Oscar Winners and my thoughts.

So today was the Oscars in America – The only award show I tend to pay attention to. So here is a link to the official Oscars site, with a list of all the winners. I’ll speak about a few of the key ones I paid attention to.

Best Picture: The King’s Speech

So in the running for Best Picture were a bunch of great films, with my favourites being Toy Story 3 and Black Swan. But to see Inception win would have been alright too, since I liked Inception, even if it is an overrated film. Also, to see The Social Network win would have been understandable (even though I haven’t seen it). I didn’t mind that The King’s Speech won, since it does look like a great film (I’m yet to see it) but I feel that the others films stated before will have been better. Now I know I can’t judge it since I haven’t seen it, so I’ll have to watch it before I say anything else. but yes, out of those I didn’t expect Toy Story 3 to win, since animated films never win, but I really was rooting for Black Swan. I think Black Swan was kind of shoved to the side with these Oscars, due to its more artistic, risky and ‘weird’ content. Alas!

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

This was expected, and I’m super glad Pixar won yet another Oscar. Out of the 8 times a Pixar film has been nominated for this award, Pixar has won 6 times. Also, Pixar has had Up and Toy Story 3 nominated for Best Picture, which are only the second and third animated films to ever be nominated for Best Picture. Pixar is arguably the best animation studio in the world (I only see Studio Ghibli as its competition) and every film that they produce is amazing. So yes, a well deserved Oscar!

Best Actor: Colin Firth (The King’s Speech)

I can’t really comment on this one, since I haven’t seen any of the films in the running for this category. But based on the actor’s previous work, I think Colin Firth is a good choice.

Best Actress: Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

This is the only award that Black Swan received, which I was really saddened by since Black Swan is such a beautiful, twisted film. But when Natalie Portman did receive this award I was really happy. She gave such a brilliant performance in Black Swan, and I can’t imagine how hard it would have been to train as a ballerina for that film. It looked intense! So yes, a very deserving win.

Art Direction AND Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland

I was happy to see this film win the award for Costume Design, since that was pretty much my favourite aspect of the film, but I was a tad confused at how it won Art Direction with the specific emphasis on ‘set decoration’ and ‘production design’. I probably don’t fully understand the two terms and the scope of what they mean, but I don’t recall much set decoration in this film that was nearly entirely CGI. But I did enjoy the film, so it was nice to see it gain two Oscars. Congrats Disney!

Cinematography: Inception

Now I wasn’t happy to see Inception win this award. I thought it was a visually wicked film, but it was a real let down. It wasn’t the “Matrix”-esque film everyone made it out to be, since I found the plot to be perfectly logical. At the end of the film I felt as if I’d missed something, since everyone else seemed to be astounded and utterly confused about the plot of the film. I think it is this failure in expectations that led me to dislike this film, thus wish that it hadn’t gotten this award. I personally thought Black Swan should of won due to its beautiful use of intimate tracking shots and close-ups. But a friend of mine on Twitter informed me that this comes under directing. It seems I still have a lot to learn about the film world. Alas. Inception was a really beautiful film, with my friend on Twitter saying “Inception has the best cinematography I’ve seen since 2001: A Space Odyssey.” which I think I do agree with. I just enjoyed Black Swan’s different filming style, since the constant tracking shots are hardly seen in most films, and they really added to that film. So I guess I grudgingly admit that Inception did deserve this award, even if I didn’t smile when it was announced.

Best Director: Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech)

Now knowing that the constant use of these brilliant tracking shots from Black Swan comes under directing, I was expecting it to win in this category. Alas, it did not. The King’s Speech instead took this award. At these awards it seems they always like to have one film that snatches up a bundle of the awards, and this year they chose The King’s Speech. I am yet to see The King’s Speech so I can’t really pass judgement on it. But I find it hard to see Black Swan and The Social Network losing to The King’s Speech. But as I say, I need to watch The King’s Speech and The Social Network.

Visual Effects: Inception

I don’t see how Inception won over Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Since both films are CGI-heavy, whereas Inception barely uses visual effects. But I suppose the appearance of Inception using hardly any CGI makes the film better (since blatantly obvious CGi is annoying). So I guess Inception deserved this award. It just would have been nice to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 win an award, since I really enjoyed that film.

Music (Original Song): Toy Story 3

I was glad to see Toy Story 3 win another Oscar – since it is a really awesome film, and the song is real snazzy. I don’t really have much to say about this one apart form the fact I’m happy Toy Story 3 gained 2 Oscars and that I liked the song, haha.

So that’s the awards that interested me during the show. I’m reasonably happy with the results, since a lot of the films I enjoyed won awards, and I didn’t hate any of the films that won (although I am yet to watch some of them). If you wish to share you views/opinions on the Oscar winners then feel free to do so in the comments section below.

Thanks for reading.

-Ryan Lamont

The US ‘Death at a Funeral’

I knew it would come soon, but yesterday was a tad sooner than expected. Yes, yesterday I didn’t post a blog since I got a tad busy. Editing school video projects, writing my short film, and then watching the US ‘Death at a Funeral’ took up the most part of my day yesterday. I was planning to write a post, but then I saw it was 1am and felt that ‘Oh crap’ feeling when you realise you forgot something. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep this blog daily anyway, so it isn’t too much of a failure in my eyes. But I promise to keep this blog regularly updated!

So yesterday I watched the US’s version of ‘Death at a Funeral’. Now before I watched this film I hated it, since it is yet another complete plagiarism of another film. And I hate how America constantly does this. Like with REC; a brilliant, raw, intense, Spanish horror film. But instead of watching it with subtitles like a respectful film viewer, America had to go and do an exact copy of the film. But they made it worse! It wasn’t gritty and raw like it should be, it was hollywood and over produced and it lost all the soul and truth the original had. America has also done this with television shows such as SKINS. America completely destroyed the essence of SKINS when they remade it for the American market.

So as soon as I hear ‘American remake’ and ‘exact copy’ I get pissed off and dismiss the film. But of course there are exceptions. The American office is very funny, and didn’t turn out like some shoddy remake. So I looked at the US version of ‘Death at a Funeral’ and saw the cast, whom I liked (except Chris Rock). So I thought I’d give it a chance. And I’m glad I did, since I rather enjoyed it. I don’t think the UK or US version is particularly funnier than each other. But I liked how the US version was more updated, mentioning things like Twitter and Facebook and such. so I think it’s a decent film; not bad and not amazing, but decent. So you should go watch it if you’re a fan of American humour, since it is some of the best American humour out at the moment. Grown Ups on the other hand… Is simply quite terrible.

Thanks for reading guys!

-Ryan Lamont

Harry Brown: the truth of England

So to completely contrast with my post from yesterday, about how I love the grand museums of London, today I will be talking about why I despise the place. Today I watched ‘Harry Brown’, an excellent film starring Michael Cain. It tells of a pensioner vigilante who is killing the chavs (Council Housed And Violent – basically gang members) in vengeance for his lost friend. It is a beautifully filmed and acted film, which has a great plot. Some scenes are difficult to watch for an empathetic and involved viewer like myself, due to the sheer amount of violence. But it is a thoroughly enjoyable film still. This film also brought back many bad memories from my time in London, and reignited my hate for the country, thus inspired this post.

Many people may judge me as tense and paranoid when walking on the streets with me. I stay very aware of my surroundings, I’m quick to judge and avoid people whom I see as potential threats, I avoid underpasses at all costs, I don’t wander down narrow streets very often, I am insanely tense and in a hurry at night and cross the road when I see a group of teenagers walking towards me. This is all due to my upbringing in England. These were safety precautions. They kept me away from chavs and safe from harm. If you’ve seen Harry Brown you’ll understand why I avoid underpasses, and do many of the other ‘paranoid’ things I do. But I’d rather be an alert and paranoid person on the streets than a relaxed and all-too-trusting teenager. Since it’ll be the trusting teenager who you’ll hear about on the news.

I kind of hate the fact that London made me this way. I lived in a reasonably nice area, but I still developed these precautions. Probably because I went to a bit of a dodgy school. It was surrounded by a council estate, with a tall iron, spiked fence separating us from the filth behind the gates. I don’t like to judge those in council estates, since there are some nice people who live there. People too poor to move anywhere else, pensioners who can’t afford to leave and immigrants who can only afford the basics; all lovely people, just living in this shit-infested area due to money issues. The majority of people in a council estate though are disgusting. They have a list of criminal records, low personal hygiene, messy houses, no respect for anything or anyone, no ambition, no want to get a better life, usually a drug or alcohol addiction, are extremely violent and then these disgusting people breed! Simply clogging up the estate with youths who will go on to be nothing more than a common thug in the estate.

You can tell I resent the majority of people in council estates, since they are abundant in the qualities I hate, such as: violence, disrespect, apathy, ignorance and unintelligence. But these people aren’t known to the world it seems. When I moved to New Zealand, so many people were jealous that I lived there. New Zealand seems to have this odd fantastical view of England, seeing it as this exotic dreamy paradise place. But the fact is there are tens of murders everyday in London alone, many of which go unreported due to the sheer number of them. Only an ‘interesting’ murder would make it onto the 6 o’clock news. And gangs, crime and violence are prolific in England. But no one seems to know of this. How can all the bad news about England not reach the wider world? There is the internet documenting and spreading word of the bad of England, yet still people seem to love London.

I can see why people would love England, for I too love elements of it. But unfortunately the culture, rich history, pretty museums and royal castles just aren’t worth the huge amounts of crime, violence and gangs that you are faced with in England. It’s a country that is on the demise. Once the proud ruler of the world, now a country in violent turmoil. It’s unfortunate to see such a beautiful and historically rich country be bagged down with such badness. But I doubt it’ll be able to recover from it anytime soon. The chavs are breeding and the teenagers of England are only becoming more disrespectful, violent and stupid. The future for England is not looking bright.

So I recommend you all watch Harry Brown to see the real England. It is an amazing film, that manages to get the disturbing truth across in a well acted, beautifully filmed and awesomely written film. It is the Grand Torino of England, but I find Harry Brown to be even better than Grand Torino, since it is gritty, true and has great cinematography. Grand Torino is great too, but Harry Brown beats it by just a bit. So yes, watch it and digest it, and realise that what you are watching in that film happens everyday all over England. Then tell me your opinion on the country.

Thanks for reading guys!

-Ryan Lamont

Peter Jackson’s films: I’ve liked one of them!

Now as a guy living in New Zealand, people don’t usually like it when I say I don’t like Peter Jackson’s films. And I don’t like saying it either! In 2009 I had never seen a full Peter Jackson film. I had avoided watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy and hadn’t gotten around to watching all of King Kong, since I got bored midway through. Then one day I decided to seriously get into film and start watching ‘the classics’ and attempt to consume as many films as possible. So I had to watch Peter Jackson’s films! He practically created the New Zealand Film industry, and is one of the few internationally famous New Zealanders.

I started with King Kong. It was doing so well up until they got to the island… Then the film dragged on for another hour or so and I was bored. The first time I watched it I stopped after King Kong snatched the woman up, since trekking through a forest and fighting dinosaurs is incredibly boring. I wish Peter Jackson were able to edit his films down more. They tend to start out good and then the interest just dips and becomes dull. The beginning of King Kong could have been shorter, the island segment of King Kong should have been much shorter, and when King Kong was in the city was the most interesting bit, so we should have arrived at that point earlier. The suspense before getting to the island and seeing Kong was great, but then the suspense and interest just drops from there. But the most interesting part of the film is definitely when Kong is in New York City, since it’s such a contrasting aspect of the film. Wild animal trapped in man-made jungle. But yes, that film is far too long for my liking.

 

Then I watched the film series that put New Zealand on the map. The Lord of the Rings! Now I know there are thousands of LOTR fans out there, but I speak the truth when I say I nearly killed myself in the last film. Seriously! It was the most boring and dull piece of crap I had watched. The first film was vaguely okay, but didn’t have an ending. The second was duller and had no ending. Then the third was the epitome of dullness and ended about seventeen times. Just as I was about to rejoice and turn off the DVD, finally being able to say, “I’ve watched The Lord of the Rings” it began again. Fade-in, fade-out, fade-in. This god-awful film would not end! But I was determined to watch it till the end. And once I had, I told those that had told me ‘it’s a great film’ that they had misled me and I hate them. Only joking, I didn’t say I hated them, but I hated the film series.

I often come into debates about why I hated the film with people who liked it, and most seemed to have watched it as a child, so have those nice child memories attached to it. But they tend to agree if they watched it now they’d get bored. Also a big reason I hated the film series was J.R.R Tolkien’s fault. He simply wrote a HUGE book, which had to be split into three to be published. It was never supposed to be three books, and never supposed to be three films. It was unnaturally cut up. Which is why is why I hate the end of the first and second film, since NOTHING is resolved. When I say that, people say “yeah Harry Potter does the same thing, there’s no proper ending,” but it doesn’t! Each book has a challenge within it, which it resolves, and also has the longer challenge of defeating Lord Voldemort. Whereas LOTR has on challenge which runs through all three books/films, which isn’t resolved until the end that leads to no satisfying ending, since nothing has been accomplished or resolved. If you watched the films in the cinema it would have felt like ‘Tune in next year for the rest of this dull story”.  Also there is so much unneeded crap in the books/film, yet they happily have cardboard characters. Everyone who goes on the journey we know nothing about, like Orlando Bloom plays a random Elf who has about 9 lines during the full three films? Basically LOTR is a love or hate film/book series, and I hate it, and don’t understand why people love it. If you are a fan of the book/films feel free to tell me your reasons in the comments below. Like I am very grateful that J.R.R Tolkien basically created the fantasy genre, since it is a genre I love to read. But his books are just far too dull for my liking…

And then I watched The Frighteners, a film Peter Jackson did before King Kong and LOTR. It was about these ghosts who dupe people out of their money, with their mortal friend posing as a ghost investigator person. Then death came to the village and started to kill people and only that man could see and prevent it. It was an odd story, which was much better than King Kong and LOTR, although I still didn’t really like it. It was set in America, but filmed in New Zealand and you could clearly tell. Also it still lost my attention during it. But it was much better than King Kong and LOTR; which is bad, since you should be improving your films I think, not letting your earlier works be better than your latest. I then tried to get a hold of Bad Taste and Heavenly Creatures, Jackson’s first film. But it was nowhere to be found in the DVD store, alas!

And then came The Lovely Bones. I really wanted to like this film, since it would suck to dislike ALL of Peter Jackson’s films. But luckily enough, I liked the film! It had a great plot; although I had thought Susie was going to help her family hunt the killer… My only fault with the visual aspect of the film was Peter Jackson’s completely irritating magical CGI inbetween world. After a few annoyingly tacky CGI shots I was tired of the inbetween, and hated every time we had to venture back to it. I would have much preferred that odd ghostly heaven-like place Susie first goes to when she dies, where she is running around her neighbourhood. The plot kept me interested throughout, but the CGI irritated me a lot. Real locations will always trump fully CGI ones I feel. If only Peter Jackson could of let go off his precious Weta Workshop for ONE film. Alas! But at least he edited this film well. It didn’t drag on, and had a decent ending. I’d say good, but it was just a tad unsatisfying, but I suppose the film was about learning to get over the difficult times and move on, which it showed very well. I enjoyed the film a lot, especially the cornfield/murder scene. Even though you knew Susie is already dead, you still hoped that she could escape from Mr. Harvey. I liked the fact they didn’t show too much of the death, instead leaving it to the imagination, which I think works a lot better. Although I wished they’d shown just a little more of the killing, to make the transition between life and death more apparent. Overall is was a really great film, with my favourite character being the grandmother played by Susan Sarandon

Jackson is now going to be directing The Hobbit, which is only one book so might actually be decent, and a Tin Tin film. I’ll have to see if I like either of these new films…

Thanks for reading guys!

-Ryan Lamont

Top 3 Favourite Films

Hey guys, today I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite films and state why they are my favourite. I’m very interested in films, both viewing and making them – So naturally I like a wide variety of films and find it very difficult to list my favourites, since I always end up missing one or two out. So I have decided to list the three films that repeatedly come up when I think ‘what are some awesome films?’

(1) Spirited Away

I think this is my favourite film of all time, although it does change every now and then – and may change in the future. But for now, Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘Spirited Away’ is my favourite film. I watched this in my year 10 Japanese class, after watching Totoro in the class the year before, and was just amazed by it. ‘Spirited Away’ has a fantastically magical fantasy world that is so alive and busy with such beautifully drawn and painted characters and backgrounds. The characters are all so different and interesting, and the ideas are so bizarre and intriguing! The soundtrack is also intoxicating to the senses and is a joy to listen to. Joe Hisaishi is a truly masterful composer! So with its beautiful animation, awesome fantasy world, intricate plot and characters, beautiful soundtrack and just shear originality – ‘Spirited Away’ becomes my favourite film of all time. This film is also the one that made me a great fan of Hayao Miyazaki’s work in general. A brilliant film that I recommend to all!

(2) Mean girls

Now ‘Mean Girls’ is definitely the most quotable film of all time! I quote and reference this film far too much in everyday life. What makes this film place so highly on my list of favourite films, is Tina Fey’s amazingly funny script! It’s one of the few films in the comedy section that actually makes me laugh (comedies these days are so crap…) But it is not only Tina Fey’s hilarious script that makes this an awesomely funny film, each awesome actor’s portrayal of their characters really gets the laughs. This film is all about characterisation, and the cast really nails it! This film is constantly entertaining and funny, and is abundant with lines to quote in pretty much any situation in life. If you want a good quality laugh then definitely go see this.

 

 

(3) The Little Mermaid

This Disney classic is based on the amazing story by Hans Christian (with a few Disney adjustments occuring of course) and it was my favourite film as a kid. I blame this, along with pretty much every other Disney film, for making me into a hopeless romantic. Disney films have such perfectly romantic and beautiful relationships in their films, that a kid exposed to them his entire life is sure to long for one too. I haven’t watched this film for many years (since unfortunately it’s in the Disney Vault so I can’t buy it on DVD) but I still think this would be a favourite of mine if I watched it now. It has that magical aspect which I love about many films, along with the tormented romance and sense of danger and peril, and the ocean! (I love the sea and mermaids and pirates and other sea-related things). This film also has my favourite Disney Villain, Ursula. I love her attitude and appearance, and Pat Carrol as her voice is just perfect! So all that combined with a simple, entertaining, plotline makes ‘The Little Mermaid’ one of my favourite films of all time.

 

So that’s my top 3 favourite films! If you feel like sharing, why not put some of your favourite films in the comments below? Thanks for reading guys!

-Ryan Lamont