WRITINGS & NEWS
A short film loosely based on O. Henry's "The Last Leaf," the story follows a young painter with a dark past who arrives back at his childhood home and finds his neighbors from down the street living there. Directed by Jeremy White and Ben Wyman.
troubles? watch it back on vMix.
Starring Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, and Edward Norton.
Before I start reviewing the actual story of Kingdom of Heaven, I want to give it at least five big compliments. Director Ridley Scott has really achieved something here, and I want to congratulate him on it:
1. No one has ever made any war film on such a large, epic scale as Kingdom. That's worthy of congratulations - no battle footage has ever been on so grand and awe-inspiring, never before has anyone seen a two-hundred thousand man army beat the tar out of another two-hundred thousand man army out on some desert plain. It pushes beyond Lord of The Rings and Troy and into new territory - hey, notice how many of these films star Orlando Bloom? His name on a film guarantees that it probably cost more than 100 million to make. In my book, that's not a bad thing; we need more of these sort of films populating the early summer months, it eases the pain brought on by House of Wax and Monster-In-Law.
2. The acting done in the film is pretty solid for a epic historical movie - this is normally the sort of film where good actors look like bad actors, and bad actors also look like bad actors. But Irons, Norton, and Neeson are all excellent, and Bloom is... well, Orlando Bloom, again (see review in Ned Kelly). However, he's added an extra level of passion and depth to his pretty-boy-kills-baddies bit. It's not heart-wrenching or jaw-dropping, but it's not bad. Plus, he bulked up twenty pounds for the flick, and the extra effort shows - he doesn't look completely out of place as a blacksmith this time (yes, he's a blacksmith again). Eva Green (The Dreamers) is excellent as Sibylla, though it's a completely thankless role: the princess of Jerusalem who falls for Bloom instantly despite already being married to Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas), a one-note evil dude with his eyes on the throne and no interest in his wife. Bloom and Green get it on almost instantly, which is okay because:
a) Cinema Morality Rule #34: It's not cheating if the husband doesn't really care about the wife because he's too busy being evil.
b) Cinema Morality Rule #13: It's not cheating if the main character protests at first that it might be wrong, and therefore they shouldn't do it.
c) Cinema Morality Rule #1: It's not cheating if the main character, like, totally loves her.
3. John Mathieson's cinematography for the film is absolutely breathtaking. I mean, it looks simply stunning. Mathieson and Scott have done excellent work before - Gladiator, Matchstick Men - and Kingdom, coming right at the heels of last year's Phantom of the Opera, show that he's just about on the top of his game.
Okay, I'm running low on compliments, so:
4. After Alexander last Christmas, we were all starved for a decent historical epic with some good fight scenes. Thanks. You've tided me over for a bit.
5. At least at the end of this film, the viewer says, "You know what that film reminded me? Gladiator was a really good movie. I should watch that again." Whereas at the end of... Monster-In-Law, a viewer notes "Hey, you know what else sucked? Everything else Jennifer Lopez has ever been in. I think I'll never watch a movie again as long as I live." So, you see, Kingdom is really a great film in that regard - it's given us some option other than Jennifer Lopez and Paris Hilton this weekend. That's worth a lot.
Okay, now that I've been nice, I've got to start ripping on William Monahan, who wrote Kingdom and deserves a good talking to. In fact, he's getting one now.
Dear William,
I recently saw you major opus Kingdom of Heaven, and thought I'd drop you a line. You see, William, you've clearly got a lot to explain.
Alright, you wrote a long war movie in which you never take a side. How can you expect this to work? Your main character, Balian, comes in to lead the Crusaders against those crazy infidels, the Moslems. But he doesn't really want to fight the Moslems. Neither does anyone else who isn't a crazy religious zealot. So Balian spends the whole movie asking "Can't we all just get along?" And everyone else answers, "No, dammit, let's kill us some infidels!" as if the Crusades were some redneck hunting trip for religious symbols, which your screenplay tries very hard to convince us that they were.
I mean, seriously, Bill - you have the entire forces of the Crusaders riding out to meet the entire forces of the Moslems, and nobody cares, not even you - which is why we cut away and never see the battle. And the whole time we're really just hoping that everyone just gets together and talks and sorts things out. And in the final, climactic battle, with all the cool siege engines, and flaming balls launched from trebuchets, and boiling oil poured from the battlements, the audience is sitting there wondering, "so, when are they going to get together and talk this out so that they don't have to fight anymore?"
Bill, you mystify me. Haven't you ever seen a war movie? And I understand that you're opposed to war - that's very clear from this film. I also understand that you're opposed to the war on Iraq - that too, is also pretty clear, since it spends a good deal of time cluttering up your story about the Crusades. I even think that it's helpful that you tried to show us what a terrible thing the Crusades really were. But did you really have to make it so ham-handed that nobody cared at all about the battle? Isn't there a better way to do things?
Just a suggestion, Bill. Good luck on Tripoli and Jurassic Park IV. I sincerely hope that they both don't suck.
Cordially,
Wyman
Kingdom of Heaven gets three stars out of a possible five, because I could only think of three legitimate compliments, and - Cinema Morality Rule #74: there's no way you can give a film more than three stars if you can only think of three good things about it.
Director Ben Wyman's first film attempt, "[Let Go]" follows an emotional young man as he tries to explain to his former girlfriend why he can't stop holding on.
troubles? watch it back on vMix.
At long last, the Asbury Film Festival piece. I've been building up to this one for a while, so I figure that I'll divide this up into multiple posts in order to not have to stay up all night typing. Thanks to Ben, by the way, who found the Lexington Herald article that had my picture in it. Even though the pictures didn't make it into the web version, it's still exciting to see one's name in an article, especially in an article about a film festival that one has recently won.
You read correctly, folks - Leaves won "Best Picture" at the inaugural Asbury Film Festival. How did this miraculous event come to take place? Let's start this back on Friday night.
Opening night was fabulous. Everyone was dressed to the nines, the anticipation was palpable, and the mood was electric. Jeremy's family, had, of course, turned out in force for the festival - they came both nights, and were always one of the first ones there - and so Leaves got a lot of popular support in the audience vote (there were about a dozen of them, and Leaves had a 15-vote lead at the end of the first night. Probably not coincidental).
I loved the film festival. Each one of the 13 short films selected was creative, clever, and was usually well written. In a future post I'll critique each. For now, suffice to say it was a thoroughly enjoyable viewing experience. Especially for me: I appear, or was involved, in seven of the productions.
The student films were followed by the premiere of Stolen Moments, the film shot by Asbury students early this semester (end of January to the beginning of March). There's a lot to say about Stolen Moments, so I'll critique the film later. But to answer your question, yes, I was involved in its production. I was a behind-the-scenes documentary cameraman. But I was also a storyboard artist. And I did pre-visualization for some of the bigger sequences of the film. Oh, and I did continuity for a scene or two. And I typed up the shot sheets for some shoots. And I was a production assistant once in a while. And a camera assist. And an audio assist. And I ran the camera once in a while. And I acted in the film. Oh, and I directed a few shots. I think that covers it. And it was the best time of my life. I loved every minute of it. Seeing it all come to screen was an interesting experience - both thrilling and anti-climactic. I don't know how to explain it. It's like Christmas feels these days: it's exciting and it's fun, but that pure visceral thrill that you'd expect it to be isn't there. Ah, well. It was still a great time.
Most is the Academy-Award nominated, Sundance-winning half hour film written in part by Billy Zabka (the blond guy in Karate Kid). Billy's a cool cat, and I love the film, it's beautifully moving, but it's a tough way to end a film festival when you've been there for three hours and you're starting on another film and it's a foreign film about a father having to make a choice between the life of his son and the lives of a few hundred people on a train. Tough note to close on. It mighta been better if they'd showed Most first and finished with Stolen Moments. But who wants their film to be shown after a Sundance winner? All in all, Jeff Day, the director of Stolen Moments, who put this whole thing together, probably made the right choice.
And then the after-party. Having sweated through most of the festival in nervous anticipation, I now stripped off my tie, undershirt, and vest, and wandered the party looking, as several people mentioned, "like a drunk best man at a reception." That's as may be, but Becca Harvey saw fit to mention "you look so hot right now," and Erin Channell demanded that I stay right next to her for the rest of the evening for protection. Where I come from, that's a pretty good night.
But the best was yet to come.
Each film only won one award, so that each deserving piece would get to leave with something. Which I agree with, but when you don't know it's coming, it sounds more like you've been swept out of competition entirely. After the first few awards had been handed out to other films, I'd already resigned myself to my defeat. After four or five awards had been handed out, I noticed the lack of repeats, and suddenly realized that "if those films have already won awards, then they won't win Best Picture, which means that maybe I..." By the time they announced Best Comedy (a tie between Beaver and Mug - more on that in a later post), it was suddenly sinking in that I was about to win a film festival. Then they announced that [Let Go] had won Best Drama, and my jaw dropped. I had written and directed [Let Go] at the end of the last semester and entered it into the film festival on a whim, offhandedly hoping that it would be entered. Once it did, I never gave it another thought - I'd moved on, and my effort was on getting Leaves noticed. But people really responded to [Let Go] (it ended up fourth in audience voting - awfully high for a drama about someone coping with losing his girlfriend in a car accident they were both in). A lot of people came up to talk to me about it, which is always exciting.
Right after they announced Best Drama, they announced Best Picture - and I got to stand up again. By this time, my face was flaming red, and I was trying unsuccessfully to look as if this was no big deal to me - I made the foolhardy decision to give Jeremy a huge high-five from three rows away, almost toppling myself into the row behind me in the process. Surefire Hollywood high-roller, right here. I sat down quickly, but then they announced the Audience Choice award: it went to Leaves, as well. Isn't that crazy? I fully expected Beaver or Mug to take it: comedies always do well, and particularly inventive ones like those two you would think would be locks for the top spot (they finished second and third, respectively). I suppose they probably split the vote between them, leaving us the opportunity to take the award.
The rest of the night is a bit of a haze, but I recall it wound down with me jumping around a lot, hugging a lot of people that I hadn't realized I was that close with, and declaring an impromptu celebration at the local coffeehouse until dawn. Admittedly, enthusiasm waned a bit before then, but this ain't New York City, and a couple hours of celebration is about all you can really handle when you're in a low-key coffeeshop and you haven't really slept for weeks. Still, props to Solomon's Porch for letting us stay an hour late to stretch out the moment, before I finally wandered, still dazed but ecstatic, back to my room.
As Plutarch noted, every dog has his day.
As promised, I've done some work updating the site, even though I've been pretty sick the past couple days. I fixed some dead links and the like, and tightened up the sidebar. Haven't had the heart to launch into a major post yet, but that's coming. I still have to find a job, too, remember.
I was updating the links, and had to replace the fat Dutch guy who dances to "Dragostea din tea." When I searched for a new version of the video, I discovered a lot of people have only seen an edited version, where pictures of random dorky guys are flashed across the screen during the video, and when O-Zone sings "fericirea," a picture of feta cheese appears. Yes, it's true, folks - the computer age will herald in new breakthroughs in communication and information.
