I have my in-laws staying with me at the moment. They're great. I love 'em. The little one adores them too. And it's brilliant for my wife to see her folks.
I want to talk about my father-in-law. Great guy. Not that educated. He's a house-painter, lived his whole life in rural France. Didn't travel til his daughter-in-law moved to Ireland. Got on a plane for the first time ever in his early fifties. Very stuck in his ways - still can't understand that other nationalities don't necessarily enjoy sitting down to three-hour lunches every day, and why you can't get an aperitif at most restaurants here.
Anyway, he loves movies. Adores them. Has a huge collection of VHS cassettes in the basement back home. His DVD collection is pretty massive too. Now he has the internet he's taken to illegal downloading, and if he's caught they might throw the book at him just for the sheer volume of stuff he has. (He doesn't think about the consequences to the film industry, he just loves movies).
He doesn't much like French films, unless it's Besson's Taxi, or perhaps one of those lower-budget action flicks some French directors seem to make before going to Hollywood to make some awful Jason Statham vehicle (he likes those too). He will flat refuse to watch a subtitled movie. It has to be dubbed. Black and white? Forget it.
See, he likes action movies. He has every Charles Bronson vehicle ever made. He thinks The Transporter is one of the great films of all time. He also thinks that Under Siege is just as good as, if not better than, Die Hard (if that made your head jar you're not the only one - and it probably won't be the last time that happens as you read on). He didn't like Inception because he didn't understand it (he watched it on a plane and missed the first twenty minutes - head-jar number 2, right?). He doesn't fancy The Matrix because "too many robots" (et voila, number three). He liked Red (he saw it on the plane) and flat denies ever having seen Alien vs Predator (despite the fact that I watched it with him. Okay, I watched the first 50 minutes with him and then, realising I was never going to get that time back, I went off to do something else and left it to him).
And here's the thing. He'll like other movies if he finds himself manipulated or plain forced into watching them. He loved La Mome (La Vie en Rose in English markets). But he would never watch it out of choice.
That's one of the big challenges we face, I believe - not just making great work, but persuading the audience to watch that film. At the moment, particularly in Hollywood, we are audience-led. What happened to us leading the audience? We're supposed to know more about film than they do. The massive successes of Inception and Avatar seem to indicate that audiences are willing to be taken on a journey into the unknown, and in the case of Inception they're willing to be made to work to understand that journey.
Yet Hollywood, in the main, still seems to think that audiences will only respond to an existing brand, preferably a comic book (even if it's not necessarily a good one), an old TV show, or - worse - a toy. That's not to say that all of those films are terrible, although most of them are, but it does mean that there are great original scripts out there that just aren't getting made. Presumably. Maybe there aren't.
Here's the thing, I think this paucity of original thinking in Hollywood gives us an opportunity here in Australia - if we can produce those intelligent, original, entertaining films (I'm thinking of Daybreakers and Tomorrow When the War Began as recent examples of good-if-not-perfect original films*) and then persuade distributors to let us lead the audience to them, we may find that we get rewarded for taking risks where Hollywood does not.
*Okay, the latter was a book adaptation, but still, you get my point, I hope.
And I'm determined that my father-in-law shall not leave here without having seen The Matrix. Even if it's the dubbed version.
I want to talk about my father-in-law. Great guy. Not that educated. He's a house-painter, lived his whole life in rural France. Didn't travel til his daughter-in-law moved to Ireland. Got on a plane for the first time ever in his early fifties. Very stuck in his ways - still can't understand that other nationalities don't necessarily enjoy sitting down to three-hour lunches every day, and why you can't get an aperitif at most restaurants here.
Anyway, he loves movies. Adores them. Has a huge collection of VHS cassettes in the basement back home. His DVD collection is pretty massive too. Now he has the internet he's taken to illegal downloading, and if he's caught they might throw the book at him just for the sheer volume of stuff he has. (He doesn't think about the consequences to the film industry, he just loves movies).
He doesn't much like French films, unless it's Besson's Taxi, or perhaps one of those lower-budget action flicks some French directors seem to make before going to Hollywood to make some awful Jason Statham vehicle (he likes those too). He will flat refuse to watch a subtitled movie. It has to be dubbed. Black and white? Forget it.
See, he likes action movies. He has every Charles Bronson vehicle ever made. He thinks The Transporter is one of the great films of all time. He also thinks that Under Siege is just as good as, if not better than, Die Hard (if that made your head jar you're not the only one - and it probably won't be the last time that happens as you read on). He didn't like Inception because he didn't understand it (he watched it on a plane and missed the first twenty minutes - head-jar number 2, right?). He doesn't fancy The Matrix because "too many robots" (et voila, number three). He liked Red (he saw it on the plane) and flat denies ever having seen Alien vs Predator (despite the fact that I watched it with him. Okay, I watched the first 50 minutes with him and then, realising I was never going to get that time back, I went off to do something else and left it to him).
And here's the thing. He'll like other movies if he finds himself manipulated or plain forced into watching them. He loved La Mome (La Vie en Rose in English markets). But he would never watch it out of choice.
That's one of the big challenges we face, I believe - not just making great work, but persuading the audience to watch that film. At the moment, particularly in Hollywood, we are audience-led. What happened to us leading the audience? We're supposed to know more about film than they do. The massive successes of Inception and Avatar seem to indicate that audiences are willing to be taken on a journey into the unknown, and in the case of Inception they're willing to be made to work to understand that journey.
Yet Hollywood, in the main, still seems to think that audiences will only respond to an existing brand, preferably a comic book (even if it's not necessarily a good one), an old TV show, or - worse - a toy. That's not to say that all of those films are terrible, although most of them are, but it does mean that there are great original scripts out there that just aren't getting made. Presumably. Maybe there aren't.
Here's the thing, I think this paucity of original thinking in Hollywood gives us an opportunity here in Australia - if we can produce those intelligent, original, entertaining films (I'm thinking of Daybreakers and Tomorrow When the War Began as recent examples of good-if-not-perfect original films*) and then persuade distributors to let us lead the audience to them, we may find that we get rewarded for taking risks where Hollywood does not.
*Okay, the latter was a book adaptation, but still, you get my point, I hope.
And I'm determined that my father-in-law shall not leave here without having seen The Matrix. Even if it's the dubbed version.
