Iron Man (2008)

I think I get Andy's pleasure in watching us watch his favourite films, since on Friday night I got to see Dilara watch Iron Man for the first time. It was brilliant!

Iron Man definitely falls into the category of films which I saw and loved instantly, the circumstances under which I saw it inextricably linked with that. I had seen the trailer - one of the best comic book trailers for ratcheting up excitement - and decided on one of my few days in Glasgow that I just had to go and see it, lack of willing company be damned! So I was by myself in the middle of Cineworld's biggest screen and from the get-go it just blew me away. Back in Black! Robert Downey Jr! Banter! Explosions! Yay!

The second time I saw it was two days after I bought the DVD; I'd seen it sitting on a shelf in Tescos and just couldn't resist (though I did buy the cheapskate's vanilla version). Unfortunately, at the time of watching I had just crashed my scooter and was in shock. Suddenly that scene on the freeway was the most terrifying piece of cinema ever. Especially this bit:

Ouch.

Since then, I've watched this film far, far too many times to be healthy. Once, I even watched it twice in a weekend. I just keep coming back!

Part of why I love it undoubtedly is that I'm a comicbook nerd, and also that I'm a comicbook nerd who likes comicbook films (or at least good comicbook films). The last decade or so has been a sequence of some really brilliant superhero films from the two big publishers aimed at a broad market. I put this down to a combination of the comics generation coming of age and getting the power to make movies, and the mainstreaming of "graphic novels". You can now find a graphic novel section in most Waterstones, stocking everything from manga to Moore alongside the eminently respectable books such as Persepolis. It has even been rumoured that girls have been found in Forbidden Planet!

As an adaption, Iron Man is very, very good. It takes the Batman Begins approach of casting a serious actor, rationalising the science* and having genuine character development. Watching, we DFTV-ers spotted (and remarked on, much to the amusement of the random vet student also watching) that it has a classic three-act structure, with a Protagonist and Antagonist, a Helper, clearly defined Goals and Obstacles and a Final Confrontation where it all comes together. Important plot points are signposted and the comic relief does its job without interfering with the tone. It's simple, effective and I love it to bits.

It hits all the points a mass audience wants: who is this guy? what's he doing? yay, explosions! and still manages to appeal to the central geeky part of the audience who can laugh over Jarvis being a computer, and go crazy at the hidden scene with Nick Fury after the credits. We can spot the latest Stan Lee cameo and get excited about Rhodey possibly-maybe being War Machine in the sequel.

But if it was just a film ticking off a list of fanservice, or just an exciting bunch of CGI fight sequences, I wouldn't care. I genuinely believe that Iron Man is in a tradition of films which have something important to say and by being populist get that message to as wide an audience as possible - in short, it's exactly the kind of film I want to make. If out of the millions of people who watched a few hundred thousand were made to think about the arms trade, then surely that's an achievement worth making.

It's also a peculiarly American perspective, which is why I think some people don't like it. In the film's moral world, the problem isn't America having weapons, it's everyone else. So Tony Stark can swoop in and save the day, using his judgement and superior technology; it's double dealing and greed which needs to be stopped. It's intensely patriotic and pro-military, in other words really American, and not quite to British tastes. A British Tony Stark would take up knitting, or possibly arrange a tea-party with the terrorists.

But aside from all the deep themey bits, I just love the look. The CGI is fantastic, the actors are good-looking, the design is beautiful (my architect sister fell in love with Tony Stark when she saw his house) and the fight scenes are well choreographed. I was thinking about what Andy said about the geography of editing, and I think Iron Man does a good job of maintaining a clear through-line of action.

And if all that wasn't enough, Robert Downey Jr was fantastic. The whole purpose of our evening was an RDJ night (Chaplin reminded a bunch of us that we absolutely love him to itty bitty pieces) and he really doesn't disappoint. He can do comedy, emotion and action equally well, and he even has the right sort of look for the comicbook Tony Stark. Shallowness aside (difficult as that may be considering:

but I'll do my best) he is a brilliant actor: likable through his playboy habits, believable as a genius engineer an above all:

*though my science student friend next to me laughs at this - I mean it's internally consistent

Citizen Kane (1941)

It is difficult to add my opinion to such a well-worn film - who am I to decree whether it's the greatest film to be made? (And as one of the most consistently critically lauded films, it's a question you have to consider.)

The story is told cleverly non-linearly, with us piecing events together the same as the journalistic, putting together a picture of  Charles Foster Kane built from the opinions of those around him. It's always a very interesting way of looking at a character, contrasting the public, professional and personal views of him. It works that the journalist fails in his search for the meaning of "Rosebud": in the end, the point is that one word can never encapsulate a life, and what he learnt in the process was more revealing. Still the reveal to audience was important - how annoying would it have been if we never found out what "rosebud" meant?

The visual inventiveness is legendary, from the use of deep focus and mobile cameras and what struck me powerfully was that it still manages not to look dated. Stylistically, it's incredibly modern, with the only thing marking it out being the film stock. Welles uses every trick in the book, a few of which he wrote himself, to create the maximum meaning in shots. I particularly love the way Xanadu is shot, its imposing size only rivalled by its larger than life owner thanks to the expressionistic angles and sets. I also love the way the black and white is used - it's crisp and atmospheric. I even like that you can see pterodactyls flying in the background for one scene.

Orson Welles is inarguably the star - his direction, his acting, his vision makes Citizen Kane what it is. Among all its strengths, I think the brilliance of his performance is often overlooked; it's a very physically demanding performance with the transition from a young man into a blustering dinosaur. The contrast between his youthful fluidity and his stiffness in old age is just perfect, and perfectly complementary to the aging make-up, which is also top-notch.

I still don't think it can categorically be called the best film of all time; for one, I haven't seen every film ever made (and nor has anyone else) and also, it's a depressing thought that the bar was set 60 years ago and never matched. I do, however, believe that it's a brilliant film decades ahead of its time.

Personal reflection: technical fundamentals formative assessment AKA: aaaargh, where is the record button?

A few weeks ago, I had my first case of pre-exam freaking out in the academy. When faced with any kind of assessment, my natural reaction is to panic, stress and worry, though the only external sign is usually a twitching eyebrow and a lot of revision; so despite assurances that this assessment was a progress test not a maker-or-breaker I was nervous.

Thankfully, it went pretty well. I remembered how to calibrate my monitor and viewfinder with only a little reference to my notes to make sure I was doing it right and Ray said it was good, with just a bit of tweaking required. I ran into a bit of a snag with a faulty BNC but once I'd run through everything else (am I using the right inputs/outputs? are the batteries charged? have I switched them on?) I tried out a different cable and it was all fine. Setting the timecode was a doddle, but then in a bathetic twist I floundered trying to find the record button. Really, how silly is that? Once I'd combed the entire camera, I found a likely-looking button, hit it and success! I'd found the elusive thing, just in time to dismantle the kit.

Overall, I'm pleased with how I did but it's abundantly clear I need more practice - eventually I'd like this to be second nature so that I can get on with recording things rather than just looking for buttons. I'd also like to think that I could stop worrying unnecessarily but I have a greater chance of becoming a mathematical prodigy; worrying is what I do.

The Seagull (RSAMD 2009)

In the interests, of switching things up a bit, let's have a blog about the theatre!

Along with Harry and Chris, I went to see the 3rd year actors' production of The Seagull, Anton Chekhov's first full play. I was especially pleased since it gave me the chance to see what I'd studied at great length at school - we had looked specifically at how Chekhov's plays influenced the Moscow Art Theatre and Stanislavski's practices, and I wanted to know whether they had decided to go down the 'system' route or were going at it differently. As it turns out, it was more Hamlet era MAT than early MAT.

The actors were all very good, though I would say that a few would be better suited to on-screen acting than onstage. One in particular struggled vocally, and while that could be because of illness or strain, it was a shame - it sounded as if she had dropped her vocal range by about an octave in order to project, which really isn't the point at all. Another, I think needed to delineate herself and her character more clearly, but then she had the challenge of playing an actress, which is deceptively tricky. Kostya, his mother and uncle were especially strong: absorbing stage presences and consistent physically and vocally. Masha was a tad over the top, but then it's in the character's nature to be hysterical; perhaps my taking against the character was intentional? As an ensemble, they gelled very well - the collective scenes felt very realistic, and I liked the little touches of background activity even while the focus was on a smaller group.

I almost don't want to say it, but I think the star of the show may well have been TPA. Well done you guys! The set was ingenious and meticulously detailed - I loved the way they had cabinets and the things on them separate by fixing plates, ornaments etc onto boards which then slotted into the furniture. The problem of one floor surface needing to serve as both indoors and outside was met with a very clever melding of wooden boards into bark chips, and an overall design style which was far enough into representational to make that work. My absolute favourite thing, though, was the change that occurred between Act 3 and 4 during the interval - what better metaphor is there for the change undergone by the characters than the destruction of the set and the opening up of the wings? It was bold, inspired, and quite possibly the best piece of set design I've seen since Black Watch's pool table.

The only real downside to the evening was the lack of legroom - they may have just redone the Athanaeum, but they designed the seating for people with very short legs indeed, and this is coming from me, so that shows you just how cramped we're talking here.

Thank you Jon Stewart

This has cheered me up a lot.

V (2009)

Through the power of modern technology I watched the recent pilot for V, the remake of the 80s V - a sci-fi story about reptilian aliens. Sounded fun.

And technically, it was very good. The CGI was pretty good, there were no glaring pacing problems, they had a strong enough cast including some of my favourites (Inara and Wash from Firefly and Juliet from Lost), and the basic premise is interesting.

What completely and utterly turned me off it was the politics. Sci-fi as a genre always carries ideologies - as does all tv, but the hypothetical nature of science fiction makes it that much clearer, and V wore its neo-conservative on its sleeve. Outsiders *cough*immigrants*cough* are sinister and evil, and what form does their evil take? UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE! Oh no, save us from the universal healthcare! Burn the witch! Burn it!

Seriously, if this is its way of staying current - tapping into the zeitgeist - then count me out. America is terrified of a healthcare system that doesn't condemn the poor to death - what sort of person wants to poke that fear with a reptilian alien shaped stick? I'm going to assume it's someone who's fully insured and who voted McCain in the last election, and no I don't mean tasty oven chips.

This has made me angry, especially since the makers have been all too keen to point how feminist it is to cast two women in powerful roles. Well, good for you - doesn't improve my mood any.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to find something a little less neo-con. Maybe I'll watch Fox News...

Blade Runner (1982)

I was so excited when I saw we'd get to see this in the Final Cut version on a big(ish) screen. It's a strangely compelling film, and you who saw it this way for the first time - you don't know how lucky you are!

Part of why I love it is the film noir look, which is a style I really love in all its permutations (original noir, neo noir, horror noir, and this, future noir). Some of the details are purely fatuous - ceiling fans? trench coats? that's just window dressing. I really hate when a film adopts the outward characteristics of a genre without capturing its heart, it's like watching a bad actor put on the voice and the silly walk and completely kill a role. Thankfully, Blade Runner is noir through and through, with the detective story, the dark palette and, absolutely essentially, the anti-hero.

Because Deckard, whether you think he's a guy or not (see below for discussion ad nauseum of Deckard's status), is not a good guy. He kills without remorse, he drinks (that old staple of detective drama!) and his relationship with Rachel could charitably be called assault. And yet, through the magic of the movies, this guy is our white hat. Part of why it works is that it's Harrison Ford. This guy was able to play lovable rogues when dinosaurs roamed the earth (he made two of the biggest franchises of the century - Indiana Jones and Star Wars [don't even mention Mark Hamil, Han Solo was where it was at]). Plus, a brutally efficient character comes across very well in these kinds of films, far better than some sub-emo moral doubt. It's just a movie thing I guess.

I'm going to give an honourable mention to Gaff, played by Edward James Olmos because to me Edward James Olmos = Commander Adama, end of. Plus, you can credit him with coming up with "cityspeak", the peculiar hybrid language spoken in the film which was brilliant prescient in creating a cultural mix with heavy emphasis on oriental language and culture.*

Blade Runner is another excellent case of sci-fi taking a philosophical stand and examining religious and existential themes - what does it mean to be human? what would you do if you met your creator? the answer here is gouge his eyes out...**

Part of what makes it fun is the fact that there's so much to speculate on! Of course, this doesn't work with the majority of the audience who, quite understandably, would like to know what the hell is going on but for the geekier elements, it's hours of entertainment.

Take the question of whether Deckard is a replicant: according to Ridley Scott, he definitely is. But Harrison Ford said, "We had agreed that he definitely was not a replicant", and many of the other people who worked on the film agree, including the producer Michael Deeley: "That was just a bullshit, an extra layer Ridley put in. Also an obfuscation." But I've always believed you should trust the tale and not the teller, so you have to do your own Film Noir style detective hunt for the facts. Unfortunately, since the creators had no consistent plan, neither does the story. While it does make sense in many ways for Deckard to be a replicant (his emotional immaturity, his ability to take a beating, his needing to be filled in on basic details) they could just as easily be faults in the production, and it clashes with the fact that if Deckard was one of the six escapees, surely Pris, Leon and Zhora would recognise him? Also, I think that if you make Deckard a replicant you take away from the contrast between man and machine. It is interesting to think of what it says about humans if you contrast the affectionate behaviour between Pris and Roy with Deckard's roughness with Rachel, and it makes the final fight a matter of man vs his creation instead of just two robots hitting each other.

For me, the most compelling evidence that Deckard is a replicant is the whole business with the unicorn. If you interpret it as an imprinted memory, which Gaff knows about and refers to with the origami unicorn, then it makes sense. Otherwise, it's just a random unicorn, and those are terribly rare these days.

Still, I don't have the definitive answer - I don't actually think there is one. It's just something which is fun to play about with.

Having reached such a stunning conclusion, I finish yet another of my geeky blog posts.

*Seen also in the brilliant series Firefly 

** Religion is a bit of a pattern when it comes to AI/robot stories, understandably, but I think I Robot does a really good job of being a non-typical philosophical robot film (what a sentence!) by actually looking at robots when it looks at robots, not at humanity. Or at least, not entirely; it derives its main theme from actual laws of robotics and offers really interesting insights into that. Plus - Will Smith. Need I say more?

Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009)

From the way that I seem to mention it every time tv comes up, you may already know that I love this show. If you're mystified as to what I was on about, then let me just say: go the library, take out the boxset, and watch it. I'd ask you what you've been doing with the last six years but the answer is probably "having a life".

For the spoilerphobic, don't worry. I've deliberately made this spoiler free because I'm trying to be evangelical.

The story follows the last humans left alive in a futuristic setting after a genocidal attack by the Cylons, a race of robots invented by the humans but who rebelled. From that, it could sound rather hokey - robots? spaceships? nah thanks.

What makes it work is first of all, that the creators made this world so detailed, from the Battlestar itself to the recurring hexagon designs. The militarty parts feel very real, and it's definitely in the school of sci-fi which shows you battered, lived-in spaceships rather than shiny white perfection.

For a sci-fi show, it's also determinedly realistic, with characters facing problems which range from the mundane to the cataclysmic, and actions having consequences episodes, sometimes whole seasons, down the line. It is actually addressed that this fleet needs to find fuel, food and water, and that it has limited weapons.

And then there's the fact that over the course of very few episodes, you get to know and love the characters. They're all a little messed up, and they all make mistakes, but it's because of that I care. So when some revelation is made, or when a character dies/nearly dies/kinda dies (if you've seen it you'll know what I mean) it hurts. It feels like even when they're not onscreen, people are living their lives. A tiny character who you thought was just a one episode wonder turns out to be pivotal for the entire series; it's been funny re-watching it seeing characters' beginnings again, having seen where they end up.

If you're put off sci-fi because it is overwhelmingly laddish, then you'll be glad to hear that there are plenty of really strong female characters on the show. They call the shots, they shoot the guns, they have meaningful storylines beyond love interests

One of the main things I love about sci-fi is its ability to take abstract themes and examine them, and BSG has a ball with that. Its whole central theme is about God, creation and destiny, with a whole bunch of others on the side. The great episodes engage your brain and your emotions, and the majority of episodes are good (I'm really not sold on one of the season 5 arcs, and its climactic episode was absolutely awful, but that's the worst episode of the whole series).

A good tactic if you're unsure would just be to watch the mini-series (it's the first disc of the boxset) and see if you like it. It's only the length of a film and it sets up the characters and the setting.

Russell Howard's Good News (2009)

Russell Howard has a new comedy show on BBC 3, and I've been tuning in on iPlayer: it's a perfect candidate for timeshifting since it pops up on the homepage and is on at an unreasonable hour.

I especially like the title sequence and inserts, even though they're blatantly ripped off of Juno:



It sets the tone for the programme and feels different from most other BBC comedies. I just love the way it plays with scale and dimensions!

The show itself is still finding its feet - whoever thought up the "Mystery Guest" feature needs to just let go and drop it - but Howard is popular for reason, and his jokes can carry the half hour. While I didn't laugh out loud that often, I did grin the whole way through.