Travis Fantina (website)...
|
|
Just over two weeks ago I worked with What We See is What You Get operating a second camera at a Gaslight Anthem concert. The footage is going on their website as well as The Waster’s. Using just my footage (and none of the audio they recorded) I cut together a six minute video of the interview with two of the guys from Gaslight beforehand as well as the concert. Check it out then tell me what you think. (Apologies for the aspect ratio Vimeo sort of butchered the 16X9).
George Clooney is Ryan Bingham a corporate downsizing expert who travels the country doing a job some employers are too afraid to do: downsize. Sometimes employees cry, other times they use a string of colorful but not to original words, and occasionally they turn violent. These are a few reasons a company might hire a consultant like Ryan Bigham to do their dirty work. This job allows Bingham to remain in motion at all times making very few personal connections. In a hotel bar Bingham meets Alex (Vera Farmiga), he takes her to his room and then they part ways agreeing to meet again should their layovers ever cross ways. Bingham goes back to his corporate office for an important meeting, his boss Craig (Jason Bateman) informs him that the new hotshot Natalie (Anna Kendrick) has come up with a way to lay people off over the internet essentially making him obsolete. This greatly jeopardizes Bingham’s constant on the move lifestyle and his goal of obtaining ten million frequent flyer miles. The film is not really about a guy trying to get ten million frequent flyer miles, it’s about the way different types of people interact with each other. Their are about six ‘main’ characters and each approach life and relationships in a very different way. So that’s really what ‘Up in the Air’ is a character study of six people, each trying to be happy and looking in different places. ‘Up in the Air’ is a well crafted character expose. The photography is not flashy but their are a lot of interesting visuals, as well as a brilliant title sequence by Shadow Play Studios (they also did ‘Thank you for Smoking’ and ‘Juno’). Rating:
My decision to see ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’ was pretty last minuet, I just got up at seven on Saturday morning and looked for tickets, I made the right decision; purchasing a ticket for ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’. It was one of my favorite films from the festival. ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’ is a documentary about about the revitalization of Disney animation from 1984-1994. It chronicles a fascinating power struggle between Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Nephew of Walt, Roy Disney and head of animation Jeffery Katzenberg. From the lowest point in Disney history, in the early eighties when the animation department was moved out of the original building that Walt built to a run down off site location, most of the animators felt they would all loose there jobs by the end of the week. It was even suggested that Disney get out of the motion picture business! This dismal state of affairs is how ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’ begins and it carries us right through to one of the many high points in Disney history: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ had just been released and ‘The Lion King’ was going into production. ‘The Lion King’ producer Don Hahn directed ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’ and did a very good job at showing a non biased look at the craziness of the Disney Animation world from 1984-1994. I loved some of the very candid moments in the film, we see a young Tim Burton (he hasn’t changed much), we hear the voice of a young John Lasseter. We are shown first hand the antics of a group of pent up, prodominatally male twenty something year olds. It’s a lot of fun and very informative. Rating:
Ricky Gervais is funny, his humor is often dark and cynical. So it’s safe to assume that anything he co-writes, co-directs and stars in will be fairly funny, cynical and dark. In ‘The Invention of Lying’ Ricky Gervais pulls punches to keep it PG-13, this is not ‘Extras’ or ‘Fame’, so not as dark as you may expect. The film takes place in a reality much like ours, the only difference is that lying is totally and completely unknown. There are no lies, no flattery, no fiction. Advertisements always tell the truth “Pepsi: What you get when they don’t have Coke”, films are nothing but famous people reading historically accurate screenplays. Gervais plays Mark Bellison a failing screenwriter (stuck with the unlucky thirteen-hundreds), who has landed a date with his longtime crush Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner). At the door Anna makes it known how she feels about dating a ‘little fat man with a snub nose’. Mark feels bad about this but it’s not Anna’s fault nobody knows how to say anything but the painful truth. The film progresses with several hilariously painful truths told by all the characters. Just as the idea that everybody can’t lie begins to become a dead horse, Mark discovers that he can in fact say something that’s not true. Of course everybody believes him so as he begins to come up with more and more stories his career as a screen writer begins to soar and so does the media attention given to him. It’s an entertaining film a more dark and cynical then your average romantic comedy and much, much more funny. There is a large cast of supporting actors including Jeffrey Tambor, Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, Louis C.K. and Rob Lowe. There is also a disgusting amount of hilarious cameos, however I won’t name drop as that would spoil the fun. ‘The Invention of Lying’ hits theaters on October 2nd. Rating:
The film is based on true events. I did not read the book and I don’t know much about the incident so I can’t say how well the film stuck to what really happened. But I will say the film tells the story in a way that is very believable. Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) is climbing the ladder at ADM and earning a boat load of money. Mark Whitacre also has has a problem, the lysine his company is supposed to produce is being destroyed by some mysterious bacteria. Whitacre’s been speaking to a shady Japanese business man for a while and it’s he who tells Whitacre that ADM has a mole and that he will reveal the identity of said mole and also provide a solution to the lysine bacteria if ADM will deposit millions into his off shore bank account. As any good employee would Whitacre tells his boss who intern tells the FBI. As the FBI is putting a trace on his phone Mark decides to come clean (sort of), at the insistence of his wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey). He tells the agent that there is actually a price-fixing conspiracy going on at ADM. The FBI opens an investigation of ADM which thorough the film grows more and more complex due to Whitacre’s habit of omitting certain aspects of the truth. I liked this film, it was very funny. As stated before, it’s totally a Matt Damon vehicle, he’s in almost ever scene and all the laughs either come from his lines or from his character’s actions. Laughs are plentiful as are plot twists but it’s slower then what I was expecting. In a way it almost felt as if I was watching a very interesting and fact filled documentary about Mark Whitacre and the lysine price-fixing conspiracy. I mean that as a complement. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Informant!’ it made me laugh out loud several times and I really got to know Mark Whitacre but as for the other characters I think if I had gotten to know them better it would have made Mark Whitacre’s story even more engaging. ‘The Informant!’ hits theaters this Friday and it also stars Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Clancy Brown and Tony Hale Rating:
In today’s installment of ‘If I was head of a network’ I will take the seat of a cable network executive and choose four shows from the past decade that I would have made a bid for once they got the axe on broadcast. With the exception of ‘Alias’ none of these shows ran for over three seasons and if you ask me a good chunk of the blame can be placed on the network. So lets say I am the head of ‘The TF’ a channel that comes with your basic cable. (To spice it up we also have a deal with Hulu). These are my picks (arranged from, ‘I would jump in front of a train to get this show on my network’ to ‘I would like to have had a few more seasons but if not, it ended well as is’). 1) 2) 3) 4) There you have it, feel free to comment, argue, sympathize, weep, express your rage, (Browncoats go to town). Finally, I was thinking about including Rob Thomas’s ‘Veronica Mars’ however I just started watching so I can’t really say for sure. I’ll give it an honorable mention. Images: wikipedia.org
Last night I had the privilidge of attending one of a few extended preview’s in IMAX 3D for James Cameron’s upcoming film (his first in 12 years) “Avatar”. Now I’m going to go into some detail about what I saw yesterday; before the preview began James Cameron came on screen to introduce it and state that all the footage was from the first half of the film so there were no major spoilers. However if you are one of those people who really freaks out about even the smallest of spoilers I recommend you do not read on. I’ll start out by saying it was beautiful, which is not really what I expected. The trailer shows a few shots of the beauty found on the planet known as ‘Pandora’ however watching a few scenes from the 16 minute preview we were really able to get a taste of just how lush, rich and beautiful the landscape on this planet, which was created with computers from the ground up, really is. The first scene was almost completely live action, I’m not sure if there was, CG at all. It was basically in introduction to the planet ‘Pandora’ a crusty, battle scared head of security informs a group of incoming marines that his job is to protect them from the hostile world outside the perimeter fence. He says that, at least for some of the marines he will unfortunately fail in his duties. This is when Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) rolls down the isle in a wheel chair. The computer animation is really top notch, there were moments in the jungles of Pandora where I found myself wondering if James Cameron had not just taken his revolutionary stereoscopic camera system into a real jungle. The CG was amazing, however I felt it took some getting used to. In the second scene they showed the paraplegic vet Jake Sully is first taking on his na’vi body (This is where the title ‘Avatar’ comes from, basically his brain is transfered into the body of Pandora’s indigenous species), I was not too impressed. This may have been because I had never seen a picture of the Na’vi before so perhaps I was expecting something different. I felt the CG Na’vi mixed with the live action humans was just a tad fake looking however this initial feeling may pass after watching even more of the film (December 18th!). The next scene was high adrenaline chase which began as Jake squares off against a strange creature indigenous to the jungles of Pandora, the creature is frightened away by an even larger and scarier beast which Jake runs from. Although the chase was impressive the two creatures struck me as kind of plastic looking, and my disappointment began to mount, until… The Next Scene, Jake is rescued from a pack of scavenging beasts by a Na’vi woman my mind really began to think that all this CG was real! The best was yet to come. The Pandora jungle by day, as I said, looks pretty much like a jungle here on Earth, however come night fall the Jungle plants are illuminated with a beautiful and mysterious phosphorescent glow. My expectations for this film were gone, it was something I had never imagined. I no longer wanted to see James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’, no, I wanted to take a space ship to Pandora and actually walk around in this beautiful jungle (despite the beasts which rip you to shreds and hostile native peoples). The final scene shows Jake along with some other members of the local Na’vi tribe trying to tame some kind of flying creature that resides high in the cliffs on the outskirts of the jungle. The Na’vi tell Jake that the beast will choose him, and he’ll know because it will try to kill him. Once again I found my self blown away during this action packed scene by how real the animation looked. After the final scene, we were treated to about thirty seconds of epic battles, flying machines, military gunfire, explosions and all the makings of a great trailer. Today I watched the actual trailer for the first time thinking that it would be mostly a collection of clips from what we had seen in the preview. While there were certainly a lot of repeat clips, the trailer actually contained a lot of material not in the 16 minute preview. “Avatar” looks amazing and well worth the wait, however as I said the whole experience takes a bit of getting used to, I worry that a 2 minute and 30 second trailer just won’t be enough to get people thirsty for more. Which is part of the reason I think Twentieth-Century Fox and James Cameron decided to have an event like “Avatar Day” to generate positive word of mouth. “Avatar” hits theaters on December 18th and also stars Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Zoe Saldana, and Giovanni Ribisi Be sure to check out the trailer
I have been away for most of July, just hanging out in New Jersey visiting friends and family. However it was not purely social (although it was mostly social), I also gave Paul Howells a copy of ‘Initiation’. Paul is in the progressive punk band Free Yon and is also something of a musical genius, he graciously consented to write the score of ‘Initiation’.
Sorry for the sporadic, er- total lack of, posts this month I have been very busy prepping for my latest short film “Initiation”. “Initiation” is the story of a gun-for-hire who is hired to retrieve some diamonds, he botches the job and has to report this back to his boss who has the power and authority to kill him is she wishes, basically your worst day at the office times 10. We shot on June 9th, it was a very, very fast shoot, too fast really and I wish we could have taken two days one for each location but that was not the case. Despite the hurried pace I am quite happy with what we got. I am almost finished with the rough cut now and it looks great. Photos from the shoot (click to enlarge):
‘The Gang’ prepping for a scene.
Emily.
James pre squib.
James post squib.
Camera protected from blood spurting.
Working out lighting.
Directing.
Me with camera protected from blood spray.
That said, I want to make it clear, you do not need to know anything at all about ‘Star Trek’ to enjoy this film. It’s a prequel not a sequel, however for those who have seen ‘Star Trek’ it’s cool to see the back story that was mostly only alluded too in the past. The film kicks off in high gear (the pace seldom slows over the corse of the movie) with an all out adrenalin fueled battle, during which young James T. Kirk is born. We get a few scenes in Iowa setting up Kirk’s (Chris Pine) rebellious, delinquent, character. There’s a good western-style bar fight shortly after Kirk meets Uhura (Zoe Saldana). As Kirk is growing up on earth, Spock (Zachary Quinto) is growing up on Vulcan, conflicted: his mother is human and his father is Vulcan. Should he embrace the Vulcan way of life: pure logic? Or the human way: less logical more emotional? Life’s tough for a multi-species kid. Back on Earth, Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) walks in and breaks up the bar fight. Knowing what an exceptional captain Kirk’s father was Captain Pike invites Kirk to enlist in Star Fleet, Kirk curtly declines but later reconsiders. Kirk boards the ship that will take them to Star Fleet headquarters, along with Uhura and several of the guys who beat him up the night before. On board Kirk meets Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy (Karl Urban) and strikes up a conversation. At the academy Kirk and Spock quickly begin a rivalry after Kirk cheats and passes Spock’s ‘unbeatable’ test. Kirk is taken before the academy leaders and tried for cheating however before a verdict is reached word comes in that Vulcan (Spock’s home planet) is under attack. With Captain Pike in command Spock, Bones, Uhura, and Kirk (with some help from Bones) board the brand new Star Fleet vessel “Enterprise” and set off for Vulcan. That’s really just the beginning. As I said this film moves fast, but it’s well written and easy to fallow. About the writing: it’s brilliant. Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman were able to reboot one of the largest and most beloved franchises of all time, making it very accessible to people who have never even seen one episode without alienating the fans. There were moments of genuine sadness, in which you really felt empathy for the characters. The writers also found room for quite a bit of humorous banter: part of the reason the original show and movies were so beloved. The large ensemble cast which included, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Winona Ryder and Anton Yelchin hit most of the notes perfectly. The resemblance between some the films young actors and the original cast is almost uncanny. This film is beautiful, literally, every frame looks as if it was painted my a master. Daniel Mindel (who collaborated with J.J. Abrams on MI:3) did in incredible job playing with light. When you see ‘Star Trek’ you’ll notice the incredible use of light which seems to radiate from almost every part of the enterprise. Well written, well played, well shot and well scored. This is an excellent motion picture, it also reinforces my opinion: J.J. Abrams is a genius (that really did not need to be reinforced). Rating: |
Categories
|
I think when writing a review of this film one should state there bias, personally I watched a good bit of Star Trek the original series as well as the movies which featured that cast. I am by no means a Trekkie but I have an appreciation for the Trek universe.