Back on The Grid.

After a long hiatus we are back on the gird. Literally and figuratively. The region was struck by a snowstorm of the weekend and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people! I was included in that!

Again now we plan to bring you reviews. Thoughts. Randomness! and Much Much More! So please Stay tuned!

3.....2.....1......

Here we come.

Wasted Youth: Review

                The third film I watched while in Cannes was a film from Greece. The film was called Wasted Youth. The story follows two males throughout their day in Athens. One of the characters is an older man who is having financial and personal problems. During the day he comes home from the late shift at the police station, and during this day we see him turn down his friend on a business proposition.  We also see the interactions between his family and co-workers. On the opposite end of the spectrum is a young boy in his late teens. He lives a carefree life style where his only concerns are skateboarding, friends, booze, and sex. All of this is mirrored in certain scenes where we watch the relationship he has with his father. Eventually their two days collide and Athens erupts.

                First and foremost, if this film was a short it would have been amazing. The film seems to drag a certain points with long unnecessary cuts that were clearly put into the film to elongate it. A lot of it just seemed so out of place as to what was going on, there does not need to be a tracking pan for an extra few seconds after the subjects have already disappeared off screen. A few scenes just seemed completely out of place to me, looking back on it now I can see the significance in some of them, but there were some that were completely out of place. At points the dialogue also fell very short, and I felt myself wanting more explanation of why certain things were going wrong or right in these two characters’ lives.

This movie will probably be one you will never see or hear about from this point on, but if you do come across it give it a watch but be open minded about it. Frankly you have to be for some of the images and subtext that litter the film. I liked the film but as stated earlier it would have been better and had more of an impact if it was a short. 

Without a Box

I had the pleasure of sitting in on a roundtable, which was put on by SAGindie at the American Pavilion. The roundtable was with Christian Gains who works for IMDB ( Internet Movie Data Base ) and Without a Box, a website that helps filmmakers find festivals that would best fit for the film or script they want to submit. Without a Box invites some of the top film festivals from around the world to join the site, so that they may promote themselves, but to also build their reputation in the festival scene. He also stated that IMDB uses festivals to get the rights to an IMDB page. In basic terms because IMDB and Without a Box are partners with certain festivals  they are allowed to create IMDB pages for films on Without a Box and in Festivals on IMDB……I hope that makes sense.             

                They also have over five hundred news desk partners, so that films in Gains also stated that Without a Box likes to focus on international film festivals because they cater to more niche markets, that certain  films may do better in.

Gains is also the director of the AFI Film Festival in LA. This means he understands how the festival circuit works. He gave us a brief history on the festivals from all over the world. The Venice Film Festival is the oldest one in the world that started in the late 1930’s, and still goes to this day. The Venice film festival also gave rise to the Cannes International Film Festival after a film at the Venice Film Festival that was based on the superiority of the Arian Race won the main award. This sparked French directors to pull away from the Venice Festival and start the Cannes International Film Festival, which is now the biggest festival to date. Festivals started popping up in the 1960’s and 1970’s and then took off in the 80’s and 90’s. In 1989 the Sundance Film Festival hit the scene with a movie called  Sex Lies and Videotape, this launched the concept of independent film. Sundance has been the headquarters for independent films ever since.

                Along with all this we received even more information on what to expect and do when entering a film festival. Gains said one needs to think about the publishing they can use before they even start filming. He said that people should use publicity stills that are interesting and generate hype about a film, and when sending out copies of your film do not dress up the DvD case. Festivals would rather see that you put more time into your film and the publishing for it rather than making the DvD look pretty.  Most importantly he stated we should not be afraid of rejection; it happens to everyone and is just a way of life. Along with that he said one should be well prepared, so that we may deal with whatever the outcome may be.

Create your own community of peers and make a big impact!

Here we are again....

A quick update......The Cannes Film Festival has ended and I am currently in the airport in Nice waiting to board a flight to Heathrow and then I am back off to Boston. I will write a much more expansive conclusion upon my return, along with the rest of my reviews.

Right now, I am content and happy I came here. It has been an eye opening experience everyone I hvae met has really impacted me and now I can see why people say "we are the future of the industry." I hope that we all cross paths again in the near future, and I plan on returning here next year. I will miss you all very much and I'm glad we could all share in this adventure together......until next time guys. Stay Strong, Keep Calm, Carry On because we never know where life will take us.

dont mind my cliche song either

The Adventures of Mark Twain

The other morning I saw an old claymation movie from the 1980's. It was Called The Adventures of Mark Twain, and it was excellent.It was created by Will Vinton is the director and lead animator on the film, and he does an amazing job at bringing this world to life. The time that was put into this movie is excellent, the world that the characters live in is unbelievable. Everything has texture and life to it, which really gives the film a great feeling.

The film follows Becky Thatcher, Huck Finn, and Tom Sawyer as they sneak onto a steampunk style airship that Mark Twain has created so that he can "meet" Hailey's comment. the story revolves around the character of Twain meeting up with the comet as his ultimate destiny. He claims he has gone in with the comet and he will go out with it as well. In the midst of all this the children sneak aboard the ship in an effort to one up each other. Once aboard the ship the children encounter tales and stories from a handful of Twains tales such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. The film pushes to realm of existentialistic boundaries by making snark suggestions that Twain himself had made during his time. It was a film that was clearly geared towards both younger children and adults. It had the elements of comedy and story children could understand and like, while creating literary parallels that literary buffs would enjoy. The style of the film really makes it feel as if one should be on drugs while viewing this, or that someone was on drugs when creating it.

Showing the film here at Cannes was a good way to reboot the film and get people interested in it once again! It's a movie that pushed the envelope of animation and brought it to where it is today.

 

Backed Up

So I am super busy here in Cannes new posts coming your way in t-mins 5.....4......3......2.....