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By Collin, on May 3rd, 2011

#38 We just watched this on Netflix streaming: Following

The Film: Following

I was fascinated with Christopher Nolan after I saw Momento. After that he went on to become the most important and financially successfuly director of his generation, however, he began with a modest little film-noir movie called Following.

I somehow got my hands on a bootleg years ago in college and was surprised at really how modest the movie ended up being. This movie has no budget to speak of. It even used the aspects of film-noir to stylistically swing black and white film – which is a cheaper stock.

Despite its budgetary constraints, the movie ends up being pretty damn good. The movie is crime drama about a man who follows people for ideas for his new book, however, he ends up getting wrapped up in crime and with a devilishly clever criminal.


Why to watch it: To see Nolan forming his famous narrative style.

You can tell in this film that Nolan was bound for greatness and not just because of his visual style, but because of his ability to build a story out of an unusual, jarring narrative.

The most obvious example is, of course, Memento, but the narrative structure can even be seen in Batman Begins and certainly Inception.

Pay attention to this: The way Nolan sidesteps his budgetary constrictions to make a movie.

The best way to gauge a filmmakers talent is the way she or he is able to make a pretty good movie with not much money. Even for low-budget, Following is cheap.

Nolan uses camera techniques, a b/w film stock, street locations, and, most of all, a really unqiue, odd story structure. This makes the movie watchable.  A lesser filmmaker, with similar resources, would have made complete shit.

Lastly, don’t expect the best movie you’ve ever seen. The movie feels long, even at like seventy or eighty minutes. The acting also isn’t fantastic because they couldn’t really afford to do multiple takes. First features of great directors are always fun to watch, this is one of the better ones.

-Collin

By Collin, on May 2nd, 2011

Ender’s Game The Movie is happening!

## I have written a companion article to this one found here.

The original novel cover...I think. I haven't read the newest novel about Peter as Hegemon. I also haven't read the graphic novel.

After almost fifteen years of waiting, I’m finally gonna’ get to see a movie of Ender’s Game. Fans aren’t that happy about the production company making it, Summit Entertainment, but I remain pretty optimistic.

I have total faith in Orson Scott Card and his tenacious attitude: He’d just as well not make a movie if it doesn’t do the source material justice.

The novel is about a boy Ender who was more-or-less manufactured through mating to be a genius. After the logical deduction to use violence against a classmate, he is recruited into a Battle School for genius children.

A majority of the story takes place at the Battle School as young, genius kids match wits against each other in military games. Like Harry Potter, Ender is sort of “the chosen one”.  He’s a boy with a mind so brilliant that he might just be the hope for mankind.

Mankind has been under attack from an alien race and, after defeating them in the past, a new generation of military minds is needed…

Also important are Ender’s brother and sister Peter and Valentine, respectively. They are an important feature to Earth’s politics while Ender is at Battle School. But I’m not going to get into that here.

A parallel novel that came out many years later was Ender’s Shadow. Many argue, myself included, that somehow this novel manages to be just as, or even better, than the original. The books follows young, tiny Bean as he drags himself through homelessness in the terrible city of Rotterdam. The result of an illegal human engineering racket, Bean is one of the most intelligent people on earth, but is also smaller and scrawnier than most other children. However, he uses his brilliant mind to drag himself out of the ghetto and land himself in Battle School. Eventually becoming second only to Ender in leadership. Ender’s Shadow is my favorite pop, sci-fi novel. It is more sacred to me than even the original. I mention this novel because I have a prediction, which I’ll get to.

My favorite of the series and one of my favorite books ever.

Most fans are commenting on how important the novel was to them. How much a part of their childhood it was and so on. I don’t really care what happens (I can always go back to the book) but a couple things are  bouncing around in my mind.

For once, in regards to the source material, I’m an expert. I’m one of the original, die-hard fans of a beloved book which will be taken on by Hollywood. Like Akira’s adaptation, a few things worry me. In regards to Ender’s Game, here they are:

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