Random Play by Graham Reid

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Random Play: The movie that cried out to be made

24 Responses

  • Kumara Republic,

    Here's my idea for a movie I'd like to see made:

    Working title: Arms Race
    Synopsis: A cross between Sleeping Dogs, Crash, Death Wish, La Haine, A Better Tomorrow, and Reservoir Dogs, set mostly in present-day South Auckland.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • Public Servant on a tea-break.,

    Having seen a lot of films, I can remember the one you describe Graham. Cheerless, bleak, and frigging awful. But you forgot the 13-15 year old daughter who was coming to grips with the breakdown of her parents' marriage, which the adults try and hide from themselves through excessive drinking, and her emerging consciousness of her own sexuality.

    And the symbolism, the endless sledgehammer like battering from the symbolism.

    Still, no matter how bad the movie was, it was good to know Ian Mune and Marton Csokas were still working.

    Wellington • Since Apr 2008 • 67 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    the symbolism.......the symbolism..........

    Otherwise, thanks for that Graham. I do like to see truly bad films get the treatment they deserve.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    Yes, but how do we get a yellow mini into it too?

    Thanks for the tip, Graham. I was considering going to TDtheESS tomorrow but I am relieved now that I have avoided ruining my weekend.

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • Bob Munro,

    I worked on the safety crew for a De Beer’s diamonds commercial once. They had chosen the endless rocky moraines of the lower Tasman Glacier. There is just hills of black rock with the occasional piece of dirty ice sticking out, stretching for kilometres in every direction. Perfect place to depict a primeval diamond forming landscape.

    It was a bugger of a place to work. A lot of the rock is quite thin in places and you can slip on the underlying ice. The director wanted a moody cloudscape and sure enough on the main day of filming a southerly front arrived and the cloud lowered to just a couple of hundred feet above the moraines. All access was by helicopter and we were watching closely the safety margins. The director was loving it. Then it started to drizzle.

    That was enough for us and we called the shoot off and bundled the relieved actors and the disgruntled director into the helicopters and started relaying them out of there.

    By the time we climbed into the last machine, underfoot conditions were treacherous from the wet rocks over the slippery ice and the tops of the dark moraine hills were blending into the grey forbidding sky. Just as we lifted off one of the riggers turned to me and said rather admiringly “Vincent would just be coming in about now”.

    Christchurch • Since Aug 2007 • 418 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    I was considering going to TDtheESS tomorrow but I am relieved now that I have avoided ruining my weekend.

    A rating of 15% on 'rotten tomatoes'....That translates roughly as 'appallingly bad. Avoid at all costs'.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Litterick,

    The poster was enough to put me off; and the title. It was that kind of film. How could it be anything else?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    Ah but there's the big problem, a real dilemma: a yellow mini showing up in the 1800 would just wrong - but equally it would be really really symbolic - you can see how a director would be torn - I think you take the wheels off and have it carried by a bunch of orcs instead

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    “Vincent would just be coming in about now”

    Too true. Imagine his frustrated directorial ambition if he had been born in sunny California instead of gloomy old enzed.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Ah but there's the big problem, a real dilemma: a yellow mini showing up in the 1800 would just wrong - but equally it would be really really symbolic - you can see how a director would be torn - I think you take the wheels off and have it carried by a bunch of orcs instead

    Now you're talking Paul. Mount big spikes all around it, skulls of past victims stuck in place of the headrests in the front seats (umm, imagine it's a mini with headrests).

    And maybe the good guys could have a matching Kombi van.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    "big spikes all around" - I'm getting flashes of the urban warrior aesthetic now, Kyle...

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Aquila G,

    A mini tooling across a distant hillside in symbolic 1800s NZ would be great - it'd serve as a nod to the "was it there or not - well definitely not on the DVD" car in Fellowship as well.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 9 posts Report Reply

  • Felix Marwick,

    Y'know if you pitched that New Zealand concept to the Film Commission you would probably get a swag of funding.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 200 posts Report Reply

  • Lyndon Hood,

    a yellow mini showing up in the 1800 would just wrong

    Magic realism. Problem solved.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1115 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Dowden,

    "Beans to God!"

    Canberra • Since Dec 2007 • 38 posts Report Reply

  • snakeoil,

    The town is washed out, beaching an enormous whale in the process. When ravenous survivors carve up the whale, a yellow mini is disgorged from it's guts. Zombie sheep feast on entrails and devour the remaining survivors...

    Blue Lynn • Since Dec 2008 • 10 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    ... and then drive off looking for Bruno Lawrence under a sullen nuclear sky.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Far be it from me to be a spoiler -- and please go see it, if you must -- but we thought it the most trite, sentimental, predictable, cornball, overblown epic ever. And I’ve seen some clunkers from the Fifties -- which stand up better for their sheer camp value.

    And Mr. Read has stumbed over a rather delicious irony of the critical trade -- rather funny watching critics who cream their panties over the absurd, over-heated melodramas of Douglas Sirk, Max Ophuls, Powell and Pressburger and Fassbinder (Sirk on truckloads of cocaine with lots of kinky sex) have a problem with Baz Luhrmann?

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    Mr. Read should read Mr. Reid!

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Poo to your orthographic imperialism! But seriously - I prefer an overwrought melodrama to glossy sadism or "Beckett on downers does family therapy" aka the American indie film.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    If it helps, film festival director calls the "gumboot movies". If the characters aren't wearing them, they probably should be.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    That should read film festival director Bill Gosden...

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • 81stcolumn,

    In my movies there would always be a stray dog barking in the street.....

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Brislen,

    Bollocks! Bollocks! Crikey dick.

    I miss Bruno Lawrence. And his shotgun.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 200 posts Report Reply

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