Character Change.

Top Left- Bottom Right:
Ringing Bell (1978)
Empire of the Sun (1987)
The Godfather (1972)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Ikiru (1952)
Summer With Monika (1953)
Avatar the Last Airbender (2005-2008)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Goodfellas (1990)
The Terminator (1984)
Tokyo Story (1953)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Kes (1969)
Pinocchio  (1940)
Psycho (1960)
Manhattan (1979)
Oldboy (2003)
Badlands (1973)
A Field in England (2013)
Raging Bull (1980)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Boogie Nights (1997)
Carrie (1976)
Little Malcom and his Struggle against the Eunuchs (1974)
Persona (1966)
When the Wind Blows (1986)
Exit through the Gift Shop (2010)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Schindler's List (1993)
Seven Samurai (1954)
Citizen Kane (1941)

By Jack D. Phillips

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

A flawed and rough

film, however 

undeniably effective in it's atmosphere and character building.

This film has been idealised, demonized and mythicised since it's release in 1999. With the possible exception of Scream, there is no other horror film in the past two decades that has been both this influential, and this destructive. This film can both be credited with the creation of a bold new stylistic era of horror filmmaking, found footage, and the birth of a destructive and cliché template for lazy filmmaking, found footage. The genre this film helped to popularise has certainly had a profound, and in my opinion largely negative, impact on the current landscape of western horror. However how does the film itself hold up? Well in my opinion, better than expected.

The film's largest flaw is it's slow and clunky opening. A large amount of time is spent in the hometown of the three main characters and little of substance occurs. These sequences do little to enhance the film's narrative or atmosphere and today are quite boring to watch. The only purpose these scenes have was to contribute to the film's viral marketing campaign, which successfully tricked thousands into believing the events of the film were real. The faux documentary feel of the opening adds credibility to this trickery, however from the perspective of somebody who was not affected by the marketing, these scenes do little other than damage the film's overall pacing.

After this weak start, the film truly begins to unfold. Our three main characters all feel like real people and they are clearly defined from each other. The bulk of the film follows the three amateur filmmakers and their slow descent into madness and terror. Every step of this descent is understandable and the reactions of the characters to their increasingly hostile environment is eerily relatable, to the point where I found myself wondering how I would react in a similar situation. This is the main reason why the film works, we are scared because the characters feel real and are convincingly terrified. Their situation is caused by a mixture of simple incompetence and paranormal interference and I feel there is a conversation to be had about which of those two elements contributed most to their demise. Overall the simple and eerie portrayal of the characters hits home, they feel like people the audience could have genuinely known rather than actors with a script.

The film is also able to achieve incredible things with very little. This is perhaps the most stripped down mode of horror filmmaking imaginable, scaring the audience with sounds, stones and sticks. As described above, the effect is largely achieved due to the strongly defined and well acted characters, however there is also a basic creepiness to these elements. The sounds we hear from within the tent are horrifying and grotesque, the sticks genuinely form occultic and unnerving images and begin to resemble some kinda of abomination of nature. The film's cinematography is at it's strongest as it fetishisticly sweeps over the bundles of twigs suspended in the tress. The iconic symbol that the film spearheaded it's marketicing with is perhaps the strongest example of this eerie imagery.

Overall I would call this film a near masterpiece. My enjoyment is somewhat tainted by the scourge of largely inferior found footage knockoffs which followed, along with the undeniably weak opening ten minutes. However if you are able to look past these hindrances, you will find a powerful and still largely unique horror experience.

By Jack D. Phillips

A Zoom Film Review

Minions (2015)

 

An intensely funny

animated romp 

through one of my

favourite periods

in modern history.

It is sad to see the length to which Universal's corporate scumbags have gone to ruin my enjoyment of this film. It's disgusting over-marketing, the intense focus on brand awareness and the appearance of the minions in literally countless advertising campaigns. These little guys have been packaged, sold and forced into every cranny of the media and I swear to have seen some reference to the franchise in every film I have seen in the past seven-eight months. It makes it very hard for me to recommend this film, because I do not blame people for being burnt out and irritated with the entire ordeal.

Recommend it I do however, for I feel this is one of the funniest films to have been released in the past few years. It is clever, fast and was basically everything I could have wanted from a family oriented comedy. It was a genuinely a wonderful surprise. I am not sure if I would call this or Cinderella the biggest surprise of the year, but 2015 is shaping up to be a year of broken expectations for me, in a good way.

So why does this film work? By far the biggest component of it's success is the animation. The visuals are always moving, always preparing for a new joke while the current one plays out. It never feels like there is a comedy dead spot or a missed opportunity for humour and literally every frame works to either deliver or set-up a joke. The comedy very much follows the Looney Toons methodology, and the same mixture of slapstick and verbal humour combined. Minions takes the formula further however, as the budget allows for dozens of clever visual jokes to crammed seamlessly into the background. I want to re-watch this film solely so I can hunt these background gags down one by one.

The film also has amazing comic timing. The slapstick in this film is of the highest quality, sold with excellent sound mixing, and the speed of the character's expressions is remarkable. Sandra Bullock and John Hamm's characters Scarlett and Herb Overkill are the best examples of this. They move and react so quickly and with such detail on top of both actor's exceptional vocal comedic timing, that I am prepared to call them the funniest characters I have seen in any recently released animated film.  They are that hilarious.

Can I also point out how refreshing it is to get a funny female villain who is not in any way subservient to a male character, and is also not portrayed as some kind of incomplete, single woman scorned by men? It is actually hard to think of many female villains who are not subservient to a man, and yet are also in a relationship. Seems like a weird thing to pick up on, but it was a refreshing thing to see, and it is also sad that I have not seen that particular character set-up more often.

The titular minions are also highly amusing, with the film being led by three characterised minions. They offer up a lot of great slapstick and Pierre Coffin is great as always in the role. I have to give him huge credit for giving the three leads such distinct, funny and likeable personalities simultaneously whilst also keeping the core minion humour and traits present within them all. This is all done without coherent dialogue by the way. I cannot imagine how much work this must have been and give the the man (who is should point out also co-directed the film by the way!) all the credit I can for what he has achieved largely single handed in this film. His work here is truly staggering. 

Possibly my most subjective positive about this film is it's setting. I adore the late 60's and find the pop culture and iconography of the period so enjoyable. I can tell that the filmmakers share this love with me, and they go totally bananas and submerge the film entirely in the setting. Much like how the film never misses a chance to do something funny, it also takes every opportunity it can to crack a joke or make a reference to the period. It does this through the excellent soundtrack, with many of my favourite tunes of the day, the aforementioned background humour and the surprisingly funny dialogue for the human characters. The film also shows surprising restraint in this department, playing it's big period jokes carefully and never over-saturating things. For example, The Beatles, Nixon, the moon landing and so many other period defining topics are only used once each, and all of these jokes are incredibly funny because of this restraint.

There are some minor flaws however. Not every joke works, and although the film's quick pace is able to sweep most of these groaners up without them lingering, it would still be unfair to say that every joke is funny. Also, the actual plot-line is weak and fairly ridiculous. This does not matter much do to the film's clear focus on comedy above plot, however it would still have been nice to get a strong and unpredictable narrative alongside our comedy.

Overall, this film is a true joy. Go see it if you can and don't let the obnoxious marketing discourage you. It is annoying, and I hate to support such egregious business tactics, however letting such a gem of a comedy pass you by would be far worse.

By Jack D. Phillips
A Zoom Film Review

We now return to normal service.

Now that I have finally released my long promised video debut, I am glad to inform you that I will return to regular text based content, along with video content. These video essays take a long time to make and so will be released every couple of weks, whilst I aim to release at least three pieces of substantial text based content per week.

I hope this makes up for a miserable May and June.

By Jack D. Phillips

Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbour Totoro video Essay

Here it is at last. Enjoy!