The first trailer has landed for the upcoming HBO movie about John McCain’s ill-fated recruitment of Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign.
I’m sure Julianne Moore will be fine but there is a small part of me that’s disappointed that Tina Fey isn’t playing Palin.
Game Change premieres on HBO on March 10th
> Game Change at HBO
> More on the 2008 US election at Wikipedia
To promote the UK release of Drive on DVD and Blu-ray yesterday the distributors held a ‘Tweetalong’.
This essentially involved anyone on Twitter starting the film at 8pm and doing text commentary on it whilst watching.
Organised by online agency Think Jam, the official account was @DriveUK and users tweeted under the hashtag #DriveTime
Twitter commentaries on television shows aren’t anything new, but this was the first time I’d seen it used as part of the launch of a new home entertainment release.
(At the end of this article is a Storify post of what the comments looked like)
Although it is still in its relative infancy (it was first launched in 2006), the microblogging service can be a very useful tool in getting the word out about certain films.
The distribution game is still generally dominated by major studios and films with enormous marketing budgets, but beneath them are some interesting exceptions.
Just in the last year, The King’s Speech and The Inbetweeners Movie were home grown independent films that ended being the 2nd and 3rd highest grossing films at the UK box office in 2011.
Drive represents a very interesting example of a wide release.
It is essentially a stylish genre movie (LA noir crime drama) with arthouse pedigree (Nic Winding Refn) that stars two hot young actors (Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan) alongside an experienced supporting cast (Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston and Ron Perlman).
Although originally a studio project set up at Universal, it was eventually put into turnaround before being financed independently.
The US distributor was FilmDistrict, a relatively new outfit formed by GK Films, and hopes were high for its US theatrical release when it was warmly received at Cannes (where Refn won Best Director) and Toronto.
Festival buzz, generally great reviews and a hot young cast meant that the distributor opted for a wide release at 2,886 cinemas.
But on opening weekend in mid-September when it came in third behind The Lion King 3D re-release and Contagion (on its second week of release), people realised it wasn’t connecting as they hoped.
The post-mortem on widely-read industry site Deadline cited the fact that young males are a more unpredictable demographic than they used to be:
“…young guys who used to be Hollywood’s target audience are just not consistently (and indiscriminately) going to the movies anymore. The reason is either financial or too many other entertainment choices. That was the gist of internal conversations inside studios all summer when uncompelling fare like Conan The Barbarian, Fright Night, Cowboys & Aliens, and Green Lantern fell short with young guys. ”It didn’t dawn on us they weren’t coming to the malls,” one perplexed exec told me. Instead, adults did.”
Bob Berney – who has since left FilmDistrict – was also quoted in the piece:
“Some people thought it should have done $20M the first weekend, but they are crazy! Even with the great reviews and Cannes pedigree, it’s still an ‘arts-ploitation’ film. It’s out there in a new genre. It’s really a polarizing film but in a good way. The pacing, music, style, and violence creates heated debate and reaction. The people that love it, really love it and talk about it. But it’s too extreme for many.”
Berney is right – what made Drive such a critical and festival favourite was probably what put off average mainstream audiences.
But only to an extent.
Drive cleverly fused traditional genre elements with considerable artistic flair and obviously the theatrical run didn’t conform to expectations, but why do I get the feeling that this is a film which could have a long shelf life ahead of it?
Not only are Gosling and Mulligan captured in their youthful prime but it is perfect for late night home viewing and also has a killer soundtrack to boot.
So Drive clearly has a fan base, if not one as large as the films financiers had hoped for.
How could the UK distributor (Icon) tap into the Drive love for the home entertainment release?
Which brings us to last night’s Tweetalong.
Twitter has been fascinating Hollywood ever since it exploded in popularity back in 2009.
Previously studios had to pay substitutional sums of money to market research firms so they could track release expectations.
Whilst they still do this, a quick search on Twitter over opening weekend (either through a basic search of the film’s title or relevant hashtag) yields valuable data and insights (although one should be careful to treat it as a sample of the wider audience).
That’s why everyone from studio owners (@RupertMurdoch), major actors (@RussellCrowe), producers (@JerryBruckheimer), directors (@edgarwright) are on it.
In terms of reactions to Drive we know that Russell Crowe was upset that Ryan Gosling didn’t get an Oscar nomination and that Albert Brooks (@AlbertBrooks) is an absolute master of 140 characters as they are both regular tweeters.
Ryan Gosling didn’t get an Academy nomination? There’s some bullshit right there.
— Russell Crowe (@russellcrowe) January 25, 2012
You can even use it to follow box office numbers (@ercboxoffice), reviews (@reviewintel) and all kinds of related information.
It is basically a useful filter on the web itself.
But Twitter really rises above other social networks in its flexibility.
Not only can you track reactions over a weekend, but it comes into its own during live events broadcast on TV, such as the Superbowl or The Oscars.
This ‘second screen’ phenomenon is much talked about in TV circles.
The average room in which viewers watch television almost certainly includes some kind of web enabled device, whether it is a laptop, tablet or even a basic mobile phone.
Part of Twitter’s strength is that it is accessible across many different kinds of devices.
Using a hashtag related to a specific programme users can tweet their opinion and read and reply to other users.
If you all think this is trivial just remember the role social media played in the disputed Iranian elections of 2009 and the Arab Spring of 2011.
When it comes to home releases of films it is perfect, as it is a very cost effective way of getting the word out about a particular release.
Twitter is particularly powerful as it has a large user base, lots of influential users in the traditional media and messages can be quickly be duplicated and spread (“retweeted”).
Why is this important?
Well, the biggest single challenge any filmmaker faces is getting their work talked about in order to be seen by a larger audience.
This applies to a teenager who has just uploaded his first film to YouTube or the most experienced A-list director.
Like the video made in a bedroom with 4 views, the $100 million film opening on 3,000 locations could always do with a bigger audience.
If you create something good or distinctive, social media can be a powerful ally in building buzz.
Word-of-mouth has always been an elusive but easily recognisable phenomenon in cinema.
Films like Gone With the Wind, The Godfather, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., Jurassic Park, Titanic, Slumdog Millionaire, Avatar and The King’s Speech all became huge hits because they somehow connected with an audience at the cinema.
Home entertainment sales were a slam dunk because they already had the publicity of being huge hits.
But what about films that initially failed at the box office?
Although they are rarer, films like The Wizard of Oz (1939) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994) took time to build their audience.
But where it can be really effective in the modern era is for quality films that aren’t obviously ‘commercial’.
A black comedy about UK suicide bombers was never going to break box office records but Four Lions (2010) was a quality film that was loved by those who saw it at cinemas (in fact the UK distributor underestimated demand on the opening weekend).
But when it screened on UK television the actor Riz Ahmed (@rizmc) tweeted along to the broadcast.
@Rizmc star of British film Four Lions will be doing a live commentary on Twitter as Channel 4 airs Four Lions on 9pm on Sunday.
— muslimyouthhelpline (@muslimyouthhelp) September 2, 2011
It was a very useful exercise in audience interaction using simple tools (Twitter and a broadcast channel) and highly effective marketing as other users retweeted him and spread the word.
I’ve already written at length about the role social media played in making Senna such a success at the UK box office, but in the case of the Drive tweetalong you could sense the love for the film.
For the UK distribution people this would provide valuable insights if they decided to put out another edition of the film at a later date, either on another disc or via BD-Live (which up to now has been thoroughly useless).
Time is often the best judge for any film and in the case of tweeting along to Drive last night, it not only reminded me of how good it was but the value of seeing it on Blu-ray.
It was one of the first films to be shot with the Arri Alexa digital camera and even Janusz Kaminski (Steven Spielberg’s DP and a die-hard advocate of film) has admitted he was deeply impressed by the imagery put on screen by Newton Thomas Sigel.
The tweetalong reminded me what of how great the film looked and allowed me to spread the word via a very powerful social platform.
We live in an uncertain age of declining DVD sales and massive commercial pressures on the likes of HMV.
Surely this kind of online activity can only help films of all types find new audiences?
It is certainly preferable to them breaking the web with misguided legislation.
> Original review of Drive
> More on Twitter at Wikipedia
> Social Media and Senna
N.B. Here is the Storify stream of what the comments looked like:
The new Ferris Bueller themed Honda commercial is sure to upset some but is actually well executed.
After a short teaser that surfaced online last week (cleverly building anticipation) Honda has now released its full Ferris Bueller Super Bowl commercial.
An interesting aspect is that these days Superbowl commercials are screened before the actual game, which tells you quite a lot about how advertising has changed over the years.
It has already prompted cries of sell out (just check out some of the YouTube comments) but at least the agency responsible crafted something for genuine fans of the film.
See if you can spot all the references to the original John Hughes movie, which was the 10th highest grossing film of 1986 (US gross was $70m on just a $5m production budget) and went on to become a huge audience favourite in the VHS era.
The most eerie aspect is how little Matthew Broderick seems to have aged since the original release.
Interestingly, the 25th anniversary release last June prompted The Atlantic to write an article which essentially argued that fans of the film need to ‘get over’ their love for a story about an entitled brat from the North Shore of Chicago.
If you scroll down to the first reader comment by a user named Spadaque, there is this astute reply which hints at the film’s enduring appeal to all audiences:
I’m a 28 year old Haitian immigrant in New York. I came to America when I was about 4 or 5 years old. “Ferris Buellers Day Of”‘ came out when I was 3, my first time seeing it was many years later as part of a Saturday movie matinee that played on a local channel in Queens. We didn’t have cable and we didn’t go to the movies (It was really the only way my brothers and I got to see any movies) and we certainly didn’t own any Ferrari’s, unless my stepfathers taxi qualifies?. To say we weren’t privileged would be an understatement akin to saying BP had a “little” leak in the gulf. But watching “FBDO” for the first time as a 12 year old boy I instantly fell in love with it. To me, the movie was a fantasy. Ferris was well liked, cunning, mischievous, popular, and smart; all the things an often bullied immigrant kid with a super strict mother wanted to be. I even adored the awkward musical number in the middle; it made me happy. Yet, even back then I knew there was no way I could ever be Ferris or do the things Ferris did. I wouldn’t have a dummy fool my parents into thinking I was sick and in bed, I wouldn’t ride on a float in Chicago singing “Shake it up baby”, and I wouldn’t crash my best friends parents Ferrari. Ferris is a character that could never exist in real life and in hindsight there should have been more, ahem, color in the movie. But that was 25 years ago. Seeing black and Hispanic people portrayed as thieves or poor gangsters is not a crime exclusive to that movie. To this little black, poor Haitian boy “Ferris Buellers Day Off” wasn’t about all that, it was about being a teenager from the land of fantasy and having the most fantastically perfect day of your life. That is why I’ll never get over it.
> Find out more about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off at Wikipedia
> Washington Post article about the cultural influence of Ferris Bueller
The Muppets recently responded to criticisms from Fox News about their new film.
For a bit of context, here is the original segment piece which features the obligatory use of the word “liberal” as an insult, shouting-as-debate and swooshing graphics:
At the recent UK press conference, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy responded:
DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (StudioCanal): Tomas Alfredson’s impeccably crafted Cold War thriller finds new resonance in the current era of economic and social crisis. Set in the murky world of British intelligence during the 1970s, retired agent George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is hired to find out the identity of a Soviet double-agent inside ‘the Circus’ (in house name for MI6) and solve a looming crisis. [Read our full review] [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
Drive (Icon Home Entertainment): This ultra stylish LA noir not only provides Ryan Gosling with an memorable lead role and cleverly takes a European approach to an American genre film. When an enigmatic stunt driver (Gosling) decides to help out his neighbour (Carey Mulligan) and her family, he finds himself caught up in a dangerous game with a local businessman (Albert Brooks). [Read our full review] [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
The Tin Drum (Arrow): Volker Schlöndorff’s 1979 adaptation of the Günter Grass novel shared the Palme d’Or with Apocalypse Now and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. The story explores the rise of Nazism through the eyes of a young boy (David Bennent) who receives a tin drum for his 3rd birthday and decides to stop growing. A magical-realist classic the film is filled with striking imagery and has gained new resonance in light of subsequent revelations about Grass. Arrow have have the original theatrical version and the new Director’s Cut, which is the version that was seen at the Cannes premiere. Highly recommended. [Buy the dual format Blu-ray and DVD edition]
ALSO OUT
Alien (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Alien 3 (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Alien Resurrection (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / 10th Anniversary Edition]
Aliens (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
An Affair to Remember (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Ca$h (Metrodome Distribution) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Cleopatra (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Crazy, Stupid, Love (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Eldorado (House of Fear) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition]
Four Flies On Grey Velvet (Shameless) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Great Barrier Reef (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Highlander: Endgame (Miramax) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Rolling Thunder (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / with DVD – Double Play]
Samurai Girls (Manga Entertainment) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Star Trek the Next Generation: A Taste of the Next Generation (Paramount Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / Normal]
What’s Your Number? (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Win Win (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Yamada – Way of the Samurai (Showbox Media Group) [Blu-ray / Collector’s Edition]
> Recent UK cinema releases
> The Best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2011
A video showing how visual effects were used to create the period world of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy begs the question as to why wasn’t nominated for a BAFTA or Oscar.
Mention the phrase ‘visual effects’ and I suspect images of science fiction or fantasy movies leap to mind.
After all, films like Star Wars (1977) and Avatar (2009) are most associated with the field.
Tomas Alfredson’s masterful John Le Carre adaptation is not the kind of film you would associate with modern visual effects, as it is a realistic tale of corruption and intrigue in MI6 during the 1970s.
But this video shows how modern technology was used to skilfully augment Maria Djurkovic‘s amazing production design:
They were done by Swedish company The Chimney Pot they highlight just how sophisticated the digital augmentation of photographic reality has become.
So sophisticated in fact that it may have worked against them in the awards season as the film has missed out on both BAFTA and Academy nominations.
It isn’t easy to blend old school techniques with cutting edge digital tools, but when they are combined successfully the results can be magical.
There is the (possibly apocryphal) story that 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) lost the Best Makeup Academy Award to John Chambers for Planet of the Apes (1968) because the judges didn’t realize Kubrick’s apes were really people (perhaps that was actually a greater compliment than the Oscar).
It was a strong field this year but it begs the question, did The Chimney Pot lose out on visual effects recognition because they were too good?
> The Chimney Pot
> More on the history of the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects
3-D printing seems like science fiction but is a reality that could have a profound effect on our lives.
It is essentially the process of creating real-life three dimensional objects from a digital file on a computer.
There is a long history of movie technology ‘predicting’ the future, such as the tablet computers in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or the gesture-based UI’s in Minority Report (2002).
If you saw Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol recently, amongst the gadgets the IMF team used was a 3D printer in order to create masks.
Fantasy? Well, Japanese company REAL-f have actually developed a 3-D printer that can make a detailed replica of your face.
This is handy if you want to go to a Halloween party as yourself, but it also illuminates how digital technologies have the potential to literally shape our physical world.
In the same way that the development of the printing press and moveable type galvanised seismic human epochs like the Renaissance and Enlightenment, this has the potential to do the same for our age.
But how exactly does it work?
Lisa Harouni is the co-founder and CEO of Digital Forming, a company that creates the digital software used to run 3D printing processes.
She gave a TED talk explaining how it all works:
Another video that covers this area is Klaus Stadlmann‘s TED talk on how he built the world’s smallest 3D printer.
Technology is often characterised in the mainstream media as ‘geeky’ or the province of nerds.
But the example he uses of the hearing aid is actually a practical example of technology benefitting the ‘real world’.
To use a narrow example from the film industry, could prop companies reduce their costs by using 3D printers and building physical things? (Are there any that already do?)
But aside from the myriad of manufacturing possibilities, 3D printing could solve urgent medical problems.
Surgeon Anthony Atala is involved in a field known as ‘regenerative medicine’ and shows how human organs can physically be created using a 3D printer.
Essentially, the concept is that the printer uses living cells to output transplantable organs.
With people living longer this could have profound implications for the organ-donor problem.
Although a ‘printed’ kidney is years away from medical use, just wait for the end of the video for a moving demonstration of how science and technology can solve human problems.
> Find out more about 3D printing at Wikipedia
> TED
NATIONAL RELEASES
The Descendants (20th Century Fox): A Hawaiin landowner (George Clooney) tries to re-connect with his two daughters (Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller) after his wife suffers a boating accident. Directed by Alexander Payne, it co-stars Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Robert Forster and Beau Bridges. [Nationwide / 15] [Read our full review]
The Grey (Entertainment): In Alaska, an oil drilling team struggle to survive after a plane crash strands them in the wild. Hunting the humans are a pack of wolves who see them as intruders. Directed by Joe Carnahan, it stars Liam Neeson and Dermot Mulroney. [Nationwide / 15]
Like Crazy (Paramount): A British college student (Felicity Jones) falls for an American student (anton Yelchin), only to be separated from him when she’s banned from the U.S. after overstaying her visa. Directed by Drake Doremus. [Nationwide / 12A]
ALSO OUT
Intruders (Universal): Spanish-British horror film about an 11-year old girl forced to confront childhood demons.
Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, it stars Clive Owen, Carice van Houten, Daniel Bruhl and Ella Purnell. [Key Cities / 15]
A Monster In Paris (Entertainment One): A French 3D-animated movie set in Paris during 1910, it centres on a monster who lives in a garden and his love for a beautiful, young singer. Directed by Bibo Bergeron.
> Get local cinema showtimes at Google Movies or FindAnyFilm
> The Best Films of 2011
> The Best DVD & Blu-ray Releases of 2011
> Recent UK DVD & Blu-ray releases
Paul Newman was born on this day in 1925 and although he passed away in 2008, his remarkable philanthropic activities live on.
Think for just a minute about a major Hollywood actor who starts up a successful food business and then gives all the profits to a charitable foundation.
It is almost as unlikely as an actress inventing the technology later used for wi-fi.
But it actually happened.
To date, Newman and Newman’s Own Foundation have donated more than $300 million to thousands of charities around the world.
This was in addition to being one of the biggest movie stars on the planet.
> Paul Newman at the IMDb
> More on Paul Newman’s life at Wikipedia
> Newman’s Own Foundation
> The Hole in the Wall Gang (also on Twitter and YouTube)
One of the breakout films from this year’s Sundance film festival has been Beasts of the Southern Wild, the directorial debut of Benh Zeitlin.
Based on a play called Juicy And Delicious, this is the official synopsis from the Sundance catalogue:
Hushpuppy, an intrepid six-year-old girl, lives with her father, Wink, in “the Bathtub,” a southern Delta community at the edge of the world. Wink’s tough love prepares her for the unraveling of the universe; for a time when he’s no longer there to protect her. When Wink contracts a mysterious illness, nature flies out of whack—temperatures rise, and the ice caps melt, unleashing an army of prehistoric creatures called aurochs. With the waters rising, the aurochs coming, and Wink’s health fading, Hushpuppy goes in search of her lost mother.
Hushpuppy is not just the film’s heroine; she’s its soul. Beasts of the Southern Wild exists entirely in its own universe: mythological, anthropological, folkloric, and apocalyptic. Benh Zeitlin’s first feature (a Sundance Institute Feature Film Program project) employs a cast of nonactors—reflecting its grassroots production—to fiercely portray the bond between father and daughter in a world where only the strong survive. Standing defiantly at the end of the world, Hushpuppy affirms the dignity of telling their own story: that they were once there.
Here is Zeitlin discussing the film with the Sundance Channel before the festival:
He also did a Q&A with Filmmaker Magazine:
Filmmaker: What is the tone of Beasts of the Southern Wild? Who is this film for?
Zeitlin: The film is for everyone. The movie’s weird, because we made the it in a way that no one else would really be stupid enough to try, but, I know that the feelings it’s trading in are universal. It’s all about hope, glory, courage, wisdom, in the face of loosing the people and places that made you. It’s not a brooding, mopey, art film. Even though it has this folkloric poetic-ness that you don’t generally get in the AMC palace, the AMC palace is deeply present in the energy of the movie. People from both sides of the multiplex / art house line are going to relate to it.
Zeitlin’s short film Glory at Sea (2006) had led to Filmmaker Magazine listing him in their 2008 list of the 25 New Faces in Independent Film.
It was uploaded to YouTube in 2008 and you can watch it here:
There is also this interview with Zeitlin from 2009, about the short:
But reception to his debut feature has been on another level, with some effusive reactions in Utah.
Variety’s Peter Debruge wrote:
“…a stunning debut. Despite limited means, Zeitlin and his Court 13 collective conjure an expansive world in which to set this richly textured bayou pastoral”
Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter (who has seen a few Sundance sensations in his time) is also highly impressed:
“One of the most striking films ever to debut at the Sundance Film Festival. …Benh Zeitlin’s directorial debut could serve as a poster child for everything American independent cinema aspires to be but so seldom is”
So the two major US trade journals are buzzing, but what about other outlets?
Ty Burr of the Boston Globe is dazzled:
“It doesn’t happen often here, but it’s a heady experience when it does: An unknown Sundance movie that grips you from its very first images, follows through on its promise (and even raises the stakes), then sends you out dazed with other festivalgoers to wonder if you all witnessed the same minor miracle.
Eric Kohn of Indiewire is more tempered:
“Zeitlin offers up a majestic encapsulation of a child’s worldview. Supremely ambitious and committed to profundity, “Beasts” sets the bar too high and suffers from a muddled assortment of expressionistic concepts, but it still manages to glide along its epic aspirations. Beasts is bound to generate Sundance buzz for its sheer jaw-dropping scope, but it’s simply too odd to garner more than a limited theatrical release (or perform well if it’s released any wider).”
Comparisons have already been made with a young Terrence Malick and Noel Murray of the AV Club says:
“a live-action Miyazaki film, with Days of Heaven narration”
Jeff Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere praises its atmosphere:
“The passionately praised Beasts of the Southern Wild, …is everything its admirers have said it is. It’s something to sink into and take a bath in on any number of dream-like, atmospheric levels, and a film you can smell and taste and feel like few others I can think of.”
Anthony Kaufman of Screen Daily doubts it will break out of the cineaste festival circuit:
“It’s all original and weird enough to be watchable, but not coherent or concise enough to be commercial. Beasts is a curiosity, to be sure, likely headed for worldwide festival play, but not much business”
Here is Peter Sciretta and Germain Lussier of /Film:
Fox Searchlight, one of the remaining powerhouses in the US indie world, bought the rights soon after.
It was presumably a sign that they want to be in business with Zeitlin for his next couple of films and reminiscent of last year when they acquired Sundance breakout Another Earth.
Another film they acquired this week was The Surrogate – a drama with John Hawkes and Helen Hunt, which sounds like a cross between My Left Foot (1989) and The 40-Year Old Virgin (2005), which has already been attracting awards season buzz for next year’s Oscars.
> Official site, Twitter and Facebook
> Benh Zeitlin at the IMDb
> Interview with Benh Zeitlin from 2008
Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty have created a stunning time-lapse video of Yosemite National Park in California.
Part of Project Yosemite it was shot on the Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon L and Zeiss CP.2 lenses.
The song used is ‘Outro’ by M83 from the album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.
This behind the scenes video shows how it was shot:
> Project Yosemite
> Find out more about Yosemite National Park at Wikipedia
This spoof trailer is a brilliant skewering of the clichés that regularly appear in a certain British films.
Think of Outlaw (2007), Rise of the Footsoldier (2007) and Bonded by Blood (2010) and many, many others.
It was first uploaded to YouTube in May but with the publication of the recent DCMS report, it could not be more timely.
Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945) and Lifeboat (1944) are getting dual-format DVD and Blu-ray releases in the coming months.
It is amongst a clutch of interesting titles that Eureka Entertainment are releasing through their Masters of Cinema label.
The full press release is as follows:
Eureka Entertainment is pleased to announce its forthcoming releases for the months of April, May and June 2012. There will be seven new releases added to the Masters of Cinema series (DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE LOST WEEKEND, LIFEBOAT, ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, RUGGLES OF RED GAP, SANSHO DAYU and UGETSU MONOGATARI) as well as one non-Masters of Cinema release, namely Takashi Miike’s YATTERMAN. Eureka also continues its ongoing association with Bounty Films (responsible for the UK release of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE) with the release of Yamaguchi’s DEADBALL.
Curator, Founder and Production Director of the Masters of Cinema, Nick Wrigley: “We’re very excited to finally be welcoming British legend Alfred Hitchcock into the Masters of Cinema Series. He made LIFEBOAT during WW2, his only film for Fox, and the same year he made two shorter films for the war effort – BON VOYAGE and AVENTURE MALGACHE – both collected here, in new HD restorations as a sumptuous Dual Format special edition.
Our two best selling Mizoguchi titles, the enormous Japanese masterpieces SANSHO DAYU and UGETSU MONOGATARI will receive the upgrade treatment in April when they appear in new HD restorations / Dual Format editions alongside OYU-SAMA and GION BAYASHI, also in HD.
May 2012 sees a Charles Laughton double-bill. One of England’s most-loved actor/directors (his only directorial effort – THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER – being one of the most remarkable one-offs in the history of cinema), Scarborough-born Laughton has a marvellous time in the pre-Code Universal horror classic ISLAND OF LOST SOULS. Three years later he starred in Leo McCarey’s amazing RUGGLES OF RED GAP.
The director of MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW directs Laughton who plays an English valet whisked away to the American west. Banned on release by Nazi Germany because of Laughton’s moving recitement of the Gettysburg Address.
In June we welcome the great Billy Wilder into the Masters of Cinema Series with two of his very greatest achievements on Blu-ray only – DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, and THE LOST WEEKEND (1945), which stars an Oscar-winning performance by Welshman Ray Milland.”
Full line up is as follows:
Released on 23 April 2012
LIFEBOAT (Masters of Cinema) DUAL FORMAT (STEELBOOK EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE)
Alfred Hitchcock’s only film for Fox, made at the height of WW2, stars a first-rate ensemble cast, led by grande dame of the stage Tallulah Bankhead, as the survivors of a Nazi attack set adrift on a lifeboat in the Atlantic Ocean, pitted against interpersonal animosities, creeping paranoia, and the captain of the Nazi sub that placed them in their current predicament…UGETSU MONOGATARI (Masters of Cinema) DUAL FORMAT
Mizoguchi’s intensely poetic tragedy consistently features on polls of the best films ever made. This new HD restoration is the film’s first appearance on Blu-ray anywhere in the world, and is accompanied by an HD presentation of Mizouguchi’s 1951 classic OYÛ-SAMA.SANSHO DAYU (Masters of Cinema) DUAL FORMAT
One of the most critically revered films in Japanese cinema history, Mizoguchi’s deeply affecting classic has been newly restored in HD and appears here on Blu-ray for the first time anywhere in the world, and is accompanied by an HD presentation of Mizoguchi’s 1953 classic GION BAYASHI.YATTERMAN DVD & BLURAY
Classic seventies anime series Yatterman flies to the silver screen in a brilliant crime-fighting explosion of candy-coloured camp, over-the-top adventure, and pure popcorn entertainment. Directed by legendary cult director Takashi Miike (13 ASSASSINS, ICHI THE KILLER, AUDITION) and featuring a brand new plot and re-imaged characters, this live action debut of Yatterman will re-define the robot action adventure genre.DEADBALL DVD (Released by Bounty Films)
A hilariously offensive, politically incorrect sports splatter comedy, DEADBALL is director Yudai Yamaguchi’s follow-up to his earlier zombie baseball classic BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL, and once again features action star Tak Sakaguchi (VERSUS, BE A MAN! SAMURAI SCHOOL).Released on 28 May 2012
ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (Masters of Cinema) DUAL FORMAT (STEELBOOK EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE)
For the first time in the UK, one of the most imaginative and nightmarish fantasies from Hollywood’s golden age of horror – starring the legendary Charles Laughton. Originally rejected by the BBFC, this first and best screen adaptation of H. G. Wells’ THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU, is one of Hollywood’s wildest pre-Code pictures.RUGGLES OF RED GAP (Masters of Cinema) DUAL FORMAT
The UK home viewing premiere of one of the finest films of Leo McCarey (MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW, AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER) finds Charles Laughton in one of his greatest roles as a personal valet shipped off to America in the service of the brash and wealthy Egbert Floud (played, coincidentally enough, by Charlie Ruggles); a sophisticated comedy of rude manners ensues.Released on 25 June 2012
DOUBLE INDEMNITY (Masters of Cinema) BLU-RAY (STEELBOOK EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE)
Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler team up to create one of the greatest, and quintessential, films noirs of the studio era, a classic of the hard-boiled genre nominated for seven Oscars, and whose performances by Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson have been leaving audiences breathless for almost 70 years. Now, exclusively restored by The Masters of Cinema Series for its first ever release on Blu-ray anywhere in the world.THE LOST WEEKEND (Masters of Cinema) BLU-RAY (STEELBOOK EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE)
An Academy-Award-winning (including Best Picture) triumph from the great Billy Wilder, with Ray Milland as a writer’s-block-ridden and booze-sodden author spiralling into a days’-long rock-bottom binge crafted by Wilder with expressionist fervour. This gorgeous Blu-ray edition is the first available anywhere in the world.Further details of the Masters of Cinema releases can be found at www.mastersofcinema.org and Eureka’s new Facebook site www.facebook.com/EurekaEntertainment
Eureka are also upgrading a batch of their previous releases to DUAL FORMAT EDITIONS on 13 February 2012. These upgrades are for Kurosawa’s TOKYO SONATA, To’s MAD DETECTIVE, Godard’s UNE FEMME MARIEE, Imamura’s VENGEANCE IS MINE, Laloux’s LA PLANETE SAUVAGE, Tashlin’s WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER, Ichikawa’s BURMESE HARP & Jia Zhangke’s THE WORLD (not previously available in a DVD format
> Recent DVD & Blu-ray releases
> The best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2011
Below are all the nominees for the 84th Academy Awards which will be held on February 26th.
In terms of numbers, Hugo (11) and The Artist (10) lead the field, but there is an interesting cross section of films below them with Moneyball (6), War Horse (6), The Descendants (5), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (5) and The Help (4).
BEST PICTURE
BEST DIRECTOR
BEST ACTOR
BEST ACTRESS
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
ART DIRECTION
CINEMATOGRAPHY
COSTUME DESIGN
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)
EDITING
SOUND EDITING
SOUND MIXING
VISUAL EFFECTS
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
MAKEUP
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
In June Academy President Tom Sherak announced that there would be changes to the following categories:
My predictions as to what will ultimately win on February 26th are:
> Official Oscars site
> The 84th Academy Awards at Wikipedia
> Analysis at Awards Daily and Hitfix
The 84th Academy Awards Nominations Announcement is being streamed on YouTube.
You can also watch it on BBC News and the official ABC Oscar site.
Because of the recent voting changes no-one is sure how many Best Picture nominees there will be this year.
For the last two years the Academy have increased the number of films nominated for Best Picture to 10.
The new rules mean this year there could potentially be anything from 5 to 10 Best Picture nominees.
> Official Oscars site
> The 84th Academy Awards at Wikipedia
> Analysis at Awards Daily and Hitfix
Two short films recently premiered at BAFTA in London as part of a project to support emerging talent.
Me and My Latitude is a collaboration between BAFTA and Festival Republic, organisers of Latitude, the yearly arts and music festival.
Last year two filmmakers were chosen to each make a short film about an artist preparing to perform at Latitude 2011, with the aim of reflecting the diversity and inventiveness of the UK arts scene.
Caroline Bridges has made Knife Edge, which shows dance theatre company Lost Dog in action at the festival, whilst Sameer Patel has directed She Want Soul, a portrait of poet and writer Sabrina Mahfouz.
Both films screened last night at BAFTA’s Run Run Shaw Theatre in London and will also feature in the line-up for Latitude’s Film & Music Arena in 2012, which is partly programmed in partnership with BAFTA.
I spoke with Catherine and Sameer about their experiences making the films and you can listen to the interviews by clicking below:
[audio:http://filmdetail.receptionmedia.com/Caroline_Bridges_and_Sameer_Patel_on_BAFTA_at_Latitude.mp3]You can also download this interview as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here or get the MP3 directly here.
The Latitude Festival takes place from July 12th – 15th and the Orange British Film Academy Awards is on February 12th
> Download this interview as an MP3 file
> BAFTA
> Latitude Festival
> Follow @BAFTA and @Latitude on Twitter
DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS
Melancholia (Artificial Eye): Lars Von Trier’s latest deals with family tensions at a wedding and the possible collision of another planet with the Earth. Despite the Cannes controversy, this is amongst the director’s very best work and features stellar acting from Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kiefer Sutherland. [Read our full review] [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
Two-Lane Blacktop (Eureka): Monte Hellman’s 1971 cult road movie stars singer-songwriter James Taylor, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates and Laurie Bird. A distant cousin to other road movies of the era (Easy Rider and Vanishing Point) it was unavailable for many years. [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
Roger Dodger (StudioCanal): Smart 2002 comedy about a cynical advertising man (Campbell Scott) trying to educate his teenage nephew (Jesse Eisenberg) in the ways of New York’s singles scene. Directed by Dylan Kidd, it didn’t do huge business but is memorable for a dynamite performance from Scott and a breakout role for Eisenberg. [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
Dark Star (Fabulous Films): John Carpenter’s ultra low budget feature debut (made whilst still in film school) is set on board a futuristic spaceship and was co-written by Dan O’Bannon, who would go on to write Alien (1979). [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
ALSO OUT
30 Minutes Or Less (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Hostel: Part III (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Merlin: Complete Series 4 (Fremantle Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Radiohead: Live from the Basement – The King of Limbs (Republic of Music) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Red State (Entertainment One) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Shark Night (EV) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition with 2D Edition]
Sherlock: Series 2 (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Art of Getting By (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Change-up (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Debt (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Doors: Mr Mojo Risin’ – The Story of L.A. Woman (Eagle Rock Entertainment) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Tomie – Unlimited (Bounty Films) [Blu-ray / Normal]
> Recent UK cinema releases
> The Best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2011
The most eclectic director working in Hollywood tries his hand at a spy thriller.
Steven Soderbergh is the resident chameleon of US cinema, who thrives on jumping between genres and styles.
Since his mainstream creative rebirth in the late 1990s he has mixed mainstream commercial success (the Ocean’s trilogy) with more challenging fare (Solaris, The Good German, Che) and digital experimentation (Bubble, The Girlfriend Experience).
Most recently he made an all-star disaster movie Contagion and now he employs a similar trick here with an illustrious supporting cast recruited from his impressive contacts book.
But the real surprise here is the casting of mixed martial arts star Gina Carano in the lead role.
She plays a hired government ‘contractor’ (a veiled reference to Blackwater) who we learn in flashback has been set up by her bosses after jobs in Barcelona and Dublin.
The impressive supporting cast includes Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum and Michael Fassbender.
There aren’t many directors who could pull off this trick – casting a former American Gladiator in a spy thriller alongside some of the most recognisable actors in the world.
But Soderbergh has become highly proficient in navigating the fringes of the mainstream, with occasional leaps right into it.
This on the surface is a very mainstream subject story – essentially a Bourne movie by way of the Ocean’s trilogy.
Old-school action is blended with a knowing globe-trotting humour and a smart script by Lem Dobbs.
There’s nothing too heavy here as it is basically an experiment to combine the breezy style of 1960s spy thrillers like Charade (1963) with the pulp literature of something like The Baroness series from the 1970s.
But a closer examination reveals a more interesting formal experiment to subvert the action genre from within.
Not only do we have a female lead in a movie that isn’t about weddings, but she regularly outsmarts and beats the crap out of every man in sight.
(Mysteriously, the global locations – Ireland, Catalonia and New Mexico – also coincide with places that offer generous tax rebates).
Whilst the basic narrative owes a lot to Bourne (US government assassin goes rogue) there is a deliberate attempt to avoid the ‘chaos cinema’ that has been so influential on the modern action genre.
Serving as his own cinematographer and editor (under his regular pseudonyms) quick edits are rejected and the fights are refreshingly reminiscent of those in 1960s thrillers, when killing another human being didn’t involve slow motion.
Going for a more realistic approach, it rejects the post-Matrix wire ballet or frenzied editing style of the later Bourne films in favour of a more composed and leaner approach.
Keep an ear out too for more believable slapping sounds you actually hear in fights, rather than the overcooked punching effects so beloved of Hollywood.
Soderbergh also apparently altered Carano’s voice in post-production, which makes it an intriguing project from an audio perspective – was the lead actress his very own creative ‘recruit’ to mess with the action genre down to the last detail?
It remains to be seen if she can make the breakthrough into acting full-time, but here she impresses with her imposing physicality and easy charm.
As for the supporting cast, it is something of a slam-dunk for all of them as the screenplay gives each of them plenty of dry humour on which to feast.
There has always been a James Bond influence on the Ocean’s films (e.g. casinos, smooth charm, glamorous locations) and it is here too, although the neat trick is having what essentially amounts to a female 007.
At times the groovy score by David Holmes is a little too close to the vibe he established on those films, but it largely proves a good fit for the material.
In many ways it is reminiscent of The Limey (1999) – another Soderbergh film scripted by Dobbs – which also dealt with revenge, a father-daughter relationship and villains who got beaten up or killed.
Over the last few years Soderbergh has been at the forefront of the A-list directors using digital cameras (others include David Fincher and James Cameron).
Here he has gone for a slightly different look, going for a digital version of the rich anamorphic look beloved of certain ‘classical’ action movies since the 1960s.
The digital workflow used by the production again set new boundaries in producing imagery for relatively low cost, prompting a colleague to say:
“If digital cinema had its own country, Steven would probably be President”
In the week Kodak announced that it had entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, this feels significant.
It should also be noted that Soderbergh has essentially created a crafty commercial film from inside the system.
With financing from Relativity Media he has managed to make a more audience-friendly counterpart to his artier experiments like Bubble and The Girlfriend Experience.
It is this range that makes him one of the most interesting directors working inside the system.
> Official site
> Reviews of Haywire at Metacritic
> Lengthy Box Office Magazine interview with Soderbergh
> Detailed post on the digital workflow used by the production
NATIONAL RELEASES
Haywire (Paramount/Momentum): A black ops super soldier (Gina Carano) seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, it co-stars Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas. [Nationwide / 15]
J.Edgar (Warner Bros.): Biopic of the founder of the FBI and modern law enforcement in America for almost 50 years, J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) was feared and admired, reviled and revered. Directed by Clint Eastwood, it co-stars Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Damon Herriman, Jarreth J. Merz and Judi Dench. [Nationwide / 15]
The Sitter (20th Century Fox): A suspended college student (Jonah Hill), living at home with his single mom, is talked into baby-sitting the kids next door – two boys and a wild 8-year-old girl. Directed by David Gordon Green, it co-stars Landry Bender and Sam Rockwell. [Nationwide / 15]
Underworld: Awakening (Entertainment): The latest chapter in the franchise involving a centuries-old blood feud between the aristocratic vampires and their one-time werewolf slaves, the Lycans. Directed by Bjorn Stein and Mario Lopez. [Nationwide / 15]
W.E. (Studiocanal): A two-tiered romantic drama focusing on the affair between King Edward VIII (James Darcy) and American divorcée Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough) and a contemporary romance between a married woman (Abbie Cornish) and a Russian security guard (Oscar Isaac). Directed by Madonna. [Nationwide / 15]
ALSO OUT
Coriolanus (Lionsgate): Adaptation of Shakespeare’s play about a Roman soldier (Ralph Fiennes) who despises the people. His extreme views ignite a mass riot and he is banished from Rome. Coriolanus allies with a sworn enemy (Gerard Butler) to take his revenge on the city. Directed by Fiennes, it co-stars Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox and Jessica Chastain. [Selected cinemas / 15]
> Get local cinema showtimes at Google Movies or FindAnyFilm
> The Best Films of 2011
> The Best DVD & Blu-ray Releases of 2011
> Recent UK DVD & Blu-ray releases
The publication of a recent policy report into the UK film industry sparked kneejerk headlines but is actually a detailed blue print for the future.
This post is a general introduction to the report which was titled A Future for British Film: It Begins With the Audience.
It will explore who was involved in it and the wider context of British film as it stands in 2012.
But it will also be the first of several dedicated ones around the different sections, which break down into the following areas: growing the audiences of today and tomorrow, the digital revolution, exhibition, how films are developed and distributed, the role of major UK broadcasters, international strategies, skills and talent development, our screen heritage, research and knowledge and the expanded role of the BFI after the closure of the UK film council.
Aside from “what is your favourite film?” amongst the questions I am most frequently asked is:
“what is the state of the British film industry?”
Or:
“Has it been a good year for British films?”
At this point I try to gauge whether or not they are actually interested in the state of UK film or more concerned about whether British actors are going to win an Oscar.
But if they are serious it remains a question that deals with the complex interplay between art, commerce and business.
However, there is no doubt in my mind that historically as a culture the British have tended to favour theatre (going back to Shakespeare) and television (which still dominates pop culture in this country).
Attitudes have changed since the advent of home video in the 1980s and a generation who have had access to DVD and YouTube, but there still lingers a sense that film is somehow inferior or less respectable.
This isn’t to say British audiences dislike it as a medium but if you compare this country to the US or France, cinema is embedded in their cultural DNA in a way that it hasn’t been in the UK.
Even now, releases tend to be viewed through the prism of low-brow (“Hollywood blockbusters”) or high-brow releases (“Art house”).
Media coverage of this very report repeated a lot of the old line about “commercial” vs “obscure” and whilst these distinctions do exist they actually reveal a lot more about deeper cultural divisions in the UK.
This is then fuelled by mainstream media coverage that can often focus on the trivial (e.g. celebrity gossip or obsession with the BBFC certificate) over the substantial.
It doesn’t help that the very term “British film” can be a slippery one, which is why I wrote about the three types of British film back in September:
Often the media coverage gets a little over the top when quality British films either win awards (Chariots of Fire, The King’s Speech) or flop badly (Sex Lives of the Potato Men and Lesbian Vampire Killers).
That is because UK films are to varying degrees reliant on public money and this creates extremes of opinion: it seems every year there is an article in which British films are utter crap or totally brilliant.
This is accentuated around awards time, when Oscar success is unhealthily equated with the overall state of the wider industry.
Which is why this report is so interesting.
It is probably the most in-depth look at the British film industry in well over a decade and is actually backed up by research, hard data and facts.
Not that you would know this from some of the initial reports in the mainstream media.
INITIAL MEDIA REACTION
The immediate headlines that pre-empted the actual publication were along the lines of BBC News: “UK films urged to be more ‘mainstream’ in new report”.
So before many people had even read it, the general media framing of the argument was ‘Cameron wants British films to rival Hollywood‘ or about the danger of losing our recent art house success.
There were more measured and insightful pieces by the likes of Maggie Brown in The Guardian, an experienced media reporter who probably had taken the time to read the whole thing.
Main UK industry publication Screen International reflected a range of views with key UK organisations, such as the FDA, PACT and Film4 mostly giving a positive response (I suspect this was because they had been listened to in the consultation process).
Of course it was a canny, if questionable, political tactic of Cameron’s spin doctors to leak the review with the angle of “PM wants more successful films” because what director, producer or exhibitor could disagree with that line?
They were hardly going to say they wanted failures.
There was a lot of instant reaction on Twitter (hashtag: #FilmPolicyReview) but the whole report was pretty long, so instead of just regurgitating media angles I thought I’d read all 37,708 words and comment on the bits that stood out.
N.B. It is available as a Word Document or PDF file on the DCMS website – I would strongly suggest you read it if you are in any way involved with the industry.
BACKGROUND
Back in May, the coalition announced that former Culture Secretary Chris Smith would head a panel of eight film industry experts to review the Government’s film policy.
This came in the wake of the closure of the UK Film Council and questions over public finances during a recession.
Their broad remit with the report was the following:
THE PANEL
Who were on the panel?
A pretty good selection of people as it turns out.
I personally would have liked to see a representative from one of the major UK art house chains (like Curzon or Picturehouse) but overall there was a wealth of experience at all levels on the review team.
It isn’t clear who exactly did what but there’s a lot of insight of both production and exhibition that could be gleaned from this group.
It actually looks like civil servants did their research in finding the right panel.
But what did did they actually come up with?
The final report contains 56 recommendations to Government, industry and the British Film Institute (BFI) which can broadly be summarised as:
Each of the above themes are pretty vital (and will be explored later in individual posts) but it is worth examining the wider context of the time in which this report has been published.
A GOLDEN PERIOD OF BRITISH FILM?
The introduction states:
British film is going through something of a golden period. A run of really good, successful, British-made and British-based movies has been taking not just British cinema audiences but many others around the world by storm.
As someone who has experience of watching a lot of British films on a regular basis since the late 1990s, the last three years have indeed felt like a golden age.
Perhaps the current era seems so shiny because the previous one was so disastrous.
There was optimism in the mid-to-late 1990s surrounding previous home grown British hits such as Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) Trainspotting (1996) and The Full Monty (1997).
With some notable exceptions what followed was largely a lottery-fuelled sea of crap, which reached an absolute nadir for me with The Principles of Lust (2003) and One for the Road (2003).
Parochial, wildly indulgent and imbued with a peculiar naffness, they were sadly typical of the worst British cinema of this period, which often it seemed like bad television projected on a big screen.
But slowly the tide began to turn.
Around the mid-2000s films like Shaun of the Dead (2004), Dead Man’s Shoes (2004) and The Descent (2005) showed that British films from different genres could connect with audiences.
This was then followed by Hot Fuzz (2007), Hunger (2008), Man on Wire (2008), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Son of Rambow (2008), Fish Tank (2009), In the Loop (2009), Another Year (2010), Four Lions (2010), The King’s Speech (2010) and Never Let Me Go (2010).
Again this was a variety of films of real distinction that connected with both critics and/or audiences.
In the last year Submarine (2010), Attack the Block (2011), The Deep Blue Sea (2011), Jane Eyre (2011), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and Shame (2011) have followed this path.
Certainly not all have been box office hits, but the sheer range and quality has been stunning.
In the early 2000s this would have seemed unimaginable when – if I’m really honest – I approached a British film with the expectation that on some level it would be at least a bit rubbish.
But in August 2009 when Jason Solomons published an article in The Observer bemoaning the state of British films, it prompted mixed feelings.
For critics who see a lot of films on a weekly basis – and not just the good ones – the trip to a Soho screening room to yet another British misfire could feel like a cultural death sentence.
Solomons wrote that the Edinburgh film festival was often an alarming bell weather for the mediocrity of British film:
…years of covering Edinburgh have depressingly demonstrated that actually, the deeper you go inside the British film industry, the thinner the pickings, the slimmer the plots, the ropier the ideas. In truth, there’s always a decent winner (Moon this year, or Control in 2007, or My Summer of Love in 2004), but it’s often a lone star, so far ahead in a competition that is, for the most part, embarrassing in its lack of professionalism and quality. Many of the films in the line-up will never see a paying audience, and neither, indeed, are they worthy of taking people’s hard-earned cash on a night out. Their very meekness seems to acknowledge this within the first, fatalistic 10 minutes.
It was hard to disagree with him, but on the other hand things were improving.
Emerging directors from different backgrounds like Edgar Wright, Steve McQueen and Andrea Arnold were making contrasting films of quality and distinction.
The last 18 months have been astonishing, with not only home grown blockbusters (The King’s Speech and The Inbetweeners) but also a wide range of challenging fare (Project Nim, Senna, Tyrannosaur, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Shame).
So good in fact, that I’m concerned that there will be the inevitable downturn as the combination of art and commerce can be inherently unpredictable.
The main change has been the transfer of power from the UK Film Council to the British Film Institute.
Although it caused a stir at the time the report acknowledges the opportunity of having a public funded body under one roof:
The Film Council had accomplished a lot during its decade or more of existence, and The King’s Speech stands as a rather fitting tribute to its achievements. But there is now a real opportunity for the sole, focused leadership of British film – cultural, creative, commercial, educational and representative – to be brought together in the single entity of the BFI. The challenge is for the BFI to use its new-found clout to inspire and nurture and strengthen British film, and we set out some ideas in our Report which we hope will help in this.
With that in mind, they received over 300 submissions of evidence, interviewed hundreds of people involved in all aspects of the industry.
The final report is encouraging because it is wide ranging diagnosis of the UK film industry, that also offers potential solutions and a solid ground work on which to build.
> Official DCMS website (where you can download the full report)
> BBC News, The Telegraph and The Guardian with their take on the report
> Splendor Cinema and Bigger Picture Research with their take
As part of their centennial celebrations Universal are restoring some of their classic films on Blu-ray.
The titles include some of the crown jewels of the studio archive, including:
This featurette explains some of the restoration processes:
It is a good demonstration of how digital tools can be used to preserve a studio’s celluloid heritage.
> Official Tumblr site for Universal’s 100th Birthday
> From Celluloid to Digital
The BAFTA nominations were announced earlier today and The Artist leads the field (12 nominations), closely followed by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (11 nominations).
I think its a given already that George Clooney (The Descendants) and Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) are hot favourites in the actor category – although Dujardin and Bejo could surprise.
Like the Oscars I still think The Artist is the one to beat for Best Picture.
But the main talking points are:
BEST FILM
DIRECTOR
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
LEADING ACTOR
LEADING ACTRESS
SUPPORTING ACTOR
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
DOCUMENTARY
ANIMATED FILM
ORIGINAL MUSIC
CINEMATOGRAPHY
EDITING
PRODUCTION DESIGN
COSTUME DESIGN
MAKE UP & HAIR
SOUND
SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
SHORT ANIMATION
SHORT FILM
THE ORANGE WEDNESDAYS RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public)
> BAFTA
> Analysis at Awards Daily and Hitfix
DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS
The Guard (StudioCanal): Brendan Gleeson plays a small town Irish cop in this smart and hilarious comedy which co-stars Don Cheadle as a visiting FBI agent. Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, it is stylish and also the most successful independent Irish film of all time. Highly recommended. [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
Alien Anthology (20th Century Fox Home Ent.): I’m not sure why Fox are re-releasing their outstanding Alien Blu-ray box-set with new packaging. But all the films, 12 hours of in-depth documentaries, nearly 5 hours of additional video, all for just £13.99 I think we can safely say this is a bargain. [Buy it on Blu-ray] [Find out more details here]
ALSO OUT
Killer Elite (EV) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Whistleblower (High Fliers Video Distribution) [Blu-ray / Normal]
> Recent UK cinema releases
> The Best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2011
Indiewire have recently been running a mash-up contest in light of the recent story about The Artist using music from Vertigo.
If you missed the story, Kim Novak recently took out an ad in Variety to complain about the use of some of Bernard Herrmann’s score in Michel Hazanavicius’s tribute to the silent era.
Press Play then decided to see how it sounded against other film sequences, so they staged a contest called ‘Vertigoed’ with the following rules:
Given that they have recently been running an excellent video series on Steven Spielberg, the sequence that immediately popped into my head was this one from Jaws (1975).
Mainly because of the use of the “zoom dolly” shot that Hitchcock made famous on Vertigo but also because there are some interesting connections between the two directors.
Both made significant films at Universal and Hitchcock was also a major shareholder of the studio as Jaws smashed box office records.
Its financial success would have made both men a lot of money, but the two were destined never to meet.
In fact, Spielberg was twice escorted off the set of Hitchcock movies on the Universal lot.
According to a book by John Baxter, as a young man he was thrown off the set of Torn Curtain (1966) and years later an assistant director asked him to leave whilst Hitch was shooting Family Plot (1976):
There’s probably a reason that ‘Scene d’Amour’ has been used so often as a temp track (i.e. a piece of temporary music used before the composer settles on a final score), which is that it lends a haunting beauty to almost any image.
With that in mind here is the scene from Jaws set to Herrmann’s music:
The music accentuates the tragedy of a mother losing her son, whilst with Williams’ score there was a sense of impending dread and brilliantly orchestrated horror.
Note also how the scene in the original version is free of music until the shark appears.
Take a look at the entries over on the Press Play site, which sets the track to various films including Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Rocky, The Great Dictator and They Live.
> Buy Scene D’Amour by Bernard Herrmann from the Vertigo soundtrack
> Press Play Vertigoed Contest and their Video Series on Spielberg
> Buy Jaws on DVD
> Buy Vertigo on DVD
J.C Chandor’s portrait of a modern Wall Street bank is a slow-burn acting master class.
With a narrative loosely modelled on the extraordinary events of September 2008, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers gored a huge hole in the global economy, it paints a bleak but compelling portrait of financial meltdown.
After a risk analyst (Stanley Tucci) at a large Wall Street bank is fired, his underling (Zachary Quinto) soon realises the entire company could go under within 36 hours.
We then see various managers struggle with the crisis: a salesman (Paul Bettany), the head of sales (Kevin Spacey), the head of securities (Simon Baker), the head of risk (Demi Moore) and finally the CEO (Jeremy Irons).
What is so impressive about the film is that it takes us right inside the den of greed and manages to convey the enormity of the crisis through acting and atmosphere.
It doesn’t ask us to sympathise with the various employees, but instead depicts a haunting, dread-filled portrait of a society crumbling from the top down.
In the quiet specifics of a bank, amidst humming computer screens and late night boardrooms, Chandor finds a wider cultural malaise.
That this is his debut film is remarkable – he not only shows a shrewd grasp of the Wall Street culture but shows a sure sense of atmosphere and tension.
Shot in just 17 days for around $3m and mostly set inside a single building, he has cannily used the limited time and resources to his advantage.
His screenplay thrives on disbelief and confusion – characters frequently express the desire to hear things in plain English – which mirrors society’s wider shock that Wall Street could be getting away with this for so long.
The wider point seems to be that successive governments and voters were only too happy because they too were part of the problem, happy to buy into what was essentially a giant Ponzi scheme.
What is brilliant about the narrative is that it continually takes us up the corporate ladder and depicts with startling eloquence how everyone is essentially powerless to stop what’s coming.
It was presumably this underlying intelligence that attracted actors like Tucci, Spacey and Irons, all of who give some of their best performances in years.
There are also small but perfectly formed turns from the likes of Quinto, Bettany, Baker and Moore who neatly round off one of the best ensemble casts of the year.
As any decent dramatist knows, silence can be as crucial as dialogue – in some cases the faces here depict more than words ever could – but where the film gets really fascinating is the exchanges towards the end as the higher ups debate the final course of action for their firms.
They may or may not be the kind of words that Richard Fuld used in the weeks after Lehman Brothers died but they give a plausible insight into the pathological nature of the state-subsidised capitalism of the past few years.
When Margin Call was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25th it coincided with an organised day of protest in Egypt, which formed a key part of the Arab Spring, and its US release in October neatly coincided with the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon.
There is a certain irony that Arab nations have influenced American protest, given that part of the reason the US economy is in trouble is the trillion dollars squandered on invading that region of the world.
But we live in strange times where there is a growing sense of despair and anger amongst a generation of people expected to suffer because of the poisonous actions of the actions of the Wall Street-Government nexus.
Part of what makes it so effective is that it doesn’t offer simplistic solutions and infects the audience with a sense of looming dread at what is still to come.
By the end it is hard not to feel like you’ve just spent time with criminals who will keep re-offending unless brought to justice.
Three years on there is still no solution to the overall crisis as the Obama administration still employs people who helped caused the crisis, whilst the Republicans seem to have descended into a state of collective insanity.
What makes the film so chilling and effective is that there appears to be no solution in sight.
Aside from Charles Ferguson’s documentary Inside Job the global financial crisis hasn’t really given us a good drama until now.
Part of the reason is the surface complexity of the related issues although the fundamental problem was simple: a lack of proper regulation led to Wall Street destroying the wider economy whilst avoiding suitable punishment or regulation.
The fact that banks like Goldman Sachs not only benefited from the demise of a major rival, but also got bailed out by the taxpayer was a perversion of capitalism that caused widespread anger across the political spectrum.
So seismic are the problems facing Western societies that it may take a new generation of political leaders to remedy the deep problems – and even then it could be too late.
The film industry has not been immune to these events, with the ‘independent’ market for films crashing in sync with the wider economy.
So it feels appropriate that the first serious drama to deal with the Wall Street meltdown is this reminder of what the US system can produce when it takes chances.
Margin Call is a daring film in many ways as it seeks to explore the mind-set of the very people who still inhabit the halls of finance and government.
This has been reflected in the funding (name actors attracted by a decent script), shooting (on a Red One digital camera) and distribution (a mixture of limited theatrical and VOD download in the US).
Here in the UK it is being released by Stealth Media (in the US it was distributed by Roadside Attractions after being acquired at Sundance) and is being given an encouragingly wide release.
The current harsh climate for independent movies may see distributors embrace innovative release strategies.
In the US Margin Call’s release raised a few eyebrows with its combination of VOD and theatrical, which goes against industry wisdom that one will cannibalise the other.
Cassian Elwes was the producer and agent heavily involved in the film and when I asked him on Twitter what the rough percentage of people who saw it at US cinemas versus those who downloaded it, he replied that it was probably one to one.
“@filmdetail: Do you know the rough percentage of people who saw it theatrically vs VOD?”/ we think its one to one
— cassian elwes (@cassianelwes) November 3, 2011
Indie films might need to embrace release strategies such as this if they are to survive.
Like the wider economy the future is still uncertain, but films like Margin Call can give us hope.
> Official site
> Reviews of the film at Metacritic
> Find out more about the Late-2000s financial crisis at Wikipedia
> Listen to our interview with Charles Ferguson about Inside Job
NATIONAL RELEASES
War Horse (Walt Disney): The film adaptation of the book and later stage play which follows a young man named Albert (Jeremy Irvine) and his horse, Joey on an odyssey through World War One. Directed by Steven Spielberg, it co-stars Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Peter Mullen, Niels Arestrup, Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irvine and Benedict Cumberbatch. [Nationwide / 12A] [Read our full review]
Shame (Momentum Pictures): Steve McQueen’s second film is a stunning depiction of sexual compulsion set in contemporary New York, which explores the life of an advertising executive (Michael Fassbender) and his needy sister (Carey Mulligan). Co-starring James Badge Dale and Nicole Beharie it also features some stunning cinematography from Sean Bobbit. [Nationwide / 18] [Read our full review]
Margin Call (Stealth Media): Masterful slow-burn drama about the collapse of a New York investment bank from fist-time director J.C. Chandor. Following the various figures in the firm, it is an acting masterclass featuring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, Zachary Qunito, Paul Bettany, Stanley Tucci and Simon Baker. [Selected cinemas nationwide / 15]
ALSO OUT
The Darkest Hour (20th Century Fox): When aliens attack and swiftly conquer the earth by frying our electronic grid and systematically hunting down the disorganized, pathetically underdefended survivors, a small band of tourists in Moscow team up to find a way to destroy the aliens’ powerful defenses. Directed by Chris Gorak, it stars Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella, Rachael Taylor and Joel Kinnaman. [Key cities / 12A]
A Useful Life (Dogwoof): The story of a film programmer (Jorge Jellinek) at a Montevideo cinematheque who loses his position and has to survive in a rapidly changing new world. Directed by Federico Veiroj, it is part of the recent trend for movies about cinema. [Key cities]
Tatsumi (Soda Pictures): Singaporean animated film based on the manga memoir A Drifting Life and five short stories by the Japanese artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Directed by Eric Khoo, it the voices of Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Tetsuya Bessho. [Key Cities / 15]
> Get local cinema showtimes at Google Movies or FindAnyFilm
> The Best Films of 2011
> The Best DVD & Blu-ray Releases of 2011
> Recent UK DVD & Blu-ray releases
Steven Spielberg’s latest film is a simultaneous reminder of his undoubted filmmaking skills and weakness for old-fashioned sentimentality.
Adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel – which later became a huge stage hit in London and New York – it follows a young horse named Joey as he gets caught up in World War I.
The resulting equine odyssey we explore his various owners: a Devon farm boy (Jeremy Irvine); an English soldier (Tom Hiddleston); two German troops (David Kross and Leonhard Carow); a French farmer (Niels Arestrup) and the effect he has on the them.
As you might expect from a filmmaker of Spielberg’s vast experience, there are sequences here which are staged with his customary taste and skill.
The rural English locations are beautifully realised through Rick Carter‘s production design and skilfully adapted for the wartime action, which is impressive in scope and detail.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the film is one which audiences may take for granted: the acting and handling of the horses used to represent the title character.
Although there are precedents for an animal as lead character – notably Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard, Balthazar (1966) – it is highly unusual to see a mainstream live-action film built around a horse.
The main trainer was Bobby Lovgren and several were used to create the central illusion, which Spielberg pulls off, especially in the latter stages of the film.
Unfortunately, the screenplay by Richard Curtis and Lee Hall appears to have been tailor made for a ‘Spielberg Production’, which means that stilted stereotypical characters and frequent doses of lachrymose sentimentality get in the way of the drama.
By trying to match the ideal of what they think are the directors strengths, the screenwriters have misunderstood that his best work (Jaws, Close Encounters, Schindler’s List and Minority Report) comes when he operates outside his usual comfort zones.
Thus we have an array of great acting talent (Mullan, Watson, Arestrup) along with current casting-director favourites (Hiddleston, Cumberbatch, Kebbell) forced to read awkward lines which undercut the dramatic impact of their scenes.
Visually the film is also mixed bag.
Spielberg and DP Janusz Kaminski are a formidable partnership but here their approach to lighting seems odd.
Filming in the ever-changing climate of England poses challenges for any production, but here the lighting choices are distracting – at times bordering on the avant-garde – with characters faces being lit up like they were on stage.
That being said, the battle scenes are composed with impressive precision and the use of wide-angles and Michael Kahn’s graceful cutting seems like a breath of fresh air in the current era of chaos cinema.
There is also a lot to be said for a film that tries to genuinely appeal to a wide family audience in an era where comic books and animated films rule the multiplexes.
For some – especially those who have had close connections with horses – there are moments that will be undeniably moving, but overall the material doesn’t naturally translate to screen in the manner the filmmakers presumably hoped.
Although the aim here has been to channel the visual style of John Ford on to the battlefields of Europe and to pepper the film with noble anti-war sentiments, the overall effect is underwhelming.
There are frequent touches of brilliance, such as a devastatingly simple shot to conclude a particular battle sequence, but there is little in the way of narrative urgency.
Another negative is the fact that French and German characters don’t speak in their native language – a commercial decision which undercuts the expensively assembled realism of the set-pieces.
The film reaches a nadir of sorts during the final battle when Spielberg reverts to his favoured ‘why can’t we all get along?’ position which feels as predictable as it is redundant, especially when delivered via clunky lines of dialogue.
This is accentuated by the John Williams score which contains all the soaring strings and melodies and beats you might expect – but like the film it is too much surface and not enough substance.
I suspect that there was part of Spielberg that couldn’t resist the lure of War Horse – after the enormous success of the stage production it seemed pre-packaged project for him, with its built-in family appeal and worthy subject matter.
But ever since the beginning of his astonishing career he has been a director who has achieved his very best work in adversity rather than the dangerous comfort zones he finds hard to turn down.
Whether it was the tortuous production of Jaws (1975), the desire for redemption with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) after the folly of 1941 (1979), or the compulsion to depict the brutality of the Holocaust in Schindler’s List (1993) after the misfire of Hook (1991) – all these triggered a kind of magic inside of his artistic soul.
For a director who achieved career and financial security so young, the greatest risks have always creative ones and he seems to thrive when making risky leaps of faith.
It was there during his innovative use of the Panaflex camera in The Sugarland Express (1974), his exhilarating framing and cutting during Jaws (1975) and the awesome sights and sounds in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
As his career progressed, he became so successful as both director and producer that he even reached the giddy heights of owning his own studio, even if it often had to partner with the majors on the big productions.
Yet despite all this ‘extracurricular activity’ he has maintained an impressive focus on his films, even if they have been of varying quality.
War Horse is ultimately not a film that stretched his creative muscles enough.
Perhaps the upcoming Lincoln – a project that he’s been circling for years – could prove to be more challenging?
> War Horse
> Reviews of the film at Metacritic
> Find out more about the book and stage play at Wikipedia
What were the most profitable movies of the last few years?
David McCandless and his team at Information is Beautiful have challenged people to visualise some Hollywood data.
They have compiled movie statistics consisting of:
McCandless puts special emphasis on profitability:
It always bugs me how Hollywood grades or broadcasts the success of a film by gross income. Profitability, or % of Budget Recovered, is a way better grade of a film’s success. Especially in America, where each film has such high printing and advertising costs, that it needs to recover about 250-300% of its budget to be deemed a true hit. In fact, if you use Profitability as an index, it changes the view considerably. Take 2007, for example, where the biggest grossing film was Pirates Of The Caribbean: At Worlds End. But it only recovered 320% of its budget.
He gave a TED talk in June 2010 explaining his approach to visualising data:
With that in mind his challenge is for people to come up with a graphic or app that somehow makes sense of the data and there are significant cash prizes for the winners.
But lets take a look at the basic figures he has assembled so far.
For the full spreadsheet click here (there’s a lot of data to chew on) but for convenience I’ve listed the ten most profitable films from 2007-2011 according to his criteria.
Just to clarify these figures are ‘market profitablilty’ scores based on the percentage of the budget recovered.
N.B. Films marked independent may have been distributed by a major company but were financed independently.
There’s some brief points to consider:
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
I’m pretty sure The Inbetweeners Movie should be in this year but that may have had something to do with its US release.
> Information is Beautiful
> IndieWire on the profitable films of 2011
> CNBC’s list of the most profitable movies ever
How much did Star Wars (1977) cost to make?
A quick Wikipedia search tells us that the budget was $11m.
But what if we wanted to dig a little deeper?
Browsing an old bookstore, I came across Joel Finler’s The Hollywood Story which reprinted a breakdown of the Star Wars budget.
This in itself was reprinted from David Pirie’s Anatomy of the Movies, which in turn was presuambly sourced from a 20th Century Fox or Lucasfilm financial statement.
It is worth noting that these figures would have been from 1980 – before the dollars from home video and merchandising really began to flow.
[Click here for a larger version]
There are a few things that stand out:
As of 2008, the overall box office revenue generated by the six Star Wars films is around $4.41 billion.
Only the Harry Potter and James Bond franchises have grossed more.
Aside from making George Lucas a lot of money, their other creative legacy is the creation of ILM, the company founded to create the visual effects for the movies.
For example, the opening shot of Star Wars took eight months and Lucas wanted people who could use the power of computers to help make the process easier.
Lucas hired Ed Catmull, who was in charge of the computer division at Lucasfilm and Alvy Ray Smith, who became head of the graphics project there.
When Lucas sold this computer graphics division to Steve Jobs in 1986, the former Apple boss (who would eventually return in 1997) renamed the company Pixar.
It would eventually go on to make animation history with a series of pioneering short films, Toy Story (1995) and a series of Oscar-winning and box office triumphs.
But for more on that, story check out the history of Pixar.
> Star Wars at Wikipedia
> Skillset breakdown of film finances
Could this be the year of a magic box that simplifies the home entertainment experience?
This week saw the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where numerous companies display their wares and issue a blizzard of press releases in the hope of creating awareness for their products.
But there is a missing piece of technology that looms large over this year’s CES, mainly because it hasn’t been released yet.
What if a company could unify the TV and Internet experience for the average user?
THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE
Over the past few years the rate of technological change for the consumer has been dizzying.
Not only has there been the introduction of high-definition television but there has also been an explosion in more powerful mobile devices and applications.
However, despite the ability to time-shift and view sharper images the fundamental experience of sitting down in front of your TV and watching a film or show hasn’t actually changed that much.
You still have to juggle at least two remotes, navigate a tricky user interface and occasionally experience your box freezing as it struggles to absorb all the digital information hurled at it.
It can be hard to generalise, but let’s start from the proposition that the vast majority will some form of digital widescreen TV.
If you don’t, then it will be hard to watch anything in the UK from April as that’s when they finally switch off the analogue signal.
Then let us assume most people have some form of digital TV – be it a basic Freeview setup (one off payment for a box or PVR) or premium services like Sky (satellite), Virgin (cable) or BT (digital phone line).
Nearly all of these services have some kind of recording or on-demand capability which allows you to time shift your viewing.
FRAGMENTATION
But if you think the current landscape is by any means straightforward, then you should think again.
The acid test is to go to your main TV and describe the services attached to it.
When you have finished, then compare it with family or friends and you’ll not only be swapping tales of multiple remote controls and horrible user interfaces but you’ll find it hard to keep track of what everyone’s setup is.
The Economist recently quoted a Forrester Research report which found that:
…many people didn’t fully understand the devices they had bought, and only a few had recommended them to their friends
But this confusion only reflects the comparative pace of change in recent years.
Most people just want something to watch, be it regular shows, sporting events or a movie.
INTERACTIVITY
An added factor over the last decade is the whole business of the Internet coming into our living rooms and merging with our televisions.
This process has been gradual starting with red-button services in the late 1990s and really picking up steam in recent times with services like BBC iPlayer available online and via web-connected TVs.
As it stands, various TV manufacturers such as LG, Samsung and Sony have all tried to offer a TV that can blend the world of broadcast and the web.
So far, they haven’t really got there yet.
Partly because it is early days for truly web enabled TVs but it part of it is also down to modern remotes and user interfaces being designed for another era.
Have you ever tried to access YouTube on an LG TV? It is like learning how to type text messages in the late 1990s.
I’m betting that the same is true to a greater or lesser degree for other TVs and services.
Over the last decade a generation of TV viewers has got increasingly used to the web and since 2007 web enabled smartphones.
This brings us to the one company that could truly unite television and the web.
ENTER APPLE
Over the last decade Apple revolutionised the music industry by creating the iPod and have started to make inroads on the laptop market with the iPad.
In Walter Isaacson’s recent biography of Steve Jobs there is this revealing passage:
…he very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant. “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use” he told me. “It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.” No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. “It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”
Since 2006 Apple have regarded their current TV efforts as basically an extension of iTunes, with digital downloads of TV shows and movies.
But broadcast TV has proved a much harder proposition.
In June 2010 Jobs gave what was to be his last in-depth interview at the D8 conference.
Right at the end of the session he was asked a fascinating question about reshaping the ‘traditional interface of television’.
Jobs replied:
The problem with innovation in the TV industry is the go-to-market strategy. The TV industry has a subsidized model that gives everyone a set top box for free. So no one wants to buy a box. Ask TiVo, ask Roku, ask us… ask Google in a few months. The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everyone a set-top box, and that pretty much undermines innovation in the sector.
Then came the key bit:
The only way this is going to change is if you start from scratch, tear up the box, redesign and get it to the consumer in a way that they want to buy it. But right now, there’s no way to do that….The TV is going to lose until there’s a viable go-to-market strategy. That’s the fundamental problem with the industry. It’s not a problem with the technology, it’s a problem with the go-to-market strategy….I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out, but that’s why we say Apple TV is a hobby.
This was a classic Jobs tactic of stating facts and whilst hinting at the future.
Five years previously at the D3 conference in 2005 he talked about the difficulty of getting video displays on iPods just months before Apple unveiled a (yes, you guessed it) video-enabled iPod in October of the year.
When asked at the same session about the possibility of an ‘iPod phone’ he laid out the challenges:
By January 2007 the iPhone was unveiled and effectively reshaped the mobile industry.
If you compare the challenges of Apple producing a phone in 2005 with that of making a TV in 2010 it is easy to feel a sense of deja vu.
Although a secretive company it does leak carefully selected morsels of information to favoured outlets (that was how one editor got in trouble tweeting from his iPad before the official launch).
In recent times the Wall Street Journal has become the place to watch for clues as to where Apple may be headed.
One article in December was of particular note:
Apple Inc. is moving forward with its assault on television, following up on the ambitions of its late co-founder, Steve Jobs. In recent weeks, Apple executives have discussed their vision for the future of TV with media executives at several large companies, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple is also working on its own television that relies on wireless streaming technology to access shows, movies and other content, according to people briefed on the project.
In the recent meetings with media companies, the Apple executives, including Senior Vice President Eddy Cue, have outlined new ways Apple’s technology could recognize users across phones, tablets and TVs, people familiar with the talks said. In at least one meeting, Apple described future television technology that would respond to users’ voices and movements, one of the people said. Such technology, which Apple indicated may take longer than some of its other ideas, might allow users to use their voices to search for a show or change channels.
This basically confirms what many technology writers had long suspected, but until Apple unveil a dedicated TV some fascinating questions remain.
What if they can truly turn apps into what are effectively TV channels?
What if iOS devices can become the remotes that don’t suck and seamlessly integrate with the (future) Apple TV?
Part of Apple’s original strategy for the iPod was to create a ‘digital hub‘ around the home computer which Jobs revealed way back in 2001:
By making the computer the hub around which they built iPods, iPhones and iPads Apple tapped right into a huge market as the halo effect of these mobile devices drove Mac sales and vice versa.
This virtuous circle is precisely what has driven Apple’s phenomenal growth over the last decade.
Although iTunes overtook Walmart as the world’s largest music retailer in 2008 (itself an incredible feat), Apple really make money on the hardware, whilst the digital music and apps are kind of the key gateway drug.
Could a TV be the final part of an overall home hub strategy?
In fact, you could argue it is the last frontier in the home just waiting to be conquered.
Imagine getting rid of all those channels you don’t ever watch and throwing away those clunky remotes.
iOS devices are effectively pre-built remotes and with Siri enabled voice commands it opens up a world of possibilities in the long term.
As for premium programming, the main drivers for pay television are movies and sport.
Apple already have plenty of films on the iTunes store and via apps like Netflix and Lovefilm.
When it comes to the major studios Disney have already put their chips firmly with iTunes, whilst their rivals (Sony, Fox, Warner Bros and Paramount) have signed up to UltraViolet, which is essentially a digital locker strategy.
Apple are rumoured to be working on a similar service for films, which will almost certainly involve iCloud.
Sports is potentially a much trickier area – and it is not clear whether Apple would want to even go there – but it could be a possibility if you extended the ‘app as channel’ model a bit further.
Imagine if the MLB, the NFL or even the Premier League wanted to make a deal with Apple for an exclusive deal to broadcast their games.
It would be a great way of driving sales of the new Apple TV.
The WSJ story highlights the difficult dilemmas traditional TV organisations face:
The pace of change puts media companies that make TV shows and program TV channels in a dilemma. On one hand, they hope that they can increase their profits by selling new services on new devices. But they are worried that a proliferation of new services could undermine the existing TV business, which brings in more than $150 billion a year in the U.S. in advertising and consumer spending on monthly TV subscriptions from cable, satellite and telecommunications companies.
Could 2012 see Apple provide the elusive magic box and disrupt the TV business like they did to the music industry?
> WSJ on Apple’s TV plans
> CNET on the Apple TV
> More on Apple TV at Wikipedia
DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS
Project Nim (Icon Home Entertainment): Outstanding documentary from director James Marsh (Wisconsin Death Trip and Man on Wire) about a chimpanzee raised as a human being during the 1970s. Brilliantly assembled from various archive materials, it provides an extraordinary journey through various layers of human society that interact with Nim. [Read our full review] [Buy it on DVD]
In a Better World (Axiom Films): Drama which intercuts the role of a doctor (Mikael Persbrandt) in a Sudanese refugee camp with a parallel drama in Denmark involving his young son (Markus Rygaard) and a friend (William Jøhnk Juels Nielsen). Directed by Susanne Bier, it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film earlier this year. [Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray]
Boardwalk Empire – Season 1 (Warner Home Video/HBO): The acclaimed HBO series set during the Prohibition era was written by Sopranos scribe Terence Winter and co-produced by Martin Scorsese (who directed the pilot). Focusing on Atlantic City treasurer Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson (Steve Buscemi), his right-hand man Jimmy (Michael Pitt) and various supporting characters it fuses history with fiction. The first season was nominated for 18 Emmys and won 8, including Outstanding Directing for Martin Scorsese. [Buy on DVD or Blu-ray]
ALSO OUT
Arena (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Cell 211 (StudioCanal) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Colombiana (EV) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Faces in the Crowd (Metrodome Distribution) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Inglorious Bastards (1978 Version) (StudioCanal) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Rio (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Big Picture (Artificial Eye) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Legend of Bruce Lee (Revolver Entertainment) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Troll Hunter (Momentum Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Up (Walt Disney) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition with 2D Edition]
Whisper of the Heart (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / with DVD]
> Recent UK cinema releases
> The Best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2011
The new video from Buck 65 pays homage to notable title cards from cinema history.
Created by Travis Hopkins, Superstars Don’t Love manages to cram in a lot of references into just 1 minute and 28 seconds.
Did you notice them all?
Art of the Title has a post explaining how it was put together, including some direct comparisons.
> Buck 65
> Art of the Title
> Christian Annyas’ Movie Title Stills Collection
Despite a masterful central performance this political biopic ends up caught between hagiography and melodrama.
Adopting a flashback structure, it sees the ageing politician (Meryl Streep) looking back on key episodes of her life: her humble origins in Leicestershire; her early years as an MP; her rise to power and the key episodes from her lengthy tenure as prime minister from 1979-1990.
The highlight here is a typically brilliant performance from Streep, who uses the full arsenal of her acting repertoire to create a striking portrait of Britain’s first female leader.
Her physical and vocal work is uncanny, which is no mean feat considering the years covered by the film, which sees newcomer Alexandra Roach play the younger version with considerable poise and presence.
These early segments of the film depict the cosy, sexist world of both the Tory party and Britain during the late 1950s (she became an MP in 1959) which almost certainly fed into her later assault on various British institutions.
Director Phyllida Lloyd has an extensive background in musical theatre and it shows here in the heightened zig-zag sweep of the narrative, which is a curious mixture of feminist biopic and political opera (minus the music).
The central device is both a blessing and a curse – it captures the irony of a frail Thatcher needing help (when her whole philosophy was built on a ruthless self-reliance) but the clunky use of her late husband Denis (Jim Broadbent) gets ever more comic as the story progresses.
At times it feels like that most curious of things: an interesting mess that is filled with fascinating contradictions.
Lloyd and her DP Elliot Davis frequently use distracting compositions and in some sequences Justine Wright’s editing is frenzied to the point of incoherence.
Yet there is also much technical work here to admire in bringing Thatcher to life: Marese Langan‘s hair and makeup design is the real standout, with Consolata Boyle‘s costumes not far behind.
In fact they are almost as impressive as the job Gordon Reece (played in the film by Roger Allam) did for Thatcher.
This duality feels weirdly appropriate for a film about a prime minister who was so hated that she ended up getting elected three times.
It says a lot about the conflicted mental state of the United Kingdom that Thatcher is so loathed and revered, which is appropriate for a nation still thoroughly divided about its social and cultural identity.
(If you are in any doubt just ask yourself about the differences between the United Kingdom, Great Britain, England, Scotland, Wales and that’s before you even get to the long and complicated history with Ireland)
This film tries to have it both ways, by depicting the downward vulnerability of her old age whilst contrasting it with the ambitious vigour of her political career.
Whilst this could be seen as avoiding the thornier issues of her reign, the director, screenwriter and star are all women in an industry dominated by men – presumably they saw this as something of a feminist fable of a female leader taking on male institutions.
That Thatcher routinely preferred the company of men and barely promoted women seems only to have piqued their interest in exploring the personal motivations lay behind her political ideology.
It is surprising but appropriate that the most effective relationship in the film is between Margaret and her daughter Carol (a brilliant Olivia Colman who is almost unrecognisable) in contrast to her absent son Mark, whom she clearly favoured.
There are traces of sneaky subversion in Abi Morgan’s screenplay, which appear to draw from Carol Thatcher’s 2008 memoir, which offer some intriguing glimpses into the private person behind the political persona.
For a leader who had so little time for the poor and dispossessed during her time in office there is something dramatically effective in seeing her suffer the uncertainties of old age.
Tory supporters hoping to enjoy scenes of Thatcher at the Commons dispatch box will be given pause by the scenes between mother and daughter – no wonder current PM David Cameron sounded genuinely uneasy when asked about the film.
It will be interesting to see how audiences react in Britain as this is traditionally the kind of heritage filmmaking that conservative broadsheet newspapers lap up, whilst their liberal counterparts have commissioned endless think pieces on it too.
But when audiences get to see it, they may be surprised at what unfolds in front of them, which speaks to both the uneven qualities of the film and Thatcher’s legacy as leader.
She was the heartless destroyer of trade unions and the slightly saucy headmistress who bewitched a generation of voters to either buy their own council houses or shares in privatised industries.
There was also the lower middle class voting block – from the kind of towns where she herself came – who kept re-electing her.
Tellingly it took the public schoolboys like Geoffrey Howe (Anthony Head) and Michael Heseltine (Richard E. Grant) in her own party to bring her down.
One area the film fails to illuminate is her relationship with key media organisations: notably Rupert Murdoch (with whom she formed a lasting and mutually beneficial alliance) and the BBC (an organisation with who she has a complex and fascinating relationship) were key to her electoral success.
The late Christopher Hitchens once lovingly spoke of an encounter in the late 1970s where Thatcher smacked him on the bottom and called him a “naughty boy” with a twinkle in her eye.
Although sadly this episode isn’t in the film, there is a moment when the elderly Thatcher is asked about the current PM and describes him as a “smoothie”.
This is not only funny but also highlights the public school mind set of the British ruling elites and their unlikely infatuation with a woman who they’d previously dismissed as a grocer’s daughter.
Meryl Streep is perfect casting, as she is to modern Hollywood as Thatcher was to Parliament in the 1980s – although politically a liberal she has defied industry wisdom to maintain a healthy career as a female star.
Furthermore, Streep’s astonishing ability to do accents serves her well and her outsider status as an American in a very British cast also dovetails with the former PM’s outsider status.
Warren Beatty once said that her political soul mate Ronald Regan once told him:
‘I don’t know how anybody can serve in public office without being an actor.’
The Iron Lady reflects this idea of politician as performer – a great performance which nevertheless masks key deficiencies in other vital areas.
Given the recent implosion of the free market principles Reagan and Thatcher championed, the film functions as a curious epitaph for an era which there seems to be a strange nostalgia for.
> The Iron Lady at IMDb
> Find out more about Margaret Thatcher at Wikipedia
> Reviews of The Iron Lady at Metacritic
> Guardian data blog on how Britain changed under Thatcher
This year’s BAFTA longlist has been announced for the upcoming awards and the field is led by My Week with Marilyn and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with 16 mentions each.
The way it works is that members have a first round of voting which whittles down 15 contenders in each category, which are then reduced to five final nominees.
The animated film and documentary category longlist five films each, which are then reduced to three nominees in the final round.
All BAFTA members vote in the first two rounds for all categories except Documentary, Film Not in the English Language and Outstanding British Film, which are voted for by Chapters (groups of over 80 members with specialist skills or experience in a particular area).
The asterisks below signify the top five selection of the relevant Chapter.
In the final round, winners are voted for by specialist Chapters in all categories except for Best Film, Outstanding British Film, Documentary and Film Not in the English Language and the four performance categories, which are voted for by all members.
LONGLIST
Best Film
Director
Leading Actor
Leading Actress
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress †
Film Not in the English Language
Outstanding British Film
Original Screenplay
Adapted Screenplay
Cinematography
Editing
Production Design
Make Up & Hair
Costume Design
Special Visual Effects
Documentary
Sound
Original Music
Animated Film
Note: Documentary, Outstanding British Film and Film Not in the English Language are Chapter votes in Rounds One and Two of voting.
†: As there was a tie in the Chapter vote in Supporting Actress, six individuals are flagged in this category.
NATIONAL RELEASES
The Iron Lady (Fox/Pathe): A biopic of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep) told in flashback. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, it co-stars Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, Richard E. Grant and Aktan Abdykalkov. [Nationwide / 12A]
Goon (Entertainment One): Comedy about a man (Sean William Scott) who leads a team of misfits to semi-pro hockey glory, with unconventional methods. Directed by Michael Dowse, it co-stars Jay Baruchel, Sean Patrick Thomas and Liev Schreiber. [Nationwide / 15]
ALSO OUT
Mother and Child (Verve Pictures): An ensemble drama, which follows the intersecting lives of a 50-year-old woman, the daughter she gave up for adoption 35 years ago and a blackwoman looking to adopt a baby. Directed by Rodrigo García, it stars Naomi Watts, Annette Bening and Kerry Washington. [Selected cinemas]
Despair (Park Circus): Re-release of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1978 adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, which stars Dirk Bogarde as a Russian émigré and chocolate magnate during the Nazis rise to power. [Selected cinemas]
> Get local cinema showtimes at Google Movies or FindAnyFilm
> The Best Films of 2011
> The Best DVD & Blu-ray Releases of 2011
> Recent UK DVD & Blu-ray releases
The news that Kodak is preparing for bankruptcy protection signals another chapter in the death of celluloid.
It was one of the most iconic companies and brands in the world, synonymous with the photographic image, but in recent years profits have declined and costs risen.
Once a hub of innovation that attracted America’s most talented engineers, it was essentially the Apple or Google of its day.
But in the digital era processing film stock is a much more expensive business than manufacturing SD cards.
Last November, Kodak said that it might not even survive 2012 if it couldn’t secure $500 million in new debt or sell their digital imaging-patents, rumoured to be worth between $2bn and $3bn.
In a report for the Wall Street Journal, Mike Spector and Dana Mattioli describe the current situation:
The 131-year-old company is still making last-ditch efforts to sell off some of its patent portfolio and could avoid Chapter 11 if it succeeds, one of the people said. But the company has started making preparations for a filing in case those efforts fail, including talking to banks about some $1 billion in financing to keep it afloat during bankruptcy proceedings, the people said.
A filing could come as soon as this month or early February, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Kodak would continue to pay its bills and operate normally while under bankruptcy protection, the people said. But the company’s focus would then be the sale of some 1,100 patents through a court-supervised auction, the people said.
The reversal is a notable one, especially as Kodak invented the modern digital camera in 1975.
In this interview Steven Sasson describes how he invented the camera in the midst of an era that was decidely analogue.
Inventor Portrait: Steven Sasson from David Friedman on Vimeo.
But like Xerox – which failed to capitalise on essentially inventing the modern computer interface – the company declined to build upon this innovation, presumably because it was seen as a threat to the then core business of film processing.
Gradually over the last decade their efforts to diversify into printers were also hit by the rise of digital images being stored on devices (like smartphones) and the web (through sites like Flickr and Facebook).
But where does this leave the motion picture business?
Projection on celluloid is effectively going to be over by the end of 2013, but how long has film-based capture got?
Kodak and Fuji are the two primary celluloid manufacturers who supply the actual film stock from which most major movies are still made.
Although the past year has seen many notable productions (e.g. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) shoot digitally, there still is a reluctance amongst some cinemtographers to go fully digital.
Kodak’s No Compromise campaign over the last few years has been bullish about the merits of film based capture as opposed to digital.
Rob Hummel spoke at the Cine Gear Expo earlier this year and described why film was still a superior medium for capturing images.
But if Kodak don’t stave off bankruptcy, then who will actually make the stock on which movies are shot?
One wildcard suggestion was that noted film adherent Steven Spielberg could buy the company:
Spielberg could buy Kodak, then ensure that 35mm prints will always be available for screening 35mm movies. Totally serious suggestion.
— The Mutiny Company (@MutinyCo) December 30, 2011
Whilst I think this is highly unlikely, there are people who want to help Kodak anyway they can.
On the recent audio commentary for his film The American, director Anton Corbijn stated that he wants to support Kodak as long as they are still going because Tri-X film was the still the gold standard for stills photography.
The late Sydney Pollack once said that Stanley Kubrick used to give him Kodak Tri-X film to use for taking still pictures.
At the aforementioned Cinema Expo, cinematographer John Bailey highlighted the future archival problems of movies that are ‘born digitally’:
When it comes to cinema, perhaps Kodak could spin off its motion picture arm?
Despite the march of digital pioneers like David Fincher and James Cameron, I suspect that a large portion of cinematographers still want to use film.
If Kodak goes into bankruptcy does photochemical filmmaking as we know it just die?
> WSJ report on Kodak’s financial troubles
> More on Kodak at Wikipedia
> From Celluloid to Digital
Here is the schedule for UK cinema releases in 2012.
The information is subject to change but hopefully this will be a useful guide to what’s out in the coming months.
Each film’s title in bold, followed by the certificate, distributor and the type of release it will be getting.
JANUARY 2012
Friday 6 January 2012
Friday 13 January 2012
Wednesday 18 January 2012
Thursday 19 January 2012
Friday 20 January 2012
Friday 27 January 2012
FEBRUARY 2012
Wednesday 1 February 2012
Friday 3 February 2012
Thursday 9 February 2012
Friday 10 February 2012
Friday 17 February 2012
Saturday 18 February 2012
Thursday 23 February 2012
Friday 24 February 2012
Friday 2 March 2012
Friday 9 March 2012
Friday 16 March 2012
Friday 23 March 2012
Wednesday 28 March 2012
Friday 30 March 2012
Thursday 5 April 2012
Friday 6 April 2012
Friday 13 April 2012
Friday 20 April 2012
Friday 27 April 2012
Friday 4 May 2012
Friday 11 May 2012
Friday 18 May 2012
Friday 25 May 2012
Friday 1 June 2012
Friday 8 June 2012
Friday 15 June 2012
Friday 22 June 2012
Friday 29 June 2012
Wednesday 4 July 2012
Friday 6 July 2012
Friday 20 July 2012
Friday 27 July 2012
Thursday 2 August 2012
Friday 3 August 2012
Friday 10 August 2012
Friday 17 August 2012
Wednesday 22 August 2012
Friday 24 August 2012
24 August 2012
29 August 2012
31 August 2012
7 September 2012
Poster trends are as old as the hills but this year has seen the emergence of a new motif.
Last year saw the text over face trend and in the past we have had such fashions as the red dress, back to back and the leg spread.
But amongst the the more hipper poster designs this year have seen images within images.
After designing the iconic one-sheet for The Social Network, Neil Kellerhouse has swiftly become David Fincher‘s designer of choice.
This year this poster for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo utilised Daniel Craig’s face inside Rooney Mara’s.
Ever since Sundance, Martha Marcy May Marlene has been attracting buzz and it seemed only right that not only should it follow this trend.
It seemed appropriate that another teaser poster should include a QR code for all those hipsters in Brooklyn and Shoreditch to view a trailer on their iPhones – the film is still great though 🙂
Then if we cast our minds back to earlier in the year, there was this US one-sheet for Jane Eyre, which like the film was tasteful and stylish.
I especially like the big but thin font and colour palette on this one.
As for Michael Fassbender, he also featured in X-Men: First Class, which had a character teaser poster which utilised the image within image idea.
This time it was his younger Magneto in a silhouette of the character comic-book fans are familair with.
Did you notice any other posters that used this trend this year?
YouTube user moviemaestroten has synced up the audio of The Dark Knight Rises trailer with The Lion King (1994).
The original trailer is here.
[Via Buzzfeed]
> The Dark Knight Rises
> More on The Lion King at Wikipedia
Although it is a quiet time for new DVD and Blu-ray releases, if you upgraded to a new TV or player over Christmas there are plenty of bargains to be found online.
The home entertainment scene is still fragmented for the average user, with users still caught between a combination of multi-channel television (Freeview, cable or satellite), optical discs (DVD and Blu-ray) and digital downloads (iTunes and Netflix streaming).
We also shouldn’t discount the impact of the recession, which is something of a double-edged sword: it will affect sales of equipment, but at the same time may boost disc sales as people cut back on going out and spend more time in.
One of the biggest misconceptions I come across talking to people is the assumption that existing DVD discs won’t play on Blu-ray players: this isn’t the case at all, as not only will DVDs play on Blu-ray players, but they will look much better on an HD TV.
My general rule of thumb with Blu-rays is to be selective: every film is going to look and sound better but if you already have a good DVD, then you should ask yourself do I really need this?
The good news is that films of quality (whether classic or modern) really benefit from the format, with greater image resolution and proper aspect ratio amongst the chief benefits.
It is also a golden age for DVD bargains as the price drop of Blu-rays has had a knock on effect with many great 2-disc titles available on DVD for under £5.
Here’s a list of current bargains that I’ve noticed on Amazon UK – I’ve listed single DVDs and Blu-rays that are under £10, whilst box sets are generally under £20.
N.B. Some are region free, which mean they can be played on both US and UK players.
BLU-RAY
Baraka: Remastered (Dir. Ron Fricke, 1992): Whenever people ask me ‘what is the best looking film on Blu-ray?’ this is the first title out of my mouth. It is a non-narrative film with no actors, dialogue or voice-over. But it was shot on 70mm, mastered at 8K resolution and is still the disc to beat for image quality. [Buy on Blu-ray for £9.99]
Taxi Driver (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 1976): This region free release of Scorsese’s classic portrait of urban alienation was easily one of the Blu-ray releases of the year. One of the truly great films of the 1970s, it not only looks and sounds great but comes with hours of bonus material, including audio commentaries and making of featurettes. [Buy on Blu-ray for £7.49]
Fight Club (Dir. David Fincher, 1999): One of the most daring mainstream releases of the 1990s, this managed to appal Fox owner Rupert Murdoch and critic Alexander Walker before going on to become a major hit on DVD. Look out for the fun Fincher has with the menu screen. [Buy on Blu-ray for £6.99]
The Social Network (Dir. David Fincher, 2010): This 2-disc collector’s edition version was easily one of the best Blu-rays of 2010. The film explored the origins of Facebook with impressive attention to detail, but the making of documentary exploring the production was one of the best of its kind. The sound and visuals are also first rate. [Buy it on Blu-ray for £9.99]
Memento (Dir. Christopher Nolan): The twisty noir that propelled Nolan on to the Hollywood map still holds up very well and the inventive structure makes repeated viewings a pleasure. But his technical skills as a director were in evidence even before the bigger budgets of the Batman films and Wally Pfister’s visuals look terrific. [Buy on on Blu-ray for £6.67]
Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960): One of the most influential films ever made was seen as a creative risk for Hitchcock at the time: why would an A-list director film a gruesome novel in black and white with the crew from his TV show? However, it paid off handsomely and this region free Blu-ray release is a reminder of the film’s raw power. [Buy on Blu-ray for £6.17]
Children of Men (Dir. Alfonso Cuaron, 2006): This dystopian drama about a futuristic Britian feels so prophetic about our current times that its eerie. Brilliantly realised by Cuaron, it features great performances from Clive Owen and Michael Caine, whilst Emmanuel Lubezki provides some of the most astonishing camera work in modern cinema history. [Buy the region free Blu-ray for £6.07]
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (Dir. Andrew Dominik, 2007): Westerns are increasing rarity in Hollywood, but a slow, meditative one shot like a Terrence Malick movie is even rarer. Featuring stellar performances from Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt, this looks and sounds magnificent. [Buy it on region free Blu-ray for 6.67]
The Shawshank Redemption (Dir. Frank Darabont, 1994): One of the most beloved films of all time, which regularly jostles with The Godfather for top spot on the IMDb 250, is this prison drama that initially failed at the box office before going on to huge success on home video. Contains the 48-min documentary ‘The Redeeming Feature’. [Buy it on Blu-ray for £7.07]
North By Northwest (Warner Bros.): Another Hitchcock classic, this all action thriller with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint saw him at his studio peak. The iconic Saul Bass title sequence, use of VistaVision and a script by Ernest Lehman make this “the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures”. [Buy it on region free Blu-ray for £9.99]
Galapagos (BBC): BBC nature documentaries are often great for testing out a new TV and Blu-ray player and this 2006 series exploring the Galapagos islands is no exception. Narrated by Tilda Swinton, it features stunning scenes of wildlife and scenery shot from the sea, land and air. [Buy it on region free Blu-ray for £6.49]
DVD
Inside Job (Dir. Charles Ferguson, 2010): This Oscar-winning documentary explains the financial crisis with devastating clarity and is essential viewing or anyone interested in why the world has been plunged into turmoil. [Buy on DVD for £5.49]
All The President’s Men (Dir. Alan J. Pakula, 1976): The forensic Watergate drama that should have won Best Picture that year is now available on 2-disc DVD for under £5. There are really no excuses not to buy this. [Buy on DVD for £4.49]
To Catch A Thief (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1955): It may not be Hitchcock’s finest film, but this 2-disc Special Collector’s Edition is a real treat, with a great transfer and oodles of extras. [Buy on DVD for £3.97]
A Man For All Seasons (Dir. Fred Zinneman, 1966): This Oscar-winning period drama, brilliantly adapted by Robert Bolt from his own play, stands as one of the great historical films ever made. [Buy it on DVD for £3.99]
Blow Up (Dir. Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1966): One of the great films of the 1960s is this elliptical tale of a London photographer, which brilliantly depicts the dark side of that decade and the limits of what we see. [Buy it on DVD for £4.97]
Sideways (Dir. Alexander Payne, 2004): The film that should have won Best Picture instead of Million Dollar Baby is this bitter-sweet tale of two guys on a tour of Californian wine country. [Buy it on DVD for £3.97]
Hope and Glory (Dir. John Boorman, 1987): One of John Boorman’s more overlooked films is his marvellous coming-of-age tale set during World War II. [Buy it on DVD for £3.99]
No Direction Home (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 2005): Scorsese’s 208 minute documentary on Bob Dylan focuses on his career during the 1960s and remains spectacular value for money. [Buy it on DVD for £4.97]
The Fog of War (Dir. Errol Morris, 2003): The famed US documentarian won an Oscar for this fascinating exploration of the life and career of Robert McNamara, one of the architects of the Vietnam War. [Buy it on DVD for £3.97]
Dead Men Dont Wear Plaid (Dir. Carl Reiner, 1982): Ingenious film noir spoof starring Steve Martin as a private eye, which intercuts footage of classic film stars with the story. [Buy it on DVD for £3.97]
BLU-RAY BOX SETS
Alien Anthology (20th Century Fox): Outstanding collection of all four Alien films with hours of extra material. [Buy it on Blu-ray for £14.99]
Planet Earth – Special Edition (2entertain): BBC nature documentary which is arguably the greatest natural history series ever made, featuring all episodes from the original series and plenty of extras. [Buy it on region free Blu-ray for £16.99]
The Godfather Coppola Restoration (Paramount): The restored versions of Coppola’s classic gangster films. Just ignore the third part and savour the first two. [Buy it on Blu-ray for £21.97]
Apocalypse Now (Studiocanal): 3-disc Special Edition including the extended cut and the making of documentary Hearts of Darkness. [Buy it on Blu-ray for £17.99]
Stanley Kubrick: Visionary Filmmaker Collection (Warner Bros.): Includes 2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut and Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures [Buy on region free Blu-ray for £24.99]
The Ultimate Bourne Collection (Universal): All three Bourne films in one package. [Buy on region free Blu-ray for £15.97]
Firefly (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment): Joss Whedon’s cult sci-fi series. [Buy on Blu-ray for £13.37]
The World At War: The Ultimate Restored Edition (Fremantle Home Entertainment): The restored HD version of the landmark series. [Buy it on Blu-ray for £33.99]
DVD BOXSETS
Alistair Cooke’s America (BBC): Classic 1970s series on the history of America. [Buy it on DVD for £16.99]
The World At War: The Ultimate Restored Edition (Fremantle Home Entertainment): World War 2 is comprehensively depicted in this restored version of one of the greatest shows in the history of television. [Buy it on DVD for £21.89]
Hitchcock Collection (Warner Home Video): This 7-disc collection includes Dial M For Murder, I Confess, Stage Fright, The Wrong Man, Strangers On A Train and North By Northwest. [Buy it on DVD for £13.79]
Alfred Hitchcock – Essential Collection (Universal): 4-disc set includes Rear Window, Psycho, The Birds and Vertigo. [Buy it on DVD for £12.97]
Stanley Kubrick : Special Edition 10 Disc Box Set (Warner Bros.): Includes Lolita, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut and Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. [Buy the DVD for £21.22]
Roman Polanski Collection (Paramount): Includes Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant. [Buy the DVD for £6.37]
Humphrey Bogart Collection (Warner Bros): 6 disc set including Casablanca , Treasure of Sierra Madre, Maltese Falcon and High Sierra. [Buy it on DVD for £10.49]
Marx Brothers Box Set (Universal): Includes Animal Crackers, Duck Soup, Monkey Business and Horse Feathers. [Buy it on DVD for £18.97]
Before Sunrise / Before Sunset (Warner Home Video): 2 disc set featuring Richard Linklater’s two films with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. [Buy it on DVD for £4.99]
If you have any bargains you’ve noticed, the just leave a comment below.
> Best DVD & Blu-ray releases of 2011
> The Best Films of 2011
