Posted: Thu 17th Jan 11:41pm Post subject: Dazzles Top Movie Experiences Of 07 (with 08 Booty Shaking)
It is the time of year for pretentious knawers to put out lists pretentiously knawing on about their top 10 whatever's for 2007. At least it was a couple of weeks ago. Thus a knawer of a pretentious nature, such as myself, is required, nah, driven, to produce such a list.
Here is my top 10 movie experiences of 2007. These are movies I saw calendar year 2007, regardless of their actual year of production. I am actually going to touch on more than 10 movies along the way, probably including some World and UK premieres. It's my list and I will break the rules as and when I see fit. So there.
1) Ratatouille
Stop reading, step away from the computer and rent/buy/acquire it right now. It came on out PAL dvd this week. What are you waiting for? What are reading for? Come back after watching it.
Beginning to end, best movie I saw all year. At this point it would be customary to rave on about Pixar, their attention to detail, the iconaclastic story telling, their contribution to computer animation etc etc. Also it would be customary to have a mini rave about director/co-writer Brad Bird, and a couple of well regarded movies he had a hand in (*cough* The Incredibles *cough* The Iron Giant *cough* early Simpsons episodes). And for the history buffs, a further rave about how Pixar effectively swallowed the legendary Disney animation studios and is getting the house of mouse back in order. But hey, the critics love it (rotten tomatoes sitting at 96%), the punters loved it, and Disney is doing a tihs load of merchandising on a rat for a change instead of a much more family friendly mouse.
It is as good as anything Pixar has ever done. High praise. Fully deserved higher praise, it should be nominated for Best Movie at the Oscars instead merely Best Animated Movie.
As Brad Bird's theory goes, animation is not a genre, it is an artform to tell any type of story. In this case, it is art of the highest order. Absolute eye candy in composistion, design, lighting and hand animation.
If you missed it at the cinema, you will have to see it in mere Hi Def or dvd resolution. Oh well. But on the home formats you will get two bonus shorts. 'Lifted' and 'Your Friend The Rat', the later of which is very notable for being the first Pixar short ever to step away from the computer and go to the traditional animation style.
I could go on at length about the rats, going to Paris to see this, the concept art, the design, sub surface scattering, well selected realism and anthropomorphism, but meh. It is just beginning to end, best movie I saw all year. Magic in a bottle (well, plastic disc).
Last edited by Dazzle on Sat 11th Oct 5:04pm; edited 3 times in total
Putting the top 10 list on hold, went and checked out 'Cloverfield' today. Only spoilers I will go into here are what is plainly obvious from the trailers, but if you want to be completely spoiler free, skip this and come back after dropping two bits at your local cinerama sleazepit of choice.
Mkay. A found footage giant monster movie.
Found footage/hyper realism/cinema virtee(?), whatever you want to call it, has been around for decades and is in no danger of disappearing any time soon. The best examples of it I can think of all seem to fall into the Horror genre. That would be in part because Horror requires a very high suspension of disbelief. The moment the audience laughs at the zip on the back of the monster, you have to go back and build all the tension up again before you can really scare em again. This is unlike, say, comedy, where you can misfire on a reasonable proportion of the jokes and still take the audience where you want to take em.
The best examples of the style include 'Cannibal Holocaust' and 'The Blair Witch Project'. Holocaust was sufficiently disturbing that the director was taken to court in Italy in the mistaken belief that he had killed the cast in the making of the movie. I saw Blair Witch back in the day with a full capacity audience soooo scared tihsless they went dead quiet as the tension ramped up. The first noise coming when someone about five rows behind me had an emotional break down of the 'cowering behind the seat whispering "oh no oh no oh no" ' variety.
Of course, it is also a technique that an aweful lot of truely aweful horror movies use to lend credibility on no budget to their artless tihse. I have never walked out on a cinema screening, but should have with "The Last Horror Movie". Just awful and even worse, boring as watching black paint dry on an already black wall in a dark room at 2am.
Plenty of found footage movies on the way as well. There is a Spanish zombie movie, with the gimmick of using 'found footage' of a news crew on the scene with the fire department, that is already signed for an American remake before the original has been widely released. And the next Romero zombie movie is also of a low budget found footage nature.
Next point would be the obvious 9/11 influence. I was working in central London in 05 during the bombings. OF course, not on the scale of 9/11 (or for that matter a giant monster stomping NYC flat), but still somewhat comparable. Plenty in this movie touches on that experience. The initial confusion as to what was going on. people crowded around TVs watching on the spot helicopter footage that shows not a lot while being commentated on by news anchors who know even less. Streams of people walking out. Normally teaming streets being eerily empty. Arbitrary police and military closures and blockades. Not being able to get a hold of friends and family as the phone network failed off and on. The most disturbing thing I saw was a street full of abandoned ambulances with all doors flung open, and not a single person in sight. Going with a 9/11 influence is hardly surprising, and they managed to touch on all those points and more. Horror movies often reflect the fears and tension of their era in a round about way. Heck, I had a documentary on just that subject in one of the previous top 10 lists.
The original Godzilla, not the dubbed and re-edited English language version, but the original Japanese version was explicitly and metaphorically about the nuclear bombings of WWII, American occupation and more recent pollution/poisoning of fish that made it into their food supply.
Cloverfield also viral marketing in play, which is possibly the only way to effectively market the movie. Show too much footage, explain too much of what it is about, and there is really not much point seeing the movie. Not knowing entirely what the monster is and where the story is going is kind of the point of the ride. Viral marketing pushed Blair Witch over the top but got kind of a bad name with Snakes on a Plane. Which is stupid, as Snakes on a Plane was actually financially successfull, returning budget on cinema release before going to cable/tv/sell through where it most certainly in profit.
On the plus side. Cloverfield was done on the cheap, but most certainly does not feel or look it. It is pretty damn amazing the scope of the picture considering its relatively pitiful $30 million budget. They kept things quiet and on the down low, and probably marketed it in just the right way. And yeah, the monster is pretty damn cool.
On the minus side, although many of the edits are done completely in keeping with the 'as we found it' ethic, there are a few places where there a blatant jump cuts that just jar. Also they missed two moments where just a few seconds of blood and guts would have pushed the believability well and truly over the top and really got audiences going.
I don't really review movies, I just blather on about what I like. There is not realy any point reviewing, as what the individual viewer gets out of seeing a movie is entirely personal. Something I loathe is likely to be loved by someone out there or vice versa. Hence the only fundamental rule that I apply to cinema is 'thy shalt not bore'. The first 15 or so minutes of Cloverfield are boring. But I can forgive that, as it all serves the purpose of both giving background and a reason to care about the people on camera, and lulling you into a state of relaxation before the tihs hits the fan.
The fundamental metric of cinema - the only rating I can apply, did I feel like the couple of hours and couple of bucks to view Cloverfield was a good use my time and money?
Well, it wasn't as disturbing as Cannibal Holocaust, or as scary as Blair Witch, but it is close enough to say, yep, worth the time and money to go and see.
Joined: Dec 01, 2002 Posts: 12,327 Location: blurrrrrrrrrred
Posted: Fri 18th Jan 8:20am Post subject:
without reading any of you post except the 1st line (I want no spoilers at all) is it a good movie or is a hollywood special effects thin plot movie?
Dazzle wrote:
Putting the top 10 list on hold, went and checked out 'Cloverfield' today. Only spoilers I will go into here are what is plainly obvious from the trailers, but if you want to be completely spoiler free, skip this and come back after dropping two bits at your local cinerama sleazepit of choice.
Mkay. A found footage giant monster movie.
Found footage/hyper realism/cinema virtee(?), whatever you want to call it, has been around for decades and is in no danger of disappearing any time soon. The best examples of it I can think of all seem to fall into the Horror genre. That would be in part because Horror requires a very high suspension of disbelief. The moment the audience laughs at the zip on the back of the monster, you have to go back and build all the tension up again before you can really scare em again. This is unlike, say, comedy, where you can misfire on a reasonable proportion of the jokes and still take the audience where you want to take em.
The best examples of the style include 'Cannibal Holocaust' and 'The Blair Witch Project'. Holocaust was sufficiently disturbing that the director was taken to court in Italy in the mistaken belief that he had killed the cast in the making of the movie. I saw Blair Witch back in the day with a full capacity audience soooo scared tihsless they went dead quiet as the tension ramped up. The first noise coming when someone about five rows behind me had an emotional break down of the 'cowering behind the seat whispering "oh no oh no oh no" ' variety.
Of course, it is also a technique that an aweful lot of truely aweful horror movies use to lend credibility on no budget to their artless tihse. I have never walked out on a cinema screening, but should have with "The Last Horror Movie". Just awful and even worse, boring as watching black paint dry on an already black wall in a dark room at 2am.
Plenty of found footage movies on the way as well. There is a Spanish zombie movie, with the gimmick of using 'found footage' of a news crew on the scene with the fire department, that is already signed for an American remake before the original has been widely released. And the next Romero zombie movie is also of a low budget found footage nature.
Next point would be the obvious 9/11 influence. I was working in central London in 05 during the bombings. OF course, not on the scale of 9/11 (or for that matter a giant monster stomping NYC flat), but still somewhat comparable. Plenty in this movie touches on that experience. The initial confusion as to what was going on. people crowded around TVs watching on the spot helicopter footage that shows not a lot while being commentated on by news anchors who know even less. Streams of people walking out. Normally teaming streets being eerily empty. Arbitrary police and military closures and blockades. Not being able to get a hold of friends and family as the phone network failed off and on. The most disturbing thing I saw was a street full of abandoned ambulances with all doors flung open, and not a single person in sight. Going with a 9/11 influence is hardly surprising, and they managed to touch on all those points and more. Horror movies often reflect the fears and tension of their era in a round about way. Heck, I had a documentary on just that subject in one of the previous top 10 lists.
The original Godzilla, not the dubbed and re-edited English language version, but the original Japanese version was explicitly and metaphorically about the nuclear bombings of WWII, American occupation and more recent pollution/poisoning of fish that made it into their food supply.
Cloverfield also viral marketing in play, which is possibly the only way to effectively market the movie. Show too much footage, explain too much of what it is about, and there is really not much point seeing the movie. Not knowing entirely what the monster is and where the story is going is kind of the point of the ride. Viral marketing pushed Blair Witch over the top but got kind of a bad name with Snakes on a Plane. Which is stupid, as Snakes on a Plane was actually financially successfull, returning budget on cinema release before going to cable/tv/sell through where it most certainly in profit.
On the plus side. Cloverfield was done on the cheap, but most certainly does not feel or look it. It is pretty damn amazing the scope of the picture considering its relatively pitiful $30 million budget. They kept things quiet and on the down low, and probably marketed it in just the right way. And yeah, the monster is pretty damn cool.
On the minus side, although many of the edits are done completely in keeping with the 'as we found it' ethic, there are a few places where there a blatant jump cuts that just jar. Also they missed two moments where just a few seconds of blood and guts would have pushed the believability well and truly over the top and really got audiences going.
I don't really review movies, I just blather on about what I like. There is not realy any point reviewing, as what the individual viewer gets out of seeing a movie is entirely personal. Something I loathe is likely to be loved by someone out there or vice versa. Hence the only fundamental rule that I apply to cinema is 'thy shalt not bore'. The first 15 or so minutes of Cloverfield are boring. But I can forgive that, as it all serves the purpose of both giving background and a reason to care about the people on camera, and lulling you into a state of relaxation before the tihs hits the fan.
The fundamental metric of cinema - the only rating I can apply, did I feel like the couple of hours and couple of bucks to view Cloverfield was a good use my time and money?
Well, it wasn't as disturbing as Cannibal Holocaust, or as scary as Blair Witch, but it is close enough to say, yep, worth the time and money to go and see.
Seen There will be Blood Dazz? I'm really looking forward to that and No country for old men, when they eventually get here, if they haven't already.
Heard good things about both, will be trying to see em. Haven't even seen 'American Gangster' yet, which is meant to be the business.
VERT wrote:
without reading any of you post except the 1st line (I want no spoilers at all) is it a good movie or is a hollywood special effects thin plot movie?
Dazzle wrote:
The fundamental metric of cinema - the only rating I can apply, did I feel like the couple of hours and couple of bucks to view Cloverfield was a good use my time and money?
Well, it wasn't as disturbing as Cannibal Holocaust, or as scary as Blair Witch, but it is close enough to say, yep, worth the time and money to go and see.
There you are Vert, I have shortened it to a non spoiler verdict. In addition, it was written by Drew Goddard, who has a background with writing Buffy/Angle/Alias/Lost, which can all be called a blend character driven, plotted AND special fx'y. It does show through in Cloverfield.
Last edited by Dazzle on Fri 18th Jan 12:12pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Dec 01, 2002 Posts: 12,327 Location: blurrrrrrrrrred
Posted: Fri 18th Jan 12:25pm Post subject:
Dazzle wrote:
Prof. Badtouch wrote:
Seen There will be Blood Dazz? I'm really looking forward to that and No country for old men, when they eventually get here, if they haven't already.
Heard good things about both, will be trying to see em. Haven't even seen 'American Gangster' yet, which is meant to be the business.
VERT wrote:
without reading any of you post except the 1st line (I want no spoilers at all) is it a good movie or is a hollywood special effects thin plot movie?
Dazzle wrote:
The fundamental metric of cinema - the only rating I can apply, did I feel like the couple of hours and couple of bucks to view Cloverfield was a good use my time and money?
Well, it wasn't as disturbing as Cannibal Holocaust, or as scary as Blair Witch, but it is close enough to say, yep, worth the time and money to go and see.
There you are Vert, I have shortened it to a non spoiler verdict. In addition, it was written by Drew Goddard, who has a background with writing Buffy/Angle/Alias/Lost, which can all be called a blend character driven, plotted AND special fx'y. It does show through in Cloverfield.
im gonna go watch it tonight, though i'm a bit suspicious that you mention blair witch in that paragraph
Im told not to have a few drink before hand as there is shaky camera action.
Ratatouille was awesome Definitely better than I was expecting. I really enjoyed "flushed away" too (with it's plethora of BIG NAME stars) but Ratatouille was just spot on.
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Definitely better than I was expecting. I really enjoyed "flushed away" too (with it's plethora of BIG NAME stars) but Ratatouille was just spot on.
