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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1810
It's an arts & culture week for the boy. On Wednesday we went to see "Radiohead 2" - directed by Denise Clarke, today a grey and rainy day and so I decide to take him to see "Art City Shorts" at the Uptown Screen (Downtown Calgary).
I like shorts, and the blurb describes it as a "select" group of shorts from around the world.
I'm thinking something like "World's Best Commercials" or "Festival of Animated Shorts" and am kind of looking forward to a pleasant surprise.
And surprised we were.
Now there are at most maybe 8 other people in the theatre with us, which is a good thing, it marks the possible quality of the film. Great films don't necessarily attract wide audiences. And so we're a bit early and we kill time in the lobby (a great, period lobby) and then find our seats and wait for the show.
The boy, he asks me about it and I dismiss his questions with "I don't know anything" - he'll be impressed, I know.
The film is introduced by a member of the Art City group, who explains that there will be 6-8 shorts in the film and it will last about 45 minutes.
And there's a brief flash on the screen of the film, before it begins - "visual art, architecture, and design" or words to that effect, and for a moment I'm worried that maybe this won't be his cup of tea, but I take solace - I enjoy architecture, design, visual art, and so at least one of us will be happy...
It opens with a hand, hanging down and dripping obviously fake blood, then cuts to an elevator going up through a building, then back to hand again, to some tiles on the ground, back to hand, no speaking, just the images. And we think it's sort of the opening credits thing and after 2 or three minutes of this the next film is introduced. From Iran or the middle east someplace.
Black and white, if it's artistic it has to be black and white: a bathtub, draining. Filling with water. Letters in Arabic appear on the tub, small, tiny subtitles below in English, more characters, tub fills with water, washes characters away, no speaking.
The boy begins to laugh, yet another one of dad's arts and culture adventures gone terribly astray, and I'm laughing as well.
Other shorts, 2 men, one cutting another's hair, then wrestling in a room, one on top of the other shouting "You're going bald! You're going bald!".
More random films, we stay, it's only 45 minutes after all, we watch them all. An animated one with clay, perhaps 1, 2 minutes long tops, purple claymation figure sprouts rainbow fungi, then a brief flash of the "Funded by the National Film Board of Canada". It's as if the filmmaker is somehow mocking the sponsorship that made this piece of crap possible.
I'm aghast. I mean, the NFB has produced some great stuff, this isn't it. Not at all, not by a long shot. What was the proposal for this grant?
It's quickly become the "WTF" film festival. More shorts. Completely random assemblages of film, current media, all "Art" in the way that art should be spelled with capital "F". One film, a particularly inept montage of media clips culled from countless hours of bad TV, recalls to the boy the quote by Banksy from "Exit through the Gift Shop" when Banksy realizes that Mr. Brainwash isn't in fact a filmmaker, he's just a moron carrying a camera ...
Now we have a laugh, me and the boy, after the film (a few patrons walked out), we laugh about the high "Art" tone of the pieces, the lack of adjectives to describe them, we laugh at the idea that these films were somehow "Selected", implying that somehow other films were rejected, and what could have been more rejected than the films we just saw, and I try to get him to put a finger on the best and worst film, but there's no finger he can put and that's it.
The WTF film festival, sponsored by Art City, no longer showing at the Uptown but don't be sad, you didn't miss a thing. 45 minutes could be far, far better spent watching peoples submitted pet clips on You Tube.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1859
With the boy to the new "Psychological Thriller" Inception, starring Leonardo De Caprio, Peter Postlewaite, Michael Caine.
Which was interesting and "original", as far as Hollywood films go, which is to say not very but marginally better than average.
Criticisms might include an overabundance of CGI effects (every film seems to rely rather too heavily on those, I think), a rather overly-dense plot and not-very convincing premise or world, a predictable ending (although not as predictable as, say, a James Cameron ending would have been, which I should be grateful for...), and, for me, most importantly it didn't capture the "Unreality" of dreams.
By which I mean I don't have dreams filled with firearms. And the detail, remembered detail at least, is hardly to the same depth as portrayed in the film, rather it's the isolated that stand out and mean something. Perhaps someone else's dreams, or, as is too common with Hollywood, the dream of making a large amount of money off a largely overblown CGI driven film....
I'd give it 1/5 bananas. (**Note: So far other reviews have been in the main very largely favorable. Is it just me, or are most movies just that bad?)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1834
An unusual film, but that's exactly what I expected of Jean-Pierre Jeunet. No, not Jean-Luc. You know who you are.
Great set design, props, characters, the story was so-so and overall the film seemed somewhat to lack in the "Heart" department. Especially after Amélie. While I'd certainly recommend it over any of the Hollywood drek that too often takes precedence in the cinemas here, it's not his best effort. Worth it for the visuals alone though (nice to see a director using real actors and actresses and not avatars chosen for their generic good looks ...).
And there's something about reconnecting with the same cast that he uses for all his films that makes it - well, enjoyable in the way that catching up with old friends is enjoyable.
I'd give it 6 1/2 Bananas.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1812
An unexpected (although scheduled) day off, and so I took the boy to see the new Banksy film - Exit through the Gift Shop.
Which is an informative documentary about graffiti and street art in general. About art in general. And, in a perverse way, about art commenting on life and life imitating art. And there are probably a few more things that it was about as well, but to get into it in any depth would be to diminish the surprise.
And there is a surprise. Indeed, for those not too familiar with the contemporary art scene (I'm not, but if I think you're less so than I might pretend...) the ending will be quite the twist indeed, with some genuine laugh-out-loud OMFG moments.
It's absurdly delightful. I'd happily give it 4 and a half stars....I'd a given it a 5 if Thierry Guetta (later known as Mr. Brainwash) had been a better videographer, but then maybe I'd only have given it a 4....
Further Links: 25 of Banksy's coolest murals (another persons list), banksy.co.uk
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2012
Nothing short of Genius. The stuff of animated nightmares, odd, compelling, deeply rich and evocative symbolism and themes.....
They credit their inspiration and influences in part to Jan Švankmajer and are credited for inspiring the likes of Tim Burton.
A short sample below, taken from "Street of Crocodiles", more can be found linked to it, or anthologies rented from Bird Dog Video.