A really good year end list, different to the normal rubbish (ie mine)

goodbadkitsch:

* In which I give you my top ten favourite posters of 2011.

This time last year I published a list of my top 20 favourite posters of 2010 (you can find those here: part one, part two. Please read them!)

But by god, twenty is too many. So this year I give you but ten delicious works of poster art, because you see, I’m not interested in boring you. I like you too much.

In no particular order:

10. Midnight in Paris: Van Gogh doesn’t actually make an appearance in this film, but pish posh; this poster is dreamy, and it so perfectly encapsulates the romance of Paris, the wandering and philosophizing of a man lost (physically and emotionally) that I can’t complain. Not even a little bit. I mean, this pick should have been obvious considering the nature of the screenplay. 

9. The Rum Diary: clean, and simple, cut and dry. I love love love this teaser and everything else that followed was and is crap. This happens too often sadly. The teaser for The Mechanic, for example, was brilliant, truly amazing (in spite of its hilarious tag line and vaguely word arty typeface). But then the trailer was released, and BOOM!!!BAM!!! we’re inundated, nay, bombarded by a series of horribly photoshopped Jason Statham photographs wherein he gangsta swags away from explodey-splosions and rappels out of skyscrapers wielding large, and deadly weapons in a flourish of British bad-assery. Not the best example in relation to The Rum Diary I realize, but there you have it. I exaggerate and digress, a skill no less.

8. Carnage: this is in a way similar to Rabbit Hole poster of last year. Carnage, like Rabbit Hole, certainly runs the gamut of emotion, so this is basically a précis for what is already a pretty short film, as far as the length of films go. I even like the bright colors, which are in no way evocative of the characters or even the story. I don’t know, I surprise myself with this choice actually. It’s equally amusing and sobering, just like the film itself, and the designer was clever to rely on such unflattering, even grotesque photographs of its cast, because its cast is honestly the only thing this film has going for it. The cast is what makes it, and the play it’s based on so damn good. 

7. Melancholia: this is pre-Raphaelite, Lady of Shalott, Sir John Everett Millais Ophelia territory and it’s as beautiful as the film itself. Actually, every single version of the poster for this film is truly unreal. My only complaint is the typeface used for the title. BOOOOORING. There is a teaser version (below), which is a billion trillion times better simply because the typeface is so damn awesome. See what I mean? I pretty much chose this because I loved the art historical referencing, but what do you expect?

6. Ides of March: This is easily one of the most original posters I have ever seen for a film. Ever. I don’t even care how photoshopped it is. It looked good on bus stops and great on billboards. It caught my eye and that’s the entire point, isn’t it. 

5. Drive: I loved this poster. Drive spawned a lot of different meh poster designs, but this is no doubt the reigning contender. Simple is a word that keeps coming up, but simplicity is what I like, and simplicity is a graphic designer’s best tool. Less is more after all. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, nothing works better than a great typeface, a great photograph and clean lines. No need to get fancy pants (and it’s only a coincidence that Ryan Gosling films keep making it onto these lists, I swear.) 

4. Submarine: I would frame this poster and hang it on my wall, even if I hated the film (I didn’t). This kid is in over his head, and it’s irresistible, right down to the tricolor title and the popped collar. This is the Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola formula and by this point, I sound like a broken record. Funnily enough, it’s produced by Ben Stiller, who’s very own super-simplistic Greenberg poster made my list last year. 

3. Haywire: I love the day-glo orange coupled with the gray, the stitled typeface and the mildly sexual, and violent imagery. This is a classic poster composition, classic in that it, like last year’s Buried, are inspired by the likes of Saul Bass. Just look at the posters for Burn After Reading, or Men Who Stare at Goats (maybe it’s a George Clooney thing? Actually it probably is….Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Goodnight and Good Luck. Whoa!), the influence is everywhere. The second I saw the poster for this film, it instantly became a favourite. This style fits well with the spy genre, and I prefer this infinitely more to the glossier, schlockier photoshop of horrors you get with films such as Mission Impossible, or Oceans What Number Are We On Now (HA! Clooney again…oh boy.)

2. The Muppets: This, like last year’s Toy Story 3, reveals nothing, but says everything, relying on the popularity of the characters themselves to do the talking. The entire campaign was simple. I particularly enjoyed the bench posters which featured cropped images of just each characters eyes. Genius stuff really. 

1. Shame: I cannot mention this poster without first mentioning its designer Mark Carroll, who is responsible not only for the above, but also for last years Martha Marcy May Marlene, and The Tree of Life. His designs are stark, and I think they’re beautiful. I can’t say much more than that.

This month, whilst researching, I have been listening to:

Avett Brothers - I And Love And You

Doves - Kingdom Of Rust

The Charlatans - Us And Us Only

Sleepy Jackson - Lovers

Dark Was The Night

Soundtrack Compilation of early Jean Luc Godard Movies

Johnny Parry

Big Star - Radio City

Hot Chip - Made In The Dark

David Holmes - The Holy Pictures

Richard James - Seven Sleeper’s Den

O Brother Where Art Thou (OST)

Mercury Rev - Deserter’s Songs

Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs

The Roots - Phrenology

Clifton’s Corner Vol. 7 & 8 (via Aquarium Drunkard Blog)

LCD Soundsystem (Personal Compilation)

Swans - My Father Will Guide Us Up A Rope To The Stars

Hannibal Buress - My Name Is Hannibal

Obits - Moody, Standard And Poor

Red White And Black: The Jack White Story (BBC 6 Music)

Mercy Bell - All Good Cowboys

Field Music - s/t

Yuck - s/t

Wooden Shjips - West

Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies

Oasis - Dig Out Your Sou

Pavement - Slanted And Enchanted

Ra Ra Riot - The Orchard

Django Django - Default EP

Spectrals - Bad Penny

@lawrencepearce

Twitter follower/followee Lawrence set a challenge last week, to write a 500 word story with the above title and he would post them on his blog.

All the stories are here - 

http://lawrencepearce.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/the-fantastic-murder-of-lawrence-pearce/

Below is my entry 

——————

‘I’m not denying that’ reiterated the officer, getting riled. The man just smiled at him. Riling him more.
‘There’s no denying that, but that’s not the point here’. He spoke as calmly as he could.
‘You don’t seem to realise the trouble you are in’ to which the man just smiled some more. His face was full of pride and not a little disbelief, which reared itself in frequent shakes of his head and stifled giggles.
‘It’s not funny. A man is dead’.
Eventually, the man spoke again.
‘What a way to go’.

The officer stopped the recording and left the tiny interview room and stood leaning against the one-way glass with his back to the man on the other side. He lit a cigarette and stared into the dark space ahead of him. A colleague entered, saw him smoking and quickly reversed out, leaving the officer to ponder. If he was smoking, indoors, it was bad. Everyone knew that.

He drifted off and remembered the scene, looking for a way to connect with this criminal. To get what he needed from him. It wasn’t a confession, he had that. He needed to know why, and why the man was so proud of himself. The officer had never seen anything like it. The mess. A grisly cocktail of lycra and sinews. A smashed in neon crash helmet, the inside of which resembled an empty trifle bowl, the delicious dessert long scooped out and devoured.

‘Why would anyone want to do that?’ the officer whispered between long puffs.
‘It seems way beyond madness’.

The officer had never seen anyone look like the man did when they arrived. So happy with himself, but so disconnected from the reality of what he had done. The man’s pleasure seemed to derive entirely from the technical aspects of the crime, as if the fact a man’s life had been extinguished was simply one component of a grand design.

The cigarette was quickly stubbed and rubbed into the hard floor and the officer burst back in. Recording resumed, the man was still smiling.

‘While I was out there I remembered something’.

No response.

‘Back in 1999, Millennium Eve, we had a case just like this’. The man was interested in this.

The officer sat, casually. ‘Yeah’ he continued, ‘Just like this, can’t believe I didn’t remember it, but then, who would, something so banal’.

‘Banal?’ the man piped up. ‘Banal? You already agreed it was fantastic’.

‘Sure, til I remembered you just copied someone’.

The man was furious now ‘Copied?’ He yelled, standing up and thumping the table. ‘Copied? No one has ever done this before. No one has ever fired a man out of a cannon off a bridge, directly into the front of an oncoming train, No One’.

‘Why did you copy someone?’ The officer teased

‘We copied no one’.

‘We?’

‘Me and Lawrence’

‘Lawrence’

‘Pearce, Lawrence Pearce’

‘The victim?’

‘Like I said, fantastic isn’t it?’

In a couple of weeks a movie comes out where Chris Pine and Tom Hardy will fight over Reece Witherspoon, as spies. Now I love Tom Hardy, but this movie looks terrible.

In Fire Down Below, Jack Lemmon and Robert Mitchum fight over Rita Hayworth in the Caribbean, with a wartime, espionage undertone.

Now, tell me that film stars are still as good as they were?

They don’t make em like they used to. Not the films, the stars.

**WARNING - May contain a spoiler or two**

It’s not that Niels Arden Oplev isn’t a capable filmmaker, it’s just that David Fincher is better. This film is better than the Swedish original. Fincher can, and has, collaborated with better people and the result is a film that is far more interesting than the very good crime thriller that Oplev oversaw.

In the hands of Fincher, Zaillian, Reznor & Ross and this cast, it truly is pulp crime elevated to a near Kubrickian status. I say that because there is clearly so much homage in this film to The Shining. There are nods to Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut also, but The Shining is referenced most prominently, to the extent that certain shots are clear homages. And it fits. The idea of the secrets of a place and its inhabitants. The sense of isolation from the rest of the world, emotionally as much as physically is ever present and oppressive.

This is such a beautiful looking film, delivered far more matter of fact than the Swedish version, which allows the evil to sit there, staring back, underscored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s sublime score.

And where did all the laughs come from? Zaillian’s words and the superb performances of Plummer and Craig allow some real gallows pulp moments that are genuinely funny.

At the heart of it is Rooney Mara, deservedly Oscar nominated for a fearless performance. Admittedly, Noomi Rapace deserved more award recognition for her portrayal. Both get to the heart of a truly memorable character. Unfortunately, and this was the only real flaw for me, Mara has to spend the final moments looking yearningly at Craig, and then fleeing into the night, giving the central relationship a Hollywood romance fleck that this brilliant story of primal, physical dependent friendship doesn’t need or deserve. It’s as if even in a film as dark and uncompromising as this the girl still needs to want to a girlfriend above all else. That sucks.

It’s a small detraction from a fantastic piece of work. Amazing credit sequence which almost mocks Daniel Craig’s Bond associations and features Karen O delivering a prophetic version of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song. Some sequences are pure comic strip, whilst the rest is a masterclass in camera led meaning and feeling. The fact that Fincher knows this is pulp, and plays with those conventions is what stop it reaching Shining/Kubrick levels of wonder, but that feels deliberate, it’s more stylistically playful whilst still forcing us to witness uncomfortable darkness through the lives of brutal men, a terrifying family and a brave, valiant, intelligent, unique woman.

Filmmaker Scott Tanner Jones came to Filmstock with his partner in crime Armando Ballesteros promoting his wonderful short Plainview.

He left an enigmatic figure but by the time he returned with Carbone’s Birthday he had cemented his place in the upper echelons of Filmstock folklore.

He’s now a very good friend of mine, and is seeking help to complete his debut feature Take Care.

His Kickstarter campaign is a week or so old, with over a fortnight to run. The link is here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/498987293/take-care-0

I am not just excited because it’s a friend completing a feature, I’m excited because it looks great, features collaborators from Plainview and as a result I know it’s going to be a heartfelt, well performed drama that resonates on many levels and God knows we need more films like that in the world and I for one am going to do my bit to try and ensure this film gets completed.

Do the facebook thing here -

https://www.facebook.com/pages/TAKE-CARE/161482910534201

And for goodness sake add to the meagre twitter following here - 

https://twitter.com/#!/TakeCare_amovie

He deserves it, if for nothing else than his mercurial and epic song a day blog which made the world a better place for the duration of its run (except maybe when I guested)

http://everythingisgoingtobealright.posterous.com/

It’s very sweary and pushes the boundaries of acceptability, but it’s funny. Really funny. 

I think it’s down to the four central performances, of all which are pitch perfect in their comic timing and their emotional cores. It’s a motley rabble, but they lift average material to something repeatedly watchable by revelling in the material, their chemistry and the moment.

Utterly confused at the end. Are my critical faculties on the wane? Or maybe the final reveal didn’t quite live up to the promise of the rest of the film. Not knowing the equilibrium doesn’t detract from what is a well performed and thoroughly enjoyable old-fashioned ghost story. 

The cast are superb, and the script has a nice frisson to it in the relationships that keep you guessing throughout. Beautifully shot in perfect locations it’s classically restrained and all the better for it. I just wish the end was better.

On the surface it might seem like the film ticks boxes of what British cinema does at its most pedestrian but sewn into its fabric are flourishes of dialogue and banter, subtext and Spanish horror stylings that lift it way above this. A very promising feature debut, although don’t watch the special features because the self same director doesn’t come across well, getting Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys title wrong and saying some utterly ludicrous things about filmmaking, whilst going for exactly what Kubrick went for with The Shining, but somehow suggesting it’s all his idea. 

Whilst this is an enjoyable film, with much to commend it, The Shining it is not.

Soderbergh lets loose with a great cast in exotic locations with a slim, pulpy espionage action movie. It’s essentially a series of action sequences with a female fighter he has taken and (sort of) created an actress out of. At parts it doesn’t all hang together around her, despite the strong attempts of established actors around her.

Good trash, a proper dumb eighties action movie, but good, thanks to David Holmes’ score. And look at that poster. It’s great, and tells you exactly the sort of movie you can expect.

Like Keaton I feel out of step sometimes with the world around me. Not quite fitting in to the way the world is. Never more so than when watching a silent film, live scored, introduced by Jim Broadbent and being overcome with joy and escapism that I rarely get from modern cinema. Maybe I have to reclaim my mode of viewing, create opportunities and environments for sheer immersion. Maybe I don’t.

All I know is that I have never seen this full film, and last night experienced pure joy at the power and wonder of cinema, feeling blessed that Keaton existed, and exists forever on celluloid. This Romeo & Juliet tale is full of pathos, love, cheek and some of the most incredible physical action sequences ever.

Not just remarkable for 1928, but simply remarkable. No one has done anything like it since. Proof that CGI can never make up for the imagination of humanity, coupled with human application. Houses and buildings fall balletically, trees fly with a man attached, a man stands parallel to the ground in a hurricane. He slips, and bends in shapes computers would struggle to make look real.

We laugh, we gasp, we smile. We constantly smile.

A true work of genius.