Monday, 17 November 2008

"Choke" on this!

"Choke". What more is to sayabout a film with a title as short as this. Short and straight to the point as I felt all the way throughthis film, as though Sam Rockwell's chracter was choking until he could finally find some sort of truth about his past. The film is about Victor, a sex addicted bastard with a mother suffering from dymentia. As the film goes on, it gets harder and harder to find what Victors desire actually is. His mindless sex crazed antics all resolve around his childhood and his crazy lifestyle with his crazed mother. Yet the film has some sort of confidence as it redeems itself with quirky comedy and a fantasic character, who has a likeable quality, considering his role in life as an arsehole. The introduction of Doctor Paige Marshall adds more meaning to the story as she stretches to find Sam Rockwells past aswell, but she also lends a fatastic twist in the story, to help in Rockwell's problems. Clarke Gregg has succcessfully connected victor with the audience, with a film which is infact and emotionally impacting film about love and family but wrapped in the comic life of a sex addict.
*****

Thursday, 6 November 2008

Did you know Donnie Darko?

This film needs no explanation from any singular person. What it needs is about 60 billion explanations from every person who has taken careful time to watch it in the entire world of cinema goers. What it also needs is a bigger audience. Although most seem to think this film is aimed at a particular audience does not mean that the other 99.99% of people cant watch the film to advance their own though process of how it all works in Gyllenhalls head(thats Jakes by the way not Maggie's, although it is interesting how she plays his sister, kind of plays off of real family fueds (hmm?)). But yes this film is trully a masterpiece of its generation (if ye know wat a meen man!!).
A fellow film critic Paul Forest stated that he think Donnie is superhero film, of coarse a very warped version of a hero film but nonetheless this is but one of many diffirent perceptions of Donnie's crazy world of the 80's.

Donnie Darko is a film which can be percepted into any ideal the audience wants, in any individual view, that's what makes it the film it is that's why its for the new generation, this is a new kind of cinema, the viewers cinema, "open to suggestions" cinema. I knew Donnie Darko.

This One's For Cameron!

You may have all noticed the crappy attempt to explain my favourite film "The AByss : Special Edition" but what i failed to output most is the technical aspect of the film.
The film is about a group of engineers attempting to complete the first ever underwater oil rig. The evnt that changes it all is the sinking of an America (as per) nuclear submarine, which brings the rig to be put under military use, sending down a team of marines led by Michael (psychopath) Beign. During their time down in the depths they are cut off from the ships above and are left to fend for themselves running low on oxygen and power. Suddenly from the abyssal trench beside the rig, strange lights and beautiful glows begin to appear and the taem all suspect strange goings on related to beings living way below the diving limit that humans cannot reach. It isnt until Ed Harris takes it into his hands to try and do what has never been done before, that they find a whole new race living below, watching and waiting to determine the human races fate. "When you stare into the abyss, it stares back at you!"

This film is a huge inspiration to me. Possibly because i have always enjoyed James Cameron films but moreso this one, possibly because against all odds, over budget, over running and over exhausted the cast still made it through and eventually put together the final edition of the film which has manage to make it an all time favourite for me. I especially like the lighting to the film considering the dark abyssal trench that lies all around the rig. Usually only one light is use in the background to highlight the sillhoette of the rig in the black background, this is also a fantastic use of miniatures as we can tell that a rig of this size could never be trully built. Or could it?!

Offcoarse it could - Its James Cameron people, he'll go all out.

A full sized rig was built inside an old abandoned nuclear power station and to this day remains one of the hardest set peices to shoot in in film history.

This film set th ebar for a new kind of hollywood blockbuster as it was the first of its kind to use these kind of special effects which we use for granted everyday. The effects used to create the water tenticle the the mimicing face became very popular once the film had been released.

Although all these amazing features were shown off in the trailer there was still the problem of completing the film in time fior thwe summer blockbuster onslaught. Therefore the producers cut the film about half an hour short in preperation for the advertising campaign. (bastards!). This proved to be a bad idea considering that the film may have not raked in the deserved amount of money that it should have compared to what the special edition did.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Th 30 minute addition to the story brings a whole new outlook to the Alien's intentions of hwo to treat the human race after seeing all war and techonolgy being used for bad, and they even at one point consider wiping out the human race, but our faithful character "Bud" (Ed harris) manages to save thwe day by showing that hes not all hard bitten.

All in all this film seems to hold a very emetional grasp on me which i will possibly never overcome but maybe one day you too will appreciate a film such as i have done with a simple film such as the abyss!