Last night was a different story. Otis and I joined Dingo, Eryk, Sylvio, D-man, and Court2 up at Johnbai and O’s to watch 28 Days Later, which turned out to be even better than a mere zombies-on-crack apocalyptic thriller. Although it was great monster movie that drew more than one scream out of certain members of the audience, it was also an artfully made, intelligent film that offered some commentary on modern life and our feelings about violence (although it might have been a little heavy-handed about it at times).
Oh, and here’s a bit of info from IMDB that might shed some light on the post-movie discussion last night: The exteriors of the streets of London were shot in the early hours of the morning on weekdays. The crew only had a couple of minutes each day, and crew members had to politely ask clubbers not to walk onto the streets. And another: Police allowed a stretch of the M1 motorway to be closed for a few minutes at a time for the scene where you see a long desolate stretch of road. And another: Most of the film was made using digital cameras to give it the really real look (the final scenes in the cottage were shot on 35mm film). An added benefit of the digital filming was that the London shots could be set up and executed much quicker than otherwise possible which helped the filmmakers exploit very tight time windows to complete the scenes of an empty London. And another: The filmmakers had the co-operation of councils and help from the police to clear streets (and a motorway), but only for short periods which would have been useless if not for the flexibility and speed provided by digital video cameras which were used to shoot the entire film. And another: The first scene of an empty London was filmed early on a weekday morning. The director Danny Boyle organized for good-looking women to stop the traffic from entering the empty streets as he rightly reckoned the drivers would be more co-operative with good-looking girls.
That addresses the ‘empty streets” issue pretty completely. Of course, the bits about the digital cameras just add more questions to the discussion about film quality. Anyway, good film, good company, good times.
The cat-pictures:
Cat Ballou.
Grumman Hellcat
Patsy Walker, Hellcat
T.H.E. Cat
Omaha, the Cat Dancer
Felix the Cat
Another one bites the dust department: Third Place Books Ravenna now turns its wi-fi off on weekends to clear out table space. First Ladro, and now this. Backlash? Suddenly, this shirt starts to make sense.
3 comments:
"Heavy handed"? What do you mean? I liked the movie!
It IS a great movie. I was talked into going by Pat's son (13 at the time, and he needed an adult), and after that, I said, "Kid, you wanna go see a movie--I'm your man!" Great stuff.
I think Walaka thinks the miltary stuff at the end was a bit heavy-handed in its arch-ness. Yeah. I agree.
Still a great movie, though.
You missed some backstory, Jimbo.
I liked the movie, too!
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