zennyglin @ logo works pro

posted a comment on:

Margin Call

I think most businessmen and women should see this movie and this can help them as well...

17 / 11 / 2011, 07:19

VictoriaNicole23

posted a comment on:

Puzzle #4: Working Days

Oh!I really hate mathematics..I had to take a lot of efforts before I already comprehend the...

15 / 11 / 2011, 19:46

fergusonsarah

posted a comment on:

Johnny English Reborn

I love this movie! Very entertaining and funny.. :)

15 / 11 / 2011, 02:25

Marvel teased us with the release of this film near the end of various previously released super hero flicks like Captain America and Iron Man 2. This would be the movie that unites all the super heroes from the Marvel universe. Well actually, only those that had not been previously licensed to other studios. Hence, you will not find characters from X-Men, Spiderman, or the Fantastic Four in this movie. Director Joss Whedon brings back fond memories of creative television series like Firefly and Dollhouse, but what does he make of a 220 million blockbuster production?

Hugo

Almer S. Tigelaar 06 / 03 / 2012

Hugo is based on a relatively recently released (2007) award winning book by Brian Selznick. It is not surprising that the film rights to the books were quickly sold, and certainly not by the least of directors either: Martin Scorsese. He has a career spanning decades and has directed a string of movies in recent years which I liked, among which are Shutter Island, The Departed and Gangs of New York. However, those were admittedly all in different, less family friendly, genres. So, I went to Hugo hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

How long would it take to read Wikipedia?

Almer S. Tigelaar 21 / 02 / 2012

Wikipedia has become the de facto encyclopedia on the Internet. A traditional encyclopedia spans many textbook volumes which would take any normal person ages to read. Few people would likely engage in such an endeavor. However, since Wikipedia is readily accessible: should you take up the challenge?

Almer S. Tigelaar » Movies

Life in a Day

Almer S. Tigelaar 09 / 02 / 2012, 09:00

The premise behind the YouTube documentary “Life in a Day” is interesting: invite everyone around the world to shoot video on one specific day: July 24th 2010. Have people upload their raw footage and edit it so it becomes a short, ninety minute, documentary that chronicles a single day on our planet. Does this extreme form of crowdsourcing actually work?

The goal of a film is storytelling and doing this by combining random contributions seems like a formidable challenge. The organizers received over eighty thousand submissions and had a total of about forty-five hundred hours of footage to work with. For making something coherent out of all this, the film had a lot of talent to work with. Scott Free productions, owned by the brothers Ridley and Tony Scott, known for heavyweights like Top Gun and Gladiator, was involved as production company. Kevin McDonald was attached as director, and Harry Gregson-Williams as composer. The excellent music, and several montages set to rhythm, help a great deal with keeping things dynamic.

The film starts and ends with a view of our moon, and proceeds chronologically from the earliest hours to the end of the day at midnight. Footage from all around the world is included. While the first couple of minutes may seem a bit random, gradually more coherent stories form. Most of these are in the form of personal narratives that give a brief window into the lives of real people. This includes everything from the mundane and materialistic to fairly gripping emotional moments.

The film can be viewed as a time capsule and gives a beautiful broad portrait of the human condition around mid 2010. It presents many events, beliefs and themes in a non-judgemental way, perhaps that’s the greatest strength of this documentary: just allowing the viewer to observe things and not trying to impose a message. A succesful experiment. Recommended!

The trailer is below. You can watch the full ninety-minute version on-line here.

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