Fernseh-Tipp Erster Weltkrieg
Gestern lief auf Arte der erste Teil einer wie ich finde großartigen Reihe über den Ersten Weltkrieg: 14 – Tagebücher des Ersten Weltkriegs.
Screenshot Web-Special, arte.tv
Die mehrteilige Serie ist eine Mischung aus Doku und Fernsehfilm/-serie auf Basis von Tagebüchern, die Zeitzeugen geführt hatten. Sie funktioniert als TV-Serie mit den bekannten dramaturgischen Mitteln (mehrere Plots, Cliffhanger usw.) und toll gecastete Schauspieler/innen, die den Schwarzweißfotos der damaligen Tagebuchautoren wirklich ähnlich sehen. Das ganze funktioniert aber auch als Dokumentation: subtile Motion Graphics, bewusst eingesetzte Übersichtskarten und ein toller Schnitt, der nahtlos zwischen Realdreh und schwarz/weiß-Archivmaterial hin- und herspringt. Zudem ist die Serie mehrsprachig gedreht und teils synchronisiert/untertitelt, was den internationalen Geschehnissen zusätzliche Glaubwürdigkeit verpasst.
Bisherige Folgen können online (1 Woche lang) angeschaut werden. Ein Making-Of gibt’s ebenfalls.
Futurama on Acid
Via Film Critic Hulk I’ve stumbled upon “Rick and Morty“, a cartoon series that is like Futurama on acid. Or Futurama with swear words – depending on whether you want to describe the visuals or the dialogs.
The show – which currently has 11 episodes but a second season has been announced – revolves around the drunken mad scientist Rick, his grandson Morty and their adventures in various parallel dimensions. Of course it’s immediately obvious where Rick and Morty draws its inspiration from: Back to the Future, Futurama, Sliders, American Dad… But it manages to go beyond each of its predecessors. Every one of the first season’s 11 episodes is great, fast-paced and has a dark undertone.
You can watch Rick and Morty bootlegged on Youtube if you don’t have access to Cartoon Network.
Awful Movie Reviews
It’s one of those low hanging fruits that I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before: movie posters featuring one-star Amazon reviews 🙂
Monster of Nix
I had heard about the short film “Monster of Nix” by Dutch film-maker Rosto before but I haven’t seen it yet. Now I’ve stumbled upon some breakdowns of the VFX by Daan Spruit. It’s a really great demonstration of the kind of thoughts that already went into shooting the live action elements.
The other 5 clips (overview on vimeo) are great as well. They demonstrate the use of Fusion’s shaders and 3D system to – I’m assuming – cut down on render time for reflections and backgrounds.
Gravity
If (and only if) you have seen the movie “Gravity”, the following short film is a nice addition:
(via HollywoodReporter. In case this embed no longer works, here’s a lower quality version on Youtube)
Action Sequences
Via Film Critic Hulk I’ve come across this nice and exhausting analysis of a particular action sequence in Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”:
The guy who made this is a movie critic who worked together with Roger Ebert so in a way his analysis of the action sequence has a bit of an academic feel to it. Sure, action that goes from left to right in one shot and then from right to left in the next may be “wrong” but it’s the 21st century. Nobody will assume that a convoy of half a dozen cars has suddenly changed direction.
Incidentally, I’ve also watched “The Dark Knight” again recently. The whole sequence didn’t feel that good to me but not for the changing number of police cars or the unclear position of Harvey Dent in relation to the vehicles.
- To me it just felt preposterous that a truck can crash into the convoy to take out the SWAT vehicle in front of Harvey Dent’s transporter yet the convoy is able to continue without having to slow down. The Joker’s truck would probably block all lanes for quite a while.
- It also felt weird that the convoy was diverted by the burning fire truck in the first place. It was supposed to be the most important convoy in Gotham City. The route was supposed to be cleared of any traffic, and there even was a helicopter. Yet nobody bothered to constantly keep an eye on the whole area? Nobody noticed that somebody ignited a vehicle in downtown Gotham? It was up to the cops in the leading vehicle to notice the burning road block after they had already been approaching it for at least one city block. That level of police-force incompetence is mind-boggling.
Here’s another video from Jim Emerson, this time about an action sequence in “Salt” which he thought was well-executed because it has shot/reverse shot consistency. I admit he has a point. But the stunts that Angelina Jolie pulls off in this clip are ridiculously super-human so I’m a bit uncertain which action scene I like better:
Anyway, the essay that led me to these videos in the first place is Film Critic Hulk’s three-part write-up on what constitutes good action scenes. It’s an interesting read if you have 1-2 hours to spare 🙂 Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3
