Blake Bell: Children of Men

Blake Bell's weblog about resetting the Mainstream in visual entertainment: "January saw the wide release of director Alfonso Cuaron's new movie, Children of Men. Clive Owen stars as a former activist who had given up the fight (after the death of his son) against an increasingly-state controlled, exclusionary government in Britain. The country has (by default) returned to imperial greatness following the collapse of the globe's other super powers. The collapse was brought on by a world-wide plague of infertility, the youngest human on Earth now eighteen years-old.

What struck me about the movie was its brilliant cinematography and production design. It's won countless awards for cinematography, and is nominated for 3 Oscars.

This is the movie that V for Vendetta could have been (should have) been. It's a shame that Alan Moore and David Lloyd's artistic vision for 'V' couldn't have been placed in the hands of Children of Men's Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki and Production Designer Jim Clay and Geoffrey Kirkland. Lloyd's vision of a dystopic Britain was that of a society literally crumbling at the seams. The environment was gray, cloudy, and dirty, as if the Earth was ready to swallow Britain whole."

I post this for two reasons: First, Blake has been in fan circles for years, notably with his work on Ditko and other comics greats, so I'm glad he's launched his own blog. Second, I saw Children of Men last night and thought it was quite affecting and effective. I thought Blake's take was interesting.