Chaos in The Land of Take What You Want

V for Vendetta

Via Citizen Stuart comes news of a film I am looking forward to seeing:

Incidentally, I found some news about another "V" that interests me on the internet tonight. It's not really related to the above story, except maybe in a tenuous philosophical sense, but being as Vs seem to be in the air at the moment, I thought I'd mention it. One of the best graphic novels of the Eighties - maybe the best - was "V for Vendetta" by Alan Moore. It features a mysterious (and morally questionable) character called V who fights against a near future Fascist regime - an outfit so extreme that they use video cameras to monitor the streets ("For your protection"), lock people up without trial and use computer databases to keep tabs on everyone, can you imagine that? Anyway, there's a film version currently in production, by the same guys who made "The Matrix". It's due for release in November (very appropriately, for anyone familiar with the story). I reckon it could be a good 'un, from what I understand it should be reasonably faithful to the original.

War of the Worlds

The fact that Spielberg is currently making a War of the Worlds film is probably of no great surprise to you. But I wonder how many of you are aware that an independent film studio, Pendragon Pictures, has already finished filming what is supposed to be the first authentic movie adaptation of the H.G Wells novel.

Continuity

Back in the mid 1970's who would have thought that this kind of thing would be going on today. It's the 21st century baby, and storm troopers still rock.

I still remember the feeling, coming out of the ODEON cinema after seeing the first Star Wars film. I didn't want to reconnect with a reality that seemed strangely distant and which took a few minutes to come back into stark focus. Having to wait for the second instalment seemed like a huge injustice to an impatient Sci-Fi addicted kid like me.

Of course, things are different now. The film no longer impresses me as much as it did then; how could it? But I just love the fact that the franchise is still going after all this time.

If a 21st century photograph like the one linked to above was shown to a kid of the mid '70s and a similar '70s photograph was shown to a kid of the early 21st century their reactions would be pretty much the same I would think. So what? It's just some kid with a couple of storm troopers. That's how good the Star Wars franchise is.

As grown ups we might moan and groan about the newer films but let's not forget our past. My mother, who saw the first film with me thought it was a nice film and it hardly registered with my father at all. Kids taking photo ops with storm troopers in 2004. That's success.

The England Project "BEST STILLS AWARD" - Rocky Horror Picture Show

One intermittent service provided by The England Project is The Best Stills Award. This is where we take a film and search through it looking for the one or two best stills from the whole production. Stills that, coupled with their actual context, sum up the best that the film has to offer. Stills that distil the film. That show its essence in its full splendiferous glory.

In this issue: The Rocky Horror Picture Show:

I'm Going Home

Please, no arguments. A lot of work has gone into this.