While Nolan fans looses there mind over the new Tenet trailer. Its well worth remembering the incredible amount of depth (pun intended) Inception has..
Tag: movie
Films and TV for the lockdown or films you may have missed in late 2019/early 2020
Someone recently said to me, there can’t be that much films since all the film studios are shut due to Covid19? There will be a delay but people forget how much media is made everyday (no idea where the hours of youtube videos per hour is now).
Anyhow there’s a lot of media to watch and here’s a few noteworthy ones
Films
Empathy, Inc
Quite indie sci-fi shot in black and white, its a interesting pretense which plays out to a surprising ending. Well worth seeking out.
Vanilla
Romantic comedy as such but with a edge, quite fun and charming.
The half of it
Another romantic drama/comedy which although not as edgy as Vanilla, still has something different to bring to your mind. The end church scene is some divine intervention.
The Rhythm Section
I quite like these films like Anna, La Femme Nikita, etc and this one is well told and executed well.
She never died
Never really a horror fan but I like this indie horror/thriller which has a great feel to it. The film feels like Black Mirror’s Metalhead crossed with Jessica Jones.
Official secrets
My friend recommended this one to me and its quite something. Always love these court room battles but know this is very true is just insane. No wonder there was such a worry about the UK – American relation.
Just mercy
Like official secrets, court room battles around real cases is always compelling. Just mercy touches so many emotional levels and does it without actually tugging on them.
The assistant
Slow and calculated film timed perfectly around the #metoo movement. What I find interesting is to see the everyday attempts by women to stop harassment knocked back in subtitle ways. This won’t be a surprise for most women and any minority of course.
The platform
Most people have heard of this one and its actually quite a interesting take on the nature of human and kindness. Well worth watching a couple of times once you get over the shock value it provides.
Uncorked
I liked this one because of the relationship with the father. It could have easily been a whole film about prejudice but its so much more.
Dark waters
This one dropped under the radar but it very apt as we all discuss the importance of human values in our capitalist society. Is the money worth peoples lives?
The good liar
Such a smart and compelling story. I can’t say anything more about it than just find it and watch it. You won’t be disappointed if you like thriller dramas.
The coldest game
Good fun drama around around a chess game during the cold war. The tension and cinematography are great and well worth your attention.
TV series
Devs
I mentioned here already. Fantastic TV series by Alex Garland (the creator of Annihilation, Ex Machina and other great films. Stunning to watch and lots of deep routed theories.
Gangs of London
I was tipped off to this currently running TV series by a friend. I usually find some of the UK production lack the levels of realistic violence (sounds weird saying that) but I’m impressed with this TV series as it has the right balance of standout moments, character development and narrative.
The last dance
A documentary about Air Jordon? You got me! Annoying ESPN have spun it out over 10 episodes.
Watchmen
If you haven’t seen the Watchmen TV series, I highly recommend this to all, especially those who are fans of the original comic and film. I won’t spoil this TV series but its as deep and meaningful as the film and comic book.
Tenet reversed…?
It works right? Almost like its was done intentionally? Or maybe our minds makes sense of what we see?
Julius Amedume’s award winning Rattlesnakes
I heard today Julius a friend from University who I always knew was super talented and would make waves in the near future. Won 2 awards for his new film Rattlesnakes.
- The ScreenNation Independent Sprit Film Production Award at the 14th Screen Nation Film and Television Awards in London.
- Winner of the 2019 Pan African Film Audience Award.
RATTLESNAKES by Julius Amedume from Julius Amedume on Vimeo.
There’s a showing and Q&A with Julius (work permitting) at the BFI Southbank, London in August. Really hoping to be there…
The arrival, arrived and must be seen
It was actually Si who recommended to me Arrival. It’s very unlike him to recommend films as he’s not really into non-interactive media, so I went and watched the film and was pretty much blown away.
I promise not to spoil the film but the film reminds me of 3 other great films, and I mean great! Interstellar, which was influenced by Contact and finally Donnie Darko.
Well worth watching before they do a weird donnie darko directors cut on it.
Its a 8/10 or even 9/10, and so many other people agree.
It’s dangerous to say an alien movie achieves any level of realism. That is, we won’t know which ones are realistic until the aliens show up in real life and confirm it. With that caveat, Arrival feels like an uncommonly realistic alien invasion movie, if only because it understands a simple fact of life often misunderstood by Hollywood: few of life’s biggest mysteries can be understood through conventional thinking. Too many alien movies assume that our interplanetary visitors will look, sound, and communicate like some gnarled version of ourselves. Arrival rewrites the rule book. Instead of filtering the aliens’ intentions through our understanding of human behavior, it asks us to put our thinking caps on and luxuriate in the unknown.
Absolutely!
I also found the gender dynamics really interesting too… Amy Adams is incredible, strong and very thoughtful when most of the men around her are reaching for their guns or jumping to action. Shes confident of her own abilities and knows what needs to be done. Funny enough, another film by the same director is Sicario, with Emily Blunt who also command total respect by everyone around her.
Amy Adams is magnificent as the linguist at the centre of a world-changing event; Jeremy Renner turns in a quiet, introspective supporting performance as a mathematician brought in to help solve the visitors’ mysteries. The interplay between the two, as they seek to understand an unfathomably complex alien language, feels effortlessly natural; as well as a sci-fi movie, Arrival functions as an astutely observed relationship drama.
Go watch this film!
Sunspring: A movie written by algorithms
I don’t actually believe Adrian was the first to tell me about Sunspring, but I spent some time watching this morning.
Movie written by algorithm turns out to be hilarious and intense https://t.co/3lAD3UEa75
— Mirena Papadimitriou (@irini_mirena) June 11, 2016
Its certainly not the first time someone has spoke about algorithms and machine learning to create media. But its the first time I’ve actually seen something… well…ummm interesting of sorts?
I wouldn’t say it was hilarious, more weirdly uncomplete. The training material can be eviladanced in what you see but as it jumps around a lot. Its worth watching and I’d be interested in what happens when you got something more clearer and unique? However what I was really wondering is…
Were the camera angles, shots, special effects, music, mood and colour grading also written by the algorithms? Heck was the title? It doesn’t seem like it but who knows. I guess the bigger question is does it even matter? So much of our media is middle of the road and made for the biggest audience, in my own opionion of course. Would it make much difference?
Of course the most interesting ideas are using a combination of machine learning with human direction. But thats for another post…
The press feedback is varied… best to go check it out for yourself
Describe that movie?
https://twitter.com/adew/status/711565905134788608
I saw this retweet from Adrian and had to give it a try.
A website developed by a Finnish technology team claims to be the world’s “first ever descriptive movie search engine”, and promises to solve that problem we all face when we can’t remember the name of a film.
To be fair so far its not been great with the searches I have done. Yes its early days and yes they have a mechanism to improve it.
But for example looking for Kil Bill – Lots of blood shed involving swords
Inception works with Dream within a dream and dreams collapase but if you type dream you get inception. Addiction works actually gets Requiem for a Dream but film about addiction in all its forms fails to list it at all. Looking for Citizen four with Edward Snowdon with the search Edward Snowdon, fails to include Citizen four. Dark City search with dark film starts with scene in the bath tub doesn’t include dark city at all. Last search I did was for The Beach, with sandy beach.
Nice idea, I’ll check it out again once things get better.
What Cinema can learn from Broadcasting?
Its weirdly ironic that I wrote a blog post about what cinema can learn from TV, 3 years while ago almost to the day of the this way up conference in December I’m about to talk at.
The this way up conference is a film exhibition innovation conference which launched last year. It returns with a jam-packed two-day event that promises to inspire and enlighten, provoke and challenge, connect and share.
I’ll be doing two things on behalf of BBC R&D
The first one is on Wednesday and is a lunch time workshop around a unreleased Perceptive Media project, I have been working on for most of the year.
Lunchtime Lab: BBC Perceptive Media – Want to contribute to the evolution of storytelling? BBC Research and Development’s North Lab, based at MediaCityUK in Salford, showcase their latest experiment in a top secret, closed door workshop. A select group of THIS WAY UP attendees will try out a new smartphone app before being a shown a premiere of a short film that looks to change the way we engage. Further details are strictly under wraps, but the BBC are looking for volunteers to take part in this limited study and to share and discuss their experiences with other participants. Workshop led by Ian Forrester, BBC R&D North lab. Results from the workshop will be revealed at Thursday’s The Film is Not Enough session.
Its really research in the wild and we have no idea how the audience will react to this. The results will be intriguing to say the least.
On the Thursday I’ll be on a panel talking about the changes which need to happen to regain the cinema audience.
The Film is not Enough – With the rise of event cinema, alternative content, enhanced screenings, sing-a-longs and tweet-a-longs, is there a danger that the original purpose of cinemas is being lost as audiences demand novelty and gimmickry? This panel will hear from those folk changing audience perceptions and expectations of what ‘coming to the cinema’ means. Panel includes: Tony Jones (Cambridge Film Festival), Jo Wingate (Sensoria), Rhidian Davis (BFI), Gaby Jenks (Abandon Normal Devices – chair), Lisa Brook (Live Cinema), and Ian Forrester (BBC Research & Development).
I’ll talk about details of the project experienced on Wednesday and explain why this is a good and scalable way to regaining the TV and maybe the cinema audience. The panel should be good with a number of really viewpoints and Gaby Jenks from Abandon Normal Devices chairing the debate.
What cinema can learn from broadcast will be driven home by the keynote from Nick North, the director of Audiences at the BBC.
Look out for more details soon… but theres already plenty of interest….
Limitless as a TV show
Remember Limitless… It always made sense as a TV show right? I mean NZT-48 just like Lucy’s CB40, as a plot point was/is literally endless (pun in-deeded).
This idea of unleashing the brain’s potential, of course, is a popular notion in science fiction, from “Limitless” to the Scarlett Johansson vehicle “Lucy” all the way back to “Forbidden Planet.” Mostly, though, the mysterious drug, NZT, is just another way to create a super-soldier, one who in this case is drafted by the authorities to assist in thwarting crimes, with his FBI agent contact
Be interesting to see how it turns out…
More Fan Art on everything
My plans to slowly replace all the movie posters in my flat has been slow, but here is two more to the collection…
I’ve grown tired of the movie posters. There always too brash in my mind or don’t include the parts which are movie defining.
I got the idea a while ago to blow up Fan Art using Rasterbator and then replace my crappy movie posters with them. It might seem slightly cheeky but if I’m not replacing any of the attribution and I’ll happily point to where I got the art. I know Deviantart do sell poster sizes of some of the art but I quite like the rugged non-descript way Rasterbator makes Fan art.
That iconic first scene from the Dark Knight. Although I was looking at this one too for a while.
A different way of looking at Inception… Another great scene from a film I love, when Arthur leans in for a kiss on Ariadne.
Ariadne: What’s happening?
Arthur: Your subconscious is looking for the dreamer; me. Quick, give me a kiss.
Ariadne: [She kisses him and then looks around]
Ariadne: They’re still looking at us.
Arthur: Yeah, it was worth a shot.
Got to do one for Donnie Darko, Fight Club and Cloud Atlas.