Tag: Cinema

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: THE FUTURE OF CINEMA

HOLLYWOOD – Dunkirk director Christopher Nolan discusses the future of cinema.

Hi everyone. Urm, yeah, Christopher Nolan here; director of the Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception and … oh, Memento. Yeah. That’s right. Have I got your attention? Yeah, um, I thought so.

Reports of the death of cinema, to paraphrase Mark Twain, have been greatly exaggerated. Mobile phones, illegal downloads, people eating nachos with dips, 3D glasses and Michael Bay have all certainly had their deleterious effect but with the right innovations cinema is going to be alive and well and better than ever far into the future. How do you ask? Well, I made The Prestige, and here are three magic suggestions. 

1. More comic books movies. I visited my local multiplex the other day and was shocked to see that two of the seventeen screens were occupied by films not based on comic book characters. One was showing Chef and the other was showing some tripe about a boy growing up with awful CGI ageing, no doubt. Comic book movies are great because you don’t really need a script, or acting, or anything and then Hans Zimmer lends you his epic thumping score and away you go. Make it a little bit somber, darken the palette, put in Mikey Caine and the critics will lap it up. So more of these. I’ll exec them for a premium fee.

2. Free gimmicks with your ticket. You buy a cinema ticket today and what do you get? Just a bit of card with the name of the film and which screen it’s on, maybe a seat number. Rubbish. You should get a gimmick like a Frisbee, or a rattle, something to occupy the hands during slow parts of the film. Imagine watching Le Weekend – a bit dull I know – and then a game of Ultimate Frisbee breaks out! Amazing.

3. Balloon net. This is the topper and I don’t think this has been done before. Rig a large net over every auditorium and when the film comes to its climax, release thousands of balloons from the net, along with party streamers and confetti bombs! Can you imagine watching Mamma Mia for instance or 12 Years a Slave and as the final shot comes on streamers and balloons float from the ceiling? It would be AMAZING!

Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar 2 will be released in November.

THE STUDIO EXEC HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD: PART 1. HOW HOLLYWOOD GOT ITS NAME

HOLLYWOOD – A comprehensive history of Hollywood, written by the man who put up the ‘H’.

So Los Angeles. The turn of the century. A sparse neighborhood. A traveler rests on path halfway up a hill when a Chinese man leading a donkey pulling a cart filled with timber.

‘What’s the name of this place?’ the traveler asks.

Chinese fella thinks he’s being asked what he’s doing.

‘Hauling wood,’ he answers.

‘Hollywood, huh?’ says the traveler. ‘Nice name.’

And so it goes.

Forget that there are Hollywoods all over the country. There are twenty four places called Hollywood to be exact. There are two in Ireland. And there’s one in Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

From which we can conclude that this Chinese fella and his cart certainly marked up the mileage.

But it’s fitting that the place is mark with an improbable story, because that was basically going to be the job for a good few decades to come.

This series shall continue.

FRENCH FILMS TO BE IN ENGLISH FROM NOW ON

PARIS – It has been decided by the European Union that all French films will now be made in English in order to avoid ‘critical bias’.

The ruling came after years of complaints that, as Swiss critic Xavier Poulis argues, a lot of French ‘films were getting a free ride from Anglophone critics who go ga-ga over the Je ne sais quoi.’

And it’s not just the French films that get a free ride. The actors as well are considered amazing just because they can speak French. Look at Vincent Cassel. He’s got a face like a builder’s elbow. If that guy came from Des Moines, he’d be lucky to get a job as Heavy no. 5 in Walker Texas Ranger. But he has a French accent, and he speaks French so he has a long film career and marries Monica Bellucci. It just isn’t fair.

The judge in the European Court which brought the decision issued a statement saying:

France has a proud tradition of beautiful cinema from the nouvelle vague to Gerard Depardieu, but now a lot of it is frankly toilette and by having the films produced in English we will more readily discern this.

Although there have been some muted protests from the French artistic community, it is understood that the more commercially minded French film makers actually support the law. Luc Besson, Gasper Noé and Francois Ozon all blew that beguilingly irritating raspberry that translates as ‘whatever’.

The law will go into immediate effect and the first French film to be effected will be Asterix and the Large Teutonic Tube, due for release in 2016.
  

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: THE FUTURE OF CINEMA

HOLLYWOOD – Hi everyone. Urm, yeah, Christopher Nolan here; director of the Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception and … oh, Memento. Yeah. That’s right. Have I got your attention? Yeah, um, I thought so.

Reports of the death of cinema, to paraphrase Mark Twain, have been greatly exaggerated. Mobile phones, illegal downloads, people eating nachos with dips, 3D glasses and Michael Bay have all certainly had their deleterious effect but with the right innovations cinema is going to be alive and well and better than ever far into the future. How do you ask? Well, I made The Prestige, and here are three magic suggestions. 

1. More comic books movies. I visited my local multiplex the other day and was shocked to see that two of the seventeen screens were occupied by films not based on comic book characters. One was showing Chef and the other was showing some tripe about a boy growing up with awful CGI ageing, no doubt. Comic book movies are great because you don’t really need a script, or acting, or anything and then Hans Zimmer lends you his epic thumping score and away you go. Make it a little bit somber, darken the palette, put in Mikey Caine and the critics will lap it up. So more of these. I’ll exec them for a premium fee.

2. Free gimmicks with your ticket. You buy a cinema ticket today and what do you get? Just a bit of card with the name of the film and which screen it’s on, maybe a seat number. Rubbish. You should get a gimmick like a Frisbee, or a rattle, something to occupy the hands during slow parts of the film. Imagine watching Le Weekend – a bit dull I know – and then a game of Ultimate Frisbee breaks out! Amazing.

3. Balloon net. This is the topper and I don’t think this has been done before. Rig a large net over every auditorium and when the film comes to its climax, release thousands of balloons from the net, along with party streamers and confetti bombs! Can you imagine watching Mamma Mia for instance or 12 Years a Slave and as the final shot comes on streamers and balloons float from the ceiling? It would be AMAZING!

Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar will be released in November.