Film Flare

Film Flare's Film Diary 2013/24

Hello everyone,

 

It is Wednesday. Not Monday.

Sorry about that. 

But FFFD will still be great, even if it's two days late. I'm not trying to rap but the rhythm come easy. 

 

Let's go.

 

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

 

With her stock sky-high after The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow turned her lens towards the man hunt for Bin Laden. Armed with writer/producer Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker), Bigelow uses a similar style of filming and instead of telling the story of a technician who disarmes bombs, she told the story of the events leading up to the May 2011 assault on Bin Laden's compound.

When the film was released, there was a level of concern and criticism about the alleged access of secret and top secret CIA and governmental documents concerning the raid to provide research information fo Bigelow and the film makers. 

Certainly, the film plays it pretty hard and it seems very real. The characters as a whole are petty and flawed enough to be real, or at best, mildly exaggerated fictional versions of real people. This realism provides the film with a brutal level of intimacy with the characters and events, even if the characters have very few moments to develop depth. It's an odd film where the main character has almost no moments of great depth but instead is almost always shown as being an aggressive force against the beaurocracy and stupidity of other people. The main character (Maya) isn't allowed to show emotional weakness because it would undermine the very unpleasant nature and truth of her work. She's very good at being hard nosed and the character does have some nice moments that highlight just how forceful she can be but there are no moments of respite for her. Unlike Jeremy Renner's character in The Hurt Locker, there are no moments of calm and peace for her. It's just full throttle the whole time. The other surprising character is that of Dan, played by Jason Clarke. He's a real piece of shit who tortures and intimidates inmates and yet towards the end of the film actually ends up being of the least unpleasant characters in the film.

Which leads onto another point.

Torture.

Whilst only really present towards the start of the film. The film certainly pulls no punches in depicting water boarding, sensory deprivation and other 'enhanced interrogation techniques'. The fact that in the film, the torture of some inmates leads to valuable clues that inevitably lead to finding Bin Laden's compound is pretty obvious. Now, I don't want to get into some kind of debate about this, but I expect that in real life, such information may have been obtained the same way. Many people have said that the film is pro-torture but to be fair, they're hard scenes to watch.

 

The actual gathering and spy-like finding of people and information is the most thrilling part of the film and whilst the actual assault on the compound is tense, it lacks the sheer raw terror of, say, the sniper battle in The Hurt Locker because, to be fair, you know how it ends.

It's a good film. No doubt. Not as good as The Hurt Locker but keeping the quality of her films at a very, very high standard.

 

Trailer:

  

 

 

The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)

This Argentinian crime/thriller is really good. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, despite it's Oscar for best Foreign Language Film. The central premise of revisiting a horrific case that deeply affected several people it in itself not new.

What this film to make it stand out is to make the film unpredictable, shocking and to have some of the finest acting I've seen for ages.

Richardo Darin plays the central character, Benjamin Esposito, a retired federal agent looking to write a novel. Finding no inspiration, he decides to write it about a haunting case from twenty five years ago. The narrative then flicks back and forth between the two times. The idea isn't hugely original but it's so perfectly well executed here. 

Every time you think you have the story pegged, the film changes it up and confounds you. But it's not a film that relies on twists and turns, everything that happens on screen fits with what you know of the characters and what's happened. It doesn't try to be clever for no reason, it's an intelligent film with a great set of characters, a surprisingly witty script and a stunning direction.

And I mean that honestly, for the first time in years (and I mean years!) did I look at a shot in the film and go 'Wow!', there was one particular scene where it's just beautiful, technically amazing and thrilling.

 

The film is a fantastic foreign language thriller and it'll keep you enthralled until the very end. 

 

Trailer:

   

 

Tenuous Links Vol 2.

Yes, I'm still going on with this old thing.

 

If you don't remember, we left Tenuous Links at DOA: Dead or Alive. Remember?

 

Yeah, you remember!

Anyway, DOA: Dead or Alive was pretty critically mauled on release. Critic praised the look of the film but complained that the plot was wafer thin. However, the plot of the film actually pretty closely follows the plot of the game....even down to the volleyball scenes. Anyway, the scripwriter of this film is J. F Lawton.

This is a scriptwriter who has written an odd variety of film. One of his most famous scripts is the Steven Seagal film, Under Seige, the film where he wrote a strong, independant female character, who happen to be a seasick stripper. His other credits involve the frankly braindead Under Seige 2: Dark Territory, conspiracy theory-esque film Chain Reaction and weak sauce thriller The Hunted.

Oh, and he also wrote Pretty Woman.

What?

Yes, it turns out that J.F Lawton is responsible for creating one the most famous (and most profitable) romantic comedies ever. In fact, for writing the script for this film, J F Lawton received nominations for both a Writers Guild Award and a BAFTA. However, the individual who contributed to this film I'm most interested in is the composer of the original music, James Newton Howard.

 

James Newton Howard is a very prolific and famous film composer and we shall leave Vol 2. of Tenuous links here for now. So we've gone from rubbish martial arts film to one of the most famous film composers of our time.

 

See you next time (hopefully complete with rubbish pun title!)

Monsters University review

It's Pixar time again.

The animated wunderhaus that released some of my favourite films (The Incredibles, Up) has unleashed a prequel to the seminal Monsters Inc. Certainly, the effect of Pixar on my consciousness is such that I pretty much grade any animated film now as being 'the best non-Pixar animated film I've seen'.

I've been looking forward to this for some time.

 

 

This is a really, really cute film. It doesn't rank up there alongside the Pixar greats, where I would place the film's predecessor Monsters. Inc, but it was great fun.

I'm actually going to start out with what I felt was the reason that this film doesn't quite live up to Monsters. Inc. I feel once I get these few points out of the way, I can then concentrate on the many things that the film does right.

Firstly. The originality of the first film has gone. The film realises it cannot just re-hash the same material so Monsters University is a pretty normal college comedy film, it just so happens that it contains monsters. The fraternity competition is there, the harsh dean, the supportive lecturer, all characters well known in the genre. But they're monsters. Despite this however, the film manages to circumvent this through sheer enjoyment and imagination with the monsters themselves and the world they inhabit.

Secondly. No Boo!

One of the main reasons that Monsters Inc. worked so well was that apart from the great characters of Mike and Sully, Boo provided so much heart, laughs and sad moments that her absense just can't fill. Monsters University never quite manages to reach the same emotional heights that Monsters Inc. had and I believe that the lack of a character like Boo is the sole reason behind this.


So what does the film get right?

 

Well, Billy Crystal (Mike) and John Goodman (Sully) are still perfect in their vocal roles. Somehow sounding younger in this film than in Monsters Inc., they both still infuse the two characters with huge amounts of charm, humour and emotion. The animators must also get their credit here too by giving both characters expressive faces, especially Mike. His smile is so sweet, earnest and optimistic, it's a joy to watch.

The other characters are also really well done, all of the members of Oozma Kappa are sweet and have some really funny moments. Special mention must go to Charlie Day, who provided the vocal talent for the character Art.

He is responsible for some of the funniest moments of the film and whilst every laugh he's played for doesn't always work, many of the genuinely funny moments of the film involve him at some point.

The film is also so bright and colourful. Pixar love their bright, vivid colours and with realism out of the way, the animators saturate the screen with bright greens, red, purples, blues. It's a lovely film to watch. The story itself really suprised me as well. It's not a complex plot by any means but at several points, I was wondering how the film was going to resolve to where Monsters Inc. started.  

 

So it's not as good as Monsters Inc. for sure. But it is still a bright, colourful, funny and really enjoyable film. And it's still as good as most non-Pixar animated film's I've seen.

 

Trailer:

  

Film Flare's Film Diary 2013/23

Considering I'm usually flinging out one solitary entry a week in the shape of FFFD, I'm happy to report that the last week or two has been what I would consider hyper-productive.

I've literally been eroding the keys on my keyboard bringing you fine folk film reviews, FFFD entries, Tenuous Links (work in progress) and random nuggets of text. Of course, if anyone has any ideas about what to write about or if any particular reviews or entries resonated, please let me know and I'll try to accommodate them more into my work.

 

But for now. FFFD. 

And it's a pretty naff film which for some inexplicable reason I really enjoy. Like eating Sainsbury's own brand pork pies. You know it's rubbish and probably bad for your health, but dammit, you just don't care.

Product placement!

 

Hard Rain (1998)

 

 

This bizarre little film stars Morgan Freeman in one of his more unlikable roles, animated puppet Christian Slater and The Most Irritating Woman Alive (tm) Minnie Driver.

It's a film that was produced by so many companies (BBC, Marubeni, Mutual Film Company, Nordisk Film, Paramount Pictures, Polygram Filmed Entertainment, Toho-Towa and Union Generale Cinematographique) that it's any wonder that the film's run time isn't spent entirely on the opening credits.

But it doesn't and the plot of the film soon leaps into action.

 

Christian Slater is Tom (just Tom), an armoured drunk driver carrying a bumload of cash gets caught up in the worst flood in recorded history. That's why the film is called Hard Rain, because it rains hard. Anyway, Morgan Freeman has plans to rob the truck but it all goes wrong and Tom wades away with the money and hides it. We get introduced to the sheriff, Randy Quaid quite early on too. I can only imagine he must have been given scuba diving gear whilst shooting because the whole town is quickly submerged but he STILL manages to chew scenery so much you expect him to fall into a diabetic coma.

So the film is a really odd mix of crime/action/disaster film. The action is pretty well done and the disaster part is pretty well done too, with lots of collateral damage. Director Mikael Salomon manages to keep everything running pretty fast and the effects are certainly impressive.

 

It's just a real pity that the script is SO bad. Literally, terrible. Actors who have been in some of the finest roles I've seen (Slater: True Romance, Freeman: Se7en) are left floundering in inconsistent narrative, bad scripting and plot holes. The film is almost on the 'so bad it's good' scale but the sense of humour is forced and falls so flat on it's face. 

 

So why do I like the film?

 

I'll be honest. I don't know.

Even in terms of pointless action film, it isn't really great. The flooded town provides a novel setting and the idea of driving speedboats through stained glass windows for a gunfight in church is so WTF that it just is funny.

 

The film is simple, the characters have no time to be complex. It's like pantomime. You may as well screech 'Look Out! He's Behind You!' every time Randy Quaid slithers onto the screen.

I think it's because I caught it long, long ago on the BBC late one night and it was one of the first times I was up late enough to watch something like this the whole way through. I've watched it several times on DVD and always found it enjoyable. But everyone I've ever shown it to, saying 'It's rubbish, but fun.' have clawed their own eyes out and used the optic nerve to scribe their last will and testament on the carpet.

 

I don't know why.

 

Trailer:

  

 

Pacific Rim review

As the Film Diary entry on Monday may have suggested, I am a big fan of Guillermo Del Toro and pretty much every film he has made. 

However, his most recently released film, Pacific Rim, is about huge robots fighting monsters....and that's about it. Whilst the reviews have actually been pretty good, the general consensus I've heard is that it's major grade bollocks for twelve year old boys. So I decided to take my twelve year old self down to the cinemateque to find out for myself.

 

Here's what I found:

 

 

This was an interesting film.

Interesting because I could see so many influences from other films and genres present. You have noticeable nods to anime, godzilla, Top Gun, Transformers, previous Del Toro films and huge blockbuster films like Independance Day and War of the World.

And it was a good, fun film.

I was expecting a bright, colourful action film with minimal story and pathetic characters. Instead, what I got was a bright, colourful, epic action film with minimal story and reasonable characters.

 

First of all, the colour palette. 

It looks incredible, the deepest blues, the neon of Hong Kong, the lighting. All incredible. The scenes indoors in Hong Kong reminded me most of Hellboy 2 with the oranges and reds present. The film looks like live action Manga and that works to the film's advantage because it keeps everything from becoming too dour, somber and moody. 

 

Akira: Tokyo

 

Pacific Rim: Hong Kong

 

And aside from the colour palette, the other huge nod to Del Toro's back catalogue is the design of the Kaiju themselves. Looking much like steroid pumped Hellboy rejections, these monsters are huge, varied, capable of massive destruction and provide perfect opponents to the man made Jaegers.

And the Jaegers themselves are hugely impressive feats of CGI. Constantly reminding us of the sheer, implausible scale of the them is a consistent joy whilst watching the film and each of the few that appear on screen are varied and recognisable. 

 

When the action does start, it is massive. Hugely impressive but there are some points I really want to make about the action scenes and it directly contradicts the action scenes in Man of Steel, because they're pretty similar in terms of scope and collateral damage.

Firstly, Del Toro makes an effort to show the streets and worlds emptied of people before the Kaiju go apeshit on land. They're all in shelters and so when the Jaeger and the Kaiju fight and buildings are going over and entire areas are getting destroyed, there's no mass killing of people. In Man of Steel, everyone is caught up the catastrophe and you assume that the death toll must be in the hundreds of thousands.

Secondly, when Superman and Zod smash the hell out of each other, there's no threat, no danger. It's just punch, punch, fly through building, smash into the ground. Boom Boom Boom without any sense that they're doing any damage to each other. In Pacific Rim, the pilots gets battered around, cut up, bloodied. They're in danger! It's a small point but it makes the fights in Pacific Rim much more gripping and intense.

 

 

And this partially works because of the characters and the cast. They're not original, hugely complex and most of them are little more than decoration but they serve their purpose and some actually stand out as being good fun. Idris Elba is pretty damn good as the gruff, mysterious commanding office. Charlie Hunnam is fine as the washed up pilot given a second chance. Rinko Kikuchi is great as the potential love interest. They're not new takes on original characters but they're done well here. 

So it is left to the story to fall flat. The whole 'mind drifting' idea was clearing created as a potentially novel way to introduce character drama and interaction between characters but the whole idea never quite hits, despite the pseudo-scientific jargon around the idea. And the whole reason for the Kaiju being there is underwhelming for sure, them being there provides the conflict but the explanation is weak. There are also pretty big plot holes and stupid decisions that get made by the characters don't ruin the film, but it's certainly no where near as clever as it means to be.

 

All in all. I got what I expected. It's like Del Toro looked at Transformers and Godzilla and thought "Hey, I can do better than that." and he did better than them.

Good fun.

 

Trailer:

 

 

 

Tenuous D and the Link of Destiny

Hello, and welcome to another Film Flare entry.

In my anniversary entry last week, I mentioned that in my previous blog I tried something called 'Only Built 4 Tenuous Linx' for music. I liked the idea and therefore, I am transferring it over to Film Flare.

The terrible pun on Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny is purely for this entry only, I'm scouring my brains to find a better pun for the next time I do this. The purpose of this isn't so much to link actors to various films, instead, to focus more on screenwriters, cinematographers, effects companies and the like. Hopefully expanding my own knowledge of film as well as yours.

 

So, where to start?

Well, since the initial starting point was with an album by Raekwon, it would be a tenuous link to start at fellow Wu Tang Clan member, RZA.

 

Apart from being core Wu Tang Clan member and exceptional music producer and quality lyricist, RZA (real name Robert Diggs) had also made several contribtions to the world of cinema. Afrom contributing to soundtracks for films like Kill Bill Vol 1, and acting in films like Coffee and Cigarettes and American Gangster, it is only recently he has directed his debut film, The Man With The Iron Fists.

 

 

Starring a slew of talent like Lucy Lui, Russell Crowe and Rick Yune, the film is a highly inventive and visual feast. Produced by cult favourite Eil Roth who also co-wrote the film, it is an homage to kung fu films and looks like a hyperactive Kill Bill Vol 1. Add to this the fact that the film looks incredible thanks to a bright colour palette and visual flair and it looks like the film is a solid slice of exaggerated fun. The colour and visual style is heavily influenced by cinematographer, Chi Ying Chan.

 

 Besides from The Man With The Iron Fists, Chi Ying Chan has either been a cinematographer or a director of photography for such films as Toyko Raiders and Beach Spike, both noted for a striking visual style. However, the film in question I'm going to link to is DOA: Dead or Alive...and not just because of the film's poster.

 

 

And we'll leave it there for now. From RZA to DOA: Dead or Alive, via cinematographer Chi Ying Chan.

Film Flare's Film Diary 2013/22

A fine Monday and welcome one and all.

To coincide with the release of Pacific Rim, I decided to revisit some of Guillermo Del Toro's vibrant back catalogue of films. Not the creepy Chronos, or the beautiful Pan's Labyrinth, not the atmospheric The Devil's Backbone or the kinetic Blade 2.

No, this is a pair of films about a boy from hell.

....

 

Hellboy (2004) 

 

Oh yes! Guillermo Del Toro's take on the charming Mike Mignola is itself a stunning piece of work. Easily one of the most underrated 'superhero' films out there, Hellboy is charming, thrilling and beautiful.

I don't know who suggested Ron Perlman for Hellboy (although Perlman and Del Toro have collaborated frequently in the past) but it was a master stroke of casting. His Hellboy looks fantastic, and Perlman brings a charm to a very unusual role, he's an alpha male who just so happen to not fit in. It's not a new idea but it's done extremely well considering Hellboy is a demon with filed down horns and hand made of stone.

 

And whilst the character of Hellboy dominates the screen, the acting of Doug Jones as Abe Sapien is also noteworthy. Again, the level of prosthetics and practical effects to achieve Abe Sapien is really impressive and Doug Jones manages to act through all the makeup to create another memorable character. The same level of kudos must go to the creatures who appears several times, both the CGI and practical effects are of a really high standard and the actual design of the monsters is memorable and inventive.  And I hate to harp on about it but Karl Ruprecht Kroenen is a wonderfully designed, eerie looking character. The design of the characters are of a really high standard throughout.

Add the this the human characters, who are well written, touching and charming. I've rarely seen Selma Blair in something better than she is here and John Hurt is wonderful as the fatherly Professor Broom.

 

The story of the film isn't the strongest element to the film but it strings together the action scenes and allows Del Toro and his cinematographer, Guillermo Navarro to fill the screen with brilliant colours, gothic images and stunning vistas.  

It's a wonderful looking film that really works because of the humour and charm present. It would have been impossible for such a film to work if it wasn't aware of how outlandish it was and embrace it willingly.

 

Great film!

Trailer (complete with Dimmu Borgir music):

 

 

 

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (2008)

 

In terms of Del Toro's catalogue chronology, Hellboy 2 falls after completion of Pan's Labyrinth. It shows. Hellboy 2 is rich with the visual flair and outlandish creatures even more than the first film was.

Scenes like the secret market are full of the kind of creatures that inhabit the grotesque fairy tale of Pan's Labyrinth. Again, Hellboy is back and this film is on par with the first, I am happy to say.

The plot this time is far removed from the secret Nazi scientists of the first film and instead goes all out with Elves, Trolls and their unease peace with humans. The Golden Army of the film's title is a weapon whose trigger was split between the different races, a bit like The Lord Of The Rings.

Again Ron Perlman is just perfect as Hellboy. I couldn't imagine ANYONE doing as good a job as Perlman, especially when it comes to the humour and the emotional heart, which he delivers despite the heavy makeup.

The film is larger, more action packed and noisier but I found it lacked some of the heart found in the first film, most probably provided by John Hurt's character who is in this film for very little. Selma Blair's character of Liz has more to do this time round and she revels in it, getting some great lines and some great scenes. The villain of this film is much more emotionally involving than Rasputin but is generally less interesting than a world ending made Russian magician and his clockwork Nazi sadist.

The film continues with the surprisingly tender moments mixed in with action and whilst the final scenes actually involving the Golden Army is the most impressive (with a nice fixation of steampunk), it lacks the heart of an earlier scene involving an Elemental, which is sad, thrilling and utterly beautiful.

Scenes like that show why Del Toro can make these films work. He find an endearing humanity in very unlikely characters and in Hellboy, he has a very normal person who just so happens to be a demon who is supposed to bring about the end of the world. Again, Del Toro teams up with Guillermo Navarro and the film looks fantastic again, the greater roster of monsters doesn't diminish the film from the heart and the story. 

All in all, a very cool, fun pair of superhero films. NOW HURRY UP AND MAKE HELLBOY 3!

 

Trailer:

 

World War Z review (no braaaaaiinnnnssssss!)

I mean no spoilers. Of course. No spoilers.

Here we go...

 

 

After a convoluted production, the film based on the Max Brooks novel of the same has finally hit the screen. In true Film Flare style, I've seen the film a few weeks after release and most the reviews have already hit the web.

Time to weigh in with my thoughts.

 

I really liked this film.

It was the perfect mix of intimate intensity, emotion and absolute, terrifying spectacle.

 

Directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace, Monster's Ball), and starring Brad Pitt, the film deals with a zombie outbreak on a global scale and the attempts to find the source and cure.

Certainly, the film is barely ten minutes young when it all kicks off. We're quickly introduced to Gerry Lane (Pitt), his wife (Mireille Enos) and their children and then the outbreak begins. Certainly the difference between this film and almost any other zombie film preceding it is scale. It is a LARGE scale film, the CGI is used incredibly effectively for portraying thousands of zombies at a time.

It is this that creates the intensity. The sheer numbers and volume of the zombies overwhelm and the film certainly has fun with the large scale scenes and the behaviour of these creatures. There are a few times where the sheer scale of the events on the screen is awesome in the very literal sense of the word, you are in awe. 

 

This scale is impressive on a technical level but it's even more impressive that Marc Forster, Brad Pitt and scriptwriters (initially J. Michael Straczynski, then later Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof for re-writes) manage to find the human story and relationships amid all the mayhem. Certainly the supporting cast provide compelling roles, special mention must be made to Daniella Kertesz as an Israeli soldier.

 

The humanity of the story helps to fuel the tension for the other kind of 'zombie' scenes, which are the quieter, scarier type of scenes which don't feature as many zombies. Is it here that the pacing (and scale) are dimmed down hugely. The film doesn't stop to a halt, but the tone of the third half of the film is certainly slower than the rest of the film. Apparently, it was here that the rewrites and re-shooting had their main impact on the film. It's a noticeable shift in the overall tone of the film which actually is quite welcome for one main reason.

 

There is no way they could have gone bigger than scenes earlier in the film. They don't try to outdo the earlier scenes in scale or number of zombies present, instead, it shifts the tension much more to the characters and I found it works. I could imagine that people could have disappointed with the lack of 'bang' at the end of the film but for me, it worked. 

The film has a few really nice touches in there as well, nice actions the characters take that seem very honest and real as well as you hear about some countries reactions to the outbreak which make sense.

 

Now, it is most certainly true to say that the film differs from the book. That is a fact. The book deals with World War Z as a series of interviews from people important to the event itself, separate narratives and so on. The film has a single narrative path, beginning, middle, end, and only really following Gerry Lane throughout the events. However, I found the film to be a superior zombie film as well as a stunning (and intense) action picture.

The point was also made afterwards that whilst it has scary moments and is very intense, it is light on actual gore. Certainly the usual zombie cliche of some guy graphically getting eaten alive is not present. The film certainly isn't a 15 for explicit violence but the general tone of the film is not only intense, but pretty bleak too(I don't often mention the film's rating in my reviews btw).

 

Anyway, really enjoyed the film. Would easily watch again.

 

Trailer:

 

 

Film Flare's Film Diary 2013/21

And a good evening to everyone here.

It's a monday and I haven't broken my fingers so it must be time for another FFD entry, detailing the films I've been watching. You know, just in case anyone cares!

Been a quiet old week for film for me I'm afraid.

Well, I'm not really afraid, but you know.....

 

In The Loop (2009)

Well this is a depressing comedy film.

It's funny, it is so so, painfully funny. 

But it is so depressing.

 

How can this be? Have I finally got schizo bi-polar as many may have suspected?

No!

(no!)

 

Based on, and written by the team behind the equally funny (and depressing) The Thick of It, In the Loop used many of the same actors and actresses in different roles from the TV show. The only identical character is Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker, surely a legendary comic creation, alongside Eric Cartman. Like Cartman, Malcolm Tucker is a piece of shit, a real scheming, aggressive piece of work who yet you have a shred of sympathy for because the world he inhabits is so inept, so ugly that he feels he's the only one who knows what he is doing.

It is a towering performance from Capaldi that no other actor in the film can match, not even James Gandolfini as a Senior Military Advisor to the US Secretary of Defense.

 

The plot of the film is why the film is depressing. It deals with the U.S and the U.K possibly starting a war in the Middle East (topical much?) and the characters behind the scenes either trying to prevent or promote the war.

And....it's terrifying. It's depressing because it's probably not too far off how these kind of decisions are made. Minus the slick script of course. It's probably single minded, petty individuals who happen to be in positions of power and that's it, talking about numbers of casualties and costs.

Much like the television show, the film is filmed in a documentry fashion. The 'cinema verite' style in the films works really well as dispelling glamour. If you consider shots of The West Wing, the static camera gives consistent framing, zoom and placement of characters on the screen. The handheld camera sweeps, focuses and makes the whole thing a lot less glamerous, but a quicker, faster world.

 

The script is a real star of the show, fully of language (a lot of language) and superbly quick insults, one liners and little disposable jokes. The cast have had enough practise from The Thick of It to speak quickly but without losing people in the words.

 

It's a great film. But Jesus, if you want to see how a war probably starts, this is it.

 

Trailer:

 

 

Special 125th entry

Hello and welcome,

 

This is the 125th Film Flare entry and I really didn't want it to be a Film Diary entry.

So I'd thought I'd pour out all 150 ml of brains and let you all know what's been gwanin.

 

 

I've been writing blogs since September 2009. It was at a time after graduating from university and I was trying to find work, it was started initially as something productive to do. I was spending my time applying for jobs and playing World of Warcraft. Being on the dole, I couldn't afford to go out, take the train to friends or anything social like that.

Blogging was something creative, fun and educational. My first blog was Audio Flare and dealt with music. I was going to write about films but having enough free time to dedicate to research, I thought there was capacity to learn much more about music by writing about music. There was, it was a hugely enjoyable experience. All the way from talking about some of my favourite bands like Iron Maiden right down to emailing some kid in Canada whose music I liked and getting samples sent back. 

There was an odd style to my Audio Flare entries, you could tell I wrote them but they seem more lively, random and varied. I was taking blog titles from literature and films I liked and you had no real idea of what was going on in my head (or ears!).

But, the inevitable happened and I got myself employed. Hooray!

 

But suddenly my 1000 word entries that would come out two or three times a week started to slow down and shorten. I couldn't keep up the pace because a) I had much less free time and b) I got home exhausted and couldn't bring myself to write. My Audio Flare blog still had the odd entries here and there but nothing routine. My last few entries would appear a week or two apart, then a month and then they stopped.

One of the last Audio Flare entries was an idea that came to me called 'Only Built 4 Tenuous Linx' (A thinly veiled reference to the classic Raekwon album 'Only Built 4 Cuban Linx). The general idea was to have two or three songs in an entry and have each song linked by something, a guest vocalist, the same producer, something like that. The overall idea being each 'episode' of OB4TL would have mentioned the links and then had the songs there to listen to.

I only managed to do one episode before I stopped Audio Flare, the date: 06/08/11.

 

I decide, for my New Year's Resolution to do something I could do, and would enjoy. So I says to myself "Mr. Flare (for that is my name), why don't you try in one year to write as many entries for Audio Flare as you managed in it's entire lifespan?" I had written 77 entries.

But I thought back to how much actual non-writing time the larger/more detailed entries took and thought also that it's been nearly 4 or 5 months and all my ranking for Audio Flare had gone back to 1. So I decided to start a new blog, dealing with my originally dreamt up topic of films. I cunningly named it Film Flare.

 

So maybe you were wondering why all my Film Flare entries were simply numbered as titles? It's because I could easily see that I had surpassed the figure. Since January this year, I've felt that this wasn't needed anymore so went back to naming my entries pretty normal names.

And still I go on. My output varies week by week, month by month as Audio Flare's output did but I didn't have the idea of a weekly entry which I (more or less) adhere to. 

Since then, people have looked at my work or heard about it and offered me to write pieces about video games, reviews of films and music and even articles detailing holiday guides for people with disabilities.

 

I still enjoy it. And I will continue to enjoy it. I don't how long Film Flare will go on for, how long I can keep it running but I certainly have no reason or urge to stop. And even if it does stop, I'm sure I can make some other stupid arse X-Flare blog about something else.

 

And blogging is still an odd thing to do. You're reading my views and opinions. You may agree with them, you may not, but you take the time and effort to read them (if you got this far, congratulations btw!). 

 

So just a little piece about blogging, my history with it and what it's done for me.

I hope it informs you a little more about this anonymous man sat somewhere with a screen, a keyboard and a huge collection of DVDs.

 

See you all tomorrow with entry number 126, FFFD! 

Bye!