We Have Moved

SUCK MY FILM THEORY has moved and is now residing at http://www.thehollywoodsmackdown.com/. We were getting so many hits lately that it made sense to do it properly.

 

See you over there!!!

Adam

An Interview with Marc Price- PART ONE

"Why should I let some guy in a suit tell me what's good and what's not..." As well as rounding on "the system"Marc Price, writer/director and producer of the 2008 zombie movie Colin discusses the rise of his passion project from script to cinema, his new film Thunderchild, his passion for extraordinary circumstances and his love for populist cinema.

It’s barely a year since the world got its first glimpse inside the mind of Marc Price. His debut is a surprisingly heartfelt tale about a man who transforms into a zombie and pursues a trail across London during the onset of a probable apocalypse. The film screened well at the Abertoir Horror Film Festival and continued on to festivals such as Cannes and Raindance, receiving critical praise throughout the process.

The film is an interesting juxtaposition of ambient panic and subtle, nuanced and intimate hand-held camera work. Colin is arguably a sympathetic soul despite his revenant status and is most easily recognised as homage to “Bub” in Romero’s Day of the Dead.  Produced with none of the typical sources of funding available in the UK, Price self-financed the film. “Why should I wait for some guy in a suit to tell me whether my story is worth telling, you know... phrases like bring in the monster earlier, change this, do that...I’ve always resented the idea of somebody looking at something I’ve written. The script isn’t a film, it’s a springboard. It’s the structure. It’s really important to get that structure out because you can’t play around with that as much as you can with the characters you choose to populate it”.

Two years ago, Marc was making short films with friends whilst working a full-time job with a courier firm. We discuss how I now find him nestled in a cosy flat in the corner of Tooting cradling a mug of coffee and sitting underneath a huge poster of the Spielberg classic “Jaws” with the look of a man who may just be living the dream. “I didn’t do anything anybody else couldn’t or hasn’t”.

 “I always wanted to make film...”

Marc received little film production training, receiving a degree in a web-based design programme 2000-2003. There he focussed on some animation and three-dimensional technological training but what galvanised the passion we see today was an interview he read with Shane Meadows, with whom he now shares an arena and a talent agency in Casarotto Ramsay. Price quotes “no-one has got an excuse these days, anybody can get a camera and make a movie”. 

The rise of DVD was a big help, especially with the inclusion of hours upon hours of bonus features which helped guide Marc through his learning curve. “The commentaries were invaluable”.

Marc had his first serious attempt at making a film with his comedy-drama hybrid short film Nowhere Fast. Nowhere Fast follows three young men as they fight to overcome some intense financial difficulties, resorting to ever desperate measures to survive. “One of the great things that came out of Nowhere Fast was that the cast said we have no idea if this is a screwball comedy or an intense drama... I think it fits in between”.

Eventually, Marc settled in London and went out of his way to start meeting actors and says he was amazed by their enthusiasm. “Everybody seemed willing to take days off work to do this stuff. From there I met Alistair, who plays Colin, and did a short film with him called Midnight, a sort of political thriller, about impending nuclear disaster”.

Does this mean that Marc is drawn to the apocalypse genre? No he says, “I just love the idea of ordinary people in extraordinary situations”; a theme he shares with Steven Spielberg, who’s films continually chart the rise of the average Joe and his quest to over-come both his external conflicts (aliens, sharks, dinosaurs, Nazi’s) and his internal ones. Jaws, which Marc considers a cornerstone of populist cinema, is a fine example; Brody is afraid of the water so let’s make him go in the water; “Look at this poster” he says, his eyes alight with an intense passion as he turns towards the lovingly framed poster above us, “that is all the audience knew before they went in, just that swimmer and the invisible shark below... the conflict is obvious”.

With Spielberg, even in the darkest of situations he continues to assert the power of the individual to reach the dawn. In Jurassic Park, for example, there is the idea that in becoming a more accommodating father figure, Alan Grant will be gifted escape from the heart of darkness. Is there hope for humanity in Colin? Or is Colin just another victim on the way to extinction? “With that house siege...there was a real sense of doom there, a sense of tragedy in the occasion and with the documentary for profit crew, “when it all blows over” content; I wanted to hint at that certainty that one day humanity would get itself together and there was some control that had been taken”. An idea that Price continues with in the climactic battle, where a group of humans wage small scale war on Colin... “the outside world probably isn’t the best place for Colin... he’s in constant danger of getting killed”

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this interview, where Marc discusses academia, film school and the future...

The Kings Speech- A Review

THE KINGS SPEECH

*****

Directed by Tom Hooper and starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, THE KINGS SPEECH definately defies the expectations of its audience and delivers a sucker punch more powerful than Rocky and more rewarding as well.

The film depicts the struggles in ascendancy of King George VI, who is affectionately known to his family as Bertie, as he is thrust forward into the position of Monarch after a series of unfortunate, sometimes funny, sometimes sad events. It begins with a blinking red light and the image of the future king standing nervously in a grey stairwell as his fear grows silently behind his well-dressed exterior. The event is Wembley Stadium and the speech will be broadcast over radio, so every stutter and spit will be amplified to not just the thousands in the stadium but to the millions listening over the short wave. Considering then that the audience should have little in common with this man they see before them, these opening scenes are both brilliantly tense and for somebody with a speech problem, like I, incredibly identifiable.

The Kings Speech is not just " Rocky with stuttering" but is a much more tender, rewarding experience for the viewer as we watch Firth play the character brilliantly, stepping outside his often type-cast a little for this role. Many who felt Firth to have been robbed of the 2010 Oscar for A SIMPLE MAN will be relieved to know that he is sure of another nomination here and, if there's any justice in the world, he should be the one walking up the steps to claim his statuette. Helena Bonham Carter shines here, although is given a sparse amount of screentime but where she does play, she brings a great sense of warmth and dignity that brilliantly connects with the sometimes cold nature of Firths character.

At moments this is funny, at others this is heart wrenching and at its best, it combines both elements. Geoffrey Rush gives an understated but very comical performance as Logue; who remains believably eccentric throughout the course of the piece. One scene that will dazzle is later on in the drama, where King George VI is in the final steps to his unwanted ascendancy and argues the fact with Logue, claiming that he has overstepped the mark. One suspects that he has not but simply that the new King, who later breaks down in the arms of his wife, was simply trying to avoid facing the inevitable and somewhat ugly truth of his new responsibility. Carters line that " you stammer so beautifully that I thought they'd just leave us alone", sums up the feeling of this cute couple as they deal with the new world thrust upon them and their children.

The cause of his stammering is explored well and instead of reverting to the usual flashback style, the past is neatly placed in the present as we travel down the path to recovery with the King. His Brother, having relinquished the throne to run off with an unsavoury woman, is particularly cited as a cause and a scene at a country house during which he refers to our protagonist as B-B- Bertie, reminds the audience of the torment he may have suffered as a child at the hands of an expecting, traditional family; bound by the terms of their engagement and unable to escape from the confines of expectation.

The death of his Father stirs new emotions in Bertie and he grieves for the loss of his privacy as oppose to the loss of his Father; who we suspect he hated but respected. The childlike presence of Bertie around Logues toy aircraft is a particularly poignant example of the past meeting the present through a fear of the future.

When it all comes together this film is brilliant and a shining light of greatness in amongst the somewhat barren wasteland we find ourselves traversing most years. To discover it's British heritage is pleasing and to know that it will be a crowning glory upon our struggling film industry is a comfort. Currently sitting atop the Box Office, The Kings Speech may just secure a generation of a talent some semblance of an industry to inherit.

TRANSFORMERS 3: What Can We Expect from DARK OF THE MOON?

Anybody who knows this writer, knows that I remain a skeptic and a harsh critic of Michael Bay; usually when I refer to him, I do so in quote marks. Example: Michael Bay seen “ directing” actors in this behind the scenes exclusive. Anybody who has watched TRANSFORMERS 2 will understand this; where story was shamelessly scrapped in favour of big budget smoke and mirrors, fight sequences and racial stereotyping to make cheap comedy. It was the day I asked if Hollywood, responsible for some of the greatest stories ever told, had died. Bay has been a chief in this army of creative death; “directing” some of the worst films ever to grace the silver screen. PEARL HARBOR for all its attempts, remains both a crass attempt at a war movie and a half-botched attempt at a love story and THE ISLAND is an essay on remaking a film without crediting it. See LOGANS RUN if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

 In fact, I question whether Bay would know what to do with a script if it wasn’t filled with explosions, gunfights or chases but there’s also no denying that his films put a great many bottoms on a great many seats across the Box Office globe. Sometimes I ask if there was a script and it seems, with Bays latest statement about TRANSFORMERS 3, that the previous film was scripted in... wait for it... POST PRODUCTION.

This summer sees the release of the 3^rd film in the  Box Office busting TRANSFORMERS franchise, helmed by Michael Bay and produced by Steven Spielberg and despite a near universal critical drubbing for TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, the third installment looks set to be bigger than ever and will reach its audience in eye-popping 3-D.

According to MovieWeb.com, Director Michael Bay has offered some further “ insights” into the film, giving fans a photo of Shia “ Indiana Jones Jnr” Laboeuf and Rosie  Huntingdon Whiteley getting their hands dirty aboard a quite frankly MASSIVE engine. Bay, dubbed by former co-star Megan Fox, as a “ dictator” can also be seen in the picture, dishing out “direction” over his megaphone.  So it’s likely that we can expect a character driven, introverted story set in the midst of the Transformers apocalypse then? Don’t bet on it...

In a statement that is truly bizaare, and unheard of, Bay has promised that the third film THE DARK OF THE MOON will be the best of the three  and he openly stated that he believed THE REVENGE OF THE FALLEN to have been somewhat of a mess. Interesting that a Director feels he needs to insult his own ouvre in order to regain a semblance of credibility although to hear it is refreshing... for a few sick hours while I watched it I thought I had witnessed the death of Hollywood as a creative entity, as a storytelling entity of great skill and spectacle... instead it appears to have been a blip. Even if it’s been admitted... does that make it right? When Bay, Spielberg and their respective studios knew they were sitting on a narrative turkey the decision must have been made to release it anyway. Gone then are the days of quality but then it’s probably useless to think of Hollywood as anything other than a production machine; who’s engines are so enormous that they must keep turning. My question is though; do those running the engines not have a responsibility to tell great stories? To keep us interested? Yes it’s about selling popcorn but my god why not offer a little bit of intellect?

MovieWeb have quoted the following excerpt from the statement made by Bay regarding the release of DARK OF THE MOON:

“It was kind of a mess, wasn't it? Look, the movie had some good things in it and it was entertaining and it did very well, but it also failed in some key ways. I learned from it. And now with this we're going back to basics and I absolutely believe this is going to be a much better film than the second one. I'm still having fun. Look, we got burned on the last movie. The big thing was the writers' strike, it hurt the film and it made it hard on everybody. We had three weeks to get our story and, really, we were going into the movie without a script. It's tough to do that. It was too big of a movie. There were too many endings or too many things that felt like endings. There was so much animation [in the visual effects postproduction work], too, and we ran out of time. We used the schedule of the first movie for the second movie but on the second one way more labor was needed for the animation. And then it felt like we were writing the script in the edit room, trying to put together a story."

Surely nobody shoots without a script? Especially not without a good one; finding a story in post-production happens more often than you’d like to think but really? On a major Hollywood production this farce was allowed. Embarassing and I believe we, as the movie going public, deserve better from these individuals. Steven Spielberg is responsible for some of the best Hollywood films of the last quarter century (JURASSIC PARK, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) but I’m starting to wonder if “ the beard” has gotten a bit stale and finally succumbed to the temptation of “ blowing stuff up”= fun.

Surely if the 2007/2008 writers strike was such a problem they could have waited until it was over instead of fighting to hash out a half-assed storyline and frankly I don’t buy this excuse. The Jury (me) remains out on whether Bay can rescue this dying franchise but I’ve got sequel jitters like I’ve never had them before and with talk of major problems in the editing room once more, this time with 3-D conversion, I wonder if we’re just being put back on the conveyor belt with hopes of a great turnout no matter what the product.

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON is out in America on July 1^st 2011 and stars Shia Laboeuf, Rosie Huntington- Whiteley, Julie White, Kevin Dunn, Josh Duhamel, Alan Tudyk, John Malkovich and Tyrese Gibson.
Photo originally published by LA TIMES, U.S.A. With thanks to MovieWeb.

The Hollywood News needs you!

The Movie Blog I write for http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/ has been shortlisted by Total Film for BEST OVERALL BLOG 2010 and just two minutes of your time to vote for us would be greatly appreciated. I have put a link to the page, all you have to do is check the little box next to our name and then click SUBMIT.

To encourage you to tell all your friends about this vote, and send them here to do it... I have included the lovely Charlize Theron as a bribe... look into her eyes, she's telling you to do it and you should listen... please.

http://www.totalfilm.com/features/the-2011-total-film-movie-blog-awards/page:2

Thankyou for your support.

Adam

The Hollywood News.com nominated for Blog Of The Year

The Hollywood News, run by Paul Heath, has been nominated in the Category for Best Overall Blog at the 2011 Blog of the Year Awards for Total Film. Contributions to the site are made by Adam Spinks, Laura Stackhouse, Paul Koren and Tom Fordy, as well as others and it would be greatly appreciated if you could spend a few moments and vote for us.

Adam
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2011-The Year Ahead in Film

Yesterday it was announced that the Director of what could have been my favourite movie of 2010, Monsters, has been signed up to Direct the new 2012 Reboot of the Godzilla franchise, being produced by Warner and Legendary. Gareth Edwards, a special effects guy from Nuneaton, made Monsters on a shoestring £10,000 budget and used the singularity of his vision and his ability to persuade great actors to star in the unusual, ethereal and strangely moving post-apocalypse love story. For girls, its a Monster movie you might be interested in and for boys, its a love story you might just let yourself get sucked into... see it before its gone and if you miss it, buy it on dvd...

It does prove that with dreams, you can make anything happen and thats a great message to send at a time of uncertainty in the British Film Industry and Gareth Edwards, if there's any justice in the world, will find himself with a few golden statues come the awards season and I suspect he may find himself with a BAFTA, as was similar for the debut Sam Rockwell starring film MOON. So I will be glued to awards season waiting for the results...

Here's hoping.

Unfortunately though 2011 looks to be a barren wasteland of sequels and reboots, with the new Transformers 3: Dark of The Moon sounding pretentious enough to warrant me taking a sick bucket into the theatre for good measure. Tron: Legacy serves to remind us why 3-D is cool but why, if its a film, it should be there to improve story; not to substitute for it. Although Jeff Bridges will forever be the dude...

Films like True Grit will do okay at the box office but Westerns have a strange ability to flop. At the hands of the Coen Brothers then I'd say it's a safe bet to get a few Nominations. COWBOYS AND ALIENS gives me the jitters, just because Jon Favreaus record is so inconsistent. First he makes Elf (eww) and then makes IRON MAN (awesome) and then follows with the confusing and very loud IRON MAN 2, which repeated IRON MAN 1 but with less interesting plot and story. That said, Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford wouldn't have signed on to a piece of horse-shit would they?

127 Hours doesn't really compell me but Danny Boyle is so damn good I think he might just pull this off, so when it goes on release I'll recommend this one just one previous record alone. James Franco is such a great actor that it's worth a view just for that.

One film to let out a little bit of wee over is probably HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 as it was the stand-out blockbuster for me in the latter half of 2010, surpassed by Inception and Toy Story in my top five of the year. Providing of course that it doesn't lose character and gritty reality in the battle heavy sections, see LOTR 3 for this problem, then I suspect that it may go on to surpass the billion dollar mark; making it the first of HARRY POTTER to do so.

Late year looks better, with two Spielberg films appearing in theatres in December. Look out for WAR HORSE as his potential Academy Award attempt but also look out for THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN, which sees Spielberg bring his trademark style into the 21st Century with the help of close friend and colleague Peter " Middle Earth" Jackson. Expect good box-office numbers but it will depend on the quality of the animation and story as to whether Spielberg hits it out the park with this one.

Summer looks barren but fans waiting for the fourth PIRATES picture will get their moment. ON STRANGER TIDES hits in May and looks to break the box office but probably not the backs of its critics...

2011 in Summary:

A mixed bag of bullshit and hope that will undoubtedly end in mediocrity.