Snatch & Star Wars Mash-up

This is genius. If you don't like colourful language, don't press play..

And speaking of Snatch, if you haven't seen the trailer for Guy Ritchie's new Sherlock Holmes movie, check it out here, immediately. It's face-punchingly awesome.

Where The Wild Things Are Trailer

Sometimes something gets blogged about so much, that you feel that you're not doing your duty if you don't spread the word as well. Today, that subject is the trailer for Spike Jonze's interpretation of Maurice Sendak's illustrated story Where The Wild Things Are.

You can view a HD Quicktime version of the trailer here.

I don't think that there's really anything much more to say, other than I cannot wait until this film comes out. If you're wondering what the song in the trailer is, it's a new version of 'Wake Up' by Canadian band The Arcade Fire. I'm told that the book was adapted by the writer Dave Eggers, who is responsible for the amazing book "A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius", so I think hopes are pretty high all around for this film, based on the team who were involved in bringing it to the screen. According to IMDB, it should be released around October the 19th, so looks like we're in for quite the wait unfortunately. I guess we should be thankful that it was made at all..

Terminator trailer

Just saw this, and had to pass it on to you guys:

I've been hesitant to get on board for this new Terminator movie after what happened in T3, but this actually looks great. Like, really great. And apparently they're making two more, so this is really just the first part of a trilogy. Can't wait until this one comes out. I guess that Christian Bale freakout was worth it after all..

In praise of Dan Meth

Just saw this, and had to post it:


I think it's genius. You can see more of Dan's stuff on his website. He's also the guy that is responsible for this animation called "Internet People" from a year or so ago. I'll definitely be checking back for more of his stuff in the future..

Inglorious Basterds Trailer

The first teaser trailer for Quentin Tarantino's new WWII flick 'Inglorious Basterds' has just been released on the internet.

Check it out here.

My first thoughts are that it looks pretty cool, but I hope the whole thing doesn't turn out to be too cheesy or campy. From what I hear, it's going to be pretty violent, so they obviously couldn't show much in the trailer. Read more about the project here.

Apparently the tentative release date is the 1st of August, so we've all got a while to wait..

In praise of Mitch Ansara

Just saw these awesome illustrations over on Veer. Illustrator Mitch Ansara has taken a bunch of movies, some old, some new, and created images that show what they would look like as 60's era paperbacks. They're slightly similar to my earlier post about Olly Moss' work I guess, in that they're both using retro designs to simply illustrate the general plot of a film. Either way, Mitch's work is simply great, and I really encourage you to head over here, to check out some more (like 16 or 17 more) work like this:





The illustration series is called "I Can Read Movies", by the way..

The Fall

I was lucky enough to see Tarsem Singh's The Fall the other night. I say 'lucky' because this movie was nearly lost to the world, due to the lack of any film distributor willing to take a risk and show it to the public. Thankfully, directors Spike Jonze and David Fincher saw the film, and managed to convince a distributor to take on the film. The director paid for most of the production himself, and the film was shot on 26 locations across 18 countries. It is without doubt the most visually attractive film I've seen in at least a year, and the performances of the two leads are absorbing.
I won't try to explain the plot of the film myself, just check out the trailer below, and see for yourself:

Slumdog soundtrack

I've been a bit lazy about posting about Slumdog Millionaire. I saw this film when I was on holiday, and it totally blew me away. Danny Boyle has done an amazing job putting the whole thing together, and he gets amazing performances from his entire cast. One of the best elements of the whole thing is A.R. Rahman's amazing score. Now, I'm sure you've all heard M.I.A.'s track Paper Planes by now. It was probably my favourite track from 2008 (although it's technically from 2007), and it features prominently in the film. There's actually two versions of the track in the film though, and I thought I'd share the second version, which is a DFA remix:

I'm quite confident that Slumdog Millionaire will win the Best Picture prize at this year's Oscars, and it's already #34 on IMDB's top 250 films of all time (whatever that's worth), so yeah, everyone should really check it out..

Opening art

A few sites have been linking to this great new(ish) site called The Art of the Title Sequence. The site collects examples of great opening credits and opening sequences from films through the history of cinema. Naturally, contemporary movies are featured more than the older stuff, but it really doesn't matter. Every post is fascinating, and gives you a real insight into how filmmakers set the tone of their work from the very outset. Some of my favourite examples from the first few pages of the site would be these:




As always, click on the images for higher resolution.

The first image is the opening sequence from the film Stranger Than Fiction. Such a great film, and the graphics in the opening sequence are just so well done. If you haven't seen this movie, rush out and get it.

The second set of titles is from the David Lynch film, Lost Highway. In my mind, David Lynch can do no wrong, and it's interesting to compare the titles he used for Lost Highway, to the ones he used on his film Mulholland Drive. They're quite similar, and work well to set up the sense of foreboding that is so strong in both films.

Finally, the third picture is a grab from the titles of Napoleon Dynamite. Some people love this film, some people hate it, but you can't deny it had its own particular style that made it unmistakable. (I quite liked the film, by the way)

So I'd really recommend checking out The Art of the Title Sequence, it's got some awesome stuff, and most of the entries have links to high-quality quicktime movies of the sequences, so there's heaps to see.

Dubai on film

So I watched Ridley Scott's Body of Lies last night. I'm a massive fan of Scott's (as the Bladerunner poster below shows), and think both Russel Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio are talented actors. The movie, while slightly long, was quite good. I'd probably give it a 7 out of 10. One of the more interesting parts of the film for me, was the short section that took place in Dubai. According to the wikipedia entry for the film, Ridley Scott sought permission to shoot in Dubai itself, but the request was denied by the National Media Council, due to the film's "politically sensitive nature".

So apparently they shot all of the 'Middle East' scenes in Morocco. This makes sense, because there's a street scene in Dubai that looks suspiciously like Rabat, in Morocco. Anyone who has been there will recognise the covered walkways alongside the avenues.

There's the obligitory establishing shot, which in the case of Dubai is shot from a helicopter moving behind what looks like Business Bay, up towards the Dusit hotel on Sheikh Zayed Road. It's funny to hear Leo say "I'm staying at the Joo-meee-rah Emmy-rates Towers", when he's being filmed in a place that looks like the pool area at the Hyatt near JBR.

There's also a part where a businessman is photographed in a Dubai club called The Cyclone Club. I thought that this was made-up, or was just another name for that club called Hurricanes or whatever, but a quick google search showed that there is actually a club called Cyclone in Dubai. It has apparently been open since '94, but it looks pretty scummy.

Overall, Body of Lies was a pretty decent move, but the fact that they weren't allowed to shoot in Dubai would be pretty obvious to anyone who has lived here for any length of time. But it's still worth checking out..

More great movie posters

Another young designer/illustrator who is doing great work with movies posters is a guy by the name of Tyler Stout. I've just finished watching Larry Bishop's Hell Ride, and apart from Michael Madsen's performance, the whole film was forgettable. If only the movie was as good as the cover art on the DVD case:


Tyler Stout has such an individual style that as soon as you see some of his work, you know immediately who it belongs to. He has put his hand to several other movie posters, and they're uniformly great:


It also helps that he's got great taste in the movies that he re-interprets, so his designs really jump of the page.

But seriously, that Hell Ride movie was really bad. The dialogue was actually laughable in places, and not even a lazy cameo from Dennis Hopper could save this one. I'm watching Body of Lies at the moment, waiting for the scenes they shot in Dubai. It's pretty interesting so far..

In praise of Olly Moss

Over on Veer, I found this post about a young designer called Olly Moss. This guy is taking old movies, and remaking their posters, in more of an abstract way. Here's his poster for possibly my favourite movie of all time:


And here's another one he did for Deer Hunter:


Olly is also responsible for this nice piece that has been floating around the design blogs all week:


He's definitely appealing to the 80's-born kid in me with that one. Last but not least is this simple little piece:


The quote is originally from Pablo Picasso, who I'm sure would be proud. Here's hoping Olly keeps up the awesome work, for all us 80's kids out there.

Timed Out

Apologies for the lack of content over the last week and a half. I'm currently on holiday with my family, and have been more concerned about spending time on the beach than being in front of my computer. I should be back to regular posting by the end of next week.

In the meantime, check out the trailer for Frost/Nixon. I saw the film a few days ago, and it was amazing. If you get the chance, this is definitely one you shouldn't miss.

Howling at the moon

I was at a friend's BBQ on Friday night, and noticed that everyone seemed to be acting slightly strangely. Not in any particularly weird way, but people seemed more animated than usual.

So then I woke up the next day, and see this, that Friday night's moon was the brightest in 15 years. This got me thinking about something my old boss told me, that the reason why we're so affected by the moon, is that our bodies are 80% water. The moon affects our bodies in the same way it affects the tides on earth.

Which is all just a reason for me to post this:

(Click on the image, or here, to see the trailer)

I love how when Michael J. Fox turns into a werewolf, everyone is totally cool with it, and all the cheerleaders want to hang out with him. Also, being a werewolf automatically turns you into an awesome breakdancer apparently. I think I speak for everyone when I say that there is a giant Michael J. Fox hole in modern cinema.