waiting for the next cut or a calculator on how much money is being spent. For f*ck’s sake! Taymor is as responsible in this as the editor. The scenes with longer takes work better than the faster cut ones. The film is so grand that it needed more grounding.
I am not a big fan of musicals, this coming from someone who grew up in Bollywood land. My suspense-of-disbelief gene does not cover the musicals. Sorry! This film, however, possesses the best music ever recorded. The friggin’ Beatles! I would pay money to see the songs performed over a pile of dung. So this certainly works. I plan on buying the awesome soundtrack when they decide to include all the songs and not a select few. (Bono not only appears in the film but has a couple of tracks as well.)
Overall, this film is a mini-classic. For all my complaints on Julie Taymor’s over-direction, I believe a lot of the film’s greatness would have been lost if she weren’t at the helm. She has courage beyond any other working director. Nobody else would have even entertained such ambition. She is one of the few directors who lives up to the label of “groundbreaking.”
Watch the under-whelming trailer.
Update: “I want to hold your hand” audio is available on Youtube!
Halo 3 Ad - “Believe”
Videogame ads are so cliche. There are usually two types: 1) Noisy ones that throw everything and the kitchen sink down your throat at once, more is good mentality 2) Suspense thrillers that look and feel like movie trailers, deep baritone voices with a lot of fades to black.
The Halo ad is striking because there is not much kinetic action, only potential energy. Long cuts with little or no movements from the action figures. Instead the camera floats around the stillness of action. Mid-explosions in their ball-like ready-to-blow-everything-to-pieces stage is always a cool effect. The detail of the scenery only sells the game even more. The music and the “character’s” faces are extremely powerful. Dare I say, even more heroic than human faces.
Watch it - more info on ad - via HD for Indies
Update: Interesting Wikipedia entry on the marketing. (Thanks Morey). Directed by Rupert Sanders.
Plug-In City - Broke On A Wheel
Brilliant concept for a music video, especially the end. The dynamic between music and video are superseded by the idea. You could really go nuts with what it really means, especially if you got a filthy mind like I do.
Watch it - QT version - via antville
Recent Picks
Support us