Ged Carroll

Category: on the sofa | 影評 | 영화를보고 | 映画レビュー

What does on the sofa mean? So a sofa is a couch in American parlance, or may also be called a settee or chesterfield in other English speaking parts of the world. Its the big chair in the living room that people tend to view their TV set from.

By using on the sofa as a title I wanted to imply content that I had reviewed at home rather than having gone out to watch it at a cinema or attend an event.

I have tended to review material on DVD or Blu-Ray rather than streaming media, usually because I have acquired them with an intent, whereas streaming is more like content grazing, often little more than visual wallpaper for my living room.

This section has been made up of a hodge podge of films, documentaries and anime.

Films that I have seen at festivals or on trips to the cinema are more likely to be in the out and about section. So there isn’t a consistency there in that respect.

I have covered a wide range of content here including

  • Safe House – a surprisingly good Ryan Reynolds film that isn’t a comedy one
  • Bitter Lake – I am a huge Adam Curtis fan and his work is the exception that proves my rule about streaming platforms in this section mainly because I can’t get his documentaries on disk
  • The Raid 2 – which added a bit of storytelling to the mix of The Raid.
  • The Man from Mo’Wax – a documentary about the rise, fall and reinvention of James Lavelle.
  • No blood no tears – An excellent Korean heist drama

  • Brand storytelling: a bitter pill to swallow?

    I have been thinking about brand storytelling after watching Adam Curtis’ Bitter Lake over the weekend which is ostensibly trying to tell the story of Afghanistan from then end of the second world war to today. But it is also a parable on how the simplicity of storytelling used by the political classes to get the populace on side in the west has been ultimately counterproductive. This counterproductive nature of it, made me think about brand storytelling, that is often simple to aid both delivery and effectiveness.

    I have worked for businesses since the mid-noughties that put brand storytelling at the centre of offerings – often using simple mono-myths as models. In addition, my colleagues at one agency took this a stage further and sold their services as building on the ‘best practice’ of winning political campaigns – if you like Ogilvy on Advertising but written by Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and George W Bush.

    The truth is that our relationships with brand is often more complex and shifting than we has marketers let on. Brands have symbolic and status power which changes over time. The question that Bitter Lake seeded in my mind, is brand storytelling actually going to breed a future set of consumers with little to know brand engagement? Where brand values become a mill stone rather than a touch stone? It’s too early to tell and I don’t know the answers if it did happen, though my gut says going to an approach of radical honesty. More branding related content here.

    More information
    Bitter Lake | Wikipedia

  • Umeng & other things this week

    Umeng

    Umeng have put together a great presentation on consumer behaviour and mobile in China’s tier 3 cities. Most of what you read focuses on tier one and tier two cities in China. Umeng provides insight into large yet untapped markets just below the biggest most-developed cities in China. The tier three cities that Umeng covers are the cities were China does much of its manufacturing now as places like Shenzhen and Shanghai have become too expensive

    Fukushima Happy

    This beautifully shot version of Pharrell Williams Happy done by the people of Fukushima prefecture showing everyday Japanese life and shot by Fuji TV.

    I particularly like the lucho libre masks and the winking Shibu shot. There is also a great outtakes / making of video

    Red Fuse x Colgate-Palmolive Myanmar

    Red Fuse Hong Kong’s work with Colgate-Palmolive in Myanmar to educate children about oral health (and sell more toothpaste) was a Cannes Lion winner and an inspired way of rethinking how packaging was used. The mobile toll-free number was particularly interesting given how nascent mobile phone usage is in Myanmar. There isn’t much of an online component as internet penetration is low and concentrated in richer urban areas of the country.


    Richard Feynman – The Character of Physical Law – 5 –

    The Distinction of Past and Future lecturing at Cornell University. Feynman was a great physicist but he was greater at making physics accessible to a wider range of people through his lectures and writing. Take a lunch time to enjoy this video

    Guardians of the Galaxy

    Yet another new trailer for the Guardians of The Galaxy, we get to see Rocket‘s character slightly more developed in this version and he seems brilliant in a Spaghetti Western anti-hero kind of way, if Eli Wallach (God rest his soul) had been a wise-cracking raccoon bandit.

  • The Raid 2

    Coming back to the UK reminded me of how much Hong Kong is a cinema-centric culture despite the technology, mobile devices and amazing restaurants. Going to the cinema there was literally half the price of London, which means that I am much more critical of the entertainment shown. The first film I have seen that was actually worth it’s ticket price since I have got back is The Raid 2.

    The Raid put the Indonesian martial arts scene on the map with a highly kinetic film that owed much of its visual intensity to computer games. You can see shades of vintage Bruce Lee films and the ‘gun fu’ popularised by John Woo in these films. Whilst there might be a Hong Kong influence, the Indonesian martial artists definitely carve out their own path. 

    The Raid 2 follows on just hours from the first film; but is an entirely different beast.  It is much more polished. The plot is even better developed. The acting has improved. But if you love the original film  you will still have plenty to keep you happy in The Raid 2. They have added to the original formula, rather than having taken anything away. As you can see from the trailer, there is still lashings of Indonesian-style kinetic action in the second film.

    But the film’s pace ebbs and flows in order to tell a more detailed story this time around, which feels very much like an early John Woo, pre-Hollywood. There is a nod to Quentin Tarantino with some of the gimmicky characters such as the Hammer Girl character. The plot is a similar structure to A Fistful Of Dollars. Our hero goes under cover to gain the trust of an organised crime family and ends up between two factions within the one criminal organisation bent on gaining power.

  • Safe House

    When I see that name Ryan Reynolds on a poster I cringe. Reynolds has appeared in a number of unintentionally comic roles from the Green Lantern to the truly awful Blade Trinity; or the Marks & Spencers marketing campaign.  So I had my expectations set pretty low for Safe House.

    South Africa

    Safe House is a beautifully shot film based in modern-day South Africa. It is a paranoia-driven thriller a la Three Days of The Condor, but for the war on terror rather than the cold war. Reynolds does a pretty good job of playing a convincing scared novice CIA officer.

    Ensemble cast

    What brings it is the ensemble cast around him like Brendan Gleeson who recently stared in The Guard. Despite being as Irish as a bottle of Club Orange and a bag of Tayto crisps; Gleeson gives a masterful performance of a senior executive at the CIA. Denzel Washington plays the main antagonist Tobin Frost, who is being pursued by an army of private military contractors of an uncertain origin.

    If one had to pick one stand out star in the film, it would have to be its location Cape Town, and the surrounding mountains of The Devil’s Peak and Table Mountain which the film uses to great effect.

    The tension is amped up by some graphic scenes of waterboarding in the film which is a direct reference to the war on terror. And like most similar films nowadays it draws stylistically from the Jason Bourne series of films, particularly in the use of colour.

    The story ends in a bloody Reservoir Dogs-esque climax of betrayal and revenge. Whilst there are no surprises in the film, Safe House takes the audience along for an enjoyable ride.

    The trailer gives a good flavour of the film.

    More related content here.