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  • 20 Dec

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    My Love For Film in a Snapshot #7

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    Happy 40th Birthday to Stanley Kubrick’s superlative snapshot of a dystopian future-Britain (which of course is a reflection of the present!) More here. And Cinecast talk here.

  • 20 Dec

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    Finite Focus: Crazy Dance (Simple Men)

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    Stylish for the sake of style, very much of the 1990s, Hal Hartley may be the precursor to a variety of that decade’s indie success stories: Kevin Smith, Whit Stillman and Wes Anderson. He has a knack for using big words and big ideas for chuckles and certainly knows his way around a pop song.

    While Giorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth gets a lot of credit for the its protagonist’s crazy dance, here is the Hal Hartley version, circa 1992. You cannot get much more indie cred in the early 1990s than Sonic Youth, but Hartley plays everything like a sight gag. There is a point to it all, however. As in most things Hartley it is simultaneously obvious, insincere and loaded with irony. The lead characters, foregrounded in the second half of the dance, begin a foolhardy courtship that you know (as per all Hartley joints) will end badly, dance (and song) acts as a bit of greek chorus. Characters in his films are troubled, mysterious, childish and ultimately romantic caricatures, that nevertheless capture…something.

    “I can’t stand the quiet!”

    Since I am guest spotting on The Director’s Club podcast this week and have been reacquainting myself with this episodes director, let’s Crazy Dance!

  • 19 Dec

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    Trailer: The Dark Knight Rises

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    No, this is not the 6 minute prologue attached to IMAX prints of Mission Impossible, which, lets be honest, was the best possible advert for a film that needs no further advertising. We are all going to watch you when you come out, no worries, M’Kay. But studio policy likely dictates a formal trailer for the 35mm filmgoers. On the minus side: the first look at ‘dodgy CGI’ in the form of a football field collapsing. On the plus side: Everything else is weighty and impressive; in particular the voice of Sir Michael Caine. Even the use of the American National Anthem fits with the films epic size and scope. S’all good.

    The trailer is tucked under the seat.

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  • 19 Dec

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    Prometheus: A Teaser for the Trailer

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    The former Alien prequel turned stand-alone science fiction epic which sees Ridley Scott back in the genre for the first time in about 30 years is big enough to warrant a teaser trailer for the debut of the films trailer. It’s an Alice in Wonderland world folks. The teaser is down the rabbit hole (i.e. tucked under the seat)

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  • 16 Dec

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    Friday One Sheet: Boys Will Be Boys

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    OK, I know nothing about this film other than that tagline with that image in combination is somehow highly amusing. It’s been a busy week in One Sheets, but this is the stand out for me.

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  • 15 Dec

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    Shorts Program: Can We Kiss?

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    Maybe this would be better saved for Valentine’s day, but as someone recently pointed it out to me, I feel compelled to offer this to you. One of Jandy’s first Finite Focus posts involved Ms. Naomi Watts auditioning for a soapy-TV role within the nightmare that is Mulholland Dr. That scene is pretty special because it is so multi-layered in terms of acting chops. First Watts has to play the bubbly Betty Elms and then she has to play Betty acting how she feels would be best to get the role. In the same spirit, but with markedly less time for character development than a feature film, Pierre-Olivier Mornas’ 16mm short film from 11 years ago, On S’Embrasse? (Can We Kiss?) does this in a similar way. One that, as David Mamet would say, is both inevitable and surprising. It has the romance of a random encounter in a French café, and yet has a particularly acerbic irony to the whole affair. Damn, they should have shoehorned this into Paris Je T’aime despite it preceding that anthology by about a decade.

    Have a look.

  • 15 Dec

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    Trailer: Kill List

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    A film that polarized a good bunch of the Row Three (and The Substream) crowd at TIFF this year. Kill List is an odd beast, and while this trailer emphasizes the ominous, there is a fair bit of off-kilter British humour and crime/mystery all thrown together with a decidedly Wicker Man cult angle. Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace) is one of the most interesting genre directors out there, and he delivers with this one, at least in my opinion.

    The trailer is tucked under the seat.
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  • 13 Dec

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    Trailer: [REC]³

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    Did you have a few snags or bumps during your wedding (assuming you are married)? Well, Paco Plaza, co-director of [REC] and [REC]2 gives you the worst, and most unexpected wedding glitch since, well, uh, Lars von Trier ended the world. Actually, the possibilities of this fraanchise, with its found-footage conceit, were beginning to get a bit strained with the second entry. Things were compensated only by an interesting twist on the mythology, shoring up the weak points between jump scares. This one, apparently a prequel, looks to be made entirely for shits and giggles. Why the hell not a have zombie out break at a wedding? [REC]3 is actually getting a US theatrical release -the first two were shelved for to make way for their English language remakes – on March 30, 2012.

    The full trailer (**UPDATED WITH US VERSION**) is tucked under the seat.

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  • 13 Dec

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    Review: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

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    “Lie Still. I’ve never done this before. There will be blood.”

    An eyebrow raising line of dialogue delivered in a no-nonsense, staccato fashion, by the titualar Girl to a man who hates women. If this statement is taken as a comment on David Fincher doing an American adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s insanely popular novel, it is kind of a lie on both counts. Lisbeth Salander has indeed done this before (in print of course, and also on celluloid in Swedish), and between Seven and Zodiac, and The Social Network so has David Fincher – and as the latter goes, much better. Having recently watched both Chinatown and Vertigo, any hope for a richly textured and nuanced modern noir, a building of something more than plotting and franchise building, was dashed after the end credits pop up. Expectations are a bitch.

    With the MGM Lion mutely roaring and a swanky abstract credit sequence (think H.P. Lovecraft bathed in liquid crude) you might be tempted to think of the Hollywood production of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo as some sort of grim James Bond in purgatory. Daniel Craig in the lead, sporting the finest in European apparel only underscores this; at this point in human history, a smart phone and a macbook petty much make us all super-spies. Hell, that credit sequence probably cost more than the entire Swedish film trilogy. Given the money and thin subject material, David Fincher (who, let’s face it, can do this stuff in his sleep at this point) serves a mighty exercise in craft that amounts to little in the way of depth, rather serving as one-for-them-one-for-me stylistic experimentation. A lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That is not to say that Dragon Tattoo is Fincher’s Oceans 12, but it is at least his Solaris.

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  • 12 Dec

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    Trailer: Men in Black (Cubed)

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    By the time you get up to the second sequel or more, you either have to go to Europe or go back in time. It appears that Men In Black 3 has chosen the latter route. The wacky-deadpan tone of things, the signature of the series, can easily support such an easy choice; as evidenced by Josh Brolin playing a young Tommy Lee Jones in the 1960s. Does anyone have any loyalty to this franchise, or is a 3rd go-around with wacky aliens, shiny weaponry and crisp G-men suits one too many? Or in MiB speak: “Is this old and busted or new hotness?”

    The trailer is tucked under the seat.

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  • 12 Dec

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    My Love For Film in a Snapshot #6

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    “Could you put your hair up? She wore it that way.” Hitchcock’s decidedly most twisted film puts the murder mystery on the back-burner in favour of icy blondes, sexual obsessions with healthy doses of fear and shame. Rightly considered one of the best films ever made. This particular mix of green neon, a purple cocktail dress and a femme fatale makes a good case for noir in colour.

  • 09 Dec

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    Trailer: The Wicker Tree

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    A quite excellent trailer for Robin Hardy’s sequel/re-envisioning of cult favourite The Wicker Man (1973) popped up on the internets today. There is just one thing. The Wicker Tree, as advertised below, is certainly not the film you’ll see when the film gets its January 2012 release. This trailer promises something , dark, majestic, grandiosity. What the film actually is (see Kurt’s Review Here) instead, ends up being something satirical, humorous, and self-deprecating in a slyly intelligent farce.

    Beware of advertising. Beware of expectations.

    The trailer is tucked under the seat.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

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