Bone Tomahawk

The film with perhaps the best dialogue of the year, and one of my favourite all-round movies I saw this year was Bone Tomahawk.

With a great cast, all performing at their best (in fact it took ages for me to realise which actors I was even watching in the cases of Richard Jenkins and Matthew Fox), there was unlikely a better ensemble cast this year.

I've seen read that some people find the pace too slow for what they'd heard was a western/horror mashup, but I would have gladly spent another hour with these characters as they talked their way through the barren countryside. I loved these guys.

When the horror does arrive though, it doesn't take the easy road. There are some truly shocking moments which won't soon be forgotten. 

I made up a simple little poster for the film, after ripping images from the great character posters released for the movie.

Can't wait for S. Craig Zahler's next feature. This was a gem.

Watching the Rocky saga for the first time

I only just saw the entire Rocky series for the first time this Christmas period, as a 35 year old.

Opening title of Rocky, 1976

This was a series that I ignorantly thought I didn't need to see to understand. I thought I would know each and every beat that it delivered, before it delivered it. I thought I would grow bored. I didn't think I'd be invested in the story of Rocky Balboa.

But I was  wrong.

I tremendously enjoyed every film in the series - some because they are legitimately great, and others because of how unashamedly silly and of their time they were (I'm only really looking at you, Rocky IV, and the studio-imposed score to Rocky V).

In a way I'm glad I waited this long. My movie-watching education has been too thorough for there to be many gaps as big as the Rocky series, so I had a very rare opportunity to enjoy an entire classic movie saga that despite its reputation, I actually knew very little about.

And then I got to cap it all off with the recent release of Creed, Ryan Coogler's excellent Rocky sequel/spin-off that showed there are still great stories to be told in Rocky's world. 

The entire series struck me in ways I didn't expect, and I grew to love the Rocky character in ways I woudn't have thought possible.

I apologise to anyone whose love of Rocky I dismissed in the past. You were right and I was wrong, all along. Let's get together and talk Rocky sometime, huh?


postscript:
Following my completion of the saga I created this poster for its latest chapter, honouring its very first.

Victoria movie poster

Victoria, shot as one stunning single continuous take has been the technical filmmaking highlight of my year. And it's not some trick "single take", such as Birdman, this is a real, continuous shot (though a couple of liberties were taken with the soundtrack to edit out director's instructions, crew noise and pesky bystander interference(!)).

Directed by Sebastian Schipper and photographed by Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, the film is perhaps not perfect, but there has been little this year to compare to the breathtaking virtuosity on display, and surprisingly, incredibly, all in service of the story.

We follow Victoria, a Spanish student in Berlin who befriends and spends the her late night and early morning with a group of Berlin natives out to celebrate their friends birthday. While the film spends a great amount of time letting us befriend these characters and get a sense of their camaraderie, it is needless to say that the film does not stay in this Before Sunrise mode for this duration as an unexpected phone call redirects the characters energies towards something dangerous.

Check it out if you get the chance.

Here's my poster for this great movie:

Sebastian Schipper

Photos of Japan, part 2

October in Japan

2015

Nikko:

Photos of Japan part 1

October in Japan

2015

Tokyo:

Kyoto:

 

 

 

Goodnight Mommy Poster

A poster design for the Austrian horror flick Goodnight Mommy that I caught at the Sydney Film Festival this year.

Great, frightening fun, well worth your time. Though there are quite a few moment that may turn the stomachs of more squeamish audience members. See it with someone you love.

'71 Poster

Sure to be one of the best movies I see in 2015.
Yann Demarge's thrilling '71.

Here's a poster I designed after watching it: