Oscar-winning directors don't do superhero movies

Falling into the “what might have been?” category, The LA Times has revealed that Tom Hooper was offered the chance to follow up his Academy Award-winning drama The King’s Speech by stepping into Jon Favreau’s shoes for Iron Man 3. Hooper ultimately declined the offer, paving the way for Robert Downey Jr. to reunite with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang helmer Shane Black for the 2013 sequel.

Hooper’s next feature looks likely to be an adaptation of the musical Les Miserables, although after his success last night you’d have to imagine he awoke to a few more opportunities this morning.

Meanwhile his decision to pass on Iron Man marks the second year running that the recipient of the Best Director Oscar has turned down a foray into the superhero genre; last year’s winner Kathryn Bigelow declined the opportunity to reboot Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, with Marc Webb then stepping on board and signing up Andrew Garfield for The Amazing Spider-Man.

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DVD Review - Terror Trap (2010)

Terror Trap, 2010.

Directed by Dan Garcia.
Starring David James Elliot, Heather Marie Marsden, Jeff Fahey, Michael Madsen and Andrew Sensenig.


SYNOPSIS:

Don (David James Elliot) and Nancy (Heather Marie Marsden), a couple with an unhappy relationship, are run off the road on a rural back road. The surly Sheriff Cleveland (Jeff Fahey) drives the couple to a motel where crime/motel overlord Carter (Michael Madsen) will subject them to a deadly game of cat and mouse for the pleasure of a paying audience.


[Warning - here be spoilers]

Terror Trap begins with a biblical quotation:

'For just a man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: But the wicked shall fall into mischief.' - Proverbs 24:16

Whether this is to imbue the film with a sense of weightiness or to give the viewer somewhere to turn after witnessing Terror Trap is up for debate.

Terror Trap begins as a paradigm of horror movies with an attractive young woman speeding along a rural highway, talking on her phone and taking swigs from a liquor bottle with an almost suicidal disregard for the law. Set up as the perfect “deserving victim”, cue Sheriff Cleveland (Jeff Fahey) pulling her over and going from genial old boy to shouty psycho in a matter of seconds. Cleveland intimidates the young woman into letting him take her to the motel of doom. This young woman does reappear a few times through the film and her funeral is used to bookmark the beginning and the end of the film but any significance she might have is lost in the severely muddled plot.

Next up on the roster of victims are Don (David James Elliot) and Nancy (Heather Marie Marsden), who bicker and fight. Well, Don doesn't really do much fighting, he just kind of sits there and takes the abuse most of the time. The couple seem on the verge of divorce as she screams 'Fuck You!' at him five times in a row and then hits him whilst he is driving. Surely only an event of life-changing magnitude could ever bring these two alienated lovers back together.

After Don and Nancy are run off the road by one of Carter's lackey's, the two are whisked away by Fahey's Sheriff to the motel and must deal with the inevitable weirdo hotel clerk in order to get their shitty room that has blood smeared on the walls. At this point, many people might reach the decision to leave immediately and maybe tough the night out in a ditch before dusting themselves off and finding help elsewhere. But no, Don explains away the blood by joking 'Wow, these truckers must like it rough!'. Indeed.

Oh, and Nancy randomly reminds Don that he was a Marine. Y'know, Just sayin'.

Meanwhile, texts are sent out by Carter to various scumballs who gather at the motel in a dark room to watch the carnage on offer via video feeds planted all around the hotel. The scenes with the watchers are ridiculously over-egged, with the voyeurs shown as sweaty, twitchy caricature sleazebags. These scenes are more humorous than disturbing as the watchers goggle wild eyed at the screen as Don and Nancy fanny around doing nothing much at all.

As the film progresses, this audience of degenerates are seen watching not only the trials of Don and Nancy but also the torture and murder of some Ukrainian prostitutes that Madsen's Carter has purchased. The director seems to try and want to create a gritty, washed out aesthetic á la Hostel and films scenes of the Ukrainian prostitutes as a writing mass of flesh, and has them twice sprayed with arterial blood after a couple of throat slashings, seemingly thinking that this is disturbing and visceral but instead it's just kind of shallow and pointless.

There also doesn't seem to be any underlying moral tone or message regarding the actions of the watchers or those committing the crimes. There is no guiding reason behind the violence and blood other than to attempt to appear 'edgy' and modern by embellishing the weak story with voyeuristic elements.

Whilst the Hostel part of the film is unfolding, Don and Nancy are embroiled in their own The Devil's Rejects / Vacancy plot and run from place to place being pursued by assailants wearing overalls and what appear to be Venetian carnival masks. The masks lead to the murderers looking like a much tamer version of Slipknot and remove any sense of threat that they might pose to the main protagonists. It is around this point that Don seems to remember that he was a Marine for eight years and goes full-scale Rambo on everyone, perhaps revelling in the fact that he can finally express his rage at his crappy marriage and hideous wife.

The film ends with Don, having killed mostly everyone in the motel and leaving Cleveland beaten and broken on the floor, gently guiding Nancy away from the hotel as they start to walk the road to freedom and, perhaps, a brighter future. After the dust has settled, Carter walks to Cleveland and talks with him for a minute before shooting him twice, seemingly just because he can. Carter then walks off into the darkness, free to re-start his unique business somewhere else.

After this ending, there are about four more endings/epilogues that only served to further muddy the waters of the already broken plot and I couldn't really understand what the hell was going on anymore.

Alex Williams

Movie Review Archive

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The King's Speech takes top honours at the Academy Awards

Awards season drew to a close for another year last night as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honoured the very best in cinematic achievement from 2010 at the 83rd annual Academy Awards. Taking place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California, the ceremony was hosted by actors Anne Hathaway and James Franco, who was himself nominated for Best Actor for his performance in Danny Boyle's 127 Hours.

The King's Speech had led the pack going into the night with twelve nominations and picked up four awards in total - Best Picture, Best Director (Tom Hooper), Best Actor (Colin Firth) and Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler) - while Christopher Nolan's Inception also managed four awards, enjoying success in the technical categories of Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and Cinematography.

Check out the full list of awards, with the winners highlighted in each category...

Best Picture
The Kids Are All Right (dir. Lisa Cholodenko)
Toy Story 3 (dir. Lee Unkrich)
The Social Network (dir. David Fincher)
The King’s Speech (dir. Tom Hooper)
Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan)
The Fighter (dir. David O. Russell)
Black Swan (dir. Darren Aronofsky)
127 Hours (dir. Danny Boyle)
True Grit (dir. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen)
Winter’s Bone (dir. Debra Granik)

Best Director
David Fincher (The Social Network)
Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech)
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (True Grit)
Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
David O. Russell (The Fighter)

Best Actor
Colin Firth (The King’s Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Javier Bardem (Biutiful)

Best Actress
Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale (The Fighter)
Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right)
John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)

Best Supporting Actress
Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Jackie Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

Best Animated Feature
The Illusionist (dir. Sylvain Chomet)
Toy Story 3 (dir. Lee Unkrich)
How To Train Your Dragon (dir. Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders)

Best Original Screenplay
Inception (Christopher Nolan)
The King’s Speech (David Seidler)
The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg)
The Fighter (Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson)
Another Year (Mike Leigh)

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Social Network (Aaron Sorkin)
True Grit (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen)
127 Hours (Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy)
Toy Story 3 (Michael Arndt)
Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik and Anne Roselini)

Best Foreign Film
Dogtooth (Greece, dir. Giorgos Lanthimos)
Biutiful (Mexico, dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Incendies (Canada, dir. Denis Villeneuve)
In a Better World (Denmark, dir. Susanne Bier)
Outside the Law (Algeria, dir. Rachid Bouchareb)

Best Documentary
Exit Through the Gift Shop (dir. Banksy)
Gasland (dir. Josh Fox)
Restrepo (dir. Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger)
Wasteland (dir. Lucy Walker and Karen Harley)
Inside Job (dir. Charles Ferguson)

Art Direction
Alice in Wonderland (Robert Stromberg, Karen O’Hara)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan)
Inception (Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias and Doug Mowat)
The King’s Speech (Eve Stewart, Judy Farr)
True Grit (Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh)

Cinematography
Black Swan (Matthew Libatique)
Inception (Wally Pfister)
The King’s Speech (Danny Cohen)
The Social Network (Jeff Cronenweth)
True Grit (Roger Deakins)

Costume Design
Alice in Wonderland (Colleen Atwood)
I Am Love (Antonella Cannarozzi)
The King’s Speech (Jenny Beavan)
The Tempest (Sandy Powell)
True Grit (Mary Zophres)

Film Editing
Black Swan (Andrew Weisblum)
The Fighter (Pamela Martin)
The King’s Speech (Tariq Anwar)
127 Hours (Jon Harris)
The Social Network (Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter)

Makeup
Barney’s Version (Adrien Morot)
The Way Back (Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng)
The Wolfman (Rick Baker and Dave Elsey)

Original Score
How to Train Your Dragon (John Powell)
Inception (Hans Zimmer)
The King’s Speech (Alexandre Desplat)
127 Hours (A.R. Rahman)
The Social Network (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)

Original Song
“Coming Home” from Country Strong
“I See the Light” from Tangled
“If I Rise” from 127 Hours
“We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3

Sound Editing
Inception (Richard King)
Toy Story 3 (Tom Myers and Michael Silvers)
Tron: Legacy (Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague)
True Grit (Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey)
Unstoppable (Mark P. Stoeckinger)

Sound Mixing
Inception (Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick)
The King’s Speech (Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley)
Salt (Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin)
The Social Network (Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten)
True Grit (Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland)

Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland (Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi)
Hereafter (Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell)
Inception (Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb)
Iron Man 2 (Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick)

Best Animated Short Film
Day & Night
The Gruffalo
Let’s Pollute
The Lost Thing
Madagascar, carnet de voyage

Best Live Action Short Film
The Confession
The Crush
God of Love
Na Wewe
Wish 143

Best Documentary Short Subject
Killing in the Name
Poster Girl
Strangers No More
Sun Come Up
The Warriors of Qiugang

In addition to the winners above, film historian Kevin Brownlow, acclaimed filmmaker Jean-Luc Goddard and veteran actor Eli Wallach were recipients of Academy Honorary Awards, while legendary American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola was presented with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, all of which were handed out back in November at the 2nd annual Governors Awards ceremony.

Results of our Best Picture poll...

We've been running a poll this past month asking for your pick for Best Picture and - after a grand total of 1138 votes (a new record!) - Inception proved to be the clear victor...

Inception - 32% (372 votes)
The King's Speech - 16% (187 votes)
The Social Network - 14% (164 votes)
Toy Story 3 - 13% (148 votes)
Black Swan - 9% (107 votes)
True Grit - 5% (57 votes)
127 Hours - 4% (46 votes)
The Fighter - 2% (32 votes)
Winter's Bone - 1% (15 votes)
The Kids Are All Right - 0% (10 votes)

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Win a copy of Bathory on DVD - NOW CLOSED

To celebrate the DVD release of the blood-soaked historical epic Bathory on March 7th, Flickering Myth have teamed up with the lovely folk at Metrodome to offer three copies of the film to give away to our readers.

A European co-production directed by Slovakian filmmaker Juraj Jakubisko, the film stars Anna Friel (Goal!, London Boulevard) as Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Hungarian serial killer remembered as the 'Blood Countess' due to legends of her bathing in the blood of her victims. Also features in the cast are Karel Roden (The Bourne Supremacy), Hans Matheson (Sherlock Holmes), Vincent Regan (Clash of the Titans) and Franco Nero (Camelot).

Take a look at the synopsis and trailer...

History remembers Countess Bathory as the most sadistic murderess who ever lived, a monstrous killer of more than 650 innocent lives, who delighted in the torture of her victims and bathed in their still warm blood in an unholy quest for immortality.

Anna Friel delivers a sensational performance as Bathory in the chilling true story of one of history’s most notorious tyrants. With epic and explosive battle scenes, this award-winning portrayal of the Countess challenges the traditional story and explores the woman behind the legend…

To be in with a chance of nabbing one of the DVDs, all you have to do is drop us an email with your contact details and the subject heading "BATHORY" before 5.30pm on Sunday, March 6th (UK entrants only, please).

The Prize Finder - UK Competitions
Loquax Competitions
Competitions Today

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DVD Review - Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich (2009)

Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich (German: Mein Kampf), 2009.

Directed by Urs Odermatt.
Starring Tom Schilling, Götz George, Wolf Bachofner, Henning Peker, Simon Schwarz, Elisabeth Orth and Anna Unterberger.


SYNOPSIS:

Rejected by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, the young and strikingly untalented Adolf Hitler (Tom Schilling) embarks on a journey that will have catastrophic consequences for the entire world.


Are monsters born or made? Is true evil ingrained within a person from the beginning or does it seep into the pores of the vulnerable and impressionable through bitter experience? These are both big questions that Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich asks. However ultimately this is a film asking one incomprehensible and fascinating question; what transformed aspiring artist Adolf Hitler into a hatred fuelled dictator and perhaps the most infamous figure in not just the 20th century, but all of history?

To answer this question the film takes us back to Hitler’s formative years in Vienna, where he travelled as a young artist to seek a place at the city’s respected Academy of Fine Art. Historians largely agree that during the future Fuhrer’s time in the city he developed a fierce resentment for the Jews, which built upon prejudices he already carried from his childhood community and his parents. Needless to say Hitler failed with his application to the Academy, after presenting a weak and mediocre portfolio. He projected his disappointment and anger onto the Jews, blaming those that were wealthy and in positions of influence for holding him back. He scraped a living selling post cards of churches. He stole food and tasted life in the gutter. He absorbed nationalist and anti-Semitic literature. Like many he drifted without a purpose.

Generally details of his life in Vienna beyond this are vague. The precise intricacies of the monster’s birth cannot truly be known. Studies of Hitler tend to skip rapidly through his grim years in Vienna, to the First World War which invigorated him, and then onto the 1920s and the formation of the fledgling Nazi party. Consequently this film must conjure some fictions and twist what is known to achieve some form of artistic truth relating to such a notorious man.

At first the film succeeds. Hitler is bumbling and naive as he arrives at a home for Homeless Artists, with a degree of innocence. To feel this about a character instantly recognisable as Adolf Hitler is no small feat for the filmmakers and indeed to even attempt this story is bold and admirable for a piece of German cinema. Understandably anything connected to the shame of Nazi Germany is still raw and heavy with guilt for many in Germany, so to see Hitler so sympathetically humanised in the film’s opening stages is remarkably brave.

To see Hitler rendered as such a believable, flawed and scrawny young man actually makes his descent into total delusion and lust for power all the more chilling. He’s almost immediately spouting anti-Semitic vitriol and nationalist jargon to the old Jews already living at the homeless hostel. But he’s reciting it at this stage; it’s just something he’s learnt by rote. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe what he’s saying; he has been taught to mean it and feels he must. It is however, a hatred and anger not yet his own, which will become more venomous as he acquires his personal vendetta through life’s sour events. Disappointment and what he sees as injustice will ignite the prejudices he already holds and bring them to life as his guiding purpose.

Perhaps a partial and inadequate answer the film offers to one of its key questions, whether Hitler’s evil was born or made, is that it was both already present and considerably added to. There’s no doubting he already arrived with a narrow and twisted mindset but it’s also clear his hate deepens as the film progresses. One of the measures of this is the way in which his language grows increasingly elaborate to resemble the theatrical speeches of his later political career. At times the rhetoric is intoxicatingly colourful and persuasive, filled with symbolism and heroic, inspirational imagery. Mostly however the film exploits Hitler’s misplaced sense of grandeur and importance for laughs. Indeed Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich is a disturbingly funny film. From the very first scene and Hitler’s arrival, the elderly Jews tease him to teach him some politeness and manners. There’s something irresistibly hilarious about Hitler being asked to leave and come back again, but this time to knock and wait for an answer. It’s a scene that’s well acted enough to be funny in itself, but knowing that it’s a man as dangerous and feared as Hitler being humiliated adds a level of uneasy, dark humour to things.

In fact the film makes a big deal about the lingering torment of being laughed at. A Jewish roommate of Hitler’s, Schlomo Herzl, is forever teasing the young artist. However he also takes him under his wing and treats him like a son, and it’s clear the humour is affectionate and for Hitler’s own good. Hitler simply cannot take being laughed at or looked down to by a Jew though and he finds Schlomo’s care for him repugnant. Nevertheless he exploits it. He accepts Schlomo’s help to prepare him for his interview and entry exam. He lets Schlomo sell his post cards for him so that he can pay rent. He treats him like a slave and then sets about robbing him of his young love. Evidence of a later political pragmatism perhaps?

There are some good scenes between Schlomo and Hitler, particularly in the first half of the film. There’s an interesting contrast between Hitler’s brainwashed nationalism and the haggard man’s devout faith. In their very first exchange Hitler declares to Schlomo that God is dead, following Nietzsche’s famous idea. Schlomo is constantly the wise counterpoint to Hitler’s wild unfocused enthusiasm. But in the end, especially for those who know their history, the relationship strains the bounds of believability to breaking point.

The interesting points about Hitler’s philosophical and political development, and the alternative path through life he might have taken had he gained entry to the Academy, are lost beneath a sensational conflict and love triangle. Initially Schlomo was a clever lens that helped us learn more about Hitler. His character helped us see both Hitler the human and Hitler the animal as he used him and treated him like dirt. You really come to hate the young artist, and not just for being Hitler, as he cruelly rebuffs every kindness extended to him by the old man. Eventually though the plot surrounding Schlomo’s book, which Hitler helps him title “Mein Kampf”, becomes ridiculous.

Tom Schilling gives a great performance as the young Hitler and it’s one that evolves throughout the narrative. His gestures and mannerisms are perfect and his appearance in general. His delivery of the trademark passionate rallying cries, in stirring German, becomes more assured as the character grows in confidence. For me though it’s a real shame that Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich seems to lose its way. It begins as a compelling and absorbing study of a neglected period of history. It asks intriguing questions about how far individuals shape history or the social forces around them. But in its efforts to spin a story within those grander themes it loses sight of its strengths, becoming simply a mediocre tale which concludes with a baffling attempt at a poetic ending.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)

Movie Review Archive

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The Last Airbender dominates the Golden Raspberry Awards

The 83rd Academy Awards takes place today and as Hollywood gears up for its big night there are those who would argue that the whole awards season is little more than an excuse for industry back-slapping and mutual appreciation. However one ceremony that could never be accused of that is the Razzies - which of course aims to celebrate the very worst in cinematic achievement from the past twelve months - and the 'winners' of 2010 were revealed last night as the 31st annual Golden Raspberry Awards were presented at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, Hollywood.

It was a bad night (again) for M. Night Shyamalan as his latest waste of celluloid The Last Airbender picked up the awards for Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor (Jackson Rathbone) and Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-use of 3D, while Sex and the City 2 followed behind with three awards: Worst Actress (Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristen Davis and Cynthia Nixon), Worst Screen Couple or Ensemble (the entire cast) and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel.

Check out the full list of awards, with the winners highlighted in red...

Worst Picture
The Bounty Hunter
 (dir. Andy Tennant)
The Last Airbender
 (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
Sex and the City 2
 (dir. Michael Patrick King)
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
 (dir. David Slade)
Vampires Suck (dir. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer)

Worst Actor

Jack Black (Gulliver's Travels)

Gerard Butler (The Bounty Hunter)

Ashton Kutcher (Killers and Valentine's Day)

Taylor Lautner (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Valentine's Day)

Robert Pattinson (Remember Me and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse)

Worst Actress

Jennifer Aniston (The Bounty Hunter and The Switch)

Miley Cyrus (The Last Song)
Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City 2)
Megan Fox (Jonah Hex)
Kristen Stewart (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse)

Worst Supporting Actor

Billy Ray Cyrus (The Spy Next Door)

George Lopez (Marmaduke, The Spy Next Door and Valentine's Day)

Dev Patel (The Last Airbender)
Jackson Rathbone (The Last Airbender and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse)

Rob Schneider (Grown Ups)

Worst Supporting Actress

Jessica Alba (The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers, Machete and Valentine's Day)

Cher (Burlesque)
Liza Minnelli (Sex and the City 2)
Nicola Peltz (The Last Airbender)
Barbra Streisand (Little Fockers)

Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3D

Cats & Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore (dir. Brad Peyton)
Clash of the Titans (dir. Louis Leterrier)
The Last Airbender (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
The Nutcracker in 3-D (dir. Andrey Konchalovskiy)
Saw 3D (dir. Kevin Greutert)

Worst Screen Couple or Ensemble

Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler (The Bounty Hunter)

Josh Brolin's Face and Megan Fox's Accent (Jonah Hex)
The Entire Cast of The Last Airbender
The Entire Cast of Sex and the City 2

The Entire Cast of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Worst Director

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Vampires Suck)

Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City 2)
M. Night Shyamalan (The Last Airbender)

David Slade (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse)
Sylvester Stallone (The Expendables)

Worst Screenplay

M. Night Shyamalan (The Last Airbender
)
John Hamburg and Larry Stuckey (Little Fockers)

Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City 2)
Melissa Rosenberg (Twilight Saga: Eclipse)

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Vampires Suck)

Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel

Clash Of The Titans (dir. Louis Leterrier)
The Last Airbender (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
Sex and the City 2 (dir. Michael Patrick King)
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (dir. David Slade)
Vampires Suck (dir. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer)

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Superhero Showdown 2011: Thor vs. X-Men vs. Green Lantern vs. Captain America

Seconds out... welcome to the 3rd annual Superhero Showdown!


LAST TIME OUT…

Before we get underway, let’s start things off with a review of 2010’s confrontation, which saw Marvel sequel Iron Man 2 taking on DC Comics’ Jonah Hex and Mark Millar’s Icon indie Kick-Ass for big screen superhero supremacy…

Our prediction from last year’s showdown – “A no-brainer here with Iron Man 2 odds-on - nay, certain - to storm the box office this summer and likely to challenge for the highest-grossing film of the year. It should easily treble the world-wide takings of both Kick-Ass and Jonah Hex (possibly even combined) and will no doubt manage to out-perform its predeccessor. Meanwhile, despite its adult content Kick-Ass should enjoy a good run for a comfortable second place, with Jonah Hex sinking down the outhouse and struggling to recoup its budget.”

The reality – Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass may have been the better movie but Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2 did of course dominate at the box office, pulling in global receipts of $622.1m to finish up seventh in the list of the year’s highest earners. This figure was WAY more than treble the combined gross of its rivals, with Kick-Ass banking $96.2m and Jonah Hex a pitiful $10.9m, just over a fifth of its production budget. Result!

THIS TIME OUT…

Marvel characters have emerged victorious in the past two showdowns (X-Men Origins: Wolverine having fended off competition from Watchmen in 2009) and with three movies incoming it’s all but assured they’ll go on to make it three in a row…

Thor

Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, Jaimie Alexander, Colm Feore, Stellan Skarsgård, Joshua Dallas, Ray Stevenson, Idris Elba, Rene Russo, Clark Gregg and Samuel L. Jackson

The first of two entries from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to arrive this year, Thor sees Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek) as the arrogant Norse God of Thunder, who is cast from Asgard by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and exiled to Earth to live as a human. There he meets Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a beautiful young scientist who ultimately becomes his first love, which should prove fortunate for humanity when his dastardly foster-brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) decides to send the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

With Marvel working towards the arrival of Joss Whedon’s The Avengers next year, they must be confident that 2011 slate will turn a decent profit. Thor doesn’t carry the same kind of name recognition with the general public as the likes of Spider-Man or The Incredible Hulk, but neither did Iron Man until Favreau’s 2008 hit. From what we’ve seen of the trailers so far it looks like Branagh could deliver an entertaining blockbuster with a good mix of action and humour (but hopefully more action). Thor arrives on April 29th (UK) and May 6th (North America). Check out the first and second trailers.

X-Men: First Class

Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne, Nicholas Hoult, January Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, Jason Flemyng, Lucas Till, Zoë Kravitz, Ray Wise and Oliver Platt.

The X-Men movie franchise may have made over $1.5b in box office receipts but I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t agree that the series had been losing its way a little with X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Step forward Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn, who has assembled an all-new cast for X-Men: First Class including James McAvoy (Charles Xavier) and Michael Fassbender (Magneto). A Cold War-era prequel, First Class sees Xavier and Magneto working together to prevent Armageddon only for their differing ideologies to cause a rift between the friends that leads to the formation of the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants.

For a $120m blockbuster, X-Men: First Class has a hell of a tight production schedule (it only began filming six months ago), so you have to wonder whether the race-against-time will have a detrimental effect on the film. However, the highly-anticipated first trailer seemed to calm a lot of nerves when it debuted earlier this month and it certainly looks like there’s the potential for a strong X-Men film if everything comes together in time. As it’s envisioned as the first of a new trilogy, Fox will sure be hoping that it does. X-Men: First Class is scheduled to hit cinemas on June 2nd (UK) and June 3rd (North America), and is the only superhero flick this year to opt against a 3D release.

Green Lantern

Directed by Martin Campbell
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Mark Strong, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Angela Bassett, Tim Robins, Temuera Morrison, Taika Waititi, Jon Tenney, Mike Doyle and Jay O. Sanders

Warner Bros. are aiming to launch a new franchise this year as Casino Royale director Martin Campbell brings the DC Comics character Green Lantern to the screen with a $150m origin story. Ryan Reynolds stars in the title role as Hal Jordan, a cocky test pilot who finds himself becoming the newest recruit in the intergalactic peacekeeping force known as the Green Lantern Corps. With encouragement from fellow test pilot Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), Hal must quickly master his powers if he is to defeat Parallax, a new enemy threatening to destroy the balance of power in the universe.

Unlike their other DC properties Batman and Superman, Green Lantern isn’t exactly a house-hold name (particularly here in the UK) but with Warner Bros. harbouring intentions to follow Marvel’s Avengers route with a Justice League movie (both The Flash and Wonder Woman are in development), the studio will be hoping Ryan Reynolds has enough pulling power to make this a success. Will it work? The trailer wasn’t exactly earth-shattering (watch it here) but it’s bound to be an improvement on Jonah Hex, which isn’t really saying all that much. We’ll find out when Green Lantern lands on June 17th.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Directed by Joe Johnston
Starring Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Sebastian Stan, Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones, Dominic Cooper, Neal McDonough, Stanley Tucci, Tommy Lee Jones, Richard Armitage and Samuel L. Jackson

Chris Evans swaps the black and blue of the Fantastic Four for the red, white and blue of Captain America this July with The First Avenger, director Joe Johnston’s World War II-set Avengers lead-in. Transformed from feeble G.I. to muscle-bound Sentinel of Liberty by way of a healthy dose of Super-Soldier Serum, Steve Rogers (Evans) embarks on a period of intense training and - armed with his indestructible shield - he the fight to the Nazis, the terrorist organisation HYDRA and his arch-nemesis, the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving).

While a minority of fans were initially concerned about Evans swapping one Marvel character for another, seeing him in action in the brief Super Bowl spot (see it here) seemed to brush aside any concerns and it looks as if The Wolfman director Joe Johnston could end the summer season on a high. The First Avenger is sure to rake in the bucks domestically, but questions remain over how it will perform in other markets (distributors in the likes of Russia and South Korea have already decided to drop ‘Captain America’ from the title) and if Thor doesn’t perform to expectations it will only increase the pressure on Cap to deliver. Captain America: The First Avenger will be released on July 22nd (North America) and July 29th (UK).

PREDICTIONS…

Unlike previous years it’s hard to predict an overall winner here. Thor may not the most popular character in the Marvel universe but has the advantage of being the first superhero in cinemas this year so I’d expect it to perform well and probably exceed the $263m world-wide gross of Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk. It will likely be a toss-up between Captain America and X-Men: First Class for the North American box office crown, but First Class has to be the favourite for victory on a global scale and could go on to become the highest grossing instalment in the franchise.

That just leaves poor old Green Lantern, whom I expect to be on a hiding to nothing with Warner Bros. once again struggling to recoup their outlay. Fortunately 2012 should prove a lot more fruitful for the studio with both Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises and Zack Snyder’s Superman: Man of Steel set for release, although Marvel will look to counter with The Avengers and Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man (oh, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance).

Agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think...

Gary Collinson

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Short Film Showcase - What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1963)

What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?, 1963.

Written and Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Starring Zeph Michelis, Sarah Braveman, Fred Sica, Mimi Stark and Robert Uricola.

What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? is one of the earliest shorts from legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese and was shot on 16mm while he was studing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1963. Considered by the director to be his first real film (he had previously made the 'miniature epic' Vesuvius VI in 1959), the 9-minute surrealist comedy is described as "a tale of pure paranoia" and revolves around a writer, Harry (Zeph Michelis), who becomes obsessed with a picture of a boat on a lake, leading to a frustrating bout of writer's block.

For its time, What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? is a remarkably inventive student film, employing rapid-fire editing and clever cinematography techniques to give an early indication of Scorsese's dynamic visual style. Scorsese would follow this up with a further two shorts - It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964) and The Big Shave (1967) - before making his feature debut in 1968 with Who's That Knocking at My Door.


For more on Martin Scorsese check out our latest filmmaker profile Understanding Scorsese.

Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

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Flickering Myth's second birthday extravaganza!

February 2009... the 3D craze was still in its infancy, James Cameron's Titanic remained untouchable at the all-time box office, The Hobbit was gearing up for production under director Guillermo del Toro and M. Night Shyamalan’s career lay in tatters following the release of The Happening. Fast-forward 24 months and almost every film now comes with that added dimension (and subsequent surcharge), James Cameron’s Avatar sits proudly atop the global box office, The Hobbit is gearing up for production under director Peter Jackson and M. Night Shyamalan’s career lies in tatters following the release of The Last Airbender.

My, how time flies. It really doesn’t seem like two years ago that Flickering Myth first made its way onto the World Wide Web but today marks our second anniversary. We've come a long way since that first posting (a review of Easy Rider, if you’re interested); in July 2009 were we joined by Trevor Hogg, who brought with him fantastic series of filmmaker profiles and interviews, and as the site has grown we’ve continued to expand our writing team in the hope of giving you quality content on a regular basis. With that in mind, here are some of the most popular posts from our archive...

Most popular reviews…

Inception (2010, dir. Christopher Nolan)
Diagnosis Death (2009, dir. Jason Stutter)
Baise-moi (2000, dir. Virginie Despentes and Coralie)
A Clockwork Orange (1971, dir. Stanley Kubrick)
F (2010, dir. Johannes Roberts)

Most popular filmmaker profiles…

Drawn to Anime: A Hayao Miyazaki Profile
Animated Storytellers: A Pixar Animation Studios Profile
Resurfacing: A James Cameron Profile
Theatre of the Mind: A Christopher Nolan Profile
Freakishly Clever: A Tim Burton Profile

Most popular essentials…

Five Essential Films of Alfred Hitchcock
Ten Essential Movie Superheroes
Five Essential Films of Takashi Miike
Five Essential Movie Supervillains
Five Essential Films of Ridley Scott

Most popular special features...

Where Did All the Good Spoofs Go?
Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen
What’s next for Batman after The Dark Knight has risen?
Empire Building: The Making of The Empire Strikes Back
Story Upgrade: Expanding the world of Tron

2011 has been a pretty good year so far here at Flickering Myth; along with our nomination for Best Overall Blog in the Total Film Movie Blog Awards but we've climbed to the dizzying heights of tenth in Wikio's cinema rankings and cracked the top 20 of Technorati's Top 100 Film. Meanwhile the fine folks at MadeMan were nice enough to select us in their 10 Best Free Film Sites and we also appeared on Cision's list of the Top 10 UK Film Blogs of 2010.

So, this would be a perfect time for me to take the opportunity to thank all of our readers, along with everyone who has taken the time to comment on the posts, our contributors past and present (see here) and all of the fabulous sites that have supported us (check out their links in the sidebar, you won’t regret it!). Here's to the next two years!

Gary Collinson

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New trailer for Duncan Jones' techno-thriller Source Code

BAFTA Award-winning British film director Duncan Jones announced his arrival in style back in 2009 with his critically acclaimed debut feature Moon, so there is quite the anticipation for his next effort, Source Code, which hits cinemas this April.

Described as a 'techno-thriller', Source Code stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a soldier who finds himself part of an experimental government programme to discover the man responsible for bombing a passenger train by reliving the events over and over again.

Take a look at the official synopsis and check out the second trailer, which made its way onto the internet earlier today via MovieFone...

Captain Colter Stevens wakes with a jolt to find himself on a commuter train heading into Chicago. Although the other passengers all seem to know him, he has absolutely no idea where—or even who—he is. The last thing Colter remembers is flying a helicopter mission in Iraq, but here he is in someone else’s life going through someone else’s morning commute. Before he can do anything an express train zooms by on the opposite track and a bomb explodes, seemingly killing Colter and all the other passengers.

Colter comes to in an isolation chamber, strapped to a seat, and wearing his military flight suit. He still has no idea what’s happening, except that he’s being spoken to by mission controller Carol Goodwin, who calmly recites a series of memory questions to which Colter is shocked to realize he knows the answers. He learns he’s part of an operation called “Beleaguered Castle,” but before he can progress any further, Goodwin starts up the machinery and suddenly … Colter is back on the train, at exactly the same time he first appeared there, once again speeding through Chicago with the same group of commuters. Colter figures he’s in some kind of simulation exercise, with his task being to find the bomber onboard the train before it goes off again. Living the explosion over and over, Colter must uncover the identity of the bomber, while also figuring out what the alternative universe of “Beleaguered Castle” is. Adding to the puzzle, Colter uses the second chance opportunities to make peace with his father, and to find romance with a fellow passenger on the train.

Written by Ben Ripley (Species III), Source Code also stars Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air), Michelle Monaghan (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Jeffrey Wright (Casino Royale) and Michael Arden (Bride Wars) and arrives in the UK and North America on April 1st. Watch the first trailer here.

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Movie Review - Drive Angry 3D (2011)

Drive Angry 3D, 2011.

Directed by Patrick Lussier.
Starring Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard, William Fichtner, Billy Burke, David More, Todd Farmer and Christa Campbell.


SYNOPSIS:

Milton (Nicolas Cage) breaks out of hell to rescue his baby granddaughter who has been abducted by the cult who also killed his daughter. However Satan's assistant - The Accountant (William Fichtner) is in hot pursuit as time is running out!


Like the Crank films before it, Drive Angry aims straight for its target audience – trash loving (mostly) males who happily subscribe to the 'so bad it's bloody brilliant' mantra. “Nicolas Cage overacting and blowing stuff up? Sold! It's in 3D? Even better!”

So it's no surprise then that Drive Angry has it's tongue wedged firmly in it's cheek. A gleefully absurd plot (Cage escapes from Hell! In a sports car!), Nicolas Cage embracing his cheesy side with reckless abandon and enough one liners and cheesy retorts to give Schwarzenegger a hard-on (“I thought you were dead!” “You wished I was dead.”). Cage is on outstandingly silly form, savouring his dialogue and playing it straight in the face of sheer lunacy. Equally brilliant is William Fichtner as 'The Accountant', Satan's employee tasked with returning Cage to hell, played as a quirky, smooth-talking, twitchy opponent, Fichtner clearly relishing such an over-the-top role.

But the film doesn't just rely on the (over)acting for it's laughs, equal effort has been put into individual set-pieces, with the slow-motion sex-scene shoot-out(!) truly standing out. Cage's line “I never disrobe before a gunfight” preludes one the silliest scenes outside of straight-up spoof cinema in years. Without spoiling the scene too much, it's hilariously dumb and not the least bit ashamed of itself.

Also of special note is how well the 3D is utilised. One genre 3D really lends itself to is schlocky horror, which director Patrick Lussier knows all about, having previously helmed the surprisingly enjoyable My Bloody Valentine remake. What makes horror scarier? (Or at least more entertaining?) When it leaps out of the screen at you. So when making a supernatural action comedy with bullets flying everywhere and explosions left, right and centre, 3D is a wise move, adding that instinctual 'ducking' from 3D bullets flying at your face into an already crowd-pleasing formula.

For all it's unabashed silliness, Drive Angry does have its flaws though. The plot involving the cult which murder Cage's daughter and kidnap her child tends to get a bit convoluted, not helped by a rather flat performance from Billy Burke as cult leader Jonah King, somewhat adrift in a film dominated by Cage and Fichtner. Also Amber Heard's character Piper, portrayed as being a strong, ass-kicking woman, is derailed by the film's rather clumsy attempt at feminism and Piper unfortunately ends up being just standard-fare eye-candy. A later scene featuring Cage's old friend (played by David Morse), intended to provide backstory, feels utterly tacked on and succeeds only in slowing the pace of the otherwise breakneck third act.

Overall though, Drive Angry ticks all the right boxes and provides a wilfully ludicrous spectacle, genuinely benefiting from the 3D and delighting in it's glorious daftness. Spot-on turns from Cage and Fichtner really make the film, one that is knowingly ridiculous and all the better for it.

Drive Angry is released in UK cinemas tomorrow.

Roger Holland

Movie Review Archive

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The film industry gets a kick up the bum in Australia

The Australian federal court has today turned down an appeal from AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) that sought to overturn an earlier judgement in favour of Australia's second largest ISP, iiNet.

AFACT, which was representing numerous Hollywood studios (including Universal, Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox and Sony Pictures) had alleged that iiNet had not done enough to prevent its users from downloading films and TV shows and thus was guilty of copyright infringement.

After a fractious and hard fought legal battle, iiNet won the trial last year and AFACT has been hard at work in the courts with its appeal, claiming that the original judgement had been wrong in regards to iiNet's capacity and responsibility to prevent online piracy and that the original judgement was “a serious threat to Australia's digital economy.” Some might argue that corporate entities using legal machinations, threats and mouthpiece organisations to impose their will on the internet is something far more dangerous, but whatever.

The Federal court upheld the original judgement, rejecting AFACT's arguments with
Judge Nicholas James commenting; "It cannot be inferred that a person authorises copyright infringement merely because he or she provides another person with communication facilities used by the other person to infringe copyright."

AFACT have the recourse of a further appeal.

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A Stanley Kubrick Odyssey - A Video Tribute

We received an email earlier this week from Richard Vezina to let us know about a rather impressive homage he's put together celebrating the work of the late, great Stanley Kubrick. Described as a "visual-analysis", the 13-minute video juxtaposes imagery from all of the director's films (barring Spartacus, which Richard doesn't consider to be an original Kubrick movie), and really is an exceptional tribute to the legendary filmmaker and his unique visual talents.

"I spent hundreds of hours to achieve it; the result is quite professionnal and expose all the aspects and themes brought up by Kubrick. Dead Can Dance's music has been use for the first part 'Symmetry and Chaos'; Lisa Gerrard's music can be heard in the second part 'Love and Memory'. I'm sure all movie fans and Kubrick's fans will be delighted by this homage."

For more on Stanley Kubrick, be sure to check out our filmmaker profile Capturing Kubrick, along with his 1951 documentary short Day of the Fight.

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Cutting Edge: A conversation with film editor Michael Kahn

Trevor Hogg chats to three-time Academy Award-winning film editor Michael Kahn...

While in California producing some commercials for a New York ad agency, Michael Kahn was offered a job at Desilu, the production company owned and run by television stars Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. “I was the male secretary for a fellow named Dann Cahn,” comments the three-time Academy Award-winning film editor who assisted the editorial supervisor responsible for the celebrated comedy TV series I Love Lucy (CBS, 1951 to 1957). “Eventually, he said, ‘If you want to get ahead in this town you’ve got to get into the union.’ He got me into the union and then I started assisting a fellow by the name of John Woodcock.” The assignment with Woodcock saw Kahn working on his first television series The Adventures of Jim Bowie (ABC, 1956 to 1958). “It was a wonderful time to be in the editing business because we had fourteen or sixteen shows on the air. Some were comedies and some were dramas.”

“A friend of mine, Jerry London, got a chance to work on Hogan’s Heroes [CBS, 1965 to 1971]; he did the pilot. He said, ‘If you come with me as my assistant, after the fifth or sixth show I’ll make you the editor.’” The editorial supervisor for the World War II comedy series was true to his word, and Michael Kahn spent six years editing over 130 episodes and working with a variety of directors. “I was able to learn a lot from that show; it was a career maker for me.” The military sitcom led to his working with Oscar-winner George C. Scott (Patton) who was making his theatrical directorial debut with the drama Rage (1972). “When he was doing his first show, directing and acting, he said to a friend of his who was a writer, ‘Could you get me that editor. I don’t even know his name, who works on Hogan’s Heroes.’ That’s how it went, believe it or not.” Scott and Kahn would go on to collaborate once more for the adventure tale The Savage Is Loose (1974). “What a wonderful human being he was,” states Kahn fondly. “I really enjoyed working with him.”

Comparing the attitude of movie directors with their counterparts in television, Michael Kahn observes, “In the old days, the directors would shoot a big long master, then they would cut and the editor would just lay it in. But when TV started, the TV directors shot a lot of footage because they realized they had more control of the film when they were through with it.” 1976 turned out to be a big year for the film editor as he won an Emmy Award for his work on the ABC TV movie Eleanor and Franklin and he would have a fortuitous collaboration with filmmaker Irvin Kershner and director of photography Owen Roizman on The Return of a Man Called Horse. Both Kershner and Roizman recommended Kahn to a young director looking for a film editor to help him with a science fiction picture. When asked by Steven Spielberg as to whether he was a good editor, the New Yorker said he had no idea but those with whom he worked kept asking him to come back. Kahn got the job and headed off to Mobile, Alabama where he assembled Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).

Close Encounters of the Third Kind led to Michael Kahn receiving his first of seven record-setting Oscar nominations for Best Editing, six of them resulting from his work with Steven Spielberg. “I just remember I had a lot of fun,” recalls Kahn of the swashbuckling adventure Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) which awarded him with his first Oscar. Questioned about the opening twenty-minute action sequence, the film editor explains, “In the old days when the trains went across the country they just had that track. They had this long cowcatcher in the front that would push any sheep or cows off the rails. So when a motion picture starts you want to start it with a cowcatcher, something that the audience can grab onto.”

“When I’m through with a film I try to forget everything about it so when I go to the next film I’m not carrying any excess [mental] baggage with me,” reveals Michael Kahn who was lauded with two separate 1988 Oscar nominations for Empire of the Sun and Fatal Attraction; before the latter thriller could be released its concluding scene had to be altered by co-editors Peter Berger and Kahn because of the negative reactions occurring during the test screenings. “It really was an incredible ending but the people were promised by the wife when she said, ‘If you touch my husband again, I’ll kill you.’” Thinking further about the film in which Glenn Close (The Big Chill) plays a psychotic lover spurned by the character portrayed by Michael Douglas (Wall Street), the film editor adds, “They have an argument at one point and I recall she says, ‘I will not be ignored.’ It is a great line in the film. She just wanted to be with him. The audience probably didn’t feel all that much for her because she was taking a wife’s man.”

“We were finishing Jurassic Park [1993] as we were starting to shoot Schindler,” recalls Michael Kahn who had to edit two Steven Spielberg films at the same time. “I took a [work] print of Jurassic Park. Whenever the Lucas people wanted to send us something they sent it over the saucer [satellite dish] and we would see it in Poland.” Kahn states that the 1993 World War II holocaust tale, which led to him being presented with his second Oscar, was the most difficult picture on which he has ever worked. “Schindler’s List was very hard because we were in Poland and we went to the [concentration] camps. The horrific subject matter left the film editor feeling emotionally drained. “When I came home I felt really overtaken with the travail of these people.”

Like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saving Private Ryan (1998) features a dramatic opening sequence; unlike its predecessor, an actual historical event is recreated – the Allied troops landing on the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day invasion. “The first twenty or thirty minutes of Private Ryan had so many different camera techniques being utilized; I had a lot of ways I could go with it,” says Michael Kahn of the dramatic introduction which has been praised for its brutally realistic depiction of battlefield combat. For his efforts on the World War II picture, Kahn was rewarded with his third Oscar.

“You don’t edit from knowledge. You edit from intuition,” says Michael Kahn who views himself as a creative collaborator. “Some directors don’t like you to edit until they are ready to run it with you; then what you have to say is minimal because he tells you what he wants and you sit there and type out the visuals. But that’s not editing… I want to make a contribution to the film.” Kahn acknowledges that the man behind the camera is the one who reigns supreme when it comes to the final decision-making. “You have to get the director’s ideas. We don’t work in a vacuum.” The film editor adds, “I think if the director can have a good point of view and you can be in synch with him it can be wonderful. The only problems I have had in this business, to tell you the truth, are when you go in to try to fix a film… Those directors are really very unhappy with you having to come in to play with their picture.” When I ask him to whom he answers when there is a creative dispute, the post-production specialist replies, “It is up to the producer and the director to mitigate. Some of these fellows want to leave it four hours long. You can’t make an impression on them. They have a set view and they feel that’s the way to go. And that’s the way they should go if they feel that way, but not only is it an art medium it is also a commercial medium.”

The collaboration between Steven Spielberg and Michael Kahn continues to thrive; they will be releasing two pictures in 2011, the motion-capture animated tale The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn and the cinematic adaptation of the World War I drama War Horse. In regards to editing the first installment of the proposed trilogy based on the comic book series created by Hergé, the task was made easier as Kahn received dailies featuring the animated characters and settings. There was one thing that the footage lacked. “It had to go down to Weta in New Zealand and they would put in the mouth and eye movements; with some of the more difficult animation pieces, they would complete it.” Moving onto the War Horse was not a problem for Michael Kahn. “We went to England. He shot the film. We put together here in Hollywood. It worked well.” Though he has not read the book, Kahn did attend the stage play in England. “People responded very well in the theatre. It was nice to see and of course the horses are not real but after awhile you think they’re real.” In explaining the story set during World War I, the New Yorker remarks, “The horse really doesn’t decide where he’s going; it’s just how life takes him. It’s a lot of fun to see. Those English actors are awfully good and so were the horses. The horses were beautifully trained. For an editor there were a lot of match [frame] problems with the horses but the shooting was so good that I got everything I needed.”

In between the two films he worked on with Steven Spielberg, Michael Kahn served as the third editor on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides which is also scheduled to be released in 2011. “I had just finished with Jerry Bruckheimer trying to fix Prince of Persia. They liked what I did and they wanted to keep me around for the start of the Pirates of the Caribbean. So I spent a month or two just helping out the two other editors. They kept me there until Steven started. I never even saw the director. He was in Hawaii and I was here in the States.” Explaining his contribution to the fourth installment of the high seas adventure franchise being helmed by Rob Marshall (Chicago), Kahn states, “We would give him a first run through of a sequence; he had someone there who would make changes in Hawaii. Then it came back to us; we showed it to Jerry Bruckheimer who accepted or didn’t accept the changes.”

As for future projects with Steven Spielberg such as the biopic about Abraham Lincoln, Michael Kahn says, “It is my understanding they are going to start the film, just like they say in trades, at the end of this year which is September or October… If it goes I will work on it with Steven.” In regards to his also working on Robopocalypse, the cinematic adaptation of the science fiction story penned by novelist Daniel H. Wilson, the film editor remarks, “I was told in the trades that he was going to do that right after Lincoln which would also be an overlap.” The possibility of his having to assemble two films at the same time does not unnerve Kahn. “I think our minds have a capacity to do more than one thing at a time.”

When it comes to impressive movies he has recently seen, Michael Kahn mentions Blue Valentine which stars Michelle Williams (The Station Agent) and Ryan Gosling (Fracture) playing a couple whose marriage falls apart. “It’s no fun seeing that picture but you want to see it; the acting is great.” Another one that stands out to the film editor is the psychological thriller Black Swan with Natalie Portman (Beautiful Girls) portraying a professional ballerina. “You see the unraveling of this woman. This is not what I would call entertainment but it is something people can relate to because it hits a nerve of truth. It was the same thing with Schindler; people want more reality, especially, the older people.” What has yet to impress Kahn is the current 3D technology. “The picture is much duller. It can’t capture enough light. I was watching Avatar and I took my glasses off a number of times and I was able to see the colours so much better. That’s a problem they have to solve.”

“You should see as many pictures as you can,” advises Michael Kahn to aspiring film editors. “If you like them, you ask, ‘Why did this picture work so well? What elements in it made it work so well?’ If it’s a bad picture, you ask, ‘Why didn’t it work? What would I have done as an editor to make it work?’ But that’s after you’ve seen the picture.” Having completely converted to computer editing, Kahn observes, “The editing hasn’t changed because we’re doing it digitally. Editing is editing. The decision of what to do takes the same amount of time, except, we get there quickly.” Contemplating his career, the film editor says, “What have been very important for me over the years have been my assistants… They have been wonderful because you don’t have time to answer the phones. You don’t have time to do the mechanics of the editing room. And if you have an assistant who can take care of all of that then your only responsibility is to sit and edit.”

Many thanks to Michael Kahn for taking the time out of his busy schedule for this interview.

For more, be sure to check out Trevor's article "Editor Michael Kahn reflects on his work with Spielberg" from Post Magazine.

American Cinema Editors Lifetime Achievement Award Tribute to Michael Kahn...


Filmmaker Edgar Wright has posted his thoughts on the tribute video, which you can read here.

Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.

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Louis Leterrier to direct new sci-fi film G

The man who brought us the remake of Clash of the Titans has signed on to a secretive movie project with Universal called G.

A sci-fi disaster film with elements similar to both The Day After Tomorrow and Taken, its ‘man on a mission’ story follows a father searching for his lost child on an Earth that has stopped spinning and is losing its gravity. Still in the early stages of development, a screenwriter is now being sought to develop this interesting concept.

It seems the largely negative reviews of Clash of the Titans haven’t dented the director’s career, as he has another project on the cards in the meantime. Leterrier will be directing Now You See Me, a heist movie produced by in-demand screenwriting partners Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Cowboys & Aliens, Star Trek, Transformers). This film involves a cat and mouse game between the FBI and a team of illusionists who carry out bank heists during their performances.

Louis Leterrier’s other screen credits include The Transporter, Unleashed, Transporter 2 and The Incredible Hulk.

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Movie Review - Never Let Me Go (2010)

Never Let Me Go, 2010.

Directed by Mark Romanek.
Starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield, Sally Hawkins, Charlotte Rampling, Nathalie Richard, Domhnall Gleeson and Andrea Riseborough.


SYNOPSIS:

After spending their childhood in a seemingly idyllic English boarding school, three young adults must come to terms with the sinister truth behind their existence.


The way in which I discovered the story to Never Let Me Go is typical to our cultural age. Last year I discovered a trailer which hinted at a marvellously moving tale, stuffed with fine acting, a soaring soundtrack and an intriguing premise. Then there was a second trailer, less gripping and more melancholy than the first, which turned out to more accurately reflect the film. Haunted and beguiled by the tremendous first snippet though, I sought out the novel and determined to read it before the film’s release in 2011.

It was the first time I’d read a book by Kazuo Ishiguro and I’ve since become a fan. It was satisfying to discover the subtle, incredibly English tone of the book so well mirrored in that first trailer. It was rewarding too to delve deep into the joys of Ishiguro’s fabulously realised narrator Kathy H, so attractively played in that teaser by Carey Mulligan. Ultimately the book felt so real, raw and affecting, and the writing was so beautiful, that my allegiances switched devotedly to the original work, despite that snapshot of film hooking me in the first place. However in our modern world of innumerable choice, adaptation and interpretation, I realise the futility of being a snob about such things. Just because I’d embraced the true complexity of the original work, did not diminish the potential power of the film.

I say complexity, but the real merit of the novel was its immense simplicity. It’s perhaps this that the film struggles to adequately capture. Cinema usually requires more than the touchingly mundane. I’ve commented before on my blog that the adaptation would struggle to balance the different chronological segments of the novel. Reading it leaves you with a vivid sense of childhood nostalgia and an unquestionable understanding of the importance of youth and school to Kathy H and the other main characters, Tommy and Ruth. The sinisterly picturesque boarding school of Hailsham is clearly of paramount importance to the characters in the latter stages of the film too, but it was not as vibrantly established earlier on.

That said the filmmakers do a wonderfully thorough job of making the childhood scenes convincing. The younger incarnations of Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan in particular look remarkably spot-on. More importantly all the key performances from the younger actors are excellent. Ella Purnell, as the young Ruth, even gives a far superior performance to Hollywood starlet Knightley as the grown up. If you’ve read the novel you’ll appreciate the way Purnell better captures Ruth’s good and bad sides, whereas Knightley seems rather one dimensional in her portrayal of Ruth as predominantly vindictive. If you haven’t read the book you’ll still see the Pirates of the Caribbean star’s turn as the weakest of the three leads.

Mulligan continues to impress. She stole the show in what’s widely hailed as the best modern Doctor Who episode, Blink, and has gone from strength to strength ever since, breaking through internationally with her performance in An Education. Here she does a wonderful job with some tricky bits of voiceover. As a general rule, voiceover as a story telling device can either be atrociously bad or astoundingly good. Mulligan’s efforts to replicate the tone of melancholic memory from the first person narration of the book ensure that in Never Let Me Go, voiceover tends to tread closer to the positive end of the spectrum.

She’s also regularly fabulous in her scenes with Knightley and Andrew Garfield. Her pained expressions and displays of emotional restraint come just about as close as possible to the brilliant subtlety and ambiguities of the novel. She’s as likeable as Kathy H should be. Garfield also adds another respectable notch to his CV, coping admirably with Tommy’s notorious rages and his place at the centre of a slow burning, heart wrenching love triangle. Despite Knightley giving the least classy and layered performance, she also doesn’t do a bad job. In many ways she may have been limited by a necessarily narrow interpretation of Ruth’s character in the book and a lack of time for her character to redeem herself in hospital scenes with Kathy on screen, as she does on the page.

The book was finely crafted, composed and executed, to produce a tender, touching and intelligent final product. To an extent the film is also brought to life with bags of quality. There are some luscious shots from director Mark Romanek that conjure feelings of nostalgia; windswept British landscapes and colourful toys abandoned in the summery grass. It’s for the most part perfectly acted, with good contribtutions from Charlotte Rampling as Miss Emily and Sally Hawkins as Miss Lucy alongside the leads. In general the whole film is full of evocative and eerie period detail, given the slightly sci-fi premise.

On the page the fact that there was a mere whiff of sci-fi, that didn’t actually lead to some groundbreaking revelation, was perhaps a minor disappointment. But in a way it allowed for a more pure distillation of relationships, love and the human capacity (or perhaps a very British ability) to cope with suffering and endure with dignity, rather than run away. The film was always going to require some more direct references to the purpose of Hailsham and its children. And because there is no huge, thriller like conspiracy, Never Let Me Go will feel a letdown to most and unbelievably light on plot and originality. There’s simply never a sufficient peak to the drama, just a constant tasteful simmering of emotion.

It certainly would have been a mistake for Alex Garland’s script to transform hidden truths, memories and secrets into contorted plot twists. Part of Never Let Me Go’s refreshing realism, maturity and originality is its subdued approach. But it also led to people leaving the cinema in front of me bemoaning the whole idea of the story as weak. Somehow the film needed something more and if the novel had one fault it was its lack of a satisfying, big reveal. The poignancy of the writing meant the lack of drama mattered less that it does on film.

However just because Never Let Me Go is an inferior adaptation with a fatal flaw and is often a bit dull, does not make it bad. Some scenes really stand out with every little ingredient almost perfect. It’s undoubtedly superbly made. Even those cinemagoers leaving with disappointments around me were singing the praises enthusiastically of the acting talent on show. It’s a mystery to me how the actors at least did not get some awards season nominations for this film. And as a fan of the book it’s disappointing the film failed to capture its distinctive essence and live up to the intoxicating promise of earlier trailers. I guess the only real way to judge Never Let Me Go, whether you know the story or not, is to see it yourself. Personally for its refusal to be bombastic and sensational alone it’s a worthwhile watch.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)

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