Review: The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists.

*Tap tap*

Erm, hello? Is this thing on?

*Whack!*

Ah ha, there we go! Wonderful, we’re back in action and this thing still works.

And I’ve woke this blog from its cryogenically frozen status to give a little movie review, the last one being War Horse all that time ago.

Today the film in question is Aardman Animations/Sony Pictures ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists.’  Now there’s not much room for analysis, symbolism or anything of the sort and hey, we’re not in a classroom anyway so this review is going to be nice and simple.

This film is excellent. It’s excellent because it achieves everything it should and then some. Let’s start with the fact this is an Aardman film. That means two things to me – firstly it should appeal to both children and adults and secondly, it should contain a hefty dose of brilliant British humour. Well check and double check. When I brought up the idea to go see this film to my friends, most of them were up for it. A few, however, were dubious – they were worried we’d be the oldest attendees minus parents of course. I mean, how sad! A group of almost 20 year olds going to see a U rated film!?  They must be girlfriend-less, dead, boring, nerdy, dorky, geeky, sad, pathetic, lifeless people who have no time for grinding, drinking, clubbing, groping or dancing.

Well, only some of that is true (thankfully).

No no, I had faith this film choice and my faith was well-founded. An Aardman film is much like a Disney Pixar film – the Toy Story franchise for example is adored by all ages. They contain dialogue for both children and adults, their stories are clever and interesting and they are well made and crafted with love avec a cherry on top. Overall they deliver films of high quality time and time again. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists is no different.

One example of this is the fact I actually laughed! Incredible, I know. Usually I’m quite stone faced watching films (see soppy, gushy, manipulative War Horse and then my review for case in point) but several times a chuckle evolved into a full blown guffaw. I was shocked myself in the cinema. The fact it isn’t even a sole comedy and handled action/adventure skilfully as well proves its worth.

An aspect of the film that caused much of the above said laughter was its little details. Like Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, The Pirates! is highly re-watchable because of all the minute jokes you don’t catch the first time. There were some I noticed in the cinema such as one pirate crew member wearing a Blue Peter badge, as well as on an entry form for ‘Pirate of the Year’, the loudness scale topped at ‘Brian Blessed’ level (who in fact voiced the Pirate King).  I’m sure there were many more I didn’t catch, which is most certainly a good thing – I loved the attention to detail.

The Pirates! is of course a stop-motion animation film, being from Aardman and all. They’ve clearly perfected the production time for stop-motion since The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as that took over five years to produce. However, another method that was introduced to keep production efficient was the CGI. Unlike The Curse of the Were-Rabbit which was solely stop-motion animation and Flushed Away which was solely CGI animation, The Pirates! has a mixture of both to great effect. For example, the sea would be practically impossible to animation with clay, so CGI was used instead. And surprisingly, they blended well together – it wasn’t jarring in the slightest.

Concerning the stop-motion animation – it’s just amazing. Any stop-motion animation impresses me because it takes such patience and skill. I think its effects are clear if we compare The Pirates! with Flushed Away (which used CGI in the style of stop-animation). The real deal in The Pirates! adds this fantastic level of texture, it’s so tactile and tangible. These models actually exist and you can immediately sense it. It’s this very reason why so many scathe the overuse of CGI in films today (including myself), if something is not really there in the scene it’s as clear as day.

Enter mini-rant paragraphs about CGI. One good example of this ghastly use of CGI is the Star Wars films. Whilst many look upon the original with rose-tinted spectacles, one aspect that is absolutely true no matter what is the visuals. In the original three films, they used models and miniatures to convey the huge star destroyers or planets. And it works – you can feel the monumental destroyer pass over you in the opening shot, you can feel the AT-AT’s march on jerkily through the planet Hoth. With the prequels, Lucas just went crazy with the CGI – most of the time the actors are just standing on a green screen stage in front of some glitzy, showy background. It’s empty, lifeless and so very boring.

Anybody who has seen Jason and the Argonauts will remember the famous sword fight against seven skeleton warriors, done by stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen – it is truly awesome, and this was back in 1963!

(Might I add I’m not saying all CGI is bad, only when it’s overused. Neither am I saying it’s easier – good CGI animators are just as competent as stop-motion animators.)

Whilst watching some of the set action pieces in The Pirates!  I had to remind myself this was made with pieces of clay moved with minuscule precision thousands of times. It’s astounding when it all comes together to achieve shots so fast and frantic they match something out of Rambo.

To conclude, I’ll just add that the cast were superb. Hugh Grant’s bumbly, British persona transitions well to the Pirate Captain and among his crew you’ll notice many other noted British actors including Russell Tovey, Lenny Henry, Ashley Jensen and Martin Freeman.

Overall The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists is a fun, jolly film. Imagine Wallace & Gromit in pirate form and there you go, need I say more? Go watch it, or bask forever in the scurvy depths of Davy Jones’ locker!

Arty Stuff - Self-portrait Update Part Three: The Face Strikes Back

Indeed, more arty pictures have arrived. The chin is better, as is the gradient on the right side of the face. Eyes are dodgy, but they're also incredibly annoying to get right so after half an hour fiddling with them I gave up...for now...

p.s. I've just realised I got the two Star Wars title references in the wrong order. How embarrassing! Clearly the force is not with me.

Arty Stuff - Self-portrait Update Part Deux: Return of the Noggin.

Still not sure what to do with the background or shirt, but the eyes are slightly better. It's coming together nicely.

I know it doesn't look like too much but it's the little things. Also, during this painting session, this happened...

That's right, I let my tea die. Horrible I know. Pronounced dead at 22:12, the cause of death was hypothermia. It was a graphic sight, I'm sorry I had to show you.

Arty Stuff - Self-portrait Update

Just a minor update. It's getting better though I wish I could take some decent photos of it. I've never been one for photography that's for sure (also I blame the camera).

Review: War Horse

Well, here’s the obligatory review for War Horse, having watched it not too long ago.

Before starting I should probably point out that I have neither the read the book or seen the stage play.

Oh and SPOILER ALERT!

My thoughts on War Horse are, to say the least, complicated. Much of this is probably due to the fact that every time I go to the cinema I usually know what I’m going to see a few days in advance. In those few days I can formulate a good impression of the film, what it will be like, genre, plot, perhaps even some early spoiler-free opinions from critics and such (i.e. Mark Kermode). Going to see War Horse was different – it was very much a spur of the moment kinda thing.

Therefore, the only fleeting glimpse I managed to gain before seeing it was that it was going to be sad. Very sad. Sob in the cinema sad. Now I wouldn’t say my heart is made of stone, but its strings certainly aren’t as ‘tuggable’ as others which ultimately meant there were no boo-hoo’s from me. In fact, I eventually skipped past the ‘sad’ state and galloped straight into the disgusted and/or bored.

Why? Well let me explain – War Horse isn’t a family film by any means at all. The BBFC gave it a 12A? Pfft, that means nothing! This film is a depressing rollercoaster of misery and wretchedness with each twist and turn and loop de loop causing another convulsion of pity so that by the end of it you’re overwhelmed with supposed sadness rendering you an emotionless robotic machine.

Y’see, I’ve always thought to gain a sense of sadness, you need balance. An audience needs to invest in the good times of a character (at least times when they aren’t about to die or lose their farm) before anything bad happens. That way, when the bad stuff does happen, its juxtaposition is heightened. The contrast between good and bad, happy and sad is clearer to the audience and the overall effect is strengthened through this.

Let’s put it this way, I have two videos to show you. One is of a little mouse being wholly digested by a snake. The other is a video of a mouse spinning on a wheel, nibbling on a hazelnut, running around in a little ball and then being wholly digested by a snake. Which of the two would make you feel sadder? Perhaps not even sad, just more emotionally invested?

If your answer is the first one then you are wrong – you lose, you get NOTHING!

The clear (and correct) answer to that question was the latter. To see the positive times of a mouse be dissolved away by the acidic stomach juices of a serpent isn’t very nice and because we know what the mouse was like beforehand, it makes his death even more tragic. To just see a video of a mouse being eaten is kinda gross and disgusting and most people would just turn away and not want to watch it.

Well, for me, that was War Horse. The fact that War Horse is a children’s book makes it even stranger – oh Michael Morpurgo, you devilish fiend! The constant barrage of woe was brought to the forefront by the episodic nature of the film as the horse travels around Europe bringing death and destruction with it (though the First World War helped in that respect).  Throughout we meet an array of different characters, Albert of course, but also a British general, two teenage German brothers, a French grandfather and his granddaughter. They each have their own ‘episode’ though I must admit; these episodes are even more miserable and deadly than one of Eastenders! You need proof? Sure, let me list what happens to each –

• Albert – Loses his horse to the war, has to then fight in the war (including Somme), sees his Devonian friend disappear in a cloud of poisonous gas and die, suffer temporary blindness due to said gas. And I’m guessing here, but will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder for the rest of his life.
• British General – Starts writing a letter to Albert to tell him how Joey (the horse) is doing but before finishing has to fight in a mounted charge towards German machine guns. Have you heard of the phrase ‘never bring a knife to a gunfight’? If so you can guess what happens next.
• Two teenage German brothers – The older brother stops the younger (and underage) brother from fighting in a battle and hence has to desert the war camp. Hide in a windmill from the army, get found – are shot.
• French grandfather and granddaughter – Their home is ransacked by the army, granddaughter dies. Old man has to live alone for the rest of his life.

Right, I think I’ve made my point on that subject. Believe it not there were some things I liked about the film. For example the battle scenes, though ‘romanticised’ in Spielberg’s own words, were still shocking and brutal. Of course there was no blood or limbs flying a la Saving Private Ryan, but it’s a good example of how such horrific scenes can still be intense without the need for gore.

I also liked the acting for the most part though the main character, Albert played by Jeremy Irvine, did have some cringe-worthy horse whisperer scenes. My favourite character has to be the malicious landlord played by David Thewlis, because he was Lupin and once again, holds to his face a wonderful moustache. In fact, War Horse in general had a glorious assortment of moustaches so if you’re an aficionado; you have that to look forward to.

There are many feelings, thoughts and concerns I had when watching the film that I’ve quite clearly forgot, but my overall opinion is that it leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth. Now many can argue that you have to face horrible moments throughout life and films should not ignore these emotions just because they aren’t all sunshine and happiness and puppies and rainbows. I agree, films are a reflection of humanity's cultures, history, personalities etc and let me tell you a lot of that isn’t pretty, but at the same time films should be entertaining. Entertaining not in the sense that it leaves you feeling happy, but entertaining in a sense that you go through a film and come out of the other side feeling satisfied, even if the overwhelming emotion is sadness. For example someone could see a film about a horrible subject, say…rape and come out of the cinema feeling glad they went through that.  I didn’t feel satisfied and after the pull of the strings by the film to make me feel sad (many movie-goers didn’t like the amount of manipulation by War Horse in order to provoke sorrow), I instead wished I’d never seen the film at all.

Self-portrait progress.

Here are some photos tracking my progress of this self-portrait - the first 'proper' self-portrait I've ever done. As you can see, at several points I looked freakishly mutated. That's the glory of art...

The Discombobulated Face Phase

The Smurf Phase

My theory with The Big Bang Theory

My mum really likes The Big Bang Theory. It’s weird and I don’t understand it. Well, I didn’t until I started watching quite a few episodes of it.

Now I’ve got a few theories as to why it’s good :-

• The show is truly geeky and takes itself seriously with it. At one point Sheldon was naming what had been stolen from their apartment, including several video games. He then went on to actually name some games such as Halo, Modern Warfare and Final Fantasy. In any other programme, they wouldn’t have specified or even known what to say. I was impressed.

That’s about it. Truth be told it’s not incredibly funny.

Back to the Future

Ok, let’s get all the belated pleasantries out of the way - Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and for good measure have a happy Hanukkah, kwazy Kwanzaa, tip-top Tết and a solemn, dignified Ramadan.

So it’s 2012, at last. This blog enters its third year of existence (kind of) which is quite cool, if I say so myself. When I first started this thing with haphazard test posts and random, creepy crap I never expected it to go on for this long. Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves though; these three years haven’t exactly been jam-packed with posts. Quite the contrary, several hiatuses (hiati?) have plagued this blog but every time, like a freshly resurrected phoenix, it bursts back into life for a few weeks then promptly dies once more. That’s the life-cycle of this thing I’m afraid and I doubt it’s going to change much.

What interests me more so is how I’ve changed the use of the blog. If you can be bothered to cast your eyeballs back to the posts made in 2010 around summertime, you’ll see I actually started this thing relatively seriously. Posts about game reviews, updates, analyses – it was all rather clean and sterile. You’ll also probably see lots of typos and grammatical mistakes, but proofreading was non-existent back then.  As you sweep through the posts, they do gradually change and the whole site becomes a lot more personal, especially with the introduction of random rambles and art-farty posts (which reminds me, I have some pictures to upload later). I like this style.

The problem however is that my life isn’t interesting enough to produce frequent posts in that style. Believe it or not I don’t have rants to spew out onto the internet every day – not yet anyway. Nor do I have art photos*, film reviews or random shtick to upload daily.

*Tell a lie, I may have daily sketches to upload if I continue contributing to this thing called SketchDaily on Reddit.

What I’m saying is that perhaps a mixture of the two styles will work best. When I don’t have personal ‘insights’, rants, rambles, ponderations and pictures to post, I can take something I’ve been reading on the glorious internet (probably about films, games, TV or gasp even politics sometimes (though interestingly, I’m much more interested in American politics than British…take that David Cameron!))  and give a little opinion on the matter.

As Grampa Simpsons once said “A little from column A, a little from column B”