Japanese Anti-Piracy Advert

In Japan, this is played before every film.

2D Film Glasses

2d-glasses.com is a site where you can buy 2D glasses for 3D films. I think this is interesting, I am not going to buy a pair so I can say I paid extra to see a 3D film and watched it in 2D thanks to my matching polarised glasses, but some people genuinely hate watching 3D films and need these to enjoy films with friends.

Blinky™

Blinky is a short film by Ruairi Robinson, maker of short films, about a domestic robot that doesn't meet it's owners expectations (played by Max Records).

Blinky™ from Ruairi Robinson on Vimeo.

Pure Chase Supercuts

This is a great compilation of supercuts.
The music is 7 vs 8 by The Jesus Lizard.

Pure from Jacob Bricca on Vimeo.

Plug

Plug isn't exactly an indi film as it is made by Steambot a company that does a lot of artwork for both the film industry (Avatar and Tron 2.0) and video games industry (FarCry 2, Splinter Cell and Assassins Creed). But it still looks very interesting.

Plug - teaser one from vyle-art on Vimeo.

The Best Film I Seen This Year

In the last year I have watched 128 films (a complete alphabetical list is found at the end of this post). And at the end of the year it is an easy post to write about what my general recommendation as to what the best film I seen was. To do this I first generate a short list of what I rated rated 5/5 on LoveFilm (read Netflix if in US) and then have a look at the site's meta data to see what others who seen the films thought. And then the film me and the meta data think is best is my recommendation for the year.

This year the film I can recommend to most people rather easily is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.



P.S. IGN and I am sure a lot of others as my meta data shows, will claim that Inception is the best film of 2010. I only gave Inception 4/5 because I never cared about the characters or their mission.

Tron Legacy
9
17 Again
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
638 Ways To Kill Castro
A Serious Man
Angels And Demons
Antibodies
Apocalypse Now Redux
Boat That Rocked, The
Book of Eli
Brothers
Capitalism: A Love Story
Che - Part 1 - The Argentine
Clash of the Titans
Clash Of The Titans
Coco Before Chanel
Code 46
Cold Souls
Colin
Cronos
Crying Fist
Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The
Dagon
Daybreakers
Dead Man Running
District 13
Dorian Gray
Dragonball Evolution
Evangelion 1.01 - You're Not Alone
Exam
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Expendables, The
Fame
Fantastic Mr. Fox, The
Fargo
Fast And Furious
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
Fighting
Fish Tank
Franklyn
Full Metal Jacket
Girl Who Lept Through Time, The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The
Girlfriend Experience, The
Good Morning, Vietnam
Halo - Legends
Handmaid's Tale, The
Hangover, The
Helvetica
Hotel Rwanda
Hudson Hawk
I'm Here
In Bruges
Inception
Iron Man 2
Jacob's Ladder
Jennifer's Body
Karate Kid - Part 2, The
Kick-Ass
Knowing
Law Abiding Citizen
Legion
Lethal Weapon
Men Who Stare at Goats, The
Michael Jackson - This Is It
On The Beach
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
Outlander
Pandorum
Paul Blart - Mall Cop
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
Platoon
Ponyo
Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time
Psycho
Quadrophenia
Rambo - First Blood
Rambo - First Blood - Part II
Rambo - III
Rear Window
Red Rock West
Resident Evil Afterlife
Road, The
Rope
Runaway Train
S. Darko - A Donnie Darko Tale
Salt
Saw IV
Saw V
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Sherlock Holmes
Sky Crawlers
Slaughterhouse Five
Sleeper
Sleepless In Seattle
Slumdog Millionaire
Smokin' Aces
Snake Eyes
Solar Crisis
South Park - The Passion of the Jew
Strait Jacket
Surrogates
Sword Of The Stranger
The 39 Steps
The Back-up Plan
The Basketball Diaries
The Cove
The Horde
The Informant
The Karate Kid
The Karate Kid 3
The Losers
The Mist
The Road
The Twilight Saga - New Moon
The Wrestler
Thirst
To Hell And Back
Toy Story 3
Up In The Air
Waltz with Bashir
Wedlock
Where the Wild Things Are
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Youth in Revolt
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Zombieland

Free Documentaries

Documentary-Film.net is a network that distributes documentaries for free. Most of them seem to be professional looking, that isn't to say the information is accurate or impartial in all of them, there is a good selection.

Watching Films On An iPhone

I don't understand how someone could watch a film on a mobile phone. Maybe if they had time to devote to it while they are on a very long train ride or something, but I am largely with David Lynch.

Ratings Out Of Five

I have watched many films and rated many films through film rental services and looking at how I rate films and how others rate them out of five I have come up with a breakdown of the "out of five" rating system.

1/5 A bad film, makers didn't even try.

2/5 Makers tried to create a good film, but the parts just didn't come together.

3/3 An average film, good, entertaining, but nothing more.

4/5 A film where everything comes together so well it clicks.

5/5 A film that is better than the sum of it's parts and stands as an excellent exsample of film-making.


What I like about the five point rating system is it's ability to give more detail that just a thumbs up or down, but also the ability to not judge a film too precisely and allow each viewer to experience the film on their own terms. Giving a film a five out of five rating says it is very good, but doesn't put an unnecessarily high level of expectation that a ten out of ten, or a one hundred out of one hundred rating would.

My Film Of 2009

To found out what my film of 2009 was I went though all the films I had given a 5/5 rating to over the last year on LoveFilm (the UK Netflix) and then had a look at what films that where actually released this year. Of those only one films matched and that means my film of 2009 was 500 Days Of Summer!



If I was include all films that I had seen this year, I would say my films of the year was The Final Cut, but I don't think as many people would agree with me on that one.

A Connection To Watch

Damien Walters from Derby UK has a very good freerunning/gymnastics YouTube Channel. He posted a video the other day that I have only just now watched. It is a video of Greg Townley one of Damien's students:



Greg is very talented and it is the kind of talent that makes you wished the whole world could see him. Maybe he could end wars or prevent global warming through his backflips and handstands or maybe he won't, but the world is going to see him as the is stunt double of Hurt Girl (yes a girl) played by Chloe Moretz in the new Superhero comedy spoof Kick-Ass, and it is so brilliant to see someone so young make a name for themselves:

For Entertainment Purposes Only

There are a lot of unnecessary legal disclaimers in the world, but I think the one on DVD commentaries is a shinning example. I am referring to the message at the start of DVDs that reads 'The commentary tracks on this DVD are for entertainment purposes only and does not necessarily reflect the views or options of the studio, parent company or partners.'

I am no legal professional, but if an Actor, Actress or Director says something slanderous on a commentary track like 'Our wardrobe department stole all the cloths from a local gym to save money!' Then no 'for entertainment purposes only' message is going to protect them from an order to pay damages to the wardrobe company's image and loss of business.

I understand that managers follow what advice the legal department gives them and that the legal department is trying to cover themselves in a very sheepish manor, but you wouldn't find a legal disclaimer like that at the start of an encyclopaedia.

The contents of this encyclopedia is for entertainment purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.

Or even

The publisher has taken reasonable care to make sure the contents of this encyclopaedia is accurate, but takes no responsibility for any mistakes.

In July I Posted about how Amazon cleaned customer Kindles of a few novels. Well I am sure they thought they where legally covered, but they also deleted one Justin Gawronski's Summer Homework. He is as American tradition dictates, suing Amazon for damages. And rightly so because that kind of thing might conform to the letter of the law by Amazon giving itself the right to do that kind of stuff in it's terms of service, but it is very unreasonable.

*Note this Blog Post was for entertainment purposes and is not to be retaken orally or in a tart.

Star Trek 1 to 6 On BluRay!

OMG! It's HERE!
Not I just need either a new monitor or a BluRay player for the living room.

Nice Film Trailer, FanBoys

I was over at Apple Trailers when I seen the trailer for FanBoys. It is a road-trip film set in 1998 about some Star Wars fanboys who go on a pilgrimage to Skywalker Ranch; mainly to steal stuff.

There has been many movie spoof films over the past five years. Recent notable enteries have been Superhero Movie and Disaster Movie. Both are horrible slapstick comedies, but Fanboys looks good; I am looking forward to it.



[Apple Trailers]

Some Interesting Film Trailers

For about the past year film trailers have be fairly, meh. For me the mark of a good film trailer it's ability for it to turn me from not knowing about a film, not caring about a film or just knowing of a film, to wanting to see it. The more a trailer makes me want to see a particular film the better it is because of course film trailers are just adverts, but there is certainly a much higher level of artistry behind a film trailer than any TVad for catfood.

So anyway I was looking at a trailer on IMDB for a film and they linked to a Blog called Movies For The Masses which looks like it is in Russian or some other language I can't read, but on there are trailers I haven't seen before because I use Apple Trailers to see what's up and coming. So I was a little surprised to see some of the stuff that is on there and I wanted to share:

• The Dark Knight Teaser
  Teaser for the new Batman film. The last Batman film was so good that it's sequel is easily on my list of must watch.



• Halloween
  I know, yet another Halloween, but this is directed by Rob Zombie so maybe it will liveup to what Halloween fans have been asking for since the first film.



• Shoot 'Em Up
  It looks like it is filled with the same kind of inventive fight sequences that are present in The Transporter which wasn't a bad film, but Shoot 'Em Up has Paul Giamatti involved, an actor who I am taking more note of with each film I see him in.



• Resident Evil Extinction
  I hated the last two, after finishing watching the second, knowing that their would be a third I said that I would refuse to see it, but after watching the trailer for it, I kind of want to see it. There is just something about a post apocalyptic wasteland that Brings Back Fond Memories for me.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated (Censorship In Film)

I just finished watching This Film Is Not Yet Rated which is a documentary on the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) who are the ones that award film ratings in The Unighted States of America. These ratings are designed to protect children from seeing things that might disturb them or things that might be socially unacceptable.

In the UK there is little controversy surrounding film or video game ratings, as 18 is given to a lot films and shops don't mind carrying them although they are fined if they sell a rated film like Terminator (15), American Pie (15) or Alien (18) to anybody who is underage. Occasionally a film is refused a rating which means it won't be sold anywhere and is effectiverly banned. See This List to see what has been banned in the UK. The list certainly isn't a list of unappreciated classics. However the list of banned films from Malaysia does include such classics as Blade, South Park Bigger Longer & Uncut, Brokeback Mountain and Sideways.

In the US there are no fines for shops who sell to underage children. So if a 12 year old kid wants to buy Terminator (R), American Pie (R) or Alien (R) they can do so as it is solely the responsibility of their parents or guardian to censor what they are allowed or not allowed to watch (I see this as an iresponsable pro-freedom stance). Which is why a lot of companied that produce films won't promote any film with the highest rating (NC-17) as they see themselves as having a moral responsibility to protect children. This results in shops like WalMart making it policy to refuse to sell any and all NC-17 rated films. Which to a film maker getting an NC-17 rating on their film is going to mean a lot less money for their hard work.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated, takes the view that because of this situation where films won't be distributed unless they get a rating lower than an NC-17 means that Americans are all being classed as children to protect a portion of the population who are children, and this ammounts to indirect censorship. Which it clearly is censorship as films can be as bloody and as violent as they like as long as they don't show any female orgasms. As if female orgasms aren't normal or there is something more acceptable about cutting someone open then giving a woman head.

As a side note I think there is an issue with American war films where film makers will only get military support if they show a very favourable image of the US Army. So if you want to make a war film that shows US marines raping girls and killing friendlies you won't get any help from the army to make such a film. This means that there is a carrot being waved in the face of Hollywood for positive (propaganda) films. I don't think the US should offer thiskind help to filmmakers, which would result in less war films, but then the few war films that are be made would have a more balanced views on war instead of all being like TopGun.



Incidentally the rating for This Film Is Not Yet Rated was an NC-17, but this has since been suspended which to my mind is yet more censorship. The American people aren't all children, yet are only allowed to watch kiddie box films. Which is the same situation with video games as anything with an AO (adult only) rating receives the same treatment as an NC-17 film. This in turn creates taboo subjects in the medium.

A straight up solution to all this would be to fine shops for selling to children. I know this wouldn't be popular because shops like WalMart would all get together and start a campaign accusing the government of limiting the freedoms of the American people, but it would mean more freedom to the film makers and then ultimately more freedom to the American public. American adults could still show films where people get their genitals cut off to their children in the comfort of their own homes if they wanted to. Just that there would be a fine for shops to sell that kind of material directly to children. This wouldn't result in more violent films, but it would mean more graphic/real sexual content and less film re-editing.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated can currently be viewed from Google Video. Since the film is an hour and a half long I would suggest using this Direct Link to watch the film fullscreen instead of in the embedded video below or better still buy the film and support a filmmaker who was given an NC-17 rating.

Dead or Alive The Movie

I just finished watching the Dead or Alive film and was pleasantly surprised. It might even be considered a borderline good drunken party film, although nothing I have seen has ever seen comes close to beating Kung Pow in that respects.

DOA is a dumb action film, but if you are the type of movie watcher that has for some reason watched through a few of those martial arts or kickboxing films with paper-thin plots and acting, you too might actually enjoy this.
3/5

A Love Letter to the Film Industry

This video counts down from one hundred to one with clips from movies where the number was spoken. No film is repeated and every film is a great film in one respect or another. A full list of the films with the corresponding number can be found Here.

And in Local News

I read This today about some guy in Leicester who was jailed because he... well just read it and that film scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.

28 Weeks Later Trailer

28 days later was a good Zombie film, but the Trailer for the film's sequel 28 Weeks Later looks way better. Firstly they are doing a plot about the re-population of London after the zombie outbreak which I don't believe has ever been done before and then they are doing a very Japanese thing in blowing home cities up with a dash of American firepower.