McKean video

Browsing YouTube I came across a singer I hadn't heard before, Izzy - pretty song but I was more taken with the video, which is by the excellent artist and film-maker Dave McKean, who I had the pleasure of seeing at the Edinburgh Book Festival this summer.

Cool Indy stuff!

At long last the fourth (and I'm guessing final?) Indiana Jones movie - Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - is coming this summer. I'm already readying my Fedora and oiling my whip. There's some very cool merch coming out to tie in with the film, including some beautifully detailed statues:



And I spotted my colleague sticking up some (rather more affordable to the pocket money) action figures. Why weren't there Indy action figures when I was a kid? Sure we had the original Star Wars figures (and the even better Micronauts, which were more posable, with more joints, plus you could take them apart, always a plus for a kid) but no Indy figures. I may have to get a couple of these to keep the Doctor Who and Captain Scarlet figures on my desk company. What do you mean I'm too old for toys? Cobblers to that, you're never too old for toys! In fact one of the best things about being grown up is being able to buy toys when you want!

The last man on Earth

Grabbed some time to go and sit and watch I Am Legend before I go back to work. Now I had already surmised from trailers and articles in Empire that yet again Hollywood had not done the book. Third time a film has been made of Richard Matheson's classic 50s novel of Cold War paranoia and humanity's seemingly endless ability for self-destruction and third time they haven't done the bloody book! Come one, please....

That said the film, although different from the book - relocated to New York, which actually works well during the scene of Will Smith hunting wild game in an overgrown Times Square, main character Robert Neville is now an army doctor working on a cure, the scientifically created vampires are now fast, aggressive zombies (although still photophobic) - it actually works very well in creating a sense of isolation and terror as the last man in the world tries to hold it together in a Manhattan populated only by him, his dog and a legion of the infected.

Instead of an unspecified biological agent from a war (as in the book) the cause here is genetic engineering in an attempt to beat cancer, although even if you knew nothing about the story going in you could guess nothing good would come of a medical breakthrough by a character with a name like Doctor Crippen (a cameo by Emma Thompson). Scenes where Neville heads to the DVD store during daylight to withdraw films and return old ones illustrate how he is trying to use routine to keep himself together, rather than simply grabbing whatever he wants from the store. Populating the shop with store window dummies so it looks occupied and he has someone to 'talk' to adds to that feeling, being both slightly amusing and disturbing at the same time, stirring sympathy for Neville.

(SPOILER WARNING: don't read on if you are going to see it, I won't describe the whole finale, but it might spoil it for you if you are planning to see it)

Which makes it all the more annoying when the final section totally destroys what had been so carefully built up earlier, opting for the big fights with masses of CGI infected, big bangs and adding a redemption arc which clashes with the themes established earlier in the same way the original 'happy ending' forced on Blade Runner on its original release, really annoying the hell out of me, Hollywood managing an interesting, bleak, disturbing film then getting cold feet and going for SF CGI action fest at the end. And the CGI is annoying because the infected are hyped up creatures (why? they are diseased, why do they have amazing superhuman abilities now???), leaping up high buildings and their leader's jaws opening preternaturally wide as he yells - yes, they come right out of the Mummy (except some infected dogs which was copied shamelessly from Resident Evil), which was fine for the Mummy which was daft but fun and knew it, this was serious and bleak and psychological then went all cartoony and bollocksed it up.

And if they had stuck to the bloody book in the first place they might have avoided it. The book is far more effective - each night Neville has to be home and barricaded in his home before sunset. Outside his home many of the infected who have become vampire-like creatures due to the virus are people he knows, friends, neighbours (his next door neighbour bellowing 'Neville!' each night seems worse than simple roaring fiends in the movie, more personal) and in a harrowing flashback we see Neville in the book burying his wife then finding her resurrected by the virus and coming back to try and kill him and feed on him. In the book there are live and dead vampires as the virus mutates living victims but also resurrects the dead, who act differently. None of this comes in the film. In the book Neville hunts them by day as they lie in their comas, staking them and wondering why it is that this method of killing from myths works, all the time becoming more paranoid, more bloody and violent himself, staring into the Neitzchen abyss and having it stare back into him, becoming a monster as he fights monsters.

I won't spoil the ending of the book here, but suffice to say Matheson maintains the bleak atmosphere he established effectively with such commendable economy (the book is very short), a skill he used also as a screenwriter (he would work on many of the Vincent Price-Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe movies), in contrast to the movie which ruins itself at that point. And the title I Am Legend has a very different, darker explanation at the end of Matheson's powerful novel than the film. Film - watchable but be prepared to be suddenly let down at the clunking gear change towards the end (and what a shame, the earlier bits as I said are effective and Smith is allowed to act for once). Book - bloody brilliant, one of my personal top books of the last century, a real insight into the paranoia and fear of the Cold War era which still works perfectly in today's troubled world. You should read it.

Who watches?



Rorschach walking the mean streets of New York (actually a backlot in Vancouver) on the set of the Watchmen movie. I'm still not too sure how the graphic novel will translate to the big screen and am trying not to get excited about it, but then I see a pic like this from the film's blog and I think, hmmm, maybe, just maybe it will be okay - after all I was worried about V for Vendetta and the film version turned out to be excellent.

"A colossal dick move"

The writer's strike in Hollywood is hitting production in TV and film quite hard, with a number of shows, including Battlestar Galactica and the new Bionic Woman (with the utterly gorgeous Michelle Ryan) now having to shut down because they've filmed episodes and run out of finished scripts, with no more in the pipeline while the strike continues. Family Guy has been hit by it - writer, creator and actor Seth McFarlane is out on sympathy with the writers - three new season episodes are almost finished but not quite and Fox announced they would just finish them without Seth and put them on air. Seth acknowledges they have the legal right to do it but going past him like this is obviously going to damage the relationship between him and the studio and would be, in his own words, "a colossal dick move." I love that and I think that's going to be one of my new phrases for anything spectacularly stupid. On the Family Guy front the special Star Wars episode has to be one of the funniest ones for a while and littered with SF and movie references that makes it Geek Heaven.

Still, it isn't all bad, this strike - the Beeb reports that a prequel to the god-awful Da Vinci Code, based on Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, has been hit by it and postponed. Thank smeg for that, the world really doesn't need any more of that load of recycled conspiracy cobblers - even having the incredibly delectable Audrey Tautou in it wasn't enough to make it bearable.

And before you say, Joe, stop showing your literary snobbery, lots of folks enjoy the book (and movie), leave it alone, yes, fair point, I know they do, but if a lot of people like something it doesn't necessarily mean it is good, just that a lot of people can share the same bloody awful taste; it is the same factor boy bands and reality shows exploit to be popular. What I find even more depressing in the case of tosh like the Luigi Load is the number of brain-dead morons who mutter "I know it's fiction, but I reckon he's onto something here..." NO HE ISN'T!!! Why does the law prevent me from choking people who say that do death by forcing the smegging book down their throat?

Seachd - the Inaccessible Pinnacle

At the weekend I caught an absolutely beautiful Scottish film, the Gaelic-language Seachd: the Inaccessible Pinnacle. A man returns home from Glasgow to his dying grandfather back in the Western Isles, which leads to a series of tales - in many ways it is a story about stories. Rather fittingly, since Gaelic has an immensely rich oral tradition, a seam of folklore and tales told and retold by bards, singers and just ordinary folk generation after generation. In one scene the grandfather - who may have a much more personal link to the stories of centuries past he tells - talks to his wee grandson, angry and bitter after the death of his parents, rejecting his upbringing, calling it stupid and his grandad's stories false and tells him "no-one can tell the truth. We all tell stories."


(Angus Peter Campbell/Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul as the grandfather. A man well suited to play a storyteller since he was taught by Iain Crichton Smith and then later encouraged by Sorley MacLean at University. He is a published novelist and poet and it shows in his performance - like any good poet he has a feel for the fabric and rhythm of storytelling)

As a lifelong reader its hard for me to argue that point - narrative, story, is central to the human condition, it informs who we are in a personal day to day life (how was your day? You don't just say I did this, this and this, you tell it like a short story) and on the grander scale (the older stories which tell us on a deeper level who we are as a people, stories that repeat again and again - Arthur, the Iliad, Beowulf, Ramayana, the songs of the Dreamtime. We are story, we are words and images - we think in words and images, we talk in them, write and draw and sing in them. They're encoded into our DNA. And Seachd is stories within stories, stories defining and illustrating history, culture and the individuals too.


The film is beautiful to behold - much of it is shot on An t-Eilean Sgitheanach, better know to most of us as the Isle of Skye and the mighty Cuillins range. Even in scenes shot on gray, dull, overcast (very Scottish weather) days the imagery is stunning, clouds reaching down to the tops of the mountains, like angel's wings caressing the earth. The music (which is what is playing from the embedded player I got from the official site over on the left of the blog here) is also wonderful.

It makes my blood boil that the numpty heids at BAFTA have decided not to support this Scottish film and put it forward as their non-English language selection for Oscar consideration - not because they had something else they preferred to put forward either, they just didn't put Seachd or anything else forward, which totally undermines their supposed commitment to supporting British film-making (and nice to see London still haughtily mistreats Gaelic culture, some things never change it seems). BAFTA has attracted a raft of criticism, starting with the Scottish arts community, the Parliament and now worldwide condemnation for this shameful and inexcusable lack of support and rightly so. With the fine reception the film is receiving it makes BAFTA's ignorant decision look all the more foolish and ill-informed and I hope they are quite humiliated by their disgusting actions.



But enough negativity - the film itself is truly beautiful and moving; the seemingly simple idea of an elderly storyteller telling story after story doesn't convey the feel of the film. As with any story it isn't just the story, it is how the storytellers tell the story that often makes it and that's the case here. Its hauntingly beautiful, stories that you can feel on those deeper levels that the truly good stories can reach. Go and see it.

Atonement

Caught a couple of extremely good movies this weekend; last night Mel and I went to see Atonement, adapted from Ian McEwan's 'unfilmable' novel, which means it arrives with the burden of being an adaptation of a highly respected work of literature. It lived up to the challenge exceedingly well, deftly moving from different character's perspectives and times, from the heavy stillness of a warm, summer day in the country to the chaos of the Dunkirk evacuation, yet rarely confusing the audience despite the multi-perspective, non-linear narrative. The use of colour, perspective, music and sound is fascinating right from the start, from the staccato of a typewriters leading into the rhythm of the music to the sound of a bee trapped by a window leading out to a scene which is seen from several viewpoints around a fountain (water motifs repeat throughout). Intriguing story, very good performances (especially Keira Knightly and James McAvoy, Kiera looking at home in those 40s fashions) and a beautifully crafted film which has obviously had a lot of attention and love paid on it.



Also caught a film I have been waiting for, 3:10 to Yuma (a remake of a movie from the Western's heyday in the 50s) with Christian Bale, Russell Crowe and Peter Fonda. I have to confess that like many wee boys who grew up to be big kids I still have a soft spot for a good Western; it's a once all dominating genre which has faded away into the sunset like many of its stars did at the climax of their movies years ago. In the last couple of decades there haven't been many, although we have had a handful from the highly enjoyable like Tombstone (silly but great, especially Kilmer's Doc Holliday) to the superb like Unforgiven (a brilliant distillation of years of Western films into a dark, brooding masterpiece) and the quirky, odd gems like Dead Man and The Proposition.



Now we have 3:10 to Yuma, with a Jesse James Western starring Brad Pitt on the way in a few months too. I may have to dust off my cowboy boots. The movie itself doesn't try to re-invent the wheel - the Civil War former soldier turned farmer trying to struggle to provide for his family, the corrupt local landowner, the outlaw gang, the contrast between honesty and crime and how they Won the West, all well worn grooves in the genre and Crowe's violent nutter who may - or may not - have a latent streak of decency and Bale playing a troubled hero aren't new either. But damn, it is a good Western. Oh, and it had Alan Tudyk from Joss Whedon's brilliant Firefly/Serenity in it too, never a bad thing.

Giant steps are what you take, walking on the Moon...

This afternoon at the Edinburgh Film Festival I caught the UK premiere of the documentary by David Sington, In the Shadow of the Moon, detailing the glories (and the tragedies) of one of the biggest undertakings humans ever launched themselves on, the Apollo programme. As soon as I saw this in the EIFF programme this year I knew I was going to see it. I was born at the height of the Space Race; Mike Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong's astonishing, history-making flight to the Moon on Apollo 11 was still a year and a half away. I grew up with an astronaut space suit costume to play in while Gagarin and Armstrong were on posters as my boyhood heroes (they still are, some things you never grow out of); the idea of space exploration has lived inside me my entire life and as I approach the big four-oh birthday on the last day of this year I get a little sad that those promises of holidays in space we were told the future would hold have never materialised and it looks less and less like that boyhood dream will ever come true.

But still it weaves a magical spell on me; as the footage of those enormous Saturn Vs ascending the heavens on a column of fire flickered across the screen I could feel the old excitement rising - the boy in me is never far from the surface and images and ideas like this always bring it out. Much of the footage has never been seen before and is literally out of this world. The story of our first tentative steps out of the cradle of the Earth to our nearest neighbour is told in their own words by many of the NASA astronauts who made those epic journeys, voyages of discovery that stand in a long line of human endeavours such as the explorations of James Cook, Magellan or those unknown Polynesian sailors who crossed vast oceans on small boats made of reeds.

One of those men featured was David Scott, an Apollo commander - a man I actually met a few years back when his publicist came in to my old bookstore to say he was across the road in the Balmoral Hotel doing interviews with the Scottish press and would we like him to come across and sign some copies of the book he had co-authored with his friend the Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (the first man to walk in space; his friend Arthur C Clarke would name a spaceship in his honour in the sequel to 2001). An ordinary day at work and then suddenly there I am chatting to a former astronaut and shaking hands with a man who had walked on the Moon; a man who got to live that boyhood dream of mine. Naturally I got one of those signed copies for myself; I've many signed books in my collection but only one signed by an author who has traveled far enough into space to look back and see the entirety of our world hanging in the void. We've all seen the pictures, but it wasn't until the crew of Apollo 8 voyaged around the dark side of the Moon that humans actually saw the entire Earth from space. They took the famous 'Earthrise' photograph, our world rising in the dark above the surface of the Moon, the furthest humans have yet been from our world.

Only a tiny handful of humans have ever seen that sight with their own eyes to this day, all now old men - to look at them in this film you could easily mistake them for someone's favourite uncle of grandfather. But in their prime these men dared death, road on a column of scientific dragon's fire further than anyone in the entire history of the world and in the process changed the way we see our little, beautiful world. It's so sad we've pulled back from those days; I'm not stupid, I'm well aware of my history and understand much of the colossal cost of the space programme was only met because of politics of the Cold War. And yet I can't help but feel we let ourselves become that much smaller as a species when we stopped pushing at the final frontier. Yes, I know we can spend the money on problems right here on Earth, but if we weren't so busy squabbling among ourselves we wouldn't need to waste so much on creating weapons - then we could spend that money on feeding and taking care of people here on Earth and have enough to explore, to go where no-one has gone before.

I still want to go.

Necrophiliacs, please be gentle...

"And I like the idea of graveyards. I don’t want to be cremated, I want to be buried. Though it’s in my will that they’re not allowed to have an open coffin. But, I always say if you’re really famous someone steals your body and then you get two burials and more publicity. I always fear that in America, if you are a necrophiliac, where else are you gonna meet a body? In a funeral home! When you’re dead I think the word goes out: ‘You’ve got 36 hours, Anna Nicole’s here. The bidding starts at $150,000.’ I actually believe that does happen. I am afraid of that. If anyone bids for me, I hope they’re gentle. I hope I go for a high price if they bid on me and if my fear is true."

The great John Waters, the 'Pope of Trash', speaking in the Scotsman today. I love John Waters, if he's one of those counter culture figures in movies that if he hadn't existed he'd have to have been invented. And he also starred in one of the best Simpsons episodes ever (back when the show was still great and not watered down like today), the Homer Phobia episode.

Film Festival moves

The Edinburgh International Film Festival - an annual fixture for me - is moving after decades and next year will move to June instead of during the Festival period in August. According to their site this is to give them a better chance to attract more film biz folks rather than competing against some other major international film festivals and make it more accessible being outside the madhouse of Festival time. Which may be the case, but dammit, I'm really pissed off about the move - I often take time off to do the Film Festival here in Edinburgh and while I'm off in August I can also do some Fringe, Book Festival etc. Now I am going to have to pick which I want to take my time off for and I suspect I won't be the only person who likes to do them all - whichever I pick I'm going to miss on the other. Damn, damn, dammit. I wonder if the attendance will go up as people from outside the city come just for the Film Fest or if it will go down because they were also drawn by the world's largest arts festival?

Say 'Cheese'!

Dammit, the very cool Gentlemen's Duel animation I mentioned the other day has been pulled - I heard from a friend that the studio hadn't okayed the web release, so that was probably why it had been removed. Which is a shame because it seemed to be getting some great word of mouth which would suggest to me they should consider sticking it back up in one form or another since it was doing their studio's rep no end of good.



However, since that one is gone, here is another cool animation I came across this week via Steve Ogden's rather fine AnimWatch site: "Cheese" by Slovakian animator Peter Harkaly, a graduate of the Vancouver Film School. I love the old 40s style story of the mouse and the spring trap and the cheese - even the music adds to that classic feel. Six months of work according to AnimWatch (one of the especially nice things about the site is that Steve doesn't just post the animation, he posts a bit on the artist and work as well, it's a great site) and I like the fact that Peter chose to ignore his mentor's advice and render fur for his mouse - not easy even when you have a full animation studio working on it, so pretty brave of him to do. It's only a couple of minutes, but very funny and nicely done.

A Gentlemen's Duel

I came across this animation via Boing Boing today and thought it was terrific as a comedy French and English duo compete for the favours of a rather busty noblewoman (the men can't keep their eyes from her chest) which ends in a duel - at which point they climb into wonderful steampunk battle suits which look as if they should have come from a crate marked 'acme'. The creators have clearly watched a lot of classic cartoons...

A gentlemen's duel
Uploaded by nettouch

Dead Director's Society

Michelangelo Antonioni has died has died aged 94, right after another famous director, Ingmar Bergman lost his final game of chess on the beach with Death. Since famous folks like this normally go in threes, anyone care to bet on the next respected but aged director to vacate the Editing Room? I almost put Michael Winner on my Director's Dead Pool, but since it is for respected elder directors he clearly isn't eligible...

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe"

Adam Savage of top geek show MythBusters (one of my favourite bits of factual viewing and not just because I look a bit like Adam, especially when I have my hat on) has written a piece in Popular Mechanics in praise of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner as it celebrates its 25th anniversary (link via Boing Boing). I'm totally with Adam on this one - like him I have to re-watch the film every year or so; its one of the most visually ravishing films of all time and easily up there with Lang's Metropolis for stunning images of a future city. The opening scene of LA in 2019, towering buildings with video walls mounted on them, flames shooting into the night from industrial towers and hover cars flying between them all set to Vangelis' music ranks as one of the most stunning visuals in movie history. It still sends shivers down my spine no matter how often I see it, the impact made all the more sudden by being prefaced by a very quiet moment as an explanation of Replicants and Blade Runners is scrolled across the scene before suddenly boom! Future LA.



Adam argues that despite massive advances in effects and digital manipulation which can now create almost anything a director imagines the film's effects remain astonishing: "I worked on Star Wars Episodes I and II, on the Matrix films, on AI and Terminator 3; yet 25 years later there are ways in which Blade Runner surpasses anything that's been done since." He's right, it still looks amazing, which is a tribute to the legendary Doug Trumbull and his effects colleagues but also to Ridley Scott too, a director who has a real flair for visuals. The film, like another now-classic, Citizen Kane, wasn't a commercial success when first released, but (again like Citizen Kane) has gone on to gather a cult audience, critical plaudits and inspire generations of later artists.

For visualising a future cityscape it has to be up there with Lang's Metropolis; both also owe much to photographs and film of New York in the early 20th century (imaginary cities and the real meeting, but then all 'real' cities are also partially imaginary, made up as much of our memories and dreams as they are what our eyes take in). The themes (very Philip K Dick, appropriately) of alienation, individuality, identity and what it is to be human and what is real and what is dream add to the lush imagery. No wonder it is still one of my personal top ten movies of all time.



Some great visualisations or descriptions of imaginary urban spaces: Blade Runner, Metropolis, Carlos Ezquerra's concepts for Mega City one in the original Judge Dredd back in '77, Otomo's Akira, Bill Gibson's Sprawl (see Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive), Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris (see City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: an Afterword), Alex Proyas Dark City, Kafka's work, Borges, Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan... I'm sure you can all suggest other good examples from books, movies and comics or any other artforms. A final bit of movie-comics trivia, Ridley cites the legendary comics artist Moebius' Long Tomorrow graphic novel from the mid 70s as a key reference for Blade Runner's visual look. The graphic novel was written by a young Dan O'Bannon, who would later write Alien, which Ridley would direct (one of his first big successes); Dan would later adapt another Philip K Dick tale, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale for the film Total Recall. I'm sure I could add more here, but it's time for Heroes :-)

Singin' in the rain

TCM is screening Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds in the classic 1952 musical Singin' in the Rain and for a couple of hours I just sit there with a big grin on my face and a strange look from the cats as I give in to the urge to sing and dance along. Generally speaking I don't care for musicals and never have, but I have a soft spot for Gene Kelly because he's just such an incredible dancer (he also buries the stereotype of a male dancer as effeminate, clearly strongly built, well muscled and fit, as many dancers have to be - it isn't for weaklings!) in general (the dance around the fountain in An American In Paris is another amazing scene by Kelly) and for this movie in particular. Much as I generally find musicals annoying and trite I simply can't dislike Singin' in the Rain; it is one of those films which transcends all genre barriers, probably why it has become embedded in popular culture for half a century.



And then there is that scene, the titular song, a smiling Gene Kelly in the pouring rain dancing because he is in love and even raindrops and puddles seem beautiful. Its exuberant and a classic movie marriage of song and dance that never fails to make me happy. It is a scene that is what I normally refer to as a Triple M - Magical Movie Moment. That's the scene which , regardless of the rest of the film, the genre, the period, simply works to transport you for a few moments to an utterly spellbound world. Singin' in the Rain has it, the duel in verse in Cyrano de Bergerac has it, the opening scenes to Blade Runner and the original Star Wars have it, the Big Blue is littered with underwater scenes which do it, A Matter of Life and Death and the Red Shoes are similarly replete with scenes which take me to another world, while a few movies like Casablanca, Amelie and the Wizard of Oz are almost entirely full of such Triple M scenes.

Every time the crowd in Rick's Cafe Americain sings the Marseilles in the face of the Nazi troops I want to stand and sing - I'm there in that moment. Dorothy and her friends dancing down the Yellow Brick Road? I want to tap along to them. Singin' in the Rain? Yes, I have a few times, actually - pouring down, brolly in hand, you can either get infuriated at being drenched or you can think, sod it, smile and start whistling that tune. I know which I prefer to do and I'm pretty sure its better for me from a psychological point of view (even if it gets me odd looks, but to hell with those folks!).



And if it makes you happy and puts a grin on your lips then who cares what anyone else thinks - let the stormy clouds chase them all from the place - I've got a great big smile on my face. Of course, its even better in the cinema; the lights go down, an enclosed dark space full of people in a shadowy, enchanted theatre of fantastic delights, the glowing screen and one of those movies with one of those scenes, pure and magnificent Magical Movie Moment, they just make life so much better...

"Doo-dloo-doo-doo-doo
Doo-dloo-doo-doo-doo-doo
Doo-dloo-doo-doo-doo-doo
Doo-dloo-doo-doo-doo-doo...

I'm singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feelin'
I'm happy again
I'm laughing at clouds
So dark up above
The sun's in my heart
And I'm ready for love

Let the stormy clouds chase
Everyone from the place
Come on with the rain
I've a smile on my face
I walk down the lane
With a happy refrain
Just singin',
Singin' in the rain
Dancin' in the rain

Dee-ah dee-ah dee-ah
Dee-ah dee-ah dee-ah
I'm happy again!
I'm singin' and dancin' in the rain!

I'm dancin' and singin' in the rain..."

License to be petty

British Airways proved how mature they were by editing the latest James Bond movie Casino Royale for in-flight screening on their fleet. Why did they make some edits? Well, they edited a tiny blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo from Richard Branson and also excised the tail fin of an aircraft with logo of Virgin Air glimpsed in the movie. I'm no fan of Branson (especially since his millionaire's pissing contest with Murdoch means I don't get to see certain programmes on cable anymore while he still demands the same amount of money from me for his company for a reduced service) but how damned petty is this? And just think, this is someone's actual job. BA actually pays someone to make petty little cuts like this to in-flight movies. Perhaps if they left that to one side and employed more staff doing proper jobs they wouldn't have the worst record in Europe for losing passenger's baggage? Just a thought.

300 previewed

I was approached by some of the folks who were organising previews of the upcoming film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel 300, which tells as historically rather loose but nonetheless brilliant tale of the 300 Spartan warriors who held off the entire army of the Persian Empire for several days while the other Greek city states rallied their forces (Athens would later repeat this victory at sea, crushing a huge Persian fleet). It is one of history's great turning points; had the Greeks been ground under the Persian heel our modern world would be very different, without that Classical flowering of philosophy, scientific enquiry, writing and democracy (how ironic a bunch of military zealots who ran their brutal society by enslaving an entire people to do their work while they trained would be so instrumental in this).



Unfortunately for me the preview was at the BFI's Imax screen in London, so I couldn't really make it, but a couple of my colleagues at FPI based in London were only too happy to go along and have now posted a preview up on the FPI blog. I can't wait to see it myself - historical inaccuracies aside it looks quite amazing, being shot in a manner very similar to Sin City (another Frank Miller comics adaptation), matching the comics original almost panel for panel, shot against green screens with very few actual sets to give it an incredibly stylised look. And I'm sure the girls (and some of the boys) are going to enjoy 300 incredibly fit men who spend a lot of screen time almost naked and oiled :-)

Pixar - 20 Years of animation exhibition

The National Museum of Scotland on Chambers Street, Edinburgh is currently hosting Pixar: 20 Years of Animation. Celebrating the most famous exponents of big-screen computer animation the exhibition, as the name suggests, has material from just over two decades of Pixar studios work, from the very early shorts such as the animated desk lamp (still seen on the studio’s logo at the start of each movie) through Toy Story, Finding Nemo, the Incredibles and Cars right up to concept art for the forthcoming Ratatouille.

As you would expect for this sort of exhibition there is a lot of art on display, from preliminary sketches and storyboards (looking at the storyboards makes it clear these animators were all big comics fans as kids and never grew out of it - good on them!) through to finished works, models and maquettes (there is a cracking series of head models from the Incredibles, each showing a different expression on Bob’s face, like exhibits from the world championship of gurning) and short videos showing of different aspects of Pixar’s work. There’s a chance to get interactive with touch-screen presentations allowing more access to behind-the-scenes looks and information while the museum is running a whole series of related events, from lectures on animation, showing Pixar movies every Sunday in the lecture hall, storytelling events inspired by Pixar movies, showcases on Scottish animation and more (the NMS site has the full details).



While all of this was highly enjoyable the standouts of this exhibition are two mini-shows. The first is shown on a wide screen. Actually, a very, very wide screen. A wiiiiiiiiiiiiiddddddddeeee screen. The sort you have to swivel your head from left to right to follow movement. It takes the form of a wall of art from the Pixar crew; as the camera pans across the gallery wall (some of the pictures static, others animated) it periodically moves into a particular picture and the viewers are treated to a new animation playing on themes from previous Pixar movies, all on this enormously long screen; it is big and it is clever.

Oh but there is even better than this. There is the Pixar Zoetrope. You remember those wonderful Victorian toys for children, where a form of lampshade has a series of slightly different characters printed on it, with slots cut - spin the shade around a lamp and the figure ‘moves’. We’re all familiar with it - it is after all the basic principle all animation, from the most basic outline drawings through Ray Harryhausen stop-motion creatures right up to the most cutting edge CGI cartoons work, a sequence of still images flickering before our eyes at 24 frames per second until our eyes and our brains interpret them as movement and static cartoons come to life. Pixar’s Zoetrope is designed to explain this basic concept in the most incredibly fun way - it makes a cartoon come to life in 3-D. Victor Navone, an animator for Pixar, has a short looped video of the Zoetrope taken from the earlier show at MoMA in NYC, although, as he says himself, it simply doesn't do justice to how it actually looks when seen with your own eyes, nose pressed up against the glass.



In a darkened room there is a large, glass case. Inside the case is a very large disc, with several rings of models of different Toy Story characters, all in slightly different poses. The disc begins to rotate slowly, speeding up; as the characters being to blur before your eyes as the frequency increases a strobe light comes on and suddenly something magical happens - the models come to life. Seriously, the illusions is utterly magical; Woody rides his horse, Buzz Lightyear balances on a ball while endless toy soldiers leap from the top of the bucket o’ soldiers, parachutes blossoming into life as they leap down. It is for all the world like having a real, solid, 3-D cartoon right there in front of you. The fact the exhibition shows you exactly how it works doesn’t detract from the magic in any way whatsoever; frankly it was worth the price of the exhibition for the Zoetrope alone. It did what a lot of the finest animation does - it makes you feel as if you are five years old again, standing with big wide eyes open in wonder. I’m still buzzing from watching it (actually watching it several times, it kept drawing me back); I saw this with my dad, the man who ensured I was raised as a Seventh Day Cartoonist, and we both emerged with smiles like Cheshire Cats to my patiently waiting mum (with them both retired now and me off this week we were having a very nice day together, food, drink and sightseeing).

The Edinburgh exhibition runs through until May 28th at the National Museum of Scotland, along with a raft of supporting events, with full details to be found on the NMS site. And when you come out one of the other exhibitions on at the National Museum currently boasts a huge, shiny rocket straight out of a Dan Dare comic (a Black Knight rocket from the aborted 50s British space programme, which is pretty much the same as Dan Dare in so many ways) and an actual NASA Gemini space capsule on loan from the Smithsonian.

Oscar time

I was posting about the short animated film winner at last night's Oscars on the FPI blog earlier today and being the nosy bugger I am I had a look for something online so I could point readers to where they could check out a bit of the film, but couldn't see much more than a very basic website for Mikrofilm. So I dropped them a line and heard back very quickly from a very nice lady called Lise there who sent me a link to this fetching site where you can have a look at the (now Oscar winning) Danish Poet by Torill Kove, with narration by Liv Ullman, with a clip and various other snippets of this quite gorgeous looking animation (I thought the art reminded me of a cross between children's picture books and Metaphrog's lovely Louis comics).



On the other end of the Oscar scale how brilliant is it that Martin Scorcese was finally awarded the Best Director Oscar? Ironic that it isn't actually for his finest work which the Academy didn't recognise in previous years, although The Departed is still a damned fine movie (right to the end which I didn't see coming), but given they have overlooked him for decades and he is pretty much the greatest living American director (and still working) it is amazing he has been so overlooked by Oscar for so long. Thank goodness they finally gave it to him; I was worried Marty was going to end up with one of those 'lifetime achievement' awards which usually mean the recipient has about a year to live - those things are the kiss of death :-).

Guy 101

The winner of last night's BAFTA award in the short animated film category was Guy 101 by Ian W Gouldstone; it tells a story which plays out between two men talking on an online chat, using items like chat screens, pop-up video player windows and messenger as the basis for the animation to tell the story. I was lucky enough to see it last year when the nice folks at the British Animation Awards (BAA) sent me some material on disc and thought it was a very clever bit of animation. The problem with film awards, all too often, is that the works in the short animation (or short movie for that matter) never get seen by most people and you end up trying to describe it instead. As luck would have it though this very animated short is hosted on the BBC's Film Network site; there's a bunch of other material on there (live action and animated) including Run Wrake's 'Rabbit' which I also saw last year and is inventive and nicely disturbing.