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Sit back and relax. Here’s today’s film review:

INCEPTION *****5 Stars

Directed by Christopher Nolan Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard and Cillian Murphy.

~ Film reviewed by Oosters ~

It’s a pretty remarkable creative position Christopher Nolan has established.

Coming from a low-budget, independent background, he has taken those genre-challenging, structure-defying roots and kept them with each step up his career ladder, onto the broadest canvas there could possibly be.

He now makes films with the biggest budgets available in popular film, which are met with both critical acclaim and massive box office returns.

With his latest work, he has not only attempted something completely original (what was the last summer blockbuster not a sequel or based on other material?) and highly ambitious (the ideas and concepts this film is based on are far from easy to thrust onto a multiplex audience), he has even gone so far as to take his own auteur sensibility and made a huge blockbuster with what appears to be personal and self-referential intent.

The plot concerns a leader of a team who are responsible for “manufacturing dreams” (the Hollywood system has frequently been called the “dream factory”) – specifically, creating something which is a simulation of reality, something which lures us in, asks challenging questions and leaves us, on waking, scratching our heads.

With a lead character who bears a striking physical resemblance to the director himself, it’s difficult not to draw parallels to what Nolan does as a filmmaker, putting together films which are convincing enough, thoroughly entertaining yet also unafraid to ask metaphysical questions from an audience perhaps not used to hearing them.

Not that this is all some pretentious, soul-searching art film. It has moments that are visually stunning, including a bravura single-shot fight sequence down a corridor which shifts gravity four or five times without cutting, another sequence where a city street folds in on itself, and the odd moment of visual trickery that would make M.C. Escher proud.

There is emotion too, sudden and unexpected in its intensity, all the more cutting and unsettling for its truthfulness. It seems to literally take on everything it can, and somehow find something honest in them all.

Popular entertainment with cunning narrative tactics and an emotional punch.

A big blockbuster with a personal and artful message inside it.

A grand metaphor for the art of filmmaking itself.

The stuff dreams are made of, indeed.

Why aren’t there more of these?

Have you seen the film?

What did you think of it?

Leave a comment. It would be good to know.

[film photo taken from here]

Predators – Film Review

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – Film Review

Whatever Works – Film Review

Shrek Forever After – Film Review

“When you are clear, what you want will show up in your life, and only to the extent you are clear.”

Janet Attwood – Author

CURRENT STATUS: Reminder, Motivator and Review Meeting (Read on if you want to join me in my Corporation of One meeting)

What l have learnt:

• Honest thoughts from an agent on the first five pages (via Neverending Page Turner).
• 15 Interesting Motivations for Villians and Heroes (via Superhero Nation).
• The difference between dedications and acknowledgments (via edittorrent).
• Don’t write your query in the POV of your character (via Query Shark). It’s good to know.

What I have done:

• Read ‘Sleepy Head’ by Mark Billingham.

WORD COUNT: Night Walker 147,000 words in total. Thursday 12 August wrote 1,000 words.

PREDATORS ****4 Star

Directed by Nimrod Antal

Starring Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, Oleg Taktarov and Louis Ozawa

~ Film Reviewed by Oosters ~

Surprisingly decent sequel that doesn’t quite match the original but is a good deal more accomplished than any of its other sequels and spinoffs.

Embracing its silly B-movie premise, it’s a preposterous action film that dispenses its plot in the first ten minutes and then plays out like a violent game of dominoes, with each cast member being killed off in reverse order of their level of celebrity.

It’s oddly refreshing to see the sledgehammer subtlety of the original brought back into fashion; a grownup action film that does what it says on the tin is altogether rare these days.

Thanks Oosters ~

According to Wikipedia, Producer ‘Robert Rodriguez had developed the Predators (2010) script as early as 1994, although it was not until 2009 that 20th Century Fox greenlit the project.’ It just goes to show that even those with a proven record has to wait for their earlier works to develop and be fully actualized.

What I, and probably many others, found surprising was the fact that the main character in Predators is Adrien Brody. Think Predator 1987 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then think Predators 2010 starring Adrien Brody.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of Adrien Brody in the handful of films I’ve seen him in. The Pianist was the first time he came to my attention and he was amazing in it. But what drew me to Adrien Brody was a vulnerability, a sensitivity and dare I say it a sense of the feminine about him. A softness.

So, back to Predators.

Chosen for their ability to kill without conscience, a group of killers, some trained and some who are not, must endeavour the alien race of predators that have set out to target them as prey. Dropped into the vast jungle of a distant world, these human predators must learn just who, or what, they are up against, and that their ability, knowledge and wits are tested to the limits in the battle of survival of kill or be killed. (taken from IMDB plot summary)

You’re talking about people as killing machines. And well, I couldn’t see Adrien Brody pulling it off. And not only that but director Nimrod Antal was worried about casting a woman because a woman was not seen as tough enough.

This is what director Nimrod Antal had to say about casting Brody and Alicia Braga who nearly wasn’t in it:

Q: Was it really a fight to cast Adrien Brody in the lead?

It was our job to make him look tough. We knew we could do it. That’s our job. If we want to turn a man into a woman, we could do that. If we want to turn a woman into a man, we can do that. We knew the perception of Adrien, especially films like The Pianist and everything, put him in a certain box in people’s mind and we knew that we could turn him into whatever we needed him to be. His passion was also refreshing. To see someone of his caliber really want something as bad as he did, what I can’t stand is when you have these comfortable actors who have some success and they’re just, “I don’t know, I don’t know.” This guy came in saying, “I want this. Please give this to me. I’ll fight for it. I’ll prove you guys wrong if you have any doubt.” That was bitchin’.

~

Q: You’ve got the perfect ragtag crew of humans for the Predators to pick off. Were there any characters who almost ended up in the film?

Nimrod Antal: There was one other inmate. There was an earlier draft where I think that there were two prison inmates that were thrown in together and in our earlier conversations, I think we figured out that it’s probably best just to have one from each region, one from each zone, from each country, from each continent, however it plays out. And I wanted to cut out Izzy. I wanted to cut her out. It was purely I didn’t want to have a prop running around going “Ahhhhh.” I knew that if we were really going to put a girl in there, she’d have to really sell it. My first concern was there aren’t very many theaters of war, there aren’t that many countries which allow women into combat. We were talking about hardened people who have seen a lot of nasty things. So I was a little bit concerned with that. I was worried and Robert actually was like “Dude…” I was like how many great girls have there been and then he started naming them off. He was like, “Well, Ripley, Sarah Connor, Nikita.” And I was like “Oh, I guess you’re right. There’ve been a few good ones.” It took me a bit to get my head around that, to accept that. And then, we cast Alicia Braga and she’s probably one of the toughest of the bunch. As a character and as a person, she was just awesome. It would’ve been a huge mistake if I would have won that battle.

Read more at Crave Online.

I haven’t seen the film. But after the review from Oosters and the fact that Adrien Brody is in it – I would watch it. Just to see how Brody is transformed, if at all. It just goes to show that sometimes when you go against other people’s perceptions of what a character looks like, you could garner interest just because of that fact. This applies to films like KickAss and Leon where assassins are pre-pubescent girls. So yes, I’d watch it out of curiosity. And because I do like Sci-fi thrillers.

Have you seen it? Would you see the film out of curiosity?

Similar Posts ~

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – Film Review

Whatever Works – Film Review

Shrek Forever After – Film Review

Check out:

Notes from Underground Contest Deadline August 15th

“Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself. You may be surprised at how easily this happens. Your doubts are not as powerful as your desires, unless you make them so.”

Marcia Wieder – Author

CURRENT STATUS: Reminder, Motivator and Review Meeting (Read on if you want to join me in my Corporation of One meeting)

What l have learnt:

• If you accidentally delete a post, you have not totally lost it. It’s in the Trash. I am so duh. Knowing that would have saved me a lot of time and effort trying to create the post again.
• Prime Real Estate by Mary Kole at Kidlit.com reminded me that ‘the first page of the novel, the first paragraph of a new chapter, and he last paragraph of a chapter’ are important.
• We are writers but we are also content publishers – if you have a blog – read Blog Content Strategy 101 (via ProBlogger).
• I need an online media room. Read Your Rockin’ Red Hot Online Media Room to understand what I mean (via amarketingexpert.com)
• Interesting post on using the present tense by Editorial Ass.

What I have done:

• Cleared out my Inbox.
• Went through all my old posts and tagged them.

WORD COUNT: Night Walker 139,000 in total. Saturday 31 July wrote 2,000 words.

One of my favourite film series is the Aliens quadrilogy. Recently I watched the set from beginning to end after finding the books Alien, Aliens and Alien 3 written by Alan Dean Foster on my brother’s bookshelf. I asked to borrow them and having read them one by one, I watched the films to compare.

Being an industry virgin, this is the first time I became aware of media novelizations and the group of writers out there doing these adaptations and they call themselves media tie-in writers.

The group even have an association – The International Association of Media Tie-in Writers -  and their definition of tie-in writers and their books are:

Our books are original tie-in novels, comic books and short stories based on existing characters from movie, TV series, books, games, and cartoons… or they are novelizations (books based on screenplays for movies and TV shows).

Are media novelizations better?

I found out that these books tend to be frowned upon and not perceived as ‘real’ fiction. That they’re just nothing more than an extension of a marketing strategy to maximize on the popularity of the original and justifiable by the fact that there is already a loyal following or fan base, people who are willing to buy the book based on the original film.

It made me wonder if media novelizations of popular films are better than novels adapted into film. I’ve not read enough media novelizations to really be an expert but from what little I’ve read, Alien and Star Wars, I have to say no.

Did I enjoy the books?

They were a good read. I knew the ending so there were no surprises but the writer still managed to drive the tension through until the end. I read the books before watching the films again – it had been a while – and was surprised that some of the characters were not how I had envisaged them from reading the book. The books were almost a replica of the film which was good and the least you’d expect. But I was hoping for more information, information that wasn’t found in the films. Or even an alternative ending would bring an element of surprise that is not there.

When a novel I like, for example American Psycho, is adapted into film, I always find that the film fails to include everything, the little details. I think, for me personally, if media tie-in novels could expand on the film giving me extra information I didn’t get from the film – further background and details of the world they’re living in or more on the characters – then it would make reading media tie-in books a better experience. I think some do, though I’ve not read them.

As a writer, there are so many reasons for and against writing media tie-in novels. If you want to know more, Mind Meld: How do Media Tie-in Novels affect SF/F? is a great read where many writers give you their opinions of how media tie-in novels affect the science fiction genre.

What do you think? Have you read media novelizations of your favourite films or TV series? Do you enjoy reading them? As a writer, would you consider writing them?

[pic taken from here]

“Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.” Thomas Carlyle – Author

CURRENT STATUS: Reminder, Motivator and Daily Review Meeting (Read on if you want to join me in my Corporation of One meeting)

What l learnt:

• ‘Everyone in publishing dreams of writing‘ says Betsy Lerner. There are agents, editors and publishers out there who are published too – for example agent and author Mandy Hubbard – the advantages of getting some work experience in any area of the publishing industry, be it in editing or reading slush piles, can only help when it comes our own writing, getting to know first-hand how the industry works and even create lasting working relationships with those already in it. Chip MacGregor was an author, then editor and now agent. So it goes the other way as well.
• When to get an agent. When not to get an agent. Check out Chip MacGregor’s Basic Information About Agents. He says best find an agent who is a full-time agent rather than half-author, half-author.
• They do check up on you so be careful what you hide says editor Alan Rinzler in The Author’s Background Check: Cautionary Notes.

What I have done or decided:

• Read the Alien books.
• Used my Linkedin account and joined 3 writer’s groups.

WORD COUNT: Night Walker 126,300 in total. Wednesday 14 July 2000 words. Thursday 15 July 1300 words.