Monthly Archives: October 2005

Review: Layer Cake

3 Replies

I’m still under the influence of This is Spinal Tap and what an influence that is. After seeing this movie, the words of Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) come naturally to me:

“The review for [your album] “Shark Sandwich” was merely a two word review which simply read “Shit Sandwich”.

I could really sum up this review as “Shit Cake” but that would be taking away from the movie. It’s an ambitions, stylish, gangster B-movie with a lot of character actors who know their drill and deliver the goods. The problem lies with the protagonist and the angle.

Layer Cake starts with a good premise: a guy, who deals with cocaine, is planning to retire. His partners in crime all have names, he is supposed to stay nameless. The end credits feature him as XXXX, that’s one notch nastier than XXX apparently. The part is played by Daniel Craig who barely makes the passing grade as the new James Bond. He’s neither very tough, nor smart but he does get beaten up a lot. In that way, he’s more like Indiana Jones.

We know he’s not going to retire. These guys never do. The beginning of the end is when his “boss” sends him on an errand. Or rather, two errands. One is to locate a missing girl. The other to find a buyer for a million ecstasy pills. The plot follows the second errand, the first being nothing but smoke and mirrors to make the game more complicated than it actually is. This complexity is something that this movie shares with Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Richie is a master of plot twists and character actors doing the necessary characterization.

Director Matthew Vaughn is also a producer of Lock, so you’d think some of that Ritchie stuff will rub on. Some of the visual style does come off as a bit Ritchiesque. The movie, however, takes itself too seriously and ambitiously seeks to do a character study. The problem with that is you need to care about the protagonist. I didn’t. Daniel’s character felt distant and cold, I never cared, if he was going to succeed with this double-crossing game or not.

If it’s any consolation, Ritchie’s third crime movie, Revolver, fell short as well. When you want to be in the same league as Scarface and Goodfellas, you know you’ll be falling a long way, if you miss the mark. Shit Cake. Watch out.

Info: Layer Cake
United Kingdom, 2004
Running Length: 1:45
Cast: Daniel Craig, Colm Meaney, George Harris, Kenneth Cranham, Michael Gambon
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Producer: Adam Bohling, David Reid, Matthew Vaughn
Screenplay: J.J. Connolly (based on his novel)
Cinematography: Ben Davis
Music: Ilan Eshkeri, Lisa Gerrard

The new James Bond

5 Replies

Daniel Craig - James Bond?Unless you live in a cave on an island, you’ve probably heard that Daniel Craig is the new James Bond. Or, as some people dub him – he’s James Blonde. Being the first blonde James Bond to grace the screen will look good on his CV. (The most recent addition to his CV, Layer Cake, is a disappointing crime story directed by Guy Richie’s producer.)

James Bond’s producer, Michael G Wilson, confessed they’ve considered more than 200 actors. The process took 18+ months and there were scores of fine (too fine!) actors who were rejected: Jude Law, Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, and Orlando Bloom.

I checked a few online polls and they all agreed on one thing: Daniel Craig has a lot to prove. The vast majority of respondents didn’t see him as a worthy successor to the five James Bonds:

  • 1962-71 – Sean Connery
  • 1969 – George Lazenby
  • 1973-85 – Roger Moore
  • 1987-89 – Timothy Dalton
  • 1995-2002 – Pierce Brosnan

Shooting starts this January, so hopefully it won’t be long till we can see for ourselves how good a Bond will Daniel Craig make. The 21st installment of the series is an adaptation of Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel.
The first test will be whether we gonna laugh when he says: “Bond, James Bond”. I hope the script takes care that the line is not right at the start.

Wiki day: Lighting

2 Replies

I recently started to contribute to Wikipedia. I noticed I use it a lot (reading stuff), so I decided it’s only fair if I start contributing as well. Apart from adding a few lines for the English Patient, I created several new stubs on lighting:

  • Classic 4-point lighting setup
  • key light
  • fill light
  • background light
  • back/kicker light

If you’d like to expand these, feel free. I plan to add quite a bit of info on various aspects of the video production.

Gamers at the helm of major studios? Why not?

1 Reply

I just read a very interesting “transcript” from a lunch with Allan Yasnyi, founder of USC’s Entertainment Technology Center. The transcript is posted at CinemaTech, another blog focused on filmmaking. Here’s a snippet:

It’s historically the case that those who don’t have legacy issues can think more creatively,” he continues. “Gamers don’t view digital as a barbarian at the gate. They understand what the audience wants.” Allan says that bringing the audience into the experience, making it more immersive and more interactive, will be essential.

My first gamer’s reaction was – GO Allen! It’s not that I want to become a studio head. It’s just that gamers are rarely mentioned in anything but articles about a Korean boy who had a cardiac arrest because he played Starcraft for 20 hours straight.

The rules of the game seem to be changing, albeit slowly. Most recently, Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, expressed his desire to change exhibition windows dramatically. His agenda pushes for a DVD release that comes right on the heels of the theatre release. That’s not all. Video-on-demand (VOD) versions of the movies will be available within 24 hours of release.

This is a strong indication that pirates (via torrent sites) are hurting these behemoths and they are looking for ways to compete with the alternative online distribution model.

Ender’s Game – When, Oh God? When?

Leave a reply

It’s been quite a while since the fans were alerted to the existance of a “project” to do an Ender’s Game movie. Wolfgang Petersen will be directing and David Benioff (and his writing partner Dan Weiss) are working on the script. The film is in pre-production and expected to be released in 2007. That’s a loooong wait.

David Benioff recently moved from writing fiction to the world of movies. The “start” of his career was the adaptation he did of his own novel, 25th Hour (directed by Spike Lee, starring Edward Norton). He worked with Petersen on Troy and Peterson commented that Benioff proved his ability to take an epic work of fiction and adapt it to a screenplay. Troy is not my favorite movie but I’ll let this comment slide!

If you’re interested in the script development, you can visit a fan site that’s going through some of the character and plot changes in the screenplay. The adaptation will be a difficult task since a lot of the pages in Orson Scott Card’s bestseller are inside Ender’s brain. At the same time, there’s a lot of “externalized” conflict so the challenge will be to balance the two aspects.

I hope they don’t finish up with a mindless CGI fest like Troy.

Coming soon: Panasonic HVX200

4 Replies

If you’ve into HD video production and have been hanging at DVX forums, you’re probably sick of all the speculation about Panasonic new HD cam, the HVX200. Btw, I finally got the specs – check out this review of Panasonic HVX200.

Panasonic HVX200Back to the forum wars… Panasonic got sick too (I guess) as there are even formal protest issued from posters about the lack of information about the new camera. So they launched a new blog site: defperception.com.

A bit of background: the camera sports a new standard, DVCPRO HD, which is NOT compatible with HDV. So you’ll need not only a camera but also a deck and most probably an add-on for your favorite editing program (Avid, right!). Unlike HDV, DVCPRO HD is frame independent (i.e. no interframe compression) and it also supports a 4:2:2 color space. HDV is 25Mbps while DVCPRO HD’s stream is 100Mbps.

The camera records its signal to tiny P2 cards which only hold about 4-10 minutes of video (4GB and 8GB versions will be available). The plan is to add support for Firewire drives but Panasonic insists P2 cards are superior. If one shoots 10-second takes and money is no object, I guess they are right.

The small capacity of the P2 cards undermines one of the advantages of utilizing a video production’s flow: almost limitless running time. If you have to change something every 10 minutes, you’re straight back to a conventional film production. Someone always ends up carrying the reels around.

There’s probably a lot more info coming along so you might want to subscribe to the feed. I did.

Ask Canon: Black is back

10 Replies

Hot on the heels of SONY’s HVR-Z1 release (the more professional version of the Sony HDR-FX1), Canon is upping the ante with the new Canon XL H1. The new HDV camcorder from Canon is positioned very similarly to Canon’s earlier high-end prosumer models (XL1, XL1s, XL2). It’s certainly interesting that the new camera sports the same black, more professional look of its SONY competitors.


Canon XL H1 is the obvious high definition upgrade choice (1080i) for people who got used to the versatility of the previous Canon models. Naturally, the new camera allows interchangeable lenses – a Canon trademark. Statistics on Canon owners indicate that 85% of the shooters stuck to their original lenses which could be part of the reason why SONY sticks to their line of prosumer camcorders with built-in Carl Zeiss lenses.

Canon XL H1

A threat to Canon’s new cam is the JVC GY-HD100U which also supports interchangeable lenses. It comes with a Fujinon HD lens.

The XL H1 will be available in December but there are a few reviews already. One notable issue is that the camera doesn’t support true 24 frames progressive mode but a new format (called 24f) that is supposed to yield “filmlike” video. If you own a small video production company, this one is probably a must-have so stay tuned.

I’ll continue to post new information about it as it becomes available. I’ve always liked Canon’s top-line of prosumer camcorders. One problem could be the price for a XL H1. The other problem is, I’ve always had better results with its SONY counterparts. Maybe this time, it’ll be Canon on top.