plastikkpoet, · posts · by · tag: · films · - · LiveJournal

i am going to both the press screenings for like minds being run by dendy cinemas here in brisbane! i am so excited! this is the kind of film way worth seeing a million times! so dark and sophisticated, i truely love it!

i am also interviewing the director, gregory read

but i will also (hopefully) be interviewing both lead actors, eddie redmayne and tom sturridge!!

last nite i watched little black book with carla. it was one of the worst films i have ever seen in all time! in all time!! crappy, crappy acting. and a story line as weak as pissing in a bucket of water.

anyway, despite being the crappiest film ever made, there was one really interesting part of the film:

WARNING SHOULD YOU WANT TO ACTUALLY SEE THE FILM (AND I'LL BE DAMNED IF I CAN THINK OF ANY POSSIBLE REASON WHY YOU WOULD WANT TO BUT STILL) DO NOT READ FURTHER, IT WILL RUIN THE MOVIE

ok so stacy (brittany murphy) gets tempted by her own insecurities and by her new workmates (barb (holly hunter) and ira (kevin sussman)) at a jerry springer style 'reality' tv show to look thru her boyfriend derek's (ron livingstone) palm pilot when he leaves it at home while away on a trip. in her snooping she comes across info about past girlfriends which don't seem to be so past. recent calls, picnic dates, photographs; all since stacy and derek had gotten together.

on barb’s advice, she sets about meeting them, finding out what she can about derek and his past relationships. and as she messes about making up lies and manipulating three of his past girlfriends she becomes more and more drawn into their lives, in particular that of derek's love-of-his-life joyce (julianne nicholson).

the four women become entangled until eventually stacy tricks the three woman into coming into the studio for different reasons.

anyway, in the meantime at work the studio is preparing for the yearly live episode and barb is chosen to produce. you soon find out why barb was pushing stacy to delve deeper into derek’s past. at the eleventh hour before the live show a confused and self-obsessed stacy finds herself thrust on stage where, amidst the line of chairs and the game-show-host line of comments and questioning, stacy realises that barb has sold her out and turned her little situation into the live show!

now before you start on your 'barb’s a fucking bitch' rant let me explain why i really loved this part of the film. as the chaos and emotions let fly, what i really liked was how barb handled this. she truly was the producer. she wanted to create truely spontaneous reality television. she brings in each of the women, and derek, but when you think the backstabbing can go no further barb does the most brilliant and unthinkable thing; she turns the attention onto the washed-up show host and onto the head producer. the behind-back deals, the intentional character assassination, the undermining, all of it. barb, who is standing on a table in the control centre calling out demands, has but one aim: to expose o the world the true realities of such tv shows and their production. she delightfully choreographs the public gutting of a popular tv show as cameras and people and accusations go flying in all directions. and of course she gets into the fray herself, coming back stage to greet a camera-tailed barb.

and the line that makes it all worth it is her response to being told by a collegue she "will be fired for this": "how can i top this anyway?"

the concept was fantastic. she manipulated everyone for the sake of destablising the boundaries between reality and tv reality. she wanted to turn the camera's eye onto those on stage as much as those behind it.

xx_calliope_xx and i just went and saw chicken little and it was soooooooooooooooooo great! i know that must sound coming from me but it really was. it was very well done. the story was well developed (albeit somewhat predicatable but it is a children's movie). the characters were fantastic too.

but by far the coolest character ever, and the one i now want to be, was fish out of water! FISH OUT OF WATER was so great cool! obscure, bizzare and crazy and totally didn't give a shit about anything or anyone! he was just happy being a fish out of water. he dances! he dances!!





[ps i think i'm in love]

yesterday afternoon and evening i went and saw nochnoy dozor (night watch) and serenity.

the storyline of nochnoy dozor was no masterpiece, everyone seems to have taken a stab at light vs dark narratives, but this worked quite well. they made the underlying theme of good vs evil (or arguably light vs dark since its obvious that neither 'side' are good or evil) very obvious - "For as long as humanity has existed, there have been "Others" among us; Witches, Vampires and Shape-Shifters who are soldiers in the eternal war between Light and Dark." - but what is important is the porting of that storyline into a modern environment and the way the characters negotiate the blurred lines of good and evil in contemporary culture.

visually the film was a treat. the entire film is in a slightly saturated hew which gives it that shadowy yet crisp look ala matrix-style. there are so many beautifully constructed shots – everything from sweeping city-scapes to close ups and detail shots. a couple of shots in particular left me in awe. one shot, where the main character, anton's son is in the gloom (a sort of transient state/realm between physical and metaphysical with the 'Others' or light and dark can exist in for short periods giving them the seeming ability to disappear among other things) and it begins to consume him, his eyes go red and he faints and whisps of red smoke trace an outline of his path. so hott.

keep your eyes open for the point at which he offers his blood to the gloom. tiny droplets of blood smattered across a crystaline structure. woah! the red subtitles at specific parts of the film that disapate like blood are brilliant too! the closing scene on top of an apartment block is lush. a completely blacked out setting lit only by a fluro light that anton is carrying.

one thing i was really happy about was that it was still in russian. when most films like this hit mainstream cinemas they are dubbed which shits me. the soundtrack is hott too.


now with serenity: don't get me wrong, i love a good girl-kick-butt style film - and it was hardly unexpected given the film was by the creators of buffy and angel but still - the film even struggled to do that. the kick butt girl (riva) only really did her stuff twice, and once was by accident. during the rest of the film she is a bit of a lunatic.

the captain bugged me. the operative was kinda cool in that i'm-so-cool-and-collected-i-don't-even-need-you-all kinda way.

i did find the underlying slag-off at christianity amusing in the film however. the pursuit for ultimate perfection (being free from sin) was great, especially when they explain the adverse side affects to conditioning people to be such. either people became passive and stopped existing (ie stopped doing anything including eating) or they turned into hyper-aggressive mobs who killed anyone left alive. that's where religion will get you kids.

overall the film just kinda didn't sit right. but it's ok to see with your older brother on a tuesday night when you're bored.




x-posted on vibewire blog

don't see redeye, xx_calliope_xx (laura) and i went as saw it last nite and it was terrible: boring, short and no substance

i saw charlie and the chocolate factory today and i was a little disappointed. it just seemed a little stilted and flat. johnny depp seemed to not quite know where he was going with the film. the voice he used kinda bugged me. and his hair? what was happening there?

and this makes me sad because i thought that both burton and depp could have done better. something just wasn't quite right about depp's version of wonka and i was hoping for something a little more dark, a little more weird.

the setting was great. i liked burton's factory much more than the original. the sound track was pretty good too

the original film is playing in the background and it's helped me put my finger on what got to me about the new version.

it is all around willie wonka as a character. in the older version wilder's character is so much more diverse than depps character. wilder is fun, serious, certain, uncertain. he seems to be both in control of the factory but equally not in control of it (think the boat ride in particular)

depp is the same the whole way through the film. a seemingly bipolar prozac taker bouncing around but really cynical and cold the whole way through the film. depp is far nastier. he doesn't want to know the children, where wilder already knows all about them. depp seems disgusted by them, wilder is impartial to them.

i like burton's boat more than the original one. and for some reason it's verca's mother who attends, not her father like in the wilder one. oh and what happened to the fizzy lifting drink?