Loving Fight Club

It's no secret I love both the film Fight Club and breaking those sacred first and second rules too. Most recently I want to share with you all the piece I wrote for To the Escape Hatch who kindly invited me over to contribute to their regular Favourite Scene Friday. Of course I chose the final scene of Fight Club. If you haven't seen the film then best to give most of what I write about Fight Club a miss but if you have then please head on over to the Hatch to check out why the final scene of Fight Club is my favourite scene.

I'm spending the next nine weeks teaching about this single film to my A2 Film Studies students so this couldn't have been published at a better time. For those interested or intrigued at how we can spend nine weeks, that's nine hour and a half long lessons talking about just this one film, this is how I kind of break it down though there is some overlap:

1. Jack /Tyler Durden – the meaning and significance of this split person
2. A progressive film or a deeply reactionary one?
3. The representation of modern urban and corporate life
4. The representation of masculinity and its threats
5. Is Marla as a representative of women an object of scorn? Is it misogynistic?
6. Managing the spectator’s identification and sympathies
7. Distinctive stylistic features and the look of the film
8. Motifs and their function
9. The social and cultural context of production
10. Critical and popular responses to the film

I've written plenty more about Fight Club in the past and I've no doubt that I'll be writing plenty more about it in the future so I'm going to compile all my Fight Club related posts in this one post from now on. I've just started reading 'Studying Fight Club' by Mark Ramey and published by Auteur so that should also give me more reasons to break those all-important two first rules.

Loving the use of The Pixies' Where is my Mind?' in the final scene at Filmoria

Fight Club: Worryingly the movie that most influenced my life at Inspired Ground

Fight Club: Best film of the 1990's

This is just purely about why I love Fight Club.

Why Fight Club is one of the best examples of a book adaptation.

Is Fight Club a film about power and control rather than liberation?

Like I said, I'm sure there will be more to come so I'll update this post as I write more. Thanks for reading and do feel free to share your thoughts on Fight Club in the comments below!

Teaching Children Good Communication

This has nothing to do with films but I just joined the Yahoo Contributor Network and have had my first article pulished on it today. The article is about teaching children to speak properly in class rooms and not allowing them to use their street slang speak at inappropriate times.

The Yahoo Contributor Network looks like a really fun thing to get involved with and looks like it might actually pay for articles being published. I only just joined and they sent out a call for articles based around the idea of children in schools needing to be taught the correct ways of speaking so they would have better employment prospects in the future.

As I'm a teacher and I always have to put up with kids strolling into my class and saying 'WhaGwan?' and saying 'safe' to me instead of thanks, I get a little frustrated with it. It's not like we're living in an Attack the Block kind of hood where the kids walk in 'tooled up' so I don't know where they get the idea that this language is acceptable in the classroom. I don't even know where they hear this language unless it's just films and TV?

Anyway I wrioe this article and I hope it doesn't make me sound like a total snob but I just want kids to be able to know the difference between when they can and should use slang and when they need to speak a bit more formally.

Click on the title of the article below to be magically transported there:

Why there is ‘nowt’ wrong with teaching children to speak proper English

I do hope you enjoy it and don't think I sound like a total snob. Your comments are always welcome either here or there or anywhere you like. I'd loved to hear your opinion on the matter!

Team America Soundtrack

One of my favourite soundtracks of all time has to be the incredibly funny and actually very listenable Team America soundtrack. Every track is hilarious and demonstrates the South Park creators knack for making great music and skillful and silly lyric writing. From the classic but I suppose 'mildly' racist 'I'm So Ronery' to the savagely satirical 'Everyone Has Aids' and bombastic ironic patriotism of 'America, Fuck Yeah' this soundtrack is full of so many great songs that I'm saddened it didn't get nominated for Oscars.

It's a soundtrack with a bit of everything from power ballads to a homage to montages of the 80s. The lyrics are always spot on and there is even a song about how much Pearl Harbour sucked. Now that's something we can surely all agree on.

I was just thinking about the funniest sex scene ever and I had to go and listen to the wonderfully silly 'Only a Woman'. Then I worried that there might be people out there that hadn't had the pleasure of Team America yet. And if not then you would not have heard any of these classic songs. So thank me later for introducing or re-introducing you to these silly, catchy, clever little dittys. Are they ever going to make a sequel to Team America? Enjoy!













And before you go, if you missed the uncut version of the already pretty filthy sex scene, check the video out below. But be warned there's a reason the MPAA forced Parker and Stone to trim this scene before release. I feel a little dirty just sharing it here but I guess this is how the director intended it to be seen. Call me immature but it still makes me giggle!


Team america - uncensored puppet sex scene by sutter-cane

Warm Bodies Review @Static Mass Emporium

Based on the novel by Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies is the story of a zombie falling in love with a girl in a post-apocalyptic future.

My full review of Warm Bodies is over at Static Mass Emporium and you can read it by clicking here.

On a very personal note, this film was always going to be an extremely hard sell for me. Though I love it when people do something different with tired old genre conventions; making a zombie who learns to talk, fall in love and even has to wear make up was just a bit too much for me to take I'm afraid.

I felt the film had a fundamentally flawed idea at its beating heart that simultaneously subverts conventions while also taking much of the brains. It would take a lot for me to get passed the idea that a zombie can fall in love. It's a frustrating film because I'm very conflicted about it. On the one hand, the zombie voiceover is quite funny but on the other hand, it makes no sense that the zombie has thought processes so well articulated. It's an original and intriguing idea that a zombie can fall in love but on the other hand, it's a fundamentally silly idea. But then again, I guess zombies are a silly idea full stop.

 I guess it all comes down to whether you can stand the idea of a zombie falling in love. If you can stomach that, Warm Bodies should be a winner and you can could it another star. If on the other hand, zombies with feelings fill you with rage like one of the 28 Days Later infected, you’ll be running for the exit of the cinema and vomiting blood before the film gets a chance to win you over. Warm Bodies isn’t bad at all; it just takes serious liberties with a well-loved sub-genre.

Please check out my full review of Warm Bodies over at Static Mass Emporium.

What did you think of Warm Bodies? Seems like its getting quite a lot of love to me so I'm curious to hear others thoughts.

Watch the trailer below:

Evidence of Good Found Footage

It seems I swim through a lot of crap to get to some decent found footage horror these days. Evidence is I'm please to announce pretty damn good low budget horror. It starts off like a hundred others in the genre. Four friends are going for a camping trip and one of them wants to make a documentary. So far so blah blah blah. There's the requisite flash of boobs and a quick lesbian kiss to keep easily amused folk happy and then it starts descending into sub-Blair Witch arguments over why the cameraman is still filming and what are those noises in the night.

Some of the group want to go home, Ryan the budding documentary maker is getting just what he wants; some good footage of his friends freaking out for his documentary. They set up camp, drink, argue, spot a quick glimpse of a strange black creature and hear scary sounds while sitting round the campfire. Then predictably one goes missing. This is the point where so many found footage films fall apart with endless poorly lit scenes where you have little idea of what is going on except that people are running, screaming and scared. Their phones don't work, their RV is vandalised and they are stuck. Then another of their number goes missing and Evidence takes a wonderful turn towards the WTF!?

To say any more would be to spoil it but I actually found the rest of Evidence very enjoyable. The stuff before was ok and not nearly as annoying as other found footage examples. The latter parts still have a lot of running aimlessly and screaming but what it is the remaining characters are running and screaming from and about is brilliant. It's ludicrous of course but so was The Cabin in the Woods and that's vaguely what this reminded me of. It throws everything at the screen and looks pretty great despite the low budget. The characters lose out in all the running and its a shame that the found footage format suffers because so much time is spent not seeing the characters' faces or giving them a chance to breathe.

On the other hand this gets very exciting and kept me guessing what the hell was going on right till the very end. As usual  for found footage it barely fills its 75 minute running time but it is inventive, a little scary and completely bonkers. I recommend seeking out Evidence if you're a fan of this sort of thing. I even hope they make a sequel.

Check out the trailer:

The Death of Found Footage? Looking at Lovely Molly

In my continuing quest to see every damn bit of found footage horror that exists, I have subjected myself to another pair today, Lovely Molly and Evidence. Lovely Molly is the return to found footage horror of one of the directors of The Blair Witch Project, Eduardo Sanchez. Like REC 3 and End of Watch it goes down the route of only using found footage when it feels like it rather than constantly. I keep wondering if this is the death of found footage or merely an adaptation that will keep the sub-genre alive and kicking.

With other genres dabbling in found footage from End of Watch to Chronicle and Project X, and REC 3 deciding to kill its camera operator off in the first 20 minutes of the film, it feels like the stale stuff is being kicked aside and the found footage technique is being rediscovered in a way.

Lovely Molly has a protagonist who uses a video camera to capture what she is seeing when things start going bump in the night. It opens with our heroine Molly apologising to camera and trying to kill herself. It then flashes back to video footage of her wedding and then the diegetic camera device is used sparingly throughout. Molly often films things and we see her footage but much of the film is cinematic and ditches the technique. It works well switching between devices but the video camera scenes are slightly redundant.

Molly is one mixed up Mrs it seems and what she is seeing is not exactly what we are all seeing. Her husband Tim bares the brunt of her strange behaviour and the film has some deeply disturbing ideas. It's never too scary but as a study of a woman dinsintegrating when she should be enjoying newlywed bliss, it is pretty horrible. The insinuations of what is going on with Molly and why are pretty nasty and its a shame its not handled a little more sympathetically. But then again this is horror and its supposed to be scary not too sympathetic.

Its a shame it doesn't build to a bit of a bigger climax and the very ending is all a bit Paranormal Activity inspired for my liking. However it shows that Eduardo Sanchez still has a future in horror and his upcoming slate includes a slot in VHS sequel S-VHS and another found footage horror about Bigfoot called Exists.

So I guess that means its definitely not the death of found footage just yet then.

Here's the trailer:

I Give it a Year Review @Static Mass

Predictably plotted like the most generic of rom-coms, you’re likely to see the end of I Give It A Year sign posted clearly very early on. It’s a major flaw with 99% of romantic comedies but when the rocky road of Nat and Josh’s relationship is this funny and charming, you won’t mind the pre-destined narrative so much.

As a newly married man, the increasing number of films that show marriages in crisis, partners constantly belittling and battling each other and couples that decide to call it quits after many years of matrimony, it’s a frightening and bleak look at what can become of couples not meant to spend their lives together and hopefully not what all couples who spend too much time together will become.

Taking awkward comedy to new levels of cringe worthiness, I Give It A Year will make you squirm in your seat more than a Saw film. Give it ninety minutes of your life.

Read my full review of I Give it a Year over at Static Mass Emporium by clicking here.

Here's the trailer:

That was Rafe Spall in Shaun of the Dead?

Am I the last person to realise this? Rafe Spall was in Shaun of the Dead as possibly/maybe the first guy I think to say 'you got red on you' to Shaun. Man he's changed in the last 8/9 years. I swear he had rocking abs in I Give it a Year which I reviewed here (the film, not his abs). Still it just shows he had comedy in his bones right from the start. He's also just been confirmed for a cameo in At World's End after his small roles in Shaun and Hot Fuzz so that's a nice bit of news. That makes two things I've learned today.

Also I've just had four reviews published on Filmoria today so if any of these take your fancy, head on over and give them a read:

Chile's Oscar nominated No starring Gael García Bernal

The Fall of the Essex Boys

And a pair of Mario Bava's film re-released on Blu-ray and DVD:

Black Sunday

Lisa and the Devil

Did you know that this was Rafe Spall or is this shocking to anyone else?

Hitchcock Review

Inviting comparisons to Psycho is never going to help a movie. Making a movie about one of the greatest film directors in history is not going to guarantee you a great movie either. With Hitchcock, director Sacha Gervasi is aiming high but also cruising for a bruising. Despite stars Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren and an almost never sweeter Scarlett Johannson, Hitchcock is overall not as suspenseful as a film about the master of suspense should be.

While Hopkins does a pretty good Hitchcock, it is far from one his best performances. Mirren fares better with her loving and loyal wife Alma being the revelation of the story, both in performance and narrative positioning. Hitchcock is the story of how Psycho got made. Taking us from the success of North By Northwest to the premiere of Psycho and detailing both the personal and professional problems Hitchcock faced in getting the film made.

It has some wonderfully weird additions. Ed Gein (the inspiration for Psycho) repeatedly showing up to toy with Hitchcock is effective at the start but eventually fails to maintain interest. However it does make me wonder what Gervasi could do with a horror film as the production design of the scenes featuring Gein are great. Hitchcock talks to us in the audience at a couple of moments as he did in his trailers occasionally adding an amusing touch.

However, the best and most obviously unfortunate scenes on the film are the recreations of the Psycho set and watching Hitchcock at work. While these scenes are brilliant to watch and any film fan will find the the recreation of the production of the classic film Psycho as enthralling as watching Melies creating Voyage to the Moon in the recent Hugo, they also mean that the only way that Hitchcock could end satisfyingly is by being a double bill with Psycho itself.

The end of the film just can't compare to being able to sit and watch the fruit of Hitchcock's labour. If the film just ended with us being able to watch Psycho all the way through from start to finish, it would have made Hitchcock an infinitely better movie. As it is, Hitchcock will interest fans of the master but I'm not sure many others will be lured.

Hitchcock is out February 8th 2013 in UK cinemas.Watch the trailer below:

Skrillex Meets Stop Motion

I teach stop motion animation at college and once in a while my students introduce me to something mind blowing. Now I know many people HATE Skrillex's music with a passion but no matter what you think of his Transformers having sex style music, please check out the below video. It's for the Skrillex remix of the Benny Benassi tune Cinema and at about 40 seconds when the tune drops, the video gets insane! It's called Cinema so deserves to be seen right here on this film blog ok!

This is the kind of thing that makes me love stop motion with a passion. It''s inspired me to think about making my own Skrillex stop motion video. Original I know! I've made stuff to Aphex Twin before but it just seems that Skrillex's music deserves to be heard with a video like this.

Such a simple set up. Lots of props, one location, one camera angle and over 3 minutes of entertaining pure madness. It's the sort of thing my students could have a go at and I hope this inspires some of them to get their cameras out and give something like this a go! Check it out!And while you're at it, check out some of my students stop motion animation work from this year.