SUSO

Magic Fingers

"Flippin' heaven ..."

As we have recently been reminded, a fingerboard (or Finger-Skateboard) is a miniature version of a skateboard complete with moving wheels, graphics and trucks.  Measuring an average 96 millimeters long and 26 to 28mm wide, fingerboards can be employed by those gifted few to deliver the same breadth of board tricks that the better known skater pros deliver through their feet.  Only in this case the tricks are delivered through magic (highly determined) fingers...

And such nimble digits in (or should I say 'on') the hands of a talented cameraman makes for highly imaginative and creative cinema....

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Categories General Tags Sport Film Design

By Juan on 30/1/10

One Team, One Nation

"Sport's most iconic image and the story behind it..."

To quote John Carlin, author of the book Playing With The Enemy, the basis for the film Invictus that breaks in UK cinemas this month;

"By far the most fabulous and memorable political event I've ever witnesses was the Rugby World Cup Final of 1995."

That Carlin would refer to a World Cup final thus, as a'political event', points to the the power sport genuinely exerts over politics.  And Nelson Mandela, as intelligent a politician as ever there has ever been, was the man to recognise this.  The man to recognise that sport can move people emotionally to such an extent that it could and did unite a once fundamentally fractured nation. The man to move against this opportunity and challenge.  For those familiar with the turmoil of post-apartheid South Africa, the scale of this achievement was and remains breathtaking.

Morgan Freeman has gone on record as saying he had wanted to play Nelson Mandela in a film for many years but it was always about waiting for the right story and formula.  Carlin's tale offered him the formula and angle he was looking for.  And early critique suggest Freeman delivers a masterful performance in the role he was perhaps born to play (so says Mandela's own daughter..).  And while Matt Damon's involvement in the production is an inevitable point of controversy the same critics suggest he delivers a solid performance (with a worthy accent) allowing the focus to reside where it should, on Mandela as portrayed by Freeman.

Ahead of the realease of the film, and in Morgan Freeman's words, here is the opportunity to familiarise yourself with the story behind the image.

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Categories Film Tags Sport Politics Endeavour suso Film General

By Juan on 23/1/10

Happy 20th From Rome

"Birthday tributes roll in as the Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special airs in the US."

Created by Matt Groening,  first aired on the 17th December 1989, and subsequently broadcast to the tune of 449 episodes worldwide - The Simpsons has long been termed 'a satirical parody of a working class American lifestyle'.  For the most of us it is Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and the rest of the Springfield massive, reminding us in the very funniest of ways of the pure entertainment to be found in american culture, society, television and many aspects of the human condition.

So successful a phenomena has The Simpsons become that, on top of the many awards and significant revenue the show has both won and generated over the years, the Vatican's newspaper (as in the Pope's own!) recently took it upon itself to send The Simpsons its best wishes on the shows 20th anniversary.

In a article titled Aristotles Virtues and Homers Doughnut, Losservatore Romano praised the shows philosophical learnings as well as its often bold take on religion. It went as far as to credit the show for teaching viewers how to laugh! The article cited several episodes centered around religion, including the one where Homer cries out for divine intervention. The newspaper said "America's longest running animated show is a mirror of the indifference and the need that modern man feels towards faith." Wow.

Still the newspaper did find a moment to criticize the shows use of crude language and violence (thank the Lord!).

While beyond Rome there may be more that would refrain from labelling the Simpsons as perfect - in our humble opinion, for its imagination and relentless delivery of creative brilliance, we here at SUSO HQ maintain this show is beyond critique.  Everyone has a favourite clip, and here's one that the Vatican News probably took a particularly close look at! 

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Categories TV Tags culture Film

By Juan on 15/1/10

Lego & The Matrix

"There is no spoon ... for these Lego creators anyway."

Lego is god's gift to the creative mind.  The Matrix? ... everyone's inspiration.  Put them together, and after 440hrs toil (...just in time for the film's 10th anniversary release), what have we got?.  Checkit :

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Categories Fun Tags Art culture Film Design Fun

By Juan on 3/12/09

Sin Nombre

Very few films made a splash at the Sundance festival. Sin Nombre was one that did.

Cary Joji Fukunaga picked up the Excellence in Cinematography Award and the Directing Award for this naturalistic thriller. At once a love story and a chase film, it has a pretty unusual DNA. Not sure if and when it hits the UK screens, but if the trailer is anything to go by, I truly hope someone picks it up.

Fukunaga - remember the name...

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Categories Film Tags Film Independent

By on 12/2/09

Saturated

Witness the tranquil destruction of a cultural icon as McDonalds becomes submerged.

“Flooded McDonald's is a film work by Superflex in which a convincing life-size replica of the interior of a McDonald's burger bar, without any customers or staff present, gradually floods with water. Furniture is lifted up by the water, trays of food and drinks start to float around, electrics short circuit and eventually the space becomes completely submerged.”

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Categories Art Film Tags Film Graffiti

By on 5/2/09

The Conversation

"They are like two boxers. They know something, between them, that no one else knows.” Jon Voight.

It hit me during the summer. I hadn’t seen Heat for at least a couple of years, I definitely didn’t own it on DVD and with Amazon’s one-click buying mechanism, I realised I could be achieving a full-frontal Michael Mann onslaught, in my living room, within a matter of days. What a prospect. I even bought the limited edition version.

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Categories Film Tags Film Mann

By on 12/11/08

Queen Of The Soundtrack

Tarantino’s music advisor changed music and movies.

“Everybody be cool this is a robbery!”

“Any of you f***ing pricks move, and I’ll execute every mother f***ing last one of you!”

Pulp Fiction’s classic opening scene set a whole new tone, one that would alter the movie soundtrack landscape forever. In 1994, as popcorn toting, soon-to-be-Tarantino-worshipping young movie fans settled into their seats, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones’ pounding surf-stomp, ‘Misirlou’, kicked in, its stuttering guitars and unforgettable Mariachi trumpet pinning the audience down. The soundtrack was an absolute must-have. 

Karyn Rachtman, music supervisor for Tarantino on Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, transformed the way we listen to movies. She put the music out there, up front, on centre stage, competing with the characters for our attention. Dusty Springfield’s sultry ‘Son of a Preacherman’ accompanies Vincent Vega’s arrival at the Wallace household in Pulp Fiction, and it couldn’t possibly be any other way. ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ by Stealers Wheel establishes the rhythm for Mr Blonde’s psychotic earectomy attack on the captive cop in Reservoir Dogs. The cinematography and the music are completely interdependent.

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Categories Music Film Tags Music Film Tarantino

By on 9/10/08

Catch Homer If You Can

Legendary titles refuse to grow old.

The ever resourceful ffffound.com triggered our collective memory this morning. Remember the brilliant titles to Catch Me If You Can? The Saul Bass-inspired graphics with the lazy jazz soundtrack? Always worth another watch. And there’s an extra treat: the sequence reenacted by The Simpsons.

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Categories Design Film Fun Tags Title Sequences Film Saul Bass

By on 7/10/08

Fear(s) Of The Dark

Rusty alleyways and vaporous ghosts.

Rare is the child that will happily kiss goodnight to his parents and head upstairs to bed alone in the dark, too young to reach the light switch as he goes. “No need to come and check on me,” he bleats. “I’ll be fine.” Grown men bristle when the lights go out; women shriek; kids freak. There’s no denying it, human beings just don’t get on too well with the dark. Fear(s) of the Dark, a new animated feature, brings together some of Europe’s leading artists in different disciplines to explore humanity’s frosty relationship with the dark.

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Categories Film Tags Animation Del Toro Film

By on 17/9/08