Today’s FFFFind is this simply awesome poster featuring The Dude in an Obama stylee.
I’d love a version with ABIDE rather than DUDE.
Tag: Film (page 5 of 6)
I watched Atonement over the weekend and found it a deeply moving and beautifully tragic story. Directed by Joe Wright, Atonement is a masterpiece, not words I use lightly.
James McAvoy is absolutely fantastic, delivering a powerful and riveting performance, and for the first time, Keira Knightley really impressed me, giving a glimpse of the great actress I think she will become.
There is one scene in particular that is simply extraordinary; James McAvoy’s character arrives at Dunkirk beach for evacuation, and the camera follows him and his two colleagues around the beach for five minutes. A single, constant steadicam shot that weaves around the beach, picking up the three characters at different points as it moves around.
This scene was shot on Redcar beach with over a thousand extras in just one day; they took just four takes of the Steadicam shot using the third take in the film.
A fantastic piece of filmmaking and cinematography.
If you watched the clip or have seen the film, you will have heard the wonderful, and at times haunting, music by Dario Marianelli; a soundtrack so perfect that it is as important as the actors and director.
If you haven’t seen Atonement, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
I saw the new Fantastic Four film last night which was pretty good.
There was the usual blatant product placement all over it but one piece just left me open mouthed. Mr Fantastic builds a very funky FantasticFourmobile, flying, jet, ship thing which has a Dodge grill and Dodge seats. WTF?
Yes, Dodge as in the shit American cars – sorry the Charger was a LONG time ago. Why, would “the greatest mind of the 21st century” do that?
Update: Saw this over at filmwad.com – now product placement itself is film news.
Hollywood seems to have run out of ideas, with every other film seeming to be a remake of an original film.
These remakes tend to be poor imitations of their forerunners – Sylvester Stallone in Get Carter anyone?
However, tonight I saw an original version of The Thomas Crown Affair starring Steve McQueen and I have to say I prefer the remake.
As a Steve McQueen fan this was a HUGE surprise to me, but the remake is simply a better film.
Yes, the original is full of 60s cool, yes, the original makes great use of split screen effects and of course McQueen is just brilliant but that’s it. The robberies are crude in comparison to the remake, the tension between the main characters is less apparent and the supporting characters are almost non-existant.
Surprising and disappointing.
What I really want is Steve McQueen starring in the remake…
For a long time I have enjoyed reading Ink Quest which features the experiences, trials and tribulations of a fellow obsessive’s search for the perfect fountain pen ink. It made me feel so much better to realise that there others out there who are perhaps slightly more obsessive even than I.
However, I feel I may have acted rashly in sharing my latest obsession with my friend at Ink Quest for it seems obsessions may be contagious.
And what is your latest obsession I hear you ask? Why, it’s the wonderful world of typography I answer.
Having been involved in design both online and offline for literally some years I have always been fascinated by typography and fonts but only recently taken the time to learn about in any real detail. However, since doing so I have seen that interest mutate and grow into a fully fledged obsession…
Once you begin to look at and think about typography you can do nothing else but… it’s everywhere you look, and in everything you do, and it is wonderful.
I’ve just read Type: The Secret History of Letters by Simon Loxley which is a great introduction to the history of type; from Gutenberg to the most recent digital typefaces and the amazing characters that have created some of the typefaces you see every day and are reading here.
Next on my reading list is The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst which I have seen recommended by many type gurus and looks to be a suitable next step on the road to type enlightenment.
I am also looking forward to a UK screening (I hope) of Helvetica a film about one of the classic 20th century typefaces which is celebrating it’s 50th birthday this year.
My flight was very good. I only watched two films as the film selection was rather uninspiring: 40 Year Old Virgin (6 out of 10) and Mr and Mrs Smith (5 out of 10).
We arrived at our hotel early afternoon on Saturday and decided to have a few hours sleep and then to head out into Tokyo.
Sadly when I woke up after my nap my cold had set in with force and I felt terrible so I spent my first night in Tokyo sleeping while my colleagues went out.
It’s not quite true to say I spent the night sleeping, more like the evening. I slept until about 11pm when I woke to have something to eat. Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to get back to sleep since and it’s 5.55am on Sunday morning as I type this…
Thankfully the evenings sleep has helped my cold to lift but it’s not helped me to adjust to the time difference.
Anyway… today is Sunday my only full free day here so I’ll be sightseeing whatever my body wants to do about sleeping.
I’m planning to try and see the view from the Metropolitan Government building which is supposed to be very good, the Imperial Palace and the Ginza district. We also want to try and get to the Park Hyatt hotel which is where Lost in Translation was shot and has another great view from the bar.
As you can appreciate I’ve seen little of Tokyo so it’s difficult to form any real opinion yet. On the way in from Narita it could have been any other modern major city except that the roads were strangely reminiscent of those in Gran Turismo.