Posted on : 03-Jan-2010 | By : dre elmore | In : movies, pop culture
I stopped watching TV about three years ago. We dumped cable, cancelled the Netflix account and never upgraded to HD. And then Hulu came along. Which is awesome, except when Hulu starts buffering during Glee’s musical numbers (which seems to happen a lot).
Here’s some of the shows I watch:
This is where the Sean of the Dead guys got their start. Not to be missed. Reminds me of my previously life living in Hepburn House. Not that you care. Just watch it, okay?
More Sean of the Dead guys (well, Bernard, at least). Manny was Bilbo Bagshot in Spaced. Not as funny, but funny enough. Just give it a shot.
The return of Mal Reynolds. Actually, Nathan Fillion does a great job in this, and it’s got ex-X-Files guys behind the camera, so it looks and feels gorgeous. And it’s funny. I like funny.
This is such a hit, you probably already watch it. No? Why not? Everyone else does.
Yeah, I missed it first time around, so sue me. Has been referred to as The Royal Tenenbaums meets Cops. Or something like that. I like it. So sue me.
Are you kidding me? It’s Magnum, for chrissakes.
Ditto what I said about It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Just watch it, they need the ratings. I used to love this show when it was called The Larry Sanders Show. Oh, wait a minute….
Groundbreaking HBO stuff from just before the web was born. Almost too true to life, as Garry Shandling ended up suing his ex-Playboy bunny girlfriend (who plays Hank’s assistant) in real life. Or was it the other way around? Anyway, Shandling ended up suing Bernie Brillstein. Or was it Brad Grey? Anyway, have you seen how old Shandling’s gotten? He’s in the new Iron Man.
It’s a pleasure seeing Phil Hartman still alive, still kicking in this great show. And have you seen Dave Foley lately? Whoa.
I used to have the biggest crush on Suzanne Pleshette when I was 8. I mean, who didn’t?
Remember when newspapers were cool? I do.
Hulu Wishlist:
Absolutely Fabulous – Why isn’t this on Hulu yet? Well, at least you can see it on youtube.
Monty Python – Again, some of it’s on youtube.
Northern Exposure – I think some of this available on iTunes. I won’t say where I got my copies.
Posted on : 03-Sep-2009 | By : dre elmore | In : movies
If you’re like me, you’ve seen every film on the IMDB Top 250. This is a problem when you want to watch a good movie while scarfing down a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, and the current box office releases totally suck.
With this in mind, I recently googled “best obscure movies” and every permutation of that phrase I could think of, in hopes of finding something new (and good) to watch. I made a list. I watched them. I ate Cap’n Crunch. Here’s my top ten, in no particular order:
Audition This film, directed by the infamous Takashi Miike, makes everyone’s “best obscure” list. It’s a cute little love story with a horrific twist. It’s Miike’s best, and he’s done a lot of good movies (though I have to say, I was disappointed with Sukiyaki Western Django, Quentin Tarantino’s involvement notwithstanding). Based on the Ryu Murakami novel of the same name. The ending is hard to watch. Even Rob Zombie said it made him uncomfortable. That’s a hell of a recommendation right there, as far as I’m concerned.
The Salton Sea Maybe you saw this one when it came out. I didn’t. Val Kilmer plays a meth addict/nice guy/sax player. But not really. He’s just infiltrating the drug scene to find the people who murdered his wife. Vincent D’Onofrio steals the movie playing a nose-less redneck drug dealer. He’s so good in this, I didn’t even recognize him at first. Maybe it’s because he didn’t have a nose.
Primer This one got a lot of attention when it was released due to it’s incredible indie-film cred. The director (Shane Carruth) made the movie on a budget of $7000 and did everything himself. And it’s good. Really good. And complicated. Really complicated. A time-travel yarn featuring garage-entrepreneur engineers who don’t dumb-down the conversation. Film critic Mike D’Angelo said that “anybody who claims [to] fully understand what’s going on in Primer after seeing it just once is either a savant or a liar.” I’ve watched it twice, and I’ve still got questions. Like, how did he make a movie this good for only $7000?
Immortel This is like Final Fantasy meets The Fifth Element, without any self-conscious Chris Tucker comic relief. A combination of live-action and CG actors do the whole “performing against a blue screen so we can have really nice backgrounds” schtick. Blue-haired girl is the only woman on the planet who can conceive a child when impregnated by Egyptian god Horus, who needs a human puppet to act as intermediary. Did I mention Horus only has seven days to live, as he is being judged by Anubis and Bastet in a huge pyramid floating over Manhattan? Did I mention the meat puppet Horus chooses is a renegade philosophical revolutionary/political prisoner who’s been incarcerated in a deep-freeze for the last thirty years? Did I mention this film is based on a French graphic novel and directed by the novel’s French creator, Enki Bilal? Did I mention it’s in English? Why aren’t you watching it right now?
Swimming Pool Seemingly dowdy English mystery novelist borrows keys to her literary agents summer home in Provence. Tensions rise when pool is dirty and agent’s illegitimate French daughter shows up and has lots of fun in pool, anyway. Some guy dies near pool. Is it real? Is it only a story cooked up in the writers imagination? Heck if I know but it’s a lot of fun watching Charlotte Rampling eat yogurt and pretend to be “reserved.” Plus it’s got that French blonde who played Tinkerbell in the best film-adaptation of Peter Pan, ever. I give it 5 out of 5 baguettes.
Cypher A Lucy Liu movie you’ve never seen? C’mon, we can’t have that. Stylish techno-thriller with a massive dose of Phillip K. Dick: Who the hell am I and why do people keep fucking with my memory? Nebbish becomes James Bondian super-spy. Several patented Lucy Liu isn’t-she-the-hottest-when-she’s-not-conveying-emotion shots. Sailboat. Close-up of Lucy Liu freckles. I’m in.
Hard Eight Cool old guys are cool. Especially when they know the ins and outs of gambling. Sydney (Philip Baker Hall), a quietly authoritative tough-guy becomes mentor to John (John C. Reilly), a Forrest-Gumpian loser. Gwyneth Paltrow is a hooker. Sam Jackson is himself. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson before he got way famous.
New Rose Hotel Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe and Asia Argento in a movie based on a William Gibson short story directed by Abel Ferrara. That’s it. I really shouldn’t have to tell you more than that. Yeah, it’s a little slow, and no, it doesn’t pay off in quite the same way that King of New York did, but so what? Ferrara nails the dystopian-angst and it’s got Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe and Asia Argento in it!
Choke Remember Fight Club? Yeah, that was good, wasn’t it? This was written by the same guy. The one with the last name no one can pronounce. Chuck Palahniuk. Oh, it’s got some darkness to it, but it’s still pretty funny. Sam Rockwell is in it. So is Angelica Huston. Interesting tidbit: It was directed by the actor who portrayed the quiet Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Ironman. I think his name is Clark Gregg.
Irreversible OMFG. I can’t watch this. Seriously, I have to turn it off halfway through. Fortunately, the story is presented in reverse, so I know what happens: Boyfriend’s girlfriend is raped and beaten almost to death, and he and another guy track down the guy who did it. Brutal, visceral filmmaking guaranteed to evoke severe emotional response. Maybe you can make it all the way to the beginning. Good luck.
Cop-out
Okay, maybe you’ve seen some of these. But you know how these Top Ten lists work. Anyway, these are just the ones I’ve found recently. I’ve been looking for obscure movies since, well, forever. Got some recommendations? Lemme know, Or try and stump me.
Posted on : 01-Sep-2009 | By : dre elmore | In : movies, technology
Leap is a new short film from filmmaker Dan Gaud of Vancouver, Canada. Dan has worked on other small movies that you may have heard of: Watchmen, The Spirit, District 9, Underworld, Invictus. Leap is the story of a man who can travel between parallel worlds, using SCUBA gear. According to Dan: “I tried to take something fantastic and bring it closer to the real world. The diving gear is a good example of that approach of using real life stuff to survive the fantastic aspect of parallel world traveling.”
Dan shot the movie with a Red One camera. It’s a (relatively) new digital video camera capable of recording at resolutions up to 4096 horizontal by 2304 vertical pixels, directly to flash or hard disk storage. The Red One is significantly cheaper than old-school movie making equipment, finally allowing for what William Gibson referred to as the Garage Kubrick.
The Red One was developed by Jim Jannard, founder of the sunglasses company Oakley, Inc. No kidding. According to Wikipedia, Jannard was placed at #134 on the Forbes 400 in 2008 with a net worth of $3 billion.
The Red One sells for $17,500—almost 90 percent less than its nearest HD competitor. The savings are even greater relative to a conventional film camera. Not that anyone buys those; filmmakers rent them, usually from Panavision, an industry stalwart in Woodland Hills, California. Panavision doesn’t publicize its rates, but a Panavision New Zealand rental catalog quotes $25,296 for a four-week shoot—more than the cost of purchasing a Red. “It’s clearly the future of cinematography,” Peter Hyams says. “You can buy this camera. You can own it. That’s why people are excited.” (wired)
Gaud explains that it’s taken him a year to complete Leap, which has a running time of 6 minutes. That’s a lot of work.
Well I did pretty much everything except for sound and music. Writing, storyboarding, 3D animatics, organizing the shoot, renting the equipment, lighting up scenes, on-set vfx supervision, setting up the greenscreen in my living room (rebel filmmaking my friends!), setting up the camera and lens, shooting, editing, color correction, all the visual effects.
My girlfriend Virginie Goulet gave me a hand keying the greenscreens and she comped 2-3 shots during the battle sequence. Music will be done by the extremely talented Maxime Goulet and sound mix will be done by Yan Doiron. And of course, Luc Godbout starred and gave a really good physical performance. It’s always a nice feeling to see your character come to life from page to screen.
It’s kinda depressing to say that, after one year of work (in between the long hours I do at my job), the finished film will only be SIX MINUTES. It started out as a 10 minute short film, but that extra 4 minutes was mostly full 3d vfx shots.
After a while, seeing that I was all alone, I decided to cut the film into something more dynamic and less time consuming. I didn’t want to spend two years on this. I want to shoot something else. I love the adrenaline of being on set way too much to spend my life doing visual effects. (jokeandbiagio)
It’s an exciting time for filmmakers given the development of inexpensive equipment (Dan rented his gear for $900 for two days). But the time involved hasn’t changed, especially when it comes to production value. And no technical advance will ever solve the problem of creating quality scripts. However, with film being the 21st-centuries leading art form, it’s nice to know that the ability to create is slowly becoming a reality for the rest of us.
Like it says at the end of Dan’s trailer: “Coming Soon To A Film Festival Near You.”
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