The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews
The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews |
| Posted: Here's a chance to catch some films about the environment which are both entertaining and educational. IT'S only a movie, people sometimes say. But movies can be more. Here's a chance to catch some films about the environment which are both entertaining and educational. The 6th Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival (KLEFF) kicked off recently and free public screenings of award-winning films are currently being held every Monday at MAP Publika, KL. These Monday Movies screenings will be held until the KLEFF is held from Oct 11-13. Showtime is 8pm at The Square in Publika. Among the films are: The Light Bulb Conspiracy directed by Cossima Dannortizer, the winner of Best International Film at last year's festival; Big Dreams, Little Bears directed by Audrey Low and Howard Jackson; and Bikpela Bagarap (Big Damage), winner of the Audience Choice Award at last year's festival. Big Dreams, Little Bears is about the world's smallest bears that live on the island of Borneo. Dr Audrey Low follows sun bear expert Siew Te Wong as he tries to save the bears. Low rediscovers her homeland while Siew goes through the most dangerous phase of his work. The film is full of humour while the audience gets to meet Suria, the youngest and smallest bear, ostracised after being injured by other bigger bears. The Light Bulb Conspiracy is a documentary about the ill effects of consumerism and planned obsolescence, which claims certain products have deliberately shortened life spans to ensure that there is no end to the demand, guaranteeing the manufacturers' long-term profits. Next month, Monday Movies will showcase the official selection of this year's festival. The KLEFF, which will also be held at Publika, will offer a wide variety of environment-themed local and international films. There will also be exhibitions by NGOs and grassroots organisations as well as businesses, and community workshops and performances by local artistes. For more information, visit ecofilmfest.my. |
| Neill Blomkamp refines and reflects Posted: Neill Blomkamp on creative juices flowing before and after shooting a movie. South African director Neill Blomkamp, whose sleeper hit District 9 surprised the world and earned an Oscar nomination for best picture in 2009 is all set to release his sophomore effort, Elysium, starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, William Fitchner, Diego Luna and Wagner Moura. The movie opens in local cinemas on Aug 22. While Elysium is being heavily critiqued as another one of this summer's big budget duds, it also went straight to the top of the box office on its opening weekend (Aug 10) thanks to its spectacular action scenes and some really neat conceptual ideas brought to life by Blomkamp. When The Star bumped into him in Los Angeles at the hoity toity Four Seasons Hotel, the director shared where he thinks his forte lies – whether in conceptualising the movie, during the actual film shoot or in post production. "I think it probably would be in conceptualising and in post production more than production itself," he offered. "Weirdly, on Elysium I liked production. It was sort of fun but that's from a day to day perspective. But from a filmmaking perspective, filming is sort of torture. Because in conceptualising or even in post, you have time to refine things. Whereas when you are shooting – that's most of your expenditure, 60% of your budget or more in that period of time. Which means out of an 80-day schedule, if you don't make one day, your budget is off and you now have to go into contingency. Every day that you fall short of schedule feels like a torture chamber and you end up just compromising all the time. "Plus I get more feedback from the creation of images and I can do that more effectively before and after."  Things are going well for director Neill Blomkamp at the moment. - AFP Citing filmmakers James Cameron (Aliens is his favourite film) and Stanley Kubrick, music video director Chris Cunningham, futurist/artist Syd Mead and renowned architect Richard Meier as some of his wide and varied influences, Blomkamp said that it wasn't hard settling on a follow up project to his 2009 surprise hit District 9. "Luckily at the moment in my career, I don't seem to be looking back. You know what I mean? In fact, I have a very small low budget comedy that I want to make which could potentially ruin me," he noted, tongue very much in cheek. "What came before doesn't really matter in that sense. The connection between District 9 and Elysium, I will say, is that my mind was so much in the realm of these two films, and right when I finished District 9 I started writing Elysium. So much so that even though they are different, they have the same DNA. You know it's not xenophobia and race in this film, but there are dark themes in Elysium that are similar and that would be the genetic link between the two." As for the question of the decade... what about District 10? Blomkamp offered, without skipping beat: "I want to make District 10. I just don't know when. I have a treatment but I don't have a script ... yet." Read all about Elysium and Blomkamp's visual expertise in The Star tomorrow (Aug 18) or at thestar.com.my/entertainment |
| Getting to know the world of Elysium Posted: DONUTOPIA HAVE you ever heard of the Stanford Torus? The (American) National Space Society (nss.org) describes it as the principal design considered by the 1975 NASA Summer Study, which was conducted in conjunction with Stanford University with the purpose of speculating on designs for future space colonies. It consists of a torus (a donut-shaped ring) that is one mile in diameter, rotates once per minute to provide Earth-normal gravity on the inside of the outer ring, and which can house 10,000 people. Blomkamp worked with VFX supervisor Peter Muyzers and production designer Phil Ivey to determine the size and width of the ring, how many people could live on Elysium, and how many houses would there be, what the houses would look like, what kind of infrastructure would be in place, as well as how one would get to the orbiting space station. Real scientists and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were consulted to see if the effects people were on the right track. Interestingly, Blomkamp was familiar with the Stanford Torus because of his interest in the artwork of 80-year-old futurist illustrator Syd Mead (famous for his concept designs for Blade Runner, Tron and Aliens). Blomkamp said: "Syd Mead, who designed some of the sets on Elysium, is one of my favourite artists. Even when I was a young kid in South Africa I used to collect everything of his that I could find. And in 1982 he did an illustration for National Geographic of the Standford Torus. That image always stuck with me. "Later, when I was trying to figure out how to show the contrast between the rich and poor in a sci-fi setting for this movie, I remembered that image from Syd and I thought that if you could recreate it very realistically – the original idea was not opulent – but if you took that concept and you made it satirical, if you put the rich on the torus and put swimming pools all over it, that would be a cool concept." FIELDS OF GOLD The encyclopaedia of Greek Mythology says that the Elysian Fields (i-LEE-zhun or ee-LEE-zhun) is a paradise of the heroes. Here, the likes of Achilles lived on (after death) in pleasant surroundings, in heroic pursuit of the hunt and banquet (mythweb.com). In his Odyssey, Greek epic poet Homer described it as a place where life is easiest for men. His fellow countryman Hesiod also spoke of it, as did Thebean poet Pindar, who described Elysium as having shady parks. According to filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, his reason for naming the film Elysium was quite different. "My reason was because Elysium is a giant gated community (in the movie). And in Johannesburg (from where the director hails) they have the cheesiest names for the gated communities. Like Eden or Aasgard," he explained almost rolling his eyes. Thus, "Elysium" sounded perfect. BIONIC MAN In the movie, a dying Max (Matt Damon's character) is fitted with a biomechanical exoskeletal suit that enables him to have superhuman strength. How else could he posisbly stand up to Elysium's robot guard? Blomkamp gave directions on the look of the suit, as well as the droids and the weaponry used in the movie to the artists at Weta Workshop, who also designed the aliens and weaponry on District 9, according the movie production notes. "It was my favourite prop in the movie," says Special Makeup FX /Costume /Props Supervisor Joe Dunckley, who said the suit required eight months of research and development and 75 revisions before the design was finalised. In the end, the actor wearing the suit was impressed. "The big thing was mobility," according to Damon. "Elysium is a real action movie, with running and jumping and climbing and fighting, so they wanted to make sure that I could actually move in the suit, and the guys at Weta knocked that out completely. Everything looked metal, but it was super-lightweight. I could stay in it all day and I'd feel totally fine." CARRYING CAPACITY In an interview with Wired magazine's Mark Yarm, Blomkamp talked about the human race going down the road of the Malthusian catastrophe, and much of his movie is based on this idea. Just what is the Malthusian theory? English economist Thomas Malthus claimed that there would be a population explosion that was already becoming evident in the 18th century, and argued that the number of people would increase faster than the food supply. Population would eventually reach a resource limit and the world would see a population crash, caused by famine, disease, or war. Filmmaker Blomkamp feels that there are only two ways we could end up if this theory were to eventuate – survive through technological innovation, or end up extinct. |
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