After wondering, way back in 2009, whether the Twilight movies might mean more films oriented at women, it seems we might be getting there. In a couple of pieces over at The Guardian is seems the mainstream media might be catching on to it as well.
In the first, Anne Billson admits that while the critics may be lining up to pan the latest Twilight film, it does seem to be a harbinger of the rise of films with women in the lead for a change.
In the second, Issy Sampson provides a run down of some of the upcoming movies to feature female leads and seems to like the fact that they aren’t rom-coms, but rather more action movies. I’d have to say that Haywire appears to tread a well-worn path of the female assassin (only avoiding the usual cheese by the looks of it), but the others definitely look to provide some great stories and unique twists as well.
Read Full Entry | 26th Nov 2011 | Comments (0) | General
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO and one of the founders of DreamWorks, bemoans bad quality 3D conversions for the sudden shift in changing attitudes:
“I think 3D is right smack in the middle of its terrible twos. We have disappointed our audience multiple times now, and because of that I think there is genuine distrust – whereas a year and a half ago, there was genuine excitement, enthusiasm and reward for the first group of 3D films that actually delivered a quality experience. Now that’s been seriously undermined.”
“The audience has spoken, and they have spoken really loudly.”
This comes in light of the fact that “more US filmgoers have been choosing to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean and Kung Fu Panda films in 2D.”
That’s not because of bad 3D experiences, it’s because of 3D experiences in general. I’ve long been putting the case against 3D and there’s doubt we’re even able to process it. I actively look for 2D showings of the films I want to see and will continue to do so.
We’ll see what the rest of the audience thinks with the release of the new Transformers film though, which is supposed to have top-draw 3D. I still don’t think it’s worth it and, while it’ll be a hit, it’ll be interesting to see if they can actually manage a story as well.
Read Full Entry | 11th Jun 2011 | Comments (0) | General
Frankly the headline for this Guardian article says enough: Swallows and Amazons: the new Harry Potter?. I’ll answer that question: no.
As much as I like the idea of two sets of kids playing pirates on a lake in a twee Enid Blyton style (or indeed, an Arthur Ransome style) — I’ve seen one of the older films — and that it’ll have global appeal, you’re going to have difficulty beating something with a massive in-built market, wizards and special effects coming out of the wazoo.
Still, should be cheaper to shoot and should convey England globally as well, not to mention helping tourism for all those foreigners who want strawberries and cream and lashings of ginger beer in the summer sun.
Read Full Entry | 17th May 2011 | Comments (0) | General
Frankly, about time, but Cineworld are the first cinema to announce they are dropping prices for booking online and removing the booking fee. I’ve never understood why booking in advance, online, was more expensive, surely you’re saving a person, saving queues and guaranteeing a sale? Now, if we can get everyone else to drop them (sports venues, theatres and other entertainment establishments).
Read Full Entry | 18th Apr 2011 | Comments (0) | General
I assume this is in support of his desire to shoot 3D, but Peter Jackson wants cinemas to move to 49fps projection speeds. The reason is that The Hobbit is shot in 3D and as such it suffers from being darker than a 2D film (due to the 3D technology), which has been one of the criticisms to the format. One way around this is to show double the frame rate.
I don’t know what the uptake is like for digital at the moment, but I think it’s still fairly low, even in western countries, so getting the cinemas to move to yet another expensive format isn’t going to happen. Digital has all sort of benefits, from cost savings to security, largely for the distributors, but they haven’t been fast to come forward and stick most of their hands in their pockets to help cinemas. It’s taken some other initiatives and things like 3D (with higher ticket prices) to drive the adoption.
If you believe Wikipedia, there were about 36,000 digital screens worldwide in June 2010, while there were 38,000 screens in North America alone (as of December 2009).
So it’ll be a long time before 49fps is adopted, and even then only if the cinemas see a real benefit to the bottom line. That’s tackling cinemas though, but as one (falling) medium in the film chain, what about home users?
TV sets, DVD/Blu-ray players, HDMI interfaces, graphics cards, computers, mobiles, tablets, none of them are setup for 48fps, they’re all locked to 24fps. As we’ve seen with Blu-ray, unless there’s a good reason to move, home users will stay put with ‘good enough’ technology. It would take decades for them to update.
It’s a bit like James Cameron coming out and saying he expected all movies to be made in 3D within the next five years. No, they won’t. I haven’t yet seen a film that is better for it, in fact most are spoilt by 3D, it’s used purely to drive up ticket prices as far as I can see. A good film is a good film regardless of the format. That’s before you consider the uptake for home users is tiny. We don’t want it. I think it’ll last longer than it did the last time around (in the 40s, 50s and 60s when studios tried to fight TV with everything from colour to Aroma-Rama and Smell-O-Vision).
I’m not against new technologies, but they have to bring something to the medium other than a gimmick and a rise in ticket prices.
Update: Looks like the majority of people agree with me on the 3D front, The Guardian has a poll about whether Cameron’s ’3D future’ is glorious or dystopian, currently it stands at 81% of people saying dystopian (as of 19:55 BST 18/4/2011).
Read Full Entry | 16th Apr 2011 | Comments (0) | General
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