The Imitation Game

The Imitation Game is a recent film about British computer scientist and mathematician, Alan Turing. The story follows Turing through his struggles to crack Nazi Germany’s Enigma code. In doing so, it helped to enable the allies to win World War II. This movie was based on the biography entitled Alan Turing: The Enigma, and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing, with a supporting performance by Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke, a woman who helped aid Turing with his work.

The film revolves around Alan Turing and his team of code-breakers who are racing against time as they attempt to break Nazi Germany's Enigma code during the Second World War. One interesting aspect of the film is that it spans three key periods of Turing's life: his unfortunate teenage years at boarding school; the triumph of his secretive work on the groundbreaking electro-mechanical bomb, and the misfortune of his post-war decline following his conviction of being a homosexual, a criminal offense during that time. Occasionally, the viewer will be whisked back in time in order to get a glimpse of Turing’s younger years. This allows us to get an understanding of where he came from, and how these aspects have influenced his personality and mindset. For example, there was one point in which we were able to see scenes from his childhood played out in front of us. From this, we learned that his best and only friend had died while they were still in school. This tragedy had a profound impact on his life, and now, along with being a generally socially awkward individual, he is made to carry the weight of his deceased friend as well. The film was unique in how it used these flashbacks to better illustrate his story to the audience, and it certainly had a positive impact on the structure of the film.

August: Osage County

Based on the multiple Tony Award winning play written by Tracy Letts, this new film adaptation has been bringing in a lot of Oscar buzz even well before its debut in the Toronto Film Festival.  It is a dark film with a lot a large range of dramatic and devastating characters which have been noted to only be reserved for the best actors for they are unlike you any characters you have typically seen before. Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, and Benedict Cumberbatch are just a few of the world renown actors participating in this film.

Plot

The story begins with Beverly Weston, a former poet whose wife, Violet (Meryl Streep), has grown weak with cancer. When Beverly disappears, the couple's three daughters and their extended family come to Oklahoma. The couple's eldest daughter, Barbara (Julia Roberts), is having her own marital issues. Middle sister Ivy ( Julianne Nicholson ) has a secret that would divide the family, while the youngest, Karen ( Juliette Lewis ), has a fiancé ( Dermot Mulroney ) who dies.

The film comes out on Christmas Day. 

Cant wait to see it!

New Onscreen Text Messages in Fiction TV

      

Recently there has been a rise in a new form of onscreen information in fiction television.  Made famous by the BBC's Sherlock and Netflix's House of Cards, is the concept of displaying text messages on screen for the audience to see.  These messages come completely separate from the phone and aren't your traditional over-the-shoulder shot that we are used to.  The interesting difference between the two comes in the execution of the concept.  Sherlock features the simple plain text as seen in Image 1 below.  Whereas House of Cards, actually uses a text bubble which makes it feel much more directly out of a smartphone texting application (see Image 2). 

Image 1

Image 2

Admittedly when you start watching these shows (and I have seen all released episodes of both), it is somewhat distracting that this information is being displayed in this fashion.  Once you get a fair ways into an episode however, this technique becomes very effective.  I will say that I find the Sherlock format a bit more efficient in lay out and definitely more seamlessly integrated in; House of Cards sometimes uses the technique in a more distracting fashion.  Part of the reason why it is so seamless in Sherlock is that Sherlock incorporates it as a way to have insight into Sherlock Homes' mind.  When he thinks his way through a problem, his many possibilities are projected onto the screen (see below).  This really helps tie the technique together in a big way.  

    

    

I am very excited to see how this technique of extra onscreen text plays out in the future.  It has huge potential to be a great way to help tell stories.  I would be interested to see how long it takes for it to jump to movies.  

Ready for Summer!

After filming The Goods again, screwing it up by accident and only having one film to screen- I'm ready to relax and watch someone else's projects this summer.

Iron Man 3 just came out and I was lucky enough to see it the night before. It was amazing and a great ending to the trilogy. During the previews, there were a bunch of trailers for films coming out this summer and fall. And I've got to say, I'm super pumped for almost all of them!

Wolverine will be coming back to the silver screen to continue his origin story. Being a Marvel nerd, this makes me super excited for him being in Japan. It's a key point in his story and it also helps that I love Hugh Jackman...

The Great Gatsby is only a week away from premier! Like a lot of people, The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books. The cast is phenomenal and the director is fantastic. He's directed so many beautiful films such as Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet. Baz Luhrmann was a great choice to director this movie.

Star Trek is also creeping up this month and I can't wait to go to the midnight premier! Yes, I do have an Enterprise shirt that I'm planning on wearing to the screening and yes I'm a bit more excited to see this one than the previous film because Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are beautiful men.

Good luck to everyone at the screenings and have a great summer!

Into Darkness Teaser Trailer

At 3:01am yesterday morning, 12/6, the new Star Trek teaser trailer was released.

Here was me and my roommate's first reaction:

We were ecstatic. One of the reasons being that we got to hear the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch AND see him in a number of shots, which we were both not expecting. Now don't get me wrong, Hannah and I were both very happy to see this trailer for a plethora of reasons since we are both semi-Trekkies (I've even met Leonard Nimoy!!), but for this post's sake I'm mainly going to focus on our friend, Benedict Cumberbatch.  Benedict, if you don't remember from a previous post, plays the title character in the British television show Sherlock. This is how he mainly gained his popularity. He actually plays opposite Martin Freeman who is playing Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, while Benedict is voicing the dragon, Smaug, and the Necromancer. Aside from his appearance in The Hobbit, this will be Benedict's first major role in a Hollywood production. 

Being many months before the expected release date on May 17th 2013 and with much speculation surrounding his character, we thought that they would decide not to show Benedict at all this time around. However, in this teaser we see him a number of times seeking 'vengeance.' Knowing that he is the villain of the film, but not knowing what character he is portraying has caused some uproar amongst the fandom. It was rumored for the longest time that he would be portraying Khan, the notorious dictator, however, it has not been confirmed and Benedict has actually denied the association. Some characters that he might possibly be portraying are Khan, Gary Mitchell, Charlie X, or some new character that we have not seen before. I actually hope it is the latter because I would like some new characters.

Regardless of who he plays, I can not wait to see Benedict in his first major Hollywood role.

I have seen him go from the top 5000 on IMDB to 32. I am very proud of him.

Watch him in Sherlock if you haven't!