Wild Tyme

[535] Monumental Text, Back In Action

2012-02-02T19:45:00.001Z

Two years ago, as part of the 'Get Ambitious in 2010' initiative, I started a Tumblr called Monumental Text, which was weighted down by a concept that mixed observations about London, photography, and psycho-geographic mumblings. It didn't last long.

Nevertheless, I still took pictures of various signs, plaques and text that I came across throughout London, and I thought that, with the new year and all, it was a good chance to give the project a soft reset. Now, there's less of an emphasis on overwrought, Sinclair-style prose, and more of a focus on the simple stories, lives and insight that can be uncovered by wandering around the capital.

There are still blue plaque pictures, but there are now just as many oddities - from charity coin chutes, to the insignia of the Haberdashers Company. There are also mysteries. What does 'SFG' stand for? Who is Mr Thomas Peacock, who owned property one foot east of Lytham Street? The old adage is 'if these walls could talk', but in London's case, they often do - and they can tell us a lot about the city and its people.

Perhaps we'll never excavate a London-wide narrative to match my Frederick Parkes Weber project (a précis of which was published in Ink+PAPER, now available in digital formats), but give it time, and we'll see what happens. For now, let's accept it for what it is: a glimpse into the endless esoterica of London. Splendid.

[534] Bytes-Reel, Spa Workshop

2012-02-01T19:35:00.002Z

We're so close to the launch of VIGIDEN. Accepting time differences, it's just a day away! I'm very excited to see what people think about it. The first sketch is rather odd - and sets the tone perfectly.

In the meantime, we've been hard at work doing other video pieces, and pitching for other jobs. As part of that, we've put together a showreel of the video work we've done together. And here it is!

Now, that may just look like a showreel, but let me tell you... it's chock-full of VIGIDEN spoilers. Consider it yet another little tease before the sketches actually go public.

In other Bytes-news, last night we put on a workshop at IdeasTap, as part of their 'Spa' programme of careers-advice events. It was all about filming on a shoe-string budget - and it went rather well!

We asked people to come to the workshop with whatever camera equipment they owned, and we gave them all sorts of advice, tips and tricks that will help them on their way to making glorious, low-budget video. We really enjoyed it, and the attendees seemed to get a lot out of it, too, so we're hoping to do more in the future. Stay tuned!

[533] Interview With Nick Brandestini

2012-01-24T19:22:00.003Z

Darwin was my surprise film of the London Film Festival. Buried relatively deep in the programme, it nevertheless stuck out because of its rather compelling hook. The first feature-length documentary from director Nick Brandestini, Darwin is a documentary about a small town in Death Valley, whose ageing population numbers less than three dozen. Who are these people? What has led them to live in one of the least hospitable areas of the globe? And what are their lives like?

It reads like an episode of the NPR radio show This American Life, where erstwhile esoteric stories can give great insight into the workings of the USA and its inhabitants. Darwin fits this mould perfectly, quickly moving away from the freak show titillation of its premise and finding great depth in the personal histories of the town's residents.

It is remarkably well-judged, especially as Brandestini becomes more intimate with his subjects, and, considering the budget level, it is more beautiful than a shoestring, festival-bound documentary has any right to be.

At the LFF, I had the pleasure of chatting with Brandestini about Darwin, over coffee and macaroons. Naturally, I had to ask about both the act of interviewing and the process of putting together this mostly one-man production...

- This film has a great set-up. A town in Death Valley with just 35 people living there. It’s so compelling. How did you find out about the place to begin with?

I didn’t find Darwin at first, but similar places, because I was driving to Las Vegas in the desert, and there were other areas, and I was curious about who would live in such an environment, with this heat and nothing to do around. So I was looking for a documentary project, I only did two short documentaries before, and I thought, okay, this is something that fascinates me, and it looks great. So I thought this is the perfect topic.

I just wanted to know more about the people. It was a boom town in 1874, when it was founded, until 1877. So, like, three years, it had 3000 people and then whoops, it just died. Now there’s 35 people.

- And most of the population is in their middle age, or older, so you got the sense that this is a community with no future. How did you go about making contact first time?

The hippie lady was organising these parties. She’s the unofficial mayor, more or less. Or she thinks she is. She was the first that I contacted. She was a bit reluctant - she said ‘yeah, you can be here, but no cameras allowed’. But then later on she trusted me, and said ‘okay, let’s do this’. But it took her two days for her to say it was okay. And the other people had no problem at the beginning.

- How long were you there for?

Five times over a period of two years. A week each, or ten days each time.

- Were there people there that were cautious about you, or reluctant to speak to you?

At the beginning, yeah, but after a while they opened up.

- There’s a difficulty with this kind of documentary... When you have a set-up like that, it could be easy to all into the trap of exploiting the ‘kooky people living in the desert’, and making them figures of fun. How did you go about dealing with that?

It was 100% clear that I didn’t want to make fun of them. I never wanted to make a ‘freak show’ out of them, because Darwin has a very bad image in the surrounding areas. And I know that it’s not like that, and people have the wrong impression of these people. So I just wanted to make it real, while still keeping it interesting and exciting. Because that’s part of what attracted me to the place, because it’s not a normal suburb place. It is special, and I wanted to show it in a positive way.

- In the second half of the film, you get quite intimate with some of the residents, and we see beyond the kookiness of their living circumstances. Was that because you’d grown close to them over time?

One thing that I’m sure helped is that I’m Swiss, I think they found that funny and curious. And if it were an American, they would be more reluctant or skeptical. And also, even though I told them that I hoped this film would play in festivals, they didn’t believe it. But I always told them that that was the big hope. And the crew was only me, so the camera was a professional one, but it was only a camera and they didn’t feel threatened. And I don’t know, they just wanted to share their stories. But it took a long time for some of them to open up.

- Do you think the film will turn Darwin into a minor tourist attraction?

That’s a common question. Everybody asked it. But it’s kind of funny, because it implies that the film is seen by many people, and so far it’s only at festivals, so it’s not likely! You have to really want to go there, because it’s quite far off the regular track.

- This is your first feature-length documentary, what were some of the major differences or challenges that came with the larger canvas?

Well, the structure was a big challenge. This is where my co-producers helped, to shape the film, because it would not have turned out so good if I’d not had them on board to make the film as it is. Now, it has these chapters, and before it was more of a random thing. There’s not one story, but there are different themes, so it took a long time to figure out how to deal with it.

- The cinematography in this film is fantastic. Of course, the landscape lends itself well, but the film looks particularly good for a one-man, low budget documentary.

I just like to make things look good!

- There’s even a helicopter shot in there, with aerial views of the surrounding area.

That was actually not a helicopter, but an old plane. I hired a pilot for very little money, and it was very scary, because it was shaking like crazy, and I was leaning out of the window! Everybody says it looks like a helicopter...

- It looks like you spent a lot of money...

Only $300! [laughs]

To find out more about Darwin, visit http://www.darwindoc.com/. This interview was co-conducted by Paul Weedon.

[532] Five Things You Need To Know About VIGIDEN

2012-01-19T15:15:00.000Z

We've been talking about VIGIDEN for quite some time, and I've just realised that there must be a bunch of questions left unanswered. We at BytesCorp believe in transparency - so, dear viewers, do not fear! Below, we address some of the most burning queries about our forthcoming sketch comedy series. Read on!

- What does VIGIDEN stand for?

...We’re not entirely sure. We’ve been talking about this video game news sketch show for quite some time (way back in episode 3 of Behind The Bytes, in fact), and VIGIDEN is an acronym that felt right, even though we hadn’t figured out what it exactly meant. I decided to ask the BytesBoys, Nick Moran and Ed Szekely...

NM: Video Game Digitainment Information News Network...? Maybe there should be two N's, but then it would be VIGIDEEN if you go by rules of Latinate poetic meter. Actually, that’s not right... Oh, I don't know!

ES: Video Game International Digital Entertainment Network. I'm quite comfortable with that.

NM: I don't think that's canon!

So there you go. We don’t know! (Although, if pushed, I think I’ll side with Ed.)

And, what do we stand for? Truth, justice, and the VIGIDEN way. Well, depends on your definition of ‘truth’. And ‘justice’. How about... confident, incisive coverage of an entirely fictitious spin on the gaming industry? Unbound by notions of ‘reality’, ‘coherence’ and ‘sanity’?

- What does VIGIDEN cover?

Everything. It’s a full scale news/entertainment network! We have scoops, analysis and exclusive interviews from all over the video game map. Expect insight from your favourite - and not-so-favourite - video game personalities, all processed through the VIGIDEN blender.

But that’s not all. While we’re newshounds at heart, VIGIDEN is not confined to the newsroom. From lifestyle content to topical discussion, we’ll be filling out your well-rounded diet of FACTUAL(ish) PROGRAMMING.

- Is Chad Makepeace dead?

Yes!

VIGIDEN runs on from Behind The Bytes. In fact, Behind The Bytes is buried somewhere deep in the VIGIDEN programme slate. (I think they want to forget the whole ‘five episodes, three corpses, and twenty lawsuits’ debacle.)

That means that, amongst other things, Jeff Tozai and Clarissa Ankle are still around. (Don’t worry, Andreas got his just desserts in the end) It also means that Chad Makepeace is very, very dead.

Luckily, though, we dug around in the VIGIDEN archives, and found tapes of his groundbreaking late-night talk show Deathmatch Discourse, with opinions-for-hire Emma Scott and Victoria Bandopadhyay (played by Jennifer Pick and Lucy McCormick, both from GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN).

- Wait... Will VIGIDEN be on Screwattack?

Oh, yeah. We’re back with Screwattack.

They’ve just gone through a major overhaul of their site, and they’re set to take 2012 by storm. We’re mega-excited to be full-on partners this time around.

Imagine our excitement when VIGIDEN was announced at MAGfest last weekend, by Stuttering Craig himself! Check the recent episode of Sidescrollers here, around 44 minutes in.

- When are you launching, anyway?

February 2nd! On Screwattack! Get excited!

[531] Tom Hiddleston Interview

2012-01-17T19:05:00.001Z

Interviews can be so much fun. This is one of my favourites, and this comment captures why:

Just when you thought Hiddleston couldn't get more awesome, he enthuses about The Odyssey for, like a page.

What a charming chap. He looks good in uniform, too.

Before we'd even sat down to chat with Tom Hiddleston, he had us pegged. As soon as he heard the words ‘Den of Geek’, he beamed and joked, “I'm armed. I have so many filters. No spoilers here!”

Well, wouldn't you, faced with one of the stars of the upcoming Marvel supergroup blockbuster The Avengers, squeeze in at least one question?

It turns out that Hiddleston was more than happy to chat about the preparation for The Avengers, and the subtle changes made to his character, Loki, under Joss Whedon's direction. However, there were plenty of other things to chat about, not least Hiddleston's rather rapid rise to fame over the last eighteen months, and his current peak, working with Steven Spielberg on his equine epic War Horse.

Read the full article here.

[530] Kathleen Kennedy Interview

2012-01-14T13:00:00.001Z

So my rather negative review of War Horse had an interesting effect on the Den of Geek readership - but I won't let that influence my coverage of the film itself! In fact, I had a spring in my step as I walked up to Claridge's last Monday, on my way to interview both producer Kathleen Kennedy and actor Tom Hiddleston. They're my first interviews of the year, after all! And where best to start, than with reportedly the second most successful producer currently working in Hollywood?

It’s not every day that you get to talk to one of the most successful producers in Hollywood history. So when we sat down with Kathleen Kennedy, who has collaborated with Steven Spielberg on the majority of his films from the last 30 years, we tackled the big question: what, exactly, does a producer do?

With reference to everything from Spielberg’s latest films, War Horse and The Adventures Of Tintin, to the future projects of Lincoln and Jurassic Park 4, Kennedy gives us a detailed break-down of what it’s like behind the scenes of a blockbuster.

Read the full article here.

[529] Ideastap Spa Video and Workshop

2012-01-12T22:59:00.000Z

So far, January's been rather busy, especially where BytesCorp is concerned. Over the last few weeks, Nick and I have been working with Ideastap on a video showcasing their Spa programme of workshops, Q&As and member events. We were provided with some chirpy, enthusiastic talking head footage, and proceeded to shoot extra workshop footage, cook up some motion graphics, and roll the results together into a slick little video.

This time out, I handled the editing, music and general shape of the video, while Nick pored over the (super-sexy) graphics in After Effects and Motion. Then we came together for the grade and final tweaks.

I think it worked out rather well. Here's the finished product.

I think it came out quite well, and it seems like Ideastap are pleased. So pleased, in fact, that they've asked the BytesBoys to host a workshop at the end of this month, titled 'Filmmaking on a Shoestring'. I suppose that's what we've been doing for quite some time now, so we should have some kernels of wisdom to pass on to aspiring video producers. Let's hope, anyway! Here's some info.

You can read more at their website here. The workshop is on the 31st, from 4pm. Come along!

[528] Artificial Intelligence Episode Two: The Difficult Second Podcast

2012-01-04T14:43:00.000Z

Here it is, another episode of the Artificial Intelligence podcast! Once more I venture into the cosy recording studio under Kingsland Road to chat with resident intelligent gamers Joe Ewens and Mat Burt. This time: difficulty in games. Warning: contains many confessions concerning our lack of gaming skill.

Listen here! Read more below!

Hark! Just in time for Christmas, your trio of intrepid Intelligents are back to brave the wintery climbs of the Mount Video Games. The climb will be difficult, but never fear – it just so happens to be the theme of this week’s show.

Michael Leader, Joseph Ewens, and Matthew Burt dust off their monocles and set about dissecting the problem of difficulty in video games. What happens when difficulty and narrative collide? Are indie developers the new wardens of challenge? Will Mat and Mike like their Christmas presents?

Put on your most difficult trousers, press play, and we shall find out together.

Read more about the Artificial Intelligence podcast here.

[527] Drive: Den of Geek's Film of the Year 2011

2011-12-29T14:25:00.001Z

Two controversial articles in a row! Here it is, my final piece for Den of Geek this year, which looks at Drive - the film voted best of 2011 by the site's writers.

I didn't get to see Drive in the initial flurry of preview screenings which had critics fainting with delight; I saw it much later, in a double-bill with Martin Scorsese's George Harrison doc Living in the Material World, at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton.

Both films were striking, but Drive really stuck with me. It both excited me and confounded me. I'm glad I've had a chance to decompress about it - and write about what it does well, and how it works despite lacking some of the qualities I would otherwise deem integral to a successful modern film. It's come dangerously close to changing my stubborn critical approach to cinema. There aren't many films that do that.

Actually, no. I only like it because I feel I have to. So says the following comment from DoG reader 'thewicked', anyway:

Its the film people "want" as their favorite, because its "cool". But being cool doesnt nessecarily make it deserving of the accolade, and signify's all that is wrong with movie awards.

Sic, obviously.

Drive, Den Of Geek’s undisputed film of the year (getting more than double the votes of Black Swan in second place), was iconic before it was even released. The film’s reputation preceded it, thanks to a moody trailer, a hot-pink title font, and the casting of actor du jour Ryan Gosling in the lead role. All pointed towards a stylish, noirish thriller that oozed urban cool, and to say it delivered would be an absurd understatement. Everything, from the music to the performances, from the composition to the cinematography, seemed perfectly pitched.

Indeed, such are Drive’s strengths that its one flaw - which could be major, minor, or irrelevant depending on your viewpoint - is almost completely banished. The plot, adapted from a neo-noir paperback, and developed from an optioned Hollywood project originally set to star Hugh Jackman, is quite conventional, at times even rote. The nameless antihero falls for the wife of an ex-con, and through a sense of duty helps the husband clear his debt with a low-level crook. Unfortunately, the job is botched, and the ensuing bloodbath sees the protagonist slip further and further into moral ambiguity.

It’s not going to win any awards for its screenplay, but the themes are solid and the stock characters are timeless. Drive could as much be a Western as a noir; but it is in the execution that it all comes to life. Truly, this is a film for which awards for directing were made, and Nicolas Winding Refn’s Best Director win at Cannes is well deserved. Throughout, there is a confidence in the direction, and a boldness in the filmmaker’s decisions.

Take, for example, the consistent stripping back of dialogue, often to the point where scenes are almost wordless. In the opening act, this is frequently astonishing, as the driver’s romance with his neighbour, Irene (Carey Mulligan), blossoms not over conversation, but through small moments: shared looks, smiles and murmurs. Refn exhibits patience, restraint, and, most of all, absolute faith in his actors, and both Gosling and Mulligan manage to evoke so much with such minimalistic performances.

Read the full article here.

[526] War Horse (2011) Review

2011-12-22T01:07:00.002Z

Here it is, my final review of the year - for one of the sure-fire hits of 2012. It's the new Steven Spielberg flick, War Horse!

Click through, have a read, and find out why one of the faithful Den of Geek readers felt compelled to leave the following comment:

Spielberg "out of his depth"? How many great movies have you made knobhead?

Crikey. Read on, fellow travellers! Oh, and can you spot the handful of Wilfred Owen references in the review? See, my English Literature degree was worth something...

While his films don’t come out with the clockwork reliability of those directed by Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg works to his own halting, arrhythmic beat. Years of silence often give way to flutters of wild activity, with the Hollywood superstar sometimes stuffing more than one of his new flicks into the cinema calendar.

This has been done to calculated effect on more than one occasion, where blockbusters have shared space with bids for dramatic respectability. Most successfully, in 1993 Spielberg ruled both the box office and the Academy with the one-two punch of Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List. The twinning of popcorn adventure and super-serious historical drama continued with both The Lost World and Amistad, and War Of The Worlds and Munich, in 1997 and 2005 respectively.

Superficially, 2011 seems like a similar case, with mo-cap adventure Tintin appearing just before War Horse, a lavish World War I drama which draws on the sentiment of Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and a little bit of Blackadder Goes Forth. It seems to be another double bill of fun and fable – that is, until you realise that the latter film is a retelling of the Great War from the perspective of a horse.

Read the full article here.

[525] The Underappreciated Film Gems of 2011

2011-12-16T11:57:00.001Z

It's the end of the year! Time for retrospective lists and features. This year, Den of Geek have changed the system for their 'film of the year' vote. Previously, writers could submit their top five, along with an accompanying paragraph explaining their choices. This meant I could rabbit on about any sort of flick I'd enjoyed, but knew the Geeks-at-large wouldn't pick.

This year, the top fives have been collected, and conformed into a general top ten, with each entry getting their own article next week. This left a lot of stellar choices languishing on the voting room floor. Thankfully, the editing bods decided to give many of these films their own list, under the 'Underappreciated Gems' tag. In my opinion, it's a far more interesting list. Well, I would say that, as I contributed 250 words about Midnight In Paris, one of my favourite films of the year.

See what I said below, or click through to the full article here. It's full of films I've seen and loved this year, and some I've shamefully missed. Tune in next week for the top ten.

It’s surprising that more hasn’t been made of this, but this year two old film masters - Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese - both made rhapsodic odes to 1920s Paris. And, even more so, 2011 saw Scorsese, ever faithful in terms of quality, beaten by his fellow bespectacled New Yorker.

Unencumbered by Hugo’s CGI, 3D and two-hour runtime, Midnight In Paris is Allen’s breeziest, funniest and most charming film in decades. Its pseudo-fantasy set-up is established with the most economic of storytelling, as Owen Wilson’s neurotic hack, adrift in the French capital, is whisked away in a vintage car by F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. From there, it’s smooth sailing, as Allen peppers the film with pitch-perfect cameos from a host of Jazz Age Parisians, from the braggadocio of Corey Stoll’s Hemingway, to the surreal trio of Dalí, Buñuel, and Man Ray.

The film has the whimsy, wit and existential themes of the director’s best work, and can sit proudly next to The Purple Rose Of Cairo, Radio Days and Bullets Over Broadway in the perky, period sub-section of his oeuvre. But what makes Midnight In Paris stand out is that, after two decades where Allen’s comedy films became increasingly kitsch, broad and forced, he manages to capture that old, familiar, incessant humour once more - where laughs are not hard-won, but easily given.

Read the full article here.

[524] Cornish in Finnish

2011-12-12T14:42:00.002Z

From the icy northern climes of Finland...

Apparently my interview with Joe Cornish about Attack The Block has been quoted in the Helsingin Sanomat. Hyvä!

[522] VIGIDEN, Coming Oh-So-Soon

2011-11-29T02:36:00.001Z

Monday night, Free Trade Wharf. Shooting Samantha Baines, aka Clarissa Ankle, for an upcoming VIGIDEN sketch.

Phew. Hello, there! Apologies for the radio silence on the BytesCorp-front. You see, we three Bytes-buddies have been beavering away for the last few months on VIGIDEN, our follow-up to the Behind The Bytes miniseries which appeared online over summer. Whereas BTB was a mockumentary series with each episode looking at the scandalous lives of various video game characters, VIGIDEN is different beast - it's a full-blown news network! Specifically, it's the Video Games Digital News Network. Or, at least, I think it is. Who cares? It's an ace acronym!

VIGIDEN will be sketch-based, featuring many set-ups and characters inspired by the 'news channel' format. Expect breaking news reports, interviews and special features from the video game industry. What's Luigi up to? Who's Kirby eating? What's the weather like in Hyrule? If such questions keep you awake at night, worry no longer. We're on the case.

That's the ambition, anyway. We're currently polishing up our punchy pilot package, which contains five sketches, each showcasing a different wing of the VIGIDEN empire. For the last month, we've been shooting and editing, sprucing up our 3D studio and getting to grips with green-screen filmmaking. In short, turning this...

Into something like this.

Looks nice, right? Oh, by the way, that's Nick Moran, VIGIDEN's hard-nosed anchorman. Expect to see more of him - and the rest of the VIGIDEN correspondents - once the series gets under way. For now, sit tight, and we'll give you more teaser-y breadcrumbs soon. In the meantime, we'd better finish off these edits!

[521] Take Shelter (2011) Review

2011-11-25T12:02:00.001Z

Unfortunately, a lot of personal distractions came up around the end of the London Film Festival, meaning I didn't get the chance to turn in my 'best of fest' write-ups. Thankfully, some of the the best films are coming out before the end of the year, so I get to review them 'properly'! With that in mind, here's my review of Take Shelter.

In the great big grab-bag of Hollywood movie tropes, there aren’t many as well-used or as long-serving as the protective father.

Whether a plot contains disaster, alien invasion, or meddlesome terrorists, the bond between patriarch and family is enough to inspire great feats of heroism. These men - be they Tom Cruise’s loser divorcee in War Of The Worlds, Dennis Quaid’s scientist dad in The Day After Tomorrow, or even John McClane - are protagonists to rally behind, satisfying primal instincts to provide care, safety and shelter.

While it may not seem like it at first, one of psychological drama Take Shelter’s major successes lies in its clever subversion of this trope, colliding the stock narrative conceit with a powerful psychological undertone.

Construction worker Curtis LaForche lives a mundane, pleasant life with his wife (Jessica Chastain) and daughter in rural Ohio, until he is plagued by terrible nightmares of a coming apocalypse. These visions are truly chilling, filled with portent and unsettling imagery of oil-slick rain, plagues of birds and aggressive, faceless antagonists. Convinced that such a storm is indeed brewing on the horizon, he becomes obsessed with building a shelter in his back yard, while expressing all of the destructive, anti-social and self-deceiving symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.

Curtis’ motivation is to ensure the safety of his young family, but his reasoning is unsound. However, his is a character flaw that reflects backwards, casting the obsessive urges of the likes of John Matrix, Taken’s Bryan Mills or countless Harrison Ford characters in a whole new light.

Those fathers knew best because they lived in uncomplicated worlds governed by simpler ideals. On the other hand, Curtis’ America faces its own economic apocalypse, in which a lost job not only threatens financial ruin for a family, but potential personal danger, without the safety net of medical insurance. And then there are the risky loans and scaremongering news reports of chlorine spills, which further chip away at the man’s authority over his own family’s well-being.

Read the full article here.

[520] Nelson

2011-11-22T18:19:00.003Z

Nelson is a real piece of work. It has so many moving parts that, initially, it’s quite overwhelming to take in. Is it an anthology? An ‘exquisite corpse’-style game of storytelling pass-the-parcel? Or a statement of purpose on behalf of a flourishing British comics community? At its heart, at least, it’s the story of one girl, Nel Baker, which is told through vignettes that see her from birth to middle age, with each chapter illustrated by a different artist.

Along the way, we pass from 1967 to 2011, and read about the friendships, events, diversions and distractions that make up Nel’s life. From her childhood, marked by the death of her twin brother, through her troubled school years, radical college phase and rudderless twenties, the character grows before our eyes.

For this purpose, editors Rob Davis and Woodrow Phoenix have brought together a staggering line-up of artists from all sectors of the comics community. As a result, Nelson has quite a dizzying array of styles on offer, making this a perfect primer for those wishing to delve into British comics.

When laid side-by-side in an anthology context, artists can often seem at odds with each other. This is sometimes used to great effect, but here there is a unifying factor: the story of one single character. It’s quite thrilling to see all this talent moving forward with this shared purpose, progressing the narrative, while still providing their own unique spin on Nel’s character.

It also means that some artists can be arranged for ideal effect, such as an excellent run, early in the book, where Nel’s hyper-active childhood is given over to Sarah McIntyre, Jamie Smart and Gary Northfield. Their energetic, colourful and wholly distinctive styles, which have graced numerous kids books and comics, perfectly complement little Nel’s forays into pre-school daydreaming - through whose eyes, in Smart’s chapter, a debt collector turns into a huge, troublesome monster.

As both the artists and the reader explore Nel’s life, secondary narratives emerge. In McIntyre’s chapter, Nel bounces down the street on a space hopper, while John Allison’s high schooler Nel tapes the hits off the radio on a cassette recorder. These little details, which litter each chapter, add up to a comprehensive tapestry of popular culture, both British and global, from the mid-late 60s (watching the Moon landing on a black-and-white TV) to the new millennium (buying tickets for New York, flying out on September 13th, 2001).

But this isn't nostalgia of the ‘I Love the 70s’ ilk, it's an evocation of time and place, and a history of the larger events that run alongside the protagonist’s own life, which influence and inspire her. When the story’s very chronology is one of the major constituents of the narrative, such specific colouring is integral, as the amorphous ‘pop culture’ is as much of a character as Nel is herself. They are familiar points to which readers, and artists, can anchor themselves, and they provide a backbone to this character-driven story.

The book is at its best when the personal and the historical threads intertwine, such as the Adam Cadwell’s chapter, which heralds the rise of Britpop, and a new relationship, or Tom Humberstone’s, where Nel moves to London right into the chaos of the 7/7 bombings, as another romance blossoms.

There is a danger with a project such as this, where there are so many creative minds involved, that the storytelling, both artistically and narratively, may end up being neither loose nor tight. Indeed, there aren't many of the curveballs that you might expect from an ‘exquisite corpse’ game, as some chapters seem tethered to the linear narrative daisy chain, and at other times the ebb and flow of the plot can feel a little haphazard, as characters and themes slip out of frame for what seems like decades.

Some of the best strips are those that close loops, or call back to earlier chapters, such as Kristyna Baczynski’s beautifully composed sequence where an adult Nel finds a dusty copy of the 1001 Arabian Nights, complete with doodles drawn by her thirteen years - or seventy pages - earlier, in Warwick Johnson Cadwell’s chapter.

The constant forward momentum of the book is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it gives us the irresistible hook of seeing one central character grow, change and live. And while Nel’s arc isn’t odd or fanastical, the familiar humanist touchpoints of love, grief and the pursuit of happiness remain as compelling as ever. However, the incessant pace can push some of smaller, more reflective subplots into the background, and some of the best chapters can be easily overwhelmed by the elongated scope.

This is particularly true of the chapters concerning Nel's father, ranging from a touching, quiet interlude by Jon McNaught, which looks at his estranged life on the streets, to Roger Langridge’s marvellous chapter, which imagines an exchange at the pearly gates with Saint Peter.

Such undercurrents are those that will hopefully become stronger with multiple re-readings, and the book certainly begs for them, if only because the work is so remarkably consistent, and consistently eye-catching. Simply flicking through the pages is enough to incite a feeling of overwhelmed giddiness at the sheer volume of comics - enough so that you can find yourself forgetting some of the best bits.

Open up the book again, and you may find a new favourite contribution. But which will it be? Perhaps Katie Green’s lovely chapter, where Nel translates the adventures she has with her toys into crayon-coloured comics? Maybe Laura Howell's fantastic use of Facebook as a way to tie up loose narrative threads? Or Kate Brown’s first-person turning point, where booze, sex and a new-found lust for life are upstaged by a clever, mischievous stylistic flourish?

Dazzling, that’s the word for it. It’s 50 of the best artists currently operating in the UK, gathered into one chunky book. There may be certain flaws inherent in such a massive project, but they've certainly pulled it off well. Above everything, it inspires excitement for what will come next from all involved. Will it kick-start a nationwide renaissance? The cynic in me doubts it, but Nelson is a statement of purpose that can be proudly pushed into the hands of even the hardiest sceptic. Buy it, and register your support.

Read more about Nelson at Blank Slate Books. Buy it from their online store, or at good comic and book shops around the country. All profits will go to Shelter.

[519] Adventures in Comics: Ink+PAPER

2011-11-14T16:44:00.004Z

Exciting news! The first volume of Ink+PAPER, a 'comics and creativity' anthology edited by David O'Connell, has finally been released! And it looks a little like this...

It's a beautiful little volume; full colour and almost pocket-sized, it's perfect for some gentle reading in the long Winter evenings. The opening two thirds are given over to comics, while the back matter is full of wordier pieces, such as recipes, features and mini-essays.

The list of contributors is really quite stellar, and with top-notch offerings from the likes of, among others, Joe Decie, Dan Berry, Hugh Raine and Timothy Winchester (whose rather inspirational little comic about overcoming moodiness is pictured above).

The back section is just as exciting, especially Ellen Lindner's informative feature on the 'bubble tea' trend, Philippa Rice's recipe for My Cardboard Life character Cardboard Colin's Ginger Cake, and Jess Bradley's super-colourful 'Travel Musings From Tokyo'. I absolutely love Jess Bradley's stuff, and her work plays to a lot of my obsessions. That should explain why most of my notebooks are adorned with her stickers (check out Lum 'n Link, the latest additions to my family of jotters, here). Look out for her at MCM or Thought Bubble, she's ace.

And to cap it all off, there's an article of mine in there! It's a mini-essay on the whole Frederick Parkes Weber project, titled 'A Life In Artefacts, or Dr F. Parkes Weber and the 50p hardback from Birmingham'. It was fun condensing all of the themes, details and side-glances into a short-form piece of somewhat-creative journalism, even if the deadline did clash with the dissertension debacle. On the whole, I'm proud of it. Plus, it looks fab, thanks to David's design and illustration work.

Ink+PAPER can be ordered online from their website, or can be bought in person at Thought Bubble this coming weekend. Speaking of which, I'll be attending Thought Bubble this year, but more on that later.

[518] Nick Murphy Interview: The Awakening, Ghost Stories and More

2011-11-09T15:04:00.000Z

One of the perks of covering the London Film Festival is the 'Afternoon Tea' sessions that are arranged for journalists and filmmakers to come together and have a casual chat. This year, I really struck it lucky, having candid conversations with Paul Kelly (Lawrence of Belgravia) and Nick Brandestini (Darwin).

Those two might make it onto the blog in future, but for now, here's another great little interview with The Awakening director Nick Murphy, who has some very thought-provoking things to say about directing, writing and the horror genre,

Haunting cinemas across the country this week is The Awakening, a chilling ghost story starring Rebecca Hall as Florence Cathcart, a stylish super-skeptic who debunks spooks in a Britain transfixed by a post-Great War gloom.

But don’t call it a horror film. Amidst the bustle of the London Film Festival, we had the chance to talk with director Nick Murphy about how the film slots in with horror tradition, as well as his own opinions on genre, ‘strong’ female characters, and the central tenets that every film - and filmmaker - must satisfy.

However, with his insight comes the terrible taint of mild spoilers - so, please do tread carefully.

Read the full article here.

[517] Batman: Arkham City: Paul Crocker Interview

2011-11-08T12:25:00.000Z

Still playing Arkham City? Must admit, I've already moved on to Bastion (ace) and Borderlands (ace, especially when Moran is rushing off into the distance, getting into all sorts of scraps). However, it's always nice to have a little bit of perspective, so here's the second of my Rocksteady interviews, this time with lead narrative designer Paul Crocker. Beware, it gets a little geeky.

We’ve already heard from David Hego, the art director on the smash hit caped crusader sim Batman: Arkham City, but we went to the game’s lead narrative designer, Paul Crocker, for some further insight. Crocker, a man with considerable geek credentials, leads us through Rocksteady’s unique take on the Rogue’s Gallery, ponders Britain’s link to DC’s finest hero, and explains how working in a comic shop helped him to write the Arkham games.

Read the full article here.

[516] Eight Unfortunate Evangelion Toys Seen At The MCM Expo

2011-11-01T15:45:00.007Z

Expect a proper MCM report in the coming days, but here are some photographic findings from the Expo. Of course, the cosplay gets all of the attention, but it's the anime memorabilia that crops up at a show like MCM that never fails to baffle me. Here's a selection of toys I found from the series Neon Genesis Evangelion - mostly of the distant, ethereal character Rei, but there were some of the feisty redhead Asuka.

Evangelion is, at its heart, a humanist drama, which explores father-son relationships and notions of identity and responsibility, played out against the backdrop of Earth being invaded by pseudo-Biblical beings that can only be defeated by giant robots piloted by teenagers. There's a purity to its themes, and a real creative ambition behind it. The toys, however, are a different story. They're pure, unadulterated, mildly distressing fan service.

Rei at the beach, sporting a cute little totebag, and cheekily playing with the bow on her bikini.

Rei at the pool, no doubt just after collecting silver in the 100m Butterfly race.

Remember to have a good shower after swimming - we wouldn't want to get dry skin, would we?

This is not just 'Pajamas Time', this is 'EXTRA Pajamas Time', where our heroine sprawls on the bed, blouse open, as if she's deep in a coma.

How about some 'Private Time'? After a long day battling intergalactic super-beings and engaging in mild melodrama, how best to relax than to put on your favourite pink apron and slippers, and assume awkward poses with a ladel?

...or maybe lean on a fence post somewhere?

Or dress up as coquettish little maids? It's all for fun, mind you, because these characters are 14, after all!

On one hand, this is fascinating - part of a multimedia merchandising empire which also includes a GT Racing Team and hotel rooms. But on the other hand... boy, is it disturbing. I'm off to find a way to give my soul a good, deep clean.

[515] Batman: Arkham City: art director David Hego interview

2011-10-31T00:47:00.001Z

Video games! Or, more specifically, comic book video games! Last weekend, I played through the story of Batman: Arkham City, and for the most part I thoroughly enjoyed it.

More detailed thoughts could be explored in a future blog post, but for the meantime let's bring up the old 'more of the same... and more!' problem. Where Arkham Asylum was full of surprises and fresh gameplay angles on a familiar character, Arkham City can merely build, refine, and embellish. It's a remarkably polished game, but in the pursuit of new, or simply bigger, thrills, some aspects simply don't hit the mark in as impactful a way to the predecessor. I'd also say that, at least story-wise, this one has some outright flaws.

A discussion for another time, definitely. For now, here's an interview I conducted with David Hego, the game's art director.

Brace yourselves, fellow gamers - the AAA season has begun. From now until Christmas, there will be many top-tier titles vying for your time, each attempting to one-up the others in big-budget thrills and near-perfect Metacritic scores.

Currently leading the pack is Arkham City, the sequel to 2009’s Arkham Asylum - which is, we’re assured, The Best Batman Game Ever Apart From Batman On The Spectrum. So far, City has proved to be the equal of Asylum, as Batman enters the eponymous urban prison to do battle with his old foes Two-Face, Penguin and the Joker - like a remake of Escape From New York, but with Snake Plissken donning a cape and cowl, and gliding across the skyline.

However, among the plaudits showered on Arkham City by critics the world over, a few writers have taken umbrage with an underlying air of sexism seen in the game’s cleavage-centric depiction of Catwoman, and the consistent use of ‘bitch’ as a catch-all synonym for womankind.

To settle matters, we got the inside scoop from David Hego, art director at Rocksteady Studios, who gave us some insight into the artistic process, the game’s stylised, hyperreal aesthetic, and the line between sexiness and sexism.

Read the full article here.

[514] LFF Reviews: Like Crazy, We Have A Pope and Bernie

2011-10-26T19:53:00.000+01:00

[Cross-posted from Den of Geek]

We’re into the final few days of the London Film Festival, so here is the first round-up of our findings so far. Read on for crazy lovers, crazy popes and crazy morticians.

Like Crazy

A big hit at Sundance, where it took home the Grand Jury Prize for drama, Like Crazy tells the story of Anna (Felicity Jones) and Jacob (Anton Yelchin), two students who meet at university, but find their relationship strained by distance once Anna has to return to the UK after graduation.

Drake Doremus shoots this transatlantic tryst mostly with a handheld, intimate aesthetic, getting the viewer under the skin of Anna and Jacob’s moody, broody romance. The couple’s stares are full of longing, their days are graced by Californian sun, and their murmurs of affection are in turns affecting or off-putting, depending on how much you believe that messy, complicated love is somehow more pure than the regular, clean-cut kind.

However, the decision to use the US Immigration Authority as the lovers’ complicating action - as Anna decides to violate her student visa, and is therefore barred from re-entering the States - is rather odd, as not only does it give the film an easy logistical barrier to the realisation of love, but it further gives this navel-gazer an air of First World Problems.

Once Jacob starts his own furniture business, and Anna becomes a trendy lifestyle ‘blogger’ for an upmarket London magazine, we see their lives developing separately - especially so once new significant others come on the scene. However, we’re led to believe that the intense university relationship leaves a lasting impression, but besides a couple of small moments - a late-night text conversation here, a tentative, subtext-laden visit there - Doremus doesn’t really twist the knife in a similar way to Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine. The leads, for their part, are youthful, charming and lost, but the representation of their relationship just isn’t raw or wry enough to be compelling.

We Have A Pope

Italian actor-writer-director Nanni Moretti’s latest film starts with the election of a new pope and ends with the undermining of the entire Catholic faith. However, its mixture of cardinal comedy and papal drama is a little discordant.

An opening sight gag is priceless, where close shots of the papal conclave weaving through the Vatican’s tight corridors give way to reveal a veritable media circus just out of reach. Likewise, the assembled clergymen, pencilling in their ballots, are shot like schoolkids taking a test. They’re easily distracted, bored, and sneak looks at each other’s slips of paper. It also becomes clear that none of them want to be Pope, so the holy responsibility falls to a cheery, dopey old sod played by Michel Piccoli, who, just before making his first public appearance before the congregated Catholics in St Peter’s Square, suffers a breakdown and does a runner.

While Moretti finds much fun in this chaotic situation, especially once an irreverent psychoanalyst (played by the director himself) starts to concoct various schemes to keep the cardinals from leaving the Vatican, the ensuing ‘walkabout’ plot, with the Pope sojourning around Rome to perchance find himself and his lost faith, is bloated and directionless.

There’s conflict here not only between two types of film - that of comedy and drama - but two kinds of commentary. The satire, that the church is full of ineffectual, petty, old men, has some bite to it, but the dramatic broadside, where the central tenets of divine right meet human psychology, is lacking something, even if the potential resignation of a Pope has apocalyptic implications. This results in a film which isn’t entirely damned, but offers little salvation.

Bernie

Richard Linklater has spent the last decade darting between independent projects and mainstream movies, notably with the enormously successful flick School Of Rock, which starred an energetic Jack Black just before his loudmouth rocker schtick got old.

Eight years later, Black and Linklater have re-teamed for Bernie, where the actor plays the title character, a rather eccentric funeral director in small-town East Texas. Immensely popular with the locals, Bernie’s reputation is so strong that when he kills a rich spinster (Shirley MacLaine), the district attorney moves the murder trial to another town, so as to find an unbiased jury.

The fact that this is based on true events, and adapted from a newspaper article should give some indication that this isn’t the most straightforward of comedy-dramas, but Linklater adds another twist to the film. Actual residents of Carthage, Texas appear both in talking head interludes, spouting gossip and reminiscences about the protagonist, and in the main plot, playing themselves. This brings much heart to the film, as while Black is surprisingly restrained and meticulous in creating Bernie, he is blown off-screen by some of the real-life characters, who have much more warmth, wit and personality than the actor at his best.

However, the film fails to find a balance between the artistic licence of fictional filmmaking, and the commentary of documentary. Linklater and Black seem unwilling to explore Bernie’s complexities, leaving the story rather light and shallow, and are equally unwilling to hand over the telling of the tale to the friends, foes and facts themselves, which effectively botches any claim to truth. Bernie, therefore, sits squarely in the middle of Linklater’s indie-mainstream spectrum - an experiment in marrying drama and documentary, which inevitably satisfies neither.

[513] Found at a Walworth Road Charity Shop

2011-10-24T17:43:00.002+01:00

Joe Matt's The Poor Bastard, an absolute steal at £3. However, the bookmark nestled between the pages was just as surprising...

'How to open this Prayer book'. It was stuck a few pages in, and the book looked pretty much unread. I wonder what part of this master-work of neurotic, self-obsessed comics autobiography drove our religious fellow to give up on Matt. Was it the narcissism? The godless vanity? The compulsive masturbation? I guess we'll never know.

[512] We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011) Review

2011-10-24T07:58:00.000+01:00

The LFF finishes this week, which means you should see most of my coverage go online. In the meantime, here's a review of what is probably my favourite film of the festival so far. And it's out on general release right now!

We Need To Talk About Kevin. It's an odd name, really, but that didn't stop Lionel Shriver's novel from becoming a bestseller. Even now, as an adaptation from director Lynne Ramsay hits the big screen, the title still has a compelling sense of mystery, but its the film’s constant subversion of expectations that makes it utterly distinctive.

The plot centres on the relationship between Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton) and her son, Kevin (Ezra Miller), cutting back and forth in time between a post-traumatic present, where Eva lives alone, and the past, where Eva and her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) settle down to raise a family. After Kevin is born, Eva’s previous life of freedom and adventure is slowly given up in favour of full-time motherhood; but parenting proves particularly unpleasant, as Kevin grows from toddler to teenager, and turns out to be a real terror of a son - culminating in a horrific episode which upsets not only the family’s life, but that of their local community, too.

The film’s central character drama slowly unfurls, hazily moving between dream and memory, using hyper-real cinematography and dislocated sound and image to deeply unsettle the viewer. As its premise would suggest, there is darkness at the film’s heart, but the way this is manifested is consistently surprising. The basic plot calls up various genre readings - problem child horror, psycho-thriller, domestic melodrama - but Ramsay darts from one to the other, dodging tropes at every turn.

Read the full article here.

[511] 360 (2011) Review

2011-10-17T22:01:00.000+01:00

Here's my first review from the LFF, where I take a look at the opening film, 360. Lots more to come.

Also, this is my 200th article for Den of Geek, almost 3 years since my first piece for them went online. The site's grown a lot since then, but there's still plenty of developments on the horizon - and I'd like to think my writing has improved, too. Thanks to the Geeks-In-Charge for letting me write all this nonsense for them.

Since bursting onto the international scene with City Of God, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles has received untold goodwill from the global critical community. His English-language debut, 2005’s liberal guilt epic The Constant Gardener, received just as many award nominations as his Brazilian breakthrough, and also netted a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Rachel Weisz in the process.

Indeed, the legacy of these two peaks has proven so long-standing, that the box office failure Blindness has been all but forgotten, and his latest film, 360, takes pride of place as the opener for this year’s London Film Festival. Heralded as the new work from an international artist, the film bears more than a passing resemblance to the work of an uninspired hack.

Ostensibly influenced by La Ronde, a play which attempts to survey the sexual and moral aspects of society through a number of encounters between various characters, 360 takes the viewer from Vienna to Denver, via London and Paris, as it weaves together numerous narrative snapshots concerned with love, life and - sigh - the human condition.

While this approach is in one sense ambitious, tackling universal themes by exploring small moments that have major consequences, it is also insultingly shallow, as Peter Morgan’s script moves from one instance to another, giving only rudimentary depth to each sequence, and merely focusing on how the characters fit together in the film’s smug over-arching structure.

Read the full article here.

[510] 13 films you can still see at the London Film Festival

2011-10-13T16:28:00.001+01:00

The London Film Festival has started! Here's a preview post. There'll be round-ups, reviews and interviews coming up in the next couple of weeks, but you can keep up with mini-reviews of all the films I see on Twitter.

The 55th London Film Festival is now underway, boasting a programme that includes top-flight flicks like George Clooney’s The Ides Of March, Lynne Ramsey’s We Need To Talk About Kevin, and 360, directed by Fernando Meirelles. However, unless you’re a BFI member, a quick-off-the-mark cinephile, or an industry bigwig, it’s highly likely that you missed the small window of chance for getting tickets for these bigger films.

No need to worry, though, as many of the festival’s 300+ films haven’t yet sold out. Here are just a few notable or geek-friendly deep cuts that, at time of writing, still have tickets on sale.

Read the full article here.

[509] Midnight In Paris (2011) Review

2011-10-07T12:03:00.001+01:00

I somehow missed out on reviewing Woody Allen's last two films, but in the interim I watched everything else he's directed, so I guess we're even. Luckily, though, I got to see Midnight In Paris - and it's brilliant.

With Woody Allen, it’s not so much a case any more of expecting a ‘return to form’, as seeing periodic glimpses of inspiration and genius.

Recently, his work has veered from the atrocious (Cassandra’s Dream) to the great (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), with a handful of tittersome morsels in between (Whatever Works, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger). He’s still working at an alarming rate, and is still quite happy to gaze at intellectual middle class types and their over-inflated personal problems.

However, by now he is so comfortable with these tropes - life crises, marital issues, creative anxiety - that they are mere motifs, or a form of narrative shorthand that he can embellish ever so slightly, marking out each new film with a different location, a rejigged cast or small genre touches.

Midnight In Paris, the latest in what could be called Allen’s ‘tourist’ films, makes no claim at being anything else, starting as it does with an endless montage of Parisian vistas, a ‘day in the life’ overture which roots the audience in the French capital - its boulevards, its landmarks, its cultural history.

Paris brings out the romantic in Allen, as was previously seen 15 years ago in the musical Everyone Says I Love You, in which he staged a languid, dreamy song-and-dance sequence alongside the Seine, featuring himself and a knockout Goldie Hawn. Here, once more, Paris is a city that devours and delights, as Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), an erstwhile Hollywood scriptwriter, comes to the city with his fiance Inez (Rachel McAdams). After years of hackdom, he wishes to write his first novel, but his neurotic self-flagellation gets in the way, especially when faced with the aggressively-intellectual braggart Paul (Michael Sheen).

Paris, though, is inspiring, and he can barely walk ten paces without excitedly cataloguing the city’s rich artistic heritage. "Imagine this town in the 20s!" he raves, as Inez rolls her eyes and shops for furniture, with her equally disapproving parents (Mimi Kennedy, Kurt Fuller). Soon, Gil’s alone, wandering the streets and dreaming of the past. At which point, a church bell strikes midnight, and a vintage car stops nearby, ready to whisk him away on a jazz age adventure.

Read the full article here.

[508] #Dissertension Done.

2011-10-04T02:49:00.001+01:00

What now?

In the short term, I'm covering the London Film Festival for Den of Geek. Expect a preview soon, and some columns/reviews/coverage once the festival gets under way. Oh, and there's BytesCorp, which is taking off as a small production company. Crikey.

I'd like for the dissertation to find a larger readership than me, my tutor and the external marker. Sadly, 15,000 is a bit unwieldy. I'll think of something. Maybe a series of blog posts? We'll see.

[507] Dissertension

2011-09-23T11:37:00.003+01:00

My original ambition was to blog along with my MA dissertation work, but due to many mitigating circumstances (BytesCorp, mainly), I'm up against the deadline. I'm powering through, though, and at quite a comforting speed, judging by the '#dissertension' hashtag stream. It's quite exciting to be laying tracks as you're motoring along them. Thankfully it's all coming together, and I'm enjoying it.

All will be back to normal service soon - within a week, in fact. Until then, wish me luck.

[506] Adventures in Comics: Orbital Self-Portrait Exhibition

2011-09-19T00:17:00.002+01:00

Comics! Remember them? I sure do. It's been a little two-dimensional over here of late (Bytes-work and diss-work), but I still made the effort to go and check out the latest in a long line of ace exhibitions at Orbital Comics.

This time out, it's a bunch of self portraits from some of the UK's brightest comics stars. And what a lovely selection it is!

Filmish creator Edward Ross; and Ink+Paper editor David O'Connell (is that an... ostrich?)

Mancunian Master-comicker Adam Cadwell (who's always got his eye on you)

Timothy Winchester (+ some People He Knows)

It's another marvellous little exhibition from Orbital. What's surprising is how the bevvy of artists subvert the form of the portrait, breaking out of the imposed framing of yesteryear and really letting their personalities flow onto the page. Key examples range from Mark Stafford, who splashes his mug over a fake magazine cover, to Paul Rainey, who gives us a slice of middle-aged life (with a little touch of TMI...). Other ace contributions that I didn't photograph (or didn't photograph well) include Philippa Rice, Luke Pearson, Ellen Lindner (whose piece you can see here), Joe Decie and Tom Humberstone.

If you find yourself around Leicester Square, then make sure you check it out. The exhibition runs until the 15th of October, and you can read more about it here.

Edit: Artist and mega-blogger Sarah McIntyre beat me to the punch, not only by posting about this launch a full two hours before I did, but by snapping some awesome pictures of the artists alongside their portraits. Go and have a look.

[505] 30 Minutes Or Less (2011) Review

2011-09-16T11:30:00.000+01:00

Here's my latest review for Little White Lies, which proves that I can be as snarky as the best of them. I'm thinking of ordering a rubber stamp which says 'insultingly phallocentric' and having my merry way with the DVD section in HMV.

A serious aside: I find it interesting how 30 Minutes Or Less is getting a much easier ride from UK-based reviewers than their US counterparts. My review has much more in common with Ebert, Brody and Corliss ('For a soul-sucking 83 minutes, you're trapped inside the film's tiny, ugly mind.'), while my colleagues on this side of the pond, from Peter Bradshaw to David Jenkins, seem to be innocently entertained by the flick. Bradshaw even gave it four stars! Curious.

As is becoming more common by the day, the best way to grasp deadbeat heist comedy 30 Minutes or Less is to look at how it treats not its male protagonists, but its female supporting characters.

There are only a handful of women in the film, and only two are given names in the credits. One of them is Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria), the pretty, ambitious city professional who just can’t tear herself away from lead loser Nick (an improbable Jesse Eisenberg). The other is a callous stripper called Juicy (Bianca Kajlich), who seduces slacker extraordinaire Dwayne (Danny McBride) into formulating a plan to bump off his rich father.

Hackneyed caricatures, both, but at least they’re not relegated to the role of ‘Hot Girl’ or, heaven forbid, a cameo as the pliant chick who gives Nick’s best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) a supposedly uncomfortable, front-seat blowjob.

It’s not that the gents are any better filled out, but 30 Minutes or Less is entirely focused on their world, and is only interested in their manchildish dilemmas, exploring the conflict between laziness and responsibility while joyfully celebrating a lifestyle of film marathons, Call of Duty and Mountain Dew.

Read the full article here.

[504] BytesCorp Website; Vigiden Teaser; Ed of the Week

2011-09-14T09:00:00.001+01:00

Things are so busy at BytesCorp that this has to be a three-in-one update!

First of all, this week we released a short teaser for our upcoming project: VIGIDEN. It concerns Jeff Tozai. Where did he get to, after we left him in a London backstreet? What happened after he was manhandled by the fearsome Greek Ninten-dogsbody Andreas? And what's this about a news network for video games? All will be revealed soon. Thanks to Cathy Thomas for providing her voice for this.

Also, our website is now live, sporting some lovely artwork from Bytes-Cohort Ebony. Check it out, have a read, we're quite proud of it.

And, finally, our intrepid editor-cum-production-whizzkid Edward Szekely was profiled as part of the 'Job of the Week' feature over at the IdeasTap website, answering all of the questions you're dying to ask about being a Greenscreen Technician.

Some wise words in there, especially this quote from Lucille Ball:

“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do.”

On that note, I'd best get back to work. This dissertation isn't going to write itself, you know. In the meantime - spread the word, and give us some feedback, why don't you?

[503] Artificial Intelligence, Episode One

2011-09-13T10:57:00.000+01:00

The second episode of Artificial Intelligence is here! It's Episode One! Here's a blurb:

Welcome to the first official episode of Artificial Intelligence, a new fortnightly conversation about the growing relationship between the developing world of videogames, media, and culture. Matthew Burt, Joseph Ewens, and Michael Leader have been slaving away over a hot recording studio to bring you this finely cooked chunk of video game discussion.

This week they disentangle the increasingly symbiotic relationship between development studios and the communities that blossom around their games. Become a member of the AIPod community by firing your thoughts into the comment box below or sending us an email at intelligents@aipodcast.co.uk.

Go and listen. And here is a picture of where we record this seriously intellectual gaming podcast.

Mysterious, isn't it?

[502] In Appreciation of Ryan Gosling

2011-09-07T16:46:00.000+01:00

In anticipation of Drive, here's an article about Ryan Gosling, and his astonishing career so far.

It’s very easy to be cynical about Disney, especially when you look at their parade of child stars that fill up their various kids’ media organs. These tween pop sensations - the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, the High School Musical gang - seem to be bred for preening, sell-out stardom, pumping out CDs, merchandise and crowd-pleasing filler for as long as their corporate overlords wish.

Although, while the impulse to scoff is strong, it’s complicated by looking at the precedent set by the last generation of Disney kids. Back in 1993, if you were to spend some time with the Mickey Mouse Club, you’d see in premature form a bunch of pop culture notables, from Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, to Justin Timberlake. The former have very much coloured mainstream music for over a decade now, and the latter, after doing the same, is now making a promising move into the movies.

He’s not the first, as he’s following in the footsteps of one of the quieter successes from the MMC line-up: Ryan Gosling. Alongside the world-conquering pop stars, Gosling may seem unassuming, especially when you look at the false-starts that marred his teenage years (one season as Young Hercules, another in high-concept teens-on-a-cruise series Breaker High), but his career in the last decade has been consistently surprising, daring and damn near unique in the current Hollywood landscape.

Read the full article here.

[501] GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN: On 'External'

2011-09-05T17:20:00.000+01:00

Behind The Bytes may be finished, but BytesCorp are still hard at work. We recently moved into our office space at The Woolyard, and have just polished off a short promo video for our desk-mates GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN. It's teasing their forthcoming production 'External', which opens at the Soho Theatre this week.

Exciting, right? For more information about GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN, and 'External', visit their site here.

[500] Looking Back at Days of Heaven

2011-09-02T11:58:00.002+01:00

Three months after tackling Apocalypse Now, I attempt to wrap my head around Days Of Heaven, a film released in the same year, and born of similar indulgences. It's another ambitious, lumbering Look Back essay, but this time I grapple with Terrence Malick the filmmaker. Why is he treated with such reverence, when he's only made 5 films - and, indeed, when those films have been so divisive?

As Terrence Malick enjoys what could be the most attention he’s attracted in three decades (or, by his measure, three films) with this year’s divisive art flick Tree Of Life, the BFI are releasing a restoration of Days Of Heaven, one of the two films that made his reputation in the 1970s, before his two-decade hiatus from the industry that lasted until 1998’s The Thin Red Line.

In Days Of Heaven, a too-brooding, too-handsome Richard Gere stars as Bill, a young worker who, after a fatal tussle with a steel mill foreman, gathers up his girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) and his sister Linda (Linda Manz) and abandons 1916 Chicago to harvest crops out West. Posing as siblings, the trio work for a rich, terminally ill farmer (Sam Shepard), who soon takes a shine to Abby. Spying an easy route to fortune, Bill convinces Abby to indulge the farmer’s advances, so they can score his lands once he croaks.

The film is not so much driven by plot, as it is by imagery, and the Academy Award-winning cinematography by Nestor Almendros (with additional photography from Haskell Wexler) is utterly compelling. Resisting soft-focus, picture card representations of rolling corn fields and rural tranquility, the film’s look is very much a dusty, early 20th century counterpart to Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, with its painterly approach to exterior landscapes, location shooting and natural light.

Especially in this painstaking restoration, the shots that Malick, Almendros and crew come up with are consistently breathtaking, whether they be of endless vistas, scenes of harvesting, or a scarecrow silhouetted against the twilight sky.

However, Malick is often overwhelmed by his ambitious sense of scale. And while this makes for some quite effective broad-stroke moments, on a personal level the film seems remarkably superficial. A surprising amount of the film’s deep emotional effectiveness comes from external, post-production sources. The wistful, homespun framing is entirely a product of the meandering, semi-improvised narration (recorded long after the fact with Linda Manz), and the recurring motifs from Leo Kottke’s buzzing, droning twelve-string guitar.

Indeed, even the film’s most bravura moments are indebted to Ennio Morricone, who contributes a typically exquisite score in this romantic, sometimes nostalgic set of cues. This is particularly evident in the scene where a swarm of hornets decimates the crop, with the howling, traumatised farmer dousing his livelihood in flame. Malick lets loose here, as man is suffocated by biblical plague, and chaos rages along with the fire.It is a terrifying sight to behold, but Morricone’s score - which, reportedly, he contributed under the condition that it would remain intact - is an unsettling, operatic masterpiece, building from restrained, strangled strings and bass-heavy rumbles to an awful crescendo: a wretched march of the profane.

Read the full article here.

[499] Kill List Interview: Ben Wheatley, Neil Maskell and MyAnna Buring

2011-08-31T11:37:00.000+01:00

I had a lot of fun with this interview, for must-see British thriller Kill List. Turns out that Ben Wheatley is a marvellous chap, and MyAnna Buring and Neil Maskell are pretty pleasant, too.

Have a read - and make sure you see the film! It's out this week, in selected UK cinemas.

After receiving its UK premiere at FrightFest last weekend, the terrific, terrifying Kill List is released on Friday. In anticipation, we spoke with director Ben Wheatley, and stars Neil Maskell and MyAnna Buring, about low-budget filmmaking, improvising on set, and how best to describe this twisty, twisted film.

Kill List is a really interesting cross-genre film. It starts off in a similar mould to [Wheatley’s previous film] Down Terrace, with the domestic setting, but then you pull the rug a couple of times on the audience. What was the starting point for the film? Did you set out to make a horror movie?

Ben Wheatley: There’s a lot of different starting points, I think. There’s one which is that we definitely were going to make a horror film after making a crime film. We didn’t want to make another crime film. Lots of people have been saying, “Oh, it starts like a crime film”, and the first few times I heard it, I was like, “Aw, shit, I guess!” But I never think of them as criminals, they’re more like blue-collar soldiers. There’s no geezer with gold chains who gives them the cash to go and do their stuff.

Then there was this thing. We’d written a thing called Get Jakarta, which was for Neil to do. There was a possibility of doing this thing in the Philippines, so we were going to go out there and shoot it. This was quite early on, I think. I think this was still while we were doing [UK comedy series] Wrong Door, even. It was bubbling along.

It was basically like Get Carter, which becomes like a HP Lovecraft thing. So he goes out to find his mate, but then his hand gets cut, and he gets infected and he starts hallucinating. But nothing ever came of that, but that basic thing was kicking about. And then there was a casting idea.

Obviously, I worked with these guys on Wrong Door, and Michael Smiley was in Wrong Door as well. And after working with him in Down Terrace, I really wanted to work with him again. So it started to become this idea of getting Michael and Neil together, and then what would they get up to.

And then we were trying to do a short, which was with MyAnna and Neil, and that didn’t come off, but we had a meeting, and got them together. So we had different bits of casting kicking about, and then it all started to coalesce into this movie.

And all the script was written specifically for these people, so there was no casting in the traditional sense, we just shot a five minute, six minute chunk of Kill List, and we showed the financiers that. And we went, “This is who it’s going to be”, and they went, “...okay!”

Read the full article here.

[498] The Skin I Live In (2011) Review

2011-08-30T12:32:00.001+01:00

Man, yet another brilliant, messed-up film with twists which I can't give away in the review! Just go and see it, will you?

After thirty years of campy comedy, passionate drama, luscious female characters and brightly coloured set design, it’s a joy to see that Pedro Almodóvar still manages to surprise the audience, and have fun while he’s at it. His latest film, The Skin I Live In (La Piel Que Habito), carries on from 2009’s neo-noir Broken Embraces in its cheeky co-option of genre tropes, although where that film was still sensual and perky, this new effort is decidedly perverse.

Long-time collaborator Antonio Banderas stars as Robert Ledgard, a brilliant doctor who specialises in reconstructive surgery. He also conducts revolutionary research in his secluded home, where he experiments on a young woman, Vera (Elena Anaya), whom he holds captive. Dressed in a body stocking, and under constant, voyeuristic surveillance, Vera holds the key to a major medical breakthrough, as her skin is extremely resistant to heat.

With its mild sci-fi concept, and compelling mystery, the film does not resemble a typical Almodóvar film, although the wonderfully over-dressed sets, where clinical, futuristic laboratories rub shoulders with rural Spanish architecture and eclectic, polystylist interiors, do recall the director’s visual flair, even if the vibrant colours have been exchanged for a more muted, stark palette.

Just as surprising is the director’s complete dedication to the genre, with energetic montage sequences of petri dishes and pipettes, as Robert gets to work conjuring up his artificial skin. Likewise, the intrigue builds as we watch Vera, isolated from the world just as her inhuman barrier distances her from human feeling, go about her daily routine of yoga, reading, and creating patchwork sculptures.

Odd flourishes crop up from time to time, such as Robert’s anachronistic predilection for smoking opium, or the appearance of overly dramatic intertitles. However, the director’s straight face is maintained. At least, that is until a man in a tiger costume (the son of Robert’s housekeeper) turns up, and not only disrupts the characters’ secluded existence, but the film’s own sense of sanity.

Read the full article here.

[497] Kill List (2011) Review

2011-08-29T12:56:00.000+01:00

Last year, I was really taken by Down Terrace, a film directed by Ben Wheatley - who, it turned out, is a friend of Nerdgasm team leader and London Loves Comics blogger Dom Sutton. So, of course, I was pretty excited to see his new film, Kill List. And, damn, was it surprising.

Note: Kill List is a film that works wonderfully with its surprises left intact. The following review doesn’t delve too deeply into spoiler territory, but if you prefer to experience the film unspoiled, then we recommend you just go and see it.

Just over a year ago, we here at Den of Geek were taken completely by surprise by Down Terrace, a low-budget, domestic crime drama directed, co-edited and co-written by Ben Wheatley.

With its understated charm, and disarming sense of humour, the film stood out among the dreary drama and urban grime that clog up the British film industry - although, unfortunately, it didn’t get half the attention it deserved. Thankfully, this is being rectified for Wheatley’s follow-up, the surreal thriller-horror mish-mash Kill List.

Read the full review here.

[496] BytesCorp: The Office

2011-08-27T01:27:00.002+01:00

This week, BytesCorp moved into an office - our office.

How swish! It's in between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, and has been kindly donated to us by Ideastap. Read more about that here, in an article which also features our first ever interview as a company.

It's a lovely place. Inspiring, well-located, and, crucially, full of cake. Crikey, we'd better get started on the next thing, now...

[495] Behind The Bytes #5: Yoshi & The Death of Birdo

2011-08-24T18:01:00.000+01:00

Brace yourselves...

Episode 5: The Behind The Bytes Special. With Birdo dead and the gaming world in disarray, the intrepid news hounds at BTB tackle their greatest scandal yet: a thrilling mystery which takes them straight to the murky heart of Nintendo. Stones will be turned. Preconceptions will be blown. And cakes will be baked.

This was an ambitious episode, a finale in which we break all of the rules that we'd slowly built around the Bytes format. Exteriors, dialogue, locations, night-time shoots, handheld shots with movement. It was exhausting, but showed that we could do something very different. I think it works. It's certainly rather bonkers. Anyway, have a watch.

And that's our miniseries. 5 episodes in 5 months, and we're just about to break 70,000 hits on Youtube. That's quite encouraging! Don't worry, we're not giving up completely. BytesCorp will return, in a slightly different form, in October. Developments are ahead, I assure you.

But let's not consign Bytes to the scrapheap of memory just yet. Here are some behind-the-scenes photos from the finale.

First up, Nick & Ed standing on the balcony of Tozai Towers, East London. What a view.

And Ed, in Tozai's alt-costume, being a little bit Ozu with our low-angled shooting.

A rare view of Nick, on location at the Royal Exchange (an on-the-day change of location, as it was more convenient and less crowded than the Bank of England, which was in the script).

Still at the Royal Exchange, with Ed shooting the establishing shot, just before handing over the camerawork reins to me and filling the role of Jeff Tozai: Font of Information.

Unfortunately, I don't have any shots from our night-time shoot at the Barbican, but that's probably because that evening was filled with tension, as we kept throwing sandwiches into the lake, constantly looking over our shoulders at the one lone security guard ambling around the complex. When we started this, I wouldn't have guessed that we'd go out like that. It's certainly a way to go out, though.

Thanks for all the comments and support so far. We'll be back soon with more BytesCorp frivolity!

[494] Villain (Akunin, 2010) Review

2011-08-22T17:53:00.000+01:00

It's very rare that I let the wider context of a film's release affect my review, but in this case, I had to make an exception.

It would be improper to review Villain (Akunin), the award-winning Japanese drama which is getting a limited UK release this week, without acknowledging recent developments regarding its distributor, Third Window Films. As part of the recent rioting that has flared up across the country, Sony’s main DADC warehouse in Enfield was subject to an arson attack, resulting in many independent labels (both music and film) losing vast numbers of their stock.

Third Window, who have garnered a reputation for releasing esoteric, quirky, or just flat-out brilliant East Asian films, is one of the many businesses that now find themselves in an unfortunate spot. In their particular case, almost 20,000 DVD discs have been written off, and to replenish the whole catalogue would be a great investment.

A setback like this could be fatal. For these companies, the home entertainment market is their main source of income, providing much of the capital used to acquire, exhibit and promote new films. Theatrical releases themselves are more about getting the word out, working as a loss leader that only starts to pay off once the DVDs roll out later on, and interest has had a chance to gather.

This brings us to Villain. While it may not be the strongest, or most audacious entry in the Third Window catalogue, it is nonetheless another fine, if flawed addition. Adapted from the novel by Shuichi Yoshida, the film was a tremendous critical success in Japan, scoring 15 academy award nominations (winning five), and topping the film of the year list in influential film mag Kinema Junpo.

Read the full article here.

[493] WAW+P Radio #10: Reinhard Kleist

2011-08-16T17:06:00.000+01:00

Ten episodes of podcastery! It's only taken me a year. So maybe my output hasn't been as prolific as I'd hoped, but surely it's all about quality over quantity?

With that in mind, stuff this episode in your ears. For me, this year has been full of German comics, from Arne Bellstorf's Baby's In Black, to the raft of autobiographical books by Mawil that Blank Slate put out a couple of months ago. They're all fantastic, and now we can add Reinhard Kleist to the list. I recently got around to reading his Johnny Cash graphic biography, I See A Darkness, and found that it was just as beautiful as the entire world said it was.

His new book is another biography, Castro. I'm only halfway through it, but it's looking great so far. I love his style, full of expressive brush-strokes and big splodges of black ink. And it turns out he's not only a great guy to talk to, but he also has a killer taste in music - as is evidenced by the podcast below. Here's a blurb:

We Are Words + Pictures host Michael Leader talks about graphic biographies with German comics artist Reinhard Kleist, the creator of Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness and Castro.

To find out more about the We Are Words + Pictures collective, visit their site at: http://wearewordsandpictures.com/

Links:
Reinhard Kleist - http://www.reinhard-kleist.de/
SelfMadeHero - http://www.selfmadehero.com/

Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues
Johnny Cash - I See A Darkness
Johnny Cash - Greystone Chapel
Afghan Whigs - What Jail Is Like
Monster Magnet - Negasonic Teenage Warhead
Baroness - The Gnashing

Listen below, or right-click here to save. I have another interview primed already, which just needs a little tinkering, and then there's all the amazing material from New Cross Turn Left. So, once I get time, you should be drowning in comics chat.

We Are Words + Pictures, Vol. 10 by London Fields Radio on Mixcloud

In the meantime, have a listen, leave a comment, and maybe go forth and evangelise!

[492] Rise of The Planet of The Apes Roundtable Interview

2011-08-15T15:54:00.000+01:00

Apes will rise; press junkets will be held; questions will be asked.

Already a surprise hit in the States, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes has been notching up positive reviews from all quarters, dispelling much of the trepidation that greeted the initial plans to reboot the iconic sci-fi series.

With the ape revolution occurring now on British shores, we (and a bunch of the country’s best bloggers) had the chance to chat with director Rupert Wyatt and visual effects supervisor Dan Lemmon.

Besides going into great detail about the performance capture technology that turned Andy Serkis into lead ape Caesar, they weighed in on the 3D debate, told us their thoughts for the future of the series, and even threw a couple of compliments in the direction of the much-maligned 2001 Planet Of The Apes flick, directed by Tim Burton.

Read the full article here.

[491] Behind The Bytes #4 - Duke Nukem: Reluctant Misogynist

2011-08-03T19:35:00.002+01:00

Here we go again... another episode of Behind The Bytes! This time, we look at everyone's favourite buzzcut bro-dude, Duke Nukem.

Episode 4: The twisted story of Duke Nukem, misunderstood babe-saviour. Expect atomic gossip, tyrannical tykes, and a double-bluff that changed the gaming world... forever.

Watch it! Love it! Share it!

We're currently hard at work on the Bytes-finale, coming later this month. So damn hard, I tell you...

Watch this space for more updates from behind the scenes of Bytes. In the meantime, however, check out the new episode!

[490] A Better Life (2011) Review

2011-07-30T17:57:00.001+01:00

All joking and snobbery aside, why do we watch films from other countries? They so often tell stories which are, by their nature, foreign to our experience, and represent lifestyles that exist far outside the context of our day-to-day doings. The assumption is that the broadening of horizons leads to greater cultural awareness, and also a greater global appreciation of cinema as an artform.

Sadly, illegal immigrant drama, A Better Life, doesn't tick either of those artistic boxes, and it's rather curious that it has been internationally distributed at all. It tells the two-pronged story of Carlos (Demián Bichir), a hard working gardener, and Luis (José Julián), his teenage son, as they live the uneasy existence which the American Dream has become for Mexican residents in California.

Without citizenship, Carlos toils away at laborious cash-in-hand jobs, dreaming of one day being able to afford the expensive legal procedure that would grant him a visa. A glimmer of hope appears when a workmate decides to up sticks, and puts his van up for sale, offering Carlos the chance to run his own business. At great personal risk, he takes the opportunity.

But this wouldn't be an ‘issues film' if things came easily, as on the first day of this new venture, the van is stolen, leaving Carlos penniless and hopeless. To make matters worse, his son is developing a bad case of ‘teenage prat' syndrome, spurning his father's diligent attempts at single parent life in favour of cracking wise and eyeing up tattoo-heavy drug dealers.

Read the full article here.

[489] Artificial Intelligence, Episode Zero

2011-07-26T12:39:00.003+01:00

Here's something that I've not really talked about much. It's another podcast! Den of Geek (and Nerdgasm quiz team) colleague Joe Ewens recently got in touch and asked if I'd like to collaborate on a gaming podcast, alongside theatre/arts champion Matthew Burt. I, of course, said yes, and we recorded a pilot episode a month ago, in an amazing recording space in a basement flat in Hackney.

And here it is! We start by talking about sequels, series and remakes in gaming, tying it in with wider cultural concerns. Have a listen! Check out the website! Give us some feedback!

Welcome to the Artificial Intelligence podcast, a new fortnightly conversation about the growing relationship between the developing world of videogames, media, and culture.

In this first episode, Michael Leader, Joseph Ewens, and Matthew Burt discuss sequels and remakes. Are video game sequels as abhorrent as the latest Hollywood cash in? Will remakes continue to be relevant as the medium evolves? Does Joe like Pokemon? You’ll never know, unless you listen.

Read, listen, and enlighten yourself here.

[488] Mike Mills Interview

2011-07-22T15:45:00.000+01:00

I enjoy interviewing people. I think I do it quite well. This interview with Mike Mills was one of the easiest in recent memory. I did not particularly like his new film, Beginners, but the conversation flowed easily enough.

I didn't even have to bring out my back-up question about his music video for the Air song 'All I Need', which, as a 13 year old, completely blew my mind. Not only for the downbeat sun-kissed tune itself, but for how it breaks out of the conventions of music video-making, crossing over with elements of documentary. Watch it here.

And, oh, read the interview, while you're here.

Beginners, the new film from Mike Mills, has been promoted oddly. The posters currently adorning the country are bright, white affairs, complete with a grinning Ewan McGregor, a pouting Mélanie Laurent, and a dashing, neckerchief-clad Christopher Plummer. There’s also a cute dog, for good measure.

When coupled with the most basic of plot synopses - that 70-odd year old Hal (Plummer) comes out as gay to his son, Oliver (McGregor) - it looks like we’d be in for a pleasant, buoyant indie comedy.

However, the roots of Beginners go deeper. This is actually a very personal story, unapologetic in its tone, and marked by grief. Mills’ own father came out in his old age, and died only a few years later. The resulting film is born out of that emotion, and is influenced by the writer-director’s wide array of creative interests, from his music videos, to his work in graphic design. We recently had the chance to talk with Mills, ahead of the release of Beginners on Friday.

Read the full article here.

[487] Beginners (2011) Review

2011-07-21T18:02:00.001+01:00

Another review for Little White Lies! And, again, another film I didn't particularly like, which nonetheless is getting big, fat, rave reviews from people around the web. Am I going through a grouch-y period again? I guess I am.

Case in point: I saw 4 films last week, three of them will be getting 2 star reviews. If anyone finds my joie de vivre, please mail it to the address in the sidebar.

Despite hitting the age of 81, it seems that nothing is slowing down Christopher Plummer. He still manages to find bold, distinctive roles that dodge the stereotypical casting for old film folk, from voicing heartbroken grouch Charles Muntz in Pixar’s Up, to appearing in the title role in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

However, while Beginners seems to be yet another showcase for the octogenarian – here starring as Hal, a widower who, in his final years, admits to his family that he’s gay – it is in fact surprisingly slippery, and somewhat disappointing.

Read the full article here.

[486] Adventures In Comics: Ink+Paper & New Cross Turn Left

2011-07-20T12:10:00.000+01:00

I've been so busy of late that I've neglected to mention some of the huge things that are happening in the near future. Luckily, I've managed to tear myself away from my imposing, terrifying four-tiered to-do list, with a view to enlightening you lovely people to some SUPER comics-related wonders.

First up, Ink + Paper.

David O' Connell is a top chap. His Tozo comic was one of the first books I picked up when I started trundling along to London comics fairs, and his 100 Days project, the Francophilic romance A Corner Of Paradise, really perked me up when I read it earlier this year. Now he's making an anthology-magazine, which launches in November with a fantastic array of talent, including Lizz Lunney, Philippa Rice, Timothy Winchester, Dan Berry, Ellen Lindner, Hugh Raine, Joe Decie, and Jess Bradley (who I only discovered recently, at May's MCM Expo, but gosh her stuff is great).

The twist this time is that I'm contributing, too. I'll be writing up a précis on my Dr. F. Parkes Weber project, exploring how purchasing a dusty little hardback from Mr Wycherley's dusty little bookshop in Selly Oak connected me with a long-dead physician, and revealed to me a bygone London. This has been brewing for some time, so I'm excited to finally get the words out - and to have it enshrined in print, alongside such a list of cohorts? I'm thrilled.

To whet the old appetite, here are two photographs Lillian Wilkie took a year ago of the book in question.

Secondly, and much more pressingly, this Sunday will see an eruption of comics, art, comedy and music in the borderlands between New Cross and Deptford in South London. It's New Cross Turn Left, an event masterminded by locals Ellen Lindner, Julia Scheele, Howard Hardiman and Nevs Coleman.

It should be immense fun. It's being held at the Old Police Station, which has been taken over by various art-y types and turned into a haven for creativity. I'll be there in a WAW+P capacity, interviewing people for the podcast in an old interrogation cell. Come along! Details are over at the NCTL blog.

Now, back to work - whatever that means. I have a huge pile of comics to blog about, and two podcasts to edit, so expect more adventures sometime soon.

[485] Behind The Bytes #3: Chris Redfield & Leon Kennedy

2011-07-19T12:00:00.000+01:00

Hey, it's another episode of Behind The Bytes! This time, we offer...

...a chilling exposé of the men behind the evil. Chris Redfield, humble country boy turned man-monster vs. Leon Kennedy, blue-blood poster boy for the American Dream.

It's all about Resident Evil. Watch it.

Another episode, another t-shirt. Also a wildly unflattering preview picture. Well, it's not a patch on what Moran made me do for the gag reel. And by 'gag', I mean the reflex. There's a video somewhere, I'm sure it will eventually see the light of day.

Anyway... We're over the hump! Two episodes left, and then the thrilling expanse of pure potential. What next? Who knows.

Please watch, rate, venerate. Spread the word and the love, and you will receive my gratitude in return.

[484] Treacle Jr (2010) Review

2011-07-18T19:31:00.001+01:00

One of the upsides of living near Elephant & Castle is that so many films are shot right nearby. Name a London-set inner city drama, and it's likely to have been filmed in the now-empty Heygate Estate (I live in the shadow of the neighbouring Aylesbury Estate).

Recognising a filming location in a personal, not iconic, way is something that never gets old, and it didn't take me long to realise that Treacle Jr. was shot in a similar South London locale. There are the obvious scenes, such as one where the protagonist squats in the entryway of Spurgeon's Tabernacle, but the characters also wander around parks and estates in Southwark, Dulwich and, apparently, Wandsworth.

Take that, Hackney.

Treacle Jr, the new film from writer-director Jamie Thraves (The Low Down), opens wordlessly, and ends with little to say. Made on the cheap, but not without great personal investment, the film uses its budgetary weaknesses to its advantage, shooting straight and immediate, giving its gently unfolding premise considerable nuance, as Tom (Tom Fisher), decides to leave his family home in Birmingham to sleep rough in the capital. He boards a train to London, chops up his credit cards, and loiters in public parks, before meeting Aidan (Aidan Gillen), an Irish oddjobber who takes a shine to him, and, to our protagonist's all-too-polite discomfort, just won't leave him alone.

Shot on location, the film follows the unlikely duo as they wander around South London. Gillen drives these scenes, skipping through cemeteries and excitedly declaring custard creams ‘the King of Biscuits'. His energetic, motormouth schtick is endlessly engaging, especially in seemingly improvised moments with unknowing members of the public, who had the misfortune to walk their dog near, or open their front door to, this little bundle of manchildish madness.

Read the full article here.

[483] Cell 211 (2009) Review

2011-07-16T09:35:00.001+01:00

Well, that was quick. Here's my review of Spanish prison thriller Cell 211 (Celda 211) from Little White Lies.

The prison is one of the more potent backdrops of onscreen drama, and the list of iconic jailhouse films is longer than most attention spans. The melting-pot mixture of enforced containment, community and introspection offers a fertile context for stories that run from the personal to the political, the poetic to the gut-punch visceral.

The award-winning Spanish thriller Cell 211 is more of the latter. Hoping to make a good impression before taking up a job as a prison officer, youthful Juan (Alberto Ammann) asks for a tour of his new workplace – which, as luck would have it, occurs during a full-blown prison riot. Abandoned by his employers in the eponymous cell, Juan is soon brought before the ringleader of the uprising, the towering Malamadre (Luis Tosar), with only his wits for protection.

Read the full article here.

[482] Three Reviews in Little White Lies #36

2011-07-12T14:38:00.002+01:00

The gorgeous new issue of Little White Lies is out now, and it contains three reviews by me! Spanish prison flick Cell 211, and indie dramas Meet Monica Velour and Beginners, are all put under the microscope. Sadly, the scores make up a sea of 2s and 3s. But look, sexy print!

Little White Lies should be available at any hip newsagents or cinephile hangout. I recommend you buy it; the cover film this issue is Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In, and there are a handful of rather fascinating articles in there.

I'll post links to the full reviews as they appear on the LWL site. I'm a little proud of them. And by 'them', I mean the puns in the Meet Monica Velour review. The actual reviews are okay, I suppose.

[481] Holy Rollers (2010)

2011-07-12T00:07:00.000+01:00

After interviewing Jesse Eisenberg, here's the review of Holy Rollers - which sounds a little like it should be a comedy. Although, weirdly, this week I'm seeing 30 Minutes Or Less, another Eisenberg vehicle which, this time, is actually a crime-based comedy. Bizarre.

Holy Rollers never successfully shakes off one crucial pre-viewing assumption, inspired by the puntastic title, but sustained by the set-up. This is a low budget indie flick starring Jesse Eisenberg as an awkward New Yorker, who gets embroiled in a massive drug smuggling operation, maintained by Hasidic Jews. In other hands, this could be a fish out of water, coming of age comedy, maybe with some gross-out and stoner overtones. But actually, Kevin Asch's debut feature is the polar opposite. It's a tragic crime drama, with ambitions of being a modern religious fable.

Holy Rollers' roots are in reality, being based on the true story of the ecstasy smuggling ring, which fooled airport security in the late 90s by hiding pills in the traditional dress of Hasidic Jewish travellers. Sam Gold (Jesse Eisenberg) is an unlikely gangster. He keeps his head down, working at his father's fabric store while aspiring to be a rabbi and marry a nice local girl. However, a run-in with rebellious neighbour, Yosef (Justin Bartha), introduces Sam to the secular world of booze, E's and women, causing him to turn his back on his family, in favour of ill-gotten fortune.

Read the full article here.

[480] Jesse Eisenberg Interview

2011-07-07T15:51:00.000+01:00

Let the film journalism drought end! Here's an interview I conducted back in February, with Jesse Eisenberg. I promise, if I ever get another chance to talk with him, I will dedicate the whole interview to discussing his theatre work, satirical writing, and contributions to McSweeney's. Deal?

Back in February, on the day before the BAFTAs, we had the chance to speak with Best Actor nominee, Jesse Eisenberg. He'd been nominated for his stunning performance as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, but the interview was in anticipation of Eisenberg's starring role in another, much smaller film, which is out this week. Produced on a shoestring budget, Holy Rollers retells the real-life story of a group of Hassidic Jews, who operate a drug smuggling operation in late-90s New York.

We spoke with Eisenberg (who's every bit as hyperactive, nervously energetic, and smart as his on-screen turns would have you believe) about Holy Rollers, working with directors from Wes Craven to Fred Durst, and whether we should expect Zombieland 2 anytime soon...

Read the full article here.

[479] WAW+P Radio 9: Howard Hardiman

2011-07-06T12:17:00.000+01:00

Howard Hardiman? Lovely chap. In fact, the first London-based comics person that I ever spoke to, at the Comiket in the ICA a couple of years ago. He was so very friendly, and was selling Badger, which I grew to LOVE, so I knew that the comics scene had something to offer me.

Now I interview him for the WAW+P podcast, and we have a right old laugh. Mostly at me, and my accidental slippages into double entendre. Here's the blurb from the London Fields Radio site.

We Are Words + Pictures host Michael Leader ventures south of the Thames to interview Howard Hardiman in his Deptford studio, talking about The Lengths, Howard's comic about male sex workers in London.

To find out more about the We Are Words + Pictures collective, visit their site at http://wearewordsandpictures.com/

Links:
Howard Hardiman - http://www.thelengths.com/
New Cross Turn Left - http://newcrossturnleft.blogspot.com
Birmingham Zine Festival - http://www.birminghamzinefestival.com/

Tom Waits - I'm Your Late Night Evening Prostitute
Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side
Gloria Jones - Tainted Love
Hedwig & The Angry Inch - Sugar Daddy
Dusty Springfield - Take Another Little Piece of My Heart
Hole - Asking For It
Blondie - Call Me
The Shirelles - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
Silvia Donati - Roxanne

You can download the podcast here, or listen using the LFR Mixcloud player below. I have 3 more episodes planned for the next month, with 2 of the interviews already in the can. So expect a mild WAW+P Radio renaissance in July-August. Thanks, as always, for listening!

We Are Words + Pictures, Vol. 9 by London Fields Radio on Mixcloud

[478] Market Realities, Patience, and Playing The Long Game

2011-06-29T12:39:00.001+01:00

Phew, here is the final part of my mammoth essay, 'Online Worlds and Grassroots Activity in UK World Cinema Distribution'. Make sure to read the first, second and third parts. Thanks for reading!

Through both their online and offline initiatives, Third Window and Terracotta are pursuing a very different approach to Tartan's 'Asia Extreme' imprint. Instead of broad, boisterous hype, which aggressively marketed a number of films with a bluntness befitting of the genre name - indeed, Tony Borg, president of American counterpart Tartan Video, referred to the label's films as 'cultural hand grenades' (Hahn, 2005) - the two companies focus on community, fan culture and promotion that looks outside of genre boundaries, simultaneously fostering interest in East Asian cinema as a whole, alongside specific identification with their individual brands.

However, even though such grassroots evangelism gives a positive impression of the business, the immediate realities of the market cannot be avoided. For example, in a traditional retail context, Third Window and Terracotta are beholden to the HMV chain of media megastores, which currently holds a monopoly on DVD sales on the high-street. Torel explains that

'Unfortunately since Virgin/Zavvi and other similar stores went under there's just HMV left which means that they're a lot less receptive to foreign films. HMV are doing especially poorly recently, so even if you've got a critically acclaimed film on your hand, they won't take many units unless you've spent a load on advertising, and even then they may not. They also work on the terms that if it doesn't sell so many units in the first week then they'll return the product, so it's very risky.' (2011)

Furthermore, as the DVD market is experiencing a period of contraction - with HMV experiencing a 13.6% reduction in sales over the Christmas 2010 period - it seems less viable for smaller distribution companies to pursue this outlet ('HMV to close 60 stores as sales and shares slump', 2011).

Indeed, even when DVDs are stocked in HMV, the experience can be unpredictable. When talking on the VCinema podcast about his 2010 releases, Kakera and Fish Story (2009), Torel explained that he 'expected a lot more from them', especially considering the comparatively expensive advertising campaigns invested in each ($25,000 for Kakera, $18,000 for Fish Story), but problems with HMV stock over a summer of low sales resulted in slow business:

'During the World Cup here, and Wimbledon, and the abnormally hot weather we had for a month and a half or so, people stopped buying DVDs and HMV stopped buying stock. So there's been no stock in this store, and considering that HMV's the only major retailer throughout the country, not having stock in this store is hurting us a lot.' (2010)

Luckily, these companies find more success through Amazon.co.uk, but it is in these pre-Internet contexts that business seems more complicated. For example, Terracotta's release of Breathless in 2009 was heralded by Sight & Sound as both film of the month and a film of the year, but even this prestige did not translate into larger sales figures (Rayns, 2010; 'Films of 2009: The Complete Poll'). Likewise, despite Kakera's strong international reception on the festival circuit, Torel is certain that this audience is not large enough to support a wide-scale release. He told VCinema: 'If I just sell to every person who'd heard about it from a film festival or something, I won't make money' (2010).

Therefore, there is pressure for companies like Terracotta and Third Window to suppress their instincts, and to instead look for easier sells, perhaps to bankroll further releases. When speaking to VCinema, Torel was asked if there was a film in his catalogue of which he was ashamed. He quickly responded with the Korean film Teenage Hooker Became A Killing Machine (Daehakno-yeseo maechoon-hadaka tomaksalhae danghan yeogosaeng ajik Daehakno-ye Issda, 2000). He explained that, at the time, he needed money to fund the purchase of several titles directed by Korean filmmaker Lee Chang Dong, but elaborated on the predictable nature of the general audience that, as a label boss, is sometimes too tempting to exploit:

'It's not terribly good, to say the least. But, you have to understand how these people are in England. Not just England, but, generally, people. Average Joe. It could be a blank disc, for Christ's sake: you have a title like that, you have a cover like that, and it will sell like hotcakes!' (2010)

However, Torel considers Third Window's reputation, as reflected in the integrity of its catalogue, to be more important than immediate financial gain, saying that 'long-term label building and gaining trust from consumers is important, not short-term money making through exploitation of the audience, which is the path most travelled' (2011). Indeed, it is this quality that has contributed to an international awareness of the label's releases, allowing as a by-product of the borderless Internet culture the rise of an import market, with international fans ordering films unreleased in their region from Amazon.co.uk. Despite their global scope, both Twitch and VCinema are based in North America, and it is this catalogue of acquisitions - which J Hurtado describes in his profile of the label as 'finely curated' - that has brought Third Window to their attention (2010a).

For Third Window and Terracotta, the strategies are long-term. Torel in particular considers time to be the major resource in the development of his company - one, he says, he has plenty of which to invest. When talking about the variegated jobs he undertakes in order to promote Third Window - attending conventions, organising screenings and engaging with online communities - he describes it as a top priority, saying that 'nothing beats personal interaction, and if the audience appreciate that, which they do, then you've built a trusting audience who will buy into your brand' (2011).

By focusing on reputation, reception and the relationship with both new and old communities, Third Window and Terracotta are succeeding in the 'paradoxical times' for world cinema distribution described by Macnab, and challenges his ominous predictions for the industry (2008). Their use of both on- and offline strategies, and the dialogue with their audience, is firmly in line with Jenkins 'new set of rules' for a convergent culture, which renegotiates the relationship between producer and consumer, and adopts the inter-personal, word-of-mouth experience of cult cinema for wider purposes (2006a, 3).

This new type of distributor, in contrast to MacAlpine and Tartan's ambitious, militaristic march towards domination, commits to their business with the patience and resilience of fans, suggesting that Jenkins' convergence has, in this case, resulted in an intertwining of producer and consumer that is starting to change the industry itself. The discourse from Torel and Leung, for example, closely mirrors that of the cult cinema anecdotes highlighted by Mathijs and Mendik, which mythologise the act of communication between consumers:

'Still, if one of us hadn't accepted the video-tape of “that movie” from that wild-eyed, tense shop clerk, we would never have become soul-mates, and a world of cult cinema would never have opened. Every story about a cult favourite begins with such humble, local details - therefore, global cults never exist without local ones.' (2008, 280)

Against the bombastic, polysemic example of Asia Extreme, Third Window and Terracotta seem unassuming, but welcoming - more like 'wild-eyed shop clerks' than grenade-wielding agents provocateurs. Time will tell if their grassroots efforts will translate into global cults.

Thanks again for reading, and thanks to Adam Torel and Joey Leung for allowing me to interview them for this essay. If you're not watching the films they're releasing, you're doing yourself a disservice. You can go back to the beginning of the essay here.

[477] Participatory Cults IRL: Societies, Festivals and Cons

2011-06-29T12:20:00.001+01:00

Here is part two of my essay, 'Online Worlds and Grassroots Activity in UK World Cinema Distribution'. You can read the first part here, and the second part here.

Many of the hallmarks of participatory culture that Jenkins has documented can be traced back to a pre-Internet age. Indeed, the blogs and online discussion forums so popular today are clearly evolved from localised, smaller scale fan-clubs and 'zine publishers in the decades before the computer took over our homes. Therefore, despite the exponential development of digital culture, there is still something resilient that resides in old-school forms of promotion, exhibition, and engagement, allowing both Terracotta and Third Window to not only dial into already vibrant fan subcultures, but also reach out to new audiences.

The Terracotta Far East Film Festival, for example, aims to provide a platform for a mix of Asian films, from a variety of genres, in the process serving a number of disparate tastes and audiences - from anime and manga enthusiasts to hardened cinephiles. Furthermore, the choice of venue also supports such a diversity of audience. The Prince Charles Cinema - situated just off Leicester Square, the heart of London's cinema community and the location of dozens of red carpet premieres throughout the year - is an independent alternative to the larger Odeon, Cineworld and Vue cinema experiences. With its eclectic programme of recent releases, classics, and themed events, the Prince Charles is supported by a varied community of cinemagoers, many of which are part of their membership scheme.

For Terracotta to find its home at the Prince Charles Cinema, is for it to align itself with a lifestyle of film consumption that lies outside of the mainstream, in many ways feeding off the venue's roots and continued relevance as a hub of 'cult' cinema. Indeed, while containing many of the similar qualities of Jenkins' participatory culture, the studies of cult fandom and its approach to film consumption focuses on the physical aspect of community, where the shared experience of communal viewing plays an integral role. In the introduction to their Cult Film Reader, Mathijs and Mendik look at cult films as fundamentally opposed to the mainstream, especially in terms of how they do not always rely on box office success or critical canonisation, stating:

'Their reception does not typically end at the vaults of a bank or the archives of a museum of heritage. Instead, the consumption of cult cinema relies on continuous, intense participation and persistence, on the commitment of an active audience that celebrates films they see as standing out from the mainstream' (2008, 4)

Indeed, Mathijs and Mendik liken this celebration to 'organised forms of religious or spiritual worshipping', highlighting the festival experience, of special programmes, double bills and post-film Q&As as all being part of the cult film lifestyle (2008, 4).

This is mirrored in Terracotta's other collaborations with the Prince Charles, such as the regular themed screenings of Big Tits Zombie during the latter half of 2010, which slotted in with the cinema's tradition of niche-appeal events, from sing-along screenings of The Sound of Music, to movie marathons covering the entire Star Trek film franchise. For the Big Tits Zombie events, which were presented in 'retro' anaglyph 3D, audience members were encouraged to attend in costume, with free entry and prizes offered as incentive, which resulted in coverage from a number of film websites, such as FarEastFilms.com and Popbitch.com, and inspired audience members to, afterwards, upload photographs from the event to social media networks like Flickr.

Such a mixture of cult-style event management and online 'viral' marketing worked well, as the first screening of Big Tits Zombie filled the Prince Charles, with many punters being turned away at the door. In lieu of a wide theatrical release, such targeted screenings seem to be a useful way for distributors like Terracotta to build hype without resorting to playing the exhibition game, or investing in mass marketing. As a contrast to the Prince Charles screenings, Big Tits Zombie was also shown at the Barbican arts centre, as part of a special Halloween double bill in the Aspects of Japanese Cinema programme, organised in conjunction with Zipangu Fest, a new festival curated by critic Jasper Sharp. While still maintaining a similar tone to the Prince Charles screenings by being listed as a 'schlockfest', the Barbican's reputation as a centre for the appreciation of international culture, not to mention the addition of an introductory talk from Sharp, gives the film a slightly different context - one that's more studied, if no less entertaining - that would serve an audience perhaps less interested in the extroverted, dress-up side of cult cinema.

In a similar vein, Terracotta and Third Window share a stall at the MCM Expo, a biannual fan convention that covers film, video games and comics, but with a strong representation from the anime and manga communities, who flood the Excel Centre with mass 'cosplay' gatherings. The most recent iteration of the Expo, held at the end of October 2010, welcomed close to 47,000 visitors, and the attendance of distributors was evident, with representatives from Manga Entertainment, 4Digital Asia, Beez Entertainment, Optimum Releasing and MVM films also filling out the floor space. Alongside such specialists in anime and explicit genre films that would fit under the 'Asia Extreme' banner, the majority of Terracotta and Third Window's catalogues may seem out of place, but Leung sees it as part of the marketing strategy: the goal is simply to be seen, to engage with this niche audience and to promote the festival as well as the DVDs. In his words, 'if we sell anything, then that's a bonus' (2010). Torel agrees, explaining that:

'As long as I break even with my table costs then I don't mind being there for as ever long as it takes as it's just my time and it's more important to be able to connect to your audience directly and find out what they're interested in. At these events we tend to do okay through titles like Kamikaze Girls and the such which usually sell very well, but as long as we have such titles bringing people in, then we can personally recommend other titles to people. Even if I only sell to 50 people over the whole weekend, that's 50 more people who are into the cause and who could continue to get into our releases.' (2011)

This approach to using events, screenings and festivals as promotional tools, to engage with specific audiences and build up brand awareness, is also seen in how Third Window and Terracotta court the community of up-and-coming academics at university level, through their sponsorship of the Coventry University East Asian Film Society. Besides providing the society with prints of their films for exhibition, in 2010 Torel delivered an introduction before the screening of Kakera, and also answered questions from the organisers Michelle Bailey and Spencer Murphy on the state of East Asian cinema in the UK. Once more, this offline side of promotion leaks into the online world, as CUEAFS has since uploaded interviews with both Torel and Leung, as well as footage and photographs from their own screenings (including a Big Tits Zombie Halloween party) onto their own website.

(Photograph from a CUEAFS screening, taken from their Facebook group)

Even though this work is not immediately profitable, it is beneficial for companies such as Third Window and Terracotta to foster a varied community around East Asian cinema, and by extension their own films. Torel explains it as being indicative of an almost 'punk-rock' attitude, telling VCinema:

'I'm a bit too generous with stuff. Whenever a cinema asks if they could show my film, I say 'go ahead.' Especially film clubs, if any film clubs or small places ask to show my films, I never charge them. I do like helping out anybody that I can. Everyone's got to help each other out if you're small. And it's really nice to form these sorts of relationships.' ('‘VCinema Episode 14: Zero Woman Red Handcuffs’, 2010)

This is part of the reasoning behind Torel's further collaboration with CUEAFS, namely the Third Window Film Festival, the first iteration of which is scheduled for February 2011. By moving away from London, and using the Warwick Arts Centre as a venue, Torel says he is looking to 'try and attract a crowd who [have] very little chance or even willingness to get involved with such a thing', who 'have not much idea about contemporary Asian cinema and don't have the chance to experience a film festival atmosphere' (2011). With a varied programme of films and appearances from actors and directors, coupled with a low entry fee for students, Torel hopes that students will 'jump at the chance' to experience the festival, and might, afterwards, develop an interest in Asian cinema (2011).

There's also the hope that the enthusiasm seen in Coventry will spread, and inspire a network of film societies that will, slowly, develop into a wider audience in the country as a whole. On a local level, Leung and Torel host free, monthly screenings in London that showcase not only the labels' own films, but other selections from East Asia. A series of screenings at the beginning of 2011, for example, has been programmed by Torel, and consists of previously unreleased films such as Adrift In Tokyo (Tenten, 2007), from writer-director Satoshi Miki, whose Turtles are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers (Kame wa igai to hayaku oyogu, 2005) and Instant Swamp (Insutanto numa, 2009) have been distributed by Third Window.

In a similar vein to the Terracotta Festival, these screenings serve to provide a platform for East Asian films that the distributors wish to bring to a wider audience, without needing to invest in a DVD release. Furthermore, it also both harnesses the social aspect of watching films, offering an alternative to the experiences peddled by mainstream cinema chains, with screenings hosted at the Japan-themed Life Bar, and formalises the 'cult' tendencies of consuming international cinema, allowing attendees to become members of a community - not least because the information for these events is disseminated through social networking sites like Facebook and Meetup.com.

These special events all provide an alternative to the wide theatrical release practised by major distributors, but Torel is cautious to reject the conventional modes of exhibition, due to the promotional benefits that come with even a limited run. He explains

'In the UK, whether you release a title on 1 or 100 screens, if it plays for at least a week the film is applicable to be included in the Film Distributors Association's press release database. This means that the film will get a National Press Show in which critics must come and watch the film for review.' (2011)

For a company the size of Third Window, theatrical releases are expensive, but the fact that the film in question would be listed alongside more mainstream movies 'makes [it] seem a lot larger than it is', with the reviews and coverage giving it a serious promotional push in anticipation of its eventual home video release (2011). Torel does not expect these films to take much money from the limited release, but he is certain the extra promotion will help it to recoup its losses on DVD.

By using this quirk in the UK's system of distribution, Third Window can grant their releases a wide awareness without the need for broad marketing. It is useful to look at this as a sort of loss leader, with the expensive process of preparing a film for theatrical release paying back further down the line. Indeed, few of these IRL activities, from the free screenings to the film societies, are designed to pay immediate dividends. Instead, Torel and Leung are playing the long game, patiently building their audience as they go along, often in direct opposition to the realities of the market at large.

Read the next chapter here, or go back to the start of the essay here.

[476] Online Convergence and East Asian Film Distribution

2011-06-28T12:56:00.003+01:00

Here is part two of my essay, 'Online Worlds and Grassroots Activity in UK World Cinema Distribution'. You can read the first part here.

Since the popularisation on online cultures, created by widespread Internet access and the flocking of fans to the web, academics such as Henry Jenkins have described this new context as significantly altering the traditional, old media lines of production, distribution and consumption. For example, specialist blogs and other amateur online outlets challenge the authority of older, respected sources, providing depth, passion and expertise in exchange for breadth and professional training.

The opportunities inherent in the Internet for the consumers themselves to make their voices heard - through not only blogs, but new media avenues such as podcasts, Youtube videos, and social networks - also see the formalisation and popularisation of what has been termed 'participatory culture', which in the past was restricted to hardcore fan communities, who through fanzines, conventions and societies shaped their media in their own image. Now, with the Internet as an enabling force, Jenkins sees this subcultural world colliding with old media, describing this current media landscape as a culture of convergence - a term which formed the title of one of his book-length studies. In his 2006 compilation of essays and columns, titled Fans Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture, Jenkins elaborates on this new context, saying:

'Imagine a world where there are two kinds of media power: one comes through media concentration, where any message gains authority simply by being broadcast on network television, the other comes through grassroots intermediaries, where a message gains visibility only is it is deemed relevant to a loose network of diverse publics' (2006b, 180)

The online world of film criticism and discussion is one of the best examples of such a loose network. Unlike mainstream print media, with its competing newspapers and magazines that cater for broad tastes, film websites and blogs often indulge in narrow-casting, satisfying specific tastes, communities and audiences which, thanks to the global scope of the web, can find its healthy niche. Twitchfilm.com, one such website, was founded in late 2004 with the express purpose of getting beyond the strict boundaries that defined cult and arthouse cinema, and writing about films that were 'largely neglected by the online film community of the time' ('About Twitchfilm').

Fortunately for Third Window and Terracotta, their niche of East Asian cinema comes under Twitch's remit, but it is in their collaboration with the website where Jenkins' convergence culture becomes most evident. For example, Terracotta announced their acquisition of Big Tits Zombie via the website exclusively ('Big Tits Zombie Goes To Terracotta In The UK', 2010), as did Third Window with their purchase of Sion Sono's Cold Fish (Tsumetai nettaigyo, 2010; 'Third Window Films Acquires UK Rights To Cold Fish'). Terracotta's Joey Leung sees this as being part of a targeted media strategy, where they must focus on 'tailor-making messages for each film for each audience' (2010).

That said, sites like Twitch do not simply represent a handy outlet for press releases, they are indicative of the online community's willingness to pick over, analyse and discuss niche cinema releases in a depth that print word limits don't allow. This has been most recently seen in the ongoing 'Video Home Invasion' column series, written by critic J Hurtado, which is currently dedicating a number of articles to Third Window's releases (Hurtado, 2010a). The foundation for these articles comes from an in-depth interview with Adam Torel himself, which stretches to thousands of words, and covers not only the individual films in the catalogue, but also offers a behind-the-scenes look into both the running of the label and the process of acquiring new titles. Alongside generating interest for the film releases, it also serves the purpose of cementing the Third Window brand, with Torel as a combination of spokesperson, commentator and fan.

Similarly, his appearance on the VCinema podcast, which focuses on Asian cinema, also promoted this transparency, which, by explaining to listeners the conflicts and difficult judgements that come with running a distribution label, invites consumers to become more invested in the process. That these platforms are maintained by fans themselves provides further evidence for Jenkins' convergence culture, which 'depends heavily on consumers' active participation' (2006a, 3). Torel describes this engagement with the online audience as being imperative for companies like Third Window:

'If you've got genre action/horror etc titles, then traditional media sources are good to reach your mass audience who like such titles and will easily buy them, but for more arthouse or niche films then it's very important to stay close and well connected to the pretty small (but enthusiastic) audience we've got. These people tend to, as we do, constantly check out such sites as Twitch, Wild Grounds, VCinema, so it's good to work closely with them as its a good way of being close to the audience.' (2011)

This alternative to mass marketing has a number of benefits, not just the ability to speak directly to - and develop a dialogue with - switched-on audiences and create a brand image; it is also cheap, and allows both Leung and Torel to take charge of their marketing strategies. While they both use the same London-based publicity agency - The Associates - on a commission basis for their DVD releases, a significant amount of business can be handled by themselves. Through social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, which Leung succinctly describes as now being 'part of everyday life', the companies can attract audience members from around the world, and provide them with release information directly (2010).

Likewise, it allows both Leung and Torel to develop an awareness of their audience, and to react accordingly in their ongoing plans. This hands-on strategy is not only a defining feature for both labels, it also helps to shape the companies moving forward, giving them a dynamic, unique relationship with the audience. Torel, for example, is proud to reply to company emails personally, explaining that it is not 'something... you'll find from the heads of most other companies' (2011).

When coupled with links to Amazon.co.uk, now one of the primary outlets for UK DVD sales, much of the business involved in promoting, marketing and selling Third Window and Terracotta releases can be achieved online, with low overheads. However, this does not signal a complete retreat into the corners of the Internet. In fact, this personal relationship with community websites and consumers themselves becomes particularly useful for the companies in a second capacity, when it comes to planning their excursions into the outside world - or, in Internet parlance IRL, in real life - and fostering a tangible, sociable community around their film releases.

Read the next chapter here. You can go back to the beginning here.

[475] Extreme Fallout: A Post-Tartan Context

2011-06-28T11:33:00.003+01:00

It's been a slow month on the blog, so I thought it was a good time to post up my essay on East Asian film distribution in the UK, specifically the Third Window and Terracotta labels, which I wrote for my MA earlier this year. The full title was 'Online Worlds and Grassroots Activity in UK World Cinema Distribution'; here's the introductory chapter.

Despite the international status of the cinema industry, and the ready-built modes of exhibition that exist in the UK, distribution of world cinema is a tricky endeavour. Due almost to their very nature, international cinema releases in the UK are pushed into the margins of popular film culture, with the presence of foreign languages, subtitles and unfamiliar stars guaranteeing smaller-scale distribution, consumption and reception. Indeed, not only are many such films granted only limited releases, at key specialist cinemas across the country, they are often only seen by certain subcultural audiences - the genre fans, the film buffs and the art-house elite - and generate a small percentage of the box office income of major English language productions.

Such industry trends have influenced the strategies of UK-based distribution companies, but some still bid for crossover success, with a recent example being Momentum Pictures' release of Swedish thriller The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor, 2009), which was treated like 'a big event', with a lavish marketing campaign that attempted to entice the embedded audience familiar with the source novel into the cinema (Gant, 2010, 'The Film That Broke Rules'). In terms of East Asian cinema, the case study of the 'Asia Extreme' boom of the early 2000s has been well documented and widely scrutinised in both academic and journalistic contexts.

Spearheaded by Tartan Films, and featuring Japanese releases such as Ring (1998), Audition (1999) and Battle Royale (2000), this wave of imports managed to find a wider audience that transcended subcultural boundaries. In his essay '"Asia Extreme": Japanese Cinema and British Hype', Oliver Dew highlights the success of Tartan especially as capturing the attentions of horror fans, Asian cinema enthusiasts and high-brow cinephiles through what he terms the 'polysemic sell' - a marketing approach which allows film texts to present multiple readings and meaning, allowing it to be 'sold to a world cinema audience as well as to a genre-film audience, in a way that an American horror film or a common or garden foreign-language art house film cannot be' (2007, 60).

However, the reign of Asia Extreme was short-lived. In her study of Tartan's mastery of the 'Art of Branding', which focused on the hype generated by Tartan's catalogue of violent and explicit films, Chi-Yun Shin concluded with the ambiguous proposition that the label would eventually run out of product that would 'comfortably fit into the extreme category' (2008). Indeed, within months of the article's publication in the Spring issue of Jump Cut, Tartan Films filed for bankruptcy, resulting in scrutiny of another kind, this time looking at the company's downfall. Critic Geoffrey Macnab, writing in The Guardian, composed a detailed post-mortem for Tartan, analysing its strategy and the persona of its owner, Hamish MacAlpine. Macnab points to Tartan's willingness to over-saturate the market with product as one contributing factor, revealing that 'the market for Asian horror films, for so long [their] staple, had bottomed out' (2008).

Indeed, while the failure of Tartan and the bursting of the Asia Extreme bubble revealed the artifice behind the tag's creation - where the hype from the success of a handful of key films was stretched to cover dozens of lower quality releases - it also spelled a potential downturn for Dew's polysemic successes, which had been bolstered by a mixture of DVD sales, aggressive marketing, and coverage in old and new media. Macnab continued, looking at industry trends and the fate of smaller-scale distribution companies:

'Whereas in the past, a small arthouse gem might be given a chance to build up word of mouth and find an audience, now every film is judged instantly. If the opening weekend figures are disappointing, the film will be yanked out of cinemas. Meanwhile, when a small distributor does go all out to give a film a big push, the risks can be daunting. If the film flops, the distributor is lumbered with huge bills that it will struggle to pay.' ('Death of a Salesman', 2008)

However, despite Macnab's predictions for the industry, the final years of the decade saw a number of distribution companies emerging in the wake of Tartan's success and eventual decline. And, even though the majority of these do attempt to recreate the Asia Extreme effect, many provide an alternative to the company's aspirations for mainstream domination through tickling taboos. Instead, these labels have more modest aims, looking to build their audience from the ground up. While this may seem to be a retreat into the margins of the industry, there is also a simultaneous drive towards a proactive relationship with the audience, forming links and cultivating a new community around the labels themselves.

Key examples are Third Window Films and Terracotta Distribution, two London-based operations that focus on East Asian cinema that attempt to get away from the genre ghettoisation created by the Asia Extreme boom. Third Window, set up in 2005 by Adam Torel, an ex-employee of Tartan, defines itself on its own website as '[working] hard to bring you the wonderful world beyond long-haired ghost films and mindless Hollywood action copies' ('About'), instead specialising in having no specific genre bias, releasing dramas and comedies such as Fine, Totally Fine (Zenzen daijobu, 2008), Kamikaze Girls (Shimotsuma monogatari, 2004) and Kakera (2009). Since it is a younger company, forming in 2009, Terracotta has fewer films in its roster - which nevertheless ranges from the critically-acclaimed Korean drama Breathless (Ddongpari, 2009) to the recently-released Japanese schlock-horror Big Tits Zombie (Kyonyû doragon: Onsen zonbi vs sutorippâ 5, 2010) - but its annual Far East Film Festival provides a platform for a variety of Asian films.

This essay will look at how these two companies build their audiences, and how they are succeeding in the post-Asia Extreme climate detailed by Macnab. Since large scale releases are out of the question, both Third Window and Terracotta need to be resourceful in the current marketplace, using new media opportunities afforded by the Internet, and employing old-school, grassroots initiatives that challenge mainstream modes of exhibition. In the process, they point towards a more promising future for world cinema distribution as a whole.

Subsequent chapters of this essay will be uploaded this week. Read part two.

[474] Viva Riva (2010) Review

2011-06-24T12:19:00.000+01:00

As promised, here's the review of Congolese crime thriller Viva Riva!, which I wrote for Little White Lies.

Coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and hoping to spearhead a filmmaking renaissance there, crime thriller Viva Riva! immediately impresses with novelty, but soon hits on too many familiar genre conventions to stand out from the crowd.

After working as a low-level crook in Angola, Riva (Patsha Bay) makes off with a truckload of petrol, planning to siphon off his precious cargo in exchange for a small fortune in the bone-dry Congolese capital, Kinshasa. However, word of his deal causes a stir, with various parties, from crooked state officials to ambitious clergymen, wanting their cut – while Angolan gangster César (Hoji Fortuna) is in hot pursuit, aiming to claim both the petrol and Riva’s head.

For his first feature film, writer-director Djo Munga takes a mere side-glance at the myriad issues concerning Congolese society, instead opting to make a popcorn flick, full of sex, violence and nefarious deeds. It is unfortunate, as political tension – as glimpsed in César’s vitriolic judgement of Congolese character, “Maybe you should have remained colonised” – takes a backseat to a rather toothless exploration of sexuality.

Read the full article here.

[473] Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow article in Film International 9.2

2011-06-23T12:06:00.003+01:00

I woke up this morning and realised that I've not seen a film - either in the cinema or on DVD - since the very beginning of the month. Three weeks ago, actually. The last one was Beginners, which I've since reviewed for Little White Lies. Since then, the days have passed in a haze of anxiety, university work and Behind The Bytes. Films have fallen by the wayside, as has seemingly most of my written work. A weird month.

So I was surprised that the latest issue of Film International fell through my letterbox, and it contained a piece I wrote almost two years ago, about the Vittorio De Sica anthology film Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Ieri, oggi, domani). It stars Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren as lovers in three separate short films, set in three different Italian cities. I thought it was quite an overlooked gem.

The piece itself is a little clunky; it was back when I had a real affection for tricolons and overburdened sentences, where I'd throw down dashes and keep adding extra points because I was so goddamned serious and excitable. That said, however, it's great to finally see it in print.

I've yet to delve into the issue, but I have already earmarked a piece by guest editor Pietari Kääpä titled 'Born American? Renny Harlin and Global Hollywood', which sounds fascinating.

You can pick up Film International from selected film-specialist shops, such as (I think) the BFI Southbank, The ICA, and The Cornerhouse. Otherwise, you can order it online here.

[472] Behind The Bytes, now on Screwattack.com!

2011-06-20T12:59:00.002+01:00

Here's some exciting news to start the week. Bytescorp (That's Nick, Ed and me) have partnered with Screwattack.com to stream the full miniseries of Behind The Bytes!

We're starting from the beginning, re-posting the series in order. Episode 1, all about Tails and his Sonic addiction, went up in the wee small hours of this morning. Check it out here.

Next up is the Zelda: Triforce of Anguish episode, which is going up a week on Friday, and then there will be 3 all-new episodes going live biweekly. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but over the last weekend we filmed the talking head segments for Episode 3. Here's a teaser image...

Oh, is that a little obscure? How about an on-set moment of Clarissa Ankle (the award-winning Samantha Baines) shooting daggers at our intrepid reporter, Correspondent Lamb?

Stay tuned for more info, behind-the-scenes gossip, and other Bytes tomfoolery. Although, for jokes and so on, you're better off following the Slander Feed on Twitter.

Note: Apologies to those of you who are looking for the earlier upload of Episode 2, but we thought it best to keep it hidden until the new broadcast date.

[471] Life In A Day (2011) Review

2011-06-17T11:56:00.003+01:00

After a quiet couple of weeks (of hard work, I assure you), I'm back, pontificating about a widely-acclaimed recent release.

There's currently a real confusion about how to tackle YouTube. There's no doubt that it's now shaping and affecting Internet culture, entertaining millions with short videos of babies laughing, pets talking and spoiled schoolgirls indulging in expensive forms of karaoke.

Although, while its ephemera are often highlighted, its more subtle aspects are rarely championed. Has there ever been a similar cultural organ, which acts simultaneously as an online archive for visual media, and a platform for everyday voices? At its heart, it is an immersive catalogue of video culture, from music promos and trailers to skits and spoofs, from astoundingly creative content to self-obsessed vlogging.

Out of this struggle for legitimacy and definition comes Life In A Day, an ambitious, unashamedly self-aggrandising project, which takes one aspect of the YouTube phenomena, that of micro-autobiography, and uses it to tell the modest story of life as we knew it on 24th July 2010.

Produced in part by Ridley and Tony Scott, and eventually directed by Kevin Macdonald, the project invited YouTube users to submit videos about how the day panned out for them. The resulting film is nothing short of an incredible feat of editing, whittling down thousands of submissions and arranging the prime cuts into a tightly-wound ninety-five minute showcase.

However, such ambitious beginnings lumber the finished project with a conflict of theme and purpose, a tension between being a time capsule for the date in question, and providing a global survey of human experience, as well as being, as the posters so proudly state, "filmed by you".

Read the full article here.

[470] That's What I Am (2011) Review

2011-05-31T11:32:00.003+01:00

In this film, a kid is bullied for being tall and ginger. Unsurprisingly, I didn't like it.

Newsflash: bullying is wrong, and the 1960s were a time of rosy-tinted wonder. If either of these seem revelatory, then That's What I Am may be for you. If not, don't bother.

Written and directed by Michael Pavone and produced by the WWE Studios production company, That's What I Am isn't a wrestling spectacle. Instead, it's a dumb, blithely simple drama that is all moral and no content.

Andy (Chase Ellison) is a kid on the verge of teenhood who is assigned a collaborative piece of schoolwork with Big G (Alexander Walters), a loner who happens to be tall, supposedly ugly, and, horror of horrors, ginger. At first, Andy is anxious, as every social capital-conscious boy in an American school movie is, to be paired with such an unpopular classmate, but he soon develops a friendship with the guy. Heck, he even learns a couple of things along the way, in particular, that, while Big G and others may look different, act differently, and have different perspectives on the world, picking on them for such difference is bad. And there endeth the lesson.

Read the full article here.

[469] Looking Back At Apocalypse Now

2011-05-28T09:14:00.002+01:00

Quite an ambitious one, this. Apocalypse Now has recently been given a limited re-release in the UK, so I decided to write an essay detailing its troubled production, its many flaws, and how, despite these matters, it is still a masterpiece. Somehow, Coppola went against his reputation, failing as a writer, director and producer, yet emerged with another great film. Unreal.

When reading the extensive, semi-mythological stories that detail the production of Francis Ford Coppola's surreal Vietnam epic, Apocalypse Now, it's baffling that it was made at all.

By the mid-1970s, Coppola was one of the stars of New Hollywood, holding unprecedented power and critical respect, dominating the 1974 Oscars with a total of fourteen nominations shared by his second Godfather rhapsody and the arty Antonioni riff, The Conversation, including a double nomination for Best Picture, and the rare honour of being nominated for both Best Original and Adapted Screenplays. This was alongside producing George Lucas' pre-Star Wars hit, American Graffiti, and contributing the screenplay to the lavish big-screen adaptation of The Great Gatsby, which helped place Coppola in the powerful position of being a successful director, producer and writer.

Coppola had developed a reputation of being both ambitious and reliable. Writing in 1975, the year before Apocalypse Now started shooting, David Thomson described Coppola as shrewd, composed, and almost clinical in his transformation of Mario Puzo's sprawling mafia epic into mainstream entertainment, saying, "For a thirty-year-old without a hit to his name, with Paramount, Mario Puzo and [Marlon] Brando breathing down his neck... it was an achievement to coax that vulnerable dinosaur of a property to lower its guard and then, in delicious slow motion, let the killer punch glide in. Any film student will take heart in the knowledge that the allegedly inaccessible industry will sometimes stick out its chin and ask you to hit it. He should note, however, that with the glass jaw in his sights Coppola stayed every bit at cool as Michael Corleone."

Of all the many things you could call Coppola's approach to Apocalypse Now, ‘cool' is not one. Originally drafted by John Milius (later the director of Conan The Barbarian) in the late 60s as a resetting of Joseph Conrad's colonial novella, Heart Of Darkness, it was later developed by Lucas as a cheap and quick Vietnam flick shot with a documentary-like immediacy. But Coppola had different plans for his Apocalypse.

Read the full article here.

[468] Matthew Vaughn Interview

2011-05-26T10:57:00.002+01:00

What did you do last weekend? I interviewed Matthew Vaughn! Then spent the majority of this week transcribing all 5000 words of it.

What a wonderful turnaround. After the hectic production and alarmingly terrible promotional campaign, it turns out that X-Men: First Class is actually rather good. It seems that handing the X-franchise over to Kick-Ass writer-director, Matthew Vaughn, was a good idea, as his revitalised, 60s-flavoured spin on the superhero series is a real treat.

We were lucky, along with a handful of the finest film sites in the UK, to have a chat with a generous, if slightly flu-ridden Vaughn, ahead of the film's release next week. Like his films, Vaughn takes no prisoners, but his experience as writer, director and producer has given him great authority when talking about industry trends and the creative process.

Over the course of forty-five minutes, we covered X-Men: First Class from seemingly every angle, from the Cold War setting to the James Bond allusions, from the casting to the film's classic sense of style. And Vaughn was happy to go into detail about his aborted stint on X-Men: The Last Stand, his views on 3D, and his plans for potential X-Men and Kick-Ass sequels.

Read on, but beware, for there are spoilers, swearing and sledgehammer-strong opinions contained herein...

Read the full interview here.

[467] X-Men: First Class 'spoiler-free verdict'

2011-05-22T11:11:00.002+01:00

I'm currently neck-deep in the pre-release of X-Men: First Class. Later today, I'm interviewing writer-director Matthew Vaughn, and I saw the film on Friday. Yesterday afternoon, I found out that I - along with a couple of other 'bloggers' - could write-up my 'initial reactions' over at Den Of Geek.

However, I was warned only a couple of hours before the embargo, which resulted in frantic scribbling, and this slightly monstrous piece of work. It's not supposed to be a real 'review'; I've kept the spoilers out of it, and actual detail about the film to a minimum. It's just a hype-massaging overview, I guess? I tried to maintain my critical composure, though. Anyway, have a read, and enjoy!

X-Men: First Class has a tough job on its hands. After the surprisingly-positive critical and box office reception that greeted Thor, and its own confused, occasionally terrible marketing campaign, anticipation for the superhero prequel is understandably mixed. Its hopes lie with writer-director Matthew Vaughn, whose Kick-Ass was not only last year’s surprise cult smash, but also 2010’s best costumed-hero flick.

Kick-Ass showed that Vaughn (and co-writer Jane Goldman) knows how to deliver superhero thrills while still maintaining style, wit and a strong emotional core. And it is this mixture of strengths that he brings to X-Men: First Class, which consistently works on a number of narrative levels - be they origin story, period epic, super-powered action, thematic subtext or character drama.

Read the full article here.

[466] New Model

2011-05-16T14:25:00.003+01:00

Here is your odd video of the day.

Something that Bytes-cohorts Nick Moran, Edward Szekely and Samantha Baines (along with special guest Emily Bakes) got up to one day when I wasn't looking. Absurd, darkly comic, absolutely terrifying. Damn, I wish I'd been involved in this one. Perfect execution all round.

Bytes-fans should be able to spot a consistency in location here. Yes, that's Chad Makepeace's bookcase. I'd like to think that he's just out of shot, chatting about Kirby's short-lived line of vacuum cleaners.

Watch this video in HD, and make sure you crank up the volume. Let the harmonised voices slice through your sanity. Do it.

[465] Viva Riva (2010) Review, in Little White Lies

2011-05-14T17:03:00.003+01:00

How exciting, I have two pieces in print in the same week! You can read my review of Congolese crime thriller Viva Riva! in the latest issue of the always-beautiful (and ever-fragrant) film magazine Little White Lies.

The issue is out now, and is worth reading. My review will go online when the film is released at the end of the month.

[464] Long-Form Journalism On The Kindle, in Micro Mart 1157

2011-05-12T16:45:00.000+01:00

I love my Kindle. However, I've only read two novels on it so far (Room and One Day, in case you're curious), and instead I pull oodles of great long-form journalism off the web, and read them on the go. It's a dream, I tell you.

That's the basis for the feature that I wrote for this week's issue of Micro Mart: a short how-to piece talking about the sites Longform.org and Longreads.com, plugins like dotEPUB, and Ebook managing software Calibre.

The issue is on sale now.

[463] Joe Cornish Interview

2011-05-11T12:44:00.002+01:00

Joe Cornish, with what could be the final word on the whole 'geek' discussion.

I think the whole ‘geek’ thing is an interesting thing, isn’t it. Film enthusiasts used to be called ‘buffs’ and it used to be quite a respectable pursuit, but for some reason we’re called ‘geeks’ now. And that’s not bad, I don’t mind it, but it’s not like sites like yours or Ain’t It Cool are not interested in anything other than genre movies.

You guys will advocate any movie that you love, so for me, you guys, and I include myself, we’re film enthusiasts, we’re film lovers, we’re not necessarily ‘geeks’ or ‘nerds’.

I think if the word ‘geek’ does have a meaning, it means that you’re so obsessed with it that you do it yourself.

What a guy. In retrospect, I could have nailed him down a little and made this a slightly better interview - and, as always, we could have had more time - but I'm happy with what we covered.

Even though Attack The Block is his directorial debut, Joe Cornish is far from a newcomer. As the taller half of the Adam & Joe comedy team, whose eponymous television show was an integral pillar of Channel 4’s late-night output in the back end of the 1990s, Cornish would lampoon films of the day, creating elaborate movie parodies and deconstructing genre tropes with a cast of toys.

More recently, he has made cameo appearances in Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, before collaborating with Edgar Wright on two projects, the elusive Ant-Man feature, and Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Tintin film.

All this has led to Attack The Block, the supremely confident sci-fi action film which sees an alien invasion land in inner-city London. With the bobbies otherwise occupied by the assorted explosions and hijinks of Bonfire Night, it is up to the council estate’s local gang of hoodies to take down the extraterrestrial interlopers.

We had the chance to talk with Cornish ahead of the film’s release this week, chatting about crafting genre flicks on a budget, being a geek, and designing iconic monsters.

Read the full article here.

[462] Hanna (2011) Review

2011-05-06T11:35:00.003+01:00

So the past few months have seen a number of key electronic acts of the late-90s/early 2000s branching out into scoring films. Robotic French party-housers Daft Punk bleeped along for Tron Legacy, while Basement Jaxx contained their maximalist madness for the synth-crawling, Carpenter-cribbing Attack The Block soundtrack.

In Hanna, Joe Wright's tween-killer thriller, the score is provided by Chemical Brothers, where they seem to split themselves completely, to the point of being bipolar - with twinkly Boards of Canada-isms sharing space with more typical slamming beats and bass throbs. Their score works better in the latter, action-packed mould, as does the film itself. However, while such immediacy raises goosepimples in the cinema, I found myself struggling to recreate that punch out of context.

Let's put it this way, then.

Which is actually the inverse of how I'd rank those duos based on their album-single work. Maybe it's this pursuit of funky, fast-food electronic acts, who mostly deal in dance- or pop-confection, that's at fault? None of those three are particularly known for their grasp of atmosphere, or subtlety. Basement Jaxx have been a huge revelation in this regard, but the other two are lacking.

I say let's dig beyond the surface: give the mavericks a shot. It worked for Trent Reznor, whose obsession with texture and melody, alongside rhythm and pure noise, made him a perfect fit for The Social Network. So, with that in mind, I patiently await a mainstream flick scored by Squarepusher. Or Venetian Snares. Now that would be something.

Joe Wright is starting to make a name for himself. Not as ‘one to watch'. That happened years ago. No, now he's courting a different creative persona, one of the genre magpie. See, after making his feature directorial debut with Regency period drama, Pride & Prejudice, scoring plaudits with the heavily Oscar-nommed Atonement, and actively (and unsuccessfully) baiting awards attention with The Soloist, Wright's new film, Hanna, moves completely away from the drama, romance and period poise of his previous work, instead aiming for high octane action thrills.

Saoirse Ronan stars as the lead character, a young girl who is brought up in remote Northern Europe by her father, ex-CIA agent, Erik Heller (Eric Bana). Schooled in multiple languages, lectured from various encyclopaedias, and taught to fend for herself as both a keen-eyed hunter and a resourceful fighter, Hanna is raised as the ultimate super-operative. Her skills are put to the test when she is finally set loose, on the hunt for Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), a shady figure from her father's past.

It is in its opening scenes that Hanna really cooks, as Ronan and Bana develop a minimal, yet complex chemistry, made up of minute moments of warmth within Heller's rather brutal training regime. As Hanna, Ronan is beguiling, able to be at once cruelly hard and youthfully naive. The former trait is put to thrilling, violent use in the film's first action sequence, where Hanna adeptly, single-handedly breaks out of a CIA safe house, set to quick-cut montage and the bass-heavy throb of the Chemical Brothers score.

From the title card, which flashes blood-red on screen at the punctuation of a gunshot, Wright delights in going straight for the jugular, whether it's in the compressed sense of pacing or the kid in sweetshop sampling of shots, set-ups and diegetic perspectives. At times it‘s dizzying, as extreme close-ups give way to CCTV mash-ups, zooms, and nonsensical strobing.

It's an interesting, if rather superficial aesthetic, especially when twinned with the film's equally unsubtle approach to characterisation. Wiegler, in a desperate bid for leitmotif, is immediately defined by her choice in footwear, as well as her ginger mop and heavy accent. Other directors could transform this mixture of expressionism and caricature into pop art, but Hanna comes off as uneven, at times even a little unsophisticated.

Read the full article here.

[461] Behind The Bytes #2 - Zelda, Link & Navi: The Triforce of Anguish

2011-05-04T17:57:00.009+01:00

Episode 2 of Behind The Bytes! It's all about The Legend of Zelda, one of my favourite gaming series. Watch it now!

Bit delayed, thanks to Easter and some other issues, but here it is. This time, we kept the runtime down, and tightened up the pacing. Also, Nick Moran let himself loose a little when it came to the plot. You can see where his mind slips, to the second. It's like North Korea all over again.

You can also see the new location for Jeff Tozai's talking head. Superb, corporate-level river view. And apparently even I look better this time around, according to the guys. I don't believe them.

I do like that t-shirt, though. Sadly, it's not mine.

I think we're improving. After the unprecedented promotional push of the last episode, we're hoping for lightning to strike twice, so we can keep going.

Until it does, please, pass on the link to fans of video games, Zelda, and completely silly video-lols. Any comments or feedback, too, are encouraged - leave them either on this post, or on the Youtube page. Enjoy!

[460] Attack The Block (2011) Review

2011-05-01T23:48:00.006+01:00

Sci-Fi action with a British accent. Go see this.

Den of Geek's commenters never fail to surprise me. I thought I'd had my complement after the first, vaguely patronising comment about 'exciting' British cinema, but then this one cropped up:

'The Posters looked a bit B movie for my liking. Through the reviews look good. But sub 90 minutes it way to short to justify going to the cinema for really.'

Errors are in the original, but the sense comes through despite typos. Wow. A tight, stylish film of 87 minutes isn't long enough for a cinema trip? I can't say it's an angle I'd considered before, but I guess it's all part of the ongoing conflict between home cinemas and their theatrical forebears.

Let me clarify: Attack The Block is worth seeing in the cinema.

Don’t speak too soon, merely whisper it: British cinema might just be getting a little exciting. Following the release of Richard Ayoade’s Submarine, the feature film which took well-worn genre stylistics and confidently embedded them in a British context, we have Attack The Block, which performs a similar conceptual turnaround.

Written and directed by Joe Cornish - half of the Adam & Joe double act - Attack The Block sees an alien invasion heading straight for London. However, if they were aiming for the seats of power, they must have shot a little short, as the extraterrestrials land in South London, specifically on a council estate, where they are met not by suspicious military types, or idealistic scientists, but the local wildlife: a gang of hooded youths.

Read the full article here.

[459] Falling Skies Episode 1 Review

2011-04-17T10:00:00.001+01:00

Here's the second (and final) part of my Kapow! Comic Con coverage. It's a TV review, of the first episode of Falling Skies, which was screened at the con. I don't watch much TV, so don't expect this to become a regular thing. (Although, judging by this episode, there's little chance anyway.)

One of the few exclusives on offer at the recent and surprisingly good Kapow! Comic Con (a round-up of which is currently featured in our Comics section) was the opening episode of Falling Skies, the new sci-fi television series, executive produced by Steven Spielberg, which will be heading to FX in July.

In what immediately casts the series in a very post-Walking Dead light, Falling Skies deals with survival after apocalypse, only instead of the currently trendy zombies, we have the evergreen antagonist of alien invaders. Picking up several months after the near eradication of the human race, the remaining survivors are in hiding, maintaining a semblance of military-style order amongst ruined cities.

Noah Wyle leads as Tom Mason, a man who lost his wife and second son as part of the invasion. Now, he is second-in-command of a small survivor regiment, who are abandoning the city for a new, and hopefully safer, life in the countryside. His position of command comes with great responsibility, having to weigh up personal safety alongside that of his other two sons and the community as a whole.

While aiming for a collision of action-heavy science fiction, guerrilla grit and human drama, Falling Skies confuses itself, pushing forward throughout this opening 42-minute salvo with a disregard for narrative pacing or stylistic coherence. By setting the action after the invasion, the viewer is thrust in medias res, but the stage is set awkwardly.

Read the full article here.

[458] Cold Weather (2010) Review

2011-04-16T22:59:00.003+01:00

My first 4-star review in almost two months! It's been a rather long dry spell. I imagine this is the sort of film that will fly far under the radars of most cinema-goers, so please - go and see it.

A sure-fire way to garner attention for your small budget indie hopeful is to mix things up a little, throw some ideas together, and create a genre mash-up. In the indie field, originality is key, because keen-eyed film buffs nitpick at any hint of familiarity.

This is a problem faced by Cold Weather, the new film from writer-director, Aaron Katz, which collides lo-fi aesthetics with the narrative trappings of the detective thriller. When scrutinised on such a modular level, the film seems to be worryingly close to Brick, the 2005 neo-noir that transported hardboiled Raymond Chandler-isms to a suburban American high school. However, thankfully, Cold Weather has qualities wholly its own.

College dropout, Doug (Cris Lankenau), has boomeranged back to his hometown, moving in with his sister, Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn), and is trying to get his life back on track, while doing as little as possible. When not lounging around, reading paperbacks, or disrupting Gail's office job with frivolous plans for road trips to the coast, he works night shifts at the local ice factory.

With its gentle pacing and subtle, deadpan humour, Cold Weather slowly builds up our relationship with its characters and their odd chemistry. It shows great confidence for Katz to frontload the film in such a way, but both Lankenau and Dunn are on point, crafting the siblings' life of idle distraction out of conversations that go nowhere, and dull, slightly awkward silences.

So, when the mystery plot does hit, it almost doesn't matter that it is underdeveloped, at least by genre standards, because the humour and the characters are so well judged and so well communicated that we are swept up in their fumbling enthusiasm.

Read the full article here.

[457] Location scouting with Jeff Tozai...

2011-04-15T09:20:00.000+01:00

Behind The Bytes episode 2, shooting today.

[456] Kapow Comic Con #1

2011-04-14T12:31:00.003+01:00

I’ll admit it. I was pleasantly surprised by the inaugural Kapow! Comic Con.

Blame motor-mouthpiece Mark Millar for my caution. His unique brand of braggadocio is nothing but divisive, and his blatant disregard for the rather vibrant UK comics convention circuit while promoting his own con didn’t win him much favour. And to fill out the programme with predominantly male guests, with an exclusive focus on mainstream superhero comics and their various spin-offs, seemed to clash with his supposed sense of infectious, inclusive populism.

However, despite such a bias, simply strolling around Islington’s Business Design Centre’s convention floor was enough to inspire hope. Alongside the expected stacks of longboxes and nerd-friendly merchandise were a few surprises, namely stalls from publishers, comics shops and distributors whose tastes stretch wider than spandex. Thanks to the catholic catalogue of Turnaround, the gleeful gatekeepers of Gosh!, and the Europhilic specialists at Cinebook, you had the potential to be lured in by the large, intimidating Green Lantern display, but leave with an armful of diverse wonders.

Personally, I picked up Weathercraft, the latest book from American indie comix stalwart Jim Woodring, and the oh-so-French 1920s biographical comic Kiki De Montparnasse, recently published by SelfMadeHero. Plus, a DVD from Manga UK of the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Not a bad haul for what seemed at first glance to be an affirmation of a sort of backward, boys’ club mentality.

Also, behind the endless queues for superstar artists like John Romita Jr., Frank Quitely and Brian Bolland, there were smaller stalls, where indie hopefuls were touting their self-published works. There were fewer small press types than at rival cons, such as the huge, chaotic MCM Expo or the hipster favourite Thought Bubble, but surprises were still in store.

One such super-creator was the ever-dapper Geof Banyard, whose Fetishman, despite wearing a skin-tight suit, isn’t much of a superhero at all, and instead offers an acute, cheeky satire on taboos, moral outrage, and sexual prudery.

Likewise, the duo of Dan Willett and Daniel Lish, two creatives with backgrounds in toy and video game design, were promoting their comics debut, the rather stunning Cartigan. Sadly, this fantasy adventure tale is not currently set for publication in the UK - or even in English, for that matter. French publisher Akileos is releasing the book later this year, but that didn’t stop the two Dans from handing out quite lavish samples of the book. Hopefully we’ll see more from these two in the future.

Away from the floor, Kapow promised a line-up of scintillating panels and exclusive screenings. And while the results did not approach the scoop-mania or star wattage of the cons of San Diego or New York, the single panel I caught - for Millar’s Clint Magazine - was charmingly entertaining, with a welcome appearance from Stewart Lee. The screenings, on the other hand, were uninspiring. The first episode of Falling Skies, the new alien invasion television series executive produced by Steven Spielberg, didn’t elicit much excitement from the crowd, probably because of its cliche-ridden script and tepid attempts at both human drama and sci-fi action.

The top-secret exclusive screening, however, went down very well. Although, while it had been teased as a summer superhero blockbuster (which many hoped would be X-Men: First Class or Thor), the surprise offering was in fact indie gore-comedy Super, which stars Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page as twisted oddbods driven to taking down crime - or, in practice, anyone who contravenes their shaky moral code, such as queue-jumpers. Boasting a mix of quirky indie aesthetics and consistently provocative flashes of bad taste, Super casts off all other concerns - be they narrative, psychological or character-based - in favour of getting sufficient mileage out of its dark, gratuitous sense of humour. However, besides a notable turn from Page as the deranged sidekick, Boltie, Super has little to offer beyond knee-jerk reactions of laughter, shock or disgust. Think of it as Kick Ass without the style, wit, satire or heart.

Nevertheless, the crowd seemed to love it, confirming that, despite the slightly compromised execution, Kapow provided a satisfying, and promising, first outing. Perhaps the success of this year’s convention will attract bigger guests and exclusives next time around (Millar revealed that Ridley Scott was snooping around, scouting out the event for a Prometheus appearance in 2012). However, for the moment, Kapow is filling a comfortable spot in the UK convention schedule.

You win this time, Millar...

[455] How I will remember Kapow! Comic Con #1...

2011-04-12T23:07:00.006+01:00

This image sums up Kapow! for me.

Monsieur David L. French: Nergasm quiz master, stacktastic Bane impersonator, and, now, reigning Kapow! cosplay champ. Photo courtesy of Dom at London Loves Comics.

Yes, I went. Yes, it was fun. Seeing a bountiful amount of wonderful people in one place. On a joyously sunny weekend. With comics! You can't complain, really. Well, you can. And, specifically, I can. My report from the con will be up on Den of Geek (and cross-posted here) very soon.

[454] How very surreal...

2011-04-08T00:53:00.002+01:00

My face. On Kotaku.

Something of a milestone! Thanks for all the support with the Behind The Bytes pilot. We've been bowled over by the response so far. Youtube is still catching up with all the traffic, but it's safe to assume that it will be a rather... encouraging number.

Stay tuned for future developments!

[453] Behind The Bytes #1 - Tails: Sonic's Shadow

2011-04-06T00:13:00.002+01:00

The pilot episode for Behind The Bytes is now on Youtube. Watch it.

Somewhere in the middle of the production of 'Fish Tail', old chum Nick Moran got in touch, with his idea of adapting the 'Behind The Laughter' episode of The Simpsons for a video game context. I thought it was a great idea, and we got to work.

I think it came out very well, and I'm quite proud of it. Szekely's confidence as a filmmaker, technician and Final Cut wrangler (and his new equipment) really shows, and the superb Samantha Baines does a hell of a job as our port-soaked socialite, Clarissa Ankle. Me? Well, it's the first time I've acted since 2005. So be gentle.

We're hoping to do more of these, and have various plans for how to go about doing that, but would like to get as many pairs of eyes on this as possible, to gauge initial audience interest. So please, have a look, pass it around, follow us on Twitter, and give us your feedback.

[452] I R ON IRC

2011-03-31T23:16:00.011+01:00

I've recently kick-started the preparation for my MA dissertation. As I said a few weeks back, it will mostly be focused on fansubbing - community-led subtitling projects that are most common, yet not restricted to, online anime fandom.

Every day brings a new revelation. In the years since anime slipped off my radar, the community has developed all kinds of new quirks. Did you know, for example, that 'karaoke subbing' is now a major part of the process? Both the opening and end credits of an episode are accompanied by quite elaborate 'hard' subtitles (ie burned onto the image, not superimposed via a synchronised text file), which offer kanji, transliterated Japanese and English versions of the songs' lyrics that bloom along with the vocal melody.

Likewise, the community is not only right up-to-the-minute in their consumption, with episodes appearing mere weeks after their transmission in Japan - before some series even have an 'official' English title - but they've also moved with the times when it comes to encoding. These people like their anime as crisp as possible - 1080p, please, and FLAC audio while you're at it. Individual files can be 500mb in size, for a 22 minute episode. It's all part of the astonishing passion with which they approach their hobby.

However, one thing hasn't changed, and that's the community's main method of communication: IRC. A friend asked me to describe this archaic platform, and I said: 'imagine if all innovations in social media from 1995 onwards - such as the streamlining of UI and functionality - had somehow been lost in transit'. After daily use of Twitter, Google Apps and Facebook, going to IRC is like opening up a time capsule, and being hit by a musty cloud of decomposed BBSes and newsgroups.

You boot it up, and you're hit by a choice of servers, then you're tasked with picking from the thousands of channels within those servers. These can range from economic discussion to wrestling, from MMORPGs to, erm, porn, but even when you're in a channel, most of the users can often seem happy to simply run through various scripts to get their fix of 'FML' anecdotes, or lottery-style games. Recently, I've found channels which are a little more chatty, but I'm still under the impression that most communication happens privately.

It's a different world, I tell you. A world where Linux won, perhaps. A place beyond the high tide of hashtags and memes.

IRC is a terrifying, fascinating place, and I must make it my home for the time being. Any help or guidance during this dark period would be greatly appreciated.

[451] WAW+P Radio #8: Arne Bellstorf

2011-03-29T12:27:00.004+01:00

After a short hiatus, here's the latest We Are Words + Pictures podcast, with Arne Bellstorf.

This one is a first for the series: a remote podcast. I recorded all the audio off-site, using a superb clip mic for the interview with Arne. I think it worked out quite well. It certainly has more of a mellow, undulating vibe to it, and that's not just because of the frankly awesome playlist. I'll have to think about how these qualities can be better evoked when we get back in the studio. The bustle and ambience of the cafe is partly to blame for a much more energetic, and at times erratic, overall tone.

We'll see. I have a couple more shows planned, so hopefully we'll get back on track. As always, any comments, links or tweets would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and go and buy Baby's In Black. It's a wonderful book.

Here are some show notes, and the playlist.

Back after a wee break, We Are Words + Pictures returns to London Fields, in order to bring us all the best titbits from the world of comics. In this episode, host Michael Leader talks to German comic artist Arne Bellstorf about his new book, the smoky, romantic Baby's In Black. Expect musings on the German comics scene, insight into the book's release and subsequent translation, and an eclectic mix of mellow tunes.

To find out more about the We Are Words + Pictures collective, visit their site at http://wearewordsandpictures.com/

The Beatles - Cry for a Shadow
Elvis Presley - Love Me Tender
The Beatles - Baby's In Black
The Beatles - Money (That's What I Want)
Miles Davis - Générique
Juliette Gréco - La Javanaise
Edith Piaf - La Foule
David Bowie - Oh! You Pretty Things

Arne Bellstorf's website - http://www.bellstorf.com/
Baby's In Black at Self Made Hero - http://www.selfmadehero.com/title.php?isbn=9781906838263
German-language comics at the Goethe Institut - http://www.goethe.de/kue/lit/prj/com/enindex.htm

You can download the podcast here, or listen below using the London Fields Radio Mixcloud player.

We Are Words + Pictures, Vol. 8 by London Fields Radio on Mixcloud

[450] Killing Bono (2011) Review

2011-03-28T11:12:00.002+01:00

And here's another review! Sadly, yet another disappointing film. My patience is being tested.

Heavily adapted from the memoirs of Telegraph rock critic, Neil McCormick, Killing Bono starts thrillingly, before falling into the frustrating, unpleasant space between fact and fiction.

Its opening is both promising and entirely made up. In 1987, Neil (Ben Barnes) careens through the streets of Dublin, which are draped with posters teasing an exclusive launch party for The Joshua Tree, the latest album from U2. In between swerves, he breaks the fourth wall, staring at the camera as we hear of his thwarted dreams. "I always knew I'd be famous," he crows, but little did he know that it would be his two classmates, Paul Hewson (Martin McCann) and David Evans (Mark Griffin), later known as Bono and The Edge, that would take on the world. However, tonight, on the eve of the release of their biggest selling album, he would steal the limelight. He is going to kill Bono.

With its gaudy, hyper-real cinematography and Barnes' loopy, exaggerated performance, there are hints that we're in for something tense and twisted with this story of obsession. But we're soon dragged back to the late 70s, back to the boys' school days, where Neil sets up a band to rival the stars-to-be, and poaches his brother, Ivan McCormick (Robert Sheehan), from under proto-U2's noses.

Read the full article here.

[449] Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Review, in Micro Mart

2011-03-25T03:00:00.006Z

I rarely write video game reviews. And when I picked up Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, for a Micro Mart review, I remembered why. Even when you enjoy a game, you still have to invest tens of hours of 'research' (play) time into it, before you can write with any shred of integrity.

In this case, I sank about three days of full-time preparation into Brotherhood. That was only 50% of the game as a whole. And I hadn't even touched the multiplayer.

Crikey. Anyway, the review is in this week's issue of Micro Mart.

Available at all good newsagents. I might post up the review once the issue slips from the shelves.

[448] Behind The Bytes: Twit-Tease

2011-03-23T21:02:00.006Z

March has been quiet on the blogging front; this is mostly because of Behind The Bytes, the webseries that I have developed with Nick Moran and Edward Szekely. We've been working on the pilot, which should be online before the end of the month.

Behind The Bytes will peddle completely fictitious short documentaries, looking at the scandalous lives of video game characters. The pilot is about Tails, from Sonic the Hedgehog: it is a tragic tale of companionship, obsession, and sprinting.

On Monday, we launched the series' Twitter feed.

We're going for a mix of the Drunk Hulk / Average Batman-style feed, providing 'in-world' gossip tweets about video game scandals, alongside teaser-y updates and series-related links. Today we posted the above, which came with the below image.

...of Clarissa Ankle (the hideously talented Samantha Baines), one of the three talking heads who act as our guides through the highs and lows of the gaming 'scene'.

The pilot is shaping up to be rather sharp. I'll post more when the episode comes out, but in the meantime, follow the Behind The Bytes Slander Feed™ to keep abreast of all news from the gaming rumour mill.

[447] Chalet Girl (2011) Review

2011-03-17T13:16:00.004Z

...and March started so well!

Coming soon: the new short film (which is currently in post-production), and at least a couple of podcasts. In the meantime, here's a thoroughly unimpressed review of a film that isn't at all aimed at me.

While we're all getting into a patriotic froth over The King's Speech, and the hefty sum granted to its production by the soon to be defunct UK Film Council, perhaps it's best to see where else its money is going.

Out this week is Chalet Girl, a British comedy that was boosted by a £800,000 stimulus from the UKFC. Like Tom Hooper's awards-winner, it is fiercely British, and casts its gaze over one of the nation's pet obsessions, class.

Bright young thing Felicity Jones stars as Kim, a grungy teen whose promising career as a professional skateboarder is put on hold after the untimely death of her mother. Stuck in a dead-end job, at Chicken Cottage, no less, Kim must scrounge in order to support her grieving father (Bill Bailey), and puts her name forward for a plush catering job in the Alps, living with an upper class family for the summer. While navigating from one faux pas to another, the working class girl develops a rapport with posh dreamboat, Jonny (Ed Westwick), and spots a potential way to change her life completely, by competing in an international snowboarding event.

The script, penned by newcomer, Tom Williams, tries incredibly hard to please, stuffing every scene with sight gags, cheap gags, physical gags, broadly caricatured characters and plenty of fish out of water gags. Few hit home, but thanks to a pleasant cast, it isn't entirely offensive. Bill Nighy provides his salary's worth as Jonny's quirky, feline father, while Tamsin Egerton, as Kim's colleague, Georgie, manages to maintain something of a comic composure while delivering god-awful jokes about Facebook.

Felicity Jones is an absolutely delightful screen presence, even if her natural, pretty charm isn't an easy fit for Kim's supposedly uncouth, tomboyish personality. On a basic level, the character seems to have been misconceived, with her snarky, sarcastic witticisms being as overwritten as her cluelessness in the face of upper class life is unconvincing. That said, she nevertheless stands out among most young female leads by having a passion that isn't simply the pursuit of romance. Even if her skill is never doubted and her mastery of snowboarding is remarkably breezy (a short montage should do the trick), her desire to win challenges the usual gender stereotypes for such cinematic fluff.

Read the full article here.

[446] Age of the Dragons (2010) Review

2011-03-05T12:09:00.005Z

One of the downsides to reviewing awful films is that they're the first to be cut if the publication is pushed for space. Sadly, this happened with my latest review for Little White Lies. It's a shame, because it was a little different to my usual style, in that it's rather 'zingy'.

Irreverent movie journalism, here I come? I'd better warm up the image editing software.

We can all agree that Pride and Prejudice sorely suffered from a lack of zombies. So, by that logic, we can also conclude that Herman Melville’s literary masterwork Moby Dick, the tale of one man’s obsession with the titular white whale, is equally harmed by its staunch disregard for supernatural fads.

Luckily, cheap ‘n’ quick director Ryan Little (Saints and Soldiers) is on hand with Age of the Dragons, which sees Ahab (Danny Glover) pursuing the Great White Dragon, with a motley crew of hunters and harpooners at his side.

Among them is our dashing protagonist, Ishmael (Corey Sevier), who dazzles all with his superb accuracy and skill, landing him a place aboard the Peaquod. However, in Little’s re-imagining, Ahab’s vessel is not an impressive whaleship, but more of a reinforced caravan, which roams snowy tundra in search of its winged prey.

Even this little tweak has massive ramifications, dissipating any claustrophobic tension as the crew are dragged along on their captain’s personal quest – but it is small fry to the unmitigated disaster that is the film as a whole.

Read the full article here.

[445] Portal 2 Preview-Interview

2011-03-03T14:31:00.002Z

Portal is one of my all-time favourite games. I've played it through more times than I can remember, on two platforms. So, when I was offered the chance to play the sequel at a preview event, I couldn't say no. And to find out, as I turn up, that writers Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek were there, and we were allowed to interview them? That was an amazing bonus.

I can't wait for April.

While we're all rather spoilt for choice when it comes to highly-anticipated games in 2011, with plenty of sequels and long-in-the-making blockbusters coming your way over the next 10 months, there’s one in particular that, for many, stands above the rest - and it’s only just around the corner.

For coming out in April is Portal 2, Valve’s follow-up to its surprise first-person puzzle hit of 2007. Initially bundled with the Orange Box anthology, Portal soon garnered plenty of attention, probably because it was - and still is - a superb, unique game. It was polished, full of surprises, and possessed two uncommon qualities for games of its type: brevity and wit.

Portal 2, coming years after the memes and in-jokes have gone stale, doesn’t have surprise on its side. And, indeed, Valve’s decision to open up the game to a more standalone length (at least six hours, plus a co-op campaign), moves it away from its short-and-sweet predecessor.

However, let’s remind ourselves: this is Valve! They’ve not yet made a less-than-great game. And after playing the opening 40 minutes of Portal 2 - essentially an introductory tutorial sequence - any potential worries have been cast aside.

Read the full article here.

[444] Fish Tail (A Tale About Fish)

2011-03-01T12:32:00.004Z

As promised, here is Fish Tail, the short film I worked on with Edward Szekely, Simon Vickery and Edward Gosling, under the moniker 'A Bunch of Guys'.

Szekely called me up about a month ago, and said he was interested in shooting a short for Kino London's 'Open Mic Film Night'. He soon brought in Gosling and Vickery, and after one production meeting we had this plot - half a development of a drunken idea conceived in the Maple Leaf a week prior, and half a rip-off of Raymond Carver. Two house-mates, divided by not only their choice in food, but their ambitions for life. Cooking as a domestic context for a subtextual conversation. And so on.

I'm still trying to figure out what I actually did, in terms of a title. We were all hyphenates, really. Vickery and Gosling were the actors as well as the first-drafters, and Szekely did all of the technical stuff. I co-wrote the second draft, the heavily-revised version that is mostly intact in the final film. Then, on the day, I monkeyed around, talking about shots and line delivery, and afterwards pestered Szekely as he slowly developed Final Cut Claw in the editing process.

And there it is. A creative impulse satisfied. What do you think?

Next up? Well, maybe a comedy web series pilot, with Szekely again, but this time conceived and written by old chum Nicholas Moran. Stay tuned.

[443] Confessions (2010) Review

2011-02-23T14:21:00.002Z

Back in January, I wrote 5600 words about two UK-based distribution companies, Third Window and Terracotta, who specialise in East Asian cinema. This was for my MA, and the beast of an essay - which touched on how they challenge traditional practice by using social media, special screenings and cult festivals as promotional channels - actually went down quite well. I'm currently thinking about how to present it. Would anyone be interested in it? I'd love to see it published somewhere. Maybe I'll cave in and lob it up here eventually.

Meanwhile, Third Window have released a new film, Confessions. Not only was it Japan's submission to the Academy Awards, but it also took home the big prizes at the Japanese equivalent. There's a lot of love for this, but it's not at all the kind of safe, predictable work that is usually pimped out to the international audience. Have a read and see.

Directed by cult favourite, Tetsuya Nakashima (Kamikaze Girls, Memories Of Matsuko), revenge drama Confessions was recently given the seal of approval from its home film industry when it was submitted as Japan's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards. Although, don't let that fool you. This is not a consensus-forming safe bet. No, this is rather an ugly proposition, indeed.

Initially concerned with mystery, Confessions soon finds itself lost in relentless revelation, a feature-length third act, where characters narrate motivation either before or alongside the action itself.

In a compelling, nightmarish opening sequence, a bereaved teacher (Takako Matsu) lectures her unruly class of teenage yahoos about life. Her daughter was found dead on school grounds and, worse, she believes that it was no accident, but a harsh act on the part of two of her students. So, calm, collected, and with a gentle sincerity that cuts through the rabble, she explains her plan for revenge.

Read the full article here.

[442] Movie Magic

2011-02-20T12:02:00.004Z

This weekend, I shot a short film with a couple of accomplices (including Super Szekely). Movie magic ensued.

More on the film in due course, but, unless something catastrophic happens, we should be screening it at Kino London's Open Mic Film Night, which is this coming Thursday (24th), on Brick Lane, East London.

[441] Inside Job (2010) Review

2011-02-19T11:13:00.002Z

There are few tougher propositions in the film world than the feature-length documentary. To stand out, and, seemingly, to impress the Academy, documentaries need to be helped by the cult of personality (Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth), high production values (March Of The Penguins) or a crowd-pleasing tone (Man On Wire, The Cove). Charles Ferguson's Inside Job, a compelling account of the recent global financial crisis, is obviously aiming high, ticking off each quality to almost fatal effect.

A thrilling opening, using the economic bubble of Iceland as a starting point, asserts itself through fast-paced editing, a score that takes cues from Hans Zimmer, and cinematography that, to be honest, has no place in this tale of boardrooms, bankers and bailouts.

As the opening credits roll, we're hit by the one-two punch of comfort food licensed music choices (Peter Gabriel's Big Time) and sumptuous aerial shots of New York City, London, Shanghai, and other international business centres. Such slickness, plus the film's backing by Sony Pictures Classics, gives Inside Job an immediate air of professionalism, one that is, thankfully, mirrored in Ferguson's approach as a documentarian.

While not mincing words or failing to lay blame where it is due, the film safely sidesteps the cheap demagoguery of Moore, with the filmmaker's voice taking a backseat to compelling infographics, eloquent talking heads, and the soothing, familiar voice of Matt Damon.

Read the full article here.

[440] Warren Ellis Interview

2011-02-15T17:31:00.004Z

A fun interview, this one, despite it being a phoner. Warren Ellis!

Less than five minutes before my interview slot with writer Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Crooked Little Vein, Freakangels, among many others), the following Twitter update appeared, from the man himself: "slowly losing my mind doing phone interviews for the UK release of the RED DVD. poor journos."

I reassured myself with the fact that, as it was a phoner, there was little chance of Ellis, whose public persona is best described as 'cantankerous old sod', causing me any physical harm.

And, thankfully, even the emotional trauma was minimal.

Read on for the interview, which starts with RED, the 'old folks with guns' action film starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren, adapted from Ellis and Cully Hamner's comic book, and subsequently touches on Ellis' online doings, the communities he has cultivated, and his far-reaching influence...

Read the full article here.

[439] Greg Mottola Interview

2011-02-15T00:25:00.003Z

Sure, I didn't like Paul much - and thankfully didn't have to review it - but I loved Adventureland, the previous film directed by Greg Mottola. So when I was asked to interview him, it was another case of dodging around the broader qualities of the film itself. So I asked him about music! And Easy Rider! And, you know what? It came out very well. It was rather a shame that we only had 6 minutes, as I could have chatted with this lovely gentleman for much longer. We were only getting started. Maybe next time.

This week, the sci-fi/comedy geek tease, Paul, beams onto our Earth-based cinema screens. In anticipation, Michael had the chance to chat with director Greg Mottola, whose previous work includes Superbad and DoG favourite, Adventureland.

Unfortunately, time was short, but Mottola gave us invaluable insight into the film's soundtrack, revealed his favourite pop culture references, and expounded on the enduring power of movie magic.

Read the full article here.

[438] Gnomeo & Juliet (2011) Review

2011-02-11T01:22:00.003Z

For the first time in a while... a review at Film4.com! And I keep up my reputation of only giving negative (or, at best, lukewarm) reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

Gnomeo And Juliet is one persistent little blighter. You would think ten years of production limbo would kill such a wafer-thin idea - Shakespeare's most popular play, cheekily sent up with a cast of garden ornaments - but after a decade of bouncing around the Disney lot, it has found fertile ground at distribution label Touchstone Pictures.

And while it survives to pummel us with bright colours, eye-poking 3D and gurning humour, the scars of its trials are evident. Take the writing credits: apart from Stratford-upon-Avon's most famous export, Gnomeo bears the fingerprints of nine further scribblers. What with all this tinkering, it's probably better to see it as less of a unified piece of work, and more of a Frankenstein's monster - reanimated in defiance of the film industry itself.

Somewhere within you can still spy the original concept: young lovers Gnomeo (James McAvoy) and Juliet (Emily Blunt) reside in two adjacent gardens, between which there is a bitter feud. There's potential for a Shrek-like parody of Bardic cliche, but the endless barrage of cheap puns and sight gags sees to it that Gnomeo And Juliet elicits more groans than laughs.

Read the full article here.

[437] DC Universe Online Interview

2011-02-08T09:08:00.004Z

I've still not had the chance to play DC Universe Online - and I doubt I ever will get around to it. I think that's something to do with me not being willing to pay monthly fees for a game up-front. However, it was great to chat with two of the chaps from SOE, and I made sure to throw in some interesting questions, asking about their team structure as a company (answer: no one takes days off), and what they think of hastily-written MMO reviews (answer: it pisses them off, but it's to be expected).

Sony Online Entertainment isn’t new to MMO games, having developed the massively-multiplayer behemoth EverQuest, and chipped in with licensed online titles like Star Wars Galaxies and The Matrix Online, but its new game, the recently released DC Universe Online, is a tantalizingly fresh prospect.

As well as bringing the incredibly rich, varied and voluminous DC canon to our computer screens, SOE has positioned DC Universe Online as its entry into the console arena, with the game also appearing on the PS3. Fittingly, it’s a more action-oriented affair, evoking the likes of Crackdown or Prototype in its fast-paced combat and huge open-world spaces - where wannabe superheroes are given the chance to scale the dizzy heights of Gotham or Metropolis skyscrapers.

We were recently given the chance to chat with SOE’s Ryan Peters (Public Relations Specialist) and Tony Jones (Community Relations Manager), while they were on a whistle-stop European press tour. In this suitably massive interview, we talked about the process of developing DC Universe Online, their approach to canon, and the input from comics industry veterans like Jim Lee, Marv Wolfman and Geoff Johns - as well as addressing two elephants in the room: Blizzard’s all-conquering World Of Warcraft, and the ongoing debates around whether MMOs, which require weeks of gameplay time to be truly experienced, can be fairly reviewed by video game critics.

Read the full article here.

[436] Rabbit Hole (2010) Review

2011-02-04T16:22:00.002Z

Only a little bit of grumbling this time, but not about the film for a change. Rabbit Hole, like Blue Valentine - and, for that matter, Never Let Me Go - definitely deserves more attention. Instead, it's been landed with a token gesture of a Best Actress nomination for Nicole Kidman at the Oscars, effectively burying all its other qualities.

Sadly, this has resulted in the film being rather undersold by the international distributors, with it going up this week against Best Picture contender The Fighter. Interestingly, Blue Valentine was released the week after big-hitters (and consistent earners) The King's Speech and 127 Hours, and Never Let Me Go finally comes out next week, alongside True Grit. Sure, this is great for discerning cinemagoers, with such high quality product wedged together in such a short amount of time, but in the battle for the attentions of general film fans, a rack of Oscar nominations goes a long way. Rabbit Hole doesn't stand a chance.

Unfortunately, Rabbit Hole is the kind of film that seems to get overlooked in the awards race. It is in the line of sharp, intelligent, and sincere character dramas that, in recent times, has been pigeon-holed, or simply ignored.

Think of Rachel Getting Married, or this year's Blue Valentine, both of which are films that, when it came to the Academy Awards, were defined by a single performance (Anne Hathaway for the former, Michelle Williams for the latter), while the rest of the production, cast and crew were snubbed.

Rabbit Hole has been granted a similar fate, with Nicole Kidman receiving the brunt of the awards attention. It is highly unlikely that she'll win, due in part to the quality of the competition, but also due to the lack of the awards-bait triumvirate of prosthetics, reality and tragedy that helped her to walk away with an Oscar for The Hours.

However, that this is the only recognition granted to Rabbit Hole is puzzling, as it is a superbly nuanced, finely crafted drama.

Read the full article here.

[435] Brighton Rock (2011) Review

2011-02-02T20:47:00.002Z

Grumble, grumble. You know, I like Andrea Riseborough, and I have fond memories of Sam Riley in Control, so let's hope Brighton Rock doesn't derail their careers. I tried to highlight some of the exhilaratingly bonkers parts of the film in the review, but the first comment accuses me of 'sticking the blade in'. Oops.

Here's a pull quote for you: Brighton Rock left me stunned. More so than any other film at the back end of 2010, it caused my jaw to drop. And I don't mean that in the positive sense.

Adapted from Graham Greene's source novel, and lagging 60-odd years behind the first film version, co-written by the author himself and starring Richard Attenborough, William Hartnell and Hermione Baddeley, this new take is the directorial debut of writer, Rowan Joffé. The result is one of those mind-bending, flabbergasting disasters that come along far too rarely.

Brighton Rock couldn't be based on a more melodramatic plot, as Pinkie (Sam Riley), a young, ambitious gangster, decides to marry Rose (Andrea Riseborough), a local waitress who happens to be a material witness to one of his murders. In order to keep her silent, he cons the girl with false romance, and in the process unearths all sorts of Catholic forms of guilt and sin.

However, while its predecessor had a starched, yet dignified quality, mixing stiff upper lip Britishness with its own spin on the then-contemporary style of urban film noir, Joffé's take doesn't dare toy with restraint, inflating the melodramatic elements to gigantic proportions.

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