OMG! CHECK THIS OUT!

HOW COOL DOES THIS LOOK!?

The Big Chill... I Spit on your Rave...shambles

Last weekend I went on a camping expedition to Eastnor to attend the Big Chill Festival. What should I find there? Noel Fielding shooting scenes for his up and coming project entitled "I Spit on your Rave". It is set in the future a few years after a virus was let off at the 2012 Olympics and practically everyone is now a zombie (who are all attending a rave). The film needed a crowd scene full of zombies so the organizers ask people to participate. Here are the pictures to prove it.

Now I was a huge fan of the Mighty Boosh first and second series (not the third!) and last year at the Big Chill, Noel and Julian did some late night comparing. Lets just say it was not good! Scripted stuff, they can be VERY funny, but improvising? :/
Whilst they were filming the scene for Noel's zombie film, they had moments when nothing was happening, but Noel still had to keep his audience entertained, errr... he really wasn’t that great. Granted, this is mine and my friends opinion, other people may of found him very entertaining...I have yet to find them. The weekends comedy bar was certainly set by Russell Howard, VERY entertaining.

Anyho, here is the official trailer.

Whip It!

DREW BARRYMORE IS DIRECTING NOW!!! Her film is called “Whip It” and it stars Ellen Page (Juno) as a girl dragged to beauty pageants in the 60’s when it is the last thing she wants to be doing. What she does want to be doing is Roller Derby. The only way to describe it is female gladiators on roller skates. It looks A LOT of fun and I will definitely be going to the cinema for it!

J'taime

When out at my weekly shop in Asda I came across “Closer” for the grand total of £2. From what I remember the reviews were mixed, bordering on dislike for the film starring Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen and Natalie Portman.

Personally I though “Closer” was brilliant. It was originally a stage play were Clive Owen had once played the character of Dan (played in the film by Jude Law). Instead he played the character of Larry, a nice genuine guy with a huge libido. The each one on one scenes Clive has with Natalie, Jude and especially Julia are quite amazing. His rollercoaster of emotion when he is told that he has been cheated on is so captivating; I challenge everyone not to see Clive’s merit as an actor.

Another shining star from the film is Natalie Portman. Child actor who made an effortless leap to adult role I can’t help but not look up to Natalie. She is an intelligent, brilliant actress and (now that you can get the “New York, I love you” trailer from Apple where I was very impressed to see that) she is now dabbling in directing!

“New York, I love you” are from the same producers of “Paris, J’taime”, which was a film that was made up of a collection of short love stories grouped together under the same location, Paris. Now they have moved over to New York where they have a constellation of Stars appearing, including Orlando Bloom who personally, I thought had turned into a black hole after the Pirates of the Caribbean series. I am very much looking forward to this film coming out.

Another Natalie film that is coming out soon is “Brothers”, a film starring Jake Gyllenhall and Toby Maguire. Its about how a women deals with the death of her soldier husband and how his brother steps up to the plate to look after the family his brother left behind…but he isn’t really dead and he comes back from the war not fully of sound mind. It is a social drama bringing up the issues posed to people who have to deal how to normal life after war. It looks to be a very intense drama. Watch out for it!

Classic

I watched Disney's Aladdin this morning.

You can't beat a good Disney film when Robin Williams is using his voice.

Classic!

Public Enemies

Dir. Michael Mann

1933. America. Great Depression (much like today).

John Dillinger is a bank robber and the Fed’s public enemy number one. At that the director of the police is J. Edgar Hoover (who later became President of the United States… thought I’d throw in a bit of history) and he employs Melvin Pervis played by Christen Bale to catch John who is played by the chameleon Johnny Depp.

John is pursued, John gets captured, John escapes (by very cheeky methods), it’s a cat and mouse game film. This is a very long film. Only negative. There were several times that I thought they could have ended this film however, being a biographical piece it dragged. Yet being a long film, it was able to keep me interested in how John Dillinger was either going to escape or get captured by the police.

Public Enemies was filmed in HD format instead of the classic 35 mm (the same way as to how Collateral was filmed). I really like this style of filming for two reasons. One, it makes the film look like a really well made, expensive student film and two, it feels so much more real for the viewer. You can see every open pore on the actors face. They say that with the rise of the HD format, it will do what the talkies did for the silent movie actors. No Vaseline on the camera lenses for Marion Cotillard (granted she wouldn't need it as she is stunning!) who was brilliant as John Dillenger’s ‘girl’ Billie Frechette.

Production design: amazing. Because of the style of filming, you can see every nook and cranny. It was merely the cheery on the top for the whole feel of the film.

One of my favourite bits in the film is when a really awful gangster bloke finally gets shot down (and good riddance), its out in the open and with the beauty of film you get a very unique moment. You get to see his last breathe. Blink and you’ll miss it, but it’s those types of subtle moments, which makes great films.

This is a really good film that will probably feature highly in next year’s Oscars. I would watch it though in the comfort of your own home as the length of it can be a bit too much in a cinema.

Favourite moments in Cinema: Part one.

In no particular order…

SPEED: The bus explosion. Just after the guy says to Keanu “Hey Jack, you’ve forgotten your muffins”, the one fluid motion of the action. Bus goes by, Jack goes to his car, camera moves round the car, car Jack and bus are in frame and the BOOM!

SPEED: The moment when Jeff Daniels’ character knows he is going to get blown up. There is the flicker of realisation, a millisecond where he looks like he’s mustering all the courage/ dignity that he can before BOOM!

FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING: the movement of camera through the woods at the end with all the Orcs from Aragon to Boromir, in the same time, the reaction of the Hobbits when Boromir is shot down and they think “fu*k it, we’ll take these Orcs on”.

FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING: The aerial shot of Arwen being chased by the Nazgul, always gives me tingles.

ALL LOTR FILMS: I think Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) is brilliant!!! At the end of FOTR when hes saying that he'll never leave Frodo's side, TTT when he's talking about having to go on and the strength/ goodness of people and in ROTK when hes carrying Frodo up Mount Doom. Basically any Sam moment at the end of the films and generally when he is crying. Heartbreakingly brilliant. I hope I can tell Sean in person one day that I thought, actor wise, he was the best thing in LOTR for me.

FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING: sorry, I know there are loads, but I think its one of the best films. The whole breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, dinner... speech and then the flying apple.

GLADIATOR: EVERYTHING! But the lighting in particular when Maximus could chop of the other gladiator's head in the areana and he just stands there, bathed in shafts of light.

28 DAYS LATER: The Aeroplane. The subtly and the magnitude of what it means for the plot. Simplicity at its best.

GROSSE POINT BLANK: Dan Aykroyd running from the car towards the house. Always makes me giggle.

MASTER AND COMMANDER: Basically the whole film but its heart breaking when one of the crew commits suicide.

JARHEAD: I loved the whole philosophical edge to this film. What is a knife if it can’t cut anything… pointless. The bit when Peter Saaragard is told that Jake Gyllenhall and himself can’t shoot someone because the target is going to get bombed. His reaction, amazing!

There are more but I can’t remember them at the moment :)