# Off-topic Rants

Red Road is a dark thriller about Jackie, a surveillance camera officer, who watches over the dangerous streets of Glasgow on a matrix of television screens. One day, she recognises a man whose past collides traumatically with her own. She begins to stalk him. After following him under the security of closed circuit surveillance cameras, she takes the next step, and integrates herself into his life. As she becomes closer to him, and the stakes becomes much higher, we start to learn the facts behind why she is so intent of hunting down this man. This film starts off really slow. We observe Jackie watching camera footage of uneventful streets and shop fronts. But, as she becomes more obsessed with keeping tabs on the mystery man, the film gains momentum, and doesn’t stop until the very end. Jackie is thrown into a dangerous world, full of dodgy people. But we don’t understand why she puts herself in this situation until the very end, and by then, everything is quite intense. Although I wouldn’t say this is one of my favourite films, it certainly isn’t boring by the end. In fact, it becomes quite disturbing and almost terrifying in sections. Incredibly well acted – this film really takes you on a journey through some quite scary territory. The look of the film is very rough and gritty, to match the tough neighbourhood. The sound design is very minimal, with no music throughout the whole film. A bit slow in places, but waiting till the end is worth it.

At the time, I really enjoyed this film. It was exciting, it was interested, and I actually cared for the characters. I thought the opening special effects were a bit suss, but apart from that, I thought it was a good fun, and dramatic movie. But, in retrospect, I have a lot of issues with this film. That said, I still like the film – it kept me entertained for 126 minutes, but it does have its floors. This film is based on a true story of a US air pilot who was shot down while flying over Laos, during a classified mission during the Vietnam War. After the plane comes crashing to the ground, within no time at all, he’s captured and put into a prisoners camp – no surprise there! Not accepting the certain death ahead, he decides to craft a plan to escape with the several other American prisoners of War. This film was full of clichés. It started off very predictably, with US soldiers, being very cocky and arrogant, as they fool around before their mission. But the main problem I had was that the film was pretty unrealistic. Who shot down the plane? The whole opening happened so fast, that you didn’t have a chance to work out why it happened. The main character looked and acted as if he was enjoying his time at the prison. He was also very healthy looking, considering none of the prisoners ate anything of real substance. Why did the locals randomly kill the American solider with machetes? Why not kill them both? Why did the American’s throw away their guns? Why didn’t they capture the local who caught the fish, seeing as they had weapons, they were starving, and the man had nothing to protect him? Why was the ending so “this man’s a hero”? It was a bit over-the-top! I know this is supposed to be based on a true story – but there are just so many things I can’t see as really happening. Although a lot of people seem to disagree with me, I also feel this is a very “pro America” film. The American’s were “so good” and the people of the Vietnamese jungle “so bad”. I’m sure they weren’t the nicest people on earth – they did torture him after all, but the way the script was structured kind of disturbed me. I didn’t feel as if the enemy were real people, but instead, just the enemy. As I said, at the time, I really enjoyed watching it. Even after, I felt satisfied. I rate this film highly. It’s just that there were a lot of things that didn’t sit right. The actor behind Dengler was the main issue. He always seemed more “drunk” than someone who’s just been tortured and locked up. Finally, there was no perspective of time. The characters seemed to know what day it was, but the audience had no idea. Either way, I still liked it.

This witty yet tragic longish short film is about two Iranian refugees – a journalist in his 40s and an adventurous yet lonely man in his late 20s – who pretend to be a gay couple in order to obtain asylum. What starts off as a relatively straight forward plan becomes slightly more complicated when the younger man falls in love with an African lady with a child in the refugee camp. Things are further complicated when their documents claim they were whipped by the authorities prior to their leaving of the country due to their sexuality. This is a really entertaining short film. The acting by the “odd couple” is great; there is a real chemistry between the two men. The cinematography is excellent – I especially loved the look of the snow scene. There are some really funny moments in this film, although all of them are quite subtle. It also has a very cleaver and satisfying ending.

What are the chances? The film I hated the most has been the only film with projection problems, forcing the screening to run for even longer. I think the projectionist fell asleep. I don’t know what it was about this film, but it was incredibly boring. It opened with a five minute wide shot of a forest. Nothing happened. Nothing at all! The rest of the film wasn’t that much better. Stuff happened, but it was so tedious, that I didn’t take any of it in. It shouldn’t have been boring. It had people dieing, wives creating on husbands, husbands sleeping with wives sisters, child dramas, and all that. But it was just really, really uninteresting. Everything was so slow. All the shots ran for a minute longer than they needed to. The acting was probably OK, but there was so much space between words, that you couldn’t take in the dialogue, and therefore didn’t even concentrate on what the actors were doing, let alone saying. The young girl was a good actor – I noticed that. She was very believable, and despite the fact she didn’t say much, her presence on the screen was very powerful. But that was the only positive thing I got out of this film.

Another Bloody Office Outing. The Company Is Making Cutbacks. If you put The Office (2001) and The Hills Have Eyes (2006) in a blender, the end result would be something quite similar to writer/director Christopher Smith’s second feature film, Severance (2006). Moving onward and upward from his first feature, Creep (2004), Smith has decided to expand upon his horror/thriller repertoire, adding comedy to the mix. However, unlike other British horror/comedy films such as the highly successful Shaun of the Dead (2004) – which is without doubts side-splittingly hilarious, but honestly not bloodcurdling in the slightest (despite a lot of airborne blood) – this film successfully oscillates between the two genres; it makes you laugh and yet still gives you the absolute creeps. The story is simple: a team of sales executives from Palisade Defence, a multi-national weapons company, head to a corporate retreat in the forests of Hungary as a team and morale building exercise. When they come across a road block due to a suspiciously fallen tree, and their foreign speaking bus driver refuses to go an alternate route, they are forced to walk to their secluded lodge. They make it safely (although much to their dismay, their supposed luxurious lodge is more like a haunted mansion), but are soon hunted down one by one by merciless masked assailants in the woods for reasons that are never fully explained – although a lot of hypothetical theories are thrown out there.

This film truly takes you on an emotional rollercoaster. It’ll make you laugh and it will [almost] bring a tear to your eye. But what I really liked about this film was that it was surprisingly unpredictable. I was absolutely sure that Potter was going to “do the right thing” and give back the money. Even when the whole town converged at the Bailey residence, I was just waiting for the villain to make an appearance and profess to his sins. But, it just never happened. Potter was just bad to the bone – pure evil (“Happy New Year to you…in jail”)! Ebenezer Scrooge should take lessons. The highlight for me though was the enormously outdated special effects. They really added an extra degree of humour to the film – although I have a strange feeling that even back in 1946 it still would have made the kids laugh. Despite the fact that the whole film looked like it was shot in a Hollywood studio, visually the film was quite beautiful. Shooting in Black & White was a great move – even though they had colour at that stage. I loved the old broken down house Mary and George eventually moved into. It kind of reminded me of the Adam’s Family house – so much character, so much history, and so much potential! Something else that stood out for me was the minimal use of music. Unlike a lot of films today – especially Christmas films – were the audience is bombarded with audio content, “It’s a Wonderful Life” only made use of an orchestral score when it really needed to for propelling the story along. Although I must admit, that some of the Foley work really reminded me about the whole “shooting in a studio” thing – which was kind of distracting. This is one of those “feel good” movies, which seems almost typical now days. It’s a magnificent Christmas movie – even though the message behind the screenplay isn’t really about the holiday season at all – although it still has NOTHING on Brian Henson’s 1992 “The Muppet Christmas Carol”. I mean, how can James Stewart possibly compete with Rizzo the Rat (“Mother always taught me…never eat singing food”)! So with that all said and done, I give it an eight…

Every once in a while you sit down on your couch, fire up the DVD player and watch something that completely blows you away. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it truly affects you as a human being. It takes a lot of extraordinary ingredients to pull off a masterpiece; a lot of sheer talent and a huge amount of luck (just look at the circus parade scene!). The first element you need is a great idea – something that sparks intrigue and imagination. A concept that is simple yet can be built upon to create a complex and intricate screenplay. When a friend of Michel Gondry (the director of Eternal Sunshine) came to him with the idea that someone sends you a letter informing you that you’ve been erased from their memory, his mind raced into action. He contacted Charlie Kaufman, the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, who took up the challenge and helped transform that simple notion into an exhilarating and multifaceted screenplay. Once the words were on the page, it was then time to convert them into something that an audience can watch, listen and most importantly, feel.

In Tony Scott’s 1998 blockbuster, “Enemy of the State”, a successful Washington DC lawyer is hunted down by a government intelligence group, after he is inadvertently given a video tape revealing the murder of a congressman. As he attempts to gather the facts with the intention to release them to the public’s eye, the full weight of the government’s surveillance equipment is swung into action – everything from coin size bugging devices and telephone location tracing to real-time satellite surveillance. The lawyer’s bank details, phone records and other extremely personal details are brought up and manipulated with ease by the government using their extensive computer networks (Touchstone Pictures 1998). Although at the time of the movies release the majority of the technology displayed in this film appeared far fetched and extremely unlikely. Step forward seven years and most, if not all of the equipment, suddenly seems all the more plausible.

The purpose of this document is to explain the philosophy behind Open Source. It will first examine the definition of the term, then reveal its history,

I have just realised that after half a year of studying film and television, my whole perspective of what makes a fantastic movie has changed. Last year, I would have said it has to entertain me and absorb me in its world. That’s still true – a good movie still must do this. However, I have started to believe that a good movie must also offer something new. It has to push boundaries. It has to challenge its viewers. It has to be groundbreaking. I knew this – it almost seems like common sense. However, I didn’t truly understand the concept. Movies like The Isle, 2:37 and The Book of Revelation, fit into the revolutionary category. Although all of them scared the hell out of me, and seriously made me wonder what I was doing watching them, I have grown, not only to appreciate them, but I now actually understand that they’re truly fantastic pieces of art and because of that, I have made the conscious decision to say “I like them”. Previously, I only appreciated them – I didn’t consider them compulsory viewing. I’ve change my opinion. I think you need to watch film like these, if you are going to become a filmmaker, so that you understand that the challenge is to create something that hasn’t been done before. To create something that will spark people’s imaginations. Make them angry – make them cry – whatever. Now, a lot of people have suggested that 2:37 is just a rip off of Elephant. Personally, I think that’s a bit of an over exaggeration. Yes, the cinematography is very similar. Some of the camera work is almost exactly the same. And yes, the sound design is very similar (which isn’t unpredictable seeing as the same person did both movies). And yes, the story does have its similarities – i.e. it’s about a high school that suffers a tragic event. However, after watching elephant for the first time, I came out of the room with a completely different feeling to when I left 2:37. After watching 2:37 I felt sick. I felt like I had just been tortured. However after watching Elephant, I felt something completely different. That’s why I don’t believe 2:37 is a rip off of Elephant. Although it has a lot of similarities, you leave the theatre feeling different emotions. It’s not so much about the sound design, or what’s shown on screen. It’s more about the feelings and emotions it sparks. That’s what film school has taught me thus far. It’s not about pretty pictures and nice sounding audio. It’s about a story that messes with the viewer. The story is everything. The story must evoke a passion in the viewer, whether it’s negative or positive. I’ve come to realise that that’s what filmmaking is all about.