The Great Dictator

I haven't seen The Great Dictator but I've watched this speech quite a few times. It's amazing, Chaplin delivers it perfectly and it still seems so relevant... which isn't exactly a good thing, if the world hasn't changed since 1940.

NERF

Nerf Wars [WT] is a short film I'm working on, which we are trying to get funding for through Pozible to be able to make it happen! It should be a lot of fun, there's lots of great, talented people involved, mostly Film & TV students and other experienced volunteers. 


It's going to be a deadpan 7 minute action film featuring Nerf guns. We're filming it in an old Masonic Temple, called the 'Castle' - "Nerf is the weapon, the Castle is the battlefield". Take a look at the Pozible website linked above for more information. Posters and footage coming soon. 

La Jetée

"He ran toward her. And when he recognized the man who'd trailed him from the camp, he realized there was no escape out of time, and that that moment he'd been granted to see as a child, and that had obsessed him forever after... was the moment of his own death." 

What was Lynch thinking?

My review of Inland Empire (watched for my contemporary cinema film screening class)...

Never before have I finished watching a film and felt less certain of what I have just experienced than I did with Inland Empire. David Lynch’s 2006 low budget mind-bending film takes the audience on an unexplored journey, causing you to question reality and the human mind.

As the tagline for the film states, the overall storyline is about “a woman in trouble”. The woman, an actress (played by Laura Dern) gains the lead role in a film and as they begin shooting, it is revealed that the film is actually a remake of another production that was never finished due to mysterious events. Her life then takes a curious turn as the ‘real’ world and the fictional world of the film begin to merge and reality is questioned. The abstract nature of the film is enhanced by the occasional cut away to a TV show featuring three anthropomorphic rabbits.

Inland Empire was shot on a low budget with a DV camera making it look like a poor quality student film. If it were made by anyone but Lynch it would have been immediately disregarded. The problems I had with this film were its unnecessary length, how visually bland it was and the complete lack of any coherent narrative whatsoever. This film is certainly a unique experience, it intrigues me but at the same time I don’t think I could sit through it again for a long time. Perhaps if you go into the film not expecting any form of coherent narrative or film conventions then it would be easier to immerse yourself into this mysterious creation from Lynch. 

I enjoyed this review of the film...
 http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2081564.htm

Life in a Day

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I can't say that I had been anticipating the release of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, as I was expecting it to be just another American blockbuster. However, my curiosity was piqued when I started hearing positive reviews about the film (plus the fact that James Franco stars in it helps) and when I ended up seeing it last week, I was pleased to find that it surpassed my original expectations.

I haven’t seen the 1968 original Planet of the Apes, just the Tim Burton re-imagining which I was quite disappointed by. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a prequel to and reboot of the original series, managing to maintain the mythology of the series while improving some of the weaker elements and making it more believable. It’s the first Apes film to feature animated apes rather than having actors dressed in ape suits. WETA just seem to keep improving and impressing audiences with their visual effects. The effects were seamless, not stealing the audience’s attention (except to admire how good they were) and allowing the narrative to carry on rather than take away from it. Motion capture technology is a wonderful advancement for the film industry and Andy Serkis seems to have a great talent for portraying non-humans.

The fact that the apes didn’t try to take over the world in the film (which just doesn’t seem realistic) but rather become the dominant species due to the spread of a virus that is deadly to humans but which the apes are immune to. This seems a much more plausible cause to the downfall of the human race and the rise of the apes. This is not shown in the film, just implied by the final sequence and the credits.

I had not previously heard of the director Rupert Wyatt and Apes was only his 3rd feature. I was impressed by his work on this film and I hope that he continues to make successful films in the future. I was also pleased to note that the cinematographer was an Australian, Andrew Lesnie, whose work (such as DOP on the Lord of the Rings films) I have a great appreciation for. 

The film sets up for a sequel, which will probably turn into a series so let’s hope they deliver. Apes is more than the average Hollywood blockbuster, with an interesting storyline and the involvement of some truly talented people. 

Arbitrary quote

"All I can do is be me. Whoever that is." 

                                                     - Bob Dylan 

The Fall

Incredibly beautiful film. That is all.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I'm not usually fond of American adaptations or remakes of films, but I think I may make an exception with David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, to be released in December this year.  

Did I mention I like quotes from filmmakers?

"We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it's a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it. " 

                                                                                               - Andrei Tarkovsky