The We And The I, directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep) is a heartfelt and comical story about the last bus ride home for a group of high school students and graduates. A normal, everyday situation with everyday people, but as with everywhere, every person has their own story. And sometimes these people and these stories clash, and sometimes they compliment.
After James Bond was declared one of the most important things in Britain by appearing in the Olympic Opening ceremony, it feels right that the latest trailer has arrived.
If this trailer is anything to go by, the James Bond is getting better and better. The films took a notable step up when Daniel Craig took over the role giving it a darker, gritty and more credible edge. They are quickly becoming one of the finest pieces of British film in my opinion, while still including all the usual explosions, car chases and beautiful woman. He even manages to pull of the trademark James Bond cheese moments.
"How much do you know about fear?" "All there is".
Intelligent. Talents. Influential. Relevant. Driven. Aware. There are few people that manage to have all of these virtues in their weaponary, but one man that really epitomises all of these is Ben Drew, aka Plan B. I've written before about Plan B when he did a TED talk. Yes, a rapper from East London, with a number one album and Ivor Novello awards to boot, doing a TED talk, and a very good one at that. From all of the words I threw up at the beginning, the most important one is relevant. Genuinely relevant to the youth of today, that can't be bought and that can't be under-estimated.
There is a reason to all this Plan-B adoration, he has just made a film to coincide with his latest album, Ill Manors. The rapper has described the film as "the hip-hop musical version of Crash", adding: "But I don't want to call it a musical, because none of the actors start singing or dancing or anything. It's quite serious. It's just part of the films are narrated by music. If you can imagine my first record but with visuals… parts are just like a normal film, others are told by kind of music video storytelling." (NME)
The film like brutal and heavy-going, but you can see that there is a reason behind the violence, sex and drugs. Plan B endeavours to look at the motivations and reasons behing the actions, every action has a reaction. And that was very much the topic of his TED talk, not to condemn the youth for their actions, but to understand what led to them and how we can prevent that. I've got a feeling that this film and album could be a really important for Plan B and British youth culture. It's a protest, it's a experiment, it's a explanation and just as importantly, it looks like it's genuinely good. But most of all, it's relevant.
Few movie trailers manage to surprise me, make me almost cry with laughter and have me quoting the film before I've even seen it. But the Ted trailer had all of it. IT. LOOKS. BRILLIANT.
Oh, and Mila Kunis is in it (and the fact that thats the last thing I mention tells you how good this film looks).
It's very rare in the movie industry these days that you get a blockbuster film, that is a trilogy that is actually a seriously good film. Of course no body has seen the final instalment of Christopher Nolan's Batman, but it is probably one of the few films that will actually live upto it's hype. The previous two were monumental commercial and critical successes, with Heath Ledger's Joker quickly becoming a modern-day movie icon.
Unlike so many movie trailers these days, TDKR manages to intice you in without giving you the entire plot. You get the feeling that the guys behind the film know how good the film is and how good people are expecting it to be, so the near silent, almost haunting, trailer works perfectly. Can't wait.
