Images of atomic test explosions were a defining feature of the Cold War era, but the story of the men who filmed them has only recently emerged.
Two new documentaries about the dangers of nuclear weapons – Countdown to Zero and Nuclear Tipping Point – both feature archival footage of mushroom clouds.
But who were the people behind the camera as the bombs went off?
The New York Times recently ran a piece by William J Broad that explored how a group of filmmakers actually based in the Hollywood Hills were the men who documented the mushroom clouds that linger in the collective memory.
Lookout Mountain Laboratories in Laurel Canyon was originally designed in 1941 as an air defence station but after World War II was transformed in to a secret film studio which operated for 22 years during the Cold War.
It featured a sound stage, screening rooms and a large staff that included producers, directors and cameramen, all focused on capturing the nuclear tests in Nevada and the Pacific.
The main viewers of these films at the time were government scientists and congressional leaders closely involved with defence, but for the people who filmed the explosions it could be a hazardous occupation.
One of the few surviving cameramen, George Yoshitake, is quoted as saying:
âQuite a few have died from cancer… No doubt it was related to the testing.â
Some of the declassified films have surfaced on YouTube and they reveal some interesting details, such as the revelation that psychiatrists were on hand to observe reactions to the bomb:
These films would have been important in shaping opinion in Washington and were probably also a factor in US decision making during the Cold War.
A lot of the footage we can see today is down to the declassification that occurred in the late 1990s during the Clinton administration.
However, after 9/11 this program was stopped, which perhaps still attests to the haunting spectre of nuclear weapons and the dangers they still pose to the world.
Since attracting controversy and acclaim with Irreversible (2002), Noe has returned to similarly grandiose themes and, like his previous film, presented them within a contemporary urban world.
Set in contemporary Tokyo, Enter The Void focuses on a young American drug dealer (Nathaniel Brown), his sister (Paz de la Huerta), and the various people he comes across whilst peddling his wares.
When a deal goes bad in a night club early on in the film, Oscar is shot and becomes a disembodied soul who can observe his loved ones and acquaintances like a ghost.
As this spectral journey progresses, we also get flashbacks of Oscarâs childhood and numerous other meditations on his life and ultimate death.
Much of the film is a master class in cinematography, visual effects and editing, to the point where it could become a case study in film schools for those curious as to how various sequences were executed.
However, the stylistic virtuosity is matched by a grimy setting: a dank, urban underbelly filled with dirty toilets, strip clubs and all manner of shifty people doing dodgy things.
Although likely to turn off some viewers, as a depiction of that world it is convincing, despite all the visual trickery used to present it.
The performances are solid: Brown makes for a sympathetic protagonist, with a performance heavily reliant on his voice work, whilst del la Huerta portrays the emotional and physical demands of her role with considerable courage.
Clumsy references to The Tibetan Book of the Dead and the loose nature of the narrative means that after about an hour the film starts to splutter and fracture.
But despite this, long stretches of the film are a remarkable assault on the senses.
Filled with strobe lighting effects, hypnotic sounds and even sequences set inside the human body, it is arresting, hallucinatory and disturbing, sometimes all at once.
This is precisely the kind of film that should be experienced in the cinema for the full effect and some sequences linger long after the end – one recurring scene was so effectively shot and edited, it jolted me out of my seat more than once.
Some will dismiss the ideas presented in the film as drug-fuelled pretension, but as a visual representation of what could happen when we die it is a fascinating and bold exploration of what is still a taboo subject in Western culture.
Compared to how many mainstream films feature death as something to be laughed at or perversely enjoyed, especially modern horror franchises, this makes the film all the more unusual.
A more definitive directorâs cut might surface in the future, but it is rare for any modern filmmaker to attempt this kind of material, one of dazzling technical skill and intense philosophical ambition.
It might not always work, but the finished film is unlike anything Iâve seen in recent memory. For that, at least, it deserves considerable credit.
Enter the Void is out at selected UK cinemas on Friday 24th September
Called “My Piece of the Peace Corps,” the contest invites entrants to submit videos about how the Peace Corps, a Peace Corps Volunteer, or a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer changed their lives.
Winners will receive $500, $1,000, or a grand prize of $2,500.
Erica Burman, director of communications for the National Peace Corps Association has said:
“We expect the videos to be as diverse as the people who serve in the Peace Corps. A video could be about a high-school teacher whose stories from overseas inspired you, or a Volunteer whose service taught you new skills, or maybe a Returned Volunteer who continues to be a community leader here at home.
“Like the Peace Corps, YouTube has brought the world closer together. It’s only natural that we would use this new technology to showcase the ways that Peace Corps Volunteers and Returned Volunteers have affected tens of thousands of people around the world.”
The contest will culminate just in time for the celebrations at the University of Michigan in October where the idea of the Peace Corps first began fifty years ago.
The first of a three part series, he talks about the “Hades Landscape”, the use of brass miniatures lit from below, the Tyrell Pyramid, how the explosions were created and the connection with Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Zabriskie Point (1970).
It makes for fascinating viewing and some of the craftsmanship that went into this sequence is mind-boggling.
The Third Man (Optimum Home Entertainment): One of the genuine landmarks of cinema, a tale of a writer (Joseph Cotten) visiting an elusive friend (Orson Welles) in post-war Vienna. It featured a bewildering array of talent behind and in front of the camera: Carol Reed directed from a script by Graham Greene, whilst Alexander Korda and David O’Selznick co-produced and aside from Welles and Cotten the cast features Trevor Howard and Allida Valli.
Famous for its iconic set pieces – light illuminating a doorway, a dialogue on a enormous ferris wheel, a chase through the sewers and two funerals, it also has one of the most distinctive scores courtesy of Anton Karasâ zither. It also won the Palme DâOr at Cannes and the Oscar for Best Cinematography. [Buy it on Blu-ray] *Read our longer review here*
Breathless (1960): Perhaps the iconic film of the French New Wave, this tale of a small time crook (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who goes on the run after stealing a car and shooting a cop, sees him end up in Paris with an American girlfriend (Jean Seberg).
With its loose narrative, location shooting, improvised dialogue, jump cuts, deliberately mismatched shots and literary references, it remains a landmark film. It gave French and European cinema a much needed shot of inspiration when it first came out in 1960, with audiences and critics responding to its energy and artistic verve. N.B. The Special Edition DVD release also comes out the same day as the Blu-ray but has slightly different extras. [Buy it on Blu-ray / Buy the 50th Anniversary DVD]
The Graduate (1967): One of the iconic films of the late 1960s saw Dustin Hoffman play the eponymous graduate, a recent university graduate drifting aimlessly in life, who is seduced by an older woman, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), only to fall in love with her daughter (Katharine Ross).
Director Mike Nichols struck a chord with a younger generation of audiences by using techniques borrowed from the French New Wave to craft a witty tale of youthful alienation. Odd angles and unconventional editing were combined with a sharp script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham (adapted from from Charles Webb’s novel) and the result was a huge hit, launching Hoffman’s career and also boosting Simon and Garfunkel whose music features heavily on the soundtrack. [Buy it on Blu-ray]
Extra features include:
Region A & B
English, French and German 2.0 DTS-HD MA
English; French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish and Japanese subtitles
Audio Commentary with Prof. Koebner, film historian (new to UK)
About The Music (7â55) – analysis of music by Prof.Koebner & Helga La Motte-Haber, music professor & author (new to UK) (SD)
Analysis of the Seduction Scene (12â10) (new to UK) (SD)
Trailer (1â48) (SD)
The Graduate at 25 (22â21) (SD)
Interview with Charles Webb (20â07) (SD)
The Graduate: Looking Back (12.56) (SD)
The Music in the Film â 4 tracks: The Sound of Silence, April Come She Will, Scarborough Fair, Mrs. Robinson as they appear in the film (HD)
Booklet Essay by Marc Webb, writer / director – Marc Webb is the writer/director of 500 Days of Summer and the director of the forthcoming Spider-man reboot
Exploring the moralities of those breaking and enforcing the law, it features excellent performances from the leads, a wonderfully teasing narrative and some brilliantly executed set-pieces. It was heavily cut for its initial US release in 1970, but this id the fully restored version. [Buy it on Blu-ray]
Extra features include:
Region B
1080P 1.85:1 Widescreen
French, English and German 2.0 DTS-HD MA
English, French and German subtitles
New or previously unreleased material:
Codename Melville Documentary directed by Olivier Bohler (76â35) (SD)
Interview with Rui Nogueira (author of Melville on Melville, produced by the Criterion Collection) (26â11) (SD)
Introduction by Ginette Vincendeau (12â30) (SD)
Interview with assistant director Bernard Stora (30â45) (SD)
Trailer (â45) (HD)
Booklet Essay by Ginette Vincendeau, Professor / Author – Ginette Vincendeau is Professor of Film Studies at Kingâs College London. Among her works on French cinema are Stars and Stardom in French Cinema (2000) and Jean-Pierre Melville, An American in Paris (2003)
Delicatessen (1991): The wonderfully surreal debut of the Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, set in a post-apocalyptic world where food is scarce, is about an ex-clown (Dominique Pinon) who gets a job in an apartment building and then falls for the daughter of the buildingâs owner â an imposing and sinister butcher. Below them, down in the sewers, live some rebel vegetarians. [Buy it on Blu-ray]
The extra features include:
Region A & B
1080P 1.85:1 Widescreen
French, German and Spanish 2.0 DTS-HD MA
English, French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish and Japanese subtitles
NEW: Main Course Pieces (1h05â28) – brand new retrospective documentary (SD)
The Archives of Jean-Pierre Jeunet: actorâs Casting tests (Callbacks) and rehearsals, behind the scenes etc (8â43) (SD)
Audio Commentary by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Making Of: Fine Cooker Pork Meats making of/short film by Diane Bertrand (13â30) (SD)
Trailer (2â08) (SD)
Teasers (1â06) (SD)
Booklet Essay by Adam Woodward, Journalist – Adam Woodward has worked as online editor for Little White Lies magazine since 2009 and currently writes for a number of film-related publications, including Playground magazine and Eye For Film.
Mulholland Drive (2001): David Lynch’s neo-noir journey through the dark side of Hollywood is still as fresh, disturbing and trippy as it was when it first came out. The tale of a woman (Laura Elena Harring) who loses her memory in a car accident and the actress (Naomi Watts) who tries to help her out, it weaves a hypnotic spell as it unfolds in wildly unconventional ways.
Featuring all manner of memorable characters including a director, a cowboy and a mysterious singer, it is one of those films which has inspired all manner of theories due to the hallucinogenic games Lynch plays with the audience. [Buy it on Blu-ray]
The extras break down as follows:
Region B
1080P 1.85:1 Widescreen
English, French and Italian 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Italian, French and Dutch subtitles
New or previously unreleased material:
Angelo Badalamenti: audio interview 10 years on (audio only: 16â30)
Back to Mulholland Drive (21â) (new to DVD / blu-ray) (SD)
Introduction by Thierry Jousse (10â) (HD)
In the Blue Box (27â) â retrospective documentary featuring directors and critics (HD)
Interview with Angelo Badalamenti (Music Composer) (16â46) (SD)
Interview with Mary Sweeney (Editor and Producer) (6â03) (SD)
Making of (23â) (SD)
Booklet Essay by Adam Woodward, Journalist
The Pianist (2002): Roman Polanski won the Oscar for Best Director for this World War II drama about Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, who escaped the Nazi death camps by hiding in the Warsaw ghetto. Played by Adrien Brody (who also won an Oscar for his performance) it is a gruelling tale of survival which features an interesting (and true life) twist.
The gradual destruction of Warsaw provides a haunting backdrop to Szpilman’s story of survival is treated with a powerful blend of intelligence and emotion. Polanski’s own personal experiences during the war no doubt made the film a personal one and the craft, especially Pawel Edelman’s cinematography, is impeccable throughout. [Buy it on Blu-ray]
Extras include:
Region B
1080P 1.85:1 Widescreen
English, French and Italian 5.1 DTS-HD MA
French, Italien, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish subtitles
New or previously unreleased material:
Interview with Ronald Harwood (20â45) (SD)
Interview with Andrzej Szpilman (29â49) (SD)
Interview with Daniel Szpilman (2â28) (SD)
A Story of Survival: behind the scenes of The Pianist (39â43) (SD)
Trailer (1â30) (SD)
Booklet Essay by Anwar Brett, journalist – Anwar Brett is a journalist specialising in cinema, who has written for a wide variety of newspapers and magazines over the years, publications such as BAFTA’s Academy magazine, Total Film, Film Review and The South London Press. He is also a freelance interviewer for film and DVD, occasional moderator of audience Q&As and has recently finished his first book on the rarefied theme of films shot in his native county of Dorset.
Dogtooth (Verve Pictures): One of the most startling and original films of the last year was this creepily absorbing tale of a Greek family headed by two parents (Christos Stergioglou and Michelle Valley) who go to extreme lengths to shelter their three children (Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni and Christos Passalis) from the outside world.
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, it examines how the world the parents create is taken by the children as their only reality. Imagine the Big Brother house as designed by Samuel Beckett and you’ll get some idea of the bizarre ways in which language and ideas are subverted for strange, cruel and often deviously funny ends.
Everything is presented with a cool, detached formality: the editing and cinematography are calm, considered and make the increasingly bizarre world of the house seem ordinary, even though it is anything but.
It explores similar territory to The Truman Show (1998), but manages to have its own hypnotic power. In the light of recent kidnap stories in Europe (such as the Fritzl case), it manages to echo contemporary anxieties as well as examining age old themes of power, control and the social forces that shape us.
After winning the Prix Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2009, it played to considerable and richly deserved acclaim on the festival circuit and remains one of the most startling European films to emerge in years. [Blu-ray / DVD]
ALSO OUT
Date Night (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD] Glee: Complete Season 1 (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD] Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (BFI) [Blu-ray with DVD] Hung: Season 1 (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / DVD] Inferno (Arrow Films) [Blu-ray / DVD] Kandahar Break – Fortress of War (Revolver Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD] Lost: The Complete Seasons 1-6 (Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Box Set] Lost: The Complete Sixth Season (Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Box Set] Mountain Gorillas (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / DVD] Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time (Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / with DVD and Digital Copy] Unthinkable (E1 Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / DVD] Vincere (Artificial Eye) [Blu-ray / DVD]
A screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in Los Angeles on Friday night was interrupted by someone apparently having an acid trip during the climax.
Although it could be some kind of stunt, this video shot inside the Egyptian Theater makes for interesting viewing:
The Ultimate Trip turned into a bad trip Friday night at the American Cinemathequeâs Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard when one member of the audience at a screening of the Academyâs 70mm vault print of â2001: A Space Odysseyâ tried to recreate the late â60s a little too aggressively.
Toward the end of the film, when Keir Dulleaâs Dr. Dave Bowman finds himself in an ornate bedroom after the trippy Stargate sequence, a voice started booming from the near-front center part of the nearly full house.
The words were disjointed and mostly incoherent but included phrases like âItâs time to sleep!â and âStanely Kubrick!,â âWait!,â âItâs time!â and so on. With the film continuing to unspool, there was enough light to see that the ranter was a big burly guy who had now stood up, was waving his arms abruptly and lurching about unpredictably.
Hoping the man would shut up and sit back down, the audience didnât do much at first, but it was soon clear the guy was tripping big time and was not going to respond to polite admonitions.
Someone who seemed to know him tried to settle him but now the guy seemed provoked and was acting even more crazily.
After a couple of minutes the film was turned off, the lights came up and someone presumably connected to the Cinematheque came down and told the guy he had five seconds to clear out.
McCarthy’s opening line is referring to one of the posters from the original release, which had the tagline: “The Ultimate Trip”
One of the key features of any film is the sound design, a critical but sometimes overlooked aspect of the production process.
This video from the Soundworks Collection shows how the sounds of Christopher Nolan’s Inception were created, featuring interviews with supervising sound editor and sound designer Richard King, Re-recording Mixer Lora Hirschberg and Re-recording mixer Gary Rizzo.
Another aspect of the soundscape of Inception was the use of Edith Piaf’s Non, je ne regrette rien.
Originally I thought this might be some kid of reference to Marillon Cotillard (as she played Piaf in a 2006 biopic) but it turns out composer Hans Zimmer and Nolan wanted to use the song as the basis for the whole score.
“all the music in the score is subdivisions and multiplications of the tempo of the Edith Piaf track. [It was] always in the script …It was like huge foghorns over a city, and afterward you would maybe figure out that they were related.
I didn’t use the song; I only used one note. [I got] the original master out of the French national archives. And then [found] some crazy scientist in France who would actually go and take that one cell out of the DNA.”
Based on a sparse treatment by François Truffaut and shot by Raoul Coutard, it became the iconic film of the French New Wave and established Godard as one of the key directors of his generation.
The story of a small time criminal on the run (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who hooks up in Paris with an American newspaper seller (Jean Seberg), it landed like a bombshell when it first opened, with its loose narrative, location shooting, improvised dialogue and jump cuts.
It gave French and European cinema a much needed shot of inspiration in 1960, with audiences and critics responding to its energy and artistic verve.
The transfer for the DVD and Blu-ray looks excellent and the film still has a remarkable freshness and energy, despite the fact that it has been referenced and parodied down the years.
The extras feature a generous selection of featurettes on the production and legacy of the film.
Special Features on the DVD release include:
Introduction by Jefferson Hack, creator of Dazed & Confused magazine
A rarely seen interview with Jean-Luc Godard by Mike Hodges from the UK arts show Tempo in 1965
âJe TâAime John Wayneâ – A short film directed by Toby MacDonald
A featurette on the life of Jean Seberg
It is also worth noting that the film will also be released on Blu-ray as part of the Studio Canal Collection, with different extras.
Breathless is being released in the UK on a special 50th Anniversary Edition on 13th September 2010
If you are a budding critic or reporter then this could be a good opportunity to cover a film festival and get some experience of reviewing films.
The three winners will report back on the Festival as a guest Tweeter on Vueâs Twitter page and the prize includes: 4 days entrance to the festival, plus travel and accommodation expenses as outlined in the terms & conditions.
To be in with a chance of winning, you have to do the following:
Explain in up to 400 words why you want to be the official London Film Festival reviewer for Vue.
Tamara Drewe (Momentum Pictures): A comedy about an attractive journalist (Gemma Arterton) who returns home to a village in Dorset only to stir up passions amongst the locals. Adapted from the comic strip by Posy Simmonds, it is another chapter in the eclectic career of director Stephen Frears and co-stars Dominic Cooper, Roger Allam and Tamsin Greig.
It premiered at Cannes back in May, where it got mostly warm reactions and could prove attractive to the kind of middle class audiences who can be reluctant to go to their local multiplex. [Curzon Mayfair, Odeon Leicester Sq., Screen On The Green & Nationwide / 15]
Cyrus(20th Century Fox): A comedy-drama from The Duplass Brothers about a divorced forty something man (John C. Reilly) who hooks up with a dream woman (Marisa Tomei), only to discover she has a rather possessive son (Jonah Hill).
After Greenberg earlier this year, another example of mumblecore going mainstream as Jay and Mark Duplass take the indie sensibilities of their earlier films (The Puffy Chair, Baghead) and apply them to a bigger production with name actors. The result is both engaging and funny, although the slow burn nature of the comedy may not be to everyoneâs taste. [Vue West End & Nationwide / 15]
The Runaways (E1 Entertainment): A music biopic that focuses on late 1970s all-girl band The Runaways and the early careers of Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). It charts their rise to fame with producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) and their battles as they struggle to cope with fame and success.
Going The Distance (Warner Bros.): A romantic comedy about a low-level music executive (Justin Long) and a fledgling journalist (Drew Barrymore) who fall for each other after a summer in New York City and try to keep their relationship going when she heads home to San Francisco.
Co-starring Jason Sudeikis and Christina Applegate, it is directed by Nanette Burstein who directed the documentaries American Teen (2008) and The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002). Lukewarm reviews and some surprisingly ribald humour might limit the appeal of this comedy which disappointed at the US box office last week. [Nationwide / 15]
Resident Evil: Afterlife (3D) (Sony Pictures): The fourth instalment of the sci-fi horror franchise sees Alice (Milla Jovovich) end up in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, which is surrounded by zombies.
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, this has the added bonus of 3D, but its appeal looks limited to hardcore fans of the franchise. [Nationwide / 15]
ALSO OUT
Metropolis (Eureka Entertainment) (R/I): A re-issue for Fritz Langâs classic silent film which depicts a futuristic urban dystopia in order to show the tensions between workers and owners in capitalism. [Apollo Piccadilly Circus, Cine Lumiere, ICA, Watermans Brentwood & Nationwide / PG]
My Son, My Son, What Have You Done (Scanbox Entertainment): Werner Herzogâs latest film is is loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man whose committed matricide. Starring Michael Shannon, ChloĂ« Sevigny and Willem Dafoe it was produced by David Lynch. [Key Cities / 15]
Alamar (New Wave Films): A blend of documentary and fiction that explores the community of fishermen in Mexico’s Banco Chinchorro coral reef. [Key Cities / U]
Dabangg (Eros): A Hindi film set in Uttar Pradesh, it is the story of a corrupt police officer (Salman Khan) and the flaws and loopholes in the system. [Cineworlds Ilford, Shaftesbury Ave., Odeon Greenwich, Vue Acton & Key Cities]
Cyrus is the latest film from Jay and Mark Duplass, a is a comedy-drama about a lonely divorcee (John C. Reilly) who finally meets the woman of his dreams (Marisa Tomei), only to discover that she has an over-protective son (Jonah Hill).
After breaking through on the US festival scene with low-budget films such as The Puffy Chair (2005) and Baghead (2008), the Duplass Brothers quickly became associated with the term ‘mumblecore‘.
It was a loose phrase used to describe a certain kind of US indie movie, often focusing on introspective twenty-somethings and shot on tiny budgets using documentary-style techniques.
Directors such as Andrew Bujalski, Lynn Shelton, Aaron Katz and Joe Swanberg all had the label applied to their films, which stood out from the increasingly expensive indie scene of the early and mid-2000s.
Since then, the genre has arguably been absorbed into the mainstream with Greenberg – the Ben Stiller comedy featuring mumblecore regular Greta Gerwig – and now Cyrus, which sees the Duplass Brothers take their style of filmmaking to the division of a major studio (Fox Searchlight).
I recently spoke with Jay Duplass in London about the new film, what the term mumblecore means to him now and the transition from ultra-low budget indies to the studio system.
The full lineup for this year’s London Film Festival has been announced and the selection of films will feature feuding ballerinas, an unconventional speech therapist and an immoveable boulder.
It will open on October 13th with Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go and close just over two weeks later with Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, but in between will also feature Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, Mike Leigh’s Another Year and Palme D’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.
Here are some key films to look out for:
Never Let Me Go (Dir. Mark Romanek): The opening night film is a story of love and loss based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s best-selling novel starring Caerry Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley. Already heavily tipped as an Oscar contender.
The King’s Speech (Dir. Tom Hooper): The story of King George VI (Colin Firth) and an unconventional Australian speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush) who helped him overcome his stutter. Was very well recieved at Telluride recently and is already regarded as a strong Oscar contender.
Another Year (Dir. Mike Leigh): An ensemble drama set in London exploring the lives of a married couple (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) and their various familes and friends. Got a lot of critical buzz in Cannes back in May.
Black Swan (Dir. Darren Aronofsky): A psychological thriller set in the world of the New York Ballet about a dancer (Natalie Portman) who struggles to meet the demands placed upon her. Co-starring Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassell and Mila Kunis, it premiÚred at the Venice film festival recently and is likely to get some awards recognition.
Biutiful (Dir. Alejandro GonzĂĄlez Iñårritu): A contemporary drama set in Barcelona’s underworld about a single father of two struggling to survive.
127 Hours (Dir. Danny Boyle): The closing night film is a drama based on the real life story of mountain climber Aaron Rawlston (James Franco) who became trapped by a boulder in Utah back in 2003. It screened at Telluride recently and is expected to be an awards season contender.
The Kids Are Alright (Dir. Lisa Cholodenko): Family drama about a couple (Julianne Moore and Anette Benning) whose life becomes more complicated when their adopted children try to find their bilogical father (Mark Ruffalo).
Miral (Dir. Julian Schnabel): A drama examining one woman’s experience of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Of Gods and Men (Dir. Xavier Beauvois): Lambert Wilson and Michel Lonsdale star in this in this drama set in a monastery in North Africa.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul): The unexpected winner of this year’s Palme d’Or involves a gathering of humans and ghosts around a dying man.
Other films of note looking out for in the Films on the Square section include:
The American (Dir. Anton Corbijn) which stars George Clooney as an enigmatic assassin in Italy
Carlos (Dir. Olivier Assayas): An epic biopic of infamous Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal
It’s Kind of a Funny Story (Dir. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden) A coming of age tale about a troubled Brooklyn teenager (Keir Gilchrist)
Let Me In (Dir. Matt Reeves): The US remake of Let The Right One In, about the relationship between a young boy and a vampire;
Tabloid (Dir. Errol Morris): The latest documentary from Morris is the story of Joyce McKinney and the case of the ‘manacled Mormon’.
Following last year’s inaugural ceremony, the BFI London Film Festival Awards return for a second year to celebrate the finest films within the festival.
This year the awards will take place on October 27th at Jerwood Hall, LSO St Luke’s, before a panel of judges representing the international film community. (The full Awards shortlist will be announced on September 28th).
The Third Man is one of the most enduring films of the post-war era and has now got a worthy Blu-ray release as part of The Studio Canal Collection.
Set in Vienna just after World War II, the story begins when a writer (Joseph Cotten) visits the city to meet his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to be told that he has died.
At Lime’s funeral, Martins meets a British army major (Trevor Howard), Lime’s actress girlfriend (Alida Valli) and slowly begins to discover that Lime was a much more ambiguous character than he realised with with connections to the criminal underworld.
A quick glance at some of the key talents involved with The Third Man is illuminating: Welles and Cotton had worked together on Citizen Kane (1941), Alexander Korda and David O Selznick were two of the most influential producers of that era, director Carol Reed was coming off Odd Man Out (1947) and The Fallen Idol (1948) and the screenplay was written by novelist Graham Greene.
In addition to this glittering line up of talent, we can also note Anton Karas, who provided the indelible zither score, and Robert Krasker, who won an Oscar for his atmospheric cinematography.
The film managed to capture the weary mood and shifting moralities of post-war Europe.
Vienna proved to be a memorable backdrop, with key locations including an elm-lined cemetery, the iconic Ferris wheel and the underground sewers.
In Harry Lime, it also gave us one of great villains in cinema.
Welles is magnetic in the role and although he only has a handful of scenes, his presence dominates the film.
Aside from the marvellous technique and fine performances, it also has a unique power and intelligence courtesy of Greene’s script.
It ponders some of the great moral questions of the twentieth century, most memorably in the Ferris wheel sequence, but does so on a way that is engrossing, funny and ultimately moving.
Reed imbues everything with a sublime melancholy that underscores the personal and political impact of World War II.
A film that repays repeated viewings, it contains many delights ranging from amusing supporting turns by Bernard Lee and Wilfred Hyde-White, a famous scene involving a cat in a darkened doorway and one of the finest closing shots in the history of cinema.
The extras on the disc are generous, the best of which is the 89-minute documentary ‘Shadowing The Third Man’, which revisits the original locations and explores the film in considerable depth, revealing the tensions behind the scenes and why the film continues to resonate with audiences.
Narrated by John Hurt, it also features key contributions from Guy Hamilton (the Assistant Director, who would go on to direct Goldfinger) and Angela Allen (2nd Unit Continuity) as they reminisce about their time working on the production.
The audio commentary also features Simon Callow (author of the best biography of Orson Welles) with Hamilton and Allen as they provide further insights on various sequences in the film, along with more anecdotes on the production.
Also of note is some new supplementary material actually shot in HD, which includes an interactive tour of Vienna, which features locations from the film.
Here are the technical details of the disc, alongside the extras in full:
Region B
1080P 1.33:1
English, French and German DTS-HD MA 2.0 (mono)
German, French, Spanish and Dutch subtitles
New or previously unreleased material:
Guardian NFT Interview with Joseph Cotten (audio only: 47â13)
Guardian NFT Interview with Graham Greene (audio only: 8â05)
Audio Commentary by Guy Hamilton (Assistant Director), Angela Allen (2nd Unit Continuity) & Simon Callow (audio only: 1â44)
2 x original trailers (1â46 mins & 2â19) (HD)
Stills gallery (2â24) (HD)
Interview and performance by zither player Cornelia Mayer (4â44) (HD)
The Third Man Interactive Vienna Tour (49â50) (HD)
The Third Man on the Radio (an episode of The Lives of Harry Lime: Ticket to Tangiers (1951) written by and performed by Orson Welles) (audio only: 28â45)
Shadowing The Third Man âretrospective documentary (1hr29) (SD)
US alternative prologue by Joseph Cotton (1â20) (SD)
Booklet Essay by Charles Drazin, film historian / biographer – Charles Drazin is a film historian and biographer. His books include Korda: Britainâs Only Movie Mogul, The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s and In Search of The Third Man. He lectures on the cinema at Queen Mary, University of London.
The Third Man is out on Blu-ray on September 13th from Optimum Releasing
1> First Step : The “Picture” of the film
I extracted the 167,819 frames from ‘Blade Runner’ (final cut version,1h51mn52s19i). Then I assembled all these images to obtain one gigantic image of colossal dimensions : a square of approximately 60,000 pixels on one side alone, 3.5 gigapixels (3500 million pixels)
2> Second Step : An Illusion
I placed a virtual camera above this big picture. So what you see is like an illusion, because contrary to appearances there is only one image. It is in fact the relative movement of the virtual camera flying over this massive image which creates the animated film, like a film in front of a projector.
Notice how the whole concept echoes one of the signature scenes from the film where Deckard enhances an image via voice recognition software.
Kick-Ass (Universal): A post-modern superhero film based on the comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. It is the story of teenager (Aaron Johnson) who decides to become a super-hero named Kick-Ass after purchasing a costume (even though he has no powers or training) and soon finds himself involved with a local gangster (Mark Strong); his son (Christopher Mintz-Plasse); and a highly trained father and daughter vigilante duo (Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz).
Directed by Matthew Vaughn, produced by Brad Pitt and written by Vaughn and Jane Goldman, the film was independently financed â at a budget of $28 million dollars â and gleefully subverts the superhero movie whilst also paying homage to it. It isn’t the awe-inspiring masterpiece that some would have you believe, but it is still a witty and interesting take on the comic-book genre.
The extras on the Blu-ray and DVD versions include:
Ass-Kicking Bonus View Mode (Blu-ray Disc Exclusive) â Synchronous with the feature film, this innovative multi-media presentation incorporates video and audio commentary, behind-the-scenes clips and illustrative graphics with Co-Writer/Producer/Director Matthew Vaughn, plus cast and crew providing an all-access perspective on Kick-Ass
âA New Kind of Superhero: The Making of Kick-Ass â documentary (Blu-ray Disc Exclusive)
âItâs On! The Comic Book Origin of Kick-Assâ featurette
Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Matthew Vaughn
âThe Art of Kick-Assâ gallery
Marketing Archive
BD Touch and Metamenu Remote
Lionsgate Liveâą enabled, featuring extra content for Internet-connected players
Enhanced for D-Boxâą Motion Control Systems
Standard Definition DVD Copy of the feature film
Standard Definition Digital Copy of the feature film
Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Matthew Vaughn
Itâs On! The Comic Book Origin of Kick-Assâ featurette
Exit Through the Gift Shop (Revolver Entertainment): The debut film from enigmatic graffiti artist Banksy is a documentary (or is it?) which tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles who is obsessed with street art. It shows Guetta’s constant filming of his own life and his attempts to capture Banksy on camera. It also features other artists including Invader and Shepard Fairey (the man famous for the Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster).
Narrated by Rhys Ifans, the music is by Geoff Barrow and although there has been a continuous debate about the nature of the film since it debuted at Sundance in January, it has got very strong reviews and is likely to increase the mystique of Banksy even further.
Extra features include:Â stickers, art prints, the movie, and ‘limited edition 2D glasses’.
After.Life (Anchor Bay Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / DVD] Bent (Park Circus) [Blu-ray / with DVD] Black Lightning (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / DVD] Doctor Who â The New Series: 5 â Volume 4 (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / DVD] Entourage: Season 6 (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / DVD] The African Queen: Restoration Edition (ITV DVD) [Buy it on Blu-ray] The Brit Indie Collection (4DVD) [Blu-ray / DVD] The Last Song (Walt Disney) [Blu-ray / DVD] The Official 2010 World Cup South Africa Review (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / DVD] True Inspiration Collection (4DVD) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978) is one of the most visually stunning films ever made, a poetic tale of a couple (Richard Gere and Brooke Adams) who migrate to the Texas panhandle in order to work for a farmer (Sam Shepherd) in 1910.
Beautifully shot by Nestor Almendros, it is famous for its cinematopgraphy, especially the way in which it captures the magic hour between dusk and dawn.
In this video cinematographer John Bailey, who served as a camera operator on the film, sheds some light on how Alemendros and Malick managed to give the film its unique look.
The DVD and Blu-ray highlights to look out for this month include: the Banksy documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop, the surreal Greek drama Dogtooth, The Studio Canal Collection (which includes Blu-ray versions of classic films such as Breathless, The Third Man and Mulholland Drive), Roman Polanski’s timely political thriller The Ghost, the landmark TV series The World at War on Blu-ray for the first time, Werner Herzog’s reworking of Bad Lieutenant and Michael Winterbottom’s controversial drama The Killer Inside Me.
MONDAY 6th SEPTEMBER
After.Life (Anchor Bay Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / DVD] Bent (Park Circus) [Blu-ray / with DVD] Black Lightning (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / DVD] Doctor Who – The New Series: 5 – Volume 4 (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / DVD] Entourage: Season 6 (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / DVD] Exit Through the Gift Shop (Revolver Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] Kick-Ass (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / DVD / Limited Edition] The African Queen: Restoration Edition (ITV DVD) [Buy it on Blu-ray] The Brit Indie Collection (4DVD) [Blu-ray / DVD] The Last Song (Walt Disney) [Blu-ray / DVD] The Official 2010 World Cup South Africa Review (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / DVD] True Inspiration Collection (4DVD) [Blu-ray / DVD]
MONDAY 13th SEPTEMBER
Breathless (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] Date Night (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD] Delicatessen (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray] Dogtooth (Verve Pictures) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] Glee: Complete Season 1 (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (BFI) [Blu-ray and DVD combi] Hung: Season 1 (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / DVD] Inferno (Arrow Films) [Blu-ray / DVD] Kandahar Break – Fortress of War (Revolver Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD] Lost: The Complete Seasons 1-6 (Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] Lost: The Complete Sixth Season (Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.) [Buy it on lu-ray or DVD] Mountain Gorillas (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / DVD] Mulholland Drive (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray] Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time (Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD / Combi pack] The Graduate (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray] The Pianist (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray] The Third Man (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray] Unthinkable (E1 Entertainment UK) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] Vincere (Artificial Eye) [Blu-ray / DVD]
MONDAY 20th SEPTEMBER
Death Note (4Digital Asia) [Blu-ray / with DVD] Forbidden Planet (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / DVD] I Spit On Your Grave (101 Films) [Blu-ray / with DVD] Lang Lang: Live in Vienna (Sony Classics) [Blu-ray / DVD] Mars Attacks! (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / Normal] Mother (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] Robin Hood (Universal Pictures) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] The Back-up Plan (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD] The Ghost (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] The Hannibal Lecter Trilogy (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / DVD] The Special Relationship (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] The Sword With No Name (Showbox Media Group) [Blu-ray / DVD] The World at War (Fremantle Home Entertainment) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] Tooth Fairy (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD] [Rec] (E1 Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / DVD] [Rec] 2 (E1 Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / DVD]
MONDAY 27th SEPTEMBER
A Nightmare On Elm Street (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / DVD] American – The Bill Hicks Story (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / DVD] Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans (Lionsgate UK) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD] City of Life and Death (High Fliers Video Distribution) [Blu-ray / DVD] Death at a Funeral (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD] Fringe: Season 2 (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / DVD] Fringe: Seasons 1 and 2 (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / Box Set] House: Season 6 (Universal/Playback) [Blu-ray / Box Set] Infernal Affairs (Palisades Tartan) [Blu-ray / DVD] She’s Out of My League (Paramount Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD] Space Chimps 2 – Zartog Strikes Back (EV) [Blu-ray / DVD] Stephen Hawking’s Universe (Demand DVD) [Blu-ray / DVD] StreetDance (E1 Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / DVD] Tetro (Soda Pictures) [Blu-ray / DVD] The Deep (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / DVD] The Killer Inside Me (Icon Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD] Wake Up Sid (UTV) [Blu-ray / DVD] Warren Miller: Dynasty (Demand DVD) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Dinner For Schmucks (Paramount): A US remake of the French comedy The Dinner Game (Le DĂźner de cons), about an ambitious executive (Paul Rudd) who accepts an invitation to a dinner party where successful professionals make fun of an unsuspecting idiot (Steve Carrell).
Directed by Jay Roach, it co-stars Stephanie Szostak, Bruce Greenwood and Zach Galifianakis. In the US it got mixed reviews and opened to middling box office. [Odeon West End & Nationwide / 12A]
The Switch (Lionsgate UK): A romantic comedy about an unmarried 40-year-old woman (Jennifer Aniston) who turns to artificial insemination in order to become pregnant, only to find out years later from her best friend (Jason Bateman) that there may be complications on who is the real father.
The Last Exorcism (Optimum Releasing): A low budget mockumentary horror, shot from the perspective of a priest filming his last exorcism.
Shot by director Daniel Stamm for just $1.5 million, it narrowly missed out on the number 1 slot at the US box office last weekend and got a warm critical response. [Cineworlds Shaftesbury Ave., Wandsworth, Vue West End & Nationwide / 15]
Jonah Hex (Warner Bros.): A comic book adaptation about a soldier (Josh Brolin) seeking revenge after the US Civil War, when he was horribly disfigured by his ruthless commanding officer (John Malkovich).
Despite an impressive cast featuring Brolin, Megan Fox and Michael Fassbender this bombed in the US after bad buzz, negative reviews and a running time of just 81 minutes, which suggests the studio tried some kind of rescue job in the edit suite. [Nationwide / 15]
Why Did I Get Married Too? (Lionsgate UK): The latest film from Tyler Perry is the sequel to Why Did I Get Married? (2007) and is about four couples who undertake a week-long retreat to improve their relationships. Directed by and starring Perry, it co-stars Janet Jackson and Tasha Smith. The usual bad reviews that surround Perryâs films may give you some idea of what to expect. [Nationwide / 12A]
ALSO OUT
Certified Copy (Artificial Eye): The latest film from Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami is a drama set in Tuscany about a French art gallery owner (Juliette Binoche), who pretends to be married to a man she has just met. The dialogue is in French, English and Italian. Binoche won the Best Actress at Cannes earlier this year for her role. [Barbican, Curzons Mayfair, Richmond, HMV Curzon Wimbledon & Nationwide / 12A]
22 Bullets (Anchor Bay UK): A French thriller about a retired mobster (Jean Reno) who goes on a revenge spree after being left for dead with 22 bullets in his body by his former childhood friend. Directed by Richard Berry. [Key Cities / 18]
Bonded By Blood (Revolver Entertainment): Another British gangster film based on the Rettendon Range Rover murders of December 1995. Directed by Sacha Bennett, it stars Kierston Wareing, Neil Maskell and Tamer Hassan. [Key Cities / 18]
Cherry Tree Lane (Metrodome Distribution): The third film from writer-director Paul Andrew Williams is a gritty crime drama about a young couple terrorized in their home by a group of teenagers. [Curzon Soho / 18]
No Impact Man (Dogwoof): A documentary following a Manhattan-based family as they abandon their high consumption lifestyle and try to live a year while making no net environmental impact. Directed by Laura Gabbert. [Empire Leicester Sq., Everyman, Lexi, Ritzy & Nationwide / 15]
SoulBoy (Soda Pictures): A coming-of-age drama set in the 1970s Northern Soul underground music scene, directed by Shimmy Marcus. [Soda Pictures Empire Leicester Sq., & selected Key Cities / 15]
Splintered (Kaleidoscope Entertainment): A British horror film set in a remote part of North Wales, directed by Simeon Halligan. [Key Cities / 18]
Perestroika (ICA Cinema): A film about that re-enacts a journey on the Trans-Siberian railway to investigate loss and memory. [ICA Cinema]
Michael Douglas appeared on the David Letterman show last night and revealed that he is already undergoing treatment for throat cancer.
In a fairly dramatic and moving interview he said that although it was at an intense stage, the cancer hadn’t spread and he had something like an “eighty per cent” chance of eventual recovery:
“It’s a stage four [cancer], which is intense. You want to be at stage one. The big thing you’re worried about is it spreading. I am head and neck, …nothing’s gone down. The expectations are good.”
Blu-ray won’t be as successful as DVD but it is still the best way to watch a properly restored film at home.
A recent post on The Guardian’s film blog by Shane Danielson titled ‘The devil is in Blu-ray’s detail‘ put forward the notion that the sharpness of Blu-ray is somehow a problem.
As someone who was once a partial sceptic of HD formats, at least until the industry sorted out the ludicrous format war and high prices, I read Danielson’s post with a mixture of intrigue and then gradual disbelief.
I suspect it was meant to be a contrarian think-piece putting forward the notion that the upgrade to Blu-ray isn’t really worth it.
After all, who needs to fork out extra for a format in which you can see the make-up on actorâs face? Isnât it all just a big money making scheme to make us replace our DVD collection?
Well, it is certainly true that commercial imperatives have driven the shift to Blu-ray, as broadcasters and consumers gradually move to digital and high definition.
If you want to buy a new TV, you will be hard pressed to find one that isn’t an HD set.
One of Danielson’s points is that too much detail revealed in a high definition version of a film can be a bad thing, but he makes some key mistakes in highlighting the Blu-ray versions of Psycho and The Godfather.
For a piece with the word ‘detail’ in the title, he gets Martin Balsam‘s name wrong (calling him ‘Robert’) and there is no mention whatsoever of how the whole film actually looks on the format.
Furthermore, it is a little silly to complain about the strings on Martian spaceships in the Blu-ray version of George Palâs The War of the Worlds, especially when no such version of the film actually exists. (I can only assume he is referring to the DVD version, which kind of undercuts his wider point).
Having actually seen the Psycho Blu-ray, I can only repeat my admiration for the team who oversaw its transfer as it looks marvellous and, as someone who has only ever seen it on television, the sharpness and clarity of the image makes a welcome change.
As for the make-up on Balsam’s head in a particular scene, it isn’t really noticeable unless you want to freeze the image and analyse the split second it occurs.
I get the idea that some people take issue when certain elements of a film are ‘corrected’ for the Blu-ray release, such as when DNR is used to smooth out the image (e.g. the new Predator Blu-ray) but in this case I don’t think the argument stands up at all.
I remember being in the Virgin Megastore in Times Square back in 2008, and pausing to look at a screen showing Coppola’s The Godfather, which had been released on Blu-ray a fortnight earlier.
It was the trattoria sequence, when Michael kills McCluskey and Sollozzo, and it looked great . . . in fact, it looked TOO great.
The colours were rich and burnished (that background red, in particular), the shadows were deep â yet at the same time, there was a precision to the images, a sort of hyperreal clarity, that didn’t jibe with my memory of having watched the film, either in the cinema or at home.
It seemed weirdly artificial, somehow, and watching it, I felt that I could almost see the grain of the film stock, the flicker and shudder of individual frames, such was the degree of visual information on offer.
I felt, suddenly, like Ray Milland’s character in The Man With the X-Ray Eyes. This could, I realised, drive me mad, if I let it.
Aside from the fact that it is highly dubious to make a judgement on a transfer from one scene observed in shop two years ago, he couldnât have picked a worse one to illustrate his point.
Anyone who actually watches the complete version of The Godfather on Blu-ray, rather than idly chatting to a Virgin Megastore employee, will actually realise this.
There is also a twenty minute feature titled ‘Emulsion Rescue’ which details the painstaking task of restoring this sequence, featuring interviews with director Francis Ford Coppola, cinematographer Gordon Willis and others involved in the process.
Explaining the full technical details on how that scene was restored, they highlight how digital technology was used with the co-operation of the filmmakers, helping preserve their original artistic vision.
With this in mind, there have been cases where the Blu-ray release of a classic film has caused some controversy.
This presents a peculiar conundrum. Digital technology allowed Friedkin to change the look of his own film for the Blu-ray version, but is he betraying his original vision from 1971 that first captivated audiences? Or is that his artistic right as director?
On the wider matter of the format as a whole, it is probably true to say that it will never be as popular or as profitable as DVD.
Last Christmas the current rate of sales was reportedly nowhere near the original projections Sony had for it a few years ago and the cost of consumers upgrading to new television equipment in a recession also stunted the uptake.
Perhaps the most useless aspect of Blu-ray Discs is BD-Live, which is meant to provide interactive experiences when you hook up your player to the Internet.
Aside from the technical hassle of actually connecting a Blu-ray player to your home internet connection (and I speak from bitter experience on this) the features aren’t all that appealing.
But bizarrely, BD-Live always seems to be one of the ‘selling points’ talked up by manufacturers and Blu-ray marketing campaigns when it is clearly rubbish, for now at least.
So with all the teething problems the format has had, why would I recommend it?
Unlike Danielson I don’t see any romance or inherent ‘magic’ in cathode ray tube televisions and I’m not suspicious of carefully restored digital transfers of great films.
A good Blu-ray simply looks far better than its DVD counterpart, with a much tighter and richer image. For the most part, it really is that simple.
The optimal experience for seeing any motion picture is still a fine print at a decent cinema, but aside from critics and cinephiles visiting repertory cinemas, how many times do viewers experience quality projection and sound at their local cinema?
Just in the last year I saw two films (Funny People and Sherlock Holmes – not exactly classics, admittedly) at a multiplex and the projection and image quality for both were appalling.
When you think of why DVD proved popular, it wasn’t just because of the relative cost but was also partly due to digital technology in the home rapidly catching up with that of the average cinema.
Another obstacle Blu-ray faced from early on was that the jump from VHS to DVD was much more noticeable to the casual consumer than the leap from DVD to the newer higher definition format.
Not every release looks pristine, but when they have had care and attention lavished on them the results can be stunning: Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Godfather trilogy, North By Northwest, Baraka, Blade Runner, The New World, The Dark Knight and Psycho are just some films that look incredible on Blu-ray.
As for the cost, they have come down in price a lot over the last 18 months to the point where many new releases are actually cheaper than DVDs were at a certain point in time.
Another misconception appears to be that you need to replace your whole library of DVDs.
This is incorrect as Blu-ray players do actually play DVDs, which means you can pick and choose which titles you want to see in glorious HD (e.g. The Godfather) and those you don’t (e.g. any film featuring Danny Dyer).
When discussing Blu-ray and future home video formats, someone often pipes up with a line about how we are all âdownloading films now anywayâ.
It is almost inevitable that some time in the future, the legal delivery of films to our homes will be via a next generation broadband pipe.
However, that is still some way off as most people still watch films on physical discs (DVD, Blu-ray) with a more targeted niche choosing digital downloads via iTunes, Netflix, Lovefilm, Amazon and presumably YouTube by the end of this year.
If you are a visual purist, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to get 1080p films via iTunes anytime soon as the size of the film. It seems 720p is more likely when Apple unveil their revamped ‘iTV’ box.
Whilst there is a convenience factor to digital downloads that will probably mean that Blu-ray is the last optical disc format, it will take a few years before mainstream viewers fully embrace full digital delivery via their television sets or other devices.
Blu-ray has had its problems and will eventually go the way of DVD and VHS, but there is still a lot to be said for the format, especially when it comes to revisiting classics that have been properly restored.
Earlier this year a video filmed on a bus in Oakland revealed much about how modern life can be filmed and processed by the public.
When a fight broke out in February aboard a transit bus in Oakland, California, it might not have seemed an especially unusual incident to anyone familiar with public transport in a major city.
What made this this particular one interesting was the way in which the decision to film and upload the footage to the web (itself a modern compulsion) opened up particularly post-modern can of worms including issues of race, violence, the Vietnam war and modern technology.
This ‘Know Your Meme’ video from Rocketboom explains how the footage became a viral phenomenon and how one of the men involved became known as ‘Epic Beard Man’:
The man that threw the punches gave his side of the story here:
The man who got punched gave his version of events to a local radio station here:
As you can see, they don’t quite match up and just provoke further questions about the incident and those involved.
When you take into account the tsunami of comments online about the affair, along with the endless parodies and interpretations, it only becomes harder to get a handle on what went on and what it all means.
There is a fairly detailed Wikipedia entry titled AC Transit Bus fight but it isn’t exactly conclusive.
When much of contemporary ‘reality television’ consists of carefully constructed narratives, there is a strong case to say that this incident feels more real, as what was a confusing and messy fight gets endlessly reinterpreted through different voices on the web.
Four Lions (Optimum): When this project was first announced, it promised to be another taboo-shattering project from Chris Morris, one of the most brilliant satirists of his generation.
After pioneering work in radio (On the Hour) and television (The Day Today, Brass Eye) which lampooned media and politics with diamond-sharp precision, it seemed like a bold and fascinating prospect.
Set in an unnamed northern town, it centres around four disenchanted young men: Omar (Riz Ahmed) is the unofficial leader determined to become a martyr for oppressed Muslims around the world; Waj (Kayvan Novak), a recruit who essnetially does what Omar says; Barry (Nigel Lindsay), a white Islamic convert obsessed with operational detail; and Faisal (Adeel Akhtar), who struggles trying to train crows to fly bombs through windows.
For the most part, the feature directorial debut of Morris is highly impressive. The comedy is rooted in detailed research which gives it an uncomfortable authenticity, whilst also providing some stand out set-pieces.
The performances are excellent, managing to convey the arrogance, ambition and stupidity of extremists, with Riz Ahmed especially good as the ringleader.
As the film moves into its final third, it manages to combine comedy with the more troubling realities of terrorism, which is an impressive juggling act by the filmmakers.
It isn’t as ingenious or as polished as Morris’ previous work, but as satire it manages to process one of the darkest contemporary problems with a rare tact and skill.
Extras include:
Deleted scenes
Background material: Lost Boys & Interview with Mo Ali
Interview with cast from Bradford Film Festival premiere
Sherlock (2entertain): Coming just months after a big-budget film about the famous detective, this three part BBC series could have been another excuse to cash in on the fact that Arthur Conan Doyle’s character recently came out of copyright.
Fortunately, this contemporary take on the classic stories is a witty and inspired update and manages to preserve the essence of Holmes while transferring it to modern London.
Co-created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a consultant to the police who helps solve puzzling crimes with the help of a doctor (and ex-soldier) John Watson (Martin Freeman).
Although there were plenty of potential pitfalls, the fast pacing and breezy intelligence make this well above average for what normally appears on prime time British television.
The DVD and Blu-ray features the three episodes “A Study in Pink”, “The Blind Banker” and “The Great Game” and come with the following extras:
Audio commentaries: Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and Sue Vertue on “A Study in Pink” and Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and Mark Gatiss on “The Great Game”.
The unaired pilot episode, which is a 60-minute version of “A Study in Pink”, directed by Coky Giedroyc.
Cemetery Junction (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) City of Life and Death (High Fliers Video Distribution) Clint Eastwood Collection (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) Furry Vengeance (E1 Entertainment UK) Hot Tub Time Machine (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) Jerusalema (Anchor Bay Entertainment UK) The Last Seven (Metrodome Distribution) The Magnificent Seven (MGM Home Entertainment) When You’re Strange (Universal Pictures)
Movie marketing via social media sites doesn’t always work but the use of Chatroulette to plug The Last Exorcism was both clever and effective.
Over the last few years Lionsgate have got used to marketing horror films in a savvy way and some, especially the Saw franchise, have proved hugely profitable for the studio.
This kills two birds with one stone, as it enhances the realism of the material and helps keep costs down as audiences buy into the idea of the spooky, low quality footage at the heart of the film.
Made for around $2 million and acquired by Lionsgate for under $1 million, this was one to keep the studio accountants happy, even though they would have spent a fair amount giving it a wide release across the US.
Part of the marketing campaign was to freak out users on Chatroulette, a site where people can randomly video chat with strangers, and it proved an inspired way to create buzz.
This edited compilation of the best reactions has so far got over 2.5 million views on YouTube:
Although the film is currently neck and neck with Takers for the number 1 slot this weekend, it will still earn around $21 million this weekend.
The Last Exorcism opens in the UK on Friday 3rd September
The following video shows what happened when Stiller decided to ring the doorbell and meet the current residents of what once doubled as the Costanza house.
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Universal): This live action adaptation of Bryan Lee OâMalleyâs comic series is the story of a Toronto bass playing geek (Michael Cera) who falls in love with a delivery girl named Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), only to realise he must fight her âseven evil exesâ.
What follows is an action-comedy hybrid in which director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) throws a barrage of visual artillery at the screen in order to recreate the look of comics and computer games.
Although it will have a devoted fan base, a question mark remains over the mainstream appeal of the material and the hyperactive way in which unfolds.
Although I found the film a colossal disappointment, especially given Wright’s track record, it is likely to find a more receptive audience here in the UK amongst a certain niche.
Grown Ups (Sony Pictures): Adam Sandler’s latest goofy comedy is about five friends (Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider) who reunite after thirty years to celebrate a Fourth of July holiday weekend.
Despite a torrent of negative reviews this has actually made a decent chunk of money worldwide, although it will probably be swiftly forgotten in the coming months. [Nationwide / 12A]
The Girl Who Played With Fire (Momentum Pictures): The second film adapted from the enormously successful Stieg Larsson trilogy of novels sees Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) return to Sweden after a year abroad only to fall under suspicion for murdering a journalist and his wife.
Although the Hollywood version of Larsson’s Millennium trilogy is under way with David Fincher at the helm, these native versions have done excellent business in Europe and with the novels still selling at a rapid pace, the second film is also likely to prove an art house hit. [Key Cities / 15]
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid (20th Century Fox): A live action (and partly animated) comedy film based on the illustrated books by Jeff Kinney. It stars Zachary Gordon as a kid having a tough time at school and also features Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn, Devon Bostick and Chloë Moretz.
Strictly aimed at family audiences, it arrives with little buzz and seems like it will find a bigger audience on DVD. [Nationwide / PG]
Avatar: Special Edition (20th Century Fox): James Cameron’s futuristic sci-fi blockbuster about an injured marine (Sam Worthington) who goes native on an alien planet gets a full re-release despite already being the most successful film of all time at the global box office.
This version will feature around 10 minutes of extra footage but it will be interesting to see how it does. The target audience appears to be those who didn’t see it first time around in 3D and those who want to see it again. [Nationwide / 12A]
ALSO OUT
Dog Pound (Optimum Releasing): Based on Alan Clarke’s Scum, this prison drama focusing on youthful delinquents in the US (although actually shot in Canada) by French director Kim Chapiron. [Key Cities / 18]
The Last Seven (Metrodome Distribution): A low budget British thriller which features Danny Dyer and Tamer Hassan. [Key Cities / 18]
The Maid (Artificial Eye): A Chilean drama from director SebastiĂĄn Silva about a maid (Catalina Saavedra) who serves an upper-middle-class family. [Key Cities / 15]
Wah Do Dem (Picturehouse): A US indie film about a twenty-something drifter (Sean Bones) who ends up travelling to Jamaica. [Key Cities / 15]
The Leopard (bfi Distribution): A re-release for Luscio Visconti’s epic 1963 film about the upheavals in 1860s Sicily, starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon.
The latest batch of Blu-rays from The Studio Canal Collection, released on September 13th, feature The Third Man, Breathless, The Graduate, Delicatessen, Mulholland Drive and The Pianist.
For any self-respecting film fan these are nearly all essential purchases which range from milestones in post-war cinema to more modern classics.
All these titles are in 1080p, feature DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks and come with new cover art and liner notes and are released on September 13th.
Each title also comes with a lot of extras – some of which are new and exclusive to the Blu-ray versions – but I’ll review those later in individual posts on each title nearer the release date.
The Third Man (1949): One of the genuine landmarks of cinema, a tale of a writer (Joseph Cotten) visiting an elusive friend (Orson Welles) in post-war Vienna. It featured a bewildering array of talent behind and in front of the camera: Carol Reed directed from a script by Graham Greene, whilst Alexander Korda and David O’Selznick co-produced and aside from Welles and Cotten the cast features Trevor Howard and Allida Valli. Famous for its iconic set pieces – light illuminating a doorway, a dialogue on a enormous ferris wheel, a chase through the sewers and two funerals, it also has one of the most distinctive scores courtesy of Anton Karasâ zither. It also won the Palme DâOr at Cannes and the Oscar for Best Cinematography.
Breathless (1960): Perhaps the iconic film of the French New Wave, this tale of a small time crook (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who goes on the run after stealing a car and shooting a cop, sees him end up in Paris with an American girlfriend (Jean Seberg). With its loose narrative, location shooting, improvised dialogue, jump cuts, deliberately mismatched shots and literary references, it remains a landmark film. It gave French and European cinema a much needed shot of inspiration when it first came out in 1960, with audiences and critics responding to its energy and artistic verve. N.B. The Special Edition DVD release also comes out the same day as the Blu-ray.
The Graduate (1967): One of the iconic films of the late 1960s saw Dustin Hoffman play the eponymous graduate, a recent university graduate drifting aimlessly in life, who is seduced by an older woman, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), only to fall in love with her daughter (Katharine Ross). Director Mike Nichols struck a chord with a younger generation of audiences by using techniques borrowed from the French New Wave to craft a witty tale of youthful alienation. Odd angles and unconventional editing were combined with a sharp script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham (adapted from from Charles Webb’s novel) and the result was a huge hit, launching Hoffman’s career and also boosting Simon and Garfunkel whose music features heavily on the soundtrack.
Delicatessen (1991): The wonderfully surreal debut of the Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, set in a post-apocalyptic world where food is scarce, is about an ex-clown (Dominique Pinon) who gets a job in an apartment building and then falls for the daughter of the buildingâs owner â an imposing and sinister butcher. Below them, down in the sewers, live some rebel vegetarians.
Mulholland Drive (2001): David Lynch’s neo-noir journey through the dark side of Hollywood is still as fresh, disturbing and trippy as it was when it first came out. The tale of a woman (Laura Elena Harring) who loses her memory in a car accident and the actress (Naomi Watts) who tries to help her out, it weaves a hypnotic spell as it unfolds in wildly unconventional ways. Featuring all manner of memorable characters including a director, a cowboy and a mysterious singer, it is one of those films which has inspired all manner of theories due to the hallucinogenic games Lynch plays with the audience.
The Pianist (2002): Roman Polanski won the Oscar for Best Director for this World War II drama about Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, who escaped the Nazi death camps by hiding in the Warsaw ghetto. Played by Adrien Brody (who also won an Oscar for his performance) it is a gruelling tale of survival which features an interesting (and true life) twist. The gradual destruction of Warsaw provides a haunting backdrop to Szpilman’s story of survival is treated with a powerful blend of intelligence and emotion. Polanski’s own personal experiences during the war no doubt made the film a personal one and the craft, especially Pawel Edelman’s cinematography, is impeccable throughout.
Breathless: 50th Anniversary Special Edition is out on DVD and Blu-ray on September 13th
The Studio Canal Collection titles are also out in Blu-ray on September 13th
The first trailer for Danny Boyle’s new film 127 Hours has been released.
It is based on the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston (James Franco) who went through a gruelling ordeal involving a fallen boulder in an isolated canyon in Utah.
CNBC have compiled a list of the biggest box office disasters in history, which is topped by the ill-fated pirate adventure Cutthroat Island.
Trying to calculate the profit and loss of a particular film can be a slippery exercise, especially when film companies are reluctant to reveal accurate numbers for a variety of reasons.
This list has examined films that lost money relative to the production costs and box office numbers (according to BoxOfficeMojo) and has then adjusted the figures for inflation.
Cutthroat Island (1995): Net losses adjusted for inflation: $146,947,958
The Alamo (2004): Net losses adjusted for inflation: $134,784,016
The Gold Rush (Park Circus): Charles Chaplin‘s classic 1925 silent film combined humour and pathos in depicting the tale of a prospector struggling to strike gold in Alaska.
Featuring some memorable sight gags, such as the eating of a boot, it was Chaplin’s first hit for United Artists (the studio he co-founded), reaffirming his status as a film maker and Hollywood icon.
This dual format edition (Blu-ray and DVD combined in one package) includes both versions of The Gold Rush: the 1925 silent original restored by Kevin Brownlow and the digitally restored 1942 film, which saw Chaplin re-edit the 1925 original with a new musical score and narration.
Lebanon (Metrodome): One of a batch of recent films exploring the legacy of the first Lebanon war was this striking drama set almost entirely inside an Israeli tank.
Written and directed by Samuel Maoz, it is set in June 1982 as Israel invades Lebanon and focuses on the four men inside the claustrophobic world of a tank – Assi (Itay Tiran), Shmulik (Yoav Donat), Hertzel (Oshri Cohen) and Yigal (Michael Moshonov).
As the mission progresses, they can only see each other and what appears through the tank’s tiny sight window as they gradually encounter fellow Israeli soldiers, a bombed out town and a band of Syrian resistance fighters.
Startling in its sparse depiction of the conflict, the central concept is a little played out by the end, but it remains a worthy addition to recent films exploring Israeli troops in Lebanon (such as Beaufort, Waltz With Bashir) and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival last year.
Extras include:
Commentary from director Samuel Maoz upon whose real life experiences the film is based
History of the first Lebanon War (text document)
âLEBANONâ: the background story to the film (text document)
A Zed and Two Noughts (BFI) Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (Eureka) Basement (Revolver Entertainment) Modern Times (Park Circus) Charlie’s Angels (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) Dead Fish (Boulevard Entertainment Ltd) Dear John (Momentum Pictures) Flash Gordon (Optimum Home Entertainment) Going Postal (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) Little Dorrit (2 Entertain) Lock Up (Optimum Home Entertainment) Loving Memory (BFI) Repo Men (Universal Pictures) The Burmese Harp (Eureka) The Edge of the World (BFI) The Innocents (BFI) The Pixies: Acoustic and Electric Live (Eagle Rock Entertainment) The Vampire Diaries: The Complete First Season (Warner Home Video) The World (Eureka)
Salt (Sony Pictures): A spy thriller about a CIA agent named Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) who is forced to go on the run after being accused of working for the Russians. Directed by Philip Noyce (Patriot Games, The Quiet American), it co-stars Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Although this was a project for Tom Cruise it underwent rewrites to fit Jolie. What seemed to be a familiar set-up for a spy thriller got a timely bout of publicity when actual Russian spies were arrested on the eve of the filmâs release in America.
Reviews were mixed in the US and it also suffered from opening seven days after Inception, which had a better than expected 2nd week at the American box office. However, the star power of Jolie and generic action elements will probably see it do well internationally. [Nationwide / 12A]
The Expendables (Lionsgate UK): An action movie teaming up various stars of the last 30 years (Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Jason Statham), the plot involves a group of mercenaries who are hired to overthrow a drug running operation in South America.
Featuring cameos (Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger) and plenty of old school action, it is designed to appeal to those who grew up watching Rambo movies and the generations since that know about them second hand.
Although this stormed to the top of the US box office last weekend, it is a sloppily directed mess that has little real charm or invention. For all its old school appeal, it features a lot of CGI effects which augment the explosions and violence.
It has surfed an impressive wave of publicity, but this is a film that might even send Stallone fans running back to their Rambo box sets. [Odeon Leicester Square & Nationwide / 15]
Marmaduke (20th Century Fox): A live-action adaptation of Brad Anderson’s comic strip about a Great Dane named Marmaduke (voiced by Owen Wilson).
Directed Tom Dey, this might rank as a career low for Owen Wilson and Kiefer Sutherland, especially given the disastrous US reviews. [Empire Leicester Square & Nationwide / U]
Piranha3D (Entertainment): A horror remake of Joe Danteâs 1978 film about killer fish on the loose. Set in a sleepy lake during the Spring tourist season, an underwater earthquake unleashes ancient Piranha with a taste for humans.
Directed by Alexandre Aja, this features a better-then-expected ensemble cast including Adam Scott, Elisabeth Shue, Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames and er⊠Kelly Brook.
This is looking to repeat the late summer box office success of last yearâs The Final Destination, it might pull in a sizeable audience looking for some knowing 3D gore. [Vue West End & Nationwide / 18]
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ALSO OUT
The Illusionist (Warner Bros / Pathe): Director Sylvian Chometâs follow up to The Triplettes of Belleville is based on an unproduced script by Jacques Tati and is about a struggling illusionist in 1950s Scotland who meets a young lady convinced he is a real magician.
It opened the Edinburgh Film Festival back in June to warm reviews and could be a sleeper art house success if audiences embrace Chometâs quirky style. [Key Cities / PG]
The Human Centipede (Bounty Films): A Dutch horror film written and directed by Tom Six about a deranged doctor who kidnaps three tourists and joins them surgically, in order to form a âhuman centipedeâ. [Nationwide / 18]
Mother (ICO/ Optimum Releasing): A Korean drama from director Joon-ho Bong about an unnamed widow (Kim Hye-ja) living alone with her only son, in a small town. [ICA Cinema, Ritzy & selected Key Cities / 15]
Pianomania (More2Screen): A documentary about a piano tuner for Steinway & Sons, directed by Robert Cibis and Lilian Franck. [Clapham P’house, Stratford P’house, Greenwich P’house & Key Cities]
What follows is an action-comedy hybrid in which director Edgar Wright throws a barrage of visual artillery at the screen in order to recreate the look of comics and computer games.
This means when characters ring a doorbell we actually see the sound visualised with a âDing-Dongâ and when characters are punched we see âKa-Pows!â like the 1960s Batman series.
A bewildering array of techniques are employed throughout: split-screen, aspect-ratio shifts, zooms, CGI, animation, super-quick edits, Manga-styled transitions and laugh tracks are just some of the tools used in dramatising Pilgrimâs journey.
In some ways the ambition of the film is admirable. Like The Wachowski Bros’ Speed Racer (2008) it tries to do something genuinely different with the visual language of cinema.
But also like that film, it remains a hollow exercise in cinematic technique that contains little emotion or charm beneath the endless layers of visual distraction.
Compared to Wrightâs previous work, the central characters are surprisingly hard to care for. The protagonist is a dull, self-obsessed narcissist, whilst the girl he is fighting for doesnât seem to care all that much. As for the exes they are just levels to be completed.
Michael Cera now seems entombed in the nebbish screen persona audiences first saw in Superbad (2007). That splendid breakout performance has now become a depressing template for his subsequent career.
The exes he does battle with (including Chris Evans, Brandon Routh and Jason Schwartzman) are little more than one-note jokes and the whole narrative feels like TV episodes stitched together to resemble a feature.
Wright has previously managed to combine visual flair with genuine heart. With the TV series Spaced (1999-2001) and his last two films, Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), he managed a great balance of humour, brains and genuine emotion.
This film has many surface similarities with Spaced: twenty-something slackers, a frenetic editing and shooting style, numerous pop culture references and a slow-burning romance.
But in Scott Pilgrim the techniques are turned up to such a degree that they squeeze the life out of the core story and it is hard to care about anything on screen.
The one noticeable improvement over Wrightâs previous films is the clarity and crispness of Bill Popeâs cinematography, but that only comes across in the more realistic scenes, which are frequently intercut with a barrage of hyperactive effects.
Certain sequences feel like a visual dirty bomb has gone off in the cinema. But for what? A romantic story with little romance and characters on screen who are almost literally cartoons?
Part of the wider problem is that the whole film is played as one long, fantastical joke, but there isnât really much at stake when humans explode into coins and produce flaming swords from their chests.
All the gaming references are a little misleading. Although it certainly tries to co-opt the feel of them, games have rules and logic, two qualities which are mostly absent here.
Are the fights on which the film hinges meant to be extended fantasies? It isn’t really clear, although by the middle of the film I no longer cared as nothing is ever really at stake.
The notion that the ‘evil exes’ are some of metaphor for the baggage of previous relationships is never really developed amidst all the glib chaos going on.
The whole film has seemingly been designed to play like a trailer: fast paced to the point of blurry incoherence and packed with moments to excite an expectant fan base.
Mainstream Hollywood needs directors like Edgar Wright as he is a genuinely fresh and talented voice, but Scott Pilgrim vs The World is major misstep.
There are some who will lap up the deep layers of sarcasm, Nintendo-nostalgia and cooler-than-cool vibes in this film.
A loyal, cult-like audience may feel it was made for them â in many ways, it was â but for those who arenât blinded by the aching hipness of it all, it is likely to prove a shallow exercise in geeky nonsense.
For a big summer release it is unusual in that it wasn’t based on an established property (like a comic book or TV show) and the story isn’t that easy to explain in one line (although I’d go for Ocean’s Eleven meets The Matrix).
For Warner Bros this presented a challenge and Michael Tritter, Senior VP for Interactive Marketing at the studio, recently explained to KCRW how they dealt with it:
You have this movie which is going to have a pretty big built in fanbase …but you also have a movie that you are trying to keep very secret.
Chris [Nolan] really likes people to see his movies in a theater and not see it all beforehand so everything that you do to market that – at least early on – is with an eye to feeding the interest of fans.
So out of the idea that they had to drip feed the fans whilst also maintaining an air of mystery, they created an online game called ‘Mind Crime’ in which people could play and unlock various hints and pieces of information about the film.
As part of this campaign they used an official Facebook page to get people discussing what they had found and what the film might ultimately be about (this also paid off when the film came out and many wanted to discuss it further).
Facebook has a large number of gamers (think Farmville and Scrabble), so the ‘Mind Crime‘ game was a neat way of building viral buzz about the film whilst not explaining too much.
Another intriguing aspect within this campaign was a YouTube video entitled “Chris Nolan Research Footage” which was ‘leaked’ and saw the director interview three dream experts, in what appears to be his office.
It popped up back in late April under the username eclectic10167 and Nolan can be seen speaking to three dream researchers, two of whom are real whilst the other is an actress.
When she starts talking about ‘military research’ – an allusion to the world of Inception – funny things start to happen.
If you look closely you will see a poster for Nolan’s debut film Following in the background (a film also featuring a lead character called Cobb) and what appear to be a lot of Blu-rays on a shelf, although it is hard to be sure.
It should also be remembered that Warner Bros spent millions on outdoor posters, internet banners, trailers and TV spots, so where does the interactive element fit in to the wider campaign?
Of the balance between them, Tritter says:
I think there is not one without the other.
There is a level of engagement that a certain amount of the audience is going to expect, and that you really want to engage with.
And at the same time I think you would never not want the broad, mainstream part of it too.
In a sense, the marketing complemented the nature of the film. But I think that the very nature of the film itself was perhaps the most effective marketing tool.
It was complex and clever for a summer blockbuster, but executed in such a way that made you think constructively about what was going on.
The added bonus for Warner Bros was that people wanted to talk about it (and spread word-of-mouth via friends) and see it again (thus boosting the box office).
Fox Searchlight have released the first full length trailer for Black Swan, the new film from director Darren Aronofsky about two ballet dancers (Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis) in a New York production of Swan Lake.
It opens the Venice Film Festival later this month and is likely to be an awards season contender.
