fberriman » Film

Film and Lit 2010

Frances — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 16:58:39 +0000

Films (at the cinema, in seen order):

Again, they’re OO5ed

Best

Again, super lucky to get to put some sci-fi in the top of my list. The Road is captivating, if in an entirely bleak, looking at your pets and wondering if you’d eat them in a crisis, kind of way. My favourite was Monsters. It felt like an antidote to all those silly explosion, chase driven, gun-ho monster movies. It’s delicate and subtle, and looks frankly amazing and ultra-detailed, and it doesn’t treat the viewer like a complete idiot. It’s just lovely. I guess Inception is the big one for everyone else – I liked it a lot, but I’ve kind of forgotten it already.

I had anticipated Splice as being a winner this year, but it totally missed the mark – Womb turned out to be the much more interesting, in depth, film about cloning and genetics (and it’s got Matt Smith in it – what’s not to go crazy for?). Tron should have been a massive disappointment, but I managed to keep expectations deliriously low and came out entertained. The film I failed to not get excited about before I saw it was Scott Pilgrim, given the sentimental place that I hold the graphic novels in, and fortunately it is really excellent fun.

I also loved The Illusionist and Ponyo. The former is beautiful, and although it’s French it doesn’t matter – they hardly utter a word, and when they do it sounds like a Sim – it’s totally carried by the perfect animation style. And Ponyo is just adorable (sing the Ponyo song!).

The big marmite film for 2011 is definitely going to be Black Swan. It’s a ballet drama? Really? Yeah. It is entirely a must-see film. It’s an intensely paced psychological thriller and the ballet bit really shouldn’t put anyone off. It’s probably one of the best crafted films I’ve seen this year, if not for a few years.

Also loved lots of others, particularly Down Terrace, Dogtooth and Winter’s Bone – all share the commonality of being a bit bleak (or, actually, totally screwed up – don’t watch Dogtooth with your family, okay?).

Worst

It’s only when compiling this list that I’m reminded of all the complete movie mishaps I’ve suffered this year. Not least, Alice in Wonderland. I’m a massive fan of the story, as many people know, and I was a fool to even think that a new film would capture everything I love about it. Oh, so disappointed. I rated it more highly at the time than I feel about it now. Damn you, Burton.

Other let downs include a whole slew of films that have brilliant concepts, but they were just half-heartedly or plainly executed – The Crazies springs to mind, as does Four Lions (controversial, I know, but it’s a bit meh, to be honest – Chris Morris has a long way to go before he’s back in “paedophile dressed as a school” territory), We Are What We Are and Daybreakers.

Mostly this year, there has been some severely pretentious nonsense. I Am Love, Certified Copy, The Light Thief, Double Take and A Single Man – all fairly decent concepts, but unfortunately completely boring. I struggled to stay awake in a couple of those. Mostly designed as fodder for film reviewers to fawn over, but actually, totally ridiculous and unwatchable.

Books

I’ve given up any semblance of attempting to record what I read. I did, however, buy a 3rd edition Kindle 3G, which I love. Surprisingly. Digital books completely lack everything I love about a beaten-up old paperback, particularly the digging through a dusty bookshop and finding random left-overs of previous owner’ lives (ticket stubs, receipts… postcards are my particular favourite), but the convenience and the form factor of this thing is amazing. It’s also caused me to re-read or find a bunch of classics, for free from manybooks (released through Project Gutenberg), that I would otherwise never have given the time to. I’ve read the complete Sherlock Holmes adventures, almost all of Robert Louis Stevenson, a bunch of H.G.Wells, and all sorts of other odds and ends. Metamorphosis struck me as an instant favourite of the classic selection.

Of non-ebooks, I read Philip Pullman’s newest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, early in the year. Thoroughly disappointing. More hype than substance, in my mind, and felt a little like a cash-in on his controversial position (I enjoyed the His Dark Materials trilogy). I also read my usual fill of science fiction and re-read some favourites. I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road after seeing it at the start of the year – which is unusual, since I’ll generally rush to read a book before I see the film – but it’s pretty much identical. Definitely recommend it if you’re lacking that stark, miserable, hopeless feeling at the beginning of your new year. :)

The Christmas Bunny book prop & illustration work

Frances — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:39:49 +0000

One of the things I enjoy doing that isn’t web related is illustration, and last week I was asked to create a set of illustrations and a book prop for Patrick‘s short-film, The Christmas Bunny. The film was shot this weekend past, and is in the editing stages, but I thought I’d share some photos of the prop and illustrations.

See the rest of the shots on flickr.

Making the book

For those interested, the illustrations were drawn on white bristol board and inked with fast-dry black pigment liner, and then scanned and printed on to light-weight (80gsm) cream paper and cut to size with a craft knife. I then had some trouble figuring out the best way to attach the pages to the ancient book we found on ebay, without permanently damaging it.

I ended up bracing the illustration and text pages with extra blank sheets on either side, binding the edge with masking tape. Then I used some partially dried glue stick (pritt-like) which I could pinch pieces off and roll into sausage shapes and press into the masking-tape spine, to create a malleable, but strong, join for the pages to move on. No super-glues I had seemed to work as well as this rather Blue Peter-esque technique. The best thing about the glue-stick solution is that it rubs off the paper anywhere that it shows, so the join is seamless.

It was a nice little project and I’m really glad to have been able to contribute to the film in some way. The first two illustrations and title are used as the introduction to the film, with a narrative voice-over and music, and the final illustration is used as the outro. Hopefully I’ll get to do some more illustration work in the future.

Film and Lit 2009

Frances — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 13:40:45 +0000

As with last year, I kept a list of cinema visits for the year.

Films (at the cinema, in seen order):

The Spirit
New Shorts: Funny Shit
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Slumdog Millionaire
Frost/Nixon
Better Things
Revolutionary Road
Hansel and Gretel
Los Cronocrímenes (Timecrimes)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys)
Role Models
Tokyo Sonata
Gran Torino
Surveillance
Franklyn
Flame & Citron
Watchmen
The International
Bronson
In The City of Sylvia
The Boat That Rocked
Two Lovers
Cherry Blossoms
Martyrs
Let The Right One In
Monsters Vs Aliens
Knowing
In The Loop
Star Trek
The Grocer’s Son
London Sci-Fi Film festival Blink of An Eye Shorts Programme 1
Kurôn wa kokyô wo mezasu
Eyeborgs
The City of Lost Children (with Marc Caro)
London Sci-Fi Film festival Blink of An Eye Long Shorts/Short Longs
London Sci-Fi Film festival Blink of An Eye Shorts Programme 2
Synecdoche, New York
Coraline
Observe and Report
Drag Me To Hell
Terminator Salvation
Brüno
Public Enemies
Sunshine Cleaning
Moon
Inglorious Basterds
The Hurt Locker
Jetsam
District 9
Away We Go
Antichrist
Surrogates
Up
Adventureland
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Fantastic Mr Fox
9
An Education
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Cold Souls
Coco Avant Chanel
A Serious Man
Paranormal Activity
Where The Wild Things Are
Avatar
Sherlock Holmes
Thirst
Fish Tank
Unmade Beds

Bonus

Knowing about films can win you prizes! At least, it did for me. The Sonic Tonic had a halloween special podcast, which included snippets from horror flicks in between tracks. Whoever could identify the most won a t-shirt. I got all of them but one. Go me! As promised to the ST guys, here‘s my best myspace-esque photo of my winnings. Props to Paul Cripps for the tip-off and to my mum for always letting me stay up past my bedtime to watch scary films.

This year, I also recorded all the films I saw via oo5, which is Mike Stenhouse’s twitter app for ratings stuff, so all of the films above have a score out of 5.

Best

The start of the year had some really amazing films such as Revolutionary Road, Slumdog Millionaire and Gran Torino. Let The Right One In, which I was hugely anticipating and felt rewarded for doing so, was brilliant, and Away We Go, A Serious Man and happily quite few others kept the year going with some real treats. However, my two favourites this year were sci-fis. The first is an obvious instant classic; Moon. It’s 70′s-esque styling and Sam Rockwell’s staggering performance put it up there with 2001, in my mind.

My other favourite, that I rated fairly averagely initially, is Timecrimes. It’s a Spanish language film about time-travel, but it’s not your usual showy film about changing the past and getting into a mess by accidentally shooting your aunt or butterfly or something, but a more subtle, accidental story that still has all the clever complexities you’d expect for the genre. I don’t want to ruin it, but it’s just such a neat film made on a tiny budget. It’s shot beautifully and the surprises last right up until the end. I really can’t recommend it enough.

Worst

Well, there were quite a few. Some failed because I’d built them up and expected a lot more, such as Hansel and Gretel, Franklyn and Martyrs. Others were just plain stinkers, such as Surrogates, Unmade Beds, Knowing and The Boat That Rocked (the last much more astutely criticised by Patrick over on Talking Animal).

Paranormal Activity took the biscuit for me, though. I’d fallen into the hype trap and seen the trailers and the chatter about it (on twitter, of all places to take seriously) and actually thought that it could be the new Blair Witch. How stupid of me. I’m astounded that anyone thinks that film is good. It’s 81 minutes of a hell-of-a-lot of nothing – mostly a couple of pretty terrible actors whimpering and arguing with each other and unconvincingly never leaving their house to, you know, go to school or have jobs, but film every dull moment of their lives up until the final 5 minutes where there’s a bit of genuine, well almost, thrill. As with the massively underwhelming Google Wave, it’s the hype-machine success of the year that leaves you muttering “…is that it?”.

Books

I somewhat failed at reading this year. I’m blaming my commute going from around 40 minutes spent on a tube to get to work to about 10 minutes. It’s barely enough time to read your email and scowl at a few commuters, let alone open a book and really get into it. I did read The Outsider, The Road to Serfdom, the new Scott Pilgrim (which I rather nerdily now keep in it’s plastic wrapper due to having a limited edition signed inlay plate), Let The Right One In and a couple more K. Dicks. I didn’t really think to record what I read, so there is probably others. Must try harder this year.

Film and Lit 2008

Frances — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 11:51:48 +0000

For no other reason than to have something to blog at the end of the year, I kept a list of films I’ve seen and books I’ve read from Jan 1st 2008 until the end of the year.

Films (at the cinema, in seen order)

Favourites:

Fortunately, there were many I really enjoyed. Juno, Wall-E, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Funny Games U.S (or the original – it really is an identical shot for shot remake), El Orfanato, In Bruges, Easy Virtue and The Reader (on general release in 2009) are all ones I’d especially recommend, though.

Least favourites (or just plain terrible films):

10,000 BC (just awful on every level), The Day The Earth Stood Still, Be Kind Rewind (good concept, bad screenplay), Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (incredibly boring).

The Day The Earth Stood Still deserves special mention. I was willing to give this film a chance if it stood up as a film in it’s own right, rather than as a remake, since they couldn’t really make an accurate one set in today’s world. Such an utter disappointment.

This film is remarkably not ruined by Keanu Reeves. He actually suits his role. The film is ruined by an incredibly bad screenplay that makes half-hearted references to the amazing original, includes terrible dialog and unbelievable situations which lead all the main characters to constantly and whimsically change their allegiances so as to suit the ridiculous “human beings are wonderful” love-fest and unnecessary patriotism. Oh, and the CGI sucks too.

Books (fiction and non, plus some graphic novels – in finished order):

The Unteleported Man / The Mind Monsters – Philip K. Dick / Howard L. Cory
Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4 – Bryan O’Mally
The Amber Spyglass – Philip Pullman
Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon
The Penultimate Truth – Philip K Dick
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
A Handful of Darkness – Philip K Dick*
Dr Bloodmoney – Philip K Dick
Love and Limerence – Dorothy Tennov
Ubik - Philip K Dick*
Dark Stars – ed. Robert Silverberg
Bonjour Tristesse – Francoise Sagan**
Lost at Sea – Bryan O’Mally
Through a Glass, Clearly – Isaac Asimov*
The Gryb (and other stories) – E. A. van Vogt
Fear and Trembling – Søren Kierkegaard
The Game Players of Titan – Philip K Dick**
On The Genealogy of Morals – Friedrich Nietzsche
Watchmen – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons***
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck****

Gracious book lends: *Michael, **Dave, ***Patrick and ****Steve

I’ve certainly been on a short-stories kick this year, having read 5 collections. I really like the medium, actually, and it’s a shame that the form seems to be dying. I only tend to come across good short stories, especially of the sci-fi variety, in now out-of-print editions in musty second-hand bookshops. The Blackwells and Foyles seem to push and stock mostly the latest full-length pop novels and not a whole lot else. Shame.

The other clear trend is my continuing appreciation for Philip K Dick. The man was prolific, but I find almost all of his books interesting to read. I really do recommend him if you’re interested in concepts of alternative realities, trust and philosophy of the mind.

I wanted to read as much as I saw, but, as pointed out to me, a film is just a couple hours out of the day, but a book is a lot more. Maybe next year I’ll do better (or watch less).

Happy 2009!