One of the pitfalls of reviewing movies is that even someone like Michael Bay or Allan Loeb can turn around and appear to dismiss any and all criticism of their awful shit by simply asking the reviewer if they've done any better. So Roger Ebert went and made Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and more recently, Mark Cousins gave us the documentary The First Movie.
Those guys are proper film critics, and I am decidedly not. If anything, I want to be a screenwriter myself one day, and hopefully avoid doing any of the rubbish things I've criticised in the time I've been reviewing films on this here blog. But it's still with some trepidation that I give you my first short film as a director, The Cinema of Attraction, which you can see after the jump.
While I admit the concept is a large one, The Cinema of Attractionis a short film I took from the idea to the finished product in just over a week, and on a budget of no more than £4.35. It's the story of James and Donna, whose relationship we follow over several days. Their relationship is constantly being reassessed and redefined by the development of cinema, meeting in a silent film with intertitles and the whole shebang, and continuing to develop through talkies, technicolour and the arrival of the multiplex cinema.
As you'd expect from a Mad Prophet production, there's a bit of a rant at its heart, but I'd like to think that it does have a heart. It's also got a fuckton of allegorical cinema stuff and occasionally quite overt references to classic romantic films, but it would be pretentious of me to talk about what they are and why you should like it. I'm not so arsey as to review my own film, but I'm not above promoting it to you, the good people who read this blog.
The Cinema of Attractionarose as another project for Writers' Block North East, that veritable hive of creative talent in Middlesbrough, and I managed to recruit two very good actors, Bonnie Hibbs and Tim Marshall, to star as Donna and James. They elevate the whole thing, of course, but there's not a lot more to talk about- it's better to just let you enjoy the film yourselves.
Next up, I'll be seeing if it wins the competition at Writers' Block in its truncated and admittedly slightly less interesting form, and submitting the full version for various short film screening events in the area. And after that, it'd be nice to make more films, frankly. Hope you enjoyed this one.
I'm in the unusual position of having reviewed all of last week's new releases last week, with the exception of The Kids Are All Right (come back on Wednesday or go over to Den of Geek around about... now), so it's as good a time as any to talk about the work of Writers' Block North East.
For Halloween last night, they held their monthly(ish) film discussion group, and in a makeshift and very off-hand kind of way, I programmed the double bill horror screening. I rave about films on here and how they need to be better, so it obviously had to be something from the paragon of great horror movies. Did I pair Onibaba and The Haunting? Or go for a John Carpenter twofer with The Thing and Halloween? Fuck no, I plumped for Trick 'r' Treat and Burning Bright.
First off, let me catch you up. Writers' Block North East is a group for creative stuff and a drop-in centre for all manner of writers, centred in Middlesbrough and organised by the wonderful team of Laura Degnan and James Harris. I say "wonderful team" because in the week that Let Me In comes out, I'm aware of my own presumption that people who criticise actual creative work on the Internet have to be invited into dwellings where actual constructive work is occurring, and they're kind enough to allow me on the premises.
More than that, they got my first produced script all finished when I won their competition to write a Potter Puppet Pals style parody, complete with actual puppets. Doctor Who and the Inky Doom is currently in need of a follow-up, in which I'll surely manage to avoid sticking my head and/or shoulder in the back of the shot when operating the Matt Smith puppet. While work continues on the sequel, Inky Doom is presented on YouTube below, for your enjoyment.
So, to the business of Halloween. Having neglected to turn up in costume, I was a bit taken aback by the full-on face paint stand operated by John Noble, one of our resident actors/directors/ridiculously creative people. Someone else brought a carved pumpkin. I brought a perennial Halloween film that's only three years old, and a film where a tiger chases an autistic kid around a house.
So first off, we watched Trick 'r Treat. For those unfamiliar, it's the Bryan Singer-produced anthology horror homage, in which four interlinking stories unfold over one Halloween night. Crossing between stories is Sam, ostensibly a little kid dressed up as a scarecrow, but actually a vicious little bastard who doesn't like it when people don't get into the spirit of the evening.
I saw this film earlier this year, and decided right then that I would watch it every Halloween. It may not have the iconic status of those films I mentioned earlier on, but it perfectly captures the spirit of the event with a grim sense of humour and a surprisingly high youth mortality rate. The acting is great, with particularly great performances by the newly-cuckolded Lizard from the Spider-Man sequels, Dylan Baker, and a deliciously cantankerous turn by Brian Cox.
The reaction from the Writers' Block patrons was pretty positive. It's a great start to any Halloween marathon, so naturally, we moved onto the combo-breaking killer animal flick Burning Bright. This one plays out a little like one of those Lemony Snicket books, not only in the central idea of an unscrupulous guardian trying to kill off orphans, but in how the blurb connects disparate elements like a tiger, a hurricane, a scholarship and a cameo by Meat Loaf as a tiger dealer.
It's obviously got a higher budget than the usual direct-to-DVD schlock with this kind of premise. They bothered to wrangle real tigers rather than attempt hokey CGI. While it's cheesy, and slow to get moving even at a mere 70 minutes in length, it eventually got the desired reaction out of the audience. They laughed their arses off. All the same, it's extremely well-intentioned. Its cast, aside from Mr. Loaf, are mostly on the cusp of renown for acting in other, more prestigious films, but none of them are snidey or ironic in their presence. In particular, Briana Evigan proves a tough as nails horror heroine- who would have expected it of that one lass from Step Up?
The direct-to-DVD double bill went down a treat, and I'm sure I'll blog about other film discussion groups at Writers' Block as and when they occur- I think the next one is Christmas-themed, so even though I'm not programming it, I'm lobbying for The Muppet Christmas Carol and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Don't hold your breath for that festive twofer though- it's time for me to be quiet and write something new for the Doctor and Amy Pond...
Writers' Block North East is currently situated in the We Are Open space on Albert Road, Middlesbrough- add them on Facebook and Twitter. Trick 'r Treat and Burning Bright are both currently available on DVD.
I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.
Not that I think a lot of you are very intensely interested in my comings and goings, but seeing as how I've kind of given the blog a massive upheaval, gonna give a general update.
Read more after the jump!
The blog looks different! Hooray! I'm not the type to preserve screencaps of all the different design iterations of my blog, but I think this one helps my ramblings a lot. It looks more professional, I think, which helps a lot when I shout myself hoarse at all of you. That top banner will be revised too- it's just a placeholder for now and looks a little pixelated at present.
I've also gone back and stopped numbering the Mad Prophet posts. The big old (currently fuzzy) banner at the top tells you where you are, and the numbering was really only a way for me to keep track. Instead you'll get the tenuously linked puns only at the top of each post, so enjoy that.
Upcoming reviews include Brooklyn's Finest, Death at a Funeral, The Killer Inside Me, Killers and of course Toy Story 3, which I'll be seeing next Saturday at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Expect most of those other reviews in the next week or so, and the Toy Story 3 review will come with video diary and the like.
As I warned before, I'm going to bombard you with coverage of that film, given the expense I'm putting into it. Non-spoiler video review to go up next week, spoiler video review to go up a week after release, the works.
While I fully intend to continue updating this blog through the summer and beyond, I'll also be very busy with other stuff.
For starters, I'm being creative for a change! It's not something I look forward to greatly as I may yet fall afoul of every criticism I've ever laid at Michael Bay's door- I don't know what kind of filmmaker or screenwriter or author I am just yet. You've heard that authors are their own worst critics? Imagine how bad it is for me!
One thing that's definitely forthcoming is my first produced screenplay, and it's got a Dalek in it. I'm one of three winners in the Writer's Block North East Puppet Parody competition, the objective of which was to script a parody in the vein of the Potter Puppet Pals series, to be turned into a short film with puppets.
I'm very excited about seeing the final result, tentatively titled Doctor Who and the Inky Doom and I'm looking forward to developing the script with the very talented and creative people who work in that place. I'll probably post a YouTube link on here once the film's been completed and posted online.
Elsewhere, they're putting me on air! Broadcasting! The first of my inevitable broadcast breakdowns will appear sometime over the summer on Community Voice FM, a station just around the corner from where I go to university. I think they have the option to listen online, so I'll be plugging the show, in which a rotating line-up of film buffs (including me), discuss non-mainstream films. Indie films, B-movies, world cinema and the like.
More than that, I'm embarking on a very different and slightly exciting set of video reviews over the summer. The motley crew I've gathered is going to film eight episodes through the summer, with a view to premiering the series (potentially "Season One") in the autumn. Once again, I'll be linking here as well as on the community section of That Guy With The Glasses.
With the current jobs market, such plans generally require me to support myself in other ways, so I'm trying to monetise the place a little bit. I'm trying to keep this to a minimum as I'm very tentatively having a go at Amazon Associates. I don't know what the money's like in this thing anyway. If the odd ad appears here and there in a post, please don't get upset- I'll stop if I ever think it's intrusive.
For those who are already missing the numbering approach, I should point out that this is the 100th post on this blog. And it's the closest to an actual blog we've ever got, because it's about MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AND PLANS. Ahem.
If you're still with me after 100 posts, nothing on the Internet will ever hurt you again.
I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, try to guess which of my myriad summer plans will fall through...
