The Importance of Being Idle

This Is Sky Captain: I'm On My Way

Finding myself at the by now traditional something-of-a-loose-end this evening, I decided to rewatch Sky Captain & The World Of Tomorrow, along with all its associated DVD extras, and frankly all I can say is 'Wow!'. Clearly the movie divides people in an extremely marmite way (you either love it or you hate it), but as someone who loves it (the movie - I despise marmite) seeing the insane level of work and dedication that went into it's making is awesome. I really do mean insane too. For example, Kerry Conran spent two years rendering a six minute proof of concept on his home computer as a showreel for the studios, and was actually fairly set on doing the entire movie this way even though it would've ended up taking upwards of twenty years to finish. The people who did end up being recruited to do the CG work were almost exclusively fresh out of college on their first show, and most of them spent two years almost working for free (on second hand equipment, all stuffed into a single warehouse building) bringing their ideas and enthusiasm and expertise to a project that really was a labour of love for all involved. The look of the film (filmed in colour, then bleached to black and white, then recoloured by hand to give a kind of 'colourisation' look to the whole thing) is little short of astounding and its so chock-a-block of references to movies and serials from the 40s and 50s that it's a geeks dream come true. I dunno if anyone'll like it or not (my brother for instance reckons it one of the worst films ever made - which it clearly isn't. Battlefield Earth is on TV right at this minute, now thats one of the worst films ever made...), but if the idea appeals to you even vaguely then I urge you to check it out.
Have I blogged about this before? No I can't have, cos I remember buying the movie in Woolies in Rushden, so I still had a job, which means I didn't have a blog.
Y'know I've never seen Battlefield Earth before, but it really is unbelievably piss poor so far. And a thousand years in the future special effects are really bad apparently. I mean like, Battle Beyond The Stars bad. Although I actually really like Battle Beyond The Stars - I think it was my first (and probably last, to be honest) Roger Corman (he was producer I believe) movie, and a gateway to a world of cheap knock-offs of other peoples projects (it's like [Magnicent Seven + Star Wars - budget] * Exploitation = FUN) . I always liked the Nestor best, although as I've got older I've developed something of an *ahem* appreciation for Saint-Exmin of the Valkyrie (who's line "Have you ever seen a Valkyrie go down?" took on a whole new meaning the last time I saw the movie - I was very sheltered as a child... actually I'm very sheltered as an adult too), not that blondes are usually my thing, but y'know... Anyhow, back to Battlefied Earth. Despite supposedly being some kind of evil, humankind enslaving alien, John Travolta is playing himself, as usual. Oooooooooh now we're in adverts, and scarily even the cheapest of those has higher production values than the movie surrounding them.
Okay, that's enough stream of (un)conciousness bullshit for now. Remember todays salient points:
i) watch Sky Captain
ii) I've lead a very sheltered life
iii) John Travolta ALWAYS plays the same character: John Travolta
We are adjourned.

posted by BadMonkey @ 11:02 PM