Volver: Almodovar's Return

Volver simmers with all that you could want from Pedro Almodovar: marvellous actresses, offbeat wit, Sirkian colours, an eye for the eccentricity of the everyday, poignant dialogue, abrupt but adept changes of tone...but never quite comes to the boil. Penelope Cruz in a mature, starring role is stunning in every sense of the word, recalling Anna Magnani and Sofia Loren in her offhand sexual power masking a wounded sense of self. Wonderfully supported by Carmen Maura, Lola Duenas, Chus Lampreave and her Wonderbra, Cruz is the crux of this melodrama with its wrong-footing in the supernatural. The first hour is almost too perfect, but the second dissolves into directionless loose ends. Many promising new themes are elbowed aside by the bland central manifesto of female solidarity, which cannot compete with the conversion of same into the emotional powerhouse of the same director's All About My Mother and so ends up as something of a retread. The drama dissipates instead of accumulating and Alberto Iglesias's score is strangely muted, but Cruz gives one of the finest performances by any actress in any film by Almodovar, in the same rank as Carmen Maura, Victoria Abril, Marisa Paredes and Cecilia Roth. Even a minor Almodovar like this is something of a masterpiece.

Julio Medem on DVD

Julio Medem is one of the most fascinating filmmakers currently working in the arena of Basque, Spanish, European and even World cinema. Thus, his films are being packaged for release in February 2007 as not one but two deluxe but affordable collections by Metro Tartan on Region 2. The first includes Vacas (Cows, 1992), Red Squirrel (La ardilla roja, 1993) and Tierra (Earth, 1996), which has not previously been available. This will be followed by the second box-set containing Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Los Amantes del Círculo Polar, 1998), Sex and Lucia (Lucía y el sexo, 2001) and the 2004 documentary Basque Ball: Skin Against Stone (La Pelota vasca. La piel contra la piedra) . Of special relevance to Swansea is the fact that onscreen film notes on all films and full-length commentaries on Basque Ball and Tierra are being provided by Dr Rob Stone of the Dept. of Media and Communication, who has just finished a critical biography of Medem that will be published by Manchester University Press in February 2007.

The Long Goodbye: Robert Altman 1925-2006

Robert Altman was the director of such important films as MASH, Nashville, The Long Goodbye, The Player, Short Cuts and Gosford Park. Rumours of his failing health surfaced last year when he received an honorary Academy Award just last year and quipped that he suspected he had a woman's heart, thereby revealing he'd had a transplant. Altman was one of the most influential and well-respected directors of modern cinema. Innovative, rebellious and profoundly empathetic, his work was characterised by an initially revolutionary naturalism that was created by long, unbroken tracking shots, overlapping dialogue, multi-level narratives and ensemble casts. Actors adored him for his fostering (some say indulgence) of improvisation. For more information on the man, his life and great career, go here.

He leaves a body of work that is idiosyncratic, unique, personal, political and often magnificent. His greatest works are milestones in American film history, including the black comedy MASH (still the most atheist film Hollywood has ever produced), the revisonist western McCabe and Mrs. Miller, the revisonist film noir The Long Goodbye, the tapestry-like Nashville, the enigmatic 3 Women, the joyous A Wedding, the marvellous satire on Hollywood that is The Player and the elegant and eloquent Short Cuts. He recently directed A Prairie Home Companion from a wheelchair, with one of his greatest and most indebted fans, Paul Thomas Anderson (director of the very Altmanesque Boogie Nights and Magnolia) as his assistant.

At Swansea, his films are studied on the modules Film and Television Genres and Signing the Screen: Film Authorship.

Robert Altman died on 20 November 2006. He was 81.

Blade Runner gets its rightful DVD

At last, the cult classic Blade Runner, Ridley Scott's science fiction-film noir hybrid is getting the DVD special edition it deserves. Trapped in a legal muddle over the copyright of the various versions for several years, it finally bows on DVD next year - and how! Go here for the full story on an excellent website for keeping up to date on DVD releases in general. This multi-disc package will have four versions of the film: the USA Theatrical Cut, the more violent European Theatrical Cut, the 1992 Director's Cut and a final 2007 Director's Cut that has fans and critics panting already.

Of special interest and importance to lecturers and students on the level one course, Introduction to Film Studies, coordinated by Dr Owen Evans, which has the innovative structure of being a multi-faceted approach to this very film.

Rome: All Politics is Local

Worth catching on DVD is the HBO series 'Rome'. Co-produced with the BBC, which promptly emasculated the series by cutting out a lot of the sex and violence (and therefore much of its meaning) for its UK network showing, this series is well worth discovering in its sumptious box-set. A plethora of recognisable character actors take on the supposedly familiar roles of Caesar, Brutus, et al. and render them human instead of mythic. The blood, dirt and intrigue makes 'Rome' closer to HBO stablemate 'The Sopranos' than Ridley Scott's epic 'Gladiator' or the staid theatricality of 'I, Claudius'. Most of all, despite the magnificent detail, it's the scaling down of the politics of the Roman empire to neighborhood squabbles and family conniving that most impresses - and convinces. This revisionist attempt at treating Julius Caesar as a man instead of a myth is akin to 'Downfall's portrait of Hitler and therefore just as problematic.

At Swansea, Rome is studied on the modules Film and Television Genres and Primetime Writers.

Bond Begins: Casino Royale

An emphasis on character and motivation makes the 'new' Bond film into something altogether revisionist. Deeply indebted to the style, punch and topicality of the Bourne films - all that hand-to-hand combat in close quarters and urgent existentialism - Casino Royale feels remarkably fresh and worthwhile, thanks largely to the brutish but noble performance of Daniel Craig as the first working-class Bond (at least the first one can imagine having been a squaddie) and the intriguing, tense chemistry with the sublime Judi Dench as M. Few frills in terms of gadgets or throwaway gags - and even the classic theme is notably absent until the character earns it for the closing credits - but a solid, action-packed and serious reinvention of an icon.
Bond figures as an icon in discussions of British cinema on the module Movements: A History of European Film at Swansea.

Virtual Boy Commercial

Get a second life

When reality gets hard to take, there's an escape to a parallel universe — a virtual world without end where real people create online personas called avatars. Anything is possible.

Catherine Smith showed CBS News correspondent Jerry Bowen that her avatar has "red hair" and "big nice cool glasses."

Read more
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/31/eveningnews/main1852600.shtml

Don't do it

This blog is to keep you informed of the latest media news, also University and departmental news that effects media students.

Click on the image on the right to go to information on plagiarism -->