Entries Tagged 'Shane Meadows' | Indie Eye

Entries tagged “Shane Meadows”

Advertising is the new music video.

By Vadim Rizov on 09/22/2009

Filed under: Zeitgeist

Shane Meadows is a remarkably pragmatic director. Today he appeared at London's Nokia store to hype a promotional stunt tied to the London Film Festival, in which aspiring filmmakers are invited to submit a 90-second short showing "what being connect in 2009 means to you." First prize gets you a trip to the fest and the (ambiguously worded) "chance" to work on Nokia's next ad campaign, but showing up at the store got you the more realistic chance to talk with Meadows and have him view your work, If anyone knows how to pragmatically negotiate the line between getting paid... MORE »

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Product placement.

By Alison Willmore on 08/28/2008

Filed under: Biz

There's an interesting piece at the Guardian from David Cox, who sees end times-signs in the fact that Shane Meadows' "Somers Town" (which, I know, enough already) was paid for by Eurostar: "A fateful Rubicon has been crossed," he declares. Meadows didn't extract money from Eurostar to facilitate a project of his own. He agreed to place his skills at the service of one of theirs. Of course, plenty of directors make commercials, and there's nothing wrong with that. Advertising tries to sell us something, and it doesn't pretend otherwise. Somers Town, however, carries no warning message, like the 'Advertorial'... MORE »

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Escaping the kitchen sink (with the help of some corporate sponsorship).

By Alison Willmore on 08/14/2008

In the new issue of Sight & Sound, Mark Sinker makes a nice point about Shane Meadows' "Somers Town" and his rebellion in general against working class miserablism: Kitchen Sink made speech and street into stifling prisons; for Meadows, protesting the obligatory disenchantments of a later age, they're often more like dreamscapes, to play with and against. In This Is England, the skinhead gang spent their happiest, freest day playing dress-up in cowboy hats and scuba masks, a brief carnival escape from community-imposed or subcultural tribal identity. Here Tommo, robbed and needing clothes, makes off with an old woman's laundry,... MORE »

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Trailering: "Somers Town," "The Brothers Bloom."

By Alison Willmore on 07/24/2008

Filed under: Trailering

There's a trailer up for Shane Meadows' sublimely small-scale "Somers Town" here. Here's my review of the film from Tribeca -- for my money, it's even better than Meadows' last, "This is England," taking up again with that film's lead and great discovery, Thomas Turgoose. No U.S. distribution in sight, alas. And here's a trailer to "The Brothers Bloom," Rian Johnson's follow-up to "Brick," with Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo as a pair of con men, Rachel Weisz as their mark and "Babel"'s Rinko Kikuchi as a... demolitions expert named Bang Bang. It's awfully Wacky, but I'm reserving judgment --... MORE »

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Tribeca '08: "Somers Town."

By Alison Willmore on 04/28/2008

Filed under: Festivals, Reviews

35-year-old director Shane Meadows seems unruffled by the burdens of being the current great hope of British cinema. "Somers Town," his sixth film and best yet, is all the finer for its modesty — shot in black and white and coming in at a neat 75 minutes, the tale of the friendship between two teens in the North London neighborhood of the title reaches for nothing beyond its grasp and is, because of it, just about perfect. Meadows reunites with Thomas Turgoose, the fierce little thirteen-year-old he made the star of "This is England" after the kid demanded for five... MORE »