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Love & Anarchy Diary # 5: The Movie Nerd’s Guide to the Festival

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

loveanarchydiary_day51

I have been to a lot of movie festival and I’m of course a heavy user of the movie theatre in general. The whole point of a good movie festival is simply to see great movies from all over the world specifically in a movie theatre. One reason to want to do this, is that most of the films in question will never ever get a theatre release otherwise. So you have this ONE opportunity to see these amazing films and of course you want to enjoy the experience to the fullest. But for some reason there are always people who just want to ruin this for you.

I think this calls for…

ZOMBIE ROOM’S DO’S & DONT’S

WHAT TO SEE
It all starts with what you want to see. Love & Anarchy for example has about 140 movie titles to choose from. All those options can make your head spin, but don’t worry, here’s a tip. If you can’t decide for your self, just go to the festivals website and look up the Official Selection. These movies are usually the best of the festival and almost always worth seeing. Check out Love & Anarchy’s this year’s selection semi-officielle here. Or you can look trough other themes of your liking.

MAKE A PLAN
After you have chosen what to see, make schedule and reserve your tickets to guarantee your seat in the movie theatre. Some screening are very popular and if you wait until the last minute, you probably won’t get to see the films. And most importantly: don’t wait until the fucking ticket counter to decide what you want to see and then hold the line for thirty minutes!!!

RESPECT YOUR FELLOW MOVIE GOERS
You could imagine that a movie festival with high quality movies would also attract high quality movies goers, but this is an allusion. In most cases people who are attending movie festivals are there to enjoy good movies and respect the other people in the movie theatre, but there are always some people who just don’t know how to behave.

First when you are entering the theatre and looking for your seat, don’t leave an empty seat between you and the guy next to you when the theatre is CLEARLY going to get full. You will just have to move anyway and it will take useless time. Before the movie starts shut down your phone and all equipment that can generate sound during the movie (iPod etc.). I know this is quite simple, but for some reason it just isn’t. Don’t enter the movie after it has started, you will ruin the beginning of the movie for everyone. Yeah I know it’s not about them, it’s about you! Don’t take your kid to see a movie with subtitles if he or she can’t read (or understand the language the films is made on), and then read the subs out loud!!! Simply just keep your mouth and your phone shut during the movie! The list goes on, but I think you get the point…

AFTER THE FILM
Share your views of the movie to your friends, but don’t ever give away the ending or any other important details, especially in a movie ticket line of before the movie is about to start. I mean come on!!!

So if you just follow these fairly simple rules, every one would have better time in the theatre. And if you don’t know how to behave- stay at home!

Thank you!

- Essi

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Posted in Diaries, Film festivals, Opinion | 7 Comments »

Love & Anarchy Diary # 4: Random War Flick Generator

Monday, September 21st, 2009

loveanarchydiary_day4

The Americans are not ready to deal with the Iraq War, not just yet. It’s way too close, way too problematic and way too cool to be discussed like it should be. They’re not ready to discuss the real issues of Iraq War, just as they weren’t during the Vietnam War, since the directors and the studios would get bombed and their theaters burned if they would present the view of the other side right now.

Göbbels knew a thing or two about propaganda. He thought that the best way to get the people consume your ideological message is to keep them entertained and make them feel they’ve been thinking with their own brains, while actually they’ve been eating every word you wanted to say from the very palm of your hand.

hurtlocker1

Here’s a way to make a modern war film. All you have to do is to grab a 6-sided die and roll few times.

1. PICK A WAR (D6)
Apart from Iraq war, there’s some other options – but to be honest, it’s Iraq, isn’t it? I mean, it’s one big bush to beat around.

1 – Some African Country Nobody’s Ever Heard Of

2 – Afghanistan

3-5 – Iraq

6 – Just make up your own Terrorist Hellhole

2. CREATE THE WAR BUDDIES (Throw 3 times) (D6)
You gotta have a team of unlikely friends who at first hate each others but as the story grows, become friends.

1 – Black guy, tough guy, but not the main guy

2 – White guy, Private Pyle -ripoff mental case losing it in the field

3 – White guy, a rich kid about to learn a thing or two

4 – White guy, hotshot who ISN’T AFRAID OF NOTHING!

5 – Some hispanic horny fuck who gets killed fast

6 – A white guy, commander, you know, nice guy but no experience on the field.

3. MISSIONS THAT THE STORY REVOLVES AROUND (Throw 3 times) (D6)
You don’t have to come up with much of a story, just put in three thrilling, explosion-packed missions and everyone thinks they’re watching a story.

1 – Basic mission that suddenly turns much harder than expected, a lot of guys get killed

2 – Sniper-mission, waiting around and looking for the snipers, a lot of guys get killed

3 – Save the locals! – These guys are really living there, and although they sound like a stupid monkeysquad and can hardly talk three words of English, you need to save ‘em from the bad terrorists.

4 – Suicide bomber. A lot of religious zealots you can’t reason with, so just kill *everyone*.

5 – Save the injured soldiers. The helicopter went down, the tank blew apart or something, and Our Guys are there among the baddies. Get them, and save no souls!

6 – Party! This is not a mission, actually, this is taking place after the mission – a party, you know, men fighting each others, drinking and having aggressive kind of friendly fun.

4. SHOOTING THE FILM (D6)
You need to create a unique way to portray the dangers of modern warfare. Just roll a dice to see how the film should look like.

1-6. Shaky camera, push the white end of the spectrum to the max, and strong blacks as a stark contrast. Make it feel real.

5. RESEARCH
Since it’s a modern war film, you need to do your research to make it accurate.

[Skip this part, as long as you have the important acronymes right.]

6. THE POINT OF THE FILM
You gotta have a point in the film, that’s the modern storytelling way. I mean, you talk about war, just don’t talk too much.

1 – “The war is mindless.” I mean why to spend so many tax dollars for the damn monkies when they could just you know kill each others there, they don’t need us there..

2 – “The war is inhumane” I mean it’s a complete opposite to the supermarket-kids-dogs-house-and-two-cars -way of life WE’RE ALL USED TO!

3. “The war eats you inside” I mean how can you come back to your normal life after what you’ve seen and what you’ve lost.

4. “The soldiers are expendable” I mean there’s always somebody ready to step in for you, you know, and the high command don’t see you as real people, just expendable ones.

5. “Friends will be friends.” These pals you might hate are ready to die for you, when push comes to shove.

6. [BANNED] “There are actually two sides in every fight, even each fight Americans fought” – at least 2 presidents and/or 15 years need to have passed from the war to really go for this option. Not plausible option for modern war films. Sorry.

In so many words: no, I didn’t like Kathryn Bigelow‘s new film Hurt Locker.

EDIT:

Just realized the reviews on the film are quite in unison, but I suggest not to be fooled by them, or at least share a second thought on the message the film delivers, and the topic the film claims to be discussing about. Here’s quite a good article about the real problems the film had, behind all the suspense and drama and sexy topic, and here’s quite a good breakdown of the new pile of shit everyone’s going crazy about.

The great ignored question raised by events depicted in “The Hurt Locker” is simple: who makes the IEDs, and why? The bombs materialize and must be disarmed. A “hadji” with a cell phone may lurk among onlookers, ready to detonate the device, but we are given nothing but a sea of Iraqi faces to confront. Even a movie like “The Kingdom” (2007) had the courtesy to sketch a rationale for its bombers. Bigelow’s movie flies from such questions out of weakness, not strength. Such dishonesty, even more than dramaturgical laziness, sinks the enterprise.

- Timo

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Posted in Diaries, Film festivals, Movies, Opinion | 1 Comment »

Fan Fiction vs. Ripoff

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Last year in Cannes Film Festival me and Essi went over to the Palais des Festivals, the main building where the Film Market was set up to. The Market, in short, is a place where production or sales companies present their film productions, and buyers (for example, distributors) make deals and acquire distribution rights. It was the first time for me and Essi in such a huge market, and the sheer amount of films in production, in distribution and in development was just overwhelming.

The most fascinating thing we bounced into were the films we instantly identified as being complete, total ripoffs of great films with a strong franchise, trying just to ride at their marketing and fool people to think they are the the right ones. Last year, the biggest thing in Cannes was, of course, the new Indiana Jones film, and we were shocked to find how unscrupulous attempts there were made to copy and ride the great Spielberg franchise. Jack Hunter, “Indiana Jones without Ford, Spielberg or budget”, was the name that got us all excited about, and as we dug deeper into the subject, we got to know a production house called The Asylum, solely focused on doing films like this. Ripoffs – or, mockbusters, as they are often dubbed.

This led me wonder what’s the main, big difference between my first feature, Star Wreck, and films like The Terminators, Transmorphers, Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls, or AVH: Alien Vs. Hunter. Looking at the bigger picture, we started to wonder what’s the main difference between Fan Fiction and Ripoff?

Similarities are definitively striking:

THE SIMILARITIES

1ridingthefranchise

We both, fan fiction filmmakers and ripoff-filmmakers ride on an existing franchise that has been created by great filmmakers, nursed by writers, producers and directors to make it’s way to the heart of millions of people around the world. By tapping into this vein, instead of trying to build something completely original, we skip this tedious and most uncertain process of filmmaking, and jump right into the middle of a blooming concept with already-built fanbase tuned to consume whatever the franchise has to offer.

2makingmoney

What’s even worse, we both aim to make money with our productions – films based on other people’s hard work. The difference, though, is quite big: wherein most of the fan fiction is distributed over the Internet for more or less free, the mockbusters are directly slammed into DVD and rolled over to markets into the discount shelves right next to the original productions, or into video rental stores to fool the hasty customers to pick them instead of originals. But nevertheless, we make money with them, whether it’s by selling merchandise, DVDs, or just plain pay-to-support, we’re getting money based on work made by others.

3copyingthecontent

To make the circle perfect, both fan films and the ripoffs copy most of their content from the existing brand, both visually and storywise. The characters have close resemblance to the originals and the main visual elements like space ships or monsters are much like in the original ones. Fan Fiction usually goes even further with this, by taking the exact original elements – like names, 3D-models and even music – and use them quite nonchalantly. The ripoffs are usually a bit more discreet on this – not because they believe it’s wrong, but because they want to avoid the lawsuits. And they are quite good at it, crawling at the grey area.

Uhh, that makes me feel bad. But what makes us different, then? Is my work more respectable than someone else’s, or am I just another ripoff artist?

THE DIFFERENCES

1inspirationmotivation

The reason we, the fan fiction filmmakers, do these films is because we love the originals so hard that we want to expand the story, world and characters laid out by others before us. Parody and fan fiction are the biggest complements that can be given to a filmmaker – works that prove that whatever they’ve done has inspired others so hard that they want to give their shot at it. We’re not in it to exploit, but to expand.

2forquality

One of the most important points the fan fiction filmmakers aim at is the quality of their replicant. Fan films are, when done right, usually of the highest possible quality, made with a lot of love, a lot of background research and a lot of effort to reach at least close to the level of the original. The ripoff filmmakers just want to make a cool poster and enough decent-quality shots to make a trailer that might fool somebody, but usually rest of the film is just utter crap, disrespecting the original in the most terrible ways.

3thehonesty

One thing which I believe when working on a fan film is definitively honesty. I want to state out loud that this is not the original, but a work inspired by the original and made by fans, for the fans, not to exploit the franchise but to pump more life into it. We’re not claiming we’ve done something original, but we’re saying that what we’ve done is a work of love towards the original, and should not be mistaken for anything else.

The reason I started writing this entry was because today I bumped into one of the most interesting, intriguing and highest-quality fan fiction films ever made: The Hunt for Gollum. It’s fan fiction in two levels: first, it explores a story left untold by J.R.R. Tolkien, and it’s directed, acted, edited and scored with a close resemblance to Peter Jackson‘s awesome Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The trailer is quite stunning, and the 40-minute film will be released on May 3rd at Scifi London film festival.

I’m definitively looking for this one, just check out the trailer:


Trailer 2 – The Hunt For Gollum at SCI-FI-LONDON
by HuntForGollum

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Posted in Movies, Opinion, Trailers, Videos | 144 Comments »

Top 10 Directorial Debuts of All Time

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

top10directorialdebutsofalltime

I was watching this film the other day called Lars and the Real Girl, a story about a man who falls in love with a doll. It´s directed by Craig Gillespie and it was his directorial debut feature film. I thought it was a great movie, especially for a first time director. Also I´m eagerly anticipating Duncan Jones´s debut feature film Moon (although I´m guessing it won´t be coming to cinemas near you any time soon…). A few days ago I started thinking about other great debut feature films and this list is what I came up with.

donniedarkoDONNIE DARKO directed by Richard Kelly

Donnie Darko reached cult status almost instantly when it came out. And why not, it is a brilliant film. But I have sometimes wondered if Richard Kelly just got really lucky with Donnie Darko… If you compare Donnie Darko to his second feature, Southland Tales, the difference could be measured in light years. Never the less Richard Kelly is definitely one of the most interesting film makers today and hopefully he will get his shit together in his next movie. Donnie Darko also made Jake Gyllenhaal the star he is today.

kidsKIDS directed by Larry Clark

For me Kids is still one of the best movies ever made about teenagers. Oh man, those kids still give me the creeps. Director Larry Clark has made a career telling stories about young people and their problems. Usually quite disturbingly. He has never been afraid to handle touchy subjects and no tabu is too tabu for him. Still I believe Kids is his best work to date.

amoresperrosAMORES PERROS directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Amores Perros is the perfect debut film for a non english speaking film maker. It is not easy to break to the international market, I can tell you that. But in order to do that, you need an exceptional movie that is so good it doesn´t matter what language is spoken. For the record I don´t have a problem with subtitles or anything like that, I´m just saying this in general. Amores Perros has a complex story and huge ensemble cast, but it stays in control trough out the film. Not bad a for first movie. After Amores Perros director Iñárritu went on to doing english language films like 21 Grams and Babel.

eraserhead2ERASERHEAD directed by David Lynch

David Lynch really fought to get this film made and a good thing he did. In addition to his grand he got from school, Lynch used money from friends and family and he even took a paper route to finish it. As you know the end result looks amazing and it feels like watching a beautiful, but surreal nightmare. You can really see his ambition and hard work in the movie and it most definitely paid out.  He has had an amazing career always staying true to his roots and his own vision. There is no questing about it, that Lynch is one of the only true visionaries of our time.

piPI directed by Darren Aronofsky

Darren Aronofsky won a bunch of awards with his debut film Pi. He then went on doing a movie called Requiem for a Dream which was also very pressing much like Pi. After these two movies people thought they knew Aronofsky as this fast cut editing visual genius, but as it turns out he had a much bigger range of impressing himself trough his lens. The Fountain wasn´t very well received, but I think it was amazing. The Wrestler was also a very different film compared to the others (in my opinion it was Aronofsky best work to date). So I can´t wait to see how a remake of the classic RoboCop molds in his hands.

beingjohnmalkovichBEING JOHN MALKOVICH directed by Spike Jonze

Being John Malkovich is actually one of my favorite movies ever. It is a flawless combination of the perfect script (written by Charlie Kaufman) and a visionary director. Jonze and Kaufman have also collaborated on Adaptation. Like you may have noticed we here at Zombie Room are also super psyched about  his newest work Where the Wild Things Are. Check out our posts on the subject here and here.

reservoirdogsRESERVOIR DOGS directed by Quentin Tarantino

When Reservoir Dogs came out it was clear that it wouldn´t be the last we hear from director Tarantino. The movie portrays what happens before and after a jewel heist gone seriously bad, but not the heist itself. At that time I thought no one could top a movie like that, but then only two years later along came Pulp Fiction and Tarantino became a household name. Not easy for a director by the way. Now I´m eagerly anticipating his new nazi epic Inglourious Basterds.

americanbeautyAMERICAN BEAUTY directed by Sam Mendes

Sam Mendes instantly became one of the top directors in the world with his debut feature American Beauty. This was actually also the writing debut for screenwriter Alan Ball. Hopefully they will collaborate again some day. Mendes has directed four feature films now and all of them are very good. American Beauty is still his best work, although Revolutionary Road came pretty damn close.

lesquatrecentscoupsLES QUATRE CENTS COUPS directed by François Truffaut

Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows) is one of the defining films of the French New Wave and it displays many of the characteristics of the movement. It is a semi-autobiographical film, reflecting events of Truffaut’s and his friend’s lives. The English title is a straight translation of the French one, but it misses its meaning, as the French title refers to the expression “faire les quatre cents coups”, which means “to raise hell”.

citizen-kaneCITIZEN KANE directed by Orson Welles

It was crystal clear for me who would get 1st place on this list. Citizen Kane is voted best movie of all time I don´t know how many times and it still is one of the greatest stories ever told. It was nominated for an Academy Award in nine categories, but won only for Best Original Screenplay (by Herman Mankiewicz and Welles). Although Orson Welles went on having a great career, this film is the one he will always be remembered from.

WHO DIDN´T MAKE THE CUT…

I also want to give credit to a few more great debut films that didn´t quite fit into the list, but are true movie gems.

CONTROL directed by Anton Corbijn

CLERKS. directed by Kevin Smith

SYNEGDONE, NEW YORK directed by Charlie Kaufman

IN BRUGES directed by Martin McDonagh

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL directed by Craig Gillespie

THE STRANGERS directed by Bryan Bertino

There are of course many many more great debuts out there, but I had to choose 10, so I´m sticking with them. If you think I have left something important out, I would love to hear your opinions.

- Essi

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Posted in Movies, Opinion, Top lists | 52 Comments »

Top 5 David Lynch films

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

David Lynch hasn’t done one bad film. I want to mention this, because it’s easy to think of Dune as a failboat of a scifi film, which it was at some level, but still kicks ass compared to most of the science fiction films out there anyway, so fuck you if you don’t like Dune, it’s a great film. But not one of the best by Lynch. But neither is  Blue Velvet, no matter how much some people rave about it. Here’s my personal top-5 by Lynch, while waiting to hear more from his next films.

twinpeaksLaura Palmer was definitively one of my teenage fantasies…

The prequel-feature to the ever-famous Twin Peaks -TV-series is by far Lynch’s most underrated and hated film, but the one I’m quite easily placing as Lynch’s best work. Why? Well, it smashes together faces like David Bowie, Jack Bauer, Chris Isaak and Harry Dean Stanton – not to mention the original Twin Peaks cast led by wonderful Ray Wise – adds in a wonderful soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti, and lets it slowly boil under Lynch’s unique directoral vision. When served, it’s an unforgettable, multi-layered beautiful film with the aura of mystery around it only Lynch can create.

But what makes the film really to stand out is the naive, a bit “amateurish” filmmaking on many of the scenes, which I personally believe to be the thing that nailed Lynch from being just another strange filmmaker into a real nerd-filmmaker god. Times film critic Vincent Canby said it quite well when writing about the film: “It’s not the worst movie ever made; it just seems to be”. Quite right, Vincent! Every now and then it seems like it’s been made by some fucked-up film school kid working on his “great masterpiece of a degree work”, but unlike these kids, every scene Lynch embarks on, regardless on how naive and purposefully strange it might smell like, he’s able to nail it. And this – I believe – travels across to the minds of aspiring filmmakers in the form of “I love this and I could do this”, and results in inspiring thousands of young filmmakers, but the flipside being the endless Lynch ripoffs that never rise anywhere close to what Lynch has been able to capture.

mulhollandHot chicks kissing. Win.

Mulholland Drive has been considered quite widely as Lynch’s best work, and I’m no man denying it on a more general and filmatic level. I think Mulholland Drive “professionalizes” much of the stylistic things Lynch has tried out before, for example in Lost Highway, and polishes his storytelling to the maximum. I’m not sure if we’ll ever see a feature film so “straightforward” from Lynch again, or if this was it for him, but if it was, it was a perfect one for that.

Also included very hot lesbian action and the best scene in the history of cinema, the Winkie’s Dream scene.


The burnt-face hobo rastafari scares me shitless every time… But really, it’s the Oscar-worthy development of the whole scene that really does it.

inland

One of the scariest moments of the film was this frame.

Three most important things in Lynch’s by far strangest film for me are the crap-quality digital cam look of the whole film, the rabbits (of course), and the grim Polish gateways and stairwells. I’ve been able to finish this film just once, and after the experience I was completely blown away. I tried the second time, but dropped out somewhere in the middle. Because of this, I wasn’t sure if the film should be actually the best of Lynch so far, or on this list at all – so I decided to drop it somewhere in between.

INLAND is a combination of awesome, haunting and very Lynchian scenes, that don’t quite connect – but they don’t actually need to. I was going through the plot on Wikipedia, and looking at it in this format made a bit more sense than when whatching the film, because what Lynch has always mastered very well is the atmosphere that really grabs you by the balls, and you forget to worry about the overall plot. But there definitively seems to be one in there, and it has a lot to do with east European girls, a woman in trouble and rabbits.

INLAND is an unforgettable experience, as a film, but also as the post-filmtheater discussion item. Go see it, get blasted and try to interpret it – I think the truth might be somewhere there.

eraserhead

The baby is sick. Very, very sick.

David Lynch started his career as a filmmaker with Eraserhead as his first feature-length film, and what a wonderful film it was. It’s a story of a man on the moon, and a couple who get a baby that’s quite like a fetus of a giant baby parrot.

Although I know I’ll get lynched for saying this, but I think Eraserhead is Lynch’s very own Star Wreck. He filmed it for over 6 years, and spent about 10k to his own and his friend’s money on it, nobody believed in it, but after it’s release, it became a huge cult hit in the horror genre. Mel Brooks hired Lynch right away after seeing Eraserhead to direct his next feature film -The Elephant Man – which eventually was nominated for 8 Oscars and blasted Lynch into superstardom among directors. Not a bad start for a director, but that’s what it takes many times – you really need to pull the first masterwork out of your ass with completely no money and nobody believing into it, instead of rotting in film schools and crying that nobody wants to fund your film.

Eraserhead has always been for me the film I’d loved to have directed, and I’m still looking forward into doing something similar maybe one day.

elephant

Lovely smile there, mr. Merrick.

So, fresh out of working with the strange and scary DIY-film Eraserhead, Mel Brooks, a comedy filmmaker and producer, hired young and promising David Lynch to direct Elephant Man. The film turned out to be a fantastic, a straightforward but still completely unique drama of a very badly deformed man, Joseph Merrick, also known as Elephant Man. It got 8 Oscar nominations, and won numerous awards, and it’s not a big surprise that a lot of pressure was put on Lynch after the film, and he was suggested to direct Star Wars’ second episode, but instead did Dune, which flopped madly. Nowadays, Hollywood has let go of the hopes on Lynch, and he can roam his own path as much as he wants to, if he gets his stuff financed.

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Posted in Movies, Opinion, Top lists | 147 Comments »

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Leaked Online – Good or Bad?

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

wolverine

I have been following the Wolverine scandal very closely ever since it happened. First it was suggested that maybe it was just an April Fools’ joke, but it wasn´t. 20th Century Fox released a statement confirming the leak right after it happened. Everyone at Fox and all the people involved have gone totally ballistic over this and are doing all they can to prevent people from downloading the movie (of course we know there is not that much they can do). The FBI and MPAA are investigating the case. I even got an estimate from someone that because of the leak they will loose approximately 20% of their potential clients due to it. Well I don´t know about that. We here at Zombie Room think a bit differently and I would like to talk about a few things why the leak probably won´t hurt the film as much as the people at Fox are afraid of.

wolverine_origin_xmen_movie

GOOD VS. BAD

First of all I would like to say that I DON´T approve of the leak. I have no intentions of watching the movie anywhere else than in the biggest movie theatre I can find. Now that this is clear, I can also say that don´t approve the contemporary way of distributing films either.  Like I said I haven´t seen the film, but I have heard that the version is in pretty good quality. Never the less, the film is unfinished. According to the press release the film was without many effects and had missing scenes and temporary sound and music. Read the full press release here (I also recommend to read the comments, they are priceless).

It is pretty obvious that most of the people who have downloaded the movie would have done so anyway. The only difference is that now they get to see the movie earlier than usual. As soon as Wolverine hits the cinemas it will be in the internet for download anyway, only then it will be in bad theater cam quality. For me quality and accessibility are everything. I will never watch anything in bad quality and I don´t think anything beats the movie theatre. But I´m sick and tired of having to wait around for the movies that have already been released. Especially when they are just a click away for free.

x-men-origins-wolverine

Hugh is very very angry!!!

In a way I´m happy that this happened because it will be very interesting to see what this leak actually does to the movies success. My guess is that it will be one of the most successful films of the year, if not the most successful. And in fact because of the leak it will get an even bigger audience. And I´m talking Dark Knight success. In fact, X-Men Origins: Wolverine has now been downloaded over a million times. This alone should say something about the interest the public has for this movie. It is actually a compliment to the  movie and if it is any good people will go see it, even after seeing the unfinished version.

I do agree 100% that all movie studios and distributors loose money because of piracy, that´s a fact. But piracy could be wiped out almost completely if the distribution model was to change. People actually want to pay for those downloads, so what´s the problem? 

There is a poll at TorrentFreak where you can give your opinion on the matter. I think the options say it all. There are now 6165 votes counted and the results are pretty clear. You can give your vote here.

x-men-pollMY ANSWER: No, the leak actually got me excited to see it in theater/on DVD.

The zombies are keeping a close eye on this one and hopefully it will finally give the studio executives something to think about.

- Essi

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Posted in Movies, Opinion, Piracy | 134 Comments »

I’m A Pirate (So Sue Me)

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

pirates-knocked-up-shrekI’m working for the film industry here in Finland. My salary comes from a company called Energia Productions, a company which gets money through government subsidies (like Finnish Film Foundation) and from the distribution of it’s films, either through distribution companies (they pay a certain % of each unit sold) or through our own resale. Anyway, I get my tummy full every day because people pay me to see or buy my films.

And still, I think the only good guy in the distribution industry is the ”pirate”. I’m talking about the forest fire that sweeps through the vast, old woodland, leaving only ashes behind. Ashes, from where even more healthier industry can be born from. A 15-year old nerd living in his/her’s mom’s apartment and renewing the 100-year old business in between wanking, IRCing and Facebookng. The only asshole not after my money in the industry.

I’m a pirate myself. I started out with music – downloading hudreds of gigs of music from all over the world, getting to know thousands of new bands along my active piracy years. But then, one day, I decided to trash all the illegal music from my harddrive and start buying the music I was in to. The reason wasn’t definitively the sudden strike of conscience, but the fact that I felt uninterested on the music because of the sheer mass of it now flowing slowly to my harddrive. I felt I needed to focus a bit, so I focused on music that I had paid for, and trashed everything else.

All went well, until I found myself in a situation that I didn’t have either enough money or time to worry about my music – I felt that if I wanted to listen to something, I should be able to do it without hesitation. And then, along came Spotify. A service where I just have to pay a yearly 100€ to keep me listening to all the music I could ever want to, and much, much more. So now I’m satisfied, a perfect balance has been found: I have all the music I want to, and somebody else is worrying about getting the stuff to me. I just open the tap, get what I want and as much as I want, and my money goes to the artist. Well, there’s of course the middlemen… But that’s, in the end, the industry’s problem, not mine.

How about movies? I’ve started downloading films via BitTorrent, through such places like Pirate Bay or Mininova actually quite recently. The reason was actually Essi: she re-ignited my interest towards film, flooding me with all the news on interesting productions popping out everywhere around the world and hyping about classics that I should’ve watched a long time ago. Nowadays, I rate my films in three categories:

theater

These are the must-see-as-soon-as-possible-with-the-best-quality-available -films, with either a subject so important to me, or with special effects so special they rock the theater big time. Or films that are very strongly time-related, like the Oscar-nominated ones.

Usually these films are something everyone is hyping about all over the Internet, and waiting for them to land here in Finland is quite frustrating. So, in most cases, I don’t want to wait for them, and just end up downloading a screener, and never go to the theater, just because somebody wants to regulate the territorial rights.

So, because everyone is avoiding the day-and-date releases unless it’s the big-ass film of the year, as well as almost banning the multi-platform releases, film studios lose 80% of my money for not offering what I want, when I want in the format I’d prefer.

dvd

The second category of films are the ones that I don’t need or won’t have the time to go and see in theaters. There are two reasons I’d like to buy them on DVD – the quality and the box. In most cases, I want to watch the film in the best possible quality at home, and very often the BitTorrent version is of a little bit lower quality (and my TV set is so crappy that I can plug into it only through SCART, so at least there the quality is killed). In some cases, I also want to have the copy to my collections, so that I can watch it again at second’s notice. I’m not a big fan of the boxes itself, and more than that, I hate most of the extra material on a DVD, since they are, in most cases, just total, utter, viewer’s-intelligence-despising crap, but having the DVD in my collections – well, there’s some value to it.

But my dilemma is: why to pay 20e of the film, if I just want to watch it once and then forget it? It’s more than in theater, and I’m not fond of the less-than-respectable quality extras anyway. And as I’ve learned personally, the only films that deliver any kind of income to the filmmakers themselves are the full-priced ones, so buying a DVD with 5,99e just get my money to the store-owner, the one person having nothing to do with the film itself.

I don’t even want to go to the flaws of renting a film, but let me just say this: the most preferred way for me would be watch films online. I wouldn’t have to worry about anything – the availability, the heaps of boxes of films I’ll never watch again, the fact I’m paying money for the crappy extras I don’t even want to watch…

I did a little test the other day with Essi. We had a Male Superiority Sunday, when we watched films by Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Clint Eastwood – and suddenly, we ran out of films to watch. We wanted to see Commando, but didn’t have the copy. Renting was completely out of question – having to walk 3 miles to the nearest rental store wasn’t the thing I wanted to do. So we finally decided to try online rentals.

We are not complete idiots with computers, I’m a bit short-tempered with them, but I get along with different net services quite well, even if they are a bit lame. But we just couldn’t rent a film from any of the five services availble here in Finland we tried. It just was completely impossible.

So, again, money lost. We got frustrated, downloaded what we wanted and watched the film.

torrent

The films that I get via BitTorrent are, in addition to the expections from above, the films that will never travel to Finland, or are classics too hard to find from stores or rental stores… Just some strange, great films from all over the world that I want to see, but would never be able to get from anywhere. I could try Amazon or Play.com, but I’ve decided to boycott those – I just hate browsing for stuff, finding exactly what I want, and then finding out that ”this product can’t be delivered to your country”. Makes me feel like Finland is in some sort of a third-world commercial blockage…

So again, a lot of money lost, and now the so-called ”long tail” gets the hit. The smaller, international filmmakers, the ones that I’d loved to support if possible. And it’s not.

Given these facts, am I a criminal? I would’ve wanted to pay for the films I watch, but it just was completely impossible for me at the level of effort I was willing to put into it.

So it’s like I’m driving a car on a long and lonesome highway, about run out of fuel. I stop by at a gas station, fill the tank, and when going inside to pay, there’s completely nobody, doors are locked and the station is dead because the gas station owner just didn’t feel like coming to work today. I’m not going to just sit around and wait for the owner to show up. If my money is not good for the owner, then I’m off, fuck him.

I don’t believe that digital sharing and distribution of films is piracy, and criminal action as such. It’s just a byproduct of the corporate-controlled industry that’s too slow to adapt, and consumers – the people who LOVE the stuff the corporates are producing – shouldn’t be the ones that take the hit.

EDIT: I just received a funny email, which says:

helpcinema.eu invites you to participate in an online petition against illegal file sharing.

Helpcinema is an initiative taken by European film professionals to collect your reactions regarding the effects of illegal file sharing on the audio-visual industry. This input will be used to give European Members of Parliament a new perspective on the subject.

You can easily participate by answering our three-step questionnaire available here. Your e-mail address will be kept confidential.

If you love cinema and if you have an opinion to share, please show your support and send us your feedback.

So go over to helpcinema.eu and share your thoughts. Not surprisingly, I answered ‘no’ three times.

-Timo

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Posted in Internet, Movies, Opinion, Piracy | 71 Comments »

Feature film ‘Blank’ released for free distribution!

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

I think it was Star Wreck that just happened to be the first feature film ever released for free on the Internet. After that, we’ve seen such masterpieces as We Are The Strange and Four-Eyed Monsters being released on the Internet, and now it’s time for a new film to emerge for free, torrent-based distribution: Blank.

I’m quoting TorrentFreak‘s blogger enigmax, under CC-By-Sa -license:

Times are certainly changing and slowly but surely people are beginning to realize that rather than trying to fight piracy and destroy file-sharing networks, the best approach is to embrace your one-time rivals and try and create something positive.

Established in 2000 by director Rick L. Winters, Annodam Productions is an independent film company. A forward looking outfit, Annodam will premiere its latest movie Blank, worldwide today.

Blank is the story of a Johnny, a young boy who witnesses the violent death of his parents and older sister. Roll on some 20 years later and Johnny becomes involved in crime with his adoptive father – who is also a crime boss. While watching a game of poker Johnny discovers who murdered his family and sets about planning his revenge. Johnny unwittingly becomes involved with a pair of serial killers and the whole movie climaxes with a bizarre and shocking end.

While the plot may seems standard Hollywood fare, the way this movie has been financed and is set to be distributed is not – Director Rick L.Winters explains, “The thing that makes this film unique is that it is a co-op based concept where the entire cast and crew worked on a deferred percentage of the film’s gross. In other words, the cast and crew own a percentage of the film’s gross, so the profits are not going to Hollywood executives but instead into the pockets of the filmmakers themselves.”

After receiving several distribution offers for Blank, Rick turned them all down.

“I have seen firsthand the greed that lurks in the Hollywood corporate circles,” he said while explaining that after he released his first film, the cast and crew couldn’t understand why a distribution company was making all the money. So instead, Rick decided to let the audience distribute Blank for him – via BitTorrent.

“This time around the fate of the cast and crew getting paid is in the hands of the audience who watch the film. No Hollywood bank accounts being filled to turn out more crappy remakes,” he said, while adding that the future of film is “in the home market, through peer to peer distribution.”

Today, Blank is released on DVD for $14.99, via online streaming and of course, for free on BitTorrent. “No one should have to pay for a film they did not like,” says Rick. “No one should be denied the right to enjoy the art of film.”

The idea is that if people like the movie after they have seen it, they should go to the Blank website and make a donation. People are asked to donate what they feel the movie is worth, and in return will be invited to follow the production of the next movie, which they will have helped finance through their donation.

Rick told TorrentFreak, “I am excited with the aspects of peer to peer distribution and the possibilities. Giving everyone the opportunity to see my film for free in hope of receiving donations is a little nerve wrecking – wondering if I will receive enough donations to make my next film. The concept is still scary for independent filmmakers who don’t have the big budgets like the big studios and most of the time drain their personal accounts and run up credit just to get their film made, in hopes of recouping the cost of making the film.”

Several large BitTorrent sites including Mininova will be offering Blank, but undoubtedly it will spread to many others too. Rick L. Winters is also writing a book which will document the whole process so that others can use the same methods to distribute their own movies.

“I can only hope for the success of this endeavor to show the world that the revolution of peer to peer distribution can no longer be ignored and the time is now,” Rick told TorrentFreak. “I decided to try the concept of a coop base film in hopes of encouraging other independent filmmakers to come together and create and share the art of film for EVERYONE to enjoy.”

Congratulations to Rick and the crew for effectively ending the piracy of their movies and we wish them the best of luck with ‘Blank’ and all future success.

You can grab the torrent for the movie from Mininova.

–

This is also a nice lead into our next blogging spree, about to be released possibly during the next week on piracy and free distribution. I’m sad to say that the website of the Blank is quite unattractive and doesn’t really push you to put in the donation, but however the film will turn out (I’m downloading it now, a review is to follow inevitably), I will do my part in donations as well as hoping to get my hands on the DVD as well!

Also, the co-op -model in the production is definitively something independent filmmakers should look into.

All together, I’m happy and proud that these freaks are part of the movement leading us to the brighter future (can’t talk about free distribution without sounding an idealistic communist)! I sure hope the film is at least decent, and we’ll keep an eye on this one. Indeed, The Zombies Are Watching.

-Timo

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Posted in Awesome, Internet, Movies, Opinion, Piracy | 4 Comments »

Comics that should be filmed

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

This weekend we’ve been talking about films based on comics and graphic novels that are either done or in production – now, let’s take few steps further, and think about some of the comics that *should* be filmed.

sandman

SANDMAN
Some say Zack Snyder succeeded in making an unwatchable film from an unfilmable comic, when he construed Alan Moore‘s Watchmen on silver screen. Without going deeper into Watchmen, which I still haven’t seen, one thing the film proves: the time of the Sandman film(s) is coming nigh. So far, nobody has dared to try to tackle the massive story and the celestial/infernal visions which are required to accompany it, and I’m praying they won’t just toss it to some americanized CGI-megalomaniac, but would be able to find a director who would do something else than the most obvious with Sandman. (For some reason, I’m thinking of paper doll animations by Dave McKean in it…)

Guillermo del Toro is producing Neil Gaiman’s Sandman spinoff Death: The High Cost Of Living, so it’s quite possible that if this goes well (and they cast Sandman and Death with extreme care), the whole world of Sandman will unfold soon on the film. And if not, I’ll do it, dammit!

nikopol

THE NIKOPOL TRILOGY

Enki Bilal tried to adapt his most famous graphic novel trilogy, the Nikopol-trilogy, into a feature film format (under the name Immortel (ad vitam)), but failed to catch the atmosphere of the original stories, as well as failed with a lot of VFX-decisions. The film ended up in being an unintelligible mess that wasn’t sure of what it was – an animation, a computer game or an actor-driven drama.

As there hasn’t been a satisfactory adaptation of the Nikopol-trilogy, I’d loved to see somebody to really dig into the wonderful, visual world and atmosphere of Enki Bilal’s dry and overly-serious, but still comedic (by Stanislaw Lemian terms) work – somebody who knows how to pull things together on the big screen.

arkham

BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM – A SERIOUS HOUSE ON SERIOUS EARTH
Arkham Asylum is one of the best-selling graphic novels of all time, but for some reason it hasn’t yet been made into a feature film. This is good – at least for now – because I’d like to wait a little bit to let the action- and CGI-packed steams of Dark Knight cool down a bit, because Arkham Asylum would be a completely different type of a Batman film.

The story starts out when Joker takes Arkham Asylum, the madhouse where they’ve locked Batman’s worst enemies to, over and demands Batman to come over to have a chat with him, otherwise he’ll start killing the staff. The story is much more haunting and grittier than the Batman-films lately, and would propably be a big let-down for most of the fans of the latest installations in Batman saga.

(Arkham Asylum has already been made into a Spanish short film, as well as into a computer game, so the feature film is definitively to follow…)

lobo

LOBO
Remember Lobo? He’s the world’s biggest badass, the guy who beat up Santa and the Easter Bunny, died and went to Hell, made such a mess in there that Satan sent him to Heaven where he organized the biggest metal concert ever, and was eventually thrown out back to life, never to return again. Lobo The Movie would be a parade of metal, gore, blasphemy and blood like never before. Soundtrack by Pantera and Vincent Cassel to play Lobo – a definitive hit!

(There has been a film adaptation of Lobo, though a short one, for AFI’s director’s studies program, called Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special)

EDIT: Lobo’s Paramilitary Christmas Special can be actually viewed on YouTube, so just follow this link! (Thanks, OlliS)

maus

MAUS
We’ve lately been force-fed by Hollywood nazi flicks quite extensively, and I think that the subject would deserve a bit of a fresh angle to it. One like this would be an animated film adaptation of Maus, a story of mice and cats – jews and nazis – in wartime Nazi Germany and concentration camps. It’s one of the strongest stories about Nazi germany I’ve come across, based on the writer/artist Art Spiegelman‘s father’s memoirs. Yes, I’m talking about Ratatouille with Nazis – Maus would really open the adult animation floodgates, the ones Vals Im Bashir and Persepolis have been prying open already.

elake

ELÄKELÄINEN MUISTELEE
Eläkeläinen Muistelee is a Finnish comic by Kalervo Palsa, written back in the 80′s. The story is, in short, “Josef Fritzl gone bad” – a story of an old geezer sitting down at the park and starting to ramble on about the life he has lived. Filled with stories of poisoning to death (and while they were dying, also raping) your own family, necrophilia, homosexual orgies with five police officers at the graveyard, Eläkeläinen muistelee is propapbly the REAL ”most unfilmable graphic novel” out there. Not because of the story, but because nobody would ever fund a dime of it.

-Timo

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Posted in Awesome, Movies, Opinion | 77 Comments »

The Green Hornet vs. Green Lantern

Friday, March 20th, 2009

greenhonetvsgreenlantern

The year 2010 is looking quite interesting on the movie front. There are two movies that have literally gotten the green light: The Green Hornet and Green Lantern. I wanted to investigate this a little bit, so I gathered information for you about both of these up coming movies. And of course since this is Zombie Room… You have to fight! Now, let´s go over the rules.

#1 – The first rule of Zombie Room is, you do not talk about Zombie Room.

#2 – The second rule of Zombie Room is, you DO NOT talk about Zombie Room.

#3 – If someone says stop, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over.

#4 – Two guys to a fight.

#5 – One fight at a time.

#6 – No shirts, no shoes.

#7 – Fights will go on as long as they have to.

#8 – If this is your first night at Zombie Room, you have to fight.

ARE YOU READY? GO!

ACTORS

Let´s start with the main cast. This section is a bit tricky, because the role of Green Lantern has not yet been confirmed, so I will have to bet my money on Ryan Gosling who has been considered for the part. Seth Rogen on the other hand, has been confirmed to play The Green Hornet.

setvsryan1Seth Rogen wins this round, but only just by a little. Ryan Gosling would be an excellent choice for Green Lantern, but since it is still under discussion, and since Seth Rogen as The Green Hornet is the best thing I have heard in a while, round one goes to Rogen! Also he is one part of the writing team, which makes me want to give him an extra half a point. And I will! So it´s Green Hornet 1,5 – Green Lantern 0.

DIRECTORS

According to imdb.com it seem that Martin Campbell is now officially signed on to direct the Green Lantern. That means that Green Lantern will definitely have totally classy, but mind blowing action, with an euro angle. Also Michel Gondry has signed the deal to direct The Green Hornet. He is the mastermind behind movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind.

michelvsmartin

This one also goes to The Green Hornet. No matter how awesome Casino Royal was (and it was), the participation of Michel Gondry is almost too good to be true for a movie nerd like me. We can most likely expect a very visual and original take on the whole genre from him. So hands down this one goes to Gondry. Score is now Green Hornet 2,5 – Green Lantern 0.

CONTENT & SOURCE MATERIAL

How about the characters then. The Green Hornet is Britt Reid, a newspaper publisher by day who by night goes out in his masked “Green Hornet” identity to fight crime as a vigilante accompanied by his similarly masked Asian manservant Kato. Green Lantern is Hal Jordan, an ordinary man who was given the power ring and battery (lantern) by a dying alien named Abin Sur. The great thing is that neither of these so called heroes poses any real superpowers.

brittreidvshaljordanI just have to give this to Green Hornet again. One reason is that I love the TV-show, another reason is that I think Kato kicks ass! Also I think that the Green Lanterns lantern is actually pretty lame. Score: Green Hornet 3,5 – Green Lantern 0. This is not looking good for Green Lantern, but there is still one category left.

INTERNETS AND MARKETING

There are usually a few basic things I would battle out in this category, which are Facebook fans, posters, trailers etc. But in this case The Green Lantern seems to be so lost that there is no point in even going there. Only The Green Hornet had a teaser poster and a Facebook fan page, but that´s it. So maybe it was a bit too early for this fight to beging with. Fortunately we have the ultimate weapon, the infamous Googlefight.

googlefight_green

Well there you have it, the winner is The Green Hornet by 4,5-0. Congratulations! Or as Like DJ Ruby Rhod would say: Supergreen!

As a little extra bonus, here is the teaser poster (or logo) for The Green Hornet.

greenhornetlogo

I will be following these two project very closely and I will keep you up to date on their progress.

Ps. what about 2011, maybe we will be seeing a movie about Green arrow?

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Posted in Awesome, Fight, Movies, Opinion | 35 Comments »

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