Film Theories

Hello movie fans, and welcome to the newest installment of Eccentric Spheres.

Today we're not talking about movies, we are talking about talking about movies.

I found a great channel on Youtube called The Film Theorists that amongst other things analyses famous movies and theories from a logical point of view.

The video that caught my eye and drew me in was Blair Witch's secret killers. It goes through the original Blair Witch Project and explains how there could very well have been no witch and how the whole film actually is an elaborate murder mystery.

I also learned that Neo from the Matrix isn't the chosen one and that it technically is possible for a tornado to dump great white sharks on Los Angeles.

There is so much more on this cool channel, and if that isn't enough, go check out the sister channel The Game Theorists, for you guessed it, video game theories.

I have to run now, but I'll leave the relevant links below. Until next time, have a great week!

https://www.youtube.com/user/FilmTheorists/featured
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo_IB5145EVNcf8hw1Kku7w

Altered Perception

Point of view.

Perception.

Small words in themselves but they carry none the less great power. I present to you today the power of perception and how it can be twisted.

Consider the following movies:

Monthy Python and the Holy Grail - Comedy

The Shining - Horror

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - Fantasy

Mrs. Doubtfire - Comedy

Right? This is what these movies are, these are undeniably their genres. But with some clever editing and sound work we get this:

Monthy Python and the Holy Grail - Historical Drama

The Shining - Comedy

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - Teen Comedy

Mrs. Doubtfire - Horror

I present to you the “alternative” version of these movies:

Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr2AGCPxQfU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hynaL4K0Ods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ckv_Dz-Sio

That's it for this time, and until we meet again, don't trust your eyes and have a great week! 

Is it really there?

Today's topic concerns trap streets and even trap towns. No, they're not intended to kill people, just to catch cartographical copycats.

In times past, long before Google Maps (and to be fair Bing Maps) a cartographer had to go and figure out where stuff was, and how far apart the stuff was from other stuff. Naturally this was, and is, both difficult and tedious. Obviously it could also be pretty dangerous. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that many mapmakers simply copied others and passed it off as their own work. Naturally this ticked off the real cartographers to no end so some of them started including imaginary places to catch plagiarists red handed. Otherwise it would be impossible to prove copyright. After all, an accurate map should be identical to another accurate map, right?

Sometimes it could be a fake bend in a river, or a hill that isn't there, but more often it's a street that only exists on the map. If you go there you'll only find a whole heap of nothing.

Kemp Avenue in Toronto, Lye Close in Bristol and Moat Lane in North London are examples of trap streets. But whats really fun is the town of Argleton in northern England. Argleton has never existed at all. Today it has been removed from Google Maps, but for a long time it appeared on many different maps. In reality there is and has always been only a muddy field there.

Even more fascinating is the town of Agloe in upstate New York. Agloe was first put on the map in the 1930's by cartographer Otto G. Lindberg and his assistant Ernest Alpers. They included Agloe for the reasons mentioned above. Then one day Lindberg saw Agloe on a Rand McNally map, and promptly cried foul.

The kicker is Agloe was really there, or at least a building with a large sign saying Agloe General Store. So the McNally mapmakers naturally included the town of Agloe on their version of the map.

What had happened was this: The store owners had bought a map from gas giant Esso, Lindbergs map in fact, and seeing that the map claimed the place where they built their store was called Agloe, it would be natural to name their store the Agloe General Store. After all, an official map bought from Esso had to be correct.

That's it for today, until next time, have a great week!

What We Do in the Shadows

I finally got around to watching What We Do in the Shadows (2014) last Friday.

WWDitS is a horror/comedy mockumentary about four vampires who share a house as flatmates in Wellington, New Zealand. They are constantly followed around by the camera crew as they try to explain the reality of their unlives.

The comedy far outweighs the horror, but if you are really sensitive, be aware that there is some gore in the movie. That said, it's not scary at all. The comedy on the other hand is top notch. I found it really on point and clever all throughout the film.

The four main characters in WWDitS poke fun at the traditional vampires in media. There's the 18^th century dandy, we have the medieval Transylvanian, the ancient Nosferatu etc.

A large portion of the comedy comes from the fact that although they are old and powerful, they still have to deal with things like doing the dishes and finding suitable victims in this modern world.

I really don't want to spoil this movie by overselling it or going into too much detail, but I laughed loudly several times. The general atmosphere is silly and dopey without being slapstick and “zany”. It's intelligent humor and it really sticks to the point. Although the vampires are stereotypes, WWDitS is more of a satire about the vampires and their condition than a spoof on other vampire movies.

Being a mockumentary, it's at times blurry and slightly shaky, but there's a good reason for this. It's not Found Footage shaky, which is a relief. Actually, I can't really find any proper faults here.

Bottom line, I really recommend What We Do in the Shadows. Unless you are truly allergic to vampires you really aught to see it. I will link the trailer below.

That is that for this time, so until we see each other again, have fun week!

Virtual Virginity

Last Friday was the first time I tried Virtual Reality gaming. A good friend of mine finally got his Oculus Rift, and I was stoked to give it a shot.

I requested to start off nice and slow and he fired up Adrift, a game where an astronaut (you) is stranded in space amongst the ruins of a broken space station. The sensation was incredible, I got a mild feeling of floating around, gently grabbing oxygen canisters and avoiding floating debris. It has to be said though that I felt a mild sensation of nausea with this game. I think a part of it is the problem that I was sitting down while my brain thought I was moving, which can cause an imbalance in the inner ear. The strongest feeling of realism was interestingly enough my virtual arm. My real arm was holding the controller, but when the character grabbed a canister, it felt so real. Very cool.

The second game I got to try was DiRT Rally. Even though I'm not a racing gamer, with the exception of GTA, it felt bloody amazing! I was in that car hurtling down the dirt road, while my map reader yelled directions and angles at me that made no sense. When I hit a tree, I really flinched. All in all, the coolest driving experience I've ever had in a game. And no nausea! Probably because my brain understands what sitting in a car should feel like.

The third game on the list was EVE: Valkyrie, a space sim/shooter. My fighter launching from the mother ship was totally bad-ass, but boy did I suck at the game itself. Partially because I have no practice using a controller in 3D, so I flailed around a lot and then got shot to pieces. EVE is a very fast paced game, and that was the other problem. I mostly just rotated around, but the sensation was incredible. And like with DiRT, no nausea.

Finally I tried War Thunder. This isn't a VR game in itself, but it works just fine as one. I test flew a Spitfire, and talk about realistic. I got mild vertigo! The sensation of moving forward was no problem at all, but when I turned my head and looked down, I felt the altitude in a way no screen can ever hope to achieve. Gently steering my plane around felt so natural and smooth, I have a hard time expressing it. Just don't look down.

All in all, the entire experience was awesome. Sure I felt some nausea, but I have to wonder if that wasn't my brain being new to the entire sensation. That said, the technology is definitely in it's infancy, but this will only get better. I can't await for it to truly bloom and take it's rightful place in tech history. If you get the chance to try it, do it. You can always close your eyes if it becomes too much, but do try it!

Until next time, have a great week!

Long Good Friday

We're continuing on the theme of old but great films, and this weeks entry is Long Good Friday (1980).

What we have here is a very interesting movie and for several different reasons. First off, it is packed to the gills with famous faces. Actors that have since made their marks in British cinema, but at that time were small potatoes. In fact, this was Pierce Brosnan's first movie role, and his entire dialogue is “Hi”. It seemed like every time the scene changed, I had to pop over to IMDB to identify why a new face was familiar, and there were many.

The second reason this is interesting is because the main character, Harold, is played by the late great Bob Hoskins. Hoskins became best known for his comedic roles like Mr. Smee in Hook and Eddie Valentine in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but here he is a stone cold gangster. And he does it so well. Obviously I can't list every one who was in it, but it would be a crime to omit Helen Mirren, who not only plays the Harold's wife, but also made a huge contribution to the story, mostly to avoid having her character be another stereotypical Mob Moll.

The third interesting thing is the story. Chances are that you've seen a variation of it or two. Harold wants to buy up a large portion of land along the Thames in order to build an Olympic Games compound. This would make him astronomically rich, but he needs a financial partner, in this case the mafia. Unfortunately, just when the American mobsters are in town to seal the deal, someone starts blowing up Harold's stuff, putting the deal at risk.

If this sounds a bit familiar it's because many other films have used it. Take Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla (also a good movie). There a London mobster needs Russian mob money for a property deal, and stuff goes wrong, and the heat is on.

Long Good Friday is very much a child of its time, for good and bad, but in the end it's a good movie. It's not as good as Get Carter, but it's not far behind. It was indeed a tremendously pleasant experience, and I recommend it, if for nothing else than to see jolly old Hoskins play a murderous mobster. It is one of the defining films in British crime cinema and with good reason.

That's it for now. If I find another movie to watch, I might write about it next time, and until then, have a great week!

Get Carter

Continuing on my theme of catching up on older films, last night I watched GetCarter (1971). There is a remake starring Sylvester Stallone from 2000, but I know nothing about it.

So we have Michael Caine as the titular Jack Carter, a violent gangster who returns to Newcastle (where he was born) from London (where he works) to find out why his brother died. Things quickly gets really sticky for everyone. That is the plot in a nutshell.

What makes this movie so good is the incredible atmosphere. The grimy gloom of an industrial city in the early seventies is fascinating. The sense of Doom is palpable from the first scene and it doesn't get any better for anyone.

What struck me as particularly interesting is the way it not only is filmed, but how the story is told. The movie wastes no time on explanations what so ever, it just jumps straight in. These days films are more likely to start at the beginning, and then go step by step, but not Get Carter. Straight into things and on with the show. It was a bit confusing at first, but before long I was fully invested in the story.

What concerns the cinematography, it is really weird at times. There is a poker game at one point in the film, and during that scene there are three conversations going on at once. To make things worse, more than half the screen is covered by the back of someones head. This “half screening“ goes on for a while and then it's back to normal, and it really left me scratching my head. Apparently it was due to sound issues, but it's still a remarkably odd scene. Nothing else get's quite that weird, but there are many odd angles.

Quentin Tarantino has said that this was the movie that inspired him to become a director, and apart form this, it is also lauded as the “godfather” of British crime cinema. I can certainly see why.

This is a bleak, cruel and violent movie, though there is hardly any blood in it. It's worth keeping in mind that the main protagonist, Carter, is a villain. He does bad things all the time, every time, and it doesn't shy away from this. It should be said that it contains an unusual amount of sex, particularly for it's time, and back then it was heavily censored. Be warned there, if that's not your thing. Or if you want to watch a movie with your granny.

Ultimately, this is a movie I should have watched ages ago, and I'm likely to have to watch it again. It's unflinching attitude on all fronts makes it easy to miss things, like why his brother died. It's not quite a “blink and you miss it” situation, but it's not far from …

If you haven't seen it, do so. Really, go watch it. It truly is worth it, and until we see each other again, have a great week!