Irascible Ian's Personal Blog

Shiny Discs Web Site

2009-11-08T16:29:00.003Z

A couple of weeks ago, my Shiny Discs web site domain name came up for its annual renewal, and I decided to let it go. Work has been such that I never seem to get any time to work on it, and it's been left abandoned, just wasting hosting costs for the last year.

However I had a last-minute change of heart late on Friday afternoon, had the domain renewed, and spent Saturday working on the outline for the site.

Using Silverlight I've been able to get something approaching what I originally intended in terms of visual display for the 'This Week's new Releases' section and the 'Next Week's New Releases' section. One other change I'm making is the site is going to concentrate only on Blu-Ray releases. The site shows that this week there are SIXTEEN new releases, and next week there will be TWENTY-FIVE so the format is clearly gaining traction. These days I only ever seem to get time to watch Blu-Rays anyway and I can't remember the last time I bought a DVD.

It's early days yet. Although the user can now use his mouse to 'browse through the rack' of new releases, there is additional work to be done so that when a title appears 'head on' a popup of statistics and review summaries is visible. I think this will be a fun interface and quick way of checking what's coming up without having to read through a long review or watch a half hour video podcast.

Not that I've given up on the video podcast idea. It's just that the length needs to be reduced to under 10 minutes so that podcasts can be played, via YouTube which limites you to 10 minutes, on an iPhone and iPod. I also need to find a way to reduce the crazy render times and increase the ease with which I can grab clips from Blu-Ray to make for a more interesting 'show'.

Please go and have a play and let me know what you think - just remember it's early days yet. Also note that the site runs on Microsoft Silverlight, which is similar to Flash except that it's not from Adobe (and is much better :-P). If you don't already have that installed you will be prompted to download it. It takes less than a minute to download and runs on both Mac and PC, supporting Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari.

Stay tuned!

To Boldly Go...

2009-05-09T09:44:00.005+01:00

A crazy workload means that this 'personal' blog is languishing a bit, but I wanted to put up a quick review for the new J J Abrams movie Star Trek, which opens this weekend, and which I saw a preview of at the London IMAX on Thursday night.

I was a big fan of the original series, and am of an age where I remember the first transmission. I was dead set against it because, as a kid, it replaced my favourite programme Doctor Who, which went out at 5.15pm on Saturdays. I remember the Saturday morning paper hyping the show up with talk of 3D chess, futuristic special effects, and success in the States. Begrudgingly, I watched it to see how a show that didn't feature time travel, weekly cliff-hangers or a crotchety old guy could possibly be any good. Of course by the end of the first episode, featuring humans infected so they become 'gods' with laser-firing glowing eyes, I was totally hooked. The production values were light years ahead of anything that the ridiculously low budget of Hartnell/Troughton -era Doctor Who could afford, and the writing gave a depth that always left you thinking about the show long after it had finished.

I put my love of the TV series down to why I just don't get the whole Star Wars phenomenon. I rewatched this again recently and it was just as crap as I remembered it being when I first saw it at the cinema in the late 70's - poor dialogue, a really annoying, screechy female character, really poor pacing, and a basic, cliched, paper-thin story a five year old could have put together. This just wasn't a patch on the quality of the average 40 minute TV episode of Trek, so far as I was concerned. So yes, even before the execrable 'prequels' I thought the 'Star Wars' series was lame, and I find it astonishing that it's only now the wider opinion that George Lucas just can't write a good story, with any kind of depth or subtlety, is starting to become a popular one. But, as ever, I digress...

Of course we then had the Star Trek movies. The first one was so lame, slow and self-reverential I pretty much gave up on the franchise. More by accident than design, I did get to see the last film (Star Trek: Nemesis) when a friend couldn't use his press preview ticket. At a time when The Two Towers was the film everyone was waiting for as the Christmas blockbuster, this extremely dated film was on a hiding to nothing. On a cold December day in an almost empty cinema where even the promoters couldn't be bothered to show up and welcome us, it was pretty obvious that the franchise had run its course and was well past its 'sell by' date. The over-hyping of the movie (particularly from Patrick Stewart who, at every possible opportunity, talked up the film as being MUCH better than its predecessor) seemed like a gross act of betrayal on the part of the cast and crew.

This new 'reboot' of the franchise, is apparently down to the work of one man: J J Abrams. I'm a fan of nearly all the work that carries his name (although his TV Series Alias lost it around Series 4, presumably because the man was too busy working on other things). I love his Lost series and I don't agree with the endless whingers who complain that nothing ever gets explained. Everything gets explained - you just have to commit to it. It's a show of real depth and longevity. I love the way the show drops clues to things that they know they're not going to resolve until a season or two later. In these post-MTV days where everybody wants (demands!) instant gratification, that's not popular of course - but hell, go watch the new Doctor Who if you want instant gratifcation, ill-developed story lines and cheap stunts!

I missed Abrams Mission Impossible 3 (the idea of another Tom Cruise vanity project didn't appeal) but was pleasantly surprised by Cloverfield. The puke-making, low budget, shaky-cam trailer which debuted with the release of the Transformers movie allegedly had the internet abuzz with expectation. I just yawned and marked it down as 'one to avoid' (based mainly on still being bitter over the 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back from having gone to see The Blair Witch Project, which had similar 'hand held, shot live' pretensions). My bad! When I caught the film on Blu-Ray recently, I loved it.

The trailers for the new Star Trek movie did nothing for me. They were far too generic in a 'popcorn action movie' way that implies poor special effects, no real character depth, and minimal story telling. The trailer seemed to have lost all the 'magic' of the series which had sustained me through all the broadcast episodes of not just the original series, but also The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 (I'm afraid Voyager was a yawn, and Enterprise was just embarrassingly amateur, I left the Trek 'universe' many years ago). So I was going to wait for the DVD before I bothered to watch this one.

Then came the inspired marketing trick of the 'pre-premiere' showing to a group of fans in Texas. Before the official world premiere in Australia, a group of Trekkies were invited to a special viewing of a 'restored print' of the second Star Trek movie, allegedly to help promote the first release of the film on the high-definition Blu-Ray format. A grubby, damaged print lasted less than 10 minutes before the film apparently snapped and Leonard Nimoy walked on stage to 'apologise' and ask the audience if they'd rather see another film instead. The buzz from the original die-hard fans who'd previously dissed the re-booting of the franchise, spread over the net within hours. Against all expectations, they loved the new film, and their enthusiasm was contagious. Now THAT'S what I call brave - and great - marketing!

So, encouraged by favourable reviews from TV show fans, I went to see the film on Thursday - and the enthusiastic reviewers have got it right. It's a great movie! Not a masterpiece by any means, but a great, intelligent, thrill ride, with witty dialogue, real character depth, a superb cast (with one slight exception that really jarred) and (irritating shaky-cam aside) brilliant effects and direction.

Most important of all, it has great writing that really lets the characters breathe. Every 'supporting' character's presence in this film is justified, and they are all given credible, interesting stories. There aren't many films where a day or two later I'm thinking 'I'd really like to see that again'. Star Trek is one of those few films.

The only real problem I had with the film was Simon Pegg. He plays the ship's engineer 'Scotty' and his role is clearly that of 'comic relief'. Thankfully the film is past the half-way mark when he makes his first appearance, which really jars because his constantly shifting 'Scottish' accent is truly dreadful - seemingly because he has whole sentences where he forgets to do it, followed by others where he remembers and overdoes it! Although he has great comedic acting skills I think he's been seriously miscast in this role.

Thankfully the other characters are all - to a man/woman - superb. All of them manage to portray the strengths of the character WITHOUT resorting to impersonation. I know Michael Sheen (Frost Nixon) is continually lauded for 'getting the esence but without doing a straight impersonation' thing, but in his case I don't buy it - all his characters to me come across as a variation on his Tony Blair impersonation. But I think the Star Trek cast DO all get this in a far better way. So much so that it's impossible to single out any one actor for an astonishing performance. They're all (Pegg excepted) excellent!

There are some minor niggles - Leonard Nimoy, who originally played Spock, is over-used (and it's sad to see how much he's physically aged over the last few years) and some of the pat phrases from the TV show re-appear a few times too often. But none of that deters from the fact that this is a really fun movie, that respects the original series, but also adapts it for modern sensibilities.

I can't wait to see where J J Abrams and his crew take the new franchise next time around. In the meantime, I think the hype is justified. If you're waivering about seeing the film vs waiting for the shiny disc version - I'd say go see it at the movies (ideally the IMAX - the film doesn't suffer from the 'soft focus over-stretched' problems I had with Watchmen). This is a film that really deserves to be seen on the big screen. Highly recommended!

Fifty Dead Men Walking

2009-04-10T13:46:00.004+01:00

It was several hours after attending the advance preview screening of Fifty Dead Men Walking, which was followed by a Q &A with director Kari Skogland, that I realised I'd actually already read the book by Martin McGartland, on which the film is based.

It's not hard to see why I should have failed to recognise the story on screen from the book I'd read earlier, despite the huge impact the book had on me at the time I read it. The film starts with McGartland (Jim Sturgess) in an anonymous location on a snowy day, checking underneath his worn-out old car for the signs of anything unusual - a bomb perhaps? As he tries to start the engine a black balaclava'ed figures appears from nowhere, shooting him several times at point-blank range. The scene itself isn't fictional, but is nowhere to be found in the book. It, or something very similar to it, happened AS A RESULT OF McGartland publishing his 'tell all' book, which apparently pissed the IRA off even more than his working for them as a 'tout' for the RUC had done.

As the film tells us in its closing titles (spoiler alert!), McGartland is still under cover and still has no contact with his family.

At the Q&A that followed last night's Southbank screening, the writer/director revealed that although she spoke to the IRA 'tout' long and often, and also changed some things as a result of his input, contact was always by phone calls which he controlled, and had to be at his behest. So there is no happy 'reunited with his family' ending here for those who like their films happy and smiley!

After the opening 'grab their attention' attempted assassination, the remainder of the film tells a fictionalised account of McGartland's involvement with the IRA and the RUC from its logical beginning, starting in 1987 and ending around 1991. It bears little relation to the strong memories I have of the main character's real life which seemed to comprise never-ending periods of boredom and poverty, alleviated by sudden explosions of activity and a great deal of hatred.

Essentially, this is a story of an RUC informer ('tout' as the IRA call them)working his way up the IRA ranks so he can feed information to the British - information that, it is claimed, saved the lives of the 'fifty men' of the title. But it feels like a very different story from that told in the book: A sanitised one in many ways (which, I suspect, will shock those who haven't read the book because this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Hollywood film or anything approaching it!) The McGartland of the book came across as a much harder, angrier, less sympathetic person, and the intrinsic evil of the IRA (and to a much lesser extent the British puppet-masters) seeped from every page.

In Skogland's film McGartland becomes the cheery everyman, a sort of Irish version of the young Paul McCartney (hard to get the actor Jim Sturgess' previous work in the Beatles musical Across The Universe out of my head!), a sort of 'street urchin with a good heart who stands by his girl'. More importantly, the film tries to tow an independent, 'fair-minded to both sides' line, which doesn't really work given the inherently violent and controlling methods of the IRA at the time. The approach adopted makes the film seem a lot less political, and perhaps more personal, than the book so it's not hard to see why McGartland may be upset. The director has made a film 'for our times', with particular relevance to the situations in Agfhanistan and Iraq, so that suddenly the story in the book that had me thinking 'Thank God I'm nowhere near that barbaric mess and wasn't involved' has me thinking 'Maybe it's not that barbaric and could happen anywhere'

In the Q & A session with the director afterwards, McGartland's presence (not physically - he's still in hiding) seemed to dominate the proceedings. The interviewer's opening question revealed that McGartland had been somewhat 'grumpy' about the film to the press, and a quick search on the internet shows him contacting even the likes of the rather innocuous Empire magazine to complain that he does not endorse the film in any way. The director seemed cagey whenever the subject was brought up (as it was, repeatedly, by people wanting to better understand what the source of disagreements was), but it was hard to ascertain who, if anyone, was in the right here. A quick 'Google' has Sturgess revealing that McGartland was apparently unhappy with the IRA torture scene, which he never witnessed in real life, and at the Q&A the director just kept to the 'a book does not necessarily make a good film' storyline. Clearly the rather heavy-handed disclaimer about the film merging characters and depicting some events differently, which appears at the start AND end of the film is the result of McGartland's intercession and a (failed) attempt to placate him somewhat. (You can read more about McGarttlan's objections to the film and its director here)

None of which really matters, given how powerful and gripping the film is! A 'based on truth' thriller, with real flesh-and-blood characters (no blacks or whites here - just LOTS of shades of grey) is preferable to a documentary version of the original book (which I highly recommend!).

Skogland has produced a gritty, grungey, powerful and deeply impressive film that manages to shake off the rather obvious shortcomings of its first 5-10 minutes, such that you're gripped and sat on the edge of your seat right to the conclusion two hours later. Admittedly the film is not an easy watch in places. It clearly has 'indy' origins (no glossy '3D window look' Blu-Ray on its way here!) and I thought it got off to a poor start as soon as the 'reel 'em in' assassination attempt opening was over. I've never been a fan of the Paul Greengrass school of wobbly, hand-held, puke-making cam that we get in abundance here. Nor am I a huge fan of the 'bleach' process that highlights the whites and the blacks at the expense of colour or lack of film grain, but at least this time around it's somewhat more warranted, matching the gritty and dark story being told. At the end of the day it's the performances, and the sheer humanity of those caught up in events, rather than the technical aspects of the film that stay with you long after the final credits have rolled.

(Sir) Ben Kingsley may be a bit of an up-himself knob-head in real life (he comes across that way in interviews!), but you can't deny the guy can really act, and the few reviews I've read sniping at his performance here as McGartland's British 'handler with a conscience' can only be based on personal grievances with the actor himself. His performance is never less than rivetting and totally believable. From any other actor this would be considered a 'career best', but Kingsley's work is of such high calibre that one can only revel at the fact he's managed to use his incredible, chameleon-like qualities for totally transforming himself into another character yet again.

But it's Jim Sturgess, fighting against all the 'just a pretty face' odds, who delivers the most surprising, and most impressive, performance. It's no surprise to hear that he stayed in character from the moment he landed on the Emerald Isle. His accent is, to these ears, pretty flawless, and his performance as a difficult, duplicitous, dishonest character that we have to somehow empathise with is never less than convincing. This is, in many ways, HIS film even more than it is Skogland's. If he can steer clear of being the 'pretty boy flavour of the month' with the film magazines and continue to make wise choices, as he appears to be doing, he could become a huge talent in the industry rather than just another graduate from the Orlando Bloom school of (non-) acting!

As for the film itself - my quibbles are minor. I love punk bands like Stiff Little Fingers (and The Ruts too - my era! Oh, the memories!) - but not when they're so dominant in the mix I can't hear the dialogue. And I know it's all about a documentary-like, gritty feel, but at times the Greengrass-influenced shakycam goes too far. And the intro and outro captions seem rather preachy and trite (this may be at McGartland's insistence of course).

But on an evening when I felt so shattered I nearly gave the film a miss, I found myself wide awake and enthralled throughout.

The director has made it clear that this opening weekend will 'do or die' for the film - especially its chances of getting a release in the United States, urging those who liked the film to 'tell their friends to go and see it, preferably this weekend'. I have no hesitation in doing so. It's a powerful, absorbing and compelling piece of work. We need more films of this sort of calibre (although whoever's behind the marketing of the film could surely have done a better job - where's the 'official' web site with images etc to decorate this blog entry?!).

Ignore some of the pettier newspaper reviews (whose research is so poor they think the director is male) that imply the film is merely 'average'. It isn't! They are confusing the film with an event (20 years of Irish politics) and marking the film accordingly. Just go and see it. It's an excellent, powerful movie, and much better than anything else I can see advertised this weekend. Highly recommended!

A Tag of No Importance

2009-04-07T13:14:00.005+01:00

I have been tagged by Brian Sibley, which means I have to post six little-known facts of no real importance about myself

So here goes...

The first TV program I remember seeing as a child, arriving back from Cyprus where we didn't have TV, was 5 o'clock Club with Muriel Young and two glove puppets as I recall. I saw it in an overnight hotel we stayed in after arriving by plane in England, before travelling to live with grandparents in Leeds for a few weeks. I remember more about the tiny black and white TV set in the hotel room. than the show itself, and it's about the only memory I have from arriving back in England.

The first film I remember seeing was The Wizard of Oz. Again, I don't remember much about the film other than my mother complaining loudly that the film appeared to be in black and white when the pictures promoting the film had implied it was in colour. Of course as soon as Oz itself appeared the picture changed to colour and I explained what had happened to my mother as I heard a loud click during the projector changeover: "They forgot to turn the colour on. I just heard them switch it on". Oh, the innocence of youth!

I played the recorder at school. I think I was quite good and it encouraged me to try other instruments including the trumpet (hopeless), the violin (even more hopeless) and the guitar (I still have a Gibson Les Paul and Marshall combo amp but haven't used them in ages).

In my late teens I was given a Super 8 camera for my birthday, which is when my love of movies and movie-making began. I filmed some school trips and made a 20 minute silent film about my mates' disco called "Squint Eye Mangle" - a title I stole from the B-Side of a Marc Bolan single at the time. I got a kick every time I heard the deputy headmaster at 6th Form College have to read out the title when announcing a lunch-time screening in Assembly a couple of mornings!

The first concert I attended as a teenager was T.Rex in Edmonton around the time they were at their peak. I was allowed to travel down from Southampton to London on my own for the first time (a) to queue up to buy the ticket and (b) later to attend the concert. It all turned a bit sour when I returned home after the concert to a stern lecture from my father. Whilst away my mother had gone through the pockets of my Parka coat to empty them for washing and found a plastic syringe holder with plunger. We used them at school, 'borrowed' from the Chemistry class, for water pistols but nothing would convince my mother it wasn't used for drugs! She should have been more worried about the fact I insisted on buying a satin jacket after the trip to buy the ticket!

I was the only member of the family who didn't want us to get a dog. I'd always been scared of them and my parents got a Pyrannean dog which initially terrified me because they're the size of a horse. In the end I became the one who walked her most and did the chores and became a 'dog' person, although I still have an aversion to silly, yappy canines that look more like rats than dogs! My parents bought me a Newfoundland puppy as a birthday present when I moved into my own home after University and I hope to own another Newfie when I get around to retiring. I named my newfie 'Animal' after the Muppets character because of her spiky hair - a name which my mother changed to 'Annabelle' when walking with me and needing to call her, through embarrassment! My biggest regret about working/living in London is not being able to have a dog.

I think I'm supposed to tag six more people now. I'll have to have a think!

Watching The Watchmen (a pointless IMAX experience)

2009-03-15T14:52:00.007Z

The joys of London's IMAX booking system meant that despite booking well in advance of the film opening, and using my 'advance' BFI membership pre-booking notification (ha! ha!) to boot, I got to see The Watchmen a week after everybody else. A week is a long time where films like Watchmen are concerned because it seems like the whole world and its wife has been twittering their impressions of the film after seeing it on the opening weekend.

As it turned out, suffering the delay just to see the film on IMAX was a mistake on my part. The Watchmen is NOT a film that needs to be seen on IMAX because, unlike The Dark Knight, the film was not shot using special IMAX camera's, and nor does it have any 3D scenes

'The IMAX experience' this time round simply means you're watching a larger, but softer, blurrier version of the film that is being shown in normal theatres. It felt like watching an iPlayer TV programme up-rezzed to 'full screen' size on a computer monitor, with the same end result: you kind of wish you'd just seen it at its original resolution even if it meant it was smaller. So, rather like the 'amazing never before seen' giant water projection display (actually a fuzzy blue light mess nobody could really see) used to officially launch the film's opening on The Thames last week, 'the IMAX Experience' this time around, has been seriously over-hyped. And if my Friday night was anything to go by 'The IMAX Experience' is no different from a normal local cinema experience (are you listening Clapham Picture House?!) with several minutes needing to be spent before the film started to clean my seat of popcorn and coke cup debris before I could sit on it. Cinema owners keep complaining about the competition from shiny discs - but when they charge the equivalent of the cost of a Blu-Ray disc that I can keep and rewatch (my Watchmen ticket cost an exhorbitant £13.50 with travel costs on top) and treat their customers in such a cavalier manner I am tempted to join those on the sidelines applauding the fact that cinema attendances are on the decline. Nobody needs experiences like this when they can have a much nicer, controlled environment at home.

The week's delay in getting a decent seat did give me one advantage: it gave me the chance to see what others reaction to the film was and prepare me for the worst. The reaction seemed to be more polarised than I can ever remember about a new film. Comments were very clearly divided between 'four out of five stars' fans who'd read the comic book but thought the film flawed because it stuck too slavishly to a format that doesn't work for cinema, and 'zero or one star out of five' newcomers who found it 'too long, too slow, and too boring because nothing happens'.

I haven't read the comic book, and the warning signs from so many dismissive reviews might have had me cancel my attendance were it not for a review in The Daily Mail. Alone, out of all the mainstream papers who at least recognised the quality of much of what was put on screen, England's most bigotted and homophobic tabloid gave the film a pitiful 0 out of 10, concluding "This despicable trash will find an audience among sad sociopaths, deranged pseudo-intellectuals and brutalised, immature men of all ages." Coming from the cesspit world of opinion that is The Daily Mail that sounds like a 'Must see' recommendation to me! I'm still trying to work out why they didn't include a reference to homosexuals in their diss, given that one of the main characters walks around naked, showing off what fans keep referring to as 'the big blue wang' in several key scenes!

Worried that I needed to have read the comic book first, I managed to get a quick look at the US import (region free) Blu-Ray of Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic (recommended - and MUCH better than the other pitiful comic book adaptations I've seen on Blu-Ray). The Blu-Ray runs for twelve 25 minute chapters, with a total running time of five and a half hours, which just goes to show how different the perception of time can be with different mediums. The two episodes of the Blu-Ray 'comic book' I watched seemed perfectly paced. The exact same story as a film, running at a considerably lighter 2 hours and 45 minutes, seemed overlong and plodding by comparison. Go figure!

For what it's worth I DON'T think you need to have read the comic book to enjoy the film - and there is a LOT in the film TO enjoy. But you do need to set aside your preconceptions about what a comic book movie should be. This sure ain't no Superman or even a Dark Knight - it's far less mainstream than that.

Ultimately, I felt the film was a good one, but not a great one. Its comic book origins are all too clear and the director has over-egged the comic book aesthetic with endless slow-motion and gimmicky 'straight out of a comic book panel' camera angle shots. I think the main problem is that the basic narrative in the comic book appears to be one of those 'the character thinks out loud, pseudo-intellectualising the action with a comment in every panel' stories. This may work very well in the comic book medium, but doesn't really work on film, where the scribbled comic book comments become overlong, rather tedious narrative that just slow everything down. My guess is that the comic book had a thin central narrative running through the 12 different issues, with each issue focussing on a single character. Transferred to the medium of film this doesn't work: just as you're getting into the story of one character the story stops abruptly and moves on to another. Although this worked for the director's earlier Sin City, this time around the narrative is too dense, the characters too many, and the intellectualising too engrained for this to really work.

All that being said, I had to admire the film for what it was attempting. And the 'twist' conclusion with its moral dilemma genuinely surprised me (whilst making perfect sense and not resorting to the usual silly super-hero deus-ex-machina ending it looked like it was heading towards - hoorah!).

It's an over-used phrase, but Watchmen really is a film I admired rather than outright enjoyed. You sort of admire the work that's been done, but can't help wondering why anybody thought it needed to be undertaken in the first place. Part of me feels sad that this interesting experiment is likely to be deemed a failure given the box office figures that are being reported. The opening weekend was fairly strong, but still less than those for the director's previous 300, which cost a lot less to make, and was much more mainstream in its appeal, and the box office appears to be fading fast if the second weekend takings are indicative, now that the core fanboy demographic have moved on. It looks as if the film will struggle to approach break even point, hardly surprising given the obscene amount of money that seems to have been spent on marketing it. I'd like to see Hollywood make more thoughtful, experimental films like this instead of the mindless 'action' formulaic fodder they usually specialise in, but for that to happen films like this need to turn a profit - a big profit, and not just one based on overly optimistic follow-through DVD sales.

If you haven't seen Watchmen yet, and can endure nearly 3 hours in a cinema seat, I'd encourage you to go and see the film if only to help the flagging box office (That important consideration aside, I'd say wait for the inevitable Blu-Ray, complete with extended Director's Cut) Don't set your expectations too high, and I think you'll enjoy it!

The Curious Case of David Fincher's Latest Film

2009-02-22T10:43:00.003Z

With less than 48 hours to go until the oscar winners are announced, I finally got to see David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in a 'digital presentation' at my local picture house in Clapham.

I wouldn't describe myself as a huge fan of Fincher. I loved Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac, but thought Panic Room was an extremely average 'thriller' best suited to TV prime-time. And I think all of Fincher's films are too long. Benjamin Button clocks in at just under 3 hours so the director's rather self-indulgent trend doesn't seem to have been broken with this latest oscar-nominated offering.

I left this film until last because of the luke-warm reviews from the British critics - the vast majority of whom seem to think it should NOT have been nominated for an oscar. I'm sorry to have to say I agree with them. OK, maybe it's worthy of a technical oscar for the special effects, but 'Best Film' or 'Best Director'? Gimme a break!

I thought Forrest Gump, which many of the critics have compared this film to - it shares the same writer - was a seriously over-rated film (not a bad one, just not one that deserved the 'Film of the Year' oscar) and alas, Benjamin Button plays out like Forrest Gump II, but without any of the original's charm or humour. Ridiculously neat and tidy, and overly-sentimental, one-sentence platitudes are laid on with a trowel in a series of anecdotes that make little sense, have little commonality, and just give the impression that the script-writers had no idea how to tell a basic story. Things pull together in the second half, when we finally start on the main story (a life-long romance) but it's not hard to see why friends talk about having walked out of the film before it finished - I nearly did the same myself, I found the first half so disjointed and irritating.

As the film opens we have a dying Daisy, played by Cate Blanchette, asking her daughter to read out loud a diary in her bag. The diary is that of one 'Benjamin Button', who turns out to have been the love of the dying woman's life, and the film then progresses as a series of 'out loud' readings that translate into episodic flashbacks, interrupted every 10-15 minutes by trips in real time back to the dying hospital bed scene. These constant interruptions become increasingly irritating because there's really nothing to say at the hospital (apart from one very obvious, cliched revelation about the daughter's father mid-way through the film), and the film-makers have to invent a rather silly 'Is Hurricane Katrina going to hit the hospital before Daisy dies?' sub-plot to try and justify the constant switches between the past and the present. This sort of tired story-telling has been done so often before we feel we're watching a re-run of countless other movies - except the constant time switches were justified in other films. Here, it becomes very obvious that they are only needed because the flashback scenes are so disjointed and irrelevant to each other (and also to the main romance theme that will start about an hour into the film) that the editors had no way of putting the various clips together so that they made any kind of sense.

The central conceit of the film - that Daisy's life-long love Benjamin (Brad Pitt) is a child who ages backwards, starting the film as an 'old man' baby and growing eventually into an Alzheimer's inflicted 5 year old - is surprisingly easy to take on board because the effects and make-up are so well done. However they just come across as a gimmick that wasn't really needed to tell the central message of the story, which seems to be about 'the meaning of life, death and loss'. The effects scenes in the latter part of the film don't work quite as well as the earlier ones - there's something not QUITE right about the 20 year-old Pitt compared with the 80 year-old one, so that just as one is starting to become immersed in the central story, one is taken out of it somewhat. Admittedly, things have come on quite a bit since the last time this sort of effect was used (to show a young Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in X-Men III) but it's hard to see it as much more than a mildly diverting gimmick that utlimately lessens the film rather than enhances it. And it's scary to think that in 20-30 years time, given the current rate of progress, punters will probably be able to see the likes of Richard Burton or Steve McQueen at any age in their career, playing new parts in new movies!

I'm glad I stayed to the end of the film, if only because the performances from Pitt and Blanchette are as perfect as one would expect them to be. But the whole thing felt like the pretentious, overlong, nonsensical piece of film-making many have accused it of, and it's hard to understand why this has been nominated in the 'Best Film' or 'Best Director' categories. Even in a digital presentation too much of the cinematography felt too dark and at times impenetrable (I'd even go so far as to say 'poorly lit') and overall I was disappointed with what felt like a wasted opportunity to tell a genuinely moving story.

Hopefully the American Academy will reflect the decisions made by the British Academy at last week's BAFTA's, and just give the film a few 'technical' oscars. Anything else would be a grave misjustice.

We'll all find out tomorrow morning (here in the UK - tonight for US readers) who the real winners are. I think this is the first year I've seen ALL of the films nominated, with a trip to Clapham Picture House later today meaning that I will also get to see all the Oscar-nominated short films as well. My gut feeling is that the supposedly leaked letter showing the oscar results (which the BBC have reported is a hoax) will reflect the final results. There's one or two minor disappointments in that list for me personally (most notably in the 'Best Film' and 'Best Actor' categories) but nothing too upsetting compared with past crimes (Chicago as 'Best Film'? - give me a break!) I almost wish I didn't have to work tomorrow so I could stay up all night and watch the results come in.

ChannelFlip's Film (DVD) Review Show

2009-02-13T20:57:00.003Z

A few days ago I had an email from Ian Christie, CEO of ChannelFlip. It looked like one of those blanket emails I get occasionally, and asked if I'd be interested in a partnership deal that involved embedding a video player in my web site to promote a film review show the channel runs that could earn me advertising revenue.

I've had similar requests in the past (especially when my web site was attracting ridiculous amounts of traffic when I was producing the Lord of the Rings web logs) and have always turned them down. I've always thought there's something a bit tacky and desperate about blogs and web sites that carry advertising material. They annoy readers and usually turn out to earn the web site author mere pennies in revenue anyway.

Ian's note about the target audience for the film review show being 'savvy young men' (that'll be the 'young, dumb and full of cum' audience filling our multiplexes with endless American 'humour' and dumbed-down action movies then!) sounded alarm bells from the get-go. However, having only just blogged about the lack of a good DVD review show on the web I decided to have a look anyway.

I nearly gave up when the latest show kept giving me a 'Video not found' error every time I clicked to watch the latest show (a review of Don't Mess With The Zohan), but fortunately the problem seemed to have been rectified when I tried again 24 hours later, and I have to confess at the end of my first viewing I was left rather impressed.

The show, presented by Justin Gayner, is horribly mistitled in my opinion. As a film review show it lacks the appropriate timing of the excellent Spill site which publishes amusing cartoon-based reviews of films in the week of American release. And the iPlayer can always be used to watch the British Film 2009 if films are your main interest. ChannelFlip's show is actually more of a DVD review show since it typically reviews 'films' a week or so after they've come out on DVD, months after the theatrical release. The first editions of the show suffer from the usual 'how do you make a talking head interesting?' problem (an issue I struggled hopelessly with when I posted early 'alpha' editions of 'The Shiny Discs Show' around this time last year). This 'talking head' problem is one that even professionals on multi-million pound salaries haven't been able to solve, as viewers of Jonathan Ross' well-scripted reviews on the BBC's Film 2009 will testify, but it's good to see that more recent editions of the ChannelFlip film show have latched onto the fact that a few appropriately timed After Effects animations, as well as the usual film clips, can dramatically improve the pacing and entertainment value of the show.

The presenter is passionate and energetic, can write, and clearly knows his stuff, although admittedly the somewhat theatrical presentation style will not be to everyone's taste (I'm a bit bored with this shouty 'Project! Project! Project!' style myself if I'm honest).

But, all-in-all I do think the show has pretty much got it right, which is a bit scary when you're about to launch your own effort into what you thought had been a pretty empty playing field. The ChannelFlip film show doesn't outstay its welcome, running for a pert five or six munutes, is entertaining and amusing for the most part, gives more of the flavour of a film than a purely written review can do and, perhaps most importantly of all, doesn't freeze or stutter while you're trying to watch it. You can also subscribe to it via iTunes. All-in-all it's a pretty impressive debut.

Regular readers will know that I'm not keen on American comedies of the type that unfortunately make up the two most recent shows, but if you look back you'll see that the programme makers have shown great taste in the past, highlighting some really excellent films. I've chosen to embed (above) the show that reviewed one of my favourite films of last year - Man on Wire - from a few episodes back, so that you can watch it directly (click on the image up near the start of this blog entry). If you like what you see make sure to pop over to the ChannelFlip web site to see more of the same, and find a link to subscribe via iTunes.

ChannelFlip also produces short web shows that cover comedy, the web and gadgets amongst other things. Well worth checking out if you get the chance. In the meantime I like the show enough to have added it to my iTunes feed so that's a recommendation right there.

In the meantime, ShinyDiscs.tv, when it finally launches, will be premiering with a weekly show of about the same length (just under 10 minutes), but will be focussing entirely on Blu-Ray reviews, with a main 'Blu-Ray of the week' review, a quick precis of the other releases of the week, a look at the sales chart and a brief news section covering upcoming releases. I'm also looking to launch in simultaneous web/video and pdf editions so that those who don't have time to watch video can read at their leisure. Look for an official announcement about the launch here at the end of March.

And the award goes to...

2009-02-08T14:58:00.004Z

It seems fortuitous that on the day I've set aside for the BAFTA's (don't get excited I'm just watching it on TV like everybody else - the days of being shoved into a pen on a red carpet and shouting myself hoarse trying to get a celebrity to look my way for a photo are thankfully long past) this blog should get an award from "Premio Dardos".

'What's that?' I hear you ask (I had to ask it too!). Well let me quote from Steve's blog (Steve was the guy who nominated me) The Last Picture Show:

"The Dardos Award is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web."

It seems rather odd to win this award in the year I've done least blogging. I was proficient (at least with my shiny disc reviews) until February last year when I decided there was a 'gap in the market' for a VIDEO review of weekly shiny disc releases. Too many people are jumping on the video bandwagon (when actually the information would be quicker to impart and more useful in simple, written form) but I genuinely think film/DVD/Blu-Ray reviews can be done better via the video medium (if only to include clips and give a genuine flavour of the product being reviewed) and here in the UK fans are not being catered for at all by the main broadcasters.

Of course if I'd known work would get so manic, and the hurdles would be so large, I'd probably have abandoned the whole idea, but with work drying up on March 6th I'm cautiously optimistic that ShinyDiscs.tv will formally launch its weekly Blu-Ray Review show at the end of March.

Anyway.... If this blog entry reads like it's being rushed - it is. This year, instead of waiting for a DVD release after the gongs have all been given out I've tried to see all the oscar-nominated/BAFTA-nominated awards BEFORE the ceremonies, even though that's meant far more trips to the local cinema than I'd normally indulge in. Today is BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television) Awards day of course. For what it's worth I'd like to see Danny Boyle win 'Best Director' for Slumdog Millionaire, Milk walk away with 'Best Film' (it was emotionally the most engaging - Slumdog was too ridiculous a fairy tale with cartoon charicature 'evil' grown-ups and silly question coincidences meaning it failed to totally win my heart) and most of the acting awards too, with the possible exception of 'Best Supporting Actor' which Heath Ledger deserves for The Dark Knight, not because he's dead but because if you can't see the genius present in such diverse performances as The Brothers Grimm, Brokeback Mountain and The Dark Knight then your eyes must be closed! Alas, one nominated film Gomorrah remains to be seen (which thanks to having to work Saturday I only discovered had been delivered - on Blu-Ray - last night) and with just a few hours left until the BAFTA's start broadcasting I'm cutting it a bit fine!

However, to complete my 'award recipient' obligations, here are the 'five best blogs' I subscribe to in my RSS feed. I follow these guys religiously, and nominate each of them for a 'Dardos Award':

Brian Sibley: The Blog

Not strictly-speaking film-related, but a mish-mash of the many subjects that Brian's interested in. He's a huge film buff of course, and regularly appears on shiny disc as the 'talking head' film expert, especially where Disney, Tolkien, C S Lewis or Wallace and Gromit are concerned, as well as having been a broadcaster at the BBC for many years and a brilliant author too. His latest blog entry has a beautifully written and insightful review of the new Disney 3D CGI film Bolt on it - so go check it out. I feel very blessed that Brian is a mate and I get the chance to discuss movies with him regularly (although I'm sure his partner David gets bored to death as we compare notes), but his dedication to his blog, always updated daily, never fails to impress me and is what causes me to make my first award.

Filmstalker

is not so much a blog as a film site. Run by Richard, up in Scotland, its my main news source and although Richard and I have had lots of disagreements (I think we just like different things!) his hard work and passion are always evident. He's actually down in London to blog about the BAFTA's today, and his dedication (he has a full-time job and filmstalker is just a hobby) never fails to impress me. He runs a great site and loves talking to his readers.

Blowing My Thought Wad

is always a good read, from a writer who knows his stuff and knows good quality when he sees it (although I'm struggling to forgive him for his dissing of The Dark Knight and over-enthusiasm for Wall-E which I thought was fundamentally flawed in structure, pacing and story-telling :-P). Blogger 'Good Dog' at least makes me feel I'm not totally alone in thinking that the Americans are the only ones producing good drama these days and that Doctor Who and Torchwood are for the most part an infantile embarrassment to our notion that we Brits can produce good drama. Of course it helps that at times he's almost as cantankerous as me ;-)

Reel Fanatic

is another great read, from a passionate film buff. I don't know how the writer, based in the States, manages to hold down a full-time job, and still post a daily critique of film and television news and events, but he does a fantastic job of it, and unfailingly responds to any and every comment made too. A real class act! Add it to your daily RSS feed checks!

The Last Picture Show

This one's a very recent discovery, and looks like a bit of mutual back-slapping on my part since the author, Steve Langton, nominated my blog for an award. Truth is Steve's love of film shines through his every post, and I also enjoy following him on Twitter. Steve's based in Derby, not far from where I attended university (Loughborough) and shares my love of great punk bands that I saw perform live at many venues in the area in the late 1970's. The fact that he has such great taste in films as well is a bit of a bonus.

That's it. Gotta go. The Gomorrah Blu-Ray is calling.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2009-02-04T04:33:00.003Z

First off, let me "'fess up" and admit that this isn't really a film review - it's a Blu-Ray review. Although Vicky Cristina Barcelona is officially released to UK cinema's this Friday (6th February), the region-free US import has been available with 'next day delivery' for the UK from movietyme for a couple of weeks now, with the film having received its Stateside theatrical release way back in August last year.

The Blu-Ray is over-priced at around £21 - especially since it's a vanilla disc with no extra's at all - but that's what you get with the falling value of the pound, and at least you're going to get a crystal clear picture if you decide to opt for the Blu-Ray over a trip to your local flea-pit. One note of caution on the picture quality front though - the film looks like it's been 'Tango-ed' because of the ridiculous colour grading that's been performed on the film, presumably to make it clear the movie takes place in a hot country.

The film's title summarises the story perfectly: it's about two friends (Vicky and Cristina) and their trip to Barcelona! Vicky is straight-laced and conventional, having a last holiday with her best friend Cristina, before she gets married to a rathr dull lawyer. Cristina is her opposite - a, promiscuous, artistic, 'free spirit' who has commitment issues and, it transpires, low self-esteem despite obvious talent. The film is essentially the story of the two girls meeting a Spanish artist Juan (Javier Bardem) who cheekily introduces himself by suggesting the two spend a weekend with him 'making love'.

Cristina is attracted, Vicky is appalled and Juan's ex-wife, who has disappeared abroad after trying to murder her husband, returns not quite sure what she thinks.

The marketing of the film has been interesting, to say the least. Despite being a Cannes Film Festival award winner, the standard film trailer (not included on the Blu-Ray but which I caught at the cinema last week) and all the advertising I've seen makes no mention of the fact that this is a film written and directed by Woody Allen. I suspect this sublimation of the writer/director is deliberate, given the extremely negative reviews his last few films have received.

As the title suggests the film sees Allen moving on from London (where his last three films were made) in favour of Spain, and the move seems to have done him the world of good. Most critics are lauding this as a 'return to form' for the elderly director with 43 films to his name, although a few are at pains to point out that this is still a long way from the director's peak a couple of decades ago.

Javier Bardem shows surprising leading man charisma, turning a character that might have seemed seedy in other's hands, into a sexy, passionate, noble type whose purpose in life seems to be to bring out the best in others. I don't think I'm giving too much away when I say that the impact his character has on the lives of all the people he meets improves their lot, even if it means characters completely change what they have perceived to be the important things in life up to their point of meeting him. If nothing else, this film proves that Bardem's award-winning performance in No Country For Old men (aka 'the performance with the silly wig') was no one-off fluke. Given Allen's notorious difficulties in dealing with actors (he allows no rehearsal time and allows only one or two takes) the results on display here are quite astounding.

Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall give strong, totally believable and sympathetic performances as the Cristina and Vicky of the title, but when Penelope Cruz turns up in the second half of the film, as Juan's psychotic ex-wife, she totally steals the film (and not JUST for her much publicised 'lesbian kiss' scene with Johansson's character). She is at turns fiery, sensitive, bonkers and amusing, often within the same short scene.

The film does rely a little too much on narration to 'fill in the gaps', and feels particularly artificial in that you can 'hear' Woody Allen reading it even though it's actually Christopher Evan Welch performing the role. But this is a small criticism when so much about the film is so enjoyable. Allen is careful not to judge any of his characters, or even indicate which of the two widely different world views held by Vicky and Cristina are the 'right' ones, leaving the viewer free to simply fall in love with the characters and the simple story he's set up.

I found the film a subtle, beautiful piece of work - albeit one that is rather like a rather exotic, but light desert: very enjoyable at the time, but not anything that strikes you as particularly substantial or necessary when reviewed in the cold light of day. While Allen's touch is deft, and his choice of music sublimely in keeping with the film's mood and themes, for me it's the ensemble cast that steal the picture and make this a 'recommended' viewing.

Revolutionary Road

2009-02-01T17:19:00.002Z

Although Revolutionary Road has garnered a few award nominations, it hasn't grabbed any of the really big nominations, and so was not on my list of films that I really needed to see BEFORE they hit shiny disc.

However, a particularly gruelling week at work, followed by some tedious study on Saturday morning left me wanting some escape from all the drudgery and so I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go and see the film at my local cinema, The Clapham Picture House, now thankfully outfitted with pristine digital projection.

Despite a high rating on imdb the response from the British critics seems to have been somewhat luke-warm, with one or two pathetically resorting to mean-spirited attacks on Leo DiCaprio's 'weasily' face as some sort of critique. Nearly all reviews have emphasised the bleakness of the piece, with many concluding that this new essay on American Suburbia, set in the 1950's, is a much lesser work than director Sam Mendes' earlier 1999 treatise on the same subject, American Beauty. Seemingly Revolutionary Road is in dire need of some of the black humour that helped elevate that piece. So, I was all set up for a film of unremitting despair and dreariness. Thankfully I got a beautifully directed and acted piece about the break up of a marriage in the 1950's, which had real intelligence and depth and - weren't you paying attention critics? - several moments of black humour too.

As the film opens we meet Kate and Leo's characters, April and Frank Wheeler, strangers flirting with each other across a crowded room, quickly falling in love. Most reviewers have tried to play down the hype around this reunion of Winslet and DiCaprio - their first film together since the collosally successful Titanic - pointing out that these are two very different characters from the star-crossed, iceberg-bound lovers who many wanted to see reunited again. The couple will indeed spend most of this new film's running time tearing each other apart. That being said, I think these could very well be the same couple, with the film effectively showing that romantic feelings (or lust) do not necessarily make the best starting point for a good, long, happy marriage. We're not long into the film before realising the couple are having problems. April has aspirations to be a professional actress, but her first amateur dramatics production is a disaster, with her own performance being the worst thing about it; whilst Frank is stuck in an office job he hates but suffers in order to provide for his family and young children. He finds himself so miserable and unhappy that it's hardly surprising he ends up having a one night stand with an infatuated doe-eyed secretary. Marriage-wise, things can clearly only go downhill from here.

Unfortunately, this first, short section of the film suffers greatly from comparisons to Mad Men, the Emmy-award winning series about ad men in the early 60's. The characters look and act the same, the set design (particularly of the offices and restaurants) look and act the same, and the basic story seems to be the same. All that's missing are the more soap-y elements necessary to keep a show running over 13 hours of prime-time TV. So comparisons are inevitable when the film starts off failing to offer anything different.

Fortunately things take a turn about 20 minutes in, and from then-on the film becomes a gripping, acting tour-de-force as the lives of the young married couple who feel they are 'special' compared to those around them, unravel.

When April sees a chance for the family to escape their dull, suburban, unhappy lives, by escaping to Paris for a new life, it seems that maybe there will be a 'happy ever after' ending after all, despite their seeming naivety about what awaits them in Paris. Neighbours and friends are incredulous, if a little envious, but events soon conspire against the couple as multiple chickens seem to come home to roost at the same time and the planned escape starts to fall apart in spectacular
fashion.

Most reviews have centred on Kate Winslett winning performance as a depressed housewife, but for me DiCaprio's performance is the real relevation, and the far more interesting performance of the two. He has a much less sympathetic character to play but beautifully expresses the pain, sadness and anger his character experiences without resorting to histrionics. He is never less than 100% convincing, and the pain in his eyes is hard to bare. The actor has come a long way from the ridiculous 'pauper' acting as Jack that he gave us in Titanic.

Winslett delivers, as one would expect her to, based on previous form, but I couldn't help feeling this is the same Winslett act we've seen so many times before -Kate doing her teary, worthy, Oscar-nominated thing. It just felt a little too 'clever' to be entirely believable for me.

That being said, I was gripped by the film, right to its rather startling and abrupt end. The film takes its time to tell its story and tells it well, and the cinematography, from stalwart Roger Deacon is
stunning. It may not be a 'feel good' movie, but it's nowhere near as bleak as some critics have implied, and we're blessed that Hollywood can turn out strong, intellectual fare like this amongst all the banality
of gross-out 'comedies' and mindless action flicks that are guaranteed to put teenage bums on seats and turn a hefty profit.

Checking out the Ocar Nominated Films

2009-01-25T12:28:00.007Z

Good new movies are just like the buses at this time of year - a long time waiting for something good to show up, and then suddenly everything arrives all at once. We have the endless awards ceremonies to thank of course, but there does seem to be something wrong when my local PictureHouse has five screens showing nothing but oscar-nominated movies in the one week. If only one were faced with such tough decisions as to which film to see at your local cineplex all year round!

In an attempt to be more informed for watching the Academy Awards this year I decided NOT to wait for the shiny discs, most of which come out AFTER the awards ceremony, but actually check the films out on theatrical release. Alas, such is the poor memory of most that recent marketing machinations mean we're suddenly in a situation where most companies release films to the general public AFTER they're nominated, rather than months before, as used to happen. I can't help feeling that The Dark Knight (OK, I know it's fantasy which never does well, but even so...) and Christopher Nolan have seriously lost out because the film was released a few months ago rather than next month!

I saw Milk last week (and blogged about it here)
but used the weekend to catch up on three of its rivals.

Slumdog Millionaire

If my local cinema at Clapham is any measure of success Slumdog Millionaire looks like a slam-dunk for the 'Best Film' oscar. Two weekends running they've had to display "All performances sold out" even at 11am in the morning. Certainly if there were an award for 'Best Marketing' this film should win it. The decision to advertise the film as if it were a Mama Mia! 'feel good' movie is an inspired one, even if it totally misrepresents the film and the director is unhappy with the deception. Punters who will likely be shocked at the torture scenes that appear at the start of the film, but feeling beholden to stay to the end because they've already paid, will by the end feel they've been on a journey and seen a worthy film, even if it wasn't the one they'd been sold.

Personally, I thought Slumdog Millionaire was a very good film, but not an excellent one, and not one I'd give 'Film of the year' to. I liked the direction, whilst accepting that it may have been a bit too 'flash' in places for some, and there were some truly amazing shots of Mumbai and the slum area in the film. The young actors (or non-actors, as director Danny Boyle has indicated) are very impressive and the early scenes are moving and realistic. Unfortunately the later scenes in the story timeline, featuring the 'grown up' lead appearing on TV show Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? or being tortured are less successful. Dev Patel seems a nice enough chap, but this is a 'no acting really required' role for the most part, and it's scandalous that BAFTA have decided to nominate Patel for 'Best Actor', seemingly because of his nationality rather than any evidence from the film. Our hero has entered a TV competition purely to be seen and reunited with his childhood girlfriend. The trouble is there is no chemistry between Patel and his beautiful female lead, and I didn't believe in their 'life long love affair' for a second.

The story itself, described by director Boyle as 'a fable' is also too far-fetched to have any credibility. We are asked to accept that each question our hero is asked on the TV quiz show just happens to coincide with some obscure event that happened to our lead character on his life journey. This is silly enough as it is, but that they also happened to be asked in the correct chronological order to events in the lead's life, told as background between each question, is just ridiculous. Apparently this is carried over from the book the film is based on, but for me it just made the whole film's story ridiculous and contrived.

And I'm going to upset several Indian friends who are big fans of the film's composer A.R. Rahman, when I say that for me the music intruded far too often, and seemed to distract from, rather than enhance, the on-screen visuals. When music actually takes you out of the film, as it did on a couple of occasions here, there's something wrong.

None of this should stop you going to see the film. Like the execrable Mama Mia! it seems to have struck a chord with the general public, and certainly it's a MUCH, MUCH better film than the poorly-written and directed Abba spin-off. In many ways it marks a return to form for director Danny Boyle after the extremely disappointing, derivative Sunshine.

The Wrestler

If I was slightly disappointed with Slumdog Millionaire, I was even more so with The Wrestler.

The 'low budget movie' warnings should have alerted me of course, and in fact if it wasn't for so many enthusiastic reviews about the film itself, and Rourke's performance as 'The Wrestler' of the title I would no doubt have given this one a miss. Which, given my lack of enthusiasm for the actor I should have done. I'm not sure if it's the excessive ego, the rudeness and bad manners, or a strong dislike of the yappy little dogs that he's obsessed with, but I find myself avoiding any interviews with this 'difficult' personality.

Most reviewers said this was a 'character piece' rather than a movie about wrestling, but Lord there's a LOT of tedious wrestling in the film, especially in the first hour. The 'trailer home trash' real life story has been done, to much better effect I think, a hundred times before I think, and even the cliched 'let's have no real start and no real end' approach to the film, which others are claiming is 'brave' seem cliched to the extreme. It's like one of those tedious documentaries about people fallen on hard times, with no real let-up or variation on a tired, well-known theme. I found the film hard work and it's one you'd have to pay me to sit through again. Yes, Rourke gives an incredible performance - but is reliving the events of your life and playing yourself REALLY an oscar-winning ACTING performance? Not for this viewer. And not, it seems, for most of the public. Despite the rave reviews, the cinema was almost empty where all other screenings were full and it has already switched to matinee performances only.

My money's still on Sean Penn in Milk for the 'Best Actor' winner, although he has some serious competition in the form of Frank Langella in ...

Frost/Nixon

A 'talking head' movie is one I'd definitely avoid at the cinema - wait for the DVD instead. However, I'm glad I went to see Frost/Nixon before the awards ceremonies all kick off. The film, transferred from the London stage, was gripping, tense and beautifully acted throughout and whilst I kept thinking I was watching 'Blair vs Nixon' rather than 'Frost vs Nixon' because of Michael Sheen's over-familiar act, that didn't detract too much.

In many ways the film reminded me of Good Night, and Good Luck, a 'better' film in my view, but one shot in black and white which undoubtedly put a lot of potential viewers off. This more mainstream political drama is likely to prove more popular with the general public.

The direction from Ron Howard is perhaps a little pedestrian, but I think the material demands the sort of subdued subtlety that's in evidence here and the story plays to Howards' strengths rather than his weaknesses. But, ultimately, this isn't Howard's film or Sheen's - it's Langella's. As Nixon he gives a career-best performance of great subtlety and depth. I'd hate to be the voter having to choose between this performance and Penn's for the oscars this year.

So Who Should Win?

Personally, I think Milk deserves the 'Best Film' oscar - I found it more 'genuinely' moving than any of the other contendors. But I also think the subject matter (about an openly gay politician) means it hasn't a hope. I haven't seen Benjamin Button yet (not released in the UK until next month), but am already getting the sense from early critical reviews that I'll find it too contrived and sentimental to win me over. I suspect Slumdog Millionaire will win, and if so it certainly wouldn't be as ridiculous a result as a few years ago when Chicago won!

'Milk' it for all it's worth

2009-01-17T03:52:00.006Z

It's been a while since I last blogged, as the pressure of work, video, and preparations for new Microsoft certification exams seem to have taken over every available minute :(

But a bout of insomnia gives me a chance to blog about the excellent trip to BFI Southbank I made a few hours ago to see
Milk, the oscar-nominated film about the murdered San Francisco gay rights politician Harvey Milk who rose to fame in the 70's.

Director Gus Van Sant's films can be a bit hit and miss for me, and I frequently seem to take a contrary view to the general critical response, so that for example while I loved Elephant (a sort of retelling of the Columbine massacre in a very smooth, free-form, poetic style) which the critics didn't seem keen on, I really disliked Paranoid Park which the critics loved, but which I thought was badly-shot, self-indulgent, 'arty' tosh.

Then of course there's the oscar-winning Good Will Hunting, which wasn't a bad film, but one that really didn't merit all the hype it received at the time of release.

Thankfully, Milk marks a return to form for the director after a series of independent 'art house' movies, as Van Sant moves back to a more mainstream style of filming, with a biopic that is individual, powerful, moving, incredibly well acted and couldn't have arrived at a more appropriate time given what's happening in California with Proposition 8.

The film opens with titles over archive black and white footage showing the police raiding and arresting gay men in bars for simply being there. This was a time when men could be arrested for the simple act of holding hands, and to a modern audience the footage, showing men in suits sat at tables covering their faces so as not to be caught on camera as the police barge in to arrest everyone, comes across as quite shocking. Manhandled and stuffed into police vans like sardines, it's quite incredible to think this is real-life footage from not that many years ago.

Despite the shocking introduction, the main theme of the movie is a celebration of one man's vision of hope, with Milk fighting for the rights of minorities and against injustice being kick-started by the murder of a gay friend on Castro Street in San Francisco. Perhaps unintentionally (the film was made before Proposition 8 came into being) the film also helps to show how placid and resigned we've become to losing such hard-fought rights in a time when there's far LESS homophobia about.

Proposition 8 shows that history, yet again, is doomed to repeat itself, and as actor James Franco (who plays Milk's lover in the film) and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black pointed out in the Q & A that followed tonight's screening, few people - even modern gays who live close to where these events happened - seem to know the story of Harvey Milk, America's first openly gay politician.

Black's screenplay is based on extensive original research by the author, and the film features some of the real life characters in Harvey's life at the time. He has written a wonderfully warm, personal script full of humanity and life that doesn't try to paint Milk as a saint, but as someone of good heart, not moved to politics, who just felt he'd done nothing good in his life by the age of 40 and rose to meet the demands of a situation that was so unfair that it demanded action. Milk has flaws: a sexual attraction to weak, unlikeable, mentally unstable men being perhaps the main one and the flaws are portrayed here in a way that makes the man far more real than the simple 'hero' he's often been painted as.

Director Van Sant has put together a clever collage of real life footage of events at the time, together with original dramatic scenes, but if the film is one man's show (it isn't, as ALL the cast, including Josh Brolin, Emile Hursch and the afore-mentioned James Franco give performances that make the characters seem real flesh and blood, not actors giving 'oscar winning' performances) it's Sean Penn's. Those used to seeing Penn play angry, violent characters are in for a shock, his performance as the amiable Harvey Milk is full of joy, humour and sly asides that make you totally forget Penn the actor, as you watch Milk the politician as if he were still alive today. Where I'd be rooting for an oscar win for the much under-rated (until he died) Heath Ledger, I'm now leaning more towards Penn for what surely counts as a career-best performance. And with a career as impressive as Penn's has been, that's no small compliment.

The screening tonight, at the BFI Southbank in London, advertised a post-screening Q&A session with director Gus Van Sant, covering his entire career, as part of the Guardian Talks series of events. As it turned out, we were treated to two Q&A's - the one advertised, and then an extra one concentrating specifically on Milk with Van Sant being joined by his screenwriter and one of his lead actors.

By all accounts Van Sant is a shy man, and he's certainly a quiet one, not naturally given to giving long answers to quite involved questions, some of which came from the audience, but most of which came from a professional on-stage interviewer. Nevertheless he held the audience for the 30 minutes he had on stage, intercut with excerpts from his earlier work. He was self-deprecating and told some amusing anecdotes, such as how he spent 6 years trying to persuade Universal to support his 'shot by shot' remake of Psycho before Good Will Hunting's awards success suddenly turned a studio's position of 'Not interested' to 'That's a fantastic idea'!

While dismissing critics opinions, particularly with regard to the highly controversial Psycho, he seemed to admit that in this particular case they might have been right, saying that the film made him realise that simply copying shots isn't enough to recreate something, and that Hitchcock himself was the main ingredient that made the original film work, an ingredient that was clearly missing from his own remake despite featuring an 'exact' copy of each original scene.

I was surprised, watching the Good Will Hunting film, to see Ben Affleck's brother Casey Affleck in the film, thinking him a very recent recruit to the world of film acting (he is sensational in Gone Baby Gone, The Assassination of Jesse James and Lonely Jim), but Van Sant revealed that actually the much-publicised relationship between himself and 'new to film' Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, came about through him knowing Casey.

I'm a big fan of James Franco's work (and NOT just because he's so pretty, although I'm sure that probably helps!) Perhaps best known as Peter Parker's best friend Harry (aka the son of The Green Goblin) in the Spider-Man movies, or as the front-man for the current Gucci "men's fragrence" magazine campaign, his best performances have been in movies like In the Valley of Elah, Pineapple Express or even the critically mauled Flyboys. He's an incredibly versatile actor, and gives another excellent performance in Milk.

So it's disappointing to report that in person he comes across as a bit of an inarticulate, rambling, empty head - at least if his long-winded, content-free replies to the couple of questions directed his way at tonight's Q & A are anything to go by. It seems to be the pattern with really good actors - I remember feeling the same way about a similar Q&A at the same venue with Cillian Murphy around the time Sunshine came out. It's best, I guess, to just judge actors on their work and perhaps only allow them the limelight when they're doing that work, to avoid the shattering of illusions!

So far as the film itself is concerned, it seems unlikely that Milk will win the BAFTA or oscar for 'Best Film', even though it's been nominated. Not because it's not worthy (I really believe it is), but because Slumdog Millionaire seems to be winning all the marketing campaigns, after a slow start where it looked like The Dark Knight (probably my favourite film of last year) was going to be a shoo-in.

Tomorrow (erm, later today), I shall be seeing Slumdog Millionaire, hoping that it's significantly better than director Danny Boyle's last film Sunshine, which proved to be a huge disappointment (by all accounts 'Slumdog' is a significant return to form, so fingers crossed), and on Monday I shall be seeing The Wrestler, if only to see if Sean Penn's most fierce competitor for the upcoming 'Best Actor' oscar Mickey Rourke (I'm not a fan based on his personality and previous work) really does deliver the performance all the critics are saying he does.

Expect my thoughts on these other oscar contenders to follow later this week. In the meantime I highly recommend Milk despite the subject matter perhaps appearing a bit too minority-oriented to be of interest. The film goes on general release in the UK next Friday: 23rd January 2009.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

2008-08-17T16:39:00.004+01:00

The morning after a preview screening of Hellboy II: The Golden Army at the BFI Southbank I'm still trying to work out why I felt so let down by Guillermo del Toro's latest film. 'Disappointing' doesn't even begin to cover it.

Admittedly my humour wasn't helped by the fact that the ticket advertised by the BFI as being a preview that included a 'Q & A with the director' had no such thing (and of course no staff around to complain to - I'm guessing that since more than half the audience stayed to the end of the ridiculously long credits, I'm not the only one who got conned). What we DID get for the extra expense and trip to Southbank instead of our local fleapit was a self-congratulatory 30 second 'live' video introduction from the director who told us, rather presumptuously, that the film we were about to see was 'triple fucking A'.

Of course my expectations may have been too high, and my disenchantment with del Toro specifically may have set in with recent interviews and the way the fawning media are all over him as yet another 'flavour of the month saviour of cinema' director that the jibbering fan boys at Empire and the like suddenly seem to have fallen head-over-heels in love with (Tarantino didn't last long, did he?!).

The man who entertained with endless self-deprecating comments at Comic-Con several years ago, and indeed again at the NFT last year at the preview screening of Pan's Labyrinth seems to have turned into a sort of egomaniacal monster after all the oscar nomination hype, telling the world at every given opportunity how The Hobbit will be HIS fantastic vision and not Peter Jackson's - which may well be hilarious to watch from the sidelines (Jackson's real persona, by all accounts, is far more Machiavellian and controlling than the cuddly persona put on public view) but hardly augers well for the collaborative 'best of both worlds' originally promised.

The credit-claiming antics over The Orphanage didn't impress me either, although that may be the lazy media's fault rather than the rampant case of del Toro egotism it seems to be. Suffice to say that if I'd put my life blood and tears into directing such an excellent horror film, I'd be extremely pissed off at the number of column inches dedicated to praising del Toro (who was merely a producer on the film) as if it was all his work!

Those initial misgivings aside, I've loved del Toro's film work (although I thought Chronos rather over-rated) and although I don't think Hellboy is one of del Toro's best films (certainly not in the same league as Pan's Labyrinth or The Devil's Backbone which are real masterpieces) it was a SUPERIOR popcorn flick for all that.

Alas, 15 minutes in to the sequel, which most critics are touting as being a better film than its under-performing predecessor, I couldn't fool myself any longer, and found myself thinking 'This is an incoherent mess. Why didn't they go back and do re-shoots or edit the damned thing properly'. When you need title cards every few minutes to explain the time and place as you keep jumping around all over the place something is seriously wrong with the structure of your film. And unfortunately rushed editing was just the start of the problems I had with Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Mabye I should get the good stuff out the way first as I know a lot of folks have high expectations for this new film. Let me say straight off that Hellboy II isn't a bad film: it's not as bad as any of the Star Wars prequels or The Matrix sequels or even anything in the Pirates of the Carribean franchise. It has more than a few enjoyable moments.

But it's just not a film that needs to be seen on a big screen, at least if last night's NFT screening was typical. The print used at the NFT was muddy, murky and over-processed and the aspect ratio hardly cinematic. These were criticisms I had of the same venue's preview of Pan's Labyrinth (which then turned out to be absolutely stunning when released on DVD) so hopefully the shiny disc will rectify these problems.

The new film is more true to the comics than the first one was - in that it's less mainstream, more quirky, and has a LOT more going on. I gather the budget wasn't high, but by God every penny they had must be up there on screen. Del Toro's imagination has run wild and there are endless wonderfully inventive creations and creatures in almost every frame of the picture.

But the whole thing is like a ridiculously over-egged pudding with its CGI puppets, endless effects and prosthetics in a story that has little depth or originality (the first 10 minutes come across as 'Lord of the Rings redux' - but instead of rings being split between races to stop a war we get bits of a crown) and just involves moving as quickly as possible from one showcase battle sequence to the next. The humour, so much a hallmark of the comic book, seems stagey and contrived and... rather weak. You can see each quip coming a mile away and too often the one or two good 'wise-crack' lines seem like they've been added with no thought as to where the characters are at the time and the situations they're in, but just shoved in anyway to get a quick laugh.

Most critics have pointed out the film's single real 'character development' moment - Hellboy and Abe bonding over a late night drinking session - as a highlight, but for me it stuck out like a sore thumb as being so different (and out of place) from the never-ending eye candy 'haven't we seen all this before, and wasn't it called Farscape the last time we saw it' aliens and effects sequences that it jarred - like a clip from a completely different film had suddenly been just slammed into the middle of proceedings.

The biggest sin of all though was Danny Elfman's totally generic, bombasic film score that seems to invade every single frame of the film. Like a bad episode of Doctor Who it's there all the time, drowning out dialogue, deafening you with its cliche's, leaving no room for subtlety or any kind of light and shade that might be required to mark this as 'a film rather than a fair ground ride'.

Maybe when I get a chance to re-appraise the film on DVD in a few months time I'll think better of it, and discover the charm that so many critics seem to be convinced is there. But for now it all feels like a case of 'Emporer's New Clothes' - a film let down by not just poor writing and a lack of coherence, but a woeful implementation by a director who's formerly delivered films to such a high standard. Too often there are glimpses of what the film MIGHT have been if a bit more care and attention (and time?) had been lavished on it, but in its current form it smacks of being a 'rush job'. And whilst 'rush job' might be acceptable to the mindset that liked the recent Pirates and Indiana Jones movies, del Toro's past efforts have meant I expected so much more than what's been delivered here.

Experimenting with Time Lapse

2008-08-03T14:38:00.007+01:00

Despite the hot, muggy weather - and it being Summer and all - I managed to catch a cold from a colleague at work last week and on Friday felt so ill that although I made it into the office, half an hour later I set off back home for a hot bath, Lemsip and bed. Not good for the cashflow, but what can you do?!

Alas, the cold seems to have totally messed up my sleep patterns, which are sporadic at the best of times, such that at 4am this morning I was still wide awake, not feeling at all sleepy.

So I decided I might as well just get up and head off to South Bank and try and film the dawn, using the time lapse feature on my Sony PMW-EX1 camera.

Alas, it may have been warm and muggy when I left the flat at around 4.15am, decked out only in a thin t-shirt, shorts and sandals, but by 5.30am it was distinctly cold, and by 6am it was raining that annoying thin drizzle that we only seem to get here in the UK. Net result is that it was pretty much the worst thing I could have done, most certainly hasn't helped my cold recovery time, and the rest of the day is going to be pretty much a write-off as I try and catch up on sleep.

Cold and wet I had to give up on the filming, since it was clear the sun was never going to come out, but here are a couple of scenes I shot (just over a minute - nothing too time-consuming to watch) that show the 'time lapse' feature I'm talking about:

London, 3rd August 2008 By Ian Smith
View in HD Download 720p HD Version Visit Ian Smith's ExposureRoom Videos Page

Time lapse is rather more difficult than I'd anticipated. I haven't found any way to lengthen the interval time so it takes less than one frame a second (although I guess I could use the 'stop animation' feature for that if need be) and you have to do some funky stuff with the shutter settings to 'smooth out' movement that would otherwise be so jerky it's really unwatchable. However this shutter adjustment makes using the LCD to line things up extremely difficult as suddenly it's like having a display that responds to movement etc 12 seconds after it's happened, and then displays only a streaky image to help.

Alas, there's a couple of nasty changes in the exposure about half to two-thirds of the way into the clip above because the 'zebra' function on the camera which warns about over-exposure was suddenly going crazy as the light started to increase. I over-reacted and adjusted the aperture setting when really I think I'd have got away with just leaving things as they were.

Anyway, it was an interesting exercise, and I'll be going back to try it again when the weather's a bit less inclement. I must say I LOVE using this camera - almost as much as I love editing and playing around with video. So, despite being cold and wet it was nice to have the chance to use the camera for something other than just filming user group talks, which don't really lend themselves to a lot of creativity.

What surprised me most about my little excursion this morning was the number of people walking around at that time of a morning. It seems that Vauxhall is full of gay people heading out TO (not from!) nightclubs at around 4.30am on a Sunday!

The Dark Knight

2008-07-26T08:44:00.004+01:00

The alarm bells started to ring the week before The Dark Knight opened here in the UK (officially on Friday, but with previews available pretty much everywhere on the preceding Thursday night), thanks mainly to the fact the film had opened in the States to an unbelievable amount of hype a week earlier.

I'm always suspicious when films get the best rating ever on imdb, start appearing at the top of bloggers' "Top 10 Films of the Year so far" lists, have the media calling for oscar awards, and fans boasting of having seen the film three or four times - all within just hours of the thing officially opening. Such ridiculous knee-jerk reaction, without proper time for reflection and comparison with some truly great movies over the last century, has invariably in the past lead to a set of expectations that can only realistically end in disappointment when one finally gets to see what all the fuss is about.

The Dark Knight is a film I've been waiting a long time to see, for a couple of reasons. One: Chris Nolan hasn't made a bad film yet (Insomnia is probably his weakest, but even that was extremely watchable) and his Memento still remains one of my favourite films of all time. Two: Heath Ledger has always shone as a chameleon-like actor (my favourite type) in everything he's done, even when the film he's appearing in has been pretty disappointing (Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm anyone?). Check out Monster's Ball, Brokeback Mountain and The Patriot (as well as the afore-mentioned Brothers Grimm) for examples of what I mean.

Of course in saying this I risk looking like one of those morbid idiots who are suddenly calling for an oscar for Ledger, based solely on some sort of Princess Diana-like overly sentimental obsession with death. Or like the sort of people who can ignore real talent in great films for years and years until the second they appear in a major mainstream blockbuster, when they suddenly think they've discovered a 'new' talent that's actually been around doing great work for years. Why IS it that people too lazy to bother go and see anything other than big budget movies at their local cinema multi-plex seem to think they're experts on discovering 'new' talent?! In my defence I'd like to point out that if you check back through previous blog entries you'll see I've been enthusing about Ledger (and his co-star in The Dark Knight, Christian Bale) since quite some time before pre-production work even commenced on The Dark Knight.

But (as ever!) I'm veering into off-topic rant mode. What I'm trying to say here is that with all the hype I was prepared to be hugely disappointed with the second film in the rejuvenated Batman franchise that's been co-written and directed by Nolan.

Admittedly the film has flaws. So let's get those out the way first. There's some silly, totally unrealistic gadget gimmick McGuffins that are completely unnecessary - the most ridiculous being a video wall that uses sonar to pinpoint someone anywhere in the city by their voice! There's a lack of emotional depth meaning there's no real viewer involvement or sympathy for any of the main characters which makes it hard to care whether or not one of them dies. There are a couple of rather bad edits and plot jumps that indicate this was originally a 4 hour movie that had to be drastically edited down even to make a two and a half hour cut. And I should add that a major weakness in my first viewing was the fact that although the IMAX hi-def presentation is exemplary, this is only true if you're not unfortunate enough to be sat in the first few rows where it's impossible to take in the whole frame, and one is at such an extreme angle you're likely to spend a great deal of the film's running time feeling nauseous. By all means go and see it at an IMAX for the best experience - but NOT if you're stuck with a seat in the first few rows!

But those minor criticisms I mentioned really are minor in the grand scheme of things, and the truth is I loved the film. So much so that I'm rather keen to go and see it a second time to catch the subtleties I missed on the first viewing. So much so that yup, at the moment this is at the top of my 'Best films I've seen this year' list. Bizarrely, the two and a half hour running time (which would usually have me running a mile with moans about 'self-indulgent directors who need to learn to edit') flew by, such that I was kind of disappointed when the film ended and didn't have another half hour or so to go.

Quite simply, the film has a depth and intricacy - and intelligence - that is quite astonishing for a big Summer blockbuster movie from Hollywood. And, those minor criticisms aside, it's pretty flawlessly executed, with great pacing, stunning cinematography, skillful editing and cast performances to die for.

I liked Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan's first take on the Batman franchise, but The Dark Knight is on a whole different level. Many are saying that it will be impossible for Nolan to make a better Batman film, and seem to be hoping he'll refuse to make a third on the basis that you should quit while you're ahead, and although I can see what people mean, I'd still like to see him try and top this one. When a director's best is this good, even his mediocre films are going to be worth seeing.

The obsession with Ledger's death means that certain critics are rushing to distance themselves from the gushing 'He should get an oscar' reports appearing on a daily basis at the moment. 'Christian Bale is the real performer here', says one critic. 'No! Aaroon Echkart is the ignored oscar contender' says another, 'his performance isn't a one-note pantomime trick like Ledger's and is far more subtle'.

I beg to differ! As Gary Oldman (who, incidentally, is the second best thing in the film, in another performance that deserves a 'Best Supporting Actor Role' nomination) repeatedly points out in promotional interviews, Ledger has created a truly astonishing and original take on a villain that will stand the test of time, and be remembered for years to come. It's an iconic performance of an iconic role. Just one example: there's a scene where Ledger's Joker approaches Bruce Wayne's love interest, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal and somehow manages to convey pure male violence and aggression while on the surface playing it lightly as he playfully curls his hair effeminately behind his ears. It's a performance that alternately has you celebrating the pure joy of the maverick, while at the same time feeling an icy chill down the back of your spine.

Bale, so enigmatic in other films, seems to be coasting here and there's nothing really memorable about his performance - other than the silly fake voice adopted for when he's in costume, which just doesn't work and takes the film out of its neo-realistic take on the comic book character. Eckhart is fine, but he's really just playing the same character we've already seen in most of his films, and I never really bought into his 'so madly in love it drives him to insanity' relationship with Maggie Gyllenhaal's character.

Ledger, on the other hand, is totally mesmerising. A frison of anticipation and excitement enters the cinema every time he appears on screen, and he's reinvented The Joker character to an extent that even the very strong 'nobody will beat that' precedents set by Cesar Romero (in the 60's TV series) and Jack Nicholson (in the earlier films) are instantly forgotten.

This is one film that, for me, lived up to the hype. And it has sufficent plot and depth that I suspect I'm going to see it a second time at a cinema rather than wait for the shiny disc. Some argue that Nolan, as director and co-writer, has over-egged the pudding with too many strands, complexities and far-too-clever moral diversions that compare with the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan today. Personally, I happen to like over-egged pudding in an industry that far too often seem to rely on dumb, formulaic content-free 3D software showcases. And the fact that such an intelligent, well constructed and well performed film has just won itself a 'best opening weekend ever' accolade, along with plaudits from critics and public alike is a cause for celebration.

Go see it if you haven't already. Even if comic book movies just aren't your thing. Just one word of warning: this is, as the title implies, a very dark film, and despite the comic book connotations is NOT suitable for children.

Mad Men

2008-07-06T13:02:00.002+01:00

At the risk of becoming a bore on the subject, I keep being impressed by the quality (of the writing, acting, cinematography and writing values) of so many good American drama series, whilst dumbfounded at the endless critical praise heaped on the garbage that makes for drama series given peak viewing slots on British TV. The last gasps of Russel T Davies reign on the BBC's Doctor Who, which aired his season finale on Saturday, show just how dire a situation we're in. The last two episodes of this British award-winning series weren't just bad, they were dire. Actually make that diarrhoeia. Ask a six year old to write fan fiction and you'd get better results than the garbage that was put out as peak time viewing on the BBC last night.

What makes me so angry is that the Beeb are so busy pushing their tawdry tat as 'event TV', with constant updates on their news pages about what's happening and how everyone's tuning in, and the script's a secret etc etc that even the tabloids are all rushing to join in. Seemingly the need to cash-in on merchandising from the mindless masses who just follow what they keep being told to follow means that the real dramatic gems get consigned to the graveyard slots on BBC2 with not even the merest hint of promotion or advertising.

The BBC royally screwed up Rome, a series they'd invested millions of license payers money in, by doing what no other country did when showing the series - condensing the first two episodes of the series down into a single episode, cutting so much out in the process that what aired made no dramatic or cohesive sense. That they did so without telling anyone, presumably hoping nobody would notice in an attempt to make it fit between a couple of the cheap reality shows they'd rather be making, only adds to the general incompetence that seems to reside in the corporation's drama department. It was left to the episode's director, Michael Apted, to apologise profusely for what had been done behind his back, making it clear that he washed his hands of what aired in the UK as being in any way representative of what he'd filmed as director.

The BBC even manged to kill ratings winners like The X Files by introducing constantly changing schedules and time-slots that made it impossible to work out when the next episode might air, and on which channel.

They did the same, only worse, to The West Wing which never got off the ground despite rave reviews, because nobody could ever figure out what night and at what time the next episode might be on.

And now they've done it again. This time to Mad Men, the first season of which I caught a brief 10 minutes of by accident around midnight on BBC2 a few weeks ago just because I couldn't sleep and was channel flicking. I was so intrigued by what little I caught I imported the (thankfully region free) Blu-Ray disc of Season 1 from MovieTyme for just £22 (OK, £21.99 if you want to be precise). The show tells the story of ambitious, thriving ad men in Manhattan in the 1960's and is that rare thing - a subtle work of beauty, that's also thrillingly addictive.

It has more than lived up to my hopes. The writing is excellent, the cast are superb and the production values are exemplary - from the exquisite Saul Bass -homage opening titles, to the beautifully lit period detail in every scene. It exudes the sort of class and quality the BBC used to be famous for before it got obsessed with merchandising and producing infantile nonsense like Toshwood or endless free adverts for the two millionaires responsible for most West End musicals.

Thankfully, Mad Men has just been released on bog-standard DVD here in the UK and sells for £25 - a bargain thirteen 50 minute episodes of this quality - but, in yet another example of the great British rip-off, includes as extra's (if Empire magazine's reviews section is to be believed) just 3 commentary tracks and a couple of short extra's that deal with the music for the series and what advertising in the 60's was like. There is no hi-def release in Britian.

But my US imported hi-def release, paid for in British pounds and shipped to me from a British address, cost me £21.99. So, for £3 less than the official British 'standard definition - there's no other choice' release you can buy the hi-def version on Blu-Ray and get not just a far better picture that show the high production values the show has, but also had additional material. How much additional material? How about TWO commentary tracks PER EPISODE instead of three commentary tracks sperad across all thirteen episodes? Or a documentary on the making of the series itself?

Why would anyone with internet access buy the British release?! Come to that, why would the British release not only cut out so much additional material but then have the temerity to charge us a higher price? I think we all know the answer to that: it's just business as usual for the British distribution companies.

Things are so bad that I'm seriously considering purchasing an American Blu-Ray player to play the titles I want that AREN'T region free (basically everything from Fox, including shows like Lost which aren't available in hi-def formats in the UK). We get ripped off in so many ways - a big mark up in price for significantly less. How do they get away with it? There really is no excuse.

Empire gave Mad Men four stars by the way, which is a high mark for them, and I'd agree with that rating. But if you're going to check it out please buy American and don't encourage the UK industry which insists on ripping us off so much.

I heard over the weekend that another superb US drama series, Dexter, which kicks off its second season on a channel I don't have access to (FX) TONIGHT, is going to eventually surface on ITV. No doubt that will follow the fate of other quality drama over at the BBC and end up being aired too late for anybody to be able to watch it.

Still there was a little glimmer of hope for those interested in improving the quality of widely viewed British drama this week. In a Q & A session on the BBC web site hack writer Russel T Davies said that when he left Doctor Who at the end of the five specials next year he would never write for it again! Hoorah!

I hope and pray the BBC got that promise in writing! It's sad, especially as I loved his Queer As Folk scripts, but Davies' Doctor Who scripts have been the most inane, infantile, plot-hole filled, ex-deus machine ending filled garbage masquerading as drama that I've seen fill our screens in a long, long time. So, as far as I'm concerned, it's good riddance, thank God you're going, and please Mr BBC commisioner don't let him anywhere near sci-fi ever again if his work on Who is an example of all he can do.

It may get a bit quiet around here!

2008-06-14T12:28:00.005+01:00

I've wasted pretty much all of Saturday morning taking part in a senseless 'debate' (ie heated argument) with people on an online forum. Will I never learn?!

The 'debate' was about an American company's pricing policy. The company are continually promoting 'discounted' prices that have a limited time on them, with such gems as 'special price - ends tonight'. The trouble is that those 'special' prices almost invariably change to a new, even lower price just days later, which tends to annoy newbies unfamiliar with the way the company works its strong-arm sales tactics who've purchased the items thinking they've got a bargain, only to find it bettered days later.

Understandably, people get annoyed that before they've even taken delivery of their goods the 'special' price has turned out to be not so special as if they'd waited a day or two and ignored the so-called 'special' deadline that was advertised. This happens so often that the controversial subject of 'unfair business practices' or 'rip offs' tends to crop up fairly frequently on the company's forums. What's odd though is that this particular company has a small number of loyal, but extremely vocal, fan boys who moan endlessly about how often the subject comes up. This might be acceptable if that small minority didn't continually fan the flames themselves, by mercilessly bullying anyone stupid enough to show even a hint of disapproval about the company's practices. What usually happens is the poor naive newbie pointing out the obvious unfairness of the company's sales approach gets such verbal abuse that he invariably beats a hasty retreat, usually never to be seen again.

Today's 'debate' got more heated than normal because it centred around the fact that a week ago the company boasted a launch price that was "never" (their word) to be repeated, only to, as usual, then advertise a better deal just a few days later. Understandably, this upset a few folk who'd purchased before the "never to be repeated" better deal came into effect, with the salt in the wound being that they were still waiting for delivery of the items advertised under the older deal. I foolishly leapt into the debate when I felt the usual forum's fanboy minority were yet again bullying someone who had a legitimate complaint.

The counter-arguments put forward can best be summarised as 'The company products are so good nobody cares about the pricing. I'd sell my house, wife and kids to buy these products even if the day after I'd bought them I found they were being given away free to any newcomers. So why is anybody else complaining?'. OK, I exaggerate a little for effect, but you get the general drift.

The folks who've wasted so much of my time this morning don't seem to appreciate that the argument is about business ethics and 'truth in advertising' and not about the value for money of certain products in certain price ranges. Suggestions that they look up the word 'never' in a dictionary and then consult the guidelines of The Advertising Standards Authority to see why something's not just unfair but (at least in the UK) just plain wrong, are invariably met with intelligent, reasoned responses like 'You're always complaining. Why don't you leave?'. Fortunately I've had the good sense to exit the 'discussion' before the inevitable word 'whinger' raised its ugly head, which at least means my Saturday afternoon won't be a complete write-off too.

Generally, criticisms that I'm a 'frequent complainer' or a 'whinger' are just water off a duck's back. Especially when those making the calls (Microsoft evangelists on salaries take note!) have vested interests, or who demonstrate time and time again all they're interested in is point scoring rather than a fair and objective view. And there's a reason why this blog is called 'Irascible Ian' after all!

But the wasted time and energy in dealing with the negativity that radiates from idiots is getting to me so much today that I've decided it's time to take some good advice: 'If you've not got anything nice to say about somebody don't say anything at all'.

Well at least for the next few weeks anyway! Old habits die hard ;-)

Which is why there's no review of The Incredible Hulk in this blog entry, which I was lucky enough to see a preview of on Monday (lucky in the sense I didn't have to pay money for it). And why there isn't a lengthy discourse on how great the new Narnia film Prince Caspian is. Or even The Happening.

Heh! Look at the time I've reclaimed by not having to write about those things under this 'nice things only' policy!

The danger of course is that this blog might just disappear completely if all the negative stuff gets taken out.

Fortunately there's last week's Doctor Who, which was so well written and filmed, that I feel I can actually mention it here on this blog with a sense of enthusiasm and respect. It was the second of a two-parter by Stephen Moffat, whose episodes over the last four years have easily been the stand-out ones of the series.

Apparently the next few episodes - including tonight's - are written by Russel T Davies. I won't be watching. I'll be going to The Magic Circle instead. That way there's a chance I'll have something to write under the new policy on this blog tomorrow!

Another "Catch up" Post

2008-06-02T19:02:00.004+01:00

My blogs have all suffered as I've wasted one weekend after another trying to get Shiny Discs properly launched. It's now 'on hold' until I can afford decent hardware to ensure I don't spend two days producing a weekend show, only to then find it needs a week to edit in titles and then render them out.

I may revive the old DVD reviews in the absence of the weekly video podcast if I haven't got things sorted by the middle of July, but in the meantime here's a few quick thoughts on titles I've seen recently.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets (on Blu-Ray) - not as bad as the critics have said it is. Formulaic and a bit pedestrian perhaps but I was never bored and this is worth seeing just for the incredible London car chase scenes. Nic Cage isn't my idea of someone who makes for a good leading man (although his sidekick in this film, Justin Bartha does, with quirky humour, some great lines and traditional good looks what's not to like?!) Helen Mirren joins the 'franchise' and it's good, if somewhat old-fashioned and extremely silly, Saturday teatime popcorn fare.

My Kid Could Paint That is a fascinating documentary on DVD about a four year old child hailed as an artistic prodigy. But as the story unfolds suspicions arise that it may be the girl's father who's actually doing the painting. The film and to an even greater extent the extra's show how scarily able human beings are to totally delude themselves to justify their decisions, even when the evidence is right in front of their eyes. One of the most enjoyable documentaries I've seen in a long time.

The Savages on DVD was a disappointment for me, despite starring the wonderful Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. All the best bits are in the trailer, and the film loses its way by not sticking to the main story that starts the film - that of two siblings forced to face dealing with a father who develops dementia. His predicament pretty soon gets dropped as the story moves all over the place trying to show the two childish siblings finally reaching adulthood. I'd expected more laughs and more of a single-strand story than I got with this one.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead on Blu-Ray was a real joy for me. Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman give incredible acting performances in this story of two brothers who set up a bank robbery on their parent's jewellery store to sort out their financial problems, only for things to go horribly, horriby wrong. It's the 84-year old director, Sidney Lumet who's the real star of this film though - he brings a fresh, exhuberant energy to the direction that totally belies his age.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days on DVD has won a lot of festival awards. I was worried the bleak subject matter (abortion in 1980's Romania) would mean this would end up like the last Romanian DVD I saw (The Death of Mr Lazarescu - ejected after a long hour that made the prospect of watching paint dry for a week seem exciting). But I was gripped throughout, and it's a very well made, powerful film.

I've also been catching up on some TV by way of DVD box sets.

24 Season 6 is just turgid and I gave up on it about 2/3 the way in. Repetitive, unbelievable and just plain dull this is by far the worst series of the show so far. Previous series have had me hooked from start to finish. Not this one! Did the regular writers leave or something?

Dirt was also disappointing given the generally enthusiastic cricial reviews. Admittedly Courteney Cox gives an impressive performance, but the show is so obviously trying to shock with its endless sex scenes and drug-fuelled storylines, I got very irritated with it very quickly. It's like someone tried to steal all the best bits from the likes of Six Feet Under, Nip/Tuck and Ugly Betty, but forgot that you need more than just 'quirky' to make it addictive viewing. There isn't a single remotely likeable character in it and the whole thing comes across as a 'we've got a deadline - write something' rather third rate soap opera. Not terrible, but not great either!

The big surprise has been Skins on DVD (Series 1 and 2). The trailers on Channel 4 put me right off watching this when originally broadcast, and the tagline 'From the makers of Shameless' did nothing to dissuade me that this was the sort of rubbish that lay at the root of London stabbings, yobby, foul-mouthed youth and endless reality TV rubbish. Truth is I have zero interest in drug-addicted, sex-obsessed teenagers. Or so I thought. But the series is great because it has real fleshed-out characters that you find yourself sympathising with. The series has great writing, with wonderful laugh-out-loud moments mixed with 'Reach for the Kleenex' tragedy, and a cast able to deliver on the writing. I now understand why the show is so popular with the young folk. It's well worth renting out if you missed it on TV.

On the big screen yesterday I went to a preview of Narnia: Prince Caspian which hits cinema's on June 24th. Of the four of us who went I think I was the only one who actually thought it was rather good. I didn't like the first 'The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe' film, finding the acting, particularly from the children, very poor, the direction lackadaisical, and the pacing tedious in the extreme. It was a kid's film, pure and simple. The new film is definitely more of an adult's one, although it's become one by emulating (or trying to) 'Lord of the Rings'. As a result the original book by C.S. Lewis has been pretty much lost, with lots of silly new stuff added (jealous rivalry between the two elder boys, a love affair between Caspian and the eldest girl, an invented battle in the thin second act etc.). The film is MUCH too long at 2 hours and 25 minutes, but the effects are consistently good throughout and much better than those in the Harry Potter franchise. But I went in with pretty low expectations which may be why I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Certainly I'd agree with most of the early reviews that suggest there's nothing original that we haven't seen before in the film.

Video editing - knowing when to give up!

2008-05-26T10:34:00.004+01:00

I seem to have spent most evenings and weekends of the last few months sat at a computer, waiting. Waiting for the computer to do something that should take seconds but, inexplicably, starts taking hours.

For the last few weekends and a few Bank Holidays too I seem to have survived on just a few hours sleep, trying to get a slickly designed and produced video podcast ready for the web. Only to find I run out of time, have to throw away all the hard work done over the previous week (because each week the material becomes out of date), hit the 'reset' button and go through the whole wretched process again a week later.

Signs that things were not going to be as straightforward as promised by the hardware and software manufacturers who'd sold me high priced equipment surfaced pretty early on, with basic camera usage.

Sony's PMW-EX1 camera is an amazing camera for the (not inconsiderable) price of over UKP4000. The high def picture quality and level of control available is amazing. But the build quality is worse than that of a very cheap Christmas Cracker toy. Sony just love deliberately building in obsolescence - and as I look at a broken PC, several broken DAT players, a broken portable CD player and a broken digital video recorder, it seems to me that this is deliberate policy on ALL their products.

The PMW-EX1 is a hi-def camera that has numerous fiddly controls designed for fingers the size of matchsticks, with much needed lettering that flakes off within weeks of being used. It features an on-camera microphone holder which snaps off just by having a piece of camera bag material brush against the attached microphone.

The video forums are full of early owners disappointed at the frankly shit quality of what Sony have done in several areas, when the camera is so beautifully well designed in others.

What I find really bizarre is that whenever somebody rushes in to complain about any of the problems a horde of Rottweiler-like fan boys rush in to say 'What do you expect for the price? The picture quality is great. Who cares about the ergonomics or the build quality?'. I don't know why these 'fan boy' owners don't just walk around wearing 'Please rip me off. I'll never complain because that would mean admitting I made a mistake in my purchase' t-shirts. The reason we get such shoddy products is that people just seem happy to accept third-rate products that don't deliver on the promises made in the sales material.

My second 'learning curve' came with buying some animated backgrounds from Digital Juice. I should state upfront that I like Digital Juice a lot. They make great products, at ridiculously affordable prices, and have a customer service department second to none. But they also have this annoying practice of changing their prices on an almost daily basis. However, I guess that's a subject for another day. My frustrations with their product started with finding approximately half the DVD volumes I purchased from them - which should just load within seconds - would sit cranking away, locking up my whole computer for over 8 hours at a time, before finally giving up without installing the required video collateral!

Endless experiments and to- and fro-ing eventually pointed to my DVD drive being the problem, despite it having had no problems with numerous Microsoft software installation discs from MSDN. This is the 'fitted drive' that came with a top-of-the-range laptop that cost just under UKP4000! Digital Juice suggested getting new drivers but there are none available. What is available, if you do an internet search, is a lot of owners of the same drive complaining about lack of decent drivers and the way the drive keeps 'disappearing' from Vista on reboot. Unfortunately, this being a 'fitted' Dell PC, there is no simple alternative to replace it with.

I had thought I might be able to use an external Blu-Ray drive to load the discs instead - another expensive piece of equipment. But no, that drive too fails to read discs that other drives have no problem with! Shouldn't this shit just work? Are DVD formats a standard specification or not? Why am I wasting hour upon hour just trying to get basic functionality I foolishly assume I've paid for to work?

The next problem is that despite having 4GB RAM on my PC, video editing is too slow to be practical. Available disk space is part of the problem, so last week I bought a 2TB external RAID drive from Western Digital. If you're tempted, as I was, by their My Book Premium Edition II range that proudly boasts it's suitable for hi-def video, please do an internet search to find out how many angry owners all trying (and failing) to get their money back on this product there are!

Problems were obvious from the get-go. The drivers didn't auto-install as the flimsy one sheet instructions supplied with the drive had said they would. Not a biggie - I installed them manually. The drive then became visible in Windows Explorer and I could use the 2TB drive (actually two 1TB drives RAIDED together) to read/write to. But the supplied RAID manager, necessary to switch between RAID 0 and RAID 1 configurations, just keeps saying "no device found" despite the fact the drive is happily there, visible AND usable. A quick search via Google revealed no solution - just a LOT of unhappy customers complaining about what an awful product it was, and how customer support was non-existent. Some owners are still trying to get Western Digital to fix their problems more than a year after purchase!

Last night, after working crazy hours for two days on filming, DVD reviewing, script editing and collating assets I started to try and put the final touches together for a video podcast I wanted to launch last night (with another show to follow this morning). Using the Western Digital drive to hold assets introduced an interesting performance issue. Hit any key in the video editor and the PC would lock up for 10 minutes with the Western Digital drive flashing to say it was doing something, but I've no idea what. Want to split a piece of video to insert something? Wait 10 minutes. Want to back up a frame to line up a transition? Wait 10 minutes. After 6 hours I realised that my four minute video would require a week of working 18 hour days to get ready with this hardware. Hardware sold as 'suitable for use with hi-def video' I hasten to add.

I've had enough! Video podcasting plans are on hold until I can afford the 8 or 9 grand that seems necessary to purchase a turnkey solution suitable for video editing. A turnkey solution that has proper backup and support and NOT the sort I've had from Sony, Western Digital and Dell over the last few months! The time I can afford that sort of money to get something that will actually do what it says on the tin seems some long way off, but in the meantime if you've found a good packaged hardware solution, ideally one that's PC-based since I've spent a fortune in time and money in learning Sony's Vegas Pro package, please let me know.

In the meantime, I'm just going to look forward to a few free evenings, some decent sleep, and casual weekends for a change! The world of video editing makes the world of flakey Microsoft beta software and continual patches seem professional by comparison!

I'd better not give up the day job!

2008-05-14T22:48:00.005+01:00

A few weeks ago I blogged about a Single Camera Documentary Film Making Course I went on for a bit of fun, and wrote how I felt the whole thing was a poorly given rip-off. I think there's a lot of these sorts of rip-offs aimed at 'wannabe' film-makers and producers, often aimed at gullible newbies who think it might give them some sort of magic pass into the film-making industry.

After that experience I'm kind of relieved to be able to give a much more positive account (or, given the name of the company behind the course, I should say Pozitiv account) of the one day TV Presenter's Course that I went on as a way to 'celebrate' my 51st birthday on Tuesday.

No, I don't have any aspirations to go and work as a TV presenter (which is just as well, as I'm rubbish at it), but I did want to try and improve my 'on camera' apparances for my weekly video podcast over at ShinyDiscs.tv

I should say upfront that the course isn't cheap, but then quality rarely is, and the glowing references from a ton of reliable sources (like The BBC and The Guardian) together with a long list of former clients whose names I recognised 'from the telly' meant I thought this was probably the best course to go for. The fact that the next available course coincided with my birthday and had one space available (out of just six available places per course) acted as a beacon that said 'You're destined to do this'.

And I'm really glad I did, even though, as I'd initially suspected, the course didn't transform me into the great presenter I'd like to think is hidden inside me. The main thing is it was a LOT of fun, and I was really impressed with the attention to detail from the company behind it, which extended to delivering me a birthday cake with candles on half way through the afternoon viewing session :)

My experience all through the pre-booking and final course assessment with this company was never less than professional and customer-focussed. Which is a pretty rare thing these days, in my experience. Frankly it's a relief to be able to post something good about a company, after all my experiences of late!

The schedule for the course was really scary, particularly when you realise that most of us attending had no prior experience of being in front of a camera or in a TV studio. The company send out an information pack a week or two ahead of time and you have to choose (or write and send in) an autocue script for one exercise, and make sure you have learnt another piece ready for a 'live broadcast' exercise on the day of the course itself.

What impressed me about the course was that I felt it was very 'real world', where another company would probably have made the exercises much easier and more 'mickey mouse', if only to make the students feel good about themselves. They warned us ahead of time that there might be some 'surprises' (ie spanners in the works!) instead of just simple exercises we'd been initially prepped for, and so it proved to be, which I think is much more typical of what happens in the real world.

For example the first exercise - apparently the one most students have trouble with - was a rather scary 'talk about yourself to camera' piece which you had two cracks at, with tuition between the two attempts after some initial training about what to do, and the various floor manager signals you would get. The 'surprise' on this exercise was that you didn't know how long you were going to have to talk for until just before the recording started.

Next up was a scripted autocue piece against green screen, with the idea again being to have two takes. What really impressed me here, given that this was the piece most relevant to what I was looking to do in video podcasting, was that the instructor took the time to give me advice and then do as many takes as were needed. I think I ended up with something like six takes when all was done, with new advice between each, and although it meant we started running a bit late (and the other students were propably really annoyed with me) it was typical of the personal attention I think we all got at different points throughout the day. A lazy instructor would have just left things as they were after the second take.

The course instructors had pre-prepped things to the extent that whatever subject a student chose they had a choice of three different 'green screen replacement' backdrops for each of us to choose from that were all specifically relevant to the subject we'd chosen. For most of the people on the course these exercises were going to be part of a 'show reel' they used to try and get work, and it was good to see them trying to personalise things very specifically to the student's choice.

Next up was the 'outside broadcast', conveniently filmed on the green outside The Houses of Parliament, just opposit the studios where the course is held (and also used by the BBC and ITV). Here we each had to deliver a prepared script, but without autocue (although clipboards were allowed). The other students all said they were most looking forward to this, but I was dreading it the most because I'm hopeless at learning stuff by rote. I find that appearing 'natural' whilst struggling to remember whole sentences with key facts is incredibly difficult! I ended up needing four takes to get it just about right, but the funny thing was that it turned out everyone else had problems too, and the initial confidence of the other students soon evaporated as some of the 'live broadcasts' descended into four letter word expletives or people just freezing up as they experience the sort of 'brain fart' I am all too familiar with.

Again, the director and crew gave nearly all of us three or four takes rather than the promised two to get us to continually improve and learn new techniques for coping. The 'surprise' on this exercise was that we had to deliver the broadcast not standing still, but while walking with a very wide-angle camera seemingly just inches from our faces. Apparently I was chasing the cameraman rather than just walking naturally allowing him to follow me! Even worse, my idea of walking in a straight line while delivering a piece to camera from memory is to apparently zig-zag all over the place, which can be particularly 'challenging' for the cameraman given the number of other professional crews gathered in that very small park who tend to be there interviewing MPs pretty much all day long!

The final exercise of the day - the big one - was two takes of a 'magazine' programme, with each take recorded back to back almost immediately after each other. This exercise had all kinds of distractions: multiple camera's, autocue scripts we'd not really seen before, constant director instructions through an earpiece, and an unscripted but rigorously timed interview. The fear in the air was palpable!

The first take was to involve just a 90 second guest interview slotted into the middle of the programme, the second take was with a different guest for that section, but with the interview expanded out to 3 minutes.

I was constantly surprised at how people could contradict your assumptions about what they'd be like when in front of a camera. Carl, an ex-radio DJ from Manchester station Galaxy FM, who I chose to interview for my magazine section, had looked really terrified just before his first take of the magazine program (he was first on, and I was his first guest) but as the opening music cued it was like a switch went on and he transformed himself brilliantly.

Another chap, who was a real extrovert and 'character' when with the group, was someone we all thought would be great 'on camera', but when the camera started rolling he became rather dull and static (just like me).

The only disasterous take of the day (on previous courses some people have apparently frozen completely or ended up in tears as the pressure has built up) was my first take of the magazine programme! In the morning the autocue had been close enough for me to read without having to wear glasses (which I usually avoid for anything other than driving). As we started recording the magazine section I realised (too late) that the camera was further away and all I could see of my autocue script were some very fuzzy words which I often mistook, somewhat hilariously, for completely different words! It was an incoherent rambling mess, and the whole thing was not improved by the fact I thought I'd heard the director give me a '10 second - wrap it up' warning when he hadn't, so that I finished up having to fill 10 seconds of dead time before the end credits. Nobody - but nobody! - is ever going to get to see that footage I can tell you!

Fortunately a hastily grabbed pair of glasses (thanks Jo!) meant my second attempt wasn't quite so bad. You can see for yourself how it turned out in the video below. It was only when watching the DVD/VHS tape that the organisers give you at the end of the course, that I realised I had got the guest's surname wrong in my introduction! Oh, the horror! Admittedly, it's not very good, but I include the segment here so you can get more of a feel for what the exercises on the course were like (and watch me squirm!)

By the way, if you think the studio looks familiar that's because it's the one used for The Frost Report and, like most TV studios, looks so much better on camera than it does 'in the flesh' where the couch seemed really grubby and worn! Apparently Sarah Jessica Parker had sat where I was sitting just the day before - a fact which seemed to excite some of my fellow students!

All-in-all, I thought the course was excellent and made for a really fun, if totally exhausting, day. Although I'm clearly never going to be very good at this sort of stuff, I thought I was given some excellent advice and tips throughout the day - I just didn't seem able to personally deliver on too many of them.

Anyway, if you have any aspiration in this direction yourself, or just want a fun day doing something completely different, I highly recommend this course (apparently a big favourite with Big Brother contestants when they leave the house!). You can check out all the details at pozitiv.com.

The course certainly made for a birthday I'm going to remember more than most - and all in a good way :)!

Neighbours!

2008-05-12T11:04:00.005+01:00

There's an old saying 'You can choose your friends, but not your family'. I think it needs updating for the noughties, especially for those of us living in London. It should read 'You can choose your friends, but not your neighbours'.

For the third time in the ten plus years I've lived here my upstairs neighbour decided to start running his bath and then promptly forgot, ignoring even the heavy pounding on the door I was giving to alert him to the fact that yet again the moron was trashing my bathroom.

Lights in the bathroom have been fading in and out despite being turned off at the central switch for most of Sunday afternoon and evening, and there was no electricity in the lounge, bedroom or hallway, although the study survived intact. About 7 years ago the flat was completely rewired. I'm beginning to think the work carried out was less than stellar, and the relation of the labelled fuses on the wiring box bears no relation to what actually happens when I get flooded out!

The electricity is now thankfully back on (except for the bathroom), and at least the warm weather means the bathroom should soon dry out. I own my property but my neighbours are tenants so I guess they just don't care about repeatedly flooding me out. The local estate office will no doubt reimburse me for the costs of sorting the mess out (ie the electrician who's looked at the results). But they never reimburse you for the hassle, inconvenience and, more importantly, the day's lost pay in trying to get the mess sorted out.

Alas, I'd like to say that this third 'wash out' will mean the afore-mentioned tenant will be evicted, but given that the tenant below me has happily survived tens, if not hundreds, of warnings about deafening noise all through the night (he has a habit of leaving his DVD player on full-blast menu-repeat all through the night - I know each and every note to the '24' menu system off by heart, having spent so many Saturday night/Sunday mornings hearing it) this looks unlikely.

Oh well. The bathroom was overdue for a refurb anyway I guess and at least it didn't happen while I was away! And compared to the suffering in China (a 7.5 earthquake apparently) this is all pretty small beer. Damned annoying all the same.

The BBC Just Don't Get Hi-Def!

2008-05-11T08:35:00.003+01:00

It seems somewhat ironic that within just days of making the big announcement about the upcoming free High Definition TV service from the BBC and ITV, I should find two pieces of evidence indicating that the BBC are either totally incompetent or just plain clueless when it comes to being realistic about the importance of content for High Definition (HD) video.

Online internet sites offer upload/download of 720p high def video already, and the number of these video hosting sites is growing, seemingly almost daily. But in the meantime the BBC seem determined to just ignore the demand for HD and create barriers to entry.

The newly launched (and rather excellent) Reel Show TV features the main High Definition guy at the BBC reviewing the new Sony PMW-EX1 camera (it's in part 3 or 4 of the first edition if you want to check out the video). The man from the Beeb talks about how impressed he is with the new Sony camera, but somehow neglects to point out the most important things about it, leaving the seemingly more knowledgeable interviewer to step in and do it for him. Nevertheless the BBC rep says the camera gets an 11 out of 10 on their scale of evaluation (based on using a 'benchmark' Sony Z1 camera) and then goes on to say that the output from this '11 out of 10' camera is not allowable for their High Definition service! WTF?!! This is a camera that received a ringing endorsement from the Hollywood film professionals who make up the membership of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) who professed themselves blown away at a cinema screening of a film made using the camera. But it's not good enough for the BBC's artefact-ridden, heavily compressed HD service!

The reason, apparently, is that the camera only outputs HD at 35Mb/sec where the BBC have arbitrarily decided they won't accept anything less than 50Mb/sec. The man from the Beeb declares that this is to keep standards high, whilst admitting that the picture quality, even at the 'lowly' 35Mb/sec is outstanding and that he couldn't see any differences in picture quality. Sometimes I think the world really has gone mad with the idiotic bureaucrats having completely taken over the asylum.

Further evidence that the BBC is letting incompetents make the key decisions on HD comes from an interview with prize chump Russel T Davies (aka 'Billy Bunter'). Davies explains that Doctor Who isn't being made in high definition because the increase in budget required to shoot in HD is not worth it. WTF?!! Even the internet's moving to High Definition, and yet the BBC's so-called 'prime' BAFTA award-winning drama series - the one that generates an absolute fortune through merchandising and sales abroad - has decided it's not worth bothering with. This is the same sort of monstrously stupid short-term thinking that caused the BBC back in the late 80's to trash so many of the old Doctor Who video source material, not realising that they'd just thrown away a small fortune in future VHS and DVD sales.

Regular readers will know that I think Russel T Davies makes a lousy 'head writer' for Doctor Who. I'm enjoying the current series far more than any previous one, and that can only be explained by the fact that it's because Davies has not written any of the last 4 or 5 episodes. But to have the 'head writer' now making use of technology decisions that will affect future transmissions, worldwide sales and sell-on Blu-Ray opportunities is utterly ridiculous.

His words MIGHT have some sort of value to them if the appallingly bad Torchwood hadn't switched to high definition right from its first episode. This series doesn't get anything like the viewing figures Who does (despite the non-stop ads), primarily because it not only has unbelievably juvenile writing, but also the worst acting I've seen on a prime time series in a long, long time. It makes Hollyoaks look like an oscar winner! And yet it has the 'budget' for HD, where Doctor Who doesn't!!!! The first series of Torchwood is being released for the THIRD time (talk about flogging a really dead horse!) next month, this time on high definition Blu-Ray disc. Fans of Doctor Who who prefer high definition viewing are wasting their time hoping for something similar. The series isn't shot in high definition and therefore won't appear in high definition.

While we're on the subject of HD, and because even I'm getting sick of my own ranting about the fools, dolts and nincompoops that seem to control nearly every aspect of our lives, it seems best to try and end on a happier note by mentioning the wonderful folks at Digital Juice. These guys show what a company can achieve when it employs people who are genuinely passionate (and not just people who keep telling you how passionate they are - Microsoft take note!) and care about quality. Their customer service is fantastic, their web site contains some of the best 'free training' on video that I've seen, their products are market leaders, and even the packaging shouts 'quality' at you. They've just relaunched their magazine (available as a free PDF download) and, of course, most of their products are produced ready for instant high definition. While the BBC seem happy to pay obscene amounts of money for spinning '6 o'clock news' graphics these guys produce the same sort of stuff for very affordable prices, with strictly limited copies so that you don't run the risk of the whole world and his wife using the same material. I just wish more companies operated the way they do.

May the Fourth Be With You!

2008-05-04T20:15:00.002+01:00

There's nothing like a good pun to open a new blog post.

And yeah, I know that the title is nothing like a good pun!

I seem to have spent most of the Bank Holiday break wrestling with Sony Vegas Pro to edit video together, but am finally starting to feel that I'm controlling it, rather than having it control me!

The first 'proper' weekly video podcast is uploading as I type (with two hours to go before it finished and then starts compressing - sigh!) but at least this one's in 720p hi-def and although still too long, half the time of the early 'preview' show which clocked in at just under half an hour.

I'm happier than I was with the preview with the way the visual side is going - especially the Top 10 rundown, but my presentation (narration and 'on camera' performance) still sucks big time.

I'm going on a TV Presenter's Course for my birthday a week on Tuesday, so hoping that the folks there can give some hints and tips on how be less 'wooden'. The company running the course trained Natasha Kaplinski and seemingly almost everyone who works in television today, and it's conveniently run just down the road from me, opposite The Houses of Parliament, so fingers crossed! I must say the course looks pretty intense and we've been given home-work (script writing) to prepare before the course. It turns out the six attendees are all going to have to do an informal piece to camera (with no idea how long to talk for, under the control of someone barking instructions down an ear-piece), an autocue piece, an outside interview, and a couple of magazine-styled interviews - all on top of any training we're given. It's quite a long day but should be fun!

Fortunately, I haven't spent all my time at the computer, although it sometimes feels that way. On Friday night I 'escaped' and went to see the Iron Man movie, having renewed my annual subscription to the Clapham Picture House, receiving three 'free' tickets as a result.

I wasn't disappointed in the film, although the final act suffers from the usual Hollywood nonsense, and comes across as a carbon-copy replay of something from the Transformers movie. As I've mentioned in my Shiny Discs show, if you go make sure don't rush to leave the cinema when the (seriously overlong) credits start rolling there's a nice extra scene which features a Hollywood A-list actor giving clues as to what's coming soon from Marvel right at the end. You'll be filled with Fury if you miss it and want to 'Avenge' yourself on those that didn't warn you what you might miss!

OK, so Sometimes I'm wrong! (Speed Racer revisited)

2008-04-28T18:36:00.003+01:00

A month ago I blogged about Warner Brothers generously 'inviting' people to traipse over to Holborn just to see a 5 minute preview from 'Speed Racer' (here). At the time they were saying there would be no full previews, so this was 'a real opportunity'.

I had a whinge about how ridiculous film promotion has become if Warner Bros really expected bloggers and reviewers to travel at their own expense just to see a 5 minute trailer, and this drew a hilarious, irate response about me being 'classless, insecure and mean-spirited' from someone identifying themself as 'Anonymous' who apparently wanted to hit me over the head repeatedly with a hammer. I think we can all guess which film company 'Anonymous' might have worked for!

Well it seems Warners had second thoughts, and decided to hold preview screenings of the film, which opens nationwide on Sunday 9th May, after all.

For some reason ;-) I wasn't invited.

But I went anyway!

And to my surprise I liked it!

The film has its faults - it's half an hour too long with one endless climax after another for one thing (Peter Jackson's Return of the King has got a lot to answer for!)

And the first half hour is confusing as hell, even for adults, with endless sudden switches between the past and the present and what a person is imagining rather than what is actually happening.

But it's a MUCH better movie than I'd expected given all the secrecy around the project, reports of it being 'in trouble' and that ridiculous 'We're only showing people a 5 minute preview' email.

Think Tron updated for 2008 and you've pretty much got the feel of it. Every penny of the $200 million spent on it is up there on screen, and I'd say I don't think I've seen so much endless eye candy in a film for a long, long time.

I mention all this now (some two weeks before the film is due out) just in case anyone was put off going to see it by my original 'Promotional Madness' blog post. This is a film that needs to be seen on the big screen, in the same way that 300 and Transformers were - and ideally at an IMAX cinema which is launching the film day and date with 'ordinary' cinema's.

Advance tickets will likely sell out fast as 'word of mouth' spreads, so if you're tempted I'd say book your seat now. Much of what's on show here is as ground-breaking as the same directors' work on The Matrix was, so I'm ALMOST prepared to forgive The Wachowski Brothers for the dreadful second and third Matrix movies (let's not get too carried away - I said 'almost').

Playing with Video Titles

2008-04-27T05:17:00.006+01:00

It didn't take very long to realise that the first Shiny Discs video podcast was too long for the web, running at half an hour, even if you ignore the rather dull visual style used for some of the longer reviews.

I suspect the length of the first podcast was the reason why I've still been unable to render out a hi-def version of that first podcast without crashing, even after a week of re-trying.

So I'm moving to a more frequent, shorter set of podcasts, and the Shiny Discs web site will be redesigned to accommodate new plans. Watch this space (or rather the ShinyDisc space, if you see what I mean!)

In the meantime I've posted a (not very good) summary of highlighted new releases for next week under the title "Sunday Shipping". The new title sequence for an improved version of this "Sunday Shipping" podcast wasn't ready in time for this week, but as a sneak peak you can see the new titles for a couple of the planned new short shows below. I think they're coming along nicely and there are more to follow now the basic "theme" has been worked out.

Shiny Discs - Thrilling Thursday - Test Title from Ian Smith on Vimeo.

Shiny Discs - Telly Tuesday - Test Title from Ian Smith on Vimeo.

Shiny Discs - Blu Monday - Title Test from Ian Smith on Vimeo.

I must say that overall I'm impressed with the hi-def video hosting from Vimeo, which is faster and better quality than that I'd been experiencing with Viddler. But the 500MB weekly limit (where Viddler has none) and the fact that hi-def can't be streamed from embedded video is a real pain. To see the video as intended the user has to click through from the video embedded in the Shiny Discs web site to go to the Vimeo web site. So if you want to see the sample title sequences above in full 720p glory pretty much intended (aside from the nasty compression that ISPs do once the video has been uploaded) you have to click on the videos to go to the vimeo site direct where the hi-def versions are available.