So, another year over, a new one just begun. With all the champagne (or rather, cheapo bubbly substitute) now finally cleared from my bloodstream, the time has come to wish you all a happy, healthy and successful 2010. May this year bring you all the joy and happiness you seek and may all your dreams come true. Except of course for those recurring nightmares about blood-sucking freaks cutting you open and feasting on your intestines. That would make 2010 somewhat less of a pleasant experience. Anyway...Christmas 2009 has rather surprisingly - and fortunately - been somewhat of a relaxing experience. What with the wife being six months pregnant and all. Somehow, having a baby in your stomach gives you the ultimate free-pass at family visits and other obligatory yultide social gatherings. Only seven o'clock? Gosh, pregnant women get really tired after six, so you won't mind if we head home a little earlier, would you?
If everything goes according to plan, 2010 is going to be a very busy year for me. Not just on the family-expanding front, but workwise as well. And I'm looking forward to every minute of it! Maybe in a couple of weeks, I can elaborate a bit more on the main project that's on the rails right now. Next to that, I've started outlining a new story that I'm very excited about. This one harkens back to the glorious 80's 'Amblin Entertainment'-films I grew up on. And it's shaping up to be one kick-ass ride, I'm telling you.
Ah yes, what would a New Years-post be without another 'Best Of'-list? I think 2009 has given us some terrific films, ranging from original scifi-stories to franchise reboots that actually worked. Anyway, in reverse order, here's my top-10 films I had to pleasure of watching last year.
10. WATCHMEN
09. STAR TREK
08. PRECIOUS
07. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER
06. MOON
05. THE HURT LOCKER
04. UP
03. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS
02. AVATAR
01. DISTRICT 9
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
0 Comments Published by Steven Friedman on Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 12:26 PM.
My sincerest apologies for the lack of recent updates on this little blog of mine. Things have been quite hectic lately and let's just say that probing my mind for marginally interesting blogposts didn't rank that high on my priority-list. I've been working hard all through the summer and, if things go the way they seem to be going, there'll be a truckload of really exciting posts coming up. Yeah, it's all a bit cryptic, I know. I'm just not at liberty to divulge any details on this particular project at this moment. Rest assured that this blog will be the first place I'll post the news, when it comes to pass. Pretty soon, I hope.There is, however, some really terrific news I can share with the world right now: I am going to be a daddy!!! And I don't mean this in a metaphorical way either. I actually managed to succesfully knock up my beautiful wife. Okay, that sounded a bit crude, but it's essentially what has happened. There's still quite a bit of time to go before our little scream- and poopfactory sees the light of day (writing this post, Marije's 15 weeks in, so another 24 weeks to go), but words really cannot explain how proud I already am of this tiny growing miracle! And whether it's a boy or a girl, I'm sure it'll be the best thing I've ever made.
Marketing mishaps: clueless movie trailers
0 Comments Published by Steven Friedman on Thursday, August 06, 2009 at 5:32 PM.
Selling a film is a craft not to be taken lightly. Each year Hollywood spends hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, in an attempt to convince those fickle moviegoers to spend their hard earned cash at the box office. In some cases, the cost of marketing can equal - or even exceed - a film's production budget. Crazy, huh? Well, this industry isn't called showBUSINESS for nothing. If you want to sell tickets, you've got to get out there and let the people know your film has the biggest bang, the brightest star, the scariest monster or the most adorable puppies.Make no mistake, marketing can make or brake any film. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT would be nothing more than an obscure little student-film on Youtube had it not been for the brilliant marketing campaign that made it seem like a good idea to spend 8 dollars to watch shaky video-footage of three kids running around in a forest for 90 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum you'll find films like the recent OUTLANDER - deserving of a far better marketing-treatment than what the distributor felt was adequate at the time. Too bad, because more often than not these films actually have the potential to become box office-hits, instead of just hapless straight-to-dvd dumps.
Which brings me to the centerpiece of any movie marketing-campaign: the trailer. That carefully crafted montage of shots from a particular film, set to enticing music and usually accompanied by a deep resounding voice-over. Most people in the industry don't like to refer to it as a commercial, but of course, it's exactly that. And like any commercial for any product, it can either succeed in its goal to move the target audience, or it can fail.
Harrison McCann once famously said that advertising is 'truth well told'. A great adage if ever there was one - and one that I think particularly applies to film-marketing. After all, we're in the business of storytelling. And telling stories is all about telling the truth. Right? Well unfortunately, most movie trailers aren't cut by the people responsible for the final film (ie the director). Marketing is handled by the studio / distributor, so unless your name is Steven Spielberg or Ridley Scott, they get the final say over your film's trailers.
The result of this practice? Trailers that give you the completely wrong idea about a film's concept or story. Case in point: the first trailer for Peter Jackson's film adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel THE LOVELY BONES. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the imagery presented to me in this trailer, but after a promising start, we suddenly turn the corner and the story's about 'a dead girl's attempts to hunt her killer from beyond the grave'. Which, as anyone who has read the novel can tell you, is definitely NOT what THE LOVELY BONES is about.
This is an understated story about family dynamics in the wake of a tragedy. More akin to Redford's ORDINARY PEOPLE or Todd Field's IN THE BEDROOM than it is to, say, Jerry Zucker's GHOST. And for the life of me, I don't understand why you would try to sell this film as a supernatural thriller with fantasy-elements thrown in (been there, done that), when you should be selling it on PJ's pedigree, the stellar Academy Award-winning cast and the fact that it's based on a novel read by millions of people around the world. Truth people, truth. Ultimately, that will sell best.
Speaking at the 'Produced By'- conference last saturday, larger-than-life filmmaker (and one of my all-time cinematic heroes) James Cameron once again channeled P.T. Barnum as he pitched 3D as the next evolutionary step in the history of cinema. Funnily enough, he also allegedly dissed MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D - the one recent film I actually HAVE seen in three dimensions - for being nothing more than a cheap throwback to those 70's 'jabbing stuff in your face'-3D attractions (he's right, by the way). Guess I'll have to wait 'till december when Cameron's AVATAR is finally released and my cerebral cortex will be transported to Nirvana as 3D-images of crazy intergalactic jungle-people joyfully burst into my skull.Yet I'm wondering, apart from f*cking my eyeballs (it's an AVATAR internet-meme thing), is 3D really going to radically change the way I watch movies? A close friend of mine, who saw a digital 3D-version of Pixar's UP a couple of weeks ago in Cannes, said the funny glasses added little (if anything) to the experience of watching the film (an opinion shared by many others, apparently). I still haven't had the chance to see UP yet (grrr, stupid international release windows) but I'm sure a 'regular' digital presentation will be just as enjoyable as its 3D-counterpart. Pixar's greatest strength lies in terrific storytelling, not in technological gadgetry.
That's not to say I'm totally antipathetic to the idea of 3D in movie theaters. Some films (and I'm sure AVATAR will be one of them) should be 'experienced', rather than just 'watched'. And if Cameron delivers what he promises, AVATAR is bound to be the first genuine 3D-cinema experience, really sucking the audience through the looking glass and placing them smack-dab in the middle of all the action. But, as with Pixar, I consider Cameron to be a great storyteller first and a technological wizard second. At the end of the day (or rather, the start of the end-credits) the real question is: does the film have a compelling story? If it doesn't, no 3D in the world is likely to save it from being a boring dud.
Which brings me to another piece of film-related technological proficiency I recently heard about: D-BOX Motion Code. Already available in certain Canadian and U.S. movie theaters, this 'film enhancing' device promises to rock your world while watching a movie on the big screen. Quite literally. It's basically a chair that banks, tilts and rumbles along with the film you're watching. Not just randomly, mind you, the different movements are all meticulously programmed to match the action on screen. Cool idea? Definitely. But does it really add to the storytelling part of filmmaking? Well, I think you can answer that before even trying that chair. Who'd want to see DELIVERANCE, the D-Box experience?
Set phasers on stunning!
0 Comments Published by Steven Friedman on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 12:05 PM.
Boy, it's been almost a week now since I saw J.J. Abrams' STAR TREK-reboot (digitally projected, no less) and I think I actually needed that time to allow the full impact of that film to properly sink in. Sure, I'm a sucker for hyperbole when it comes to films I really like, but I think Abrams, Kurtzman, Orci, Pine, Quinto and pretty much everyone else who worked on this film are truly deserving of every bit of praise they're getting. I mean, 95% positive on Rotten Tomatoes? For a summer blockbuster scifi-vehicle? When was the last time that happened?Truth be told, I've never been a huge STAR TREK-fan. Actually, strike that 'huge'-part. I've just never been a fan, period. Didn't care much for the original series (the epitome of camp if you ask me), tried to watch a few episodes of that Next Generation-thingee, but it never struck a chord with me. As far as the films are concerned, I love WRATH OF KHAN and really dug FIRST CONTACT, but the rest is just a mishmash of great ideas and poor execution to me, with that humpback whale-story as an all-time low.
Now I'm definitely not a Lucashound in the sense that I vehemently hate everything Trek simply because the STAR WARS-universe is way cooler. It's just that Roddenberry's vision, as foreseeing and ambitious as it was, never managed to 'wow' me the way that STAR WARS did (and still does). It was just too clean, too neat, too organized, too utopian. From the uniforms to the design of the ships to the idea of an 'intergalactic Federation', it all felt so esoterically impeccable, that I didn't want to be a part of it.
In comes J.J. (soon to be the biggest director in Hollywood, trust me) and he injects the STAR TREK-universe with two elements I think it desperately needed: grittiness and fun. From the adrenaline-rush of the opening sequence, where the U.S.S. Kelvin gets attacked by a Romulan vessel emerging from a black hole, you know right away what kind of Trek-adventure this is going to be. Ships get banged up, people get sucked into the vacuum of space, shit blows up... all while Michael Giacchino's music soars and the sound and visual effects draw you into a world of fun and wonder.
This is a summer blockbuster the way it's supposed to be. After two fun-filled hours it leaves you both satisfied and hungry for more. The $75 million opening weekend might not be the biggest in history, but I think great word-of-mouth will keep this baby spinning in warp drive all summer.
Twitter is one of those internet-phenomena I've tried to stay clear from as long as possible. And there were a number of valid reasons for that. First off, I didn't think my boring-ass life would make for a very interesting read on a day-by-day (or, in the case of some Twitterers: minute-by-minute) basis.When I first learned about Twitter, back in 2007 I believe, I thought this was a fad that was going to die a quick and obscure death. Like the Macarena or flat-top haircuts. I mean, really, who would be interested in reading posts like:
"I'm off to the toilet. Had beans last night, so I guess I'll be on there for a while."
Secondly, this whole Twitter-thing revolves around following people and people following you. Nobody calls it this, but really it's all just a popularity contest. And I wasn't sure my fragile ego could handle not a single person in the twitterverse wanting to follow me. This would obviously end in me being overwrought with pain, grabbing the bottle, shooting heroin, prostituting myself, breaking into a nuclear power plant, getting infected, turning into a giant gelatinous monster, destroying Tokyo and getting killed.
Not a good prospect.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago - seemingly out of nowhere - I decided to give Twitter another chance. Sign up, post a few tweets, see where it goes. And you know what? I kind of like it. Not just because it feeds the exhibitionist in me, but because now I can follow tweets by people who are actually interesting, like Jon Favreau, Stephen Fry and Kevin Spacey. Favreau, for example, is an avid twitterer and has already posted some interesting tidbits from the set of Iron Man 2, which started shooting this monday.
As you can see, I've put up a 'Latest Tweets'-section in the sidebar of this website. If you want the whole enchilade, you should visit my page on Twitter.
If you haven't already, sign up yourself. Trust me, it's actually a lot less imbecilic than it all sounds.
To squid or not to squid
0 Comments Published by Steven Friedman on Monday, March 09, 2009 at 4:25 PM.
That's the question. Or at least I'm sure it must have been one of them on director Zack Snyder's mind while translating Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' canonical graphic novel WATCHMEN to the big screen. To the uninitiated, the absence of a monstrous, city-destroying, intergalactic squid in the film might seem higly inconsequential, but to the Watchmen-zealots it means the world. Apparently.I consider myself an avid fan of Watchmen. It's one of the few books I can take off the shelf again and again - and still enjoy every single read. That's the beauty of the dark, dystopian world Moore and Gibbons invite us to be a part of in Watchmen. There's always something new to discover in the shadows. Be it Rorschach's sociopathic view on life, Dr. Manhattan's moral dilemmas or the violent comic-in-a-comic Tales of the Black Freighter; this is so much more than just a comic book. For fans, it's the Holy Grail.
Back to the squid: did I miss it? Short answer: hell no. I saw the film for the first time last friday and seriously enjoyed every second of it. I think Zack and writers David 'Solid Snake' Hayter and Alex Tse did an absolutely terrific job in bringing the 'unfilmable' to the big screen. Is it flawless? Of course not, but I can honestly say this is the best and most uncompromising Watchmen-film I could have hoped for.
Not wanting to spoil anything for anyone: the writers managed to work their way around the squid-issue nicely. They knew the squid is not the point. Ozymandias' plan - and its moral implications - is. Dare I say it? I think maybe, just maybe, this ending is a tad better than the one in the graphic novel. Not only does it make more sense to the less Watchmen-savvy, it also adds more weight to Dr. Manhattan's storyline, opening a door to the fascinating philosophical issue of 'The Visible God'. I mean, what would God do if He - to quote Joan Osborne - was 'one of us'? Would He pick sides? Would He be feared? Revered? Mistaken? Interesting stuff...
Anyway, I can't wait to see Watchmen again - in Imax Digital this time. And for those of you who really can't live without the intergalactic squid, check out the Saturday Morning Watchmen below. At least he's in there.
