(A.K.A Hollywood’s love affair with the shaky cam)
I would have really really loved this movie had it not for the shaky cam technique. For the life of me, I can never understand how some directors can derive pleasure out of something which can easily be duplicated by strapping a camera on the back of a particularly frisky dog.
Everytime a fight scene ensues, everything would immediately turn into a clusterfuck of elbows, knees, fists, and some pants.
Seriously, half of the time, I would turn my head to the side and wait for Matt Damon to stand up and say “I win!”
An opposing argument would say how directors want to put you “in the thick of things,” and let you feel as if you’re either the one kicking ass, or the one having your lunch handed to you. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be the guy standing three feet away and betting on who gets to spend the next three weeks in bed.
Also, I think it speaks of a great disrespect for the material as well as the work put in by the fight choreographer. For example, why in the holy hell would Greengrass use shaky cam in a scene where there are just a couple of guys in a boardroom just talking to each other? Can anybody tell me what that was for? The only possible explanation for that is the director didn’t think the dialogue was exciting enough to let it stand on its own.
If you’ve spent any amount of time on Youtube, you would probably have come across these trailers of popular movies re-cut to make them look like something else. I’ve been a big fan of such trailers, and I just recently discovered that they’ve just made a whole new genre for Re-cut trailers. Which is pretty awesome because for the moment, I can’t get enough of these gems.
So I took it upon myself to rank my Top 10 Favorite Re-cut Trailers based on originality, concept, and execution:
10.Kill Christ - One of the first Re-cut trailer made. Not very impressive by today’s standards, but still amusing. 9.American Psycho Redux - True Love can drive you crazy. 8.X3: The Last Standing Ovation - Loses points for execution and video quality, but you gotta love how it unearths scenes from Hugh Jackman’s past which he probably wants to remain buried. 7.Must Love Jaws - Two men, one shark. Much love! 6.Martin Scorsese’s Sesame Streets - The comedy wears thin after a while, but you gotta admire the time the guy spent dubbing the scenes from Sesame Street with some of Scorsese’s movies. 5.The Sound of Music - Holy Crap! 4.Titanic 2: The Surface - A lot of work obviously went into this awesome example of a re-cut trailer. 3.The Shining - I’d watch the shit out of this movie. 2.10 Things I Hate About Commandments - One of the most ingenious trailers in the bunch.
So here’s what was going on in my mind during the movie:
Oh this is boring. This is boring. This is boring. Oh wait, here’s the climax. Maybe this will make up for all the boring parts…..Well that was stupid.
Lemme clarify that a bit.
As much as I was a fan of Christopher Nolan’s Memento, I find myself being terribly disappointed with everything he did after and even before that. Insomnia was unremarkable, and Batman Begins would have been awesome had it not been for the retarded way he photographed the fight scenes. And Following was kinda ok, but lacked a satisfying payoff if I remember correctly. Continue reading ‘The Prestige’
(A.K.A Hollywood’s love affair with the shaky cam)
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