Features
Over at our official Facebook page , we are currently posting daily Film Recommendations, with each week being a different theme. The first theme is Stylish Gangster Films, crime films which are elevated by aesthetically appealing visuals and great alternative takes on the usual gangster film tropes. 1.
As a film fan, I think it’s hugely important to have deep and insightful conversations about what we’re seeing on the silver screen. Whether it be with your family, a group of friends or even an online forum, talking about films is the best way to know and learn about the art of filmmaking. It doesn’t matter where you get your material from, as long as you personally learn something from it, and I believe YouTube is a medium that can help you do that.
Cinematographers, or directors of photography (DP’s), handle what many think the directors accomplish in their films when it comes to visual techniques and style. However, the distinctive look many movies have has more to do with the “real” eye behind the camera, and that is usually the cinematographer. Over the years, cinematography has evolved from a craft to an art, although to be successful in the business there is a delicate balance of both.
Have you ever found yourself loving the bad guy in a movie? Villains come in many different forms, whether it’s the combined protagonist/antagonist situation like Mickey and Mallory Knox in Natural Born Killers, or the complete polar opposite of the hero, a dark and vicious villain like Heath Ledger’s astounding role as The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. And with the recent trailer release of the movie Suicide Squad (a team of DC comic villains coming together to take on the missions deemed too horrific for the heroes), it provokes the question:
The film Ida by Pawel Pawlikowski is admired by critics and viewers around the world. The movie won awards at important international festivals and it was nominated for an Academy Award in the category for Best Foreign Language Film. A glimmer of hope woke in the Poles after winning a golden statue:
In the last instalment of this series, I examined how British movies would get funded and released when faced with extensive government cuts. Now it is time to ask an even more important question: with those cuts in place, will it affect the types of film that are getting produced?
Cinematic failures appear in all shapes and sizes; some are critically acclaimed upon release only to become hated months later. Others get shunned by critics and audiences only to develop cult followings years later. In this day and age, where every other film has a sizable cult following, it is difficult to determine which films have truly earned their cult status.
It sounds so easy on paper. Take a successful creative work that already has a large following and put it on the big screen, what could possibly go wrong? A lot it seems, as it can be rather difficult to find any game film released that has been received positively, and with the recent travesty released being in the form of Pixels there seems to be no hope in sight.
Truth be told – I don’t watch movie trailers. Other than the occasional advert that happens to cross my path on television while I’m lounging on a recliner, I have total a disinterest in them. But, “Oh!
Under the last government, the UK film council (which supported the funding, production and distribution of British films) was scrapped, as prime minister David Cameron cited that the initiative “wasn’t supporting films people British people want to see, like Harry Potter”. Subsequently, we have been told this has made it far harder for British filmmakers to get their movies made. As David Cameron’s Conservative government have recently been re-elected into parliament (this time as the sole governing party; last time they were part of a coalition), it is time to examine what effect this will have on British filmmakers, both in terms of how they will be able to get their films made now there is a tighter grip on funding, as well as how it will effect the kinds of films they make.
Japanese cinema has a distinctive style that has been consistent since the days of silent film, when directors where drawing from classic kabuki theater to inform their burgeoning filming style. That is not to say that there’s anything limiting about a cultural pattern in Japanese cinema, seeing as they have given the film world anime, jidaigeki, yakuza, cyberpunk and multiple other notable sub-genres. One recognizable aspect of Japanese cinema is the use of seasons in certain films:
The marketing team for Paul Feig’s most recent film, Spy, should really reconsider their occupation: this was one of my first thoughts as the credits for the film rolled and I began to head for the exit. The trailers and posters for the film made it seem like little more than Paulina Blart:
Mad Max: Fury Road, the latest from Australian director George Miller, is overtly, and perhaps primarily, an action film. The vast majority of its two hour runtime is devoted to a single unrelenting chase sequence; it both drives the narrative and provides a platform for the manic and brilliantly staged action set-pieces which will define the film for many audiences.
In 2007, I was a zombie and I was murdered by a man named Graham Clarke. Okay, I was actually a hungry film student in Los Angeles and I was working on a short film in which Graham played the hero. In student films, “working” also means being the token extra and that’s how I ended up doing my best zombie shuffle in Among the Dead.
Joe Strummer, born John Grammar Mellon, is best known as the scowling, screaming, warrior-poet who sang lead vocals and played rhythm guitar for the “only band that matters”: The Clash. The man with the gravel voice and the idealist political agenda was never afraid to voice his opinions on current events.