Forgotten Scott - Body of Lies, Kingdom of Heaven.

Don't ask why, but I was thinking about Ridley Scott a few days back, and when it comes to the films of his that I enjoy, it's pretty easy to label them.

Alien. Blade Runner. Gladiator.

There will be a number of people who agree with that selection, and inevitably some who have issues with one or all of them, but lets go by IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes consensus here, roughly 8.4 and 85% ratings respectively, so I'm willing to speculate that my opinion of them spreads fairly wide. The next part of my thought process was, what's he done since that's been really good?

Turns out that there's more than springs to my mind immediately.

And in my case I think that's because the things that spring to mind immediately are the past 5 years of meh-fests. In reverse order I think it's Exodus: Gods & Kings, The Counselor, Prometheus, Robin Hood. Now there might be stuff missing from that there list (it would've taken about 10 seconds to google, but then again why not make up facts?), but all in all as far as recent history goes, my opinion is that I don't really feel like there's anything to properly shout about. Prometheus is possibly the most divisive film out of those 4 in terms of public opinion I'd say, but I still enjoy the quote which describes it as 'the most beautiful film I've ever wanted to punch in the face'. (Watch the opening 10 minutes or so, the rest is take it or leave it)

So is a bad run enough to tarnish a Director? I mean it's 5 years of not having much on the way of critical acclaim or mass public adoration, the first thing I think of is 'he's kinda lost it a bit hasn't he?' And upon further reflection, and a bit of a google, that's rather unfair.

Since 2000s Gladiator there was a 10 year span which included Black Hawk Down and American Gangster, which are only a slight step down from the 3 you remember first off, and then Kingdom of Heaven & Body of Lies, which although arguably are not as good as the other two, are still rather enjoyable.

It was Body of Lies that alerted me to this, having completely blanked out when trying to recall between Gladiator (2000) and Robin Hood (2010) I saw it in HMV and recognised it. I remembered bits and pieces of it, the genre, the people involved, and that I really enjoyed it when I first saw it, but apparently not enough to clock it when thinking through Scott films. Did Prometheus really tarnish his list of work enough to do that for me?

Body of Lies

Zero Dark Thirty

For those who havn't seen it, Body of Lies is from 2008...ish, and runs in the same kind of vein as Homeland. Leo Di Caprio is a CIA intelligence agent, running operations on the ground for the US from the drone eyes of an overweight and heavily accented Russel Crowe back in his comfortable family lifestyle. Obviously being contained in a single feature length run time means that it lacks the kinds of intrigue, spread of interests and development that Homeland gets afforded each season, but it's still a decent piece of cinema. Might do a proper piece on it at some point actually but that's another story. It's very much a story of the times, and I'd imagine it would have been a fairly big hit in the states simply due to the subject nature? I don't know that for a fact, but a reasonable assumption I'd say given other successes. Terrorism and counter terrorism are now part of everyday news reports, and this film feels like the start of the Homeland, Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty style of film making, without really reaching those heights. But you got to enjoy a bit of drone death cam though am I right? Classic international sniper vision.

Body of Lies

Kingdom of Heaven strays closer to the topics he seems to enjoy more overtly these days, quite obviously in the case of Exodus, but then also there are ridiculously heavy religious themes running through Prometheous (which add nothing, yeah, nothing is definitely the right word). In a sense Kingdom of Heaven, a story about a blacksmith's journey to the 'holy land' of Jerusalem, is slightly less religious than Prometheus, which is future people traveling to another planet in order to discover the meaning of cave paintings. There is a little bit of logic, kinda. There's less in the way of philosophical religion in the religious war epic, it's merely locations of supposed importance to people, and it's the basis of the war, there is little in the 3 hours (I'm going off the director's cut here) about what the religion means to people, why, how it affect's their reasoning. It's mostly just Orlando Bloom going, 'nope, don't feel any godly presence' over and over again. Prometheus on the other hand is awash with wanting to find out about a creator, referring to the higher beings as gods, questioning faith blah blah... Yeah I'm not against all this sort of thing, but in a place where it has a bit of gravitas, the sci-fi hybrid really doesn't work for me at all. I certainly don't remember it cropping up in Alien, and that's the film people remember. Religious rant over, Kingdom of Heaven is a fair effort at telling a historical narrative, with enough time allowed to properly expand on the lead's life, follow along with both the sides at war and understand the politics surrounding it.

Kingdom of Heaven

Yet not in the same league of... I can't really think of an example right now... Alexander? ...noooo, Troy? I kind of like this more than Troy though, King Arthur? ...nope, I'm just going to hope that you've seen it and deal without having any comparisons ready and waiting.

So there you have it, it took me about two evenings* to write but there's a couple extra Ridley films that may have completely passed you by. Should you ever feel short of something to watch, there's a couple of suggestions that might entertain you for a couple of hours. MIGHT.

(*I fell asleep on evening one, probably should have taken that hint on my writing skills, chances are you didn't get this far anyway, so screw it)

Hang on, there's a bigger gap between Blade Runner and Gladiator than Gladiator and Robin Hood? Yeah I'm not going into that. There'll be another review of another not new film in a little while, probably on my next BluRay binge.

Sonic Highways - Timeframe is going to be difficult.

I'm going to have to completely break every rule I set out at the start, because upon review, I find it impossible to pick just 3 minutes. I want to go 'oooh watch this bit!' and then a paragraph later, 'ah no, this is a bit which illustrates that!' and you'd end up watching an entire episode within this one post.

Instead of that happening, I'm just going to try and convince you it's worth taking the time. Oh yeah, and this is regardless of what you think of the album. Despite having the album making process as part of each episode, it's about so much more than that, so, so much more.

Okay, I've found a clip. It's not the greatest clip for encapsulating everything the documentary is about, and it doesn't cover the sheer range of styles and content, but I quite like it. In a way it contains the most important part of the entire series.

 It's not quite under 3 minutes, but ah well, you're lucky to get a clip anyway.

That clip is from the best episode from the series (joint 1st with the other 7) New Orleans, and displays the sort of heart that you get from the people telling the story, and the people involved in the story. It's full on, 100% musical education, and from the type of teacher who really cares that you learn about it. There's both history of people and the history or tech, providing a wide interest for fans of both or either.

The New Orleans episode focuses mainly on the people of the city and their musical heritage, including 101 people I've never heard of before, and 5 or 6 that I have. There is so little I knew going into it, and yet, so much of what I didn't know about, I also apparently thoroughly enjoyed. You'll be the same, I guarantee it. With the episode being focused on New Orleans, you expect a number of topics to be covered, and they are, but everything links back to the history of the city's music. Residents claiming to be 'ashamed' of the historical tag of being one of the largest slavers destinations in the entirety of the united states, but along with this, the kinds of sounds, rhythms and styles that it brought along with it and helped shape the city into what has become known for musically throughout the world.

Oh yeah, and the album to accompany the series, well, the series actually accompanies the album, but I'm not reviewing the album. Each episode contains a whole host of musicians, most of whom inspire the track for that particular episode, and a select few play on the song. You can genuinely feel the influences in the final pieces, and it's even presented in the form of a music video right at the end of each episode. Fully stylized, thought out and shot in the space where it was recorded (except for the Las Vegas one, that place was barely big enough to fit the band).

Finally, as a bit of an after thought I may as well mention the style of the doc, even though to me it barely matters in this case, I'm all about the content it provides. But on an international stage and with so much money pumped into the project, it needs to be engaging, and I think it does this fairly well, blending a lot of archive footage along with what they shot on site, and incorporating a wide range of historical photography. I'll happily admit that Dave Grohl isn't the greatest director around, but these episodes are far from shameful - they play out like a huge 8 hour passion project by an excited 45 year old child. It works out as a teacher talking about all of his/her favorite artists, and then after talking about each one they get the opinion of each one, and after the opinion that artist plays you some music. There is so much music in the episode it's a marvel in itself. None of it feels forced, it all flows in a way, and carries you through history. There are some sections which just play through songs with faces and names and photos, there are so many introductions to be made that it's impossible to link them all in a coherent narrative, so I'll let these sections slide. Anyway, it's TV, it has it's own recognised series narrative, it's fine, see how easy it is to justify everything?

I'm going to steal a quote from a tweet I've just seen, to paraphrase, 'Real music isn't just style, one flavour. Music is a banquet.'

Welcome to one of the longest spanning, most varied and most consumable banquets of modern times.

Under the Skin. 1 Minute 45 Seconds.

So this one wont be a long one, it's only going to be short because the clip I've chosen is rather simplistic, but then again bloody beautiful to go with the rest of the movie.

I reckon this is going to be a sort of Marmite film if (go on, when) you watch it, it's not the most action packed feature of 2013, and there is extremely little in the way of expositional dialogue. In fact, I reckon there's no expositional dialogue. But the film on the whole is a stunning piece of work, each different aspect is crafted beautifully, and Scarlett Johansson does a stunning job of conveying everything you need to know through through her performance. In reality the following clip could be slightly shorter, but I thought I'd add in that first shot, y'know, as a bit of an extra convincer.

So here it is!

(apparently I can't embed this one due to copyright something blah blah blah, so the still above should link straight to youtube!)

Done? Happy? Confused? Feeling slightly peckish?

Let me add a little bit of an explanation to the clip, then I'll rock on and do a little bit extra on the make-up of the clip and the various aspects I love about it.

I might then add in a couple of other stills from the rest of the film, to wet appetites further. If you've been good.

So it doesn't really matter where in the film that clip comes, all you need to know is that it's very personal to the character, and vital to the self discovery that you're going to be following along. But before we get into any of that, there's the opening shot (that I left in purposefully, and is a clean break off from the scene/settings just before this clip). This is pretty much standard for this film, there are some absolutely beautiful landscape shots throughout, and they give an incredibly mysterious air to the Scottish setting, and in a way, it aids the sci-fi aspect of what is otherwise a narrative fairly based in reality. Shots like these remind me ever so slightly of a less blue Prometheus, but that's about the only comparison I'm going to make. Prometheus is pretty and very little else in my view.

Under the Skin (2013)

Now the narrative of this little segment, the self realisation that the lead character is unable to truly be as human as the people around her. It's essentially a little bit of envious people watching from a POV perspective followed by some really intensely held shots as she tries to fit in. There's a conscious decision to string out that moment as long as possible, only two camera angles, and a lot of chew time. Never thought that would be a thing that I'd ever type. It's a proper realisation moment, where she realises that she's never going to be able to fit in properly with humanity, outlined by some of the reactions when she nearly throws the cake up.

Now technically, I think this scene is silently stunning, there is very little in the way of sound, so much so that at times in the wrong environment it's possible to think that it's muted. But then it feels in no way unnatural also to me. The location and setting lends it's self to that level of silence, and there's very little visibly diegetic in the scene that you expect to hear. It's a prime example of well used minimalism which fits in nicely with a number of other scenes throughout the film. The only sounds you really hear surround the eating of the cake, cutlery on china plate, and gagging on the food, with the rest of the visible diegetic sound you'd expect (maybe those cars in the background, or the rest of the people in the established open space) blend seamlessly into the background.

So that's pretty much it. It's not an expansive spectacle of a scene, or part of a scene, but there's a lot packed into such a small segment in terms of exposition, and that's what impresses me hugely about this film. The entire piece contains very little in the way of expositional back story, flashbacks or dialogue, and focuses on showing you everything you need to know through the performance and the interactions. It just stuck with me, after my first viewing, and the getting the bluray of it gave me another chance to sit back and properly understand what's happening. I openly accept that it's not the sort of thing you can half watch, or spend part of your concentration on, you need to be fully involved, and that's a pretty brave thing considering the habits of some film audiences these days.

Oh yeah, and the soundtrack really abrasive so listen to by itself, but incredibly fitting to the picture, and properly completes the work of art.

Now, you've been good enough, have a couple more locational stills. Not all of them though obviously, don't want to spoil it for people!

Three of the many beautiful location wides. Paintings the lot of them.

Anyway, that's me over and out, don't let the Scottish accents turn you off from watching it ;)

Some Love for Rush

As a soundie, it's my duty to bring these things up as frequently as possible, so let me set you a scene and make this drag out for a little longer than it otherwise would.

So yes, a scene for you all. My life is a fairly simplistic one most of the time, and a lot of that time is spent sat in my armchair, with music churning out from the speakers on my desk. And before you say anything, having an armchair at 21 is absolutely fine, and if you tried it, you wouldn't have life any other way. So yeah, chair, music and getting engulfed in the sound, singing along to whatever is playing. Singing? I can't sing? I'm not singing, this is more humming, but feels like I'm singing to something on the radio? This is confusing. In short the Rush soundtrack was on and I was completely engulfed.

Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt, Daniel Brühl as Niki Lauda

For those of you unaware, Rush is a film made in 2013, set through the mid-late 1970s, following the careers of racing drivers James Hunt and Nikki Lauda. As much as I love this film as a whole, the soundtrack is the one thing I'm going to pick out as being something especially catchy, and easily on par with what gets released in the charts.

Soundtracks in movies often come in two forms, either a collection of tracks picked to fit with scenes within the film, or there's the hiring of a composer who will write music with the scenes in mind and you end up with a collection of tracks within a similar style to underscore the film. Sometimes is a collection of both. This is the category into which this film falls.


Now I'm probably just going to litter the post with these, so hopefully you can just listen along per paragraph, almost, I'm going to fail hugely should I try to make 3 minute long paragraphs. But I reckon my first point, with the reference of the clip above is going to be the mild genre crossovers. Not that soundtracks have genres, obviously, but you know the conventions I mean, don't you? I'm hinting towards the heavy use of strings, the heavy use of fully composed orchestral pieces, either classed as classical, or contemporary classical I reckon. Anyway, the first track on the list, 1976, is almost a half and half beast, beginning as a string focused track, before spilling over into the drum, guitar & cello heavy groove of the rest of the soundtrack. So enjoyable. A simple pleasant phrase that runs throughout, and a tempo fit for racing.

 

In a way, the film's setting within a rather rock & roll70s lifestyle, with Bowie and Thin Lizzie to also on the soundtrack, bleeds into the music and gives it an extremely bluesey feel all over. With both '20%' and 'I could show you if you like?' giving raher awesome little interludes into the narrative. Both only notching in around a minute of screen time, but enough to stick memorably in the mind, and enough to seek them out afterwards and enjoy independently.


I mean seriously, these little phrases of music (probably too short to labelled as songs in their own rights) are easily enjoyed in any environment, and are not, as much film music is (and rightly so), reliant on the images in order to give themselves a purpose. They're not even overly emotive, lets face it. Listening to '20%' you can tell it's excitement, but in what setting? With it being a racing movie the first guess is always going to be the most obvious, part of a race, but then it'd also be fitting in any kind of party setting, or any other form of adrenaline rush. 'I can show you if you like?' is a little easier to figure out, so I don't have to expand on genre, however it's damn catchy.

Worst album review ever? Probably.

In short there's a helluva lotta drums & guitars.

Now for the finest and easiest track to listen to on the entire record. What the hell, I'll add this one in context with engine sounds and everything. Well half of it anyway, that way it's not as spoliery, and I care about spoilers.



Apparently this clip is blocked in the US, bloody copyright sensitive bastards.

'Lost but Won' is almost like a full expansion of '1976', similar kind of style, with the obvious underscoring to begin with, followed by the far more raucous second half. But in the grand scheme of the mix, the engines, car tyres squealing, and splashback off the cars means that the entire piece of music works as underscoring, and it only ever cuts through whenever the style dictates.

All in all the score feels like an incredibly brash reworking of Zimmer's style, still including the main elements of the occasional heavy hits, and stripping down his more expansive orchestral pieces into a single Rains of Castermere (Game of Thrones fans will know) lead line, with staccato guitar running throughout, a bass line that reminds you slightly of Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain' (the current F1 theme music), and the occasional drum line reminiscent of the Joker themes from The Dark Knight. That there is a mix should really entice anyone in right?

No album star rating or some kind of out of 10 review because it comes as a package with the rest of the film, but as a complete work, go watch it. If you're not a huge racing fan you should find it fairly interesting and a gripping watch. If you're a fan of racing then you'll adore I'd assume? I mean it's a fantastic representation from the point of view of someone who's seen nothing to do with the time and setting before.

And if you're particularly into sound, I reckon you'll end up with goosebumps. Them engines.

A little about Chalk

So here's a bit of a personal project update.

Just under a year ago, a team of us were prepping to head off and shoot our graduation film on the South coast. Three months later and we have ourselves a final product, a 20 minute film that's flawed in a number of ways, but we're thoroughly proud of all the same.

Promotional still, Best Actress nomination for Skye Bennett as 'Annie'

So far it's been accepted into festivals in Bucharest and LA, along with receiving a nomination in the Drama category in the RTS London Student awards. The LA shorts festival is in fact the latest of these acceptances, and also comes with a number of individual category awards:

Best Cinematography: Alex Smith
Best Actress: Skye Bennett
Best Supporting Actress: Amber Anderson
Best Makeup and Hair: Marianna Lazarowa. Suzanna Forrister-Beer & Rachel Coenen

Huge congratulation to all those who've been nominated in individual categories, and I hope to update with some good news regarding the nominations after the festival takes place on/around March 15th! 

In the meantime, here's the teaser we put together to promote the film, and HERE is the facebook page to keep up to date with all Chalky goings on. 

 
Chalk - Teaser Trailer from blackeye on Vimeo.

Godzilla. 2 Minutes 24 Seconds.

So here's one more, and I reckon that it may be quite heavily defensive.

In fairness, it probably took me a watch or two to work out exactly why I enjoyed it, it was just one of those films that was properly satisfying if you get what I mean? I'm hardly going to lie and say that it blew my mind or was better than I expected it to be, but I see a lot of the rap that it's getting as a little unfair. I don't often accept the judgement of public forums or ratings, but when it gets a lower IMDB rating that Transformers, something needs to be addressed (the much more trusty Rotten Tomatoes has Transformers as 57% and Godzilla as 75%, ratings which are far more representative in my view, yet arguably more people will take an opinion of IMDB over RT, more public forum and all that?).

What classes as a spoiler these days? I mean this seriously, do stats 'spoil' anything for people who haven't seen the film? If you don't want stats with your Godzilla then I'd probably say don't read, but if you've already seen it and just need a bit of an opinion, then yeah? Go for it?

Here's the clip that I'm going to use, about an hour into the film, which is purposeful for stats reasons that I've mentioned previously. Otherwise it'd be that bloody awesome Halo Jump sequence which had me properly salivating when I first saw it (in IMAX).

So that clip, here's some of the minor points as to why it was included.

First thing you see is that it isn't bloody New York, there's only so many times that city can be raised to the ground and it is interesting... In a way for me, the fact that it's in Hawaii grounds it a touch more. The when you see the infrastructure you're presented with it gives you a sense that there are real people in 1 or 2 story buildings, instead of skyscrapers that you just assume are empty and yeah I've seen this a number of times over move on please thank you.

The monorail aspect of it gives the film a very intimate action sequence for the main character. No car chase to get lost in the geography of the area, simplistic scenario, problem, no apparent solution, and in my opinion rather in fitting with the rest of the film.

It's definitely a monster movie, and as monsters go, the MUTO is not terrible at all, the scale is terrifying, and it's abundantly clear from the chopper fire that they are immensely dangerous. Massively reminds me of the clover monster from Cloverfield, anyone remember that? But the main importance of it in this situation is that it's a match for Godzilla. Which leads me to...

The reveal of the title character. Now here's where the gripes from most of the reviews come from, we are an hour into the film, and this is the full reveal of Godzilla. People say they have paid money to go and see a film called Godzilla, and we do not properly get to see him until halfway through.

Why is that an issue? I mean seriously people, are you so the film isn't exactly as you were expecting, big deal? So this creature isn't smashing the place up 40 minutes earlier as you were expecting it to, I don't see why that's a problem for an audience. In the world of multi platform marketing, people have been teased for months about this film, and when they finally get into their cinema seat, they are unable to wait for another 60 minutes for the script to play out and Godzilla to appear because that's not what they were expecting. Go write a different script and make that, give it to Michael Bay or something and blow up everything and grin staring at the screen while you consume destruction and nothing else. Go on, do it. That's what you 'want to see', that's what you were expecting. The trouble is, rational film viewers who go along to enjoy the experience of the cinema do not, they will watch the film as it is presented, and judge it based on it's execution of the plot, and how well the story holds up. NOT explosions from big lizard/minute. And that is genuinely the basis of the vast amount of negative feedback.

Here come the stats. The Alien from Alien, yep, that title character, does not appear in full until 01:08:00 into the film. Bruce the Shark, the (somewhat unofficially named) title character from Jaws does not appear until 01:16:50. Now, tell me that matters in either film. I'm not going to argue that Godzilla is on par with either film, but the character appearances are at the complete discretion of the people making the film, and you never get the same argument flung at Jaws or Alien. The premise is all the same, build up tension, tease the audience, give them glimpses and stave off the money shot for the opportune moment. Jaws and Alien are far superior than Godzilla in that category yes, but the instant fix is not to pile the film with irrelevant monster destruction scenes.

If you want to see Godzilla before he appears in the film, go google it, I'm sure you'll find a promo shot.

I think that may as well be the end of that rant.

So the reveal itself stars way before you get a glimpse of big beasty, with the fairly innocuous tide reaching the feet of one of the airport workers, who pretty much blanks it. Then you get the catalyst for the reveal, the helicopter that get's swatted out of the air, and the building of tension that comes along with it audibly. As the chain of events progresses further, the soundscape becomes barer, until the final plane gets smashed in two, the screams die down and we get that payoff. And in some style I may add.

The footfall breaks through the silence. You can pretty much feel the awe radiating off the people within the departure lounge as they take in the size of Godzilla for the very first time, much in the same way as the audience.

Godzilla (2014) - Quite the boot.

Next we get an animalistic reaction from the MUTO before the full reveal, slow rise up Godzilla's body, swelling chorus of voice and strings, finally showing the creature in full.

And then you get that roar. My god that roar. It gave me goosebumps for months pre film release, and seeing it attached and in full flow gave me goosebumps on my goosebumps. It's so incredibly satisfying that the sound itself is a closely guarded secret. Even in isolation, here, it's awesome.



So there you have it, nothing massively profound, and a lot of me just ranting about various things that irritated me about reviews, but overall hopefully a fair defense of a film which recieved a lot of negative public feedback, most of which I see as incredibly irrelevant. Just give it a go, sit back, and immerse yourself, that's all I can say about it. I have, and I did, again, and again, and again.

Payoff, a rough sketch of the beastie himself. Pretty kid ain't he?

A scruffy pencil sketch of Mr. G, I may make this a thing, may not.

And if you made it this far, here's a second payoff for you. I bloody love that Halo Jump...

HERE is the article on shy monsters on screen, should you want to look into it a little more.

Until next time!