In the future actors will be able to chew the scenery to their heart's content because it won't exist. They'll also look amazingly realistic (unlike current actors) unless the shot isn't a close up, in which case they'll look like cartoons. Cartoons that move strangely. Animals will look like they are being moved by preschoolers (especially the horses). But (and this is a large but) it will all be in spectacular 3D!
Of course I'm talking about the new Beowulf. I don't do reviews (Che does though) but I can sum up Beowulf in one word: Shrek*.
That's what it looked like. Apart from the odd close up of Cartoon Brendan Gleeson (best actor in the film imho). Cartoon Angelina Jolie was the other good looker in the film but possibly because she was naked.
Actually Cartoon Ray Winstone gets his kit off as well but because it's an animated film (and hence not really "art") his man-parts were always covered with helmets or smoke or tableware, making the tense, scary wait for Grendel a Mike Myers comedy (another Shrek allusion perhaps?)
But really I wasn't there for the animation (which was ok but nothing really stunning), and I really wasn't there for the actual film (awful as it was) I was there for the 3D!
I live in 3D every day of my life but never knew that depth was so cool. Sometimes the effect was just a cheap trick of a spear or axe or arrow flying out of the screen. But often the 3D was used to bring a depth to the scene which reflected in the characters and helped the animation seem more real (but not quite). The first Grendel battle scene is one to mention; objects and people actually seemed to move in an actual space.
I am really looking forward to seeing this technology with live action films where the bad CGI actors won't distract me. I have a feeling that the 3D will make special effects seem that little bit more real.
Someone asked on Saturday night (before I had seen the film): do you think [Beowulf] will be as groundbreaking as The Jazz Singer?
Tom answered: Possibly, but the Jazz Singer wasn't a particularly good film either.
* Just to clear things up, I didn't like Shrek either
Taniwha Time Machine
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[image: Entrance to the 'Taniwha Time Machine' on the Wellington
Waterfront, in all it's glorious neon power.]
From the sign outside:
THE WĒTĀ FX SEASON O...
16 hours ago
2 comments:
Actually, I can't take the credit/blame for that comment: I was paraphrasing our colleague Dan from his Cap Times review. What he actually said was: "Ultimately Beowulf isn't much of a film but then neither was The Jazz Singer and look what happened then."
The other point I made in my review (which, due to space and poor writing got a little lost) was that non-film projection has reached a standard where it matches if not outstrips (ahem) 35mm film. Regardless of 3D I was impressed by that.
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