Film | This is Now

Bodie(s)

9th September 2009 by Violette

I don’t know quite what to make of this picture. I find it very disturbing in many ways, especially the holes in the feet. It’s however a formidable use of the Realflow software, which was used as a 3D simulator in many recent movies like Watchmen, The Matrix and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

tagged 3D simulator body Realflow The Curious Case of Benjamin Button The Matrix Watchmen

Fashion never fades

2nd September 2009 by Violette

A few days ago I went to see the movie Coco Before Chanel which depicts how Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, an orphan turned cabaret singer found the inspiration to become the international designer she was known to be.

The most memorable moment of the movie for me was the catwalk show at the end of the movie in the infamous staircase of the historical Chanel shop of rue Cambon in Paris. The audience is left to guess the date of this event as the collection could be from any decade, from yesterday as well as from the middle of the century. It reflects how influential Chanel has been to 20th Century fashion as well as the impact it continues to have.

A definite must-see!

tagged Coco before Chanel coco chanel fashion paris

Forest of lights

3rd August 2009 by Violette

What a fantastic interpretation of the modern urban space! I can imagine hundreds of scenarios to explain this picture. A shuttle could be flying away from the green landing pad at any time. I’m irremediably attracted to the little spot of red on the building’s facade. I can’t decipher what it is. Maybe it is an homage to the wonderful opening of Blade Runner in which giant flames of exhaust gasses belch out of oil refinery towers in the smoky megalopolis and are reflected in the gaze of the onlooker…

If you want to read more about Blade Runner, Manuel and Filippo have written beautiful articles about it a few months ago on the This is Now blog.

tagged Blade Runner megalopolis urban

This watch is exactly two days slow!

23rd July 2009 by Violette

>> The picture has been removed by its user

I had a chance earlier today to have a look at the pictures and trailer for the brand new Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland movie. It simply looks fantastic, using the truly special Burton style that we already saw in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and throughout all of his movies.

But I have to mention the 1951’s Alice in Wonderland Disney version.

Even though this is now considered a classic of the animation genre, it was at the time very forward in terms of background design and animation, allowing Disney artist Mary Blair to design her own very bold version of Wonderland in a very different way from the original illustrations.

Tim Burton (an alumni of the Disney’s animation team himself) was clearly inspired by this version from what I’ve seen in the trailer so far. Let’s hope that the 2009 version will be as ground breaking as the 1951 version was!

tagged Alice in Wonderland Disney Tim Burton

Let the right one in

2nd July 2009 by Melina

I’m usually not a fan of Swedish movies, mostly because the actors always have ‘the Swedish way’ to act: they have a very theatrical flair to their acting.
However a couple of weeks ago when I had the chance to see Tomas Alfredson’s ‘Let the right one in’ I was positively surprised. It was a delight; Good actors, beautiful cinematography and not too predictable.

Here in England I think it has been promoted as a vampire/horror film, which I find very misleading. Sure, it’s a film about vampires and it has some gruesome scenes but the core is all about alienation and loneliness – made in a beautiful way.

As I already mentioned the cinematography is great, it really captures the bitter cold Swedish winter in a Stockholm suburb. If you, like me, are used to that you can actually see approximately how cold it is during the different scenes. This kind of detail is continues throughout the film, another great example of that is the eyes and face of Eli (one of the main characters) that changes in a very subtle way in relevant scenes.

But what I’m most impressed of is actually the very good and realistic acting, especially by the two young main characters. They don’t do huge gestures or articulate ridiculously; they act like ‘normal’ 12-year olds.

I saw the film for the first time about 3 weeks ago and since then I’ve already seen it once more. It’s one of those films that stick to your mind, you walk around thinking of it all the time. It’s definitely one of my favourite films now.

tagged Film let the right one in this is now

I say hello!

8th June 2009 by Violette

I have to say this once and for all: I’m a long-time Beatles fan. Not very surprisingly Yesterday was one of the first song I learned to sing in English at school and I’ve been addicted ever since.

This morning I rushed to get a look at the opening cinematic for the new music video game around the Beatles that will be released at the beginning of September.

The video is simply superb: it was produced in part by Pete Candeland from Passion Pictures with the help of Robert Valley and Alberto Mielgo. Pete Candeland has previously worked on the Gorillaz videos and on several opening cinematics for similar video games.

Besides the seamless use of both 2D and 3D what is most stunning in this video is how well the team managed to recreate the visual exuberance of all the Beatles films while at the same time managing to use a visual language that would speak to a modern audience.

tagged Passion Pictures Pete Candeland The Beatles The Beatles Rock Band this is now

It’s not in the middle ages

26th May 2009 by Violette

Cannes Film Festival 2009 came to an end two days ago with some interesting results. I can’t wait to go to my local theatre and see some of the movies which were presented this year. However today I would like to write about last year’s Palme d’Or, French movie La Classe (Entre les Murs).

La Classe was filmed in a middle school in the inner city part of Paris, a few streets away from my parents house and it relates in many ways to some of the things I’ve seen in my own middle school. However what I found most interesting in the movie was the power of language. François Marin, the literature teacher, tries to teach the teenagers the “correct” way to use French, the one that has been defined by scholars at the prestigious French Academy many years ago and which doesn’t relate in any way to the way teenagers really talk. The debate in the classroom is fierce and really sheds an interesting light on what ‘now’ means to those kids. For most of them ‘now’ is not only in what they live every day but in the way they express themselves, it’s bottled up in their own unconventional language.

You can see it an extract of this moment at the beginning of the following trailer:

tagged Cannes Film Festival Entre les murs La Classe this is now

Sonata for good men

30th April 2009 by Violette

Last night I had the chance to watch again The Live of Others. It’s a truly splendid movie, probably one of my all-time favourites. I could write about it for several pages but today I just wanted to point out the turning point of the movie. It’s a crucial moment where music decides the characters’ fates.

The film starts in East Germany in 1984 when Stasi Captain Wiesler is assigned to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria Sieland. Wiesler is a very dedicated agent. Every night from the attic he listens to the couple’s every conversations in order to report any sympathy to the West.

Dreyman is a fervent socialist but disapproves of the treatment of dissidents. When his old friend Jerska commits suicide shortly after the beginning of the movie, Dreyman, stunned, goes straight for the piano and plays a sheet of music Jerska had given him for his birthday. The music is called “Sonata for a Good Man”. It’s a turning point for Wiesler, who, hidden in the attic is moved to tears by the music. From that moment on, he’s pulled into a spiral of false reports and lies to hide the couple’s real subversive activities.

The soundtrack and Sonata for a Good Man were composed by Gabriel Yared and Stephane Moucha.

tagged Das Leben Der Anderen Gabriel Yared Stephane Moucha The Live of Others