Well, not completely, but "The Sol Cinema"is a pint-sized theater powered entirely by the sun!
Unfortunately for us Yanks, this non-profit project is based in the UK.
The traveling cinema is the smallest of its kind and can accomodate eight adults per showing, boasting a collection of music videos and short films with environmental themes.
The films are screened through an LED Projector and the photovoltaic panels absorb the sun constantly, even during showings, so the Sol Cinema will never run out of power. The interior is playfully, almost lavishly, decorated with striped walls, blue chairs, and a red curtain framing the screen.
What a fantastic way to watch a film! Hopefully someone can convert a trailer stateside and drive it around the country. Maybe they could even screen classics like Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, or Singing in the Rain.
...And apparently Harvey Weinstein thinks C stands for Coin.
The Weinstein Company, which distributed director Tom Hooper's The King Speech, is debating re-cutting the film to eliminate what the MPAA considers "foul" language. This would earn the twelve-time-Oscar-nominee a PG-13 or even PG rating and open it to a younger audience. Which would, in turn, open it to more profit, Mr. Weinstein's ultimate goal. There are two things that are shameful in this scenario: first, that the company in charge of such a successful and highly-praised film might actually slice it into pieces and destroy its artistic integrity, and second that the Motion Picture Association of America stamped The King's Speech with the perpostuous R rating to begin with.
Let's start with The Weinstein Company. It was only a few weeks ago, when Harvey and his men fought publicly to lower the rating of another of their films Blue Valentine (starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling). The MPAA had slapped this story of a struggling marriage with the rating-of-death: NC-17. All because of an implied oral sex scene. Between two married adults. So, justifiably up-in-arms, Harvey Weinstein demanded that the MPAA reconsider. And they did, lowering the rating and allowing the film to garner a modest (worldwide) gross of $5.8 million. So far, without any tampering, The King's Speech has earned upwards of $60 million, domestically. When you add the great success it has had abroad, the number climbs to around $109 million. That's some seven times the size of the film's budget. In industry terms, we call this a financial success.
The particularly frustrating note of this whole rumor debacle, is that even the edits Harvey Weinstein intends to impress on the film won't be completed until after the Academy Awards ceremony. The slices abandoned on the cutting room floor aren't even meant to open the film to a broader public audience who might root for it on Oscar night. No. The hope is that if The King's Speech wins the big prizes (as it very well may), audiences, especially unmonitored children wandering the mall on a Saturday evening, will turn over their ten dollars for a PG version.
See their faces? They don't understand (as most of us don't) why there should be all this hullabaloo over a couple of "F" words.
So now let's turn our focus over to the Motion Picture Association of America. After much structured review, the MPAA gave The King's Speech an R rating which means that, and I quote, "it contains some adult material." Sure, that's true enough. The Classification and Ratings Administration's website continues by saying "Parents are urged to learn more about the motion picture before taking their young children with them." Also fair. This is where Harvey Weinstein and his company might step in. They are expanding both the theatrical distribution and the advertising of The King's Speech to celebrate all the accolades it has received. Why not, in this new campaign, clarify through their marketing that this R rating is solely based on language. There is no sex. There is no violence. In fact, the swearing in the film is the product of speech therapy, does not imply fornication, and is not directed at any other character. There is absoloutely no malice to any of the language which, one would think, might tempt the MPAA to be more lenient.
Below is the scene that caused The King's Speech to be categorized as too mature for American audiences under the age of 17. Apparently the children of MPAA employees have never heard the word fuck, and they mean to keep it that way.
In the United Kingdom, The King's Speech has a rating of 12A which means that anyone twelve or older is allowed to purchase a ticket. So why can a barely-teenage British kid understand the purpose of this scene and an American high-schooler with a driver's license cannot?
Let's look at the rating of another Oscar-nominated film, Joel and Ethan Coen's True Grit. The Motion Picture Association of America designated this film as PG-13. This was surprising to critics and viewers alike, who had anticipated the Coens to uphold their violent reputation. The lower rating made True Grit a holiday success, earning $36.8 million over the Christmas weekend and making it the biggest opener of a Coen Brothers movie ever. People of all ages came to see the gun-slinging Marshal Rooster Cogburn and the precocious Mattie Ross go on a wild west adventure.
So, I must admit that it shocked me when, halfway through the film, a man was shot straight in the head, his brains splattering on the wall behind him, and another man's fingers were chopped off. Sitting in the seats next to me were my two cousins: a thirteen and sixteen year old.
The MPAA believes this violence is appropriate enough for American teenagers to witness, but God forbid they hear broad use of the "F" word. What does this say about American culture, especially with regards to cinematic entertainment? Hopefully, the Weinstein Company will hear enough customer complaints and withdraw from their plan to butcher this highly-acclaimed film. Perhaps, even the MPAA will receive a few letters of outrage, declaring in bold text that Americans are mature enough to tell the difference between vulgarity and swearing in the context of therapy. But in the end, the change will come from us as a collective audience and culture. What can we handle and what should are kids be able to manage?
Because the film industry needs us as much as we want them. C is also for (power of the) Consumer.
I just stumbled upon the latest post of Roger Ebert's Blog, an article titled:
"Why 3D doesn't work and never will. Case Closed."
My sentiments precisely. The post is quoting a letter Ebert received from legendary Hollywood film editor Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now) who happens to argue the very technical reasons why the 3D format doesn't work with our eyes. It's simply biology. As Murch puts it, "[watching a 3D film] is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult. So the "CPU" of our perceptual brain has to work extra hard, which is why after 20 minutes or so many people get headaches. They are doing something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for. This is a deep problem, which no amount of technical tweaking can fix."
More importantly, perhaps, is how this 3D technology alienates the audience. I happen to agree with Murch when he says, "3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain 'perspective' relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick. Whereas if the film story has really gripped an audience they are 'in' the picture in a kind of dreamlike 'spaceless' space. So a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with."
My older brother and sister informed me of an article from the Atlantic which heatedly refuted the notion of the double space. The author insists that the twice-tapping of the space bar is an old habit resulting from dated technology. Maybe this is so, but does that make the wider gap between sentences a "bad" habit?
We have picked up plenty of new practices over the years: drink less, get eight hours of sleep, floss regularly. That's it. Imagine the double space as the floss between the sentences; clean separation is healthier for the piece as a whole. If it doesn't affect the message then why not add that extra blank after the period?
What doesn't hurt our writing, only makes it stronger.
Update: Apparently, this topic of debate is more heated than I realized. Here is another article from The Atlantic, rebutting the rebuttal.
Below is my favorite excerpt (stated far more eloquently than I have done previously):
Manjoo's argument about beauty, like all such arguments, is easy enough to dismiss: I disagree. I find it easier to read paragraphs that are composed of sentences separated by two spaces. Perhaps this is because I, like most technologists, spend most of my time working with (quite lovely!) fixed-width fonts for practical reasons. But there's also a deeper beauty to the two space rule -- a sort of mathematical beauty. Let me explain. Consider the typical structure of writing. Letters are assembled into words, which turn into phrases, which are arranged into sentences -- at the same time being assigned to speakers, a neat trick -- which are then combined into paragraphs. It's a chemical process, a perfect and infinitely flexible hierarchical system that should command our admiration. Being able to rationally examine, disassemble and interrogate the final product is a mark of the system's beauty. Anything less is settling for a sort of holistic mysticism. It's disrespectful to let writing's constituent elements bleed into one another through imprecise demarcations.
Whatever happened to the double space between sentences?
Am I the only one who has noticed the shift in the writing world from two spaces to one? The double space is important for pacing when reading in one's head and a chance to catch your breath when forced to read aloud. But somehow that strict rule of writing has disappeared. I've witnessed the shift in the ramblings of the cyberworld, the printed articles of Newsweek and Time Magazine, and the latest published books given to me as Christmas gifts. So why the change?
It seems as if our writing is beginning to reflect the rapid rate of modern life. Immediate access, prompt reflection, instant knowledge. Maybe we have lost the patience required for a double space. Or maybe we've become better readers, more equipped by daily rendezvous with our favorite internet pages. Who needs that extra tic of white between sentences? It's a waste of space (pun intended).
But maybe, just maybe, by expelling the double space we are losing an essential structure to the printed (or imprinted) word. A steady, composed stream of thoughts separated distinctly by two spaces, rather than the single spot that identifies each word as its own. Let's not allow ourselves to get too lazy just because there's a push to post first or limit our characters so that they fit into an electronic box.
The defined expanse between sentences declares their worthiness to stand independently. The double space is a prelude to the next thought, a hint that there's so much more to come.
Hello All,
And welcome to C is for Cinema. My name is Cate (with a C) and I am a film student at Boston University. This blog is actually a creative assignment for my Advanced Screenwriting class but I hope that it will also be an opportunity to muse on the challenges of being a writer (for the screen) and the thrills of being a film enthusiast.
From the composition (script) to the cinema (theater) to the celluloid itself, there's magic in the movies:
Cinema: I grew up working in the balcony of a renovated 1940's Art Deco Cinema, the only theater in a small southern town. Folks would shuffle in on weekend nights, settle themselves beneath the chandeliers, and bask in the flickering gold light of the projector; even as a kid, I knew it was something special. Nowhere else had I seen strange adults sit next to one another, nod cordially, and sink into their chairs when the house lights dimmed. Something electric buzzes through the air of a movie theater, a surge of anticipation. As a Landmark Cinema's advertisement once pronounced before trailers rolled across the screen, "the language of cinema is universal." An audience partakes in the promise of a good story and laugh or cry, it feels better to share.
Celluloid: Before attending Boston University I spent three years working in feature film production. I began as a precocious eighteen year old, taking a train to New York City with only the hope to beg for free work. Soon I was assisting Directors, opening production offices on new features, and laboring in the Art Department of independent films. I even had the opportunity to work as the Production Assistant in the Art Department of the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man. You might think that peeking behind the curtain would dissolve the illusion of the movies, but it only seemed to enhance it. The same electricity that hangs above the heads of the audience in the theater hums across the film set; it was a reassuring discovery.
Composition: As a student of screenwriting I am developing not only my technical skills, but my personal lens through which I hope to contribute to the world of cinema. As I'm sure will be revealed in my posts, I have a weak spot for film adaptations (A Few Good Men, The Shawshank Redemption, Jaws) for historical pieces (The New World, The Young Victoria, Miracle, Bobby) and for stories from my home, the Midwest (Sweetland, The Mighty Ducks). My selections might seem random, but they are just the beginning of what I hope will be an exciting conversation about what it takes to create and enjoy the stories of the cinema.
Favorite Director Right Now: Tom Hooper (The King's Speech, The Damned United, John Adams)
Favorite Screenwriter Right Now: Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network, The American President, West Wing)
Who are your favorite directors and screenwriters?
