Do your eyes deceive you? Is this a show of envy, love or obsession?
Below is Peccadillo PIctures’ unique teaser poster art for the South African film, Beauty which is due for release in UK cinemas on 20th April 2012. It’s been designed by Sam Ashby whose recent film posters includes Weekend, Mammuth, Taxi Zum Klo and A Prophet. The trailer is here.
So, a Bill & Ted 3 script is ready? Keanu Reeves thinks it’s all good, speaking to The Independent.
The original writers, Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon have returned to put pen to paper.
Welcome to another edition of SIX OF THE BEST, the semi regular part of BRWC where we fire six questions at lovely people. Today it is King is a Fink.
Jessica King & Julie Keck make films as King is a Fink Productions. Their work is characterized by emotional complexity, intriguing characters, and, often, unexpected and mischievous humor. Their primary goal: to tell stories that are at once familiar, uncomfortable, slightly demented, and unapologetically exhilarating. Their most recent projects include: the friendly fire documentary A SECOND KNOCK AT THE DOOR with 5414 Productions, which will be available on DVD no March 13, 2012; the web series I HATE TOMMY FINCH, available exclusively on tellofilms.com; a thriller they’re writing for an indie friend; and several new projects their developing with 5414 and tello. They’ll be speaking on panels at SXSW and the Chicago Documentary Summit this spring. Follow their Finky journey on Twitter and Facebook.
1. What you up to today?
The two of us (Julie Keck & Jessica King of King is a Fink Productions) are juggling multiple projects today. Julie’s to-do list includes website updates and promotion for the friendly fire documentary we made with 5414 Productions, A SECOND KNOCK AT THE DOOR, which comes out on DVD on 3/13. Jessica is finishing edits on a video we’re doing for the team behind the new Joffrey Ballet documentary. We also have to revise a treatment for a director we’re working with, and send out messages to actresses we’ve cast in our new web series for tello films, THE THROWAWAYS, a drama about homeless LGBT teens. All of this plus managing our social media sites, and one of us is under the weather to boot. No complaints here, though: we’d much rather be busy than bored.
2. How do you find the writing/film making process?
Sometimes we find it under a rock. Sometimes it drops right on our heads. Our process is pretty organic, and lately it has included other people. We used to make our short films for ourselves and by ourselves, and the best choice we’ve made in the past couple of years was to open up to working with other filmmakers. As a result, we’re able to get much more done, and we have the opportunity to have many scripts/projects produced at once, rather than just focusing on one. Our producers at tello films and 5414 productions, as well as several directors we’re working with, happen to work just as hard as we do, so this makes our teams that much more successful.
3. Have films influenced your work at all?
Well, sure! We both have a great love for movies. It’s essential, isn’t it, if you want to be in this business? Julie grew up on a steady diet of popular culture: Caddyshack, Animal House, ET, Dirty Dancing, the Brat Pack movies, and all that; Jessica swayed more toward Hitchcock and Howard Hawks. As a result, between the two of us we have a pretty expansive knowledge of what has come before.
4. Any films you have seen that have left a lasting impression on you?
Lately we’ve been paying attention to films with relatively small budgets that really pack a punch. We especially liked Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Disappearance of Alice Creed. And Let the Right One In, from a couple of years ago, still sticks with us. We thought it was just beautiful, the most powerful romance of the year. We’ve also been enthralled with stellar cable series this year. Just finished the most current season of Breaking Bad – great premise, great writing, great acting, great all around.
5. Is film school still important?
‘Still’ as compared to when? We all have fantasies about how our lives are going to go, but the only things that count are the things you actually do. Neither of us went to film school, but we might have gone when we’d been younger when we realized we wanted to do this. Of course, then we wouldn’t have had the life experiences we had which have shaped our unique perspectives. It’s always a personal journey, so there is no one right answer. Seems as though the access to top-notch equipment, the exposure to all parts (and roles) of the filmmaking process, and the connections you make with other people who like to do what you do (and might be able to help you down the line) are nothing to sneeze at, so if you have the time and the means, give film school a try. But avoid going into debt.
6. Anything you want to get off your chest right now?
One thing we’ve been talking about lately is the lost art of being charming. Social media is a big part of our promotional strategy (it’s how we met you, isn’t it?), but some people use it as a bullhorn or an online guilt-tripping tool, and we think this is a huge mistake. Whether you’re crowdfunding, promoting a project, or looking for advice, no one owes you anything, so you have to start each day thinking, “What can I do to entice, to entertain, to make today better for my fans/followers/audience?” In order to get someone to think you’re worth their attention, you have have to be worth their attention. So go charm their pants off!
Thanks!
Youngsters from across the UK today gathered at the BFI on London’s Southbank for the 2012 First Light Awards ceremony. Junior film-makers had the chance to walk the red carpet at the most prestigious young filmmakers’ event of the year alongside some famous faces including Dexter Fletcher, Will Poulter, Naomie Harris, Rafe Spall and Ralf Little.
The following winners were announced this afternoon:
Digital Innovation Award sponsored by Youtube – Winner: Witch, produced by Kristina Yee from Beaconsfield
Best Animation sponsored by Sony Pictures Entertainment – Winner: The Stammurai, produced by young people from a speech therapy group in Swindon with the help of eviltwin artworks
Best Documentary in association with The Grierson Trust – Winner: Homelessness, produced by WISH (Women in Supported Housing) from Manchester
Best Film by under-11s, in association with BAFTA Kids Vote – Winner: Granny Mac’s Meringues, produced by Burntisland Primary School from Scotland
Best Film by over 12s, sponsored by EON Productions – Winner: Death’s Apprentice, produced by students from Wymondham High School from Norfolk with the help of Creative Arts East
Best FILMCLUB, sponsored by FilmClub – Winner: Cardinal Newman High School from Belshill, Scotland
Audience Award 2012, in association with Pinewood – Winner: Beloved, produced by young people from Bath with the help of Suited and Booted Studios
Young Voice Award, sponsored by Smuggler – Winner: Silent Scream, produced by Integrate Bristol
Best Drama, sponsored by Ingenous – Winner: Broken Sleep produced by youngsters from North Lincolnshire’s Children’s Services and Shooting Fish Theatre company
First Light helps young people from all backgrounds develop skills, talent, creativity and confidence by giving them opportunities to create their own short films with the help of industry professionals. The films the young people create cover many topics and genres, and make use of today’s accessible digital technologies to tell their stories with them in control. The roles of cast and crew would have been undertaken by various members of the young people in the group. Each would have had the opportunity to write, act, shoot, direct, light, edit, produce and screen their own film.
The young filmmakers come from across the UK and a wide variety of social backgrounds and experiences – including those with refugee status, young offenders and those from deprived areas – with each filmmaker imparting a unique aspect of themselves into their films.
Barbara Broccoli, First Light Chair, remarked: ‘Filmmaking amongst young people across the UK has never been more popular. It is vitally important that young people from all backgrounds have a creative voice. The future of the British Film industry will benefit from the creative talents that have been nurtured by First Light and celebrated at the First Light Awards.’
Reviewing a Tarsem Singh film is always an interesting prospect as he creates incredible, visually enthralling movies, that are oddly paced, and usually have a harsh and/or violent edge to them that makes them difficult to access. Immortals is no different.
First thing first, this movie was obviously marketed very hard at people who enjoyed 300 – the “From the Producers of 300” tagline was almost as large as the title on the first one-sheet posters. I feel it could have done without that marketing, it was unavoidable due to the massive success of 300, but a Tarsem movie would really benefit from people not having that expectation. In fact I’m not surprised to learn that Tarsem tried to fight this comparison. But such is Hollywood.
I’m not going to compare Immortals to 300, I’m going to relate it to Tarsem’s previous two movies The Fall and The Cell, as well as on its own merits. Happily there’s plenty to talk about. The film is a visual treat – and I’m not just referring to a constantly half naked Henry Cavill (Theseus) or Luke Evans (Zeus)… Greek mythology is often a great treasure trove of complex or entertaining narratives, and it turns out that this borrows here, there, and everywhere from the Greek canon, perhaps a little too freely.
Tarsem creates overly elaborate set pieces, fights break out in villages carved out of ocean cliff tops, overly elaborate temples, a plethora of marble stairs or hallways, and all manner of other CGI creations. The principle cast are gorgeous, the Gods have been chosen because they are stunning actors (visually if not otherwise), Freida Pinto (who I recently reviewed in Trishna) plays the oracle Pheadra and I’ve already mentioned Cavill as the lead character of Theseus. Micky Rourke (who’s fantastic, but perhaps not a ‘looker’) is thrown in there as King Hyperion, the antagonist, but it’s OK he mostly acts from the shadows or wears a mask with lobster claws on top – something that given the wildly eccentric costume design seems perfectly natural.
And here is where we hit on the crux of the movie, it’s so visual and action centric that I can barely remember what actually happens. Hyperion is the antagonist, seemingly just wanting chaos and destruction by unleashing the Titans to fight the Gods of Olympus. Theseus is apparently the only one who goes to the gym enough to stand a chance of defeating him – it helps that Zeus has been hanging around in the body of John Hurt most of his life guiding him and presumably being his spotter on the bench-press.
So are visuals enough? I really enjoyed Tarsem’s The Fall because it was ludicrously surreal and also about tricking a girl into supplying the main character with morphine. The Cell, whilst featuring Jennifer Lopez in what was sadly not her first or last attempt at ‘acting’, was again marvellously eccentric; it was Salvador Dali meets Silence of the Lambs. Immortals has that visuality, if in slightly more muted colours (a move that screams of the aforementioned Producers’ desire to allude to a certain box office smash), but I didn’t enjoy the story half as much as his previous two movies.
Also, as built as Cavill is, he isn’t strong enough as an actor to carry the role of Theseus. There’s a cringe-worthy sequence where he ‘pumps up’ his army before battle that, if I watch the film again, will have to be skipped in future. But it’s followed directly by an amazing action sequence where he spears an enemy then snaps the spear to use again and repeats until the spear is a splinter. The Gods giveth and taketh away.
There’s a love scene between Theseus and Pheadra that probably only exists to offset the homo-erotic tension of having a cast of gym bunnies run around with barely anything on. There’s some fantastic slow-mo fighting action, an ability that thankfully is reserved for the Gods for once. And then there’s a marvellously ambiguous ending with a battle with hundreds of thousands of combatants floating in the sky. It looks and sounds like Tarsem for sure but I would have liked a bit more focus.
6 out of 10 – Beautiful, but just a demigod after all.
Immortals is available from March 5 on Blu-ray/DVD.