Archive for category movies
The Rugby Movie we’ve been waiting for
Art, as they say, imitates life.
And when it comes to movies, no stone has been left unturned. You name it, they’ve got a movie for it. True stories, action flicks, girly movies, horror movies, documentaries, and the staple of all feel good stories – sports movies. Sports movies are a dime in a dozen, with almost every popular sport covered. From the rough-it-out boxing slugfest that is Raging Bull, to the hoop sailing documentary, Hoop Dreams, most sports fans have a movie that is both loved by critics and fans alike, with sports lovers identifying with said movie as well as adding it to their much hallowed dvd rack.
Except for rugby.
Rugby is a sport that, while being able to lay claim to being a world-wide sport, isn’t quite the eye catcher for movie makers in general. Most popular big budget movies that contain rugby are just that, rugby in the background. In The Four Feathers, rugby was just another tool used by the government to groom the men for war and violence and is shown briefly at the beginning. Quite appropriate if I might say so myself. The Departed has a scene at the beginning where Matt Damon plays 10 seconds of rugby before his team is shown on the losing end. Proper mainstream rugby movies are quite rare, and unfortunately, the one movie that most people will remember rugby for isn’t about rugby but rather rugby players who err eat each other.
Of course, you’ve got Forever Strong, the most recent rugby movie to grace the dvd rental stores that is, if anything, a play by the numbers clique ridden flick that adopts every staple notion of every great sports movie made and flaunts it like no tomorrow. Sorry. But its no fair when boxers have their “Rocky” and american footballers have their “Remember the Titans”, and all we’ve got are some non-new zealanders butchering the haka both on the field and in prison >.>
All however, is not lost. Hope is just around the corner. From the stable that’s brought you Mystic River, Million dollar baby and Grand Torino comes our (hopefully) saviour of a proper rugby movie, Invictus.
This is a dream come true for the oval ball fans like me who despair for a proper treatment of our beloved sport on the big screen. This movie has a lot going for it that, at least I hope, seems destined for greatness and perhaps even a few oscar awards along the way. Let’s do a checklist shall we?
1) Awesome director? Clint “Make my day punk!” Oscar chewing, .44 magnum wielding, anti-hero, manly man Eastwood? Check. Punk.
2) Awesome leading character? Morgan ‘batman’s Q” Freeman playing Mandela? Come on – he was batman’s gadget go-to guy! Who can compete with that? Batman says “check”.
3) Awesome leading character 2? Matt “My name is Jason Bourne and my head hurts” Damon playing Francois Pienaar? A karate chop to the head check.
4) Awesome story? It’s based on a true story! How more awesome can that be?! IMDB says:
“The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa’s rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.”
Here’s the trailer to dispel any lingering doubts:
Or for you youtubers (Vinaka Kania Tiko!):
December 11, 2009 folks. As village 6 always say, “Mark the date.”
Detoxing from ze pirates
Arrr
When the zompocalypse arrives, staying alive requires supplies, a shotgun and this guy, L.Cass. A PhD at zombiecology (the study of over 9000 ways to kill a zombie), L.Cass is no stranger to all things alternative, strange and just plain wierd. His blog (Zombies in Zen) is a collection of said strange things, drawings, musings, and whatnot. Today, he guest blogs with us, and has something to get off his chest. (Insert zombie moan).
So I read today that one of Fiji’s biggest pirate movie chains is asking the authorities to give them more time to clean out their stock of pirated DVDs, and replace them with new ones.
Their argument is that original DVDs cost too much, and that they need to secure funds to acquire original DVDs to replace their ‘copies.’
I have but one question…
“Whose fault?”
Starting a home video business with a tag line that is “A commitment to quality” and then filling out their 14 branches across Fiji with Pirate DVDs could only have ended one way…
…Badly
What did they expect to happen?
Cause no matter how you may try to defend it, pirating is basically… at the very heart of it… a very naughty thing to do.
And like cheating, it’s so easy to do. That is why video pirates came in and literally took over the home video market…
We can’t really blame them though. They saw an opportunity to make money and like any good businessmen, they cashed in on our tolerance for cheating.
In fact, they cashed in on our tolerance for a lot of things.
Do you remember how many times you’ve taken a pirate DVD home and found it to be a cinema copy? What do you do with it? You will either take it back the next time you visit the pirates and ask for a replacement, or you would say to your self “meh… it’s just a dollar” and then toss the DVD into some deep, dark drawer and pretend it never happened.
It is after all only a pirate copy… you’d have to be idiotic to complain to someone about the pirate DVD you bought from them.
“It’s just a dollar.”
Would you throw away a dollar?
We even went as far as acquiring a fancy new set of skills when it came to purchasing said pirate DVDs.
We’d walk into the store and see a movie listed on the wall, and if the movie came out last week… it would have to be a cinema copy.
“Wait… this movie was out a month ago. That should be sufficient time for them to acquire an ‘original copy’.”
Look at all the terms we had to learn.
Now there is an entire generation of youths out there who have never rented a legit movie in their life. The idea of renting is so foreign to them, it’s like we’re talking crazy.
“You want me to bring this movie back? WTF… I just gave you five bucks!”
Pirate DVDs took off… They spread so far and so wide that you couldn’t turn a corner in your neighborhood without walking into a pirate store.
So far the people who seem to be openly suffering from pirates, are the legit retailers. Sure you can argue we are depriving our selves of quality… but if we’re fine with it… why not leave us to it?
I buy originals for DVDs I like.
But I guess it involves the ethics of it…
But we saw what was happening. If anything, this should have been stamped out a long time ago. It’s all very unfair on us… It’s like a bunch of cops watching some guy sell crack to kids and not doing anything about it. Now that we’re all addicted, the authorities are like: ‘Stop buying that crack… here rent this weed’
Wait… I’m loosing the point…
It never really bothered me at a moral level until I watched a good friend of mine close off his legitimate video store.
He had a video store that operated out of Samabula, and it had the maddest collection of movies from the classics to the recent hits. I’d be over there every Friday to grab movies that the pirates wouldn’t copy. That’s one of the many down sides to these pirate outlets; they only stock the recent movies that are popular at the time. Their back catalogue is all but non- existent. But even my friends collection of classic movies didn’t save his shop from going under.
Like other legitimate dealers, these guys spent heaps of money investing in originals, which wasn’t worth it when they couldn’t recover the cost…
Because sadly it’s just so much easier to forego renting a movie, and to simply buy it… watch it… and then make a huge pile of cheap DVDs behind our DVD player.
But is there hope for us?
Can we switch back to renting? Can we pump out the pirate venom from our movie hungry brains?
Well… to put it bluntly: We’d better.
I’m sure the change won’t be too harsh if the legitimate suppliers make it worth our while. A decent costing of DVD rentals would be a start. I like the good old days when I’d rent a movie for a dollar if it’s an old flick or two dollars if it’s brand new. I could live with that.
Paying five bucks for a three night rental would be something I’d have to get used to. But I only feel this way because currently I have cheaper alternatives… Once the pirates are out of the picture, I’m sure we’ll have lines of people bitching and moaning on their way to the legitimate video store.
No more going home with 50 different movies you don’t know shit about. Now people we have to get back to carefully selecting their evening viewing. No more drawers full of those damn plastic DVD covers. No more ‘four for one dollar’ deals.
Look out for ‘over due fines’ and penalties for scratched disks.
It will be a painful process, but like all bad habits; we’ll soon overcome it.
I hope.
Action! Comedy! Suspense! (Soft)Porn! Comsol has it all!
I stopped by the old neighbourhood video/dvd store Comsol this afternoon, interested in what new additions they had in their library. Their stock is updated weekly, and while their range encompasses mostly A and B grade movies that either have already passed through the cinemas or are currently screening (and are generally labeled CCC, which I can only assume stands for Crappy Cinema Copy), now and then I notice a few movies, usually small indie flicks, that are not exactly your standard blockbuster fare, somehow making it into their weekly lineup. Generally, this is what I look forward to whenever I visit the store, but I do pay attention to my testosterone side and snag the occassional action mash up.
) R-rated version. Two guesses as to which version was actually being sold and displayed for all to see? Of course, what’s stopping them from actually having both versions? 
Tribe Un-wanted
Nothin much in the way of ‘noteworthy’ you might say. Large picture of movie’s heroes (or in this case, heroine) – check. “Grand Opening Today in Village 6″ title at the top – check. Top movie critics giving the movie their undivided love – chec – wait. What’s this?
Ok lets back up abit here. LA Times as a revered movie critic. That I can understand. Yahoo.com? They’ve certainly got the web space, as well as the reviews to show for it. But what is this ‘tribe.com.fj’? Judging by its .fj address, I warranted a local website, possibly trying to cash in on the movie’s hype by dropping in its own seat blowing thumbs up one liner.
Watchmen Homage Image of the Month
Posted by Wilson in ...ofthemonth, movies on September 8th, 2008
5 Reasons why “Bulawood” will benefit Fiji
If you look reeeeal close, at the back you’ll see the hopefully infamous ‘bulawood’…
As of this week, Fiji, as well as the rest of the South Pacific, is – I hesitate to use the word officially, now designated as “Bulawood”, in reference towards our common goal of marketing the South Pacific’s viability as a movie making venue to the rest of the world, India not included. That’s because India a.k.a. Bollywood a.k.a. the original ‘B-wood’ community already knows about Fiji being another exotic destination to film in other than the other 1st world countries that they’re already familiar with.
But, questions the street going, run-of-the-mill Alipate, what does such an event have in beneficial terms to your average Tomasi, Jone and Panapasa? A question that is rightfully asked, and shall be answered here “Failed Paradise” style.
By going the 5 points way we are being hip, cool and up to date with the internet blogging scene, since every blog has to have a list, in some sort of excuse or another.
1) Grog will be the official Sponsored Drink of the Stars
Hollywood is the home of product placement and endorsement. You can’t watch a movie without inadvertently seeing a product been used that was paid for to be seen with your gullible eyes. In Fiji, we all know what that’ll be.
By the time Fiji has become a liable place for filming, Chaudry would have already destroyed what little of a bottled water economy we had going on, and Grog would have taken over, a giant monolith of conglomerate proportions, with sponsored rugby teams, break dance competitions, and most importantly, product placement in all the movies that are filmed in Fiji.
2) Movies will be released first on dvds through Comsol, then everywhere else
Source: www.images-amazon.comComsol has gained a reputation for being the local hub of all copyright evil, and in the eyes of the repressed, will only go from strength to strength. With their $1 dvds, rapid growth ensures, and the company begins to buy out all the other video stores around the country, becoming the biggest movie dealership in Fiji. There is nothing, reel or related, that doesn’t go through Comsol Headquarters first. So big is their influence, that a deal is struck with Movie companies who have invested in Fiji. All locally produced big budget films are to be released first through Comsol branches Fiji-wide, before being distributed throughout the rest of the world. Its power is so absolute, that the Pirate Bay houses several of its backup servers in one of their buildings.
3) We will have our local version of Shortland Street
source: www.francino.com
The staple diet of every proper housewife, wide-eyed teenager and unsupervised child, Shortland Street is Fiji’s most popular Soap Opera, with Fiji One News following closely. And with the advent of Bulawood, it would only be a matter of time before our very own version of Shortland Street would make its debut here on the local airwaves. With weekly scripts approved by the Methodist Church, “Kakase Korner” would go on to be the biggest local show, where themes of love, betrayal and the occasional rugby game are thrown into the mix and both church and politics play a heavy hand in the lives of the silver screen stars.
4) Food will be served at all cinemas, with an exclusivity towards BBQ
source: www.onebadwheel.comMovie goers have ravenous appetites that stand toe to toe with the most zombie of zombies, and when it comes the locals, do you think a paltry paper bag of popcorn and a kiddie size coke cup is going to satisfy them? Hell no! Damodar Brothers would recognise this with dollar signs ringing in their eyes. Because of their monopoly over cinemas fiji wide, it was easy to allow the BBQ sellers in, and eventually, it becomes a fine Fijian family tradition to spend a Saturday afternoon munching on roasted chicken, slightly stale cassava, and oodles of onion while cheering the latest action hero on.
5) Serevi will be an Action Movie Star
You know this had to happen. Deep down inside, if you looked hard enough, you know that this was in the making. Serevi is too cool to just be given a hero’s welcome, a coach title and an appearance in tv adverts. No. The only way for him to go down in memory lane as a titan is to be imortalized as a movie star. And not just some whiny, heart strings biography, but a full on out guns blazing, body pieces flying, explosions aflame, and don’t forget the obligatory girl in trouble. Every action movie needs one to make up for the lack of a script. Though with Serevi at the helm, who needs a script? Armed with his winning smile, his deft hands and that ungodly goose step, every movie that stars him is a cinema packer, BBQ food and all.
It’s going to be a fun future for us all.
Who Wants to be a Movie Star?!
The one movie that caused alot of hollywood hype here in Fiji due to it being filmed up at Navua, Anaconda 2: Hunt for the Blood Orchids was an average B-Grade movie which had huge snakes, dingy boats, people dying for a silly flower, and a few locals, one of them of course being Jonathan.
In his post he explains how he got himself entangled in the movie making process, from failing to recognise the director (I remember asking him “Are you involved in this movie as well?” to which he replied “Yeah, I’m the director) all the way up to the filming of the actual shot (I was a pharmaceutical executive in a New York City boardroom getting ready to send a group of people to Borneo to find the fountain of youth. I was fully in character).
The stars take a dip in one of Fiji’s lovely outdoor health spas.If anything, it gives us an insight to the inner workings of a well oiled movie making machine, even if the movie was all popcorn and no brains, and a little more information on the one flick that put Fiji on the Hollywood map.
Original Post here.
Village 6 Hates Your Poster!
Posted by Wilson in advertising, annoying, movies on July 24th, 2007
However, Village 6 has decided that this poster sucks, and proceeds to stick photos from the movie all over the poster like so:
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t playing around with the poster’s content like…taboo? This is the first time I’ve seen a movie poster being ‘tampered’ with, so to speak. I certainly feel sorry for the designer of the poster if he happens to see this.
Needless to say I doubt he’ll actually see this in Fiji anytime soon in that sort of shape.
However, him stumbling across this blog post is entirely another matter…
What is this?
Anyways, there was a part in the movie where the zombies had finally taken over the city and were running helter skelter around the place. While blood and gore ensured, the main characters managed to hide in an abandoned supermarket with several other survivors.
As boxes and objects are stacked up against the door, an old man, shocked at the quick turn of events, rubs his head slowly and mutters, “This is madness!”
……
How could I resist? XD
I had started to kinda whispered to myself “This – ” when Lawrence damn his soul to hell, took the charge. And I followed.
Of course we didn’t yell it out as good as the good king did, but the spirit was there. We got a few laughs from the crowd, ourselves included. At least it took away the constant thought of wanting to bitch slapping those kids.
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