48 Hour Bloopers

Following on from our 48-hour film challenge entry Pressure Valve, here are the out-takes:

Tomato Plant Timelapse

Something new what I made.

My first attempt at a time-lapse video.  It's one of my tomato saplings growing.  One frame taken every half-hour for nearly 5 days.  I would have let it run longer, but some computer glitch scuppered it at about 2am this morning.  Still - you can see the growth.

I may try cress next time.

Pressure Valve

On a sunny weekend in early April 2009, The Middlemen assembled to make a film; an entry for the Sci Fi London 48 Hour film challenge.

We were given as our pre-requisites:

Title Pressure Valve

Dialogue I do not speak your language and you don't speak mine

Prop Five ring doughnuts

This is what we made:

(best full screen, and HQ of course)

The London Job

I just discovered that parts of the film The Italian Job were filmed in Crystal Palace Park. That's just up the hill from me, and I had no idea.

Time to re-watch and do some spotting I think.

The Cat Came Back

Via Boing Boing comes the fantastic news that the National Film Board of Canada have made 50 of the animation shorts they've sponsored available online for all to view.

There's one in particular that I'm pleased to see on the list: The Cat Came Back
I fell in love with it when it was shown on the BBC as part of a cartoon show presented by Tony Robinson years ago. It's simply a work of genius.

I couldn't find a mobster

Yesterday I finally got around to watching Batman Begins as it's appeared for selection on my magic space-TV box. A word of warning - if you've not seen it I do mention spoilery stuff, so if you're sensitive to that kind of thing look away now.

As much as I like the original Tim Burton Batman film, I think this works as a better beginning. Even though if it does take a while to go batty I wasn't bored.

That said there are several elements I'm uncomfortable with: I enjoyed Liam Neeson's performance a lot but I just didn't find Ducard believable as a character. I don't think it was the acting I just don't think I got the motivation for him - poncy as that sounds.

Then there's the very end. Katie Holmes turns up to the burned-out Wayne Manner, makes a big show of showing her deep feelings for Bruce before basically saying that he's just not the man she once thought she might love (when they were pre-teen). It's hard to describe here but I thought like she played it as a tease - and not in a good way.

The thing that didn't sit right most of all comes at the climax of the film. Batman and Ducard are literally heading for a train crash and Bats exclaims that while he won't kill him, he won't save him either. Now I know that he's supposed to be a complex and tortured character, but that strikes me as far less than heroic. I like my heroes to save the villain to prove they're just not like them. I know he didn't strike the killer blow but as Bats basically engineered the crash in the first place that makes him a killer too.

By now it's very much a familiar story-outline, but all the mountainous stuff was a surprise. Mountainous ninja stuff has been fashionable in film for a while now, it seems, and I'm sure that element will date quite quickly. I do want to see more though. The lighting and cinema-work were wonderful, in my opinion, and it looked dark without falling into the X-Files. The set-up for a second film with the Joker looks compelling too, and most of all Michael Caine was born to play Alfred.

Veering Sideways

Last night I watched Sideways, my birthday present courtesy of Mr Gr. He talks a bit about the film here too.

The film is a fun romp through the vineyards of California by a pair of blokes, the intent being a sort of two-bloke stag week. The impression I got most of all was that this is like the grown-up and over-thirty sequel to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, complete with the kind of relationship-burnt neuroses that you might expect.

It is very funny in places to the point of being painful. It veers from slapstick to situation to the most excruciating comedy-of-embarrassment. In particular, one scene involving sneaking into a house, I had to watch at double-speed to stop my toes from curling. That’s a compliment to the power of its embarrassment.

Considering the level of drink-driving in the film, I suppose I’m a little surprised it got a 15 certificate. It also seemed to clang when any number of people let obviously drunk others get into their cars. There’s none of the explicit sex or violence you’d expect from an 18, though, so it probably does make sense.