If I get nominated I’ll tell you everything…

NOMINATE HERE

As some loyal readers of this small installment knows I’m allergic to hype, especially when it comes to something being blown out of proportion. So when the overly super positive reviews started crashing in on Twitter my hype’o'meter hit the roof. What finally tipped me over were the comments from friends and bloggers that stated: ”YOU gonna love it” and boy were they almost right!

I’ve never been a huge Avengers fan, being a Marvel boy I mainly stuck to Spiderman and X-men in my childhood. To be honest my only exposure to the Avengers was from Secret Wars. With that in mind I’ve been luke warm to the Avengers film from the start.

Of the origin story films I really appreciated Captain America and Iron Man (not as much as the general public seemed too though). Thor was ok I think but it slipped from my mind quite soon after watching it.

Then we have the Joss Wheedon factor. I’m an insanely huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV-series) and even the first season of Angel. They are both as close as one can get to perfect TV-shows and I give Joss a lot of credit for that. Beside Angel and Buffy I haven’t seen that much of his work as a director. For instance I haven’t seen Firefly but I watched Serenity in the theatre on opening night but came out of the quarter filled theatre wondering what all the buzz had been about. I know I need to watch Firefly to fully appreciate and understand Serenity but I don’t really have time to divulge it right now, that will be a future project.

Back to Avengers, when my hype’o'meter went of the roof I still had a notion that I was going to be disappointed. This had been the fact with Avatar, X-men First Class and even Inception. However, those times around I wasn’t adressed by the hypers that it was gonna be a ”Joel Burman” film.

I’m gonna be perfectly honest with you, I think the Avengers could easily have been 40 minutes shorter and the entire 1st hour could have been totally re-edited and changed to the better but this time I’ll disapoint you guys who stops by here to read my grumpier blogposts. This is not gonna be one of those.

What I really take with me from the Avengers is the fact that it totally won me over with its finale. That is a rare thing these days especially when it comes to block buster action films. Way to often they are hugely front loaded with all the good stuff packed within 45 minutes from the start of the film while the the last third is often hideous. The best thing by structuring it the other way is that at least I’m more inclined to like the film even though technically it was only good halfway through and I wouldn’t mind walking straight onto another showing of it directly after the first one. This was certainly the case with the Avengers.

Thanks god for a living proof that its still possible to produce commercial blockbusters the way it should be done. So here’s my main reasons why the Avengers finale is some of the most promising high concept filmmaking since Fast Five.

• The Comic Book Factor – To me it shows that Joss is a comic book geek (I’m assuming I don’t have any proof it other than his work on his own comics with Buffy and Angel). I almost got flashes back to my childhood greedily re-reading my worn out Marvel Comics books over and over. This is by far the closest comic book film adaptationI’ve ever sat through. I really liked Spiderman 2 in that sense but this is a completely different ballpark. The main reason for this feeling came from the cinematography and that goes into next bullet point…
• The Joss Wheedon Magic – When I realized the greatness of Buffy (I’ve appreciated it before but not realized the scope of it) I’d been starting to sniffing around the film industry myself. Mostly through a community college class in filmmaking and by working for free on other more prominent film school sets. So I was aware of some of the restrictions and boundaries that comes with filmmaking. With that in mind Joss’s work on Buffy blew my mind. I started to realize how elaborate some of his long takes were. Some of that creativity certainly came from budget restrictions but he always managed to make the most out of those scenes without being boring or overstating that its a wonderful long take just for the sake of it. To me its obvious that the cinematography of Avengers is a developed form of those elaborate long takes but still being shot in a modest old school style that never seeks the attention to itself. Just compare it to Tintin where it feels like the camera movement is made because it can be done rather than how it should be choreographed to suite the story. There were numerous times where the fluous camera movements made me gasp by excitement and even cry a tear at one or two places in admiration of how good it was.
• Editing With a Feeling – The editing ties into the cinematography but is still worth bringing up. Especially since the general idea right now among mainstream action films is to cut away as soon as you can making every cut hold for a maximum of 2-3 seconds. I’m surprised that not more people are brought of the theaters due to epileptic seizures. Maybe Avengers is cut like this as well but to be honest it doesn’t feel like that and the difference of perception of Avengers that is paced like this compared to Hunger Games or Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon is insane. On the latter two I just want it to end because I’m stressing out and/or is getting drenched by millisecond long impressions.
• The Over the Topness - Ok this rant is mainly about Hollywood storytelling in general. I’m just gonna give you a example on the way that tells it all. Tony Stark who has been a dick the entire film all of a sudden realizes he can fly with the nuke through the vortex and blow up the alien mothership a la Randy Quaid in ID4. The music tells us this is a defying moment, the cinematography tells us this is a defying moment, the other actors impressions of the situation tells us this is a defying moment and then it comes. Tony calls Pepper Potts (or what ever that blaise character name is) on the cellphone in his suite while carrying the nuke but she’s to busy to watch him perform this f*ckin larger than life act so she doesn’t even notice that he is calling her. I swear the god, that might be one of the most powerful scenes in this kind of big budget cheese burger movie and its even topped when Tony Stark is saved by the Hulk who has now transformed into a real team player while I was waiting for Thor to get off his ass to save him! Great filmmaking period! This is the fact why guys like Jerry Bruckheimer and Roland Emmerich keep ruling the boxoffice charts all over the world. See and learn!!! I’m certainly paying attention!

Well that was some of my impressions from a great cinematic experience. Then I haven’t brought up that I never thought I’d think Scarlett Johansson would be playing one of my favorite characters in a Marvel Film to date or the fact that I for once weren’t distracted by the 3D.

If you followed me all this way down I also recommend that you check out my  Swedish blog fellows that actually watched the Avengers last saturday before our monthly Filmspanarna blog meet-up unfortunately I choose not to go with them due to personal issues but also because I was fed-up with the hype. Well we all have our sunspots right? here are the Filmspanarna links…

Fiffis Filmtajm, Rörliga Bilder och Tryckta Ord, Jojjenito, Fripps Filmrevyer (tack Henke inte alls säkert jag hade gått och sett den på bio om det inte vart för dig), The Velvet Cafe and Har Du Inte Sett Den (Swedish Podcast).

….and yes the Lammy’s are coming soon. =)

A couple weeks ago I finally did my MILFcast (Man I Love Films) premiere. I did record a previous show last winter but that episode was unfortunately lost due to technical issues. In this episode the main discussion topic was about long awaited sequels or remakes!

If you can’t see the embedded player above seek out the MILFcast on iTunes to download the episode, its number 41.

As MILFcast listeners can vouch for its probably one of the funniest pods to participate on and I hope you had at least half as much as I did when recording it. Let me know what your long awaited sequels/remakes are but also how many points did you score in ”THE Game”???

Correction: The comedian in the Net is not Dennis Leary its Dennis Miller, I got them mixed up during the recording.

Enjoy!

Last Saturday Filmspanarna had our third blog-meetup and we decided to watch the Hunger Games together. This list will be spoily so if you want to read a review thats not a love fest but is spoiler free check out this review by Rich. Now over to my rambling spoiler fest.

I give you my five reasons why Hunger Games sucked!

1.  Lack of character depth – More or less all characters in the film weren’t introduced in a way that made me involved with the story. That includes the opening scene where Katniss voluntaries to take her kid sisters Prim’s place and also all scenes with Rye.  I think they made a poor choice focusing almost entirely on Katniss throughout the film making all other characters feel like cardboard cut-outs. As of now I didn’t care that much during the killings, which is a horrible thing to admit since the story is so gruesome. I definitively think it had helped to know more about the other characters especially the other kids in the Battle Roy… sorry Reaping or what it was called…
2. Why the Hunger Games? – Another point where people who have read the novel probably disagrees with me but I didn’t get the concept of the games. Why was everyone just passively watching it and didn’t do any resistance (until Rye is killed). Also it’s mentioned that the participants in the poll for the games get food for their family. Does it make the whole thing voluntarily? Because why would Donald Sutherland give them food if it was mandatory for them to be in the poll to begin with. I did miss some obvious background story and rules explanation, which I’m quite sure, is depicted in the book. Sad for me I’ll never know because I’m of the opinion that a film adaptation should stand on its own two feet which this one clearly don’t do.
3. Why was Gale in this? I understand he probably had a reasonable function in the book and even in the sequels, but here he only became the bruiting love interest that observes and mourn from a distance. This might be the most contrived love triangle in the history of film.
4. Pack up the tri-pod for christs sake!!!!! The cinematography was really distracting and uneven, especially the opening 20 minutes that consisted of really annoying shaky cam footage that made it real hard to keep up with what was happening on the screen. Later in the film they switched camera style several times, which gives a very uneven impression and the choice of style weren’t always the obvious one.
5. The End – Wow that final twist with Katniss and Peeta about to fake a Romeo and Juliette suicide when they find out they need to kill each other to win was so lame. I think they were too stuck with the novel and I wished they had constructed a ending that had worked better cinematically, rather than doing a rushed ending that feels like its completely from the book but without the nuances that literature gives you as a reader.

Its safe to say I won’t be keeping track of the sequels I really think this is probably the most overhyped film since Avatar and I’m baffled that this kind of simplistic approach of a novel adaptation works so well in the cinemas. Beside these five points I’had a ton of other issues to but these five were the ones I wanted to bring up because I think if they had fixed a couple of them the film would have been improved quite a bit.

Now over to the two scenes that I really liked one scene was incredibly captivating and sent a chill of joy down my spine. That was when Katniss looked straight into the camera (Truman Show Style) and kissed her fingertips. That was some impressive filmmaking and I do think that scene was really good edited between her and the ones who were watching her. It’s also a great example on how music can be used to strengthen a feeling with the audience.

The other scene was the initial scene of the battle where the kids/teenagers stood and waited for it to start. I really liked the tension building and the use of both cinematography and sound design to create a really frightening atmosphere. Awesome as hell and I wished more of the film had had this kind of build-up.

Finally, I got to plug a wonderful podcast episode on the Hunger Games that I listened to this monday by Brian J. Roan. I more or less agree with everything that Brian says on the show beside the fact that he keep saying that he kind of enjoyed it.

And now to my Swedish blog colleagues that I watched the Hunger Games with and thoroughly discussed it afterwards.

Fripps Filmrevyer

Bilder och Ord

Fiffis Filmtajm

The Velvet Cafe

Reactions?

Safe House is a recent Hollywood production with strong Swedish ties therefore we thought it might be appropriate to see it as a part of our monthly Stockholm film blog meetup ”Filmpanarna” this Saturday. When you have read my thoughts on it you can find links at the bottom for the other four bloggers that saw it with me.

Safe House is directed by Daniel Espinosa who is Sweden’s most interesting director right now. Ive seen two of his previous features Babylonsjukan and Easy Money (Snabba Cash), which is getting a limited theatrical release in the US on the 27^th of July. When seeing Safe House its apparent he got that gig after directing Easy Money which is a good study of the criminal under world of Stockholm, do check it out if you have the chance.

 Now over to Safe House heres a re-cap of the plot courtesy Douglas Young: 

”Matt Weston (‘Ryan Reynolds’ ) is a CIA rookie who is manning a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa, when Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) the CIAs most wanted rogue agent is captured and taken to the safe house. During Frost’s interrogation, the safe house is overtaken by mercenaries who want Frost. Weston and Frost escape and must stay out of the gunmen’s sight until they can get to another safe house.”

If you are expecting something else than the typical generical action/chase film you are bound for disappointment. Espinosa proves that it indeed is possible to make the Hollywood transition and doing a commercial film on the same turf as the best ones over there. Sure this is not the Fugitive in any way but Safe House is still entertaining enough to be worth checking out in the cinema. 

The plot works well until the last third when it takes some wrong turns that I wished they had done different and the film would have benefitted from ending earlier than it did. 

One problem I’d like to bring up is again the use of the alibi girlfriend/romantic subplot (as seen in Return to the Planet of the Apes and Real Steel just to mention two examples). The female character could easily have been edited out of the film without diminishing it. I wish that Hollywood and filmmakers in general started writing believable female characters that added something to the film. 

Finally, I think Denzel does an awesome job playing a slightly different version of his Training Day character while Ryan Reynolds still has to prove himself as a bankable marquee star.

As said in the introduction I saw Safe House together with four other Swedish Filmbloggers on our monthly meet-up. If you are interested in joining us please e-mail at joelcomments[at]gmail.com and I’ll tell you more about our gathering.

Now over to the links:

Bilder och Ord, Frippes Filmrevyer, Fiffis Filmtajm and The Velvet Cafe.

Enjoy and let us know what you think about Safe House!

As you may have read on my blog I’m a frequent listener of the Reel Insight podcast and I actually suggested on their Facebook page that they should do an episode on Amy Adams and I also asked what one would have to do to get on it? Apparently being a hardcore fan was enough because I got to go on the show and talk about Amy Adams and her filmography. 

Yam-mag has a cute round-up piece where they replace the Oscar nominee’s with other films. Check it out as I contributed with one of the picks.

Check out my piece on the nominated films in best Sound Editing!

2012 has been some what of a rushed year so far and it would be a total lie to say that it hasn’t affected this digital hangout of mine.

The short version for you guys in a hurry is that I’d really recommend you guys to start following me in here through my RSS reader rather than visiting the site physically for the time being. Here is a link to my preferred RSS feed, now onto the long version.

As many of you know my ambition is to make it as a producer and as of now I’ve been supporting myself  since graduation with working for others. My last employment was as a co-production manager on the Swedish Webisode Elsas Värld that is currently running on TV3 Play. After finishing that job I’ve been searching for other employment while also working with some of my own projects in development.

As a result of that we (me and the writer/director) have gotten in touch with a U.S producer located in Sweden who has hooked us up with a studio that he is currently working with. As a result of these meetings we have developed three feature length scripts in a short time that we have gotten some good feedback on and thanks to this we have actually come to the point where we have been asked to come up with a script based from a bunch of fixed settings/limitations. So as of now I’m actually writing on that script while my partner is finishing up the last of our previous scripts.

Since we as of now still are working on an unpaid basis its more than a full time job working with these projects while still looking and doing work to support myself. So from that point of view I have decided to spend less time in here or actually spending more quality time but writing a little less. So in the future I hope to give you more of an insight on my daily work with these scripts but also maybe some bts stuff from my hired work as well (unfortunately a lot of producers aren’t that keen on getting blog exposure in preproduction).

But thats not all there is to it… In December I got the question from Dylan over at Man I Love Films and the LAMB founder if I was interested in taking on the role as Shepherd of the LAMB. To you who aren’t familiar with the LAMB its the world’s biggest association of movie blogs. I became a member last year and its certainly a community thats very close to my blogging heart so I didn’t really have a choice. Hence I’ll be spending some time there doing the occasional post and hopefully keeping up the great work that Dylan and Rachel with crew has put in over the years making it the go to place for international movie bloggers.

So with that in mind I’ll definitively for now suggest that regular readers switch to following me on RSS rather than stopping by through your browser (if my stats are any where correct it seem that most people already do that which is good).

Thanks for reading!