Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘movies’

2
Apr
kermode

The pointlessness of 3D and the genius of Kermode

I’m not a particularly big fan of the whole 3D cinema nonsense, I just don’t see the point in paying extra to go and see a film where you have to wear stupid glasses for a couple of hours just because a few things fly about it a bit.

I’ve seen a few films in 3D, normally when I’ve been with other people and in all honesty – it does absolutely nothing for me, it feels like a gimmick, you’re more uncomfortable than needs be and it’s darker because of the silly glasses.

Read moreRead more

21
Aug

Keeping movie magic alive

Kevin Lewis has been working with film for the last 40 years and his passion extends beyond what you see on screen.

For Kevin his passion is as much in the nuts, bolts and water cooled appature ring as it is in the moving pictures.

For the last 15 years he has been rebuilding the 50 year old projector that now brings the prints at the Jersey Outdoor Film Festival to life.

And despite telling me it is finished, he still finds himself tweeking, playing and cleaning it every day.

The projector in question is a Westar, is 50 years old this year and is one of the last to be made in Britain.

However, after being rebuilt over the last 15 years from spare parts and with the passion of a dedicated enthusiast it bares only a passing resemblance to the one originally built during the hey day of British cinema.

Old ProjectorOriginally built to play films in a cinema, the 35mm projector is now built into an old television outside broadcast truck called ‘OB2′ – Kevin wanted ‘OB1′ but two was in better condition.

And the truck itself, brought from a now defunct ITV franchise holder in the UK, gets the same level of care and attention as the project it carries around.

The ‘truck’ has now become a trailer, partly because having big metal bars makes it easier to ‘level’ when playing a film and partly because it makes it more portable.

It has been the centre piece of one of Jersey’s ‘hidden gem’ summer events.

OK so it is a bit of a stretch to call something attended by over 3,000 people ‘hidden’ but you won’t find it in the high profiles brochures or promoted in shop windows around town.

Every year Kevin brings out the ‘pearl screen’, the projector and makes use of his contacts as a former cinema owner to get the prints – so that thousands of islands and tourists alike can enjoy a film under the stars.

Despite being watched by thousands and appreciated by all, even those asking for the big grey truck to be moved, the event’s future could be in question if a sponsor can’t be found for 2010.

Kevin payed for it himself for the first four years, got a grant from Tourism after that and in the last four has found himself begging for sponsorship to keep the event going.

It would be a shame to see this great summer tradition come to an end over money. Even more so for the projector and truck that work so hard to keep its audience enthraled.

And the projector, the truck, and the screen – those vital ingredient in playing a film- they just sit there working away.

Despite technology that is nearly 50 years old they manage to keep the young, the old and everyone in between wrapped in the grip of the magic of the movies year in, year out.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
3
Aug

iPlayer Pick: Man on Wire

When coming up with my iPlayer picks I would normally ignore anything in the top five simply on the grounds that most people will have seen it already – but I’ll make an exception for Man on Wire.

The film tells the true tale of how Philippe Petit managed to achieve his amazing high wire walk between the Twin Towers in New York back in the 70s – it’s funny, poinant, irritating and slightly scary all at the same time.

It’s a British film with a French sensability and Philippe Petit has such an over archingly exuberant personality that he brings the whole film alive – mixed with black and white footage and a selection of equally ‘interesting’ head 2 head interviews with his ‘crew’ of the time.

Watch it and enjoy.

Embed code generated using the Up Your Ego PIP tool.

I first saw Man on Wire at the first Branchage film festival in Jersey, an event I’m more closely involved in this year through the Sheer Talent/BBC Jersey Introducing gig.

Branchage pulls together films in alternative places – in locations you might not expect to see a film like The Wicker Man at the twelth century Gorey Castle.

It also mixes live music with that venue selection as well – from live scores to silent films to a heavy metal guitar solo before the screening of Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

If you can be in Jersey between 1st and 4th of October – you’ll find SOMETHING to do and probably discover a few new ‘favourite’ films in the mix.

Speaking of mix and music see if you can spot me in this months Gallery Magazine.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
16
Jul

Harry Potter and the cool effect

On Wednesday I got up early, took the children to school, went to work and then walked on down to the St Helier waterfront to the Cineworld cinema – in time for a film that started at 10:15.

Now this is nothing unusual for me, I’ve been to the cinema that time of the morning many times before, in fact I almost ALWAYS go to the cinema in time for the first screening.

The reason for that? There is usually nobody there – I mean why do people go to the cinema in large groups, eat noisy foods and THEN talk to each other in whispers throughout the film? I CAN STILL HEAR YOU!!!!

So by going to the first screening of the day I normally get a cinema to myself, even for the bigger films. No noise from people sitting near me, no noise from people thinking you can’t hear them – I get to be my anti-social self and enjoy a film at the same time.

But on Wednesday I went to see Harry Potter and I went to see not only the first screening of the day but also the first screening in Jersey (or at least ‘official screening’ anyway).

Image by xcaballe via Flickr

I was in a screen with at least 200 other people – it was ever so slightly insane. OK so it is the start/middle of the tourist season but Jersey doesn’t exactly have a ‘massive’ tourist market anymore – so it was a little mad to be in a half full large cinema screen at 10 in the morning.

Anyway to the point – Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – the review.

I was a bit of a late-comer to the whole Harry Potter thing, getting into it around the time book four was released but I quickly caught up and was waiting impatiently in line at midnight like everyone else for books five to seven.

I heard them all in audio form as read by Stephen Fry, have watched all the movies in the cinema and have them on DVD as well. Not that I like them much.

So you now know I went into this film as a little bit of a Harry Potter fan boy, unlike other films I’ve been in to where my default position is ‘come on then, impress me’.

I was impressed by Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. In fact so impressed that I am slightly scared that Director David Yates had been looking around inside my head as he made the film.

The whole thing looked and felt almost EXACTLY as I imagined it in my head while reading the book – the different scenes panned out how I imagined they would, the conversations happened as I expected – with a couple of minor exceptions.

The first involved the Snape and Dumbledore thing – in my mind that happened on the grass outside and not in a clock tower but it was more effective this way.

The other was those things in the water in the locket scene – in my mind it was a sort of Munch inspired hands coming out of swirling water thing without seeing the rest of the body.

Instead the film had creates that sat somewhere between Dobby the House Elf and Gollum but a bit more grabby.

The relationships between the characters continued the increasingly intense and growing mutual respect and sense of dread that the last couple had started to set up.

My only concern was that the whole thing felt a little bit ‘glossy’, maybe I need to see it for a second time but the dispair didn’t really come through as intensly as I expected it to.

And when I say glossy I don’t mean it as a critisism of the look of the film – that was spectacular, it felt completely immersive, water was intense, the breaking up of the wobbly bridge out of this world and god I love the Quidditch scenes.

But I felt that maybe, just a tiny little maybe, the ability to look stunning over took some of the simpler intense scenes that could have been created between a couple of good actors on a plain set.

Overall though I would still give it a high four out of five.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
8
May

Star Trek Review

I spent all of 30 seconds deciding on the headline for this blog post. Sometimes I try to come up with something clever but in this case I took the decision to apply the Ronseal approach ‘it say’s what it does on the tin‘.

I go to see a lot of films, I’m a big cinema fan and to be honest always have been. Testament to that is probably the fact that the last post was about the theatre of cinema and I’ve written regularly on the subject.

This is going to be the first actual film review I’ve posted to the blog – so please go easy on me. I’m more experienced at audio reviews on the radio – and for that reason I’ve included the review I did for BBC Radio Jersey on Star Trek.

My Star Trek review on BBC Radio Jersey

And I’m not going to break my tradition of avoiding writing down my thoughts in review form by explaining how I came to the thoughts I expressed in the audio above and repeating a few of those thoughts in text format.

So I guess the first step is to tell you that I would give this 5 stars, but I don’t like the idea of giving stars it is FAR TOO LIMITED a rating model. Lets give it 97% out of 100%.

I think the headline of my review was really that this is a Star Trek film that transcends the Star Trek universe and opens the franchise up to not only a new generation but also to people that wouldn’t normally consider SciFi.

Enjoy that? Yeah well you’ll enjoy the whole movie a lot more – I’m a big Star Trek fan, have watched all the movies and have them on DVD – but this is by a LONG WAY the best Star Trek movie I have ever seen.

This film transcends Star Trek and even to a certain extent SciFi – the film creates that ever needed entry point into the wider Star Trek universe for people that never got into the series before.

It takes that wonderful concept the Gene Roddenberry created all those years ago and then updates it for the modern cinema going era – with speed, polish and humour.

In fact one of the most wonderfully surprising aspects of this film was the comic lines – they were brilliant, perfectly timed and well delivered – the other is how effortlessly I found it to believe in the new cast as the characters I know of old.

In my radio review I compared this re imagining of Star Trek to the re-launch of Doctor Who on the BBC – keeping the basic essense of what makes it special but making it for a more cine and SciFi literate 21st Century Audience – or as Mark Kermode said: “Star Trek the Smallville years.”

Starfleet Command symbol.
Image via Wikipedia

If I can convince her to go I’m 90% certain that my SciFi hating wife will love this movie – taking the aliens, epic space battles and jumping from a space shuttle through the atmosphere on to a floating drilling platform out of the equation – this is part buddy movie, part coming of age movie and part comedy.

It’s amazing to witness the growth of both Spock and Kirk from their teenage selves into the future standard bearers of Starfleet – to watch as the crew of the Enterprise (that we know) come together for the first time and find their friendship and how, as I’ve already mentioned – funny the film is.

At the very start the movie set itself as, although part of the bigger franchise, although a prequel to the Star Trek series we know – something different.

It involves time travel and alternative time lines – it allows for the series to continue with the new cast and to do things that might not be ‘cannon’ and get away with it – a very clever move.

There is a LOT more I could say about it that I can’t think of words for right now – a lot more about the actual film, an analysis of the whole thing but that will have to wait until I know more people have seen it.

I loved every minute of it and can’t wait to see it again.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
19
Mar

An Orange experience

I’m a big fan of film, I love movies, cinema, visual entertainment but more than this I love going to the cinema. Now at first glance that last bit might sound the same as all the previous statements – but there is a big difference between them.

You can love a film, a movie and visual entertainment; you can enjoy going to the cinema – but having a love of going to the cinema is taking things to another level – it’s about the experience.

The cinema is in my blood, syrup cola runs through my veins (eugh that sounds nasty), the smell of popcorn and nacho cheese haunts my nostrils and the screen fills my eyes.

Alright I admit it – that was all a load of bollocks but at least I didn’t use the word Inspirational or Aspirational.

Hemel Hempstead Old Town, with the spire of th...
Image via Wikipedia

I do have a passion for ‘the cinema’ though, it started as a small child going to the original ODEON Hemel Hempstead with its single large screen, its smoke and booze smell and its bingo machines off to one side.

The cinema only showed films three days a week as it was a bingo hall the rest of the time – but that didn’t matter when I was sitting in the chair – on my knees so I could see – watching a film, taking in the surroundings, the smells, the popcorn – giving my money to the woman in the little box behind the glass and getting a tiny piece of paper in return – keeping the paper for my scrap book.

Then later at the ‘newly built’ multiplex while bunking off Games lessons at school (the cinema was ten minutes from my school at the time).

Although this cinema didn’t have the same history and athmosphere as the original cinema in the town centre – it still had the buzz of a picture house. The screens smelt of popcorn not smoke, the little woman in a box was replaced by three people at desks and the tiny scrap of paper was replaced by a card based ticket.

But it was still a buzz, it was still a thrill to go and see the film – to get inside early and listen to the music, to watch the curtains open and the lights fade down, to see the adverts in anticipation of the trailers (in the days of the town centre odeon to enjoy the ‘local ads’) and then to watch the film itself.

And later still working at that very same cinema catching bits and pieces of films – enough to give me an idea of what it was all about but then enjoying watching it properly ‘for free’ when I wasn’t working.

Antimacassar on a rail carriage seat
Image via Wikipedia

Followed by working in Jersey at the ODEON in Jersey – another purpose built cinema, made for film in the 1950s and eventually writing about and talking about films for the BBC.

Recently,  well as recently as the last few years, there have been two additions to the cinema experience. 1) the PACT threats that basically call me a criminal – even though I’ve paid for my ticket and all the extras.

2) is the Orange don’t let your mobile ruin the movie’ adverts going out JUST before the film itself. They mark that point in the experience when you know the film is just minutes away – they almost act like the ‘shorts’ that went before films decades ago.

They’re almost always brilliantly produces pieces of art in their own right – sometimes funny, sometimes moving (in the case of the one with the song by Joanna Newsom – in fact it was that advert that led me to discover one of my ‘now’ favourite artists.

Well there are some new adverts coming – six in total and they will fall into an episodic form one after the other.

In fact the video at the top of this blog post is a preview of the first one here it is again – looking ahead at the six part series.

What’s different about this series – compared to the previous one that was in cinemas first – is that this one will be online first – appearing on blogs and YouTube before starting in cinemas – or at least at the same time.

The first series of Orange films featured actors pitching films to the guys from the Orange Film Funding Board – the guys that want a mobile phone to feature in every movie.

Well apparently this series follows on from that concept – I expect we will start to start to see the making of, or even the finished ‘short’ of each of those films.

This Orange ‘short’ concept – giving me a small piece of produced, if advertising heavy, content before the main feature is wonderful – it is as much a part of the ‘cinema experience’ as popcorn and the curtains sliding open as the lights fade down.

Although – when you’ve seen them three or four times (if you’re a heavy film goer like me) then it does get a little tedious and you beg for something else.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
5
Sep

Covering a film festival

Branchage Film Festival

August, September and October are all pretty heavy months for me. August sees the Jersey Battle of Flowers, Rock in the Park, Outdoor Film Festival and a whole lot more.

Read moreRead more