The Hack’s Toolbox – Running From Explosions

Nicholas Cage

by HakSnider33
In our second installment of The Hack’s Toolbox, we will explore one of the most fundamental tools utilized by the hack filmmaker,  the obligatory scene featuring  people fleeing from an explosion in slow motion.  Everybody has seen this scene at least a thousand times, with about five hundred of the scenes featuring a juiced-up Nicholas Cage running in slow motion from an explosion in films directed by people like Michael Bay or Simon West.

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James Cameron’s Obsession with the Deep

James Cameron

At VOH, our focus is on the filmmaker and his or her talents as an artist, but it can be even more revealing when we glean a moment of truth in a filmmaker’s passion.  This morning, I paused and admired visionary filmmaker James Cameron and his obsessions anew.

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Can Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds make up for all the duds?

Hacks seem to know that cars and bikes can absolve many sins. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Tyler Perry is confounding. He has made some crappy movies, but they have all made money (so says Box Office Mojo). He is a successful filmmaker, but he is still a Hollywood outsider.  At VOH, he is considered a solid hack, yet clearly the man has a vision. And while we don’t always like what we see of it, this vision has gathered a large audience of faithful fanatiques.

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Hackery 101 – Pissing Off the Fanboys

Michael Bay

Michael Bay is gearing up to destroy TMNT

by HakSnider33
Recently, an extreme amount of nerd rage has been directed towards Michael Bay, the producer of the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, over the announcement that his team will be changing the TMNT origin story.

These turtles are from an alien race, and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny and completely loveable.

As if that quote was not ominous enough on its own, Bay threw even more gasoline on the fire using word choices that exuded that classic Michael Bay swag when Bay responded to the irate fanboys with the following message on his website:

Fans need to take a breath, and chill … They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.

Not exactly reassuring words coming from the man who directed films that transformed the once heroic Optimus Prime into a homicidal lunatic . However, the combination of TMNT fanboy anger and Bay’s arrogant, “nerds, go back into your mother’s basement” response serve to highlight one of the core skills that every hack director must keep in his locker — the ability to effortlessly piss off fanboys.

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“Discovering” Jee-woon Kim: this is why we have VOH

Visionary: Jee-woon Kim

Wow.  In keeping with my practice of late night movie viewing, I just enjoyed the 130 minute long epic, rock-n-roll, western-themed THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD by Korean director Jee-woon Kim.    Great characters, unbelievable action, and epic (yes, I used that word again) cinematography.  I’ll even go so far as to say it was a cinematic tour de force, a highly energized and stylized mishmash of the old with the new.  Check out the kick ass trailer after the jump:

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“What this movie needs is a good chase scene…”

Master of motion

Although acclaimed director John Frankenheimer (1930 – 2002) is probably most well-known for his classic mind control epic THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), I’d like to take a brief moment to recognize him for his ability to craft intensely realistic car chase scenes, something that is absolutely required of any director wishing to make a living in the action/thriller genre. Read More

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Hackiest of Them All?

Tarsem

Tarsem

by HakSnider33
MIRROR MIRROR, the fourth feature film directed by acclaimed former music video director Tarsem Singh, will be released theatrically on March 30th.  The film, which is a retelling of the classic fable of Snow White, will star Julia Roberts, Armie Hammer (THE SOCIAL NETWORK) and Nathan Lane.

Despite a rather modest filmography (THE CELL, THE FALL, IMMORTALS), Tarsem has been labeled by many as a “visionary” filmmaker, so highly regarded that he is known on a first name basis by the film community. Is he deserving of such acclaim or does his spotty track record as a feature filmmaker contradict his considerable reputation?

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The Hack’s Toolbox – Recycled Cliches

Michael Bay's Epic Opus The Rock

by HakSnider33
Previously, we examined one of the tools used by visionary filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Orson Wells, Park Chan-Wook and Martin Scorsese – the long take.  Today, we will look at one of the most prominent tools in the hack filmmaker toolbox – the recycled cliche.  A cliche is something that is trite or overused, and according to our definition of a hack filmmaker, one of the primary things that make a filmmaker a hack is the creation of dull, unimaginative, mediocre or banal work. Read More

Alternate award picks

They wuz robbed:  this scene from Transformers: Dark of the Moon proves Michael Bay should have gotten a look from the Academy for the Best Director nom.  Or not.

In any case, at this point it should come as no surprise that we at VoH have some issues with the Oscar nods.  Here are the nominees for the main awards:

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“Red Tails”: Lucas pisses off his target market?

Or at least 50% of it.  George Lucas has gone on record stating that his latest film, about a squadron of African American fighter pilots in World War II, is the biggest budgeted black film Hollywood has ever made… and he had to pay for it out of his own pocket because no one else would take the risk.

Why’d he do it?  Read More