"Rude and Not Ginger"

Like I promised, this'll be a short post!

David Tennant just announced that he'll be stepping down as the Doctor at the end of the 2009 Doctor Who Specials, and that when the show returns for the fifth series in 2010 (under the brilliant mind of Steven Moffat) it will be with a new Doctor.

I'm upset. David Tennant is brilliant, and I'd have loved to see the Tenth Doctor have a whole 13 episodes of Steven Moffat's brilliant stories! But I'm equally excited about the specials in which Tennant will bow out, as it will also be the last of Russell T Davies' era, so it's bound to be huge! Plus, a new Doctor written by Moffat? Awesomely exciting! The show depends on change and updating its image, and this'll be the first proper time that's happened since the show returned in 2005!

High School Musical 3

I think I may be alone in the opinions I'm about to express amongst our male-dominated class, but I don't care. If I like something it's important that I'm open about it. So, yes, I will write a positive review about High School Musical 3: Senior Year!

This is the first to play in cinemas, and I have to say that I was nervous about sitting in one of the many sold-out screenings with hundreds of children and teenagers! But similarly to when I saw The Rocky Horror Show, being in with the crazed fans improved the experience. And, just like Rocky Horror, there was audience-participation. People clapped-along, cheered, wolf-whistled, and sang. It didn't ruin the experience - it added to it!

It's also the first of the films to actually feature a high school musical. In doing so they could feature truly theatrical songs and actually cut to the stage-musical which the film was building towards without taking itself too seriously. The songs themselves were good. Different enough from the previous films to feel fresh, but not so different as to sound like they belong elsewhere. One thing that struck me in this one was the struggle to start songs. On a few occasions it felt awkward when someone, mid-conversation, bursted into song.

Most musicals struggle in getting the audience to suspend their disbelief. In real life people don't burst into spontaneous musical numbers. I'd argue that that's more a problem with reality than musicals. But when you see a film like this you surrender your right to complain about that. And because the audience accept it, musicals can often do other unrealistic things. With HSM3, though, I felt that they abused this right when the roof of a treehouse magically opened up during a song for no reason! Poetic, yes, but it brings you out of it! They made up for this, however, when two characters rolled under a car and came out the other side as themselves, aged-7, and carried on the song - dancing and all. It was brilliant and hilarious. Those are the sort of shenanigans that you can only pull in a musical!

But it's not just a camp, light-hearted musical. There are serious issues about leaving high school, choosing a college, peer pressure, and - to some extent - relationships at a young age. Though, as expected, it does Disney-up high schools; no drinking, smoking, drugs, sex, teenage-pregnancies, etc. But surely we want kids to retain their innocence as long as possible!

I think that the main cast are really talented, and it's good to see long-serving supporting-characters rewarded too. I've read some reviews which criticise the film for under-using Lucas Grabeel's character, Ryan. Personally I disagree. They remained faithful to his character, and allowed the audience to see how his confidence has grown since the second one. Yes, character development! I think that's more important than screentime, even if he is a good actor.

The main reason that I like this film, however, is that it remains true to its roots. What made the first so good was that it was just a small, made-for-TV musical which nobody expected to do well. In that sense, it deserved all the attention it got. There wasn't a huge marketing campaign to begin with and it doesn't feel commercially driven. It has a unique quality that is hard to describe, but resulted in this huge phenomenon. This quality it present in HSM3 too - probably because it's the same people making it, just with a bigger budget. But I'd still argue that the film's plot is not commercially driven. The fact that it was made was, but the film itself is a loyal continuation of the series. We live in a world of franchises now, sadly, but I think that this one deserves everything it got because it was made by people who loved what they were making. You can always tell, and it's worth a lot more than production values! And when you couple the two, you end up with something huge.

Okay, next post will be short. I promise.

The Story Thus Far

My Back to the Future post will have to wait, saved as a draft for now (a very useful function!), as I've decided that I'll catch up on all the events so far. I thought it may be too long a post, but Paul's posts have been pretty long too, so that makes it okay! Doesn't it?

I enjoyed Creative Beginnings. I'm always better at socialising if I'm working on something with people - like as part of a film crew. Creative Beginnings made up for Freshers' Week in terms of getting to know people, particularly from the other courses. The Derive is what, like many, I would say was the high-point of the fortnight. It really worked for our group! And then making an instillation afterwards was a great chance to be creative together, which was nice. Equally, the improvisation day was a great bonding session for everyone. Even though we were in our derive groups, all the new students were united in creating those performances. Those dark, warped performances.

I do agree that some of Creative Beginnings was boring, and it could have potentially been done over a single week, but the housekeeping was important. We need to have a Diversity and Equality talk, we need to talk about PDPs, and we need the ability to define beauty. Okay, not the last one, but the majority of it was necessary.

The course itself has been great so far. Every expectation surpassed all round, so I'm pretty excited to be here! We've watched a lot of films and a bit of TV so far, and whilst in the future I will reflect on as much as I watch as possible, there are just too many films so far to catch-up on: Thelma and Louise, Citizen Kane, Burn After Reading, City of Ember, Shawshank Redemption, Inside Man, The Truman Show, Broadcast News, Stone of Destiny. Below are some of the most important things I want to say about a few of them.

• Broadcast News featured two very familiar voices. I later discovered, through the magic of IMDB, that Holly Hunter (who played Jane Craig) was the voice of Elastigirl in The Incredibles, and Albert Brooks (Aaron Altman) vocied Marlin in Finding Nemo, along with numerous characters in The Simpsons.
• Both Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were fantastic in Thelma and Louise. I've seen them both previously and liked their work, but they worked even better as a pair! I also loved the way that the story built up. If I remember correctly, Louise compares their escalating situation to a rolling snowball, and I couldn't agree more.
• When watching Citizen Kane I found myself thinking "that shot feels really 3D". Not 3D-glasses '3D', but I felt there was a lot of depth. Andy explained afterward that Gregg Toland pioneered deep-focus which created the great feeling of depth, and I really like it. It worked really well on tracking shots. And, as an audience member, I do find my eye straying onto something in the background sometimes, and so having everything in focus allowed me to do that easier.
• Following the above point, I watched Shawshank Redemption again and noticed that it used deep-focus a lot. There's a great shot where the camera flies over the prison building, and then sweeps over the prison yard, with prisoners in it. Everything was really sharp, and the motion, again, created a great feeling of depth. Plus, it's a really good film in other ways too!
  

That'll do for now, I think. I'll soon blog about High School Musical 3: Senior Year. I bet ya' can't wait!

What is in a name?

Well, here it begins. The trouble with this blog, however, was coming up with a name. It needed to sum up what this blog is all about. I quite like what I've got now. It was between that and the rather similar G. Laing's Blog of Cinematic Sorcery. When I saw that 'Wonderment' fitted perfectly beneath 'Motion Picture', however, it sealed the deal. Well, in the loosest meaning of that phrase. I can always rename it!

Then came designing a logo; I always do that first. Whenever I venture into anything that could use a logo, I find myself making one. It helps me establish the feeling of whatever it is I'm working on. Though this logo ended up classier than I thought it might. It makes it look as though this blog takes its title seriously. Perhaps I should have used Comic Sans...

Anyway, this post has hopefully exemplified the type of reflection that shall take place here. Though I vow to be more serious with it when I'm reflecting on important things. Like films. I watched Back to the Future this evening - I'll write about that soon. Though so much has happened over the past four weeks that I should reflect on! I may, in a similar way to Paul's first blog, catch up with everything that's go on. That'll take a good while. I may need to do it over a few posts to retain my sanity whilst writing it, and yours whilst reading it. Not that you have to read it! The true purpose of these blogs is for the benefit of the writer themself, really.