Film Reviews

Film reviews, consisting of an analysis and a rating, are produced both by critics and fans. Critic reviews can be found in newspapers, magazines and online. Mainly new releases are reviewed and the critics usually see the film once and only have a day or two to formulate their opinions. Critics have an important impact on the films, especially on certain genres. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of any film review can have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films with a limited release, such as independent dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.

Online reviews.

There are some film review websites, for example:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/film+tone/reviews

http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/

http://www.channel4.com/film/

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/ - all of these provide both critic and viewer comments and ratings.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

At first it seemed to me that this film is loved by critics, since it received 13 Academy Awards and 11 BAFTA nominations, however, the truth was different. From the 11 BAFTA nominations, it won just three: Best Makeup&Hair, Best Production Design and Best Visual Effects. I believe these were not the kind of wons everyone were hoping for, since "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was also nominated for categories such as Best Film, Best Director - David Fincher, Best Leading Actor - Brad Pitt, Best Cinematography - Claudio Miranda and Best Editing, basically, the kind of nominations film makers are working/hoping for. The critics reviews were sometimes completely opposite, for example, The Guardian gave it just one star, whereas Empire voted it the highest 5 stars.

Article from The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/feb/06/benjamin-button-brad-pitt-cate-blanchett

Article from Empire http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=10606

The funniest thing about these two is that they both are complete opposites, not only because of the 1 and 5 star rating, but because The Guardian says: "Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett star in 166 minutes of twee tedium about a life lived backwards" whereas Empire: "Aptly for a film so concerned with time, Button is 13 minutes shy of three hours and just flies by. If this is Fincher selling out, can he sell out more often please?"

Film marketing

Film marketing is used by most film studios. They invest in expensive marketing campaigns to maximize target audience attendance of the released film early in the release cycle. Film marketing techniques are:

Television and radio

• Trailers
• On-set posters and action figures
• Talk shows
• Entertainment programs, news programs
• Behind-the-scenes documentary shows
• Advance trailers, longer previews, behind-the-scenes footage on rentals or DVDs

Internet

• Studio-sponsored per-film websites
• Viral marketing - free distribution of trailers on film-oriented websites

In print

• Paid advertisements in newspapers, magazines and inserts in books
• Cross-promotion of original book or novelization, including special printings or new cover jackets
• Comic special editions or special episodes.

Advertising of “The Dark Knight”

The advertising of The Dark Knight started in May 2007 when 42 Entertainment began a viral marketing campaign using films tagline “Why So Serious?” They launched a website featuring a fictional political campaign of Harvey Dent. Throughout the pre-release period, fans were asked to complete tasks. On October 31, 2007, the film's website morphed into another scavenger hunt with hidden messages, instructing fans to uncover clues at certain locations in major cities throughout the United States, and to take photographs of their discoveries. The clues combined to reveal a new photograph of the Joker and an audio clip of him from the film saying "And tonight, you're gonna break your one rule." Completing the scavenger hunt also led to another website called Rory's Death Kiss (referencing the false working title of Rory's First Kiss), where fans could submit photographs of themselves costumed as the Joker. Those who sent photos were mailed a copy of a fictional newspaper called The Gotham Times, whose electronic version led to the discovery of numerous other websites.

WhySoSerious.com directed fans to find letters composing the Joker’s message "The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules," to send in photographs of these letters, and then featured their photos in a collage.

The Dark Knight's opening sequence, (showing a bank raid by the Joker) and closing montage of other scenes from the film, was screened with selected IMAX screenings of I Am Legend, which was released on December 14, 2007. A theatrical teaser was also released with non-IMAX showings of I Am Legend, and also on the official website. The sequence was released on the Blu-Ray edition of Batman Begins on July 8, 2008. Also on July 8, 2008, the studio released Batman: Gotham Knight, a direct-to-DVD animated film, set between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and featuring six original stories, directed by Bruce Timm, co-creator and producer of Batman: The Animated Series.


When seeing this poster, there’s no doubt that it is another Batman film. The Bat symbol is used cleverly and even without the writing, everyone would know what the film is about. The poster also features Batman himself, looking arrogant but protective. The letters are quite small, however the star names appear bigger than the name of the director. Most attention is drawn on the release date – July 18 to build up tension. I believe the poster portrays a scene that hasn’t been featured in the film.


After the death of Heath Ledger, the marketing campaign began to focus on the Joker, revising some of its websites dedicated to promoting the film and posting a memorial tribute to Ledger on the film's official website and overlaying a black memorial ribbon on the photo collage in WhySoSerious.com. This poster shows a man who has turned his back towards the camera, however, everyone knows that it is the Joker since he is holding a knife and a play card. The scene behind him reminds of Gotham, where all the action takes place. There are no names on the poster, except for the studio names and distributor. The title has been kept small, but everyone knows it since it features the bat symbol.

Cult Films

Top 50 Cult Films :

http://www.filmsite.org/cultfilmsew.html

Gives a short information or commentary about every film.

Cult Film Site:

http://www.cultfilmz.com/

Information about any cult film, it's possible to do a research through the database, biographies and filmographies of different directors associated with cult films, several categories to make the research easier.

Amazon.com Cult Film site:

http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Movies-DVD/b/ref=amb_link_1753712_9?ie=UTF8&node=466674&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-5&pf_rd_r=194XSWFGHF5A3PGT5F52&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=465100811&pf_rd_i=404276

List of DVD's available to buy from Amazon.com.

Directors with Cult status:

http://www.filmsite.org/cultfilms2.html

Information about directors associated with Cult films.

Summary of group research

For our UK and USA film research, we decided to choose The Dark Knight(USA, directed by Christopher Nolan) and Cashback (UK, director Sean Ellis). There were lots of information on The Dark Knight, but we found it quite difficult to get any information on Cashback. The contrast between these films is massive - The Dark Knight is a typical Hollywood film with enormous budget, a great list of production and distribution companies, made for large audiences, but Cashback is probably a low budget film which was first made as a short film suitable for smaller audiences.
We found out that The Dark Knight had a budget of 185 million dollars, it was released on July 18, 2008 and was shown in 4366 cinemas. It hit an enormous $158,411,483 on the opening week only. By now, the total gross is $995,624,658 which makes it the 4th film in "Worldwide Gross" chart. We learnt that The Dark Knight was produced by Warner Bros. Pictures which is a widely known company, as well as Legendary Pictures, DC Comics and Syncopy, all of these have taken part in other well-known film productions. To get the audience, The Dark Knight was advertised massively through different marketing campaigns, one of them is WhySoSerious.com which was made like a quiz where fans had to do research and when they got the correct answer, they were moved to the next question. The Dark Knight marketing also includes series of posters, trailers, interviews with actors, TV adverts, Lottery tickets, Toys and even mobile phone add-ons.
We couldn't find any information of what the budget of Cashback was, but know that they had several distributors, The Works UK Distribution, in UK particularly. The production companies were small and two of them were probably set up just for this or another couple of films. Cashback was shown at various film festivals throughout the world showing that it was for a different audience than The Dark Knight.
Overall, the group work has helped to compare the massive difference between a large Hollywood film and a small, independent UK film.

Analysis on sound

• A sequence from ''Into the Wild'' directed by Sean Penn. 2007, USA.

This sequence starts with an image of a field and there's off-screen sound from a tractor, which appears seconds later. There are voices which become louder as soon as the persons appear. The sound of the tractor also becomes louder as the camera jumps closer, this is to convey a feeling of the noisy process of gathering the crops. Diegetic sound is mixed with non-diegetic, as a song starts to play. The sound creates a realistic feeling as the camera films two men from the outside of the tractor, their voices are not so loud as the sound of the tractor. The song becomes louder and then bridges with the next shot when the same men are in a pub, then it disappears and the voices become louder. There are off-screen sounds of men talking. We can hear diegetic sounds from cards falling, doors opening and closing, this, again, creates a realistic feeling for the spectator.