'Pirate my films' says company

Posted on by February 5, 2012
Reply

One of the highlights of the recent "Hot Fuzztival" was a showing of Edgar's 'Don't' fake trailer from Grindhouse.

Now, for those that don't know, Grindhouse emulates 1970s exploitation double bills, with two 'feature presentations' by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez plus several fake trailers ('Machete – he gets the women and kills the bad guys!' – what more do you need to know?) and ads.

It was released in the US in April, and didn't do particularly well commercially.

So in Europe, they're splitting it into two, releasing the films separately. And losing the trailers.

In the UK, the first one, Tarantino's Death Proof opens three days after its US DVD release.

Yeah, cutting the film into two and releasing the first bit after the US DVD release, that'll increase the UK audience. Yeah…

The perils of getting to three

Posted on by May 27, 2007
Reply

Robocop was great. If I could ever squeeze all the great films into a 'top 100' list, then it'd be in the top 25… OK it'd be along with about fifty others, but even so 🙂

Robocop 2 was, well, patchy. Somewhere, there's doubtless a fanedit that loses the misses and keeps only the good stuff… including the scenes demonstrating the problems of trying to load too much into a film cyborg. If only they'd taken notice.

Robocop 3 was crap, a straight to video abomination.

Now, we have Pirates of the Caribbean getting to number three.

The Curse of the Black Pearl was great.

Dead Man's Chest was, well, patchy. Some good bits (the escape from the cannibals with the mill wheel chase, and everyone trying to steal the heart) but over an hour too long.

At World's End is… well, it's better than Robocop 3, but not by much. Again, it's at least an hour too long. And where's the highlight? There are a couple of amusing jokes, and the climatic fight features some nice effects, but this is a swashbuckler, and where's anyone even close to the sword fighting skills of Basil Rathbone? (Oh, and if I were Ennio Morricone, I'd be asking for a slice of the music royalties.)

Not everyone agrees, of course. It's currently rated at 7.8 out of 10.0 on imdb.com, compared with 8.0 for the first and 7.4 for the second. Incredible. Even more so given Robocop is 7.3?!?

Somewhere, someone is working on a fanedit that will give the world #2 and #3 combined in well under three hours, probably nearer two. And it'll be much better than either.

Who'll be first against the wall, come the revolution?

Posted on by May 8, 2007
Reply

OK, there's this Kiwi couple living in London. They're currently renting a one bed place in London's South Hampstead.

She's pregnant, he's starting a new business which she will do some work for. They expect to take £30k out of the expected business turnover of £100k a year to pay themselves.

Oh, yes, they have a property in NZ which they're renting out, but that doesn't cover the mortgage, so they're spending four hundred a month on that. (Until next year, when their fixed interest rate deal finishes and the rate they pay goes up by about 2%!)

They're looking to stay in the UK for at least five years and may want to go home afterwards. They're looking to buy somewhere to live in during that time and do have about £30k in savings, which they're reluctant to touch.

Who should be put in front of a wall and shot? Continue reading →

"That whole third act has got to go…"

Posted on by April 26, 2007
Reply

Last night was Satyagraha at ENO.

Philip Glass has done lots of good work. His obsession with triplets means that if you play me some, I can go 'oh, that's Glass' but also means, with a few exceptions, I can't say which piece.

For me, Satyagraha is not his best opera, because it's too uneven.

Act one is a B, act two is A with the first scene ('Confrontation and Rescue', AKA – by me at least – 'ah-ha-ha') A+, but act three is D at best (the 'ba-ba-ba' section I'm not sure has a proper name) and most of it is E ('here's a scale I like a lot, look, it goes up and down, up and down, up and down…')

So, especially as it was being directed by Improbable, I had to see it, but did I have to see all of it?

And the answer is.. Continue reading →