Tower blocks, dialects, angry young men, Britain - all the ingredients are there but this ain't no slice of kitchen-sink social realism. No, this is Attack the Block and it's got aliens!
I've read a few reviews of this film and they've all be critical of other reviews that make 'lazy' comparisons with Shaun of the Dead, but while it's obvious, it's nevertheless a pretty good starting point. Essentially it is a story of some normal kids dealing with a brutal alien attack; the comedy lies in their coping with the invasion. However, unlike last months The Highness, AtB doesn't rely on vocal incongruencies (being critical of comedy is a sure-fire way of sounding like an utter twat, sorry) to generate laughs. Here, they merely complement a sharp and witty script that succeeds brilliantly in being in mimicking urban culture. Probably.
It's not a complaint as such, but I do worry that anyone that's older than 35, anyone that comes from a rural part of the country, every American - basically anyone that isn't bang up-to-date with the London slang will struggle to understand large parts of this film. First time director Joe Cornish, of Adam and Joe fame, researched the dialect extensively, and it shows. My hometown, Maidenhead, while being backwards is virtually every way, does happen to keep up with the trends so I faired fine, but people from Dorset for instance may struggle. Americans will need subtitles.
Balancing comedy and action is a difficult thing to do, and often films tip towards one end of the scale, but Attack the Block treads the line with ease. It never forgets to be funny, and it never descends into the gore-fest it could so easily have become. The young cast is very good, with the best of the bunch being Alex Esmail as Pest, the token white-guy. Also excellent are Brewis (Luke Treadaway) who plays a Volvo-driving, middle-class, unemployed stoner graduate, desperate to shed his posh image; and John Boyega as gang-leader Moses, who delivers a performance of real intensity. To further the Shaun of the Dead link, Nick Frost is present (along with Edgar Wright as a producer).
However, the thing I like most about Attack the Block is that Britain has finally produced something of real wit and freshness. The budget is typically British - a paltry £8m - and yet it has the feel of a much larger production. As with last years Monsters, the CGI is relatively light, limited mostly to the aliens, which, by the way, are absolutely fantastic. They're black gorilla-werewolf-dog mofos, absolutely black, blacker even than Jerome's cousin Candice, with luminous fangs. Vicious, enthralling, and original, they contribute immensely to an already strong production
I really recommend seeing this film. It's what the British film industry has been crying out for since Hot Fuzz came along in 2007. We can't compete financially with Hollywood, but talented individuals we can outsmart them. Happily, as mentioned previously, it makes no concessions whatsoever to the international market. It doesn't even make concessions for the beyond-the-M25 market. Go see it, because we may well have another long wait before something like this comes along again.
Thumbs UP!
Friday 27 May 2011
Sunday 22 May 2011
Meticulously preserved monuments are disrespectful to the past
Because apparently writing 2.5k words earlier today wasn't enough...
One thing that's really been annoying me recently is our nation's ridiculous tendency to preserve all the old buildings - castles, stately homes etc - to be looked at (but not touched! You're grubby fingers might destroy this delicate 1000 year old wall!). Perhaps the first time I this bothered me was watching an episode of Grand Designs a couple of years back when a man fought for months for the permission to renovate a utterly decrepit, mostly-collapsed old keep. He turned it into an absolutely fantastic B&B that was respectful of the original building whilst making it comfortable. No one cared about the old building, it was in the middle of nowhere and the only thing preventing it from being refurbished sooner was the ridiculously stringent rules on listed buildings.
I find our tendency to elevate old things to untouchable status disrespectful of the past. You might not have realised it, but these buildings were lived in by real people. They were never intended to be pieces of history, and they should stay that way.
Most of the castles are pretty much in ruins anyway. There's not much to look at. There used to be an outer wall, but it was demolished during the Civil War, you say? Bollocks, I want to see it. Faithfully re-construct it. Once Britain's sorted its finances, I would actually like to see the old crumbling ruins knocked down, the faithfully rebuilt, using the same materials in the same design. After that, either someone could live in it, or it could be opened to the public; either way would be better.
Of course, that raises the massive debate over privatising our new old buildings. God knows we kicked up enough fuss over the privatisation of our forests (though that was justified). It might seem strange, but I would prefer to see these buildings sealed off to the public if it means they are actually being used for what they were intended, rather than just sitting forlornly like a museum piece.
Windsor castle is a model example. It's lived in by the actual royal family, is in great shape, but it also (mostly) open to the public. It's a perfect compromise that retains the integrity of such an awesome looking building. I've linked it before, but it looks so spectacular its worth another eye-full.
I don't think I've quite put into words what I want to express. It's like seeing a magnificent tiger in a cage, or a classic car sitting lonely in a garage, to be looked at but never enjoyed as it should be.
One thing that's really been annoying me recently is our nation's ridiculous tendency to preserve all the old buildings - castles, stately homes etc - to be looked at (but not touched! You're grubby fingers might destroy this delicate 1000 year old wall!). Perhaps the first time I this bothered me was watching an episode of Grand Designs a couple of years back when a man fought for months for the permission to renovate a utterly decrepit, mostly-collapsed old keep. He turned it into an absolutely fantastic B&B that was respectful of the original building whilst making it comfortable. No one cared about the old building, it was in the middle of nowhere and the only thing preventing it from being refurbished sooner was the ridiculously stringent rules on listed buildings.
I find our tendency to elevate old things to untouchable status disrespectful of the past. You might not have realised it, but these buildings were lived in by real people. They were never intended to be pieces of history, and they should stay that way.
Most of the castles are pretty much in ruins anyway. There's not much to look at. There used to be an outer wall, but it was demolished during the Civil War, you say? Bollocks, I want to see it. Faithfully re-construct it. Once Britain's sorted its finances, I would actually like to see the old crumbling ruins knocked down, the faithfully rebuilt, using the same materials in the same design. After that, either someone could live in it, or it could be opened to the public; either way would be better.
Of course, that raises the massive debate over privatising our new old buildings. God knows we kicked up enough fuss over the privatisation of our forests (though that was justified). It might seem strange, but I would prefer to see these buildings sealed off to the public if it means they are actually being used for what they were intended, rather than just sitting forlornly like a museum piece.
Windsor castle is a model example. It's lived in by the actual royal family, is in great shape, but it also (mostly) open to the public. It's a perfect compromise that retains the integrity of such an awesome looking building. I've linked it before, but it looks so spectacular its worth another eye-full.
I don't think I've quite put into words what I want to express. It's like seeing a magnificent tiger in a cage, or a classic car sitting lonely in a garage, to be looked at but never enjoyed as it should be.
Saturday 7 May 2011
An Outrageous Prediction
Here's one for you. Following on from yesterday's free will post, in which I decided that everything is already pre-determined and we are merely following train tracks, I will make an outrageous prediction: eventually (and we're talking a looong way ahead), once we've worked out how everything works, a computer program will be designed, using the laws of physics, that can compute the entire universe. This has two huge implications.
1) What this amounts to is time travel. We will be able move the simulation forwards (or backwards), seeing events as they will unfold. I can't even speculate about how being able to view the future would change the pre-defined path concept. Maybe it would create a loop, signalling the end of everything. Who knows.
2) If we can perfectly simulate the universe, then in starting the program we are effectively creating life. (Yes - this is very Matrix, or numerous other sci-fi stories. How do we know we're not in a progam? Spooky!) If the program can replicate consciousness, then the simulated people would experience consciousness in the same way that we do.
Let me know what you think. Hopefully this is a more fun thought than yesterday's blog.
1) What this amounts to is time travel. We will be able move the simulation forwards (or backwards), seeing events as they will unfold. I can't even speculate about how being able to view the future would change the pre-defined path concept. Maybe it would create a loop, signalling the end of everything. Who knows.
2) If we can perfectly simulate the universe, then in starting the program we are effectively creating life. (Yes - this is very Matrix, or numerous other sci-fi stories. How do we know we're not in a progam? Spooky!) If the program can replicate consciousness, then the simulated people would experience consciousness in the same way that we do.
Let me know what you think. Hopefully this is a more fun thought than yesterday's blog.
Friday 6 May 2011
On Free Will
The idea that we, as individuals and as a collective, aren't in control of our destiny is a scary one, but one we must consider. I will shortly outline my thoughts on why it may not be true, but first we must define Free Will, which is being able to act unencumbered by external forces; we freely make all our own decisions.
There is a well known theory of the multiverse, which is that there exist an infinite number of universes in which things are much the same, albeit with differences on a small scale - the decision to go to this university or that, to ask out a girl or not, etc. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Why, if I have an alternate self in an alternate universe, would I make different decisions? If the constraints, pro and cons, levels of willpower and so forth, are exactly the same, I would make the same decision in universe 2 as I would in universe 1.
History is made up of untold billions of events, not just human but also physical - earthquakes, solar events etc - all of which would be made the same way. The laws of physics are unchanging and consistent, with ultimate knowledge anything and everything can be predicted. If history unfolds under pre-determined conditions, then it follows that the present - right now, me, you, everything - is unfolding in a predetermined way.
Even the decision to act spontaneously is a result of thinking about free will, and those thoughts are triggered by something else. We can do what we like, but we can't choose to do what we like.
However, is any of this important? It still feels like we're in control of our destinies, and the choices we make are down to our own personality traits and characteristics; it is our own unique nebulous consciousnesses that govern our actions (even if those traits are themselves pre-determined).
Someone prove me wrong please, I don't like this. Also this should also be much longer, but I've a seminar to attend.
There is a well known theory of the multiverse, which is that there exist an infinite number of universes in which things are much the same, albeit with differences on a small scale - the decision to go to this university or that, to ask out a girl or not, etc. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Why, if I have an alternate self in an alternate universe, would I make different decisions? If the constraints, pro and cons, levels of willpower and so forth, are exactly the same, I would make the same decision in universe 2 as I would in universe 1.
History is made up of untold billions of events, not just human but also physical - earthquakes, solar events etc - all of which would be made the same way. The laws of physics are unchanging and consistent, with ultimate knowledge anything and everything can be predicted. If history unfolds under pre-determined conditions, then it follows that the present - right now, me, you, everything - is unfolding in a predetermined way.
Even the decision to act spontaneously is a result of thinking about free will, and those thoughts are triggered by something else. We can do what we like, but we can't choose to do what we like.
However, is any of this important? It still feels like we're in control of our destinies, and the choices we make are down to our own personality traits and characteristics; it is our own unique nebulous consciousnesses that govern our actions (even if those traits are themselves pre-determined).
Someone prove me wrong please, I don't like this. Also this should also be much longer, but I've a seminar to attend.
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