This year's Filmdash event took place last weekend in anticipation of The Oscars. This is the rather manic weekend where teams of budding film makers get given the name and theme of a film to make from scratch in 48 hours and don't usually sleep that much. I've done it before but couldn't make it this year. Happily however, Messrs Squier and Eaves carried on regardless and put together the comic Silence is Gordon. And a little making of... video too. The Oscars may still be far away but damn it's fun to make films. Well done lads!

I wish I could articulate this better. Ghost in the Shell, my favourite film of all time, was finally released on a UK-playable blu-ray disc this week. However, the main feature is an upgraded version of the film, featuring 

• Some cell animation scenes with CGI or underlaid some scenes with new CGI backgrounds
• Completely re-recorded the soundtrack in 6.1
• Rewritten some of the English subtitles – for the better I might add.

Hi-Def Digest had this to say about the release. And while I think there are some definite improvements in the new version – subtitles and audio stand out for instance – I have one major gripe with this release. All I wanted from a GitS Blu-ray release was a transfer to 1080p with the some loving attention to detail that was clearly lavished upon the new version, rather than the careless, jaggy-prone ‘original as a bonus’ included on the disc.

That’s not to say that the upgrade presents a ‘Lucassed’ version – that would imply that the film itself has been ruined somehow in plot or action. It hasn’t, but it hasn’t been improved either. And I genuinely wish that I didn’t now have to resort to having the TV upscale my original DVD copy rather than watching it on the new bluray.

Sigh.

The ironic thing is that if you fully take the ‘you’ve Lucassed it’ view, you’ve actually rejected a core tenet of the film which is that entities should embrace their ability to adapt and change and recreate themselves in forms that derive from but are not the same as the original – exactly as GitS2.0 has done.

From time to time, I am invited to help out with some film-making by my friends Dan and James. Indeed, early last year I spent a couple of days with them manning the camera for their current project Iniquity. Dan let me know last night that he and James have just finished editing Iniquity and have submitted it for inclusion at the Edinburgh Film Festival in June this year. So I’m crossing my fingers for them and hoping that one day soon I’ll get my own legitimate IMDB entry.

From the film’s website:

For Detective Jack Thompson, the system is failing around him. His decision - play by the book, or take the law into his own hands.

Plagued by the continuing media profile of a past case, Jack is trying to move on - make a difference. Then he meets Dennison Tophet - a man seemingly without a past, without a motive - but a man most definitely with an agenda...

You can also download a number of behind the scenes clips and the trailers from the film’s podcast page. Here's the trailer.

Found on a description of Iron Man....

Featuring an all star cast including Robert Downey Jr (Chaplin), Terrence Howard (Crash), Gwyneth Paltrow (Sliding Doors) and Jeff Bridges (Tron).

Now is it me or have all four named actors done better films more recently? It’s not as though all the films named are in the same context as Iron Man, so why these ones?

Heath Ledger is dead. Which is a great shame really. Whether, as initial reports suggested, he died of a drugs overdose in Mary-Kate Olson’s apartment or, after the initial story-mongering, in his own flat of an overdose of sleeping tablets, we’ve lost an actor who was genuinely worth watching.

But why does this keep happening to Terry Gilliam? He’s had Baron Munchausen, Brazil, Don Quixote, Brothers Grimm and now The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus all fall into disarray. Parnassus, which Ledger was currently shooting with Gilliam, now has the financier’s sword of damocles hanging over its head. But at least the death of its highest profile star is more (yes, more) recoverable from than the problems Don Quixote had. They made an entire documentary out of that one.