bitdepth

28 Days Later

I saw Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later yesterday and I loved it. Although it’s being promoted as a zombie horror film, it falls more into the British post-apocalyptic tradition with a nod towards J.G. Ballard. Brilliantly shot on miniDV, it creates a compelling portrait of a group of characters after a plague devestates England. The film was beautifully shot by Anthony Dod Mantle who manages to pull incredible images out of a prosumer camera. Mantle previously worked with Boyle on the darkly humorous Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise that pushed the visual envelope even more (maybe a bit too far). There is a great visual grammar used by the film with high-shutter speeds, quick cutting and an eerily beautiful soundtrack. The editing by Chris Gill alters the pace dramatically in an instant and holds every shot just long enough. It was also interesting to see the quality of the images from the blowup to 35mm from miniDV. Overall it seems that closeups and low-light material works great with a fairly stable camera helping. The high-shutter speed footage is great for isolating quick images that magnify the horror by providing fleeting, sharp images. A horror film that isn’t really about zombies, but humanity and morality.

June 29, 2003 28dayslater, anthonydodmantle, chrisgill, dannyboyle, film, jgballard, review

The Guru

I took a chance and bought the DVD of “The Guru” last night and I wasn’t disappointed. I’d seen the trailer for the film and it looked like a neat cross-cultural story with a sense of humour and some neat musical numbers. It’s a wonderful, hard-to-categorize film that probably caused the American distributor to barely release it in theatres (it was in limited release this past January) and put the DVD out without much marketing or a lot of extra special features. It’s not exactly what I expected and had a surpising depth and range that managed to hit all sorts of notes from Bollywood to Hollywood to slapstick to drama. Heather Graham and Jimi Mistry have a great chemistry and Marissa Tomei is great as well. A great supporting performance by Michael McKean as a porn producer adds a neat little subplot. It helps when there is a great cast to pull off a story that is very difficult to categorize or describe. One of the things that I loved about the film is that it shows the cross-cultural globalization that is a reality in the world. Much more of a European film, it somehow manages to keep it all together. The deleted scenes on the DVD reveal that the film could have gone a bit more toward melodrama or broader comedy, but the balance was struck just right by director Daisy von Scherler Mayer. The official guru site has some goofy games, but the British site reveals that it’s more of a British film (as star Jimi Mistry was on “Eastenders” and the songs from British pop groups).

June 28, 2003 comedy, daisyvonscherlermayer, dvd, film, heathergraham, jimimistry, marissatomei, michaelmckean, review

Frida

A few days ago I watched the DVD of Frida and was pleasantly surprised by it. I hadn’t seen the trailer for the film and only saw brief glimpses, so I didn’t know what to expect. It’s an engaging and complex biography of the artist that also presents the story in a visual style that complements the paintings. The film is beautifully shot by Rodrigo Prieto and is impressive without showing off or being distracting. Just right and just enough visually. The performances are similar in style as well. Salma Hayek becomes Frida and Alfred Molina is great as muralist Diego Rivera. There are some innovative visual sequences that fit perfectly and also had the side effect of saving money without any compromises. The film is well-directed by Julie Taymor who manages to pull great performances out of the cast and have a film that is visually impressive without being excessive. I haven’t really explored the special features on the second DVD yet, but I will.

June 27, 2003 alfredmolina, dvd, frida, julietaymor, rodrigoprieto, salmahayek

iPod AV?

I was playing with the new iChatAV beta using audio chat and wanted to use the new iSight, but I don’t have one, and my G3 PowerBook is too slow for video chat. But I was thinking about the amazing design of the new iSight and how it just uses FireWire to connect. Then I was thinking that it would be cool if you could take that camera off of the computer to take pictures unconnected…then I thought about the iPod, which is a FireWire hard drive. Hmmm… if you plugged the camera into an iPod you have a camera and a hard drive. (But now the iPods have a Dock connector instead of straight FireWire.) What if the iPod 2 or iPod AV had a colour screen, video playback and recording capability? That would be cool. Plug in the iSight, look at the iPod screen and record video… and maybe if the iPod had AirPort you could stream video from the iPod or have a neat wireless iChat without needing a keyboard…maybe sort of an iPhone for around the house? It seems as if all of the parts are in place for this and maybe it’s just a matter of time.

June 25, 2003 apple, chat, ichat, iphone, ipod, isight, technology, video

Hail to the Thief

I’ve been listening to the new Radiohead CD, Hail to the Thief over the past week. It’s a bit downbeat, but that’s to be expected, and it continues to move forward by striking a balance between pop and experimental elements. There are two songs on the CD that I love: the first single, “There there” and “Punchup at a Wedding.” The two songs seem to be some of the less processed, and more built around the band playing (who knows if that’s how the tracks came about, but that’s how I think about it). The video for “There, There” is an amazing stop-motion animation with Thom wandering through forest filled with anthropomorphic animals. The video is at the “Radiohead Television” site, and if you check out the site at the top of the hour you can see a half-hour show, “The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time” which features music from the CD combined with more experimental video and animation as well as some live stuff. It’s a neat progression from the videoblips used to market “Kid A” in a more viral sense. I’ve only seen one episode, but I liked it. One quirky thing that I’ve noticed is that it looks as if the site isn’t working when I access it with Safari, but that was because the pop-up blocking feature was stopping it from happening… so you have to allow unrequested pop-ups for that site to see the show (just make sure you turn it back on after you leave the site). The band is doing the rounds like every other band now as it seems they’ve become much more well-adjusted as human beings following the grind of “OK Computer” documented by Grant Gee in “Meeting People is Easy“.

June 22, 2003 cd, grantgee, meetingpeopleiseasy, music, radiohead, review, video

Bloomsday

Today is Bloomsday, the day that James Joyce‘s Ulysses took place in 1904. Sip (I’m enjoying a pint of Guinness right now). Ulysses is an amazing achievement, moving through various literary styles as Stephen Dedalus moves through Dublin. I’ve never been to Dublin (hopefully someday…) but the amazingly descriptive novel paints a picture that resonates. Joyce invented one of my favourite words that works on so many levels: “alcoherently”, but in Finnegan’s Wake, which I’ve only dipped in to from time to time. Tonight I think that I’ll start to read Ulysses again.

June 16, 2003 bloomsday, dublin, finneganswake, guinness, jamesjoyce, novel, ulysses, writing