Silent Night Zombey Night: an Xmas evening of undead entertainment presented by Sarnia Shorts
Posted: December 5, 2011 Filed under: Festivals, Walking the walk | Tags: fund raising, George A Romero, Guernsey, Jack De La Mare, Night of the Living Dead, Sarnia Shorts, Zombey, zombies, zombola Leave a comment »
SARNIA SHORTS FUNDRAISING EVENT:
‘SILENT NIGHT ZOMBEY NIGHT’
One Night, Two Films, Many Zombies!
Sarnia Shorts are holding a Christmas evening of zombie related mayhem to raise funds for the proposed ‘Sarnia Shorts 2012’; Guernsey’s international short film festival.
As well as screening George A Romero’s horror classic Night of the Living Dead (1968) we will be premiering Zombey (2011), a horror comedy by local filmmaker Jack De La Mare, about a group of zombie apocalypse survivors who seek shelter in a school, only to find it overrun with the undead. The film was shot at the Guernsey Grammar School with financial support from the Guernsey Arts Commission.
The evening will also feature a Q&A with Jack De La Mare and cast and crew members and a ‘zombola’ prize draw with the chance to win some of the best zombie cinema available.
The aim of Silent Night Zombey Night is to raise funds towards the launch of the Sarnia Shorts festival in 2012 and assist with the festival’s specific aims of increasing youth / student involvement in the arts and raising local interest and awareness of the event.
Event Details
Date: Wednesday 21 December
Time: 7.30pm
Location: Princess Royal Centre for Performing Arts
Tickets: £8 available at www.guernseytickets.gg or on (01481) 749999
Ages: 15+
Follow Sarnia Shorts on Facebook…
http://www.facebook.com/SarniaShortsFilmFest
Follow Zombey on Facebook, check out the trailer etc…
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zombey/148836005185886
Zombey was partially funded by the Guernsey Arts Commision, guess where you can follow them…
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Guernsey-Arts-Commission/370087922626
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011) / The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
Posted: November 6, 2011 Filed under: Films | Tags: Cinema, cold war, Downton Abbey, DVD, Film, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Movie, Schindlers List, The Lives of Others, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tomas Alfredson Leave a comment »
Given the overwhelming plaudits aimed at Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy it seems pointless just to rehash what seems like common consensus; this is not only a strongly acted and expertly scripted adaptation of Le Carre’s classic novel but is also filmic in the purest sense with each shot, each visual detail and look being integral to the whole. Similarly, The Lives of Others, another recent Cold War tale, was released to a flurry of acclaim. Alfredson’s film seems destined for awards recognition just as surely as the earlier film.
Although the two films deal with similar ideas, I think there is a crucial difference as The Lives of Others, well intentioned as it is with it’s ‘if only they were exposed to the right piece of art’ philosophy, is ultimately a film made empty by it’s ‘quality’ credentials. It is ‘quality’ drama for exactly the same reason that Downton Abbey is; easy on the eye and deep because of the subject matter rather than what it has to say. As well acted as it is, we start off in agreement that the East German state was not a terribly great thing and, lo and behold, end up having learnt nothing more. It is cosy and nice to look at with a nice historical remove and, like Schindler’s List (1993), we can shake our heads and say ‘never again’ whilst identifying with person who did the right thing.
Where Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy succeeds is in the blurring of these lines. It presents the Cold War as a cancer of paranoia infecting society from top to bottom and the sickness is visible in the smoke filled rooms. This is a film where politics are personal and visa-versa and even the brief glimpses we get into two character’s homes show the taint of disease; in short, everyone is compromised and that, in-turn, compromises us. Tales about good people and bad people are fun but they don’t do that, they let us off the hook.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is in cinemas now and The Lives of Others is available on DVD.
Attack The Block (Joe Cornish, 2011)
Posted: November 2, 2011 Filed under: Films | Tags: anti heroes, Assault on, Attack the Block, Cinema, DVD, Film, Jack Carter, Joe Cornish, John Carpenter, Moses, Movie, Napoleon Wilson, review, Riddick Leave a comment »“I’m killing ‘em, I’m killing ‘em straight.“
With it’s besieged locale and rag tag bunch of defenders and anti-heroes, Joe Cornish’s debut feature harks back to John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). Where it differs from it’s forerunner is in it’s honesty.
Attack the Block is a difficult film to watch mainly because it doesn’t neutralise it’s anti-heroes in the way that we are used to seeing. Napoleon Wilson, Richard B. Riddick and Jack Carter have all killed and at least one of them is commonly seen as a psychopath but they are figures with a strong fanbase. Where they differ from Attack the Block’s Moses and his gang is in their concessions to the audience. They carry out actions that allow us to like them; Wilson won’t leave a man behind and neither will Riddick whilst Carter is on a quest to save a family member. There is a sense that their actions are redemption for previous lives and so the films in which they appear give us a cosy moral permission to cheer on the bad good guy; that is the fraud of the anti-hero.
Attack the Block doesn’t do that. At the start of the film the gang mug a young nurse and later, when they and her join forces, the closest they come to any kind of understanding that they might have done something wrong is a twinge of guilt when they discover that their victim lives in the same block. There is no real growth just a blindness to anything outside of their own selfish understanding. Moses is a real anti-hero and so consequently, the film needs much more threat to get the vieweronside with these guys, a level of danger that it sadly just does not have…
…but honesty is a virtue and any film that questions a genre also nudges it forward slightly and is worth watching.
Attack the Block is available on DVD.
Marlon Reynolds / Burt Brando
Posted: October 28, 2011 Filed under: Rants, Raves & Randoms | Tags: Burt Reynolds, Cinema, Dawn of the Dead, Film, Marlon Brando, Movie, Night of the Living Dead, treasure, YouTube, Zack Snyder Leave a comment »Here is why I love Youtube; you go on there looking for a particular clip from Night of the Living Dead (1968), click on a scene of Dawn of the Dead (1978), jump to the ‘zombie Burt Reynolds’ execution in Zack Snyder’s remake and then you find treasure like this…
Brilliant.
The Dead (Howard J Ford and Jonathon Ford, 2010)
Posted: October 23, 2011 Filed under: Films | Tags: Cinema, Coca Cola, Conrad, DVD, Film, Howard Ford, Jonathon Ford, Movie, review, Rob Freeman, Romero, Tesco, The Dead Leave a comment »“…the dead are everywhere“
Zombies are great baddies because they are inevitable. Whether they walk or run (these ones walk) they just keep coming. You can stop one by shooting it in the head but the gunshot will just attract others. You can put distance between yourself and them but they will catch up. They are always there, shuffling into focus. They are also every ‘ism’ and ‘ist’ going; they are both the red menace and capitalism run amok as well as a walking reflection of all our xenophobia and misogyny.
The Dead is a great zombie movie because it knows this and the walking dead exert pressure over every scene. They are always there. Shuffling into focus. As is the African location and the naivety of the protagonist’s (Rob Freeman) presence therein. These things are explicitly (thankfully fleetingly) spoken of, but are mainly left to linger like the appeal adverts that punctuate the messages from the good people at Coca-Cola and Tesco. This is the zombie plague as envisaged by Romero and tainted by Conrad and a couple of hundred years of imperialist guilt and confusion.
The Dead is available on DVD.
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