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 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 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)
Back To TopEmpire States: Which Profession Is Most Misrepresented Onscreen?
Posted on Monday January 9, 2012, 11:40 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
 I awaited the debut of Eternal Law on ITV last week with some glee. It's a show about barristers who are also angels, and from the adverts I hoped for some massive legal clangers of the sort one used to see on Judge John Deeds. When the first episode failed to deliver anything completely outrageous* (beyond the obvious concept of barristers as angels), I got to thinking about which professions are most victimised by TV and film, their jobs distorted out of all recognition by the screen. I think I'm going to need input from our readers, especially those with first-hand knowledge, to really get to the bottom of this, but let's consider a few case studies first.
First of all, the law. I qualified as a barrister before chucking it all in to become a penniless journalist, so this one's closest to my heart and easiest to judge. Speaking of judging, there's the aforementioned Judge John Deeds, which saw a member of the judiciary interview witnesses while sitting on a jury, and regu... Continue reading... Comment Now (45 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: Deconstructing The Iron Lady
Posted on Thursday January 5, 2012, 17:37 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
 Let’s get the uncontroversial out of the way first: Meryl Streep is utterly brilliant in The Iron Lady. Not only does she utterly convince as the Margaret Thatcher the world was all familiar with as PM, but she also convinces as an old lady facing the disappearance of her world. The problem is more with the film: it feels like the wrong film, at the wrong time, about the wrong woman. And it left me quite seriously conflicted and more than a little angry. Since I can’t afford therapy on an Empire salary, let’s discuss those feelings here.
Full disclosure: I don’t like Maggie Thatcher. Like many people who remember her time in power, and anyone with a left-leaning bone in their body, I find her politics obnoxious and her policies destructive (we’re still feeling the effects of initiatives started under her reign). It’s interesting that, on the few occasions in this film where she actually articulates a specific policy, the result is black,... Continue reading... Comment Now (22 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: First Look: Seagate GoFlex Cinema
Posted on Tuesday December 20, 2011, 15:01 by James Dyer in Empire States
 There’s a reason why, even now, Macs refuse to come with Blu-ray drives. It’s not (just) because the late Steve Jobs wanted you to download HD films off iTunes but because the visionary technologist believed that physical media was in the midst of its death throes. Whether he was overstating the matter or not, the rise of digital media and the emergence on these shores of UltraViolet (the studios’ downloadable answer to DVD) certainly mean that digital copies of movies are increasing their foothold in the home entertainment market. The problem is that for most people it’s hard to know how to make the most of it all.
Broadly speaking there are three principle methods of enjoying digital media in your home. The first is to stream directly off the Internet via services such as Netflix or LoveFilm. The Second is to stream your own media files across your home network (which we’ll cover in some depth in an upcoming article). The Third, and arguably the simplest, is to stor... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopEmpire States: Every Franchise Would Be Better With The Rock
Posted on Thursday December 15, 2011, 16:16 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
 Today we saw the first trailer for GI Joe 2: Retaliation, and it looks like it's another case where The Rock, added to an existing but slightly limp franchise, reinvigorates said franchise and makes us all love it again. He already did it with The monumental (emphasis on "mental") Fast Five, and now he's doing the double. But which other franchises could benefit from the unique input of the Team Bring It captain? We consider a few options.
Step Up 5: To The Ring
We're assuming it's too late to insert The Rock into Step Up 4, but in any case the fifth instalment seems an auspicious spot for him given Fast Five's success. We've seen street dance meeting ballet, and meeting 3D, and meeting all sorts of world dance and even the semi-martial art capoeira, but you know what they haven't crossed it with? Wrestling. That's where His Rockness comes in. He would teach the undoubtedly-obscure stars of the film his wrestling moves to combine with their dance moves for so... Continue reading... Comment Now (33 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: Kim Newman: Moriarty & Me
Posted on Thursday December 15, 2011, 12:06 by Kim Newman in Empire States
 One of the perils of writing novels in which you borrow – all right, steal – other people’s characters or premises or worlds is that if the original material is ‘open source’, as it were, you won’t be the only person doing it. Indeed, the popular kids in this playground tends to be mobbed. To qualify, they have to be out of copyright and loosed from the clutches of the estates of the original creators or else we get into the perilous terrain of ‘licensed’ work, which means being required to leave the property the way you found it.
For Empire readers who don’t know that besides writing the dungeon column and reviewing film, I’m also a novelist. My relevant crimes against literature include Anno Dracula and sequels (The Bloody Red Baron, Dracula Cha Cha Cha and Johnny Alucard – all forthcoming from Titan Books). Besides a raft of folk created by Bram Stoker, Anno Dracula features famous Victorians from history (the Elephant Man, Osc... Continue reading... Comment Now (2 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: Screen To Stage: The Ladykillers
Posted on Thursday December 8, 2011, 12:10 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
 The Ealing comedies are still some of the finest ever committed to screen, films that are as wise as they are witty. And one of the chief among them, jostling with Kind Hearts And Coronets for the, er, crown*, is The Ladykillers, wherein Sir Alec Guinness portrays a massively creepy master criminal intent on a great train robbery. The film has now hit the stage, at London's Gielgud Theatre, with Peter Capaldi in the lead, a Graham Linehan-adapted script and direction by Sean Foley. The good news? It's significantly better than the Coen Brothers remake of a few years back, and really a hilarious night out in its own right.
The story remains unchanged: Capaldi plays the nefarious Professor Marcus, a man of dubious academic distinction but unquestionable criminal intent. He inveigles his way into the spare room of little old Mrs Wilberforce (Marcia Warren), whose Kings Cross home provides the perfect base for his plan to rob a security van. There, ... Continue reading... Comment Now (1 comment)
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