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I remember seeing this short film as a teenager, and it had a profound impact on me at the time.  Fortunately I don’t think I ever lost sight of the lessons I learnt from it.

Indie Game: The Movie

Pre-ordered this a while ago, take a look and if you like it you should pre-order too.  You don’t actually pay until it comes out.  God bless Kick Starter.  Watching this trailer, I can tell I will connect with this movie deeply.  A proper documentary on game development has been a long time coming!

P.S. I just realized the startup making this movie, Blinkworks, is based in Winnipeg!

I want to see this movie!

Life In A Day

Saw this trailer posted on a friend’s Facebook wall.  It’s such a good idea.  I’ll let the official description do the talking:

On July 24, 2010, thousands of people around the world uploaded videos of their lives to YouTube to take part in Life in a Day, a historic cinematic experiment to create a documentary film about a single day on earth.

Now, it's time to watch their story unfold on the big screen.

Directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald, Life in a Day wowed audiences at the Sundance, Berlin and SXSW film festivals and during its YouTube world premiere in January. This summer, you'll be able to watch the movie in a theater near you.

Life In A Day

I’ll definitely be seeing this.

Six Feet Under

I started watching my way through Six Feet Under again.  For those who don’t know, it was an HBO series that ran for 5 years, and is one of the highest rated, most critically acclaimed shows of all time.  And well deserved.  I just watched the series finale tonight.

I first watched Six Feet Under 5-6 years ago.  Some friends and I got into it and watched it religiously on DVD together.  I remember us watching through season 3 in one night.  When the series finally ended after its 5th season, it blew us away. 

Re-watching it now, with more life experience, was just as great, and my opinion on the show has only gone up.  It’s a character drama that follows a family who run, and live in, a funeral home.  The entire series is a spiritual, philosophical and often frank look at death, a subject our society largely shies away from. 

In fact, when you watch it you really start to realize how absurd it is that we almost universally ignore the one certainty about life, that it ends.  Death is perhaps the most personal thing we’ll ever face, and we will ALL face it in time.  During the Making-Of I watched afterwards, there is a statistic that the average person sees over a hundred thousand simulated deaths by the time they’re 21, but are not prepared for the reality of it at all when it happens in real life.  I think this show is one of the very few things in media today to convey the realities of death and grieving.

It’s not all doom and gloom though.  In fact it’s one of the most life-affirming pieces of fiction I’ve ever experienced.  And it’s filled with clever dark humor.  The ending is, suitably, one of the best endings I’ve ever seen, to any form of story-telling.

It frustrates me how many people haven’t watched this show.  They may be offset by the sometimes pretentious nature of the show, or perhaps the subject matter is too hard to handle for some.  But it’s one of the few shows that surpass entertainment to become true art.  Something that is not consumed and forgotten, but stays with the viewer, inspiring them. 

Anyone reading this, I implore you to watch this show.  Like any good character drama, it takes a few episodes to really get into it, because you have to get to know the characters.  But once you do, I guarantee you’ll feel like you’ve known them your whole lives.  And it will remind you that life passes by in an instant, so make the most of it!

Favorite show of all time.

Love

Angels & Airwaves is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.  I love them, and their music puts me in the best mood.  They’re not normally the type of music I’d listen to, but for some reason I love their spacey punk-rock sound.  Anyway, apparently they did a movie and the early reviews are saying it’s excellent and it’s already won a few film festival awards even though it’s not publicly out till November. 

The description sounds awesome.  An astronaut is at the International Space Station and all contact with earth stops inexplicably.  From orbit he watches Earth go dark, and spends years trapped up there.  Until one day he wakes up and finds something else in orbit with him.  During an interview one of them said he goes through a worm-hole and meets God.  Plus another story 100 years earlier during the civil war.  The trailer makes it look right up my alley.

Love

The movie’s music is of course done by Angels & Airwaves themselves.  It comes out in November, and I am now officially excited for it.

Hobo With A Shotgun

This movie was shot in Halifax by a bunch of Halifaxians (?).  The other day there was a long line at one of the local indie theaters for its premiere.  I’m hoping to see it myself at some point.  It’s totally over the top and silly, but in a good way!

Mind: Blown

Sucker Punch Trailer

James pointed me to a cool trailer for a new movie, Sucker Punch, from the director of 300 and Watchmen, Zack Snyder.  Granted, in my opinion, he has a habit of making better trailers than movies, but none the less, here’s another great trailer.

Tron Trailer

Another trailer to add to the list of trailers that do it right.  I wasn’t even looking forward to this movie until this trailer.  Also, Daft Punk doing the OST?  Bought.

The Art Of A Trailer

I love trailers.  To me it’s a separate entity from the movie or game it represents.  For that reason, sometimes a shitty movie can have an amazing trailer, and sometimes a terrible trailer can lead to a great movie.  None the less, here are some great trailers from over the years!

Movies

Watchmen

300

The Fountain

Inception

Little Children

Matrix Reloaded

Where The Wild Things Are

Sin City

Star Trek

2081

Moon

Miami Vice

Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

The Dark Knight

Terminator Salvation

Games

GTA 4

Dragon Age: Origins

Mass Effect 2

Halo 3

Gears Of War

Star Wars: The Old Republic

No Special Effects

This is hilarious.  The band ‘The Swell Season’ was at a bar while on tour and were bought drinks by 2 celebrities, who turned out to be Jason Segel and Paul Rudd.  They became buddies and Jason agreed to be a surprise guest on their tour and sing a song.  This is the song he came up with.

Last Day Dream

Last Day Dream [HD] from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

Wow.

2081

I cannot wait for this short film!  Soundtrack by Kronos Quartet too!  As always, I strongly suggest watching in HQ!

Another Good Weekend, A Long One

Yup, long weekend!  It was fun.  Been hanging out with Melissa a lot lately, very fun.

Saturday I picked her up and we met up with Dann for some pho.  He was playing some games with another friend so he took off after that and it was Melissa and I.  Spent the day clothes shopping at “WEM”.  It was much fun, and bought a t-shirt and sweater.

After that we went to see 500 Days Of Summer.  It was a good movie.  Afterwards we headed back to Melissa’s and watched more movies.  She showed me Sabrina, the original classic.  It was really good!

Moon

In the previous post, the movie mentioned was Moon.  Saw it at The Princess, an old theater that looks like it’s from the 50’s.  It’s on Whyte, and only has 2 screens, one per floor.  The screens were tiny and the seats broke by back.  But it was a fun experience.

The movie itself was a bit disappointing.  It was good, but I was hoping for more.  But I LOVED the soundtrack, and it turned out to be by Clint Mansell, so that figures.  He can do no wrong.

Surrogates

Just saw this trailer for a new sci-fi movie coming out starring Bruce Willis. Really cool concept for a sci-fi, could be entertaining!

Toy Story 3

Oh yes.

When I was a kid I used to watch Toy Story almost every night while falling asleep.

Synecdoche, New York

I just watched the movie which gives this entry it’s title.  It’s the new movie from Charlie Kaufmann, who also brought us Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, and had a helping hand in The Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.  This movie completely blew my mind.  I’m going to have something to think about for months, if not years, and re-watch again and again.  This is definitely the kind of movie you either love or hate, there’s no middle-ground.  It truly achieves what many movies claim.  It’s up to the viewer to decide what it means. 

And whenever that’s the case, a majority will hate it.  “How dare entertainment ask me to make a decision!?”.  I think that moment when you’re forced to decide something about yourself and how you view the world is when something becomes art.  I strongly recommend this movie, even though there’s a good chance you’ll hate it.  But either way, please feel free to talk to me about what you got out of it, because I’d be glad to talk your ear off about my take!

I’ve always been a fan of movies that tell it’s story through metaphor.  Movies where what you see is not what’s happening.  Every scene and character represent something else, and the actual story is deciphered in your mind, and never shown on screen.  This was one of those movies.  When someone asks the question “What’s it about” I could describe what takes place on the screen, but it comes across as a chaotic mess, which when taken literally, it is.  But if you are able to grab the under-currents it takes you on a wild ride.  And to describe that ride to anyone else would probably come across as even more of a chaotic mess.  Especially when, if they caught the under-currents of the film, it probably took them on a vastly different ride.

I guess I just love films that have a firm grasp on the subjective.  Anyone can tell an objective story.  True journeys are told through emotions, not words or scenes.  And it takes a true artist to know how to use that language while chained to an objective medium.

You can probably deduce whether or not you’d like this movie from that rant alone.  And I leave you with this:

I'm singing this song
But it's about you
Whoever else is listening
It's only about you

See there's just one story
And everyone's the star
And it goes like this...
No one will ever love you
For everything you are

And so you build up layers of deception
And you leave out things to alter the perceptions
Of the ones you love
Who would never love you back
If they knew all about you
Every solitary fact

And the sadness of your life
Is built upon this lie
Of really knowing anyone
Or having them know you
It's the sadness of the world
There's nothing left to do

And so just go to sleep
Just let the hours pass
Sleep it all away
None of it will last

Soon it's all over
You're under clover
And none of it matters anymore

Moon

I really want to see this movie: