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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1875
One to watch for -
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1868
"As long as there's none of those damned commercials" I tell the clerk as I buy the tickets, "Absolutely none" he tells me, "the film goes right into the movie...".
Now these commercials, the best, the Bronze, Silver and Gold Lion winners from Cannes, they're great. Some are better than great, most have far more insight, originality, depth and emotion than James Cameron's entire life's work. Links to some of the more memorable below.
Allstate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DU5LKoC1A8 - You know it's going to be good when the narrator tells you he's your son. The other Allstate commercials with Mayhem are worth watching as well.
Drink Driving - Brandhouse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JWUXXXJq8k - Like being a woman on Plenty of Fish...
Heineken - The Entrance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcX1PTOmvO8 - Which only serves to remind me how much I need to improve my party skills....
Nike: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl0IlD4qLUM - Deep pockets can buy you great advertising. Love the ad, despise the corporation.
Indian Train: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzEKCYb6zzU - Just for the WTF factor. I mean, WTF.
Tippex - A hunter shoots a bear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M - Clever Viral, try and stump the hunter. Go on.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1851
The pick today, no great alternative alternatives presenting themselves.
And I'm surprisingly impressed. Stephen Fry, (I explain to the boy - "In Britain you can be an intellectual AND an actor...), Robert Downey Jr. (One of America's top black actors), good sets, design, props, great choreography, Guy Ritchie directing (I have to respect anyone who's survived divorcing Madonna - look at what Sean Penn did in Into the Wild) - not hugely intellectual, but some very fine moments, and a good job of contemporizing and making available to later audiences the Holmes franchise - overall - especially for a Hollywood film, worth seeing. If you're into that.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1765
I like Johnny Depp. That said, this was a highly missable exploration of one of Hunter S Thompson's more forgettable works.
Now I know that Johnny Depp was buddies with Hunter S, and even went so far as to fire his cremated remains from a cannon, but there's something about a 47 year old Depp (in fine condition, to be sure) portraying a 23 year old Hunter S that doesn't wash.
The film, long, less a film as a whole than a series of somewhat (more or less) amusing incidents from his stint as a journalist in Puerto Rico.
The cinematography is good, the landscape beautiful, lush, the boy enjoyed it, I could have done entirely without.
That said, I like Johnny Depp, and this was probably by far his most normal role in a very long time. Still, give it a miss.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2126
Now the film is interesting, the artwork and the cave fantastic - but what makes this film unique, better than, say, the same sort of polished documentary that might be done by the National Geographic Channel, are the idiosyncratic experts, the intrusion into the documentary by the questions and comments of Herzog himself, the bringing of a Master Perfumer to sniff the rocks around Chauvet in the quest for other undiscovered caves, the failed efforts of an archeologist to persuade viewers that the throwing of the Atlatl could bring down a deer or a bison ("they must have been better at it..." chastises Herzog as the dart lands not far from the camera...).
Amusing, and - if you're into that sort of thing - very, very good.
Other related links of interest: Wiki on Venus Figurines, Wiki on Cave Painting, Wiki on Paleolithic Art, Paleolithic Flutes.