Easter Egg Hunt -A113

An Introduction to Easter Eggs

When looking at this title a few thoughts are probably going through your head; “who has an easter egg hunt in September?”, “what would a film blog be doing discussing food?” and “I could really do with some chocolate right about now”. The answers to these questions will soon become clear (and hopefully you have some chocolate handy too).  When I say ‘easter egg’ I’m not discussing those delicious balls of joy left by the easter bunny but I’m actually on about an increcible secret of the film world that often slips under the radar of even some of the most dedicated film fans.

Source: http://www.clipartlord.com/category/easter-clip-art/easter-eggs-clip-art/

An easter egg can be defined as something that has deliberately been put into a film as a reference to another film, person or theme. These can take many forms such as an object in the background of a shot or a meaningful word or number disguised in the set; but the fascinating feature they all share is that they are hidden in plain sight before the viewer’s very eyes. These terrific bits of trivia are hunted down by eagle eyed fans as another way to expand the universe of the films they love so much. There is even what you could call an ‘easter egg subculture’ developing in the film world where some people (not me of course) place more value on spotting these little references than on the film itself!

A113

If this delicious concept is still confusing you then I’ll try to make it a little clearer using the example of what is probably my all-time favourite easter egg- A113. This four-digit combination has been staring you right in the face for decades and you probably didn’t even know it. Maybe you’re thinking, its not been in any films I’ve seen but what about this animated classic?

The registration number of Andy's Mom's car in Toy Story. Source: http://emgn.com

Now consider this, A113 wasn’t just used here in Pixar’s first movie Toy Story (1995) but has actually been featured in all 17 Disney Pixar films to date:

Just some examples of A113 in other Pixar films. Source: http://pixarpedia.tumblr.com

Although this is most commonly associated with Pixar, it is by no means exclusively and has crept its way into the background of several other animated works including legendary TV shows like The Simpsons, American Dad, South Park and Rugrats. Since easter eggs are most commonly found in detailed digital works slipped in by crafty animators, it is even more surprising that A113 has managed to seep its influence into the live action world too; being featured in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Doctor Who, Firefly, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Avengers and Saving Mr Banks just to name a few!

Discrete usage in The Hunger Games. Source: bucksandcorn.com

Double Easter Egg of Stan Lee and A113 in The Avengers. Source: au.movies.yahoo.com

Featured in all Brad Bird Simpsons episodes, A113 is often used in relation to prison numbers! Source: www.yahoo.com

 But what does it mean and why does it so frequently appear? A113 is actually the name of a classroom at the California Institute of Arts. This classroom is used as a first year graphic design studio so holds a special place in the hearts of many animating alumni of the university. It has therefore become a tribute paid by directors such as Brad Bird and John Lasseter (both famous for their Pixar films) to where they learned their trade.

From Left to Right the proud alumni of Cal Arts, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and John Lassester pose by the classroom that quick started their careers and has become a beloved easter egg.  Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2618180

There you have it, your introduction to the world of easter eggs beginning with the ever expanding use of A113. I will be keeping up our easter egg hunt with more little snippets about this onscreen phenomenon and do hope you’ll be joining me. Just make sure that next time you watch a movie, especially a Pixar one, you keep your eyes peeled for any easter eggs that may be lurking in the shadows.

Thanks for reading!

Worth the Watch, Not the Hype - Suicide Squad Review

Last month one of the most hotly anticipated event films of the year adorned our screens after a year long build-up of titillating trailers and sickening on-set stories. However, instead of becoming another saving grace to the world of repetitive superhero films, like Deadpool, it instead has become shrouded in controversy as a very vocal Mexican stand-off has ensued between critics and DC fans.  So was the film an undeniable flop like its dreary predecessor Batman vs Superman or is it the beginning of a series of DC success stories?

 

The Squad. Image Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7N2zqCPMN0

From the film’s very title, there was a tall order to fill. In a single movie they had to create an entire ‘squad’ of colourful characters all with intricate back stories that required nurturing and developing like a new born child. In some cases, this was executed fairly well. Take characters such as Will Smith’s Deadshot and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, who received a lot of screen time in an attempt to show that ‘the worst of the worst’ do have emotional motivations and meaningful relationships like the rest of us. This was more successfully done with Deadshot’s young daughter than Quinn’s ‘puddin’ the Joker where their sadistic love came dangerously close to making arguably the two most interesting comic book characters a little one-dimensional. However, despite a telling reveal about El Diablo’s (Jay Hernandez) backstory, most other characters were left a little under-cooked as the only development they received was part of the opening string of systematic set up sequences. Something hard to label as anything but a lazy expositional technique.

Another lazy element of the movie was certainly the plot. The main villains, Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) and Incubus (Alain Chanoine), very quickly establish themselves in one location to destroy the city in classic bad guy style but then do very little else. You can’t help but reminisce about Heath Ledger’s Joker in Nolan’s The Dark Knight who, rather than becoming a statue villain, was unpredictable, scheming and thus highly elaborate. The contrast to Suicide Squad is all but too stark. This leaves the story arc for the squad to descend into a very linear journey where any twists and turns budding fans were hoping for were cordoned off by uninventive writing. You could summarise the story in a 3 step checklist; 1) Create Squad 2) Find villains 3) Defeat them. Hardly the stuff of superhero innovation!

 

Taking centre stage, the 'villain' The Joker in a promo poster. Image Source:http://collider.com/suicide-squad-posters-promo-video/

Here also, we have tapped into one of the main flaws with the film; the villain, or more accurately, the wannabe villain The Joker. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Leto’s version of The Joker was an unmitigated disaster, in fact, it was hard to judge either way due to his much mocked 8 minutes of screen time. The real issue lay in the marketing, or mis-marketing, of his character and indeed therefore the film. The trailers, for example, with their playful comic book style were very effective and stylish but they advertised a different version of the film. One where The Joker took centre stage as the villain rather than Enchantress who, in the trailers, could easily have been mistaken for a member of the Squad! While The Joker’s presence was still necessary for the character development of Harley, this is all he was needed for rather than a forced attempt at having his own storyline. His inclusion therefore is more likely to hinge on his appearance in future DC films (cough cough Justice League) where he’ll likely be a go to bad guy. It would be nice if DC could focus on making each film individually credible instead of wasting years of film fans anticipations on half-hearted 2 hour long trailers for future films.

Despite these rather glaring negative comments, it feels all too easy to criticise, which in truth does ignore some of the brighter elements of the film which many critics are side-lining. To begin on a technical note, the editing was spectacularly done in order to time its cuts with the music which kept the action fast paced and engaging. Similarly, the special effects couldn’t be faulted as CG characters held their own against others produced by the genre this year. Performance wise, the acting while not Oscar worthy, matched the average standard set by other superhero films (despite Robbie occasionally making Harley seem a little false). It is also worth praising some of the moral questions the film attempted to raise by inverting the role of villain and hero. The demons of all characters are laid bare showing that sometimes we can all be the good or bad guy depending on the choices we make and values we hold. Above all this though, there is the simple fact that the film was fit for purpose. A summer blockbuster such as this is supposed to entertain and for the most part it certainly did. This doesn’t excuse some of the ill thought out failures of the film but it does go some way to explaining them.

Indeed, this makes the film neither a masterpiece like Nolan’s trilogy or futile like Batman vs Superman, but rather a brief piece of fun escapism. Thus, instead of being sided with blood thirsty critics or rage filled fans, I personally cut straight through the middle. I believe that although Suicide Squad has its problems and is certainly not worth the critical acclaim some were hoping for; it is worth watching just once. 

Reel Rating: 

 Hope you enjoyed my first review. Thanks for reading!

The Reel Rating

Hello all!

Apologies for the long gap between posts but it has been a hectic few weeks of results, birthdays and holidaying. However, as promised here is an introduction to my own unique movie rating system that will be featured will all of my future reviews. Enjoy!

When I was trying to come up with interesting things to put on my blog, it dawned on me that the current ways of rating films, despite being effective, are rather simplistic. The percentage system, a score out of 10 and 5 star rankings are the most common (and pretty much the only) current ways of rating films but they all just prescribe a film with a single numerical value without revealing anything about the different aspects that make a film a masterpiece or a flop. There are some films that rate badly by these systems but have one very good element that goes unpraised while others gain high ratings but still have flaws that go without mention. Therefore, I proudly introduce the Reel Rating!

How it works... 

The Reel Rating, rather than being numerical, is a visual representation of a film’s worth using a circle split into different segments. Each layer of the circle represents a number value ranging from 0 to 5 (0 being very bad and 5 being very good) and each line segment represents one of eight qualities I've used to judge each film. These eight qualities are; performance, visuals, plot and writing, representative (meaning how well the film represents different people and aspects of society), production and editing, entertaining, enlightening and sound and music. I chose these specifically because I think they incorporate every aspect that makes up a film without penalising certain genres. A red shape is then used to show how I would rate each of these qualities as the example shows below:

The finished product should hopefully allow you to see not only how good the film is by how big the shape is but also to see how well rounded the film is by how circular the shape is. It should also allow prospective movie goers to see what the film’s strengths and weaknesses are in a bit more detail than a few stars can. 

So that is my new rating system and I hope you like it. If you have any suggestions on how to improve it or anything you'd like to say about this idea, then please don’t hesitate to comment. The first official Reel Rating will be released within the next few days alongside my first review (I know, exciting stuff)!

Thanks for reading!