Heartless

Relive the horror of Frightfest 2009
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The Soapmaker
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Post by The Soapmaker »

streetrw wrote:Just for interest's sake:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/ ... mouth.html
Why doesn't Kermode ever show up at Frightfest? He's not particularly anti-horror, is he?

Or maybe he has... I've certainly seen him at festival screenings, but maybe that was the London Film Festival.
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Post by macready »

The Soapmaker wrote:
streetrw wrote:Just for interest's sake:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/ ... mouth.html
Why doesn't Kermode ever show up at Frightfest? He's not particularly anti-horror, is he?

Or maybe he has... I've certainly seen him at festival screenings, but maybe that was the London Film Festival.
IIRC, Kermode has said he just likes spending the bank holiday weekend with his family rather than going to another film festival. Alan Jones said he's definitely invited every time...

As for Heartless, it was fine. It's not a new type of horror, nor even Ridley's best film, but it's a fine modern retelling of Faust with some great performances. I think it deserves revisiting when the dust of pretentiousness has settled.
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Post by zoltan »

An amazing film really deserving of the high praise it is getting.
Just gutted that as soon as the credits rolled we had to rush out of the cinema and flag down a cab otherwise we would have missed our coach.
Note to self film start times at frightfest = start of intro trailers and various other things even musical performances so don't plan things accordingly to the running times.

The two songs performed were beautiful , full of such emotion and what a a great singer .
Is Jim Sturgess main proffesion an actor or a singer ? he seems accomplished at both.

Most dissapointing thing of the whole weekend was definetly missing the Q and A for this film and not getting to say goodbye to freinds and oraganisers properly.
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IT WAS TONGUE IN CHEEK!!!!

Post by VegaStreetKiller »

From where I was sitting 4th row back (left side) Ridley def was joking... I've seen him interviewed and I know he cares so much about the horror genre so there's no way he would say that seriously! Also it looked like he was about to follow it up but Alan Jones moved on to Sturgess... and you could tell Ridley thought he was going to get more time to talk! Blame descent 2 if anyone! Heartless should of been closing film so this wouldn't of happened! Also ... hype!!?? What hype!!?? There's no posters or trailers... Alan Jones was the only one to have seen it and he loved it - don't mean the expectation was too great - I still went into it with a totally open mind and WAS BLOWN AWAY. My mind was scattered afterwards but then I slept on it and couldn't stop thinking about it.

Twitch film posted the Q&A transcript... for any doubters...or luvvies!!

Alan Jones, FrightFest: Okay, the first question we’ve got to ask is of course why has it taken you so long to get back behind the camera?

Philip Ridley: Well. Um -

(audience laughter)

PR: It really hasn’t really felt to me that I’ve been away, in a way - I mean I haven’t stopped films, and I haven’t stopped making - ah - I haven’t stopped taking photographs and doing film work - ah - the difference is that no-one’s seen them! I’ve been doing more of my own short films, I’ve been carrying on doing that. Um - I think the thing, one of the big things that got me back - um - was high-definition. I think if anyone has seen any of the films that I’ve done before, in particular The Reflecting Skin, it occurs to me that… I was always after a kind of high-definition look before there was high-definition. I’m one of those directors that never really loved celluloid. At all! It was always far too blurry, for me, and I was always after a really high, very crisp, very defined, very clear look, ah, for the film. Um. And then high-definition came along and I think you can see from the way that this looks… the look of it is very crystallised and very pure. And that’s the type of look that I’ve always loved. So - um - that’s the short answer. Now the long answer -

(audience laughter)

FF: I mean - how would you describe it, if I was to go, I mean - give us a couple of lines’ pitch, you know.

PR: Describe what?

FF: The film Heartless.

PR: I would say it’s, um -

(long pause)

PR: The birth of a new genre of horror.

FF: (slowly) Well.

(audience laughter)

FF: I’m going to ask someone - I’m going to move along - Jim?

(audience applause, cheering)
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Post by Tommy-Boy »

Well I also went into it with a completely open mind - and came out thinking good, not great, probably wont see it again :)
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Post by fd »

I must admit that I'm finding the discussions about the film extremely interesting. I've posted before that my opinion is not good.

However, it seems an awful lot of people are focusing on the "He was joking when he said new genre of horror and people only disliked it because of that". Particularly when a number of horror cliches were used (Faust legend, "shock jump" in the bathroom, it was all a dream/hallucination, etc, etc) the statement is laughable. Unfortunately for me, the statement alone being the problem with not liking the film is not the case.

It's alright with a few likable moments, but it's just not even approaching "great". As I said before, I'm so glad that this maudlin film did not end the festival. If it was in the middle of the festival schedule and there was no great parade about it before-hand I would have thought "It's OK, I've no need or want to ever see it again though".

As a comparison, look at the beautifully shot Hierro (it's probably the best comparison I can make for placement in the middle of the festival schedule and the general "feel" of the movie). The opening was just incredible and a number of shots/set-ups in the film were really well done, but an awful lot of people complained about it being a path well trodden. I enjoyed it and was glad it was in the line-up. However, if it was shown as the penultimate film I may have disliked it more.

edit - spelling and clarification
Last edited by fd on Fri Sep 04, 2009 11:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by orlovsky »

fd wrote:I must admit that I'm finding the discussions about the film extremely interesting. I've posted before that my opinion is not good.

However, it seems an awful lot of people are focusing on the "He was joking when he said new genre of horror and people only disliked it because of that". Particularly when a number of horror cliches were used (Faust legent "shock jump" in the bathroom, it was all a dream/hallucination, etc, etc) the statement is laughable. Unfortunately for me, the statment alone being the problem with not liking the film is not the case.

It's alright with a few likable moments, but it's just not even approaching "great". As I said before, I'm so glad that this maudlin film did not end the festival. If it was in the middle and there was no great parade about it before-hand I would have thought "It's OK, I've no need or wanrt to ever see it again though".

As a comparison, look at the beautifully shot Hierro (it's probably the best comparison I can make for placement in the middle of the festival schedule and the general "feel" of the movie). The opening was just incredible and a number of shots/set-ups in the film were really well done, but an awful lot of people complained about it being a path well trodden. I enjoyed it and was glad it was in the line-up. However, if it was shown as the penultimate film I may have disliked it more.
FD, you've hit the nail on the head right there!

Like the Giallo discussion - I'm going to bow out of the Heartless threads until the dust has settled.
"I see the bad moon arising.."
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Post by Tommy-Boy »

fd wrote:I must admit that I'm finding the discussions about the film extremely interesting. I've posted before that my opinion is not good.

However, it seems an awful lot of people are focusing on the "He was joking when he said new genre of horror and people only disliked it because of that". Particularly when a number of horror cliches were used (Faust legent "shock jump" in the bathroom, it was all a dream/hallucination, etc, etc) the statement is laughable. Unfortunately for me, the statment alone being the problem with not liking the film is not the case.

It's alright with a few likable moments, but it's just not even approaching "great". As I said before, I'm so glad that this maudlin film did not end the festival. If it was in the middle and there was no great parade about it before-hand I would have thought "It's OK, I've no need or wanrt to ever see it again though".
.
Well summarised FD - spot on.
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Post by Satans Puppy »

orlovsky wrote:FD, you've hit the nail on the head right there!

Like the Giallo discussion - I'm going to bow out of the Heartless threads until the dust has settled.
*starts to hoover up the dust so Mr O will come back into the thread*

As I said in me blog, it was needlessly complicated in places, trying to confuse the viewer who if they had an ounce of intellywhusit would have figured out the ummmm twist.

Nicely shot but overly complicated for a bunch of horror simpletons :lol:
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Twitchfilm review of Heartless

Post by Tommy-Boy »

Does anyone know what happened to the gushingly positive review twitchfilm had on their website about Heartless? Someone had posted the text to the Aint It Cool site but when I searched twitchfim I couldnt find it.

Bit of a debate going on at Aint it Cool too it seems :)
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Post by dnky666 »

Thanks to VEGASTREETKILLER for his recollection of the Q & A and Ridley's tongue in cheek comment....

My recollection of the Q and A is slightly different:

Following the really funny joke Phil told there was a deathly hush (otherwise known in marketing terms as Audience Laughter)

Alan Jones then looked at him with a, did you just say that? Really? look on his face and said:

"Let's move things along."

Of course 2 peoples recollection of an event are bound to differ. Although, I would point out that I have posted on many different films shown over the festival, have been active for a year or 2 on the forum and, last time I checked, didn't work in film marketing.......

Don't take it personally Vega, I'm being tongue in cheek!

*Audience laughter*
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@666

Post by VegaStreetKiller »

haha... dude I just copied and pasted that from Twitch! Wasn't my own opinion - thought I don't think it's such a big deal. Strange about the twitch site review (and same about the Q&A posting) - I'm a reg member there and got an email saying they were updating the site / switching servers but that was a few weeks ago. So dunno! Will keep checking. Also saw a review on DREAD CENTRAL which was v positive but mentioned the Q&A quote at the end! Wasn't there a bad Q&A during Descent 2 as well - I wasn't there but heard one of the actresses said something out of order!??!

I don't work for frightfest or the film btw - but just liked the film...had a strong effect on me. I understand what that main character Jamie was going thru...if you know what I mean. But no befor eu say I don't have a birthmark!
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Post by Tommy-Boy »

The Dread Central review is for me a much better written and far more balanced review than the real love-struck gush-fest review that (briefly it seems) that appeared on twitch (well the text I saw on Aint It Cool anyway). Even though I'm no fan of the movie and dont necessarily agree with all the points it raises I'm happy to see the Dread Central review did cover the performance of the little girl who played Belle - and I still think it stank that she wasnt on stage for the Q&A but Noel "the phone dick" Clarke was.
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Post by feggie »

I do have a big birthmark on my face(it's kinda faint so less noticable now than when i was younger) didn't stop me finding the characters in heartless being cliched.

As for the Descent 2 girl saying something out of order. Shauna said she thought the director was maybe better than Neil Marshall, this seemed more likely to be a joke. After all she didn't claim the Descent 2 was a new genre of horror(caving horror without the claustrophobia(think the cave did this first)), did she?
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Re: @666

Post by dnky666 »

Hey, Streetkiller, welcome to the Frightfest Forum. Enjoyed your defense of Heartless over on Ain't it cool BTW. You should copy and paste it to here. It would reinvigorate the already vigorous debate.

I should hasten to add that I myself didn't hate the film. Just thought it was a 5 or 6 out of 10.

As for your comment regarding the films unique Britishness, I couldn't agree more.

Ridley saw Kidult/Adulthood, read some Clive Barker (or at least dined with him in LA), watched some Torchwood and caught a revival of Dr Faustus.

Then made Heartless.
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