Rise of the planet of the apes

Effects + Heart = Movie goodness. Yes, please.


It's exciting to see the fruits of the latest technology applied to movies. In this case, Avatar's big push in motion capture technology, with which the actors can capture body and face performance, allows the "Planet of the Apes" sequel to exist.

The danger is to learn to use this new technology integrated in the storytelling process. Looking at the trailer, it looked a bit like the tragic "I, robot", with Apes replacing the hordes of robots. Except for a couple of images, which encouraged me to go see it, and eventually enjoy it enormously.

The greatest archievement is to me that you root for the main character, a bloody monkey, to the point that you side with him against humans (the little bastards). Apes are in the movie more human than humans, just as in other good stories has happened with robots (Wall-e, Johnny 5), monsters (Hulk, King kong) or aliens (E.T. or this guy). Easy. By doing this rather than trying to trick the audience, the achieve effects that enhance the story instead of replacing it (films like "Hellboy 2", "Clash of the Titans"* or the "Transformers" eternal sequels spring to mind now), and that's why, I believe, certain sequences, which would have otherwise been just a way how showing off much money the movie had, work so well and so honestly. I personally loved the helicopter moment, you'll now when you see it :)

Click HERE if you want to see a special-effects-featurette.

Don't click on it if you don't, that would be silly.

Sure the writers took to some licenses in the story, but the final result is good enough as to want to ignore those bits. Only the feeling that the story wasn't going as far as it could have stopped me from loudly cheering at the end. It seems it was thought up as a trilogy. Well, ok they earned that. As long as we don't go back to battles of giant robots destroying cities for cosmical reasons.

Bring it on.

* Niceties aside, "Clash of the Titans" is still the worst movie in modern times in my book. Its sequel, now on the making, means a step back in human evolution and will probably end up destroying the world at least twice.

The storytelling masters

Finally! Pixar's is going for "Best Picture" at the next edition of the oscars with "Toy Story 3". Not "Best Animated Picture", which they should already get by default, but the big "Best Picture" award.

And in my always humble although occasionally loud and overexcited opinion, if Pixar wants the Oscar they should be able to just have it. Not only is TS3 the best movie of this year (and one of the best movies of all time), when it comes to making movies, there really is no one else better than Pixar.

The audience has spoken, TS3 is the biggest box office hit of the last months. But of course, this can't be the only reason. It is a long time ago now that Pixar has gone beyond the boundaries of animated movies to find themselves a place between those who can tell stories better than the rest. Better, in fact, than anyone else. Pixar's professional policy to create only the best stories and to care for the audience is worth this award and more. It is not very often that one sees grown-ups laughing out loud, jumping at the edge of their seats and then crying their eyes out in the same movie. That's the emotional journey that we should always get with our ticket, and that sadly we don't. Why? Pixar are those guys who haven't forgotten what a good story well told should be like.

Oh. And trying and compare it with "Inception" is just obscene. There, I said it.

Expectations versus Experience

In the words of William Goldman, "nobody knows anything". It's interesting how sometimes you go watch a film expecting brilliance and finding disappointment, or the other way around. You never know. The fact that it may happen at all levels -and with any budget- is to me kind of refreshing, and I just wanted to give a quick example with 3 of the latest films I've seen.

Inception: A film I couldn't wait to see and that most people seem to love for reasons that escape my comprehension. A superb idea brought down by the unnecessarily numerous rules imposed by the writing and the endless explanatory movie-stopping sequences. Dreams where possibility is purely a reflection of physical forces and not human, limitless imagination. A spectacular visual effect-packed feast wasted in a merely passable experience. An experience, however, instantly turned into religious dogma by the touch of Saint Christopher Nolan, the man who made the first realistic superhero movie (apparently, the ones before don't seem to count) and became a god in the process. In short, you expect 9, get just a 5... Oh well.

The A-Team: A film I wasn't so excited about but I HAD to see (it's the A-Team, yey!). You can tell has been done for the fans, crafted with love and respect for the original characters and the TV series. Not perfect at all, but thoroughly enjoyable. See? Expect 4, get at least 8! Lovely.

And of course there's Pixar. As usual, beyond any labels or classifications. You expect 10, you usually get 12. Damn it, Toy Story 3 is a film so brilliant that makes you both laugh out loud and cry your eyes out in less than 2 hours. A story that you experience intensely, caring about the characters and living it all with them. That's what cinema should be all the time! All that despite being a 3rd part. A 3rd! Seriously, who else can make not a great 3rd part, but even an acceptable one?

You can't beat Pixar. That's the moral here, I guess. Or maybe not.

Deadtime full trailer

Again, I am delighted to bring some news on Deadtime, the slasher horror feature film I worked in last year as a Production Manager. Along with a bunch of wonderful -if a little crazy- people.

The complete TRAILER -nearly four minutes of footage packed with love, kindness and feel-good music*- was released last Sunday. And there has been much rejoicing since among the people involved in it. Which of course doesn't mean much, since we can't help being kind of biased.

But then something else happened: people with no involvement in the project whatsoever started saying that it did look good, and actually texted/called/sent carrier pigeons to say so. In short, I couldn't be happier about it and really do hope YOU like it too and feel somehow compelled to go watch it when it hits the theatres! (next year, in principle).

Website here. And an up-to-date full picture of what is happening with it in its Facebook home.

* Very little love in it, actually, but loads of heads "rock'n' roll"-ing, which in a way is much better! (don't let your children see it until they can grow a moustache though, or they may hate you for the rest of your life).

Not again

Every now and then, I hear that statement again:

"Animation is for children"


And there I go, trying to explain again that animation is just a way of generating visuals rather than a genre in itself, or a ticket to a specific kind of audience. I'm usually too busy finding the statement unbelievable and going mental with it, though, as to be able to convey the idea convincingly. Or even intelligibly. So I thought I should just give a couple of examples here. If you have that look of "doh" in your face right now (meaning this too is a fundamental truth to you!), you don't need to keep reading. Go and see an animated film or something.


Hanna Montana -to use quite outrageous an example- clearly isn't an animated film, but despite being live-action we can hardly say it's for adults and children alike. The animated film The Incredibles, however, a film that I personally consider one of the best ever made, is NOT for children only. It is appealing to children, of course, but they won't be able to grasp the subtleties of a married couple arguing, or understand how frustration and nonrecognition may lead someone to become a very specific kind of person. They will probably just see a bad guy there.

It's simple: you can shoot actors with a camera, or take pictures, or render frames of computer-generated characters. Or use any other method, existing or to come. It doesn't really mind, they all need an script as badly. And it is this script (the storyline, the dialogue between the characters, the characters themselves, the tone!) that will determine how "adult" the film will eventually be.


I finish with what I think is a relevant video. The moments in one of the episodes of the wonderful excuse-me-not-only-for-children Justice League TV series in which Superman's colleagues react to his sudden death and one of his closest friends gives a speech during the funeral. It's as good and emotive as that of live action films such as the famous Four weddings and a funeral one. And just in case it counts, it may give you "adult" goosebumps too.




And then of course there is Harry bloody Potter. But I rather not go there right now. Maybe some other time.

The Man from Earth

Screenwriting lesson.

Jerome Bixby's script (apparently finished not long before his author's death) almost starts like a joke to unfold in a most engaging and fascinating story that challenges all sort of preconceptions. Some of the most elaborated dialogue lines of all-times cinema, excellent characters, emotional performances and beautiful, seemingly irrepetible moments, contribute to this ode to humanity, this triumph of reasoning over beliefs, to this pure message of hope for the future.

If you see it with an open mind, The Man of Earth is, I believe, all the above and more. And all with a very low budget, one set and a bunch of actors.

I saw this film recently in DVD, nearly by mistake. I then found out that it had only been released in some countries and always at a small scale. I didn't have high expectations, and I'm delighted to have found gold. As I said to a good friend recently, I'm still pondering whether this might be the best script I've ever have enjoyed.

Then again, you may hate it. Anyway, still worth watching and decide then.

Frost/Nixon

Television battle for the best film.

The latest Ron Howard’s was something more than a pleasant surprise. It was an example of how performance-based films and historical recreations (and by extension other so-called “smaller films”) can have other excellent features. And indeed should, in order to become memorable films like this one.

Although I increasingly enjoy this type of film more and more, I must admit that they are not my first choice, and I get to the cinema fearing for the worst case of inedible yet sophisticated boredom.

Instead, you are delighted with a profoundly human story about men the size of giants, with a story of responsibility, about facing one’s mistakes and weaknesses and making tough decisions with in an enormous and most enjoyable script. An script that is, not very surprisingly, nominated for an Academy award on February 22nd.

Especially delicious is Frank Langella’s Nixon (effort which, too, has been nominated for the popular award). His unbeatable presence makes you wish he were onscreen every minute of the film. But then again, I though that he was outstanding even as Skeletor, so I suppose this is not much of a valuable piece of data coming from yours truly :-)

It doesn't matter whether Frost/Nixon ends the Oscars night with any of the five prizes it's been nominated for. Whatever happens, YOU should see it.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Alive.

Two things make Madagascar 2 stand out from the usual offer of 3D animation films. The script and the performances (performances? excuse me? I though it was a “cartoon”??). I'll start by the second one instead of the first so as to test if you are alert and engaged, while adding a bit of chaos.

The characters no longer seem to be animated as such at any point. Instead, they now look a lot more natural, and act and move as naturally and effortlessly as yourself (unless of course you are one of those couch potato persons, in which case you can consider that they would easily beat you at that). We often find them trusting comments to other characters, and struggling with their emotions. At times, they even look like their voice actors (I'm certain Ben Stiller would move LIKE THAT if he was a lion). They are alive.

As for the script, we are presented with an enjoyable story with overtones of friendship, love and family. Don't throw up yet. They manage to make it enjoyable and not too cheesy, and top it up with a couple of the most beautifully dialogued scenes seen so far not just in an animated film, but in any film. And this is the key.

3D films have come a long way. More and more, secure in satisfying technological frames by now, 3D-film filmmakers seem to concentrate more and more in something else apart from the animation and the looks themselves, which can only be beneficial for the audience. I see Madagascar 2 as a potential milestone in animation, just as Toy Story 2 -the first script for one of these films to win a Golden globe for best comedy/musical- or, of course, The Incredibles -whose script was also nominated, this time for an oscar, unfortunately but fairly lost out to the exquisite Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, only against another giant could The Incredibles fall!-. Moreover, this existing technological situation, combined with animators' skills and creativity, is meant to keep providing us not only with lots of animation films to come, but with good films. Closer and closer to this academy award for “3D character performance” now.

And yes, the rest is all as expected (I now, I digress). Like in the first "episode", fun characters, simple but very personal visual style and very fast pace. There always seem to be something happening, and the camera is always there to capture it. Go watch it.

Hotel Rwanda

(IMPORTANT: This is an old review. No matter how fast you run, it won't be showing at the local cinemas when you get there. You can always get in on DVD though...)

Director Terry George found in the material that inspired “Hotel Rwanda” a perfect excuse to let the inhabitants of ‘the first world’ know about African struggles. This particular story, although sadly real and shockingly human, is just an example of what usually happens in those forgotten areas of the planet.

Whether or not the film fulfils one of its missions (the main one, the director says) of raising people’s consciousness about the situation that the movie shows, “Hotel Rwanda” is a beautiful and touching story properly shot and told.

In general, the actors know how to create intense personalities and give outstanding performances, favoured by the propitious and hopeless war environment.

Don Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabagina, a man who finds out what kind of human being he actually is during the terrible events. His character -a real person, by the way, who did save more than one thousand people from the slaughter that many other suffered- is difficult to separate from the rest of the movie since, in a way, they both are the same thing.

The appropriate choice of shots, containing all that the audience needs to know in order to feel along with the protagonist, undoubtedly helps him. But Don Cheadle’s work amplifies what happens on the screen, widely supported, for his part, by the rest of the cast. This is the case with the seemingly passive Nick Nolte or the awesome Sophie Okonedo, Don Cheadle’s wife in the film.

Apart from the actors, there are some breathtaking moments in which we can barely blink because of the intensity of the emotions that spill out of the screen. Some Don Cheadle’s lines, like the conversation with his wife in the roof or the meaningful speech to his guests, are especially remarkable.

The director counted on a very tasty material at his disposal: war between neighbours, families, brother against brother, the evasive attitude of the rest of the world (“the civilized part”), … But, instead of getting too excited, he wisely handles all these ideas without overusing of ghoulish or bloody resort.

His crew’s choices also achieve an adequate atmosphere, which makes us feel empathy, guilt and responsibility. The light and the music, for example, are appropriately used for this purpose.

Since that’s not my task here, I won’t finish this cold piece of writing trying to tell the reader, in a moral-like way, what they should do after watching the movie (or what we should have done before). I won’t even wonder if Joaquin Phoenix’s words in the movie, speaking about some shots of the conflict that he has shot, are truth: “If people see this footage, they’ll say: ‘Oh, my god, it’s horrible’, and then go on and eat their dinners”.

Ray

(IMPORTANT: This is an old review. No matter how fast you run, it won't be showing at the local cinemas when you get there. You can always get in on DVD though...)

“Ray” covers the early years in the life of the pioneering musician Ray Charles. The movie tells us about what the road to fame is like, going through the different steps and aspects of this intense experience quite faithfully. But it’s also the story of a man –who, despite being amazingly good at playing piano, singing and composing, is as any other- struggling for a chance to live his life without becoming a monster in the process.

Only someone like the director Taylor Hackford, who, as we realise during the first minutes of the movie, deeply admires Ray Charles, would have been capable of going through such a difficult and long project (which, incidentally, involved Charles himself in the early stages, before his death). On the other hand, this vast love ends up ruining some moments of the film (and some others that, because of the same kind approach, were never created) in which the behaviour of the philandering and heroin-addicted soul singer remains unscathed instead of being condemned by the eventually too belligerent director.

The same thing happens, in some way, with the subplot that takes us to explore the past from time to time. Although it’s in general well handled, it becomes quite tedious by the end. And the almost celestial final image is definitely too much and doesn’t contain any new meaning: after an almost-three-hour film –seemingly longer because of the constant fades by the end-, the director feels he forgot to include a deep moral (which is not needed) and hurries to ruin another moment of the story.

Yet “Ray” is an enormously human story, in part because of a meticulous script and in part thanks to the actors.

The choice of Jamie Foxx -by the way, approved by none other than Ray Charles, who also taught ‘some piano tricks’ to the actor- as the protagonist give us the chance of enjoying a delightful unrepeatable performance. Foxx, also pianist, looks and sounds like the original Charles. And he offers nerve and authenticity while playing and pretending to sing his recordings.

Let's not forget the impressive Sharon Warren, as well, in the role of Ray’s mother, so shocking and decisive at all times like a whole life of maternal schooling encapsulated in a few minutes.

But, the way I see it, the best present that we receive from director and scriptwriter with “Ray” are various wonderful scenes, two in particular: one, belonging to Ray’s childhood, in which he falls over already being blind; and another, close to the end of the movie, in which Ray’s wife tells him about what he could lose if he didn’t give up drugs. I still feel something special while I write these lines. Scenes like those remind me of the power of good storytelling and would make the movie worth watching even if it told nothing else.

The music is, as expected, one voice more, speaking about that period and its composer’s attitude before it (as the gospel music subject). It’s easy to fall in love with the toe-tapping rhythm as you watch the movie. And particularly enjoyable are some parts in which lyrics completely integrate into the story to tell part of what is happening.

Wall-e

They would never let us down.

Pixar, the production company responsible for diamonds like Toy Story, Finding Nemo or The Incredibles, keeps doing it. They keep making compelling human stories with each of their films. And they do it with all of us in mind, knowing what we like, how we understand stories, what is too obvious and must be discarded, or what is too clever and might go overlooked. How we react to what happens on the screen. They know their job. After decades of film making, we should be able to delight our senses with this level of craft all the time, to find that our likes have been learnt from and respected for making the next film in line. But the reality is different, and the nature of the business often causes the beautiful entertainment side of it to be undervalued. The capability of keep respecting us as spectators, rather than any other compliment that I could try to fill this article with, is what makes Pixar special.

Wall-e, the most tender and human of all the robots, lives his adventure among a full set of human and robot characters that move us, make us hold our breath, smile and laugh out loud. Some of them, we only see for seconds, but even so, they often become a story in themselves, and rarely aren't examples in characterisation.

Nothing to say about the 3D itself. As usual, Pixar makes it all believable. And this is the greatest achievement. The animation becomes reality and, when it comes to characters, beautiful performance. Computer generated actors will have to qualify for an academy award one day if we want to make this world a little bit less imperfect, just like Wall-e attempts to do with its ending moral in the film.

Wall-e is one the films one can't miss. However, despite its brilliance, the incredible The Incredibles is still the best Pixar ever made. To me anyway. Maybe it's the patent division between the two parts of the film in Wall-e (although it doesn't affect the rhythm greatly), or maybe it's just a personal priority for the genre. By the way, when I wrote the review for The Incredibles, the article turned into an ode in the end too...

The incredibles

(IMPORTANT: This is an old review. No matter how fast you run, it won't be showing at the local cinemas when you get there. You can always get in on DVD though...)

Incredible indeed!

“The Incredibles” is the last CG film (completely generated by using computers) made by Pixar, who already surprised us with “Toy Story”, “Monsters Inc.” and “Finding Nemo”. As any Pixar film, this is a movie which appears to be sometimes a very funny comedy, sometimes a moving story capable of touching the toughest spectator. And, as any Pixar film (it doesn't matter if they use toys, bugs, monsters, fish or super-heroes) it remains a powerful story about relationships between human beings.

This time, they tell the story of a family of super-heroes using lots of references to super-hero movies, TV serials and comics, as well as adventure films. “The Incredibles” delights our senses with a powerful script full of sub-plots brilliantly treated, including several relationships inside the family (Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl’s love, parents and siblings, children's problems) which are easily believable as well as amazingly familiar.

By combining virtual people and real actors’ voices, the characters (all them, not just the main ones, but every single one) end up having more personality than many human actors: nice characters whom we get attached to and whom we worry about. Their bodies and faces make us believe in them and create a favourable atmosphere for humour. Pixar accomplishes the most difficult thing in this kind of movie: credibility. And this is the point: when a character is beaten, we know it hurts; when a character runs, we know he's going fast. When a door is opened, a train is trying to stop and people or objects are falling, we are sure that they are all heavy, as if they were real elements. From the character's expressiveness to the fanciest effect seen in the film, Pixar’s animators and programmers achieve the impossible.

Completely believable hair, muscles and fabric, including several costumes per character (for the first time in a movie like this). Explosions, water, explosions in the water, lava, ice, shattering windows, energy fields, invisibility effects, light beams, plane reactors, robots… everything is possible, even stretching human limbs. We have no reason to not believe in it because it’s very well done.

In regards to music and lighting, the film opts for a colourful environment typical of old-fashion comics and Saturday morning cartoons which turns into a James Bond-like environment as the story moves forward. Of course, every effect related with light and used to personalize each moment of the film (daylight, dust, clouds, fog) is perfectly created.

The “60's 007”-like look is reflected as well in the multi-location design of the film. From the interior of a volcano to the open sea, from remote forests to common cities, we visit many different beautiful sceneries. Furthermore the director consistently uses the camera intelligently throughout each set (he seldom overuses the fact that everything is 3D to take odd shots), so we don’t have to see spectacular yet absurd views.

It’s difficult to decide if “The Incredibles” is only one of the best animated movies so far or it’s one of the best super-hero films ever created as well. Whatever the case, this is not a story just for kids. In fact, this is the first PG (Parental Guidance) movie made by Pixar. And this only means that parents will enjoy as much as their children. Or perhaps even more.

So, technical perfection, an enjoyable story and tons of fun in a film which maybe is a bit long -for an animated movie- but is incredible in all other respects.