Final Cut Studio

Final Cut Studio 2.

I've just purchased myself FCP2 and it arrived today. Took sometime to install, but i can't wait to use it. Never used Color, Motion, Soundtrack... well any of it besides Final Cut. I've been watching the introduction DVD, and i love the way Final Cut is like the port hole and the other software works within it, there is no exporting, you right hand click and send the clip or whole sequence to which ever software you desire.

Can't wait to teach myself all the ins and outs. Watching the DVD I feel good, like i can go ahead and make short films comfortably to a very high standard.

Recent movies

This year I made many new year's resolutions and i plan on keeping to them, unlike any other year. One on them was to go see more films at the cinema, at least one a week. A year or two back I had a Cineworld pass and it was great, now i'm a student I get to go pretty cheap, so I may as well take advantage.

Over January so far i've seen four films.

Most recent The Wrestler

I found out about this early last year, when i was younger i was a massive wrestling fan, and probably still am deep down... Anyway, i was well and truly excited. 

Directed By Darren Aronofsky (think thats how it's spelt) made that little more special, because he usually makes strange, dark, bleak films. After seeing early pictures of Rouke in his light green tights and dyed blonde hair, i thought "wow, he looks like a mixture of The Ultimate Warrior and The Texas Tornado, this must be anything but bleak". Then reading the plot i found it was a really nice tale of an 80's/90's (my wrestling years) wrestling superstar who has fallen down to wrestling in school gyms for next to nothing (a little like Balboa). It was filmed almost like a documentary in certain scenes, showing you him preparing for fights, getting his hair dyed, going to the sun beds for a fake tan, shopping for props. The stuff you don't see and don't expect wrestlers to do.

Mickey Rouke grapped himself a golden globe for this role and he truly deserved it, he looked, sounded and fort like a wrestler. I also think Aronofsky should get massive praise, the film looked fantastic and some of the shots in the ring were superb. Plus he was completely out of his comfort zone and proved he is more than a art house director. Although his next project is called The Fighter... he might end up pigeon holeing himself.

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is a great simple story, one that when you say it out loud to explain it sounds quite lame. Danny Boyle did a fantastic job to keep this film interesting, to the point were he has made a great film.

I also like the fact there no recognizable faces, it's very rare you see a film of this size and not have one major name in it.

Danny Boyle is growing as a film maker, his last film Sunshine (i hasn't a big fan of) was a much bigger budget, special effects movie, which were not use to seeing him do, but brought a new side to Boyle.We are use to his really gritty British flicks. Slumdog Millionaire is more like his previous work, but looked really beautiful. I think his filming of the slums was heavily influenced by City of Gods, the shaky cameras and the colour. The style of the film was much more Hollywood, but with his own twist on it.

There were some shots that looked remarkable and the cinematographer did a super job, i can see why they did so well at the golden globes.  There were many levels to the film, from the fast action of the slums, to the mounted tension of the Who wants to be a millionaire studio, and the whole film is built around a love story.

I've also seen Australia and The Spirit.

The Spirit is one of the worse films i've ever seen. I did even have high expectations for it, but it was still awful. The acting was bad, even from Scarlet Johannson who usually think is pretty decent at acting. Sam Jackson was appalling. I thought that even though the film will be poor it will look good... but it did even look good, nowhere near the standard my Sin City.

Australia was average, if not a but long. It ticked all the boxes for a pleasant viewing. Some of the post-war scene were really nice, even though they were obviously fake they still looked good. The drover (i think they call it, when they travel the cattle across Australia) scenes were very exciting and shot beautifully.

I have also seen a few dvds. Eden Lake, a gritty Brit flick about a couple that go away for the weekend and get terrorized by hoody, chavs. The film could have been a really good, but the bad acting and poor dialogue let it down. The idea though is very interesting and current, playing more on people's fears than actual scary moments. Eden Lake is very bleak and i'm not sure whether i liked it...

Pineapple Express, stupid comedy, but absolutely great fun. It's not the big funny moments that are suppose to make you laugh, it's quite silly comments you know the actors have made up on the spot.

There are more, but that will do for now.

WANTED.

Wanted.

An over the top cheesy action film, with a god awful plot, but i liked it.

It was like the Matrix, but with better actors and a different plot... well there was just the slow down, time lapse fighting that made it like the Matrix.

If your big on special effects and violence then this is the perfect movie for you. And, it as Angelina Jolie in it, although i thought she looked a bit like a crack whore.

You don't really see special effects like these anymore, where they actually blow up things, its all CGI... don't get me wrong there were a lot of CGI in this... i mean they even CGI'd the rats! But there was a nice balance between the two styles.

I'd definitely recommend people to rent it out, but not buy it, unless you can get it for under a fiver.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

This has been one of those films that i've bought, put with my DVD collection and forgot about... what a silly mistake!

You should watch this film just for Tommy Lee Jones' performance and the beautiful cinematography of the landscapes.

The story is alright, but T L Jones really pulls out a performance, but he did direct it! Again i cannot stress the cinematography, very, very good.

If you get a chance give it a watch.

Speed Racer.

I'm not sure why I watched this one... possibly because i get free rentals and i was house sitting and there were a blockbuster near by... And when a film gets shot to dead by the reviewers I like to see if they were correct...

In this case i think they were a little harsh, the concept is dire, some of the acting is weak and it all looks a bit bright and colourful, but lets not forget this is a kids film.

The special effects are pretty good. I don't like the style, but what they have done is proper good. But what do you expect from the guys that made the Matrix (first one, the other two are laughable). There are little bits of design that float around in the background that you know the CGI guys slaved over, and your average weekend film renter will not even notice. The camera work is very impressive and to say most of it would have been green screened, the actors and directors will have had to really think about what they were doing on set. I enjoyed the layering of footage, especially on the transitions. In the races they used the commentators as screen wipes.

I'm a massive Emile Hirsch fan, so it was hard for me not to like this. However, it wasn't a great film, not even a great kids film... probably 5 or 6 out of 10, but it was entertaining. 

Howard the Duck.

Howard the Duck. (1986)

This month saw the realise of a childhood classic that had been lost in my memory.

One day last week at work i opened a box of deliveries and there it was the DVD of Howard the Duck. I couldn't believe my eyes, the memories came flooding back.

I bought a copy right away for the bargain price of £3.20 (blockbuster discount). When i watched it I was shocked to see that it still looked good! Howard was made in 1986 (the year i was born). So, obviously i wasn't there for the release, but i caught it on TV.

Produced by the KING of Sci-Fi films George Lucas, but not even that saved Howard from bombing at the box office. Hopefully now it can get its glory on DVD.

Howard the Duck is a strange story about a parallel world, with the dominant species being DUCKS. When a scientific experiment goes wrong in our world, Howard gets sucked from his to ours. He lands outside a nightclub where he meets struggling rock singer Beverly. Beverly helps him find away back home through two scientists. But, when they try to send Howard back they accidently suck down the Dark Overload of the Universe. Then its Howard's task to save the world.

You can see how this film failed.

For 1986 the final Dark Overlord effects are great, just as good as The Terminator (2 years before it.) The stop motion is smooth and looks like it was there on set, but obviously it would have been green screened, or black screened, or whatever they used back then.

It also features a young Tim Robbins and a great comic performance by Jeffery Jones.

I'm not saying you should rush out and buy a copy, but if you do come across a cheap one, don't hesitate just buy it. This cult classic will look cool in your collection.

The Constant Gardner

Constant Gardner.
Written by James Wall.

Constant Gardner was a powerful movie about corruption, politics and miss-use of a third world country.

The first fantastic point I’d like to mention about the Constant Gardner is its narrative, the story is told in an unusual way. Once we get past the introduction of the characters the film shows us an important incident. Then the story splits into two timelines. The two timelines start at different points, one being of how the incident happened and the other being how the incident is investigated. The film switches between the two as we learn more. I believe this helps to portray how unexpected the incident is to the main character (Ralph Fiennes) and also shows us how scattered and confused this mind is.

This dual timeline doesn’t last the whole film and the two meet about halfway through, which makes the story back to a linier timeline. I personally would have liked that style of story telling to have lasted longer. It made what could have been a long drawn out drama very interesting. I also felt it made me (the audience) feel closer to the film, as if I was investigating the mystery with him.

I thought the use of camerawork was good. In certain scenes the camera wasn’t traditionally set straight on a tripod. It was wobbly, handheld, like it was in first person view. Again this made me feel apart of the action.

The acting was ok, but nothing better than I have already seen. The stand out performance for me was from Pete Postlethwaite. He wasn’t in the film long, which was a shame. But, if I had never seen Poslethwaite before I wouldn’t have realised he was putting on an accent. Ralph Fiennes was good, but I have seen him playing the “English gent” too many times. It was refreshing seeing him earlier in the year completely out of character in “In Bruges,” were he played a-double-hard-cockney-bastard and he blew me away.

The use of colour and scenery was really nice, helping with the story. The use of de-saturating the scene leading up to the incident helped the viewer realise these scenes were in the past. The long shots of the deserts showed us how isolated and alone Fiennes was. Nobody seemed to want to help him without a push.

I did feel there was an over use of showing starving African children. Sometimes it felt like a red nose day commercial. It seemed like a cheap shot to make the movie more hard hitting and it didn’t need it.

I give The Constant Gardner a James Wall rating of 8/10.