Anomalisa: Upcoming Animated Film Uses 3D Printed Faces to Establish Artistic Vision

Animation for adults. When did that begin? And what ever relegated cartoons to the realm of children? Aren’t we all children inside after all? Aren’t adults just children in grown people’s clothing, waiting to burst out from their fake confining roles and really live again? What’s real and what’s fake anyway? How does 3D printing play into these questions, when used in animated film?
Director Charlie Kaufman is no stranger to these themes. After all, he directed the cult classic film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, starring Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey. When his producer/friend Dino Stamatopolous approached him about directing a film for his new stop-motion studio, Starburns Industries, Kaufman was wary about the financing. But after a successful Kickstarter campaign, Kaufman and his co-director, Duke Johnson, were able to secure the entire $8 million needed to go forward. And forward they went, completing the animated film Anomalisa using 3D printed faces for their puppet-characters. The effect is quite dramatic, indeed. Almost surreal.
The film, scheduled for a limited release on December 30th and full release in January, is about the modern difficulties establishing human connection, and it embraces both artifice and real effects. 3D printing, which I argue is a little bit of both, fits in perfectly here. The set used a dozen puppets of the main characters, Michael and Lisa. Michael (voice of David Thewlis) is an inspirational speaker who is on his way to a nervous breakdown at a Cincinnati hotel when he meets Lisa (voice of Jennifer Jason Leigh). In its-two year production time, the set used 30 animators, about 100 feet of hallway, 18 stages, and 10 motion control rigs–and 1,261 faces

 But a grand production budget isn’t the point of this film, it seems. Anomalisa is an adult-themed stop-motion reflection on the vulnerability and frailty exhibited in human relationships. (I wonder if the title borrows from French sociologist Emile Durkheim concept of “anomie,” which describes social alienation and disconnection?) The film, shot frame by frame using puppets, does a good job communicating this vulnerability. The puppets have visible seams on them, and they were shot with the understanding that the audience would be more aware of a puppet performing certain mundane tasks, like shaving, than a real human.

But what appears to establish the puppets’ humanity are their faces. The faces, 3D printed with all of the real-life details you would imagine, like wrinkles and bags under the eyes, seem to serve as a bridge between the artificial and real world struggle that is the film’s overall theme. According to one review, “…the eyes, expressions and movements are believable. The awkwardness and desperation are very tangible and empathetic.”
In an interview, co-director Johnson explains that 3D printing established the inner feelings of the characters and was also essential because “you get a higher level of detail in the animation using 3D printing,” making it more cost-effective overall.
We have seen Hollywood turn more and more to 3D printing for special effects for horror and science fiction, like Alchemy Studios, for example. Anomalisa is yet another example of a very original use of the technology. In fact, it is difficult to image these puppet-characters with any other kind of face except the 3D printed kind. The technology plays a very big role in this film’s ability to tackle the big questions posed in the very beginning of the film’s trailer, which you can watch below: “What is it to be human? What is it to ache? What is it to be alive?”

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Md. Saifur Rahman

Hotel Dallas': Film Review

This arty documentary revisits the strange love affair between Communist Romania and the long-running TV soap 'Dallas,' with help from Bobby Ewing himself.

A bizarre guest appearance by former Dallas star Patrick Duffy is the key selling point for this unorthodox docu-fiction hybrid, which world premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last week. Blending Cold War memoir with 1980s pop-culture homage, Hotel Dallas is written, produced and directed by a married couple of New York City-based artists, Livia Ungur and Sherng-Lee Huang.

Partly funded by a grant from Yale, where Ungur studed art, the duo's debut feature overcomes its obviously limited budget with wit, imagination and visual flair. That said, Hotel Dallas still has the experimental feel and niche appeal of an art project. Beyond film festivals, left-field documentary channels and perhaps even galleries will be its most obvious home.

The inspiration for Hotel Dallas is rooted in Ungur's childhood memories of Communist-era Romania in the 1980s, when Dallas was the only US import screened on state-controlled TV, ostensibly as cautionary propaganda about the evils of western capitalism. But the plan backfired when the show became hugely popular among impoverished Romanians, who embraced it as aspirational lifestyle porn. Indeed, Larry "JR" Hagman later credited Dallas with helping to topple the country's former dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu.

Hagman himself cashed in on the show's enduring cult appeal, making TV commercials for oil products in post-Communist Romania, which Ungur and Huang include in their patchwork of old and new material. One local sunflower oil tycoon even went as far as building his own Southfork-style ranch hotel close to the southeastern city of Slobozia, erecting a quarter-sized Eiffel Tower replica in the garden as an added bonus. This surreal location explains the film's title and serves as a narrative jumping-off point.

Both directors appear in the film. A pixie-like figure in an outsized cowboy hat, Ungur plays a fictionalized version of her younger self, blurring reality and fantasy, documentary and lightly scrambled autobiography. The central plot is a kind of dreamlike road trip across present-day Romania, with Duffy providing the voiceover as a baffled American tourist clearly modeled on his Dallas character Bobby Ewing. Recording his contributions in LA, Duffy is mostly a vocal presence, though the film-makers also incorporate short visual snippets of him into their deconstructed, arty collage.

Punctuating this loose central narrative are multiple offbeat digressions, including clips of the 1947 John Wayne western Angel and the Badman and monochrome restagings of keyDallas plotlines, all given an ironic Cold War twist by child actors dressed as Pioneers, Romania's Communist youth group. There is even a playful reworking of the show's opening credits sequence, complete with a gypsy-folk version of the theme music.

There is probably a keen audience for a straight, informative, fact-driven documentary about the soft-power role that hugely popular US shows such as Dallas played in hastening the fall of the Berlin Wall. But this is not that film. Instead, Ungur and Huang have made something far more eccentric, esoteric and impressionistic. Hotel Dallas is maddeningly quirky in places, making few concessions to mainstream docu-drama conventions. But it is also rather lovely in its loopy rhythms and luscious visuals, a charmingly personal take on shared cultural memories.
Production company: Ungur & Huang, New York
Cast: Livia Ungur, Patrick Duffy, Razvan Doroftei, Serena Sgardea,
Maria Croitoru, Nicu Ungureanu, Sherng-Lee Huang
Directors, screenwriters, producers: Livia Ungur, Sherng-Lee Huang
Editor: Sherng-Lee Huang
Music: Samuel Suggs
Sound design: Adam Chimera
Sales company: Heretic Outreach, Athens Details More>>

Source by > http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/hotel-dallas-film-review-869984

Md. Saifur Rahman

Virus of Fear' ('El Virus de la Por'): Film Review

A coach of youth swimming classes is accused of inappropriate physical contact.

A study of a universally recognizable fear hindered by an unsuccessful ticking-clock conceit and hit-and-miss acting, Ventura Pons's Virus of Fear follows a swimming coach through the day on which he's accused of molesting a young student. Drab photography and production design further one's impression that a smartly designed stage production would be much more satisfying than this sincere but clunky effort. The reputation of Pons, a veteran Catalan filmmaker who made his debut in the '70s, may help somewhat at the arthouse, as will button-pushing subject matter, but its theatrical run should be quite short.

Jordi (Ruben De Eguia) is much beloved by students at his community pool, and adults acknowledge his gift for putting kids at ease. But soon after today's morning class is dismissed, his boss Anna (Roser Batalla) confronts him with concern. "What happened with Alex?" she demands.

The vagueness of the ensuing confrontation — "some people have complained," Anna keeps saying, but she takes forever to reveal what's alleged — is made muddier by the movie's structure: Pons often leaps back in time for reasons that are hard to guess, filling in chunks of narrative (and too often replaying the same interactions) in ways that do little to stoke dramatic coals or undermine our initial assumptions.

Though the pic emphasizes Jordi's sexuality in a few ways — he makes lewd, boasting jokes with a coworker; he's wearing a tiny Speedo (or occasionally nothing) for much of the film — few viewers will be inclined to believe he would make advances on a child. The question of how parents should respond, when rumors spread that he has kissed a boy, is another matter: But while early one-on-one scenes exhibit some nuance, the film loses credibility when it imagines a crowd outside the swim center all but waving pitchforks at the swim instructors cowering inside.

 Production companies: Els Films de la Rambla S.A.,Televisió de Catalunya (TV3)

Cast: Ruben de Eguia, Roser Batalla, Albert Auselle, Santi Ricart

Director-Producer: Ventura Pons

Screenwriter: Josep Maria Miro

Executive producer: Ventura Pons

Director of photography: Andalu Vila-SanJuan

Production designer: Bello Torras Details More>>

Sources By > http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/virus-fear-el-virus-de-870172

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Md. Saifur Rahman

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

Who will play Baby in the Dirty Dancing remake?

US TV network ABC is stepping out with a new production of Dirty Dancing.

The network said it will film a three-hour adaptation of the 1987 film that starred Jennifer Grey. This time, actress-singer Abigail Breslin will play the lead role of Baby.

No other cast members were announced, nor did ABC specify an airdate for the film

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The 29 Steamiest Movie Sex Scenes of All Time

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Kate Winslet's steamy handprint sliding down the window, Julia Roberts on top of a piano, Ryan Gosling shirtless and very, very wet. Whether they're realistic or totally over-the-top, a good movie sex scene is something that no one can deny they love, especially the ridiculously romantic ones with rising music and tension-filled backstories. We've rounded up some of the sexiest encounters in movie history; prepare to swoon.