Vancouver Film Festival: Green Filmmakers See Red

Submitted by Robert Alstead on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 13:14

The 16-day Vancouver International Film Festival gets underway on 1st October. If previous years are anything to go by, you can expect a programme bursting at the seams with world cinema, documentary, music and arthouse work from across the globe. In particular, with the Earth Summit in Copenhagen coming in December, expect festival artistic director Alan Franey to field a strand of hard-hitting environmental documentaries when the full VIFF programme goes live on 12th September.

Top notch, old-fashioned sci-fi

Submitted by Robert Alstead on Mon, 06/22/2009 - 00:35

Sci-fi movies have become increasingly indistinguishable from standard action movies with their big bangs, superheroes, and battles with hostile aliens or murderous machines.

Moon comes from that tradition where space provides a wilderness setting for the exploration of the condition of man. Instead of special-effect whizz-bangs, it offers a quietly impressive and thought-provoking story that in its look and theme pays homage to classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris.

Review: Adobe Production Premium CS4

Submitted by Robert Alstead on Mon, 05/25/2009 - 01:42

There's been big changes in video since Adobe announced the release, two years ago, of Creative Suite 3 (CS3). Even in the months since Adobe released its moving-image editing suite Production Premium CS4, things have moved along apace in videoland. High resolution video has become ubiquitous across the web, from Old Media newspaper web sites to bedroom vloggers.

A very strange tale

Submitted by Matthew Arnoldi on Tue, 03/10/2009 - 15:27

David Fincher’s latest is a memorable and beautifully told story about a man who goes through life in a reverse way to everybody else. Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is born as a baby looking old. We are shown the delinquent father (Jason Flemying) at the beginning, carrying a baby with the precise aim of leaving him in someone else’s doorway, wanting to abandon his child and leave him for someone else to bring up.

Cannes Film Festival

Submitted by Robert Alstead on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 21:38

The Festival International du Film in Cannes first made its appearance in 1946 and since then has has grown into possibly the most prestigious international film festival in the world.