Empire States: Raiding The Lost Ark: A 'Filmumentary' By Jamie Benning
Posted on Monday February 6, 2012, 17:09 by Ali Plumb in Empire States
Jamie Benning is an outstanding human being. The man behind the fan-made video commentaries for the original Star Wars trilogy - 'Star Wars Begins', 'Building Empire' and 'Returning To Jedi' - he's poured hours, days, weeks, months into collating and cutting together videos that illuminate and educate would-be Jedi knights about the ways of The Force. Well, the ways of the people who made A New Hope, Empire and Jedi, anyway.
Benning returns with another fantastic 'filumentary' in the form of 'Raiding The Lost Ark', doing the same thing for - you guessed it - Raiders Of The Lost Ark. As he explains in his exclusive blog below, the task was nowhere near as easy as it was for Star Wars, requ... Continue reading... Comment Now (4 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: Spoiler-Hunting In The Toy Aisle
Posted on Thursday February 2, 2012, 15:51 by Ali Plumb in Empire States
As a blog about movie tie-in toys and the spoilers they reveal, the following images will contain details you may not want to hear about just yet. So consider the spoiler horn firmly sounded. *Honk*. ... Continue reading... Comment Now (13 comments)
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Sundance 2012: Sixth Report
Posted on Thursday February 2, 2012, 10:48 by Damon Wise in Under The Radar
 By chance, one particular day brought together two very different movies on the theme of inebriation. The first, Smashed, is the sort of movie that often screens at Sundance, starring an actress better known for more glamorous roles in a part that requires a lot of crying and looking ugly. In the past we've had the likes of Sherrybaby (Maggie Gyllenhaal, good) and Come Early Morning (Ashley Judd, not so good), so I was perhaps a little cynical when I read that Mary Elizabeth Winstead was now giving the whole serious thing a go, with a starring role in a film about a woman wrestling with sobriety. It is, for certain, not the most lavish film to screen at the festival, and wait-line gossip suggested that it had been readied in superfast time since shooting as late as October last year. But for all that, it's a well-written and nicely observed comedy-drama, with a really good central performance that will hopefully win Winstead some better roles in the new year.
She plays... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Sundance 2012: Fifth Report
Posted on Wednesday February 1, 2012, 23:42 by Damon Wise in Under The Radar
 Beasts Of The Southern Wild, by Benh Zeitlin, was an amazing discovery, a film that certainly swelled to fit the confines of Park City but may struggle when it crosses into the wider market. Fox Searchlight picked it up, which was certainly brave of them, since it's not likely even to make a fraction of the figures that The Tree Of Life did for them. Terrence Malick is in some way a good starting point here, since its fractured voiceover and opening, montage-like scenes of an anarchic rural idyll in some ways recall his 1978 film Days Of Heaven. But that film is like Citizen Kane in comparison; where Malick's film saw a very complicated story from a rather simple girl's point of view, Beasts Of the Southern Wild shows a much younger girl wrestling with her immediate circumstances in the aftermath of a huge and devastating Katrina-like weather event.
It promises to be a slice of fashionable poverty-row rural porn, more in the vein of Le Quattro Volte than Winter's B... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Sundance 2012: Fourth Report
Posted on Monday January 30, 2012, 00:52 by Damon Wise in Under The Radar
With its strangely chipper demeanour and wry view of the near future, Jake Schreier's Robot And Frank plays a little bit like a throwback Disney TV movie, from the days when the studio made oddball curios like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. It stars Frank Langella as Frank, a man of retirement age who is starting to lose his marbles, much to his family's dismay. Frank doesn't see what all the fuss is about; his memory may be fading but his instincts are still sharp – when he shoplifts, it's deliberate, not an act of befuddlement – so he is outraged when his son (James Marsden) presents him with an an android careworker. The robot, who never gets a name (and is voiced by Peter Sarsgaard), tries to set a daily regime for Frank, but Frank has other ideas. Frank, we soon learn, is a former cat burglar, and in the guileless robot he sees t... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Sundance 2012: Third Report
Posted on Sunday January 29, 2012, 22:42 by Damon Wise in Under The Radar
 Watching I Am Not A Hipster, screening as part of the Next strand, I came to realise that neither am I. Although Destin Cretton's film was well-made and performed, I found it hard to relate to the central character, Brook Hyde (Dominic Bogart) an indie musician who returns to his San Diego roots after the death of his mother and the minor success of his debut album. Hyde is a talented but cynical multi-instrumentalist who finds himself sickened by the shallowness of the world that worships him, populated mainly by men with pencil moustaches, skinny jeans, woofly hair and black-rimmed Real-D nerd glasses. Hyde's plight isn't so sympathetic to anyone who already finds the hipster scene beyond parody, but for those open to Hyde's surprisingly unselfconsious music, of which there is a lot, this is a sweet, offbeat comedy that will surely find underground favour.
Cult status certainly beckon... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopEmpire States: The Difficulty Of Defining Modern Animation
Posted on Wednesday January 25, 2012, 11:26 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
 There's been a bit of back-and-forth online over the last couple of days about whether or not The Adventures Of Tintin qualifies as animation. It appeared on the BAFTA nominations list in the Animated category, but was absent from the Oscar list* so we can't be sure whether it qualified there or not, or simply didn't win the votes. So is the entirely-performance-captured film real animation? Do we need to redefine our categories? What's going on?
Here's my position so far: I am inclined to think The Adventures Of Tintin is animation. At the same time, I'm OK with calling Avatar live-action - but no less an authority than animation guru Andrew Osmond, occasionally of this parish, would call that an animated film as well. Why do I consider one animation and not the other? Well, I'm not sure I can entirely justify it but let's give it a go.
Those who consider Tintin live-action do so on the basis tha... Continue reading... Comment Now (15 comments)
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Sundance 2012: Second Report
Posted on Monday January 23, 2012, 00:40 by Damon Wise in Under The Radar
 The Raid isn't technically a Sundance movie,since it premiered last autumn in Toronto, but it certainly found the right audience here. As Chris Hewitt reveals in the current issue of Empire, it is a powerhouse of an action thriller: brutal, super-violent and, despite an ominous 100-minute running time, a surprisingly fast-paced thriller that never drags. The director is Gareth Evans, an Indonesia-based Welshman, and the most thrilling aspect of The Raid is not how stunningly it captures its Asian fight-movie set-pieces but just how beautifully it sites them in a grindhouse context. Which means that just as it recalls such 70s cult items as Streetfighter and Enter The Dragon, it also captures the early pulp-indie spirit of George Romero and John Carpenter. Indeed, The Raid not only gives the latter a run for his money, thanks a neat midway twist it also combines Assault On Precinct 13 and Escape From New York into one breathless two-for-one bloodbath.
T... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Sundance 2012: First Report
Posted on Saturday January 21, 2012, 21:05 by Damon Wise in Under The Radar
Sundance 2012 began with a rare audience at the Bing Bar on Main Street with the man himself, Mr Robert Redford, true Hollywood superstar, festival founder and self-confessed documentary nut. Though something of a will o' the wisp at Sundance, Redford still definitely has a firm grasp on the event, which he took pains to explain is simply one aspect of the Sundance Institute. Much of his work in Park City, he explained, takes place behind the scenes, notably at a filmmakers lunch on the opening weekend, at which he gets to meet the filmmakers and discuss their movies. Far from being a Meet The Queen kind of thing, it's a chance for Redford to share his own experiences – which, he told me, aren't quite so removed from the trials and tribulations of the average independent director. He said, “I tell them, 'You don't know me, but, believe me, when I started to make films, I went though a lot of what you'r... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopEmpire States: The BAFTA Nominations: Back-And-Forth
Posted on Tuesday January 17, 2012, 16:47 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
As we've done in years gone by, here are two Empire staffers discussing this morning's BAFTA nominations. This is just to get the discussion going: add your own comments below!
Helen: Well, here are the BAFTA nominations for another year. It’s like another Christmas for film fans, albeit one with slightly underwhelming presents and that sick and guilty sensation that you get after eating too many chocolate coins. The Artist is out in front – which I’m OK with – followed by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (benefitting from British double-dipping; it’s eligible for more categories).
Let’s start with what’s here a... Continue reading... Comment Now (7 comments)
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