CGI is not the enemy

To the modern cinema connoisseur, CGI is the enemy. It’s an unnecessary evil in a world where practical effects are king. Why are practical effects king, you ask? Because they’re real, they reply. They don’t look fake.

They have a point, though. Who can’t look at a movie and tell straight away what is real and what has been created on a computer? Who watched Ted and thought the titular bear was a real, visceral creature, standing beside Mark Walberg? No-one.

Think back to the late 80s and early 90s, when CGI became more readily available to moviemakers. We went crazy for it. The public couldn’t get enough of computer generated dancing babies or wire frame animation. So why in the last twenty years has CGI become the enemy?

Jurassic Park was many people’s first introduction to CGI, but unlike many modern films, it used a mix of both CGI and practical effects over full CGI. (Picture: Universal)

To put it bluntly: we got greedy. The oversaturation of CGI in cinema means it’s now far easier to tell what is real and what isn’t. With practical effects, that isn’t really an issue.

Think of Jurassic Park: when audiences saw it at first, they couldn’t tell what was CGI and what was practical effects. Watch it again, and you’ll be able to tell exactly what is a practical effect and what is computer generated.

The cinema-going public don’t really hate CGI, they just hold it in contempt because they’re drowning in it. They feel like directors are lazily relying on it when they could easily be using practical effects to achieve a far more realistic effect.

But what modern cinephiles seem to ignore is the reality of the movie making process. Some things simply can’t be achieved through practical effects because of cost or other reasons. This doesn’t mean their opinion of practical effects and CGI isn’t disrespected by the filmmakers, however. Producer Nat Saunders, who did special effects work on the BBC’s web series Misery Bear explained:

“Chris [Hayward] and I recently wrote and starred in our first feature, a science fiction comedy called SOS: Save Our Skins, which is just starting to appear at film festivals. We decided early on with the director, Kent Sobey, that where possible we would keep as much of the film’s effects practical, as we all prefer that look and feel. There are sequences where we are wandering an empty New York City, which meant filming at 5am and snatching the quickest shots of us crossing streets like 5th Avenue when no traffic or people could be seen.

“We wanted to do it that way rather than green screen because we wanted viewers to get dragged into the world – an empty city – with us, and we knew we wouldn’t impress anyone if they could see it had just been knocked together on a Mac. So that’s what we did and it turned out great. But then, there’s an exploding head in there that, well, you can’t ask an actor to do that, can you? So we CGI’d that bit.”

Saunders makes a good point – you can’t just explode someone’s head for the sake of your movie. CGI will always have a place in cinema, right alongside practical effects. It certainly doesn’t mean that CGI will eliminate the need for practical effects, as Marcus Whitney, a make-up artist and prosthetics designer whose work has appeared in Casualty and Being Human explained:

“Practical effects are very important to the TV industry. It’s certainly not a rotting trade. I have worked on TV shows like casualty that have been using practical effects for years. All of the wounds, injuries, stunts, explosions are done by hand and not a computer.

“Over the years we have seen CGI effects get bigger and better. I still love watching big Hollywood disaster movies where everything you see is CGI. But I think where there is CGI, you will always need practical effects to go with them.”

CGI isn’t terrible, and it certainly shouldn’t be hated. It’s earned a reputation as a tool for lazy film writers, but really, it’s a fascinating and powerful tool in every director’s arsenal that can greatly enhance the cinematic experience. Of course it’s fake – but no-one complains that movies like Saw aren’t realistic enough, so why should it matter? All you need to do to enjoy it is let yourself be tricked into the illusion that it’s real.

Katie Campbell

Retro Review: The Blues Brothers

Beloved SNL characters “Joliet” Jake and Elwood Blues. Picture: Universal Pictures

At times, John Landis’ classic film featuring beloved Saturday Night Live characters “Joliet” Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) feels more like an action movie than a comedic musical. When it was made, The Blues Brothers held the record for most cars ever destroyed during the filming of a movie, setting the record at a massive 103 vehicles.

The Blues Brothers, in case you’re not already aware, is the tale of the Blues brothers Jake and Elwood, who, upon Jake’s release from prison, find that the Catholic orphanage they grew up in is to be shut down. The Blues brothers don’t take kindly to this idea, and set off in their seemingly supernatural ex-police car on a “mission from God” – a mission in which they reassemble their old band and hold a fund raising concert to save their childhood home.

Belushi and Aykroyd give stellar performances as the eternally cool Blues brothers, who remain cool, calm and collected no matter what manner of shenanigans they find themselves in. Their comedic chemistry is excellent. Better yet, the Blues brothers lost no magic in their transition from the small to the silver screen, as regularly happens when short sketches are adapted into longer movies. The movie is eternally funny, and acts as an excellent introduction to the characters Jake and Elwood.

Some argue that The Blues Brothers isn’t really a musical, it’s simply a movie with a lot of music, but that undermines the performances of not only Belushi and Aykroyd (who are actually pretty good singers), but the myriad stars of soul who appear in the film. Some of the most memorable scenes in the movie feature blues legends like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Cab Calloway, who add a sense of credibility to a movie about two white boys singing traditionally black music.

As is standard with Landis, the movie’s setting, his childhood home of Chicago becomes almost a character in her own right in the movie, featuring prominently in many of the scenes and acting as an ever-present third Blues brother. Landis’ love for the city shines through in every scene, so much so that the state of Illinois should be using it as part of their “Visit Chicago” campaign.

The film does feel slightly long, like it should have finished just before the fourth act, but even now, 34 years after its original release, you can see why it’s still such a popular and well-loved classic. It’s funny, fun, silly and completely over the top, but what were you expecting a movie about two blues singing blood brothers in a magical ex-cop car on a mission from God?

Review: The Raid 2

The Raid 2: a style extravaganza. Picture: Sony Pictures

Is there anything more fun than total carnage?

The Raid 2 is a direct continuation of the first movie – rookie policeman Rama, played by Iko Uwais, is sent to infiltrate Jakarta crime family the Baguns, with the intention of uncovering corruption in the force he works for, but this comes at the price of compromising both his and his family’s safety if he is discovered.

Some may feel that the levels of violence in The Raid 2 are excessive, but the movie takes the violence and transforms it into something almost supernatural, which at points make it seem somewhat silly – this is most apparent in a later scene where Baseball Man and Hammer Girl (guess what their weapons of choice are) fight Rama in a small corridor and Baseball Man’s bat is used to particularly deadly effect; the scene is set apart from the rest of the gratuitous violence as it seems cartoonish in its nature.

As cartoonish as it occasionally feels, the violence is one of the movie’s primary draws, and as with its prequel, The Raid 2 features some of the most stylish and beautifully choreographed fight scenes in recent memory. There is a real beauty in the way Rama moves, and his skills as a martial artist are put to excellent use. Where the defining scene of The Raid was the claustrophobic and frantic hallway fight, the sequel brings this back in two forms, one early on for Rama and a particularly frantic and graceful fight in a subway car, both harking back to the famous scene, which are just as fun and impressive as the original.

At points, it does feel apparent that the somewhat weak plot merely exists to link the scenes of violence together, but if you’re watching The Raid 2 expecting a deep and complex plot, you’re expecting far too much from it. The Raid 2 is a fun, frantic action movie that is just as fantastic a watch as its predecessor.

The Raid 2 opens nationwide on April 11th.

Katie Campbell

Lost in translation: five bad American remakes of Asian films

After the success of the American remake of Ju-On: The Grudge, Hollywood has fallen over itself trying to remake every and any vaguely successful Asian movies. Here’s the five worst offenders from the Hollywood remake machine.

1 – Oldboy
Remake of 올드보이 (Oldboy), 2003, South Korea

The only thing worse than a bad remake is an unnecessary one, and unnecessary is the only real way to describe Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s cult thriller Oldboy.

Had huge changes to the story been made, or the intention been to produce a more faithful adaptation of the Garon Tsuchiya manga, there may have been cause for the remake. As it stands, Spike Lee’s Oldboy is just a vastly inferior version of the original film, suitable only for people who don’t like reading subtitles.

2 – Godzilla
Remake of ゴジラ (Gojira), 1954, Japan

Gojira was the movie that launched a million proverbial ships: it was the first kaiju movie – a film featuring huge monsters that terrorise cities and often end up fighting each other.

The American remake, featuring Matthew Broderick, the obvious choice for an action flick, as a worm expert, who is roped in to try and help take down Godzilla before it completely destroys New York City. It’s a garbled mess of a film with a stupid plot and we can only hope that this year’s re-imagining of the dull Broderick affair is the remake Gojira deserves.

Noted action star Broderick comes face-to-face with Godzilla in the 1998 movie. Picture: Centropolis Entertainment

3 – Last Man Standing
Remake of 用心棒 (Yojimbo), 1961, Japan

Akira Kurosawa’s, Yojimbo is regularly heralded as one of the greatest movies ever made, and has a huge number of both official and unofficial remakes.

Last Man Standing, aka Die Hard Does Yojimbo, is an authorised Hollywood remake starring Bruce Willis. It’s a dry, tedious movie, that’s far from an insult to the Kurosawa classic, but it pales in comparison to Yojimbo’s best and most famous remake, A Fist Full of Dollars.

4 – The Uninvited
Remake of 장화, 홍련 (A Tale of Two Sisters), 2003, South Korea

The 2009 remake of A Tale of Two Sisters is dull and predictable, and simply not as scary as its Korean counterpart. Whereas other Western remakes of Asian horror films have triumphed in creating a movie that audiences can relate to, The Uninvited failed even in that venture. It could maybe have been forgiven had it worked as a horror film, but it didn’t even manage that.

The terrifyingly predictable remake of A Tale of Two Sisters, The Uninvited. Picture: Dreamworks Pictures

5 – The Eye
Remake of 見鬼 (The Eye), 2002, Hong Kong/Singapore

While the original wasn’t the freshest film ever made, it was still a scary, dramatic and unnerving horror movie. The same can’t be said for the Hollywood remake released in 2002. The film suffers two main points of contention: Jessica Alba’s acting is so wooden that the audience are in real danger of getting splinters, and, somehow, despite being almost a shot-for-shot remake, it manages to completely lose what made the original so scary in translation. Simply put, it’s a poor effort from everyone involved.

Katie Campbell

This Week’s Releases

ABOUT LAST NIGHT

Release date: 21/3/14
IMDB: “Follow two couples as they journey from the bar to the bedroom and are eventually put to the test in the real world.”
Rated 15, 100 minutes.
TRAILER
Watch About Last Night: Cineworld | Vue | Odeon

STARRED UP

Release date: 21/3/14
IMDB: “A troubled and explosively violent teenager is transferred to adult prison where he finally meets his match – a man who also happens to be his father.”
Rated 18, 106 minutes.
TRAILER
Watch Starred Up: Cineworld | Vue | Odeon | GFT

LABOR DAY

Release date: 21/3/14
IMDB: “Depressed single mom Adele and her son Henry offer a wounded, fearsome man a ride. As police search town for the escaped convict, the mother and son gradually learn his true story as their options become increasingly limited.”
Rated 12A, 111 minutes
TRAILER
Watch Labor Day: Cineworld | Vue | Odeon

YVES SAINT LAURENT

Release date: 21/3/14
IMDB: A look at the life of French designer Yves Saint Laurent from the beginning of his career in 1958 when he met his lover and business partner, Pierre Berge.
Rated 15, 106 minutes
TRAILER
Watch Yves Saint Laurent: Cineworld | Vue | Odeon | GFT

Nicolas Cage: National Treasure

Nicolas Cage – a great actor or just lucky?

Nicolas Cage is not the kind of actor you expect to make top ten lists, unless those top ten lists are “top ten worst actors of all time,” or “top ten worst hair styles sported by any actor ever, literally ever.” He has built a reputation, fairly or unfairly, on appearing in bad movies, moving between two signature styles of incredibly dry, or overacting so incredible that it transcends overacting and comes right back around to just plain terrible.

Buried within Cage’s back catalogue of relentlessly bad movies, there are good movies. I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, there are. Nicolas Cage is not as bad an actor as you think. In fact, he may be one of the most underrated of his generation.

A glance at Nicolas Cage’s repertoire shows just how many critically acclaimed movies he has starred in: he worked with the legendary Cohen Brothers in their cult comedy Raising Arizona, won an Oscar for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas and did a stellar job playing Big Daddy in Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar’s ultra-violent comic book Kick-Ass.

Cage’s role in the 2003 meta-comedy Adaptation, where he plays Charlie Kaufman and his twin brother, Donald, is considered by many critics to have been his best. A lesser actor could quite easily have left the audience confused during any of the many scenes where Cage is present as both men, but he plays to his strengths in each role: Charlie is a neurotic, lacking in self-confidence, whereas Donald is carefree and childish. They are two clear, distinct characters, played effortlessly by Cage, who shows the depth and skill of his acting ability with confidence and ease.

The late, great film critic Roger Ebert said in his review of Adaptation that Cage should be included in lists of the greatest living male actors, alongside the likes of Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson; he said that Cage “is committed to the character with every atom and plays him as if he were him.” Yes, Nicolas Cage may have a slight problem saying “no” to scripts, but it would be decidedly unfair to say that Cage gives nothing but 100% in every single movie he stars in.

Ghost Rider might be a categorically bad movie – I won’t argue with you on that point – but it most certainly isn’t a terrible movie; it is a movie born of Cage’s love of comic books, and watching him chew the scenery while living out a childhood dream of playing the badass Ghost Rider is simply brilliant fun.

Nicolas Cage is a great actor. Once again, Ebert said it best in his review of Drive Angry: “Cage is a good actor in good movies, and an almost indispensable actor in bad ones.” He throws himself into every role, and while the the movies themselves may be less than perfect, his performance every time is nothing short of stellar, and if we all looked at him like Ebert did, no-one would scoff at placing him alongside De Niro and Nicholson as one of Hollywood’s greatest actors.

Katie Campbell