| Author | Message | ||
     Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.4.104 |
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/buzzlog-uruguay-to-hollywood.html This thing was really done for $300?!... And it was really a case of uploading on Thursday to youtube, and Monday making $30 million off it?!... I'm smelling PR machine (i.e., lies) in overdrive here.... Not to taint the experience, but I found it, ultimately, empty - from the designs and situations and direction itself, right down to the imagination-less music. It's visually stunning, but... this kind of sheer eyeball-candy, is that where we're headed?... for example: a film to be developed off this, it will need a good storyline to back it, or surely it will fail utterly - but would a $30 million deal EVER be made off the storyline part, sans this eye-sex?... doubt it.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
It certainly shows visual flair: moreso than Michael Bay. I'd watch a SF thriller directed by the guy. Remember...The extraordinary District 9 came from similar beginnings. But I wonder of Godspeed! You Black Emperor know that he's stolen their music? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
This is the new test reel scenario: posting movies to Youtube. It's like a special effects caling card; unfortunately Hollywood wants SFX guys directing their "high concept" (oh, what an oxymoron) action films rather than real directors with a grasp of story. To quote The Jam: "the public gets what the public wants". | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.198.99.161 |
Craig that music track is stunning IMHO, it was also used to fantastic effect in the opening of '28 Months Later'. The build up of the track brings a remarkable urgency to whatever it touches. The film sequence reminds me of the work of the guy who did 'Sky Captain'. He sat at home for years and did a demo with giant robots invading a city, and eventually got his hollywood deal. I think there are some great visuals here as well. The palette of browns and the mist is a nice touch, but pretty tired of seeing this kind of destruction. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.245.247 |
That's it, Karim - it's tiring to see this destruction we've seen over and over, these kinds of giant robots (hello, Lupin?), and that music is just what you say - "... whatever it touches," meaning, we've been there, done that. That's my point: this is an ad for a video game, or a commercial that ends with some guy popping open a Mountain Dew. Zed, this is what annoys me, the lack of seeking out great stories. And I frankly don't believe this "news" story at all - I believe this was all some end-run attempt to get more PR or something, the story is simply NOT what we're being given. The world of advertising is insidious and about 99% lies lies lies. My brother-in-law works for an firm that does all of Red Bull's ads. A giant chunk of their advertising budget, Red Bull's, is for non-traditional (print, TV, etc.) ads - faux-reality. They, for example (he told me), bought a beautiful new car for some new rock-star skaterboarder, and just asked that he be seen driving around town, drinking Red Bull - make sure he's gotten into some photos drinking Red Bull. Key word: bull. But I guess all this is tangential to the quality of the short. Good, but promises nothing we've not seen already. WAR OF THE WORLDS? Did anyone ever hear of that little Spielberg remake?... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.23.22 |
You know what I just loved? A blockbuster franchise movie that AVOIDED action and high drama - the latest Harry Potter. When I saw it at the cinema I was fooled into thinking it was dull because it didn't fit 'the template'. I watched it again the other night and am convinced it's a pure piece of high art. Gentle, slow, beautiful and entirely absorbing it might well be the best in the series. It completely threw out the big bangs and wows of the book and made something that haunts your dreams and imagination. It's the Dark Knight of the Potter series (if you know what I mean, Craig!). We've just had a Potter binge this week, watching one a night, and the series is, I feel, one of th most consistently good (only Goblet is a real dip) in film history. I don't believe this robot film cost £400, btw. Oh, and i quite like Spielberg's film, even if it does remind you how OK he's become after those fantastical highs of the seventies. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.225.178 |
I really enjoyed the latest Potter movie, Tony! I was sitting there rapt to, and thinking, My God, this is the best HP movie there has been yet! I did think it lost a bit of its momentum in the final portions, roughly from where Dumbledore took Harry on that quest with him, right after Jim Broadbent's character is wrapped up - from then on, we sort of lose the nice threads that were being woven with all the school chums and their romantic woes, and hell, we totally lose Broadbent as well. But then, I've never read the books, so I don't know if this was all to be expected. So a whole two more films to go?!? Wow.... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.23.22 |
Broadbent did have an 'ending' to his thread, though. Funny, Kim Newman thought the film stank; I think he's immune to poetry and the value of mood. The books are qute mechanical page turners but there's nothing wrong with that. The film lost a lot of good meat from the book - we find out a LOT more about Voldemort in it - and initially I felt it suffered as a result. Now I find it a tasty fillet of the work, the soul of it. Rowling is more than lucky to have had such treatment of her work - and so are we. |