The Greatest Single Shot In The History Of British Film

The Guardian have claimed that Atonement contains what they consider may be the single greatest shot in British film. Er... okay, but excuse me... that's completely nuts.

Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice is such a wretched disaster of a film I have a complete and utter conviction Atonement will ascend to mediocrity at best. The idea of it containing the greatest shot in Brit cinema is laughable.

So, what is this shot? The Guardian describe it like this:

It's a beach scene at Dunkirk, when the dazed James McAvoy makes it back from his mission in France only to stumble into the chaos of the British army in disarray. Wright introduces us to the carnage with a magnificent tracking shot that winds its way through a minefield of devastation.

Oh, I see. I get it. It's one of those.

Period set dressing and costumes - check. Extended tracking moves - check. Explosions and chaos - check.

Yawn.

If you don't share my doubts, you can download the Guardian's podcast in which Wright discusses his apparently mindblowing shot.

Okay, I'll come back to this apparent masterpiece of film craft once I've actually seen Atonement and I can knock it with authority, but in the meantime - what of the other, genuine contenders for the title of Greatest Single Shot in British Film?

Well, as far as tracking shots go, there's several in the canon of Alan Clarke that deserve serious consideration. In fact, there's several in any one of Clarke's later films.

But let's forget tracking shots. They're seldom the best shots in a film - not least because they're incredibly hard to keep constantly relevant.

How about something from early Hitchcock? An embarrassment of riches there, of course. I'm very fond of the final moments of Blackmail, but I won't go into details about them here - that film has an ending I'm so keen to keep from spoiling, I've routinely lied about it for almost two decades.

The big reveal in The Crying Game certainly has the content if not necessarily the form to enter the hall of fame too, I feel.

I'll leave this open to you for now. I'm very keen to get your suggestions. British films only, remember.

Movie Minesweeper - The Plant A Flag In Hollywoodland Edition

- JoBlo appear to have the first image of an 'alien' from James Cameron's Avatar.

- James McTeigue is attached to direct an adaptation of John Burdett's novel Bangkok 8. The synopsis at Variety makes it sound like a cross between Taxi Driver and The General's Daughter gone Thai. Maybe. The piece also states that McTeigue was an uncredited director on The Invasion - as well as or instead of the Wachowski Bros. I wonder?

- William Wisher is to script the World War II drama Escape of the Pacific Clipper. I see a formation of Second World War aerial actioners coming over the horizon. Will they bomb? (Pun intended).

- Spike Lee is directing Stalag 17 on Broadway.

- More WWII shenanigans with The Lost Squad. The big screen adaptation of the Chris Kirby comic book is to be written and directed by Saint and Mather - or, to give them their full names, Stephen St. Leger and James Mather. You can download a trailer for their short film Prey Alone or check out storyboards and more at the Saint and Mather site. Personally, I'm not impressed. At all.

- David Ondaatje's remake of Hitchcock's The Lodger is set up to go at Sony. Apparently using the same source material as Hitch - Marie Belloc Lownde's novel - this version will, all the same, be updated to a present day LA setting. If you know the passwords (sorry - can't help you, but help me if you can) you can watch some of Ondaatje's shorts online, including the documentary Undressing Hitchcock and Hitch pastiche Waiting for Dr. Maguffin.

- Nostradamus nonsense ahoy in the comic book adaptation The Foundation. Paramount have snapped up the rights and assigned two of the publisher production duties on the film.

- The Fantasia Fest line-up has been unveiled.

- Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. have renewed their pact, with a fresh 1 billion dollar cash injection. Some of this seems set to be wasted on a World of Warcraft movie.

- Djimon Honsou has signed to star in Jeff Wadlow's Get Some. I dare say he won't be taking the lead role of a 'rebellious teen' who joins an underground fight club.

- Rialto Pictures are the leading lights in US theatrical reissues. The Museum of Modern Art in New York is to celebrate the distributor's tenth anniversary by screening a retrospective of their releases. Seventeen films are on the program - I don't know which seventeen, but the full catalogue is online. Some of the greatest films I've ever seen are in that line-up (plus a few heaps of Godard).

- Envoys of the Weinstein company are phoning up members of the public and telling them to go and see Sicko.

- John Turturro has based his performance in Transformers on Michael Bay.

- Charles Hyer is directing the first Eloise film in a proposed series adapted from the beloved kids' books. This one will come from Eloise in Paris with Eloise Goes to Hollywood lined up as the first sequel.

- I'm sure I already told you that Laurence Fishburne is writing and will direct a movie of The Alchemist.

- Paul Giamatti and Emily Mortimer are set to star in Pretty Bird.

- Download the script for No Country For Old Men and marvel.

- Capone at AintItCool has interviewed Steve Zahn. I love Steve Zahn.

- IGN have penned an update on the progress of the JLA film. Personally, I think we'll see a Superman Returns sequel first - easier to cast, for one thing - but, well, nobody knows for certain.

- Paramount are sneaking in some screenings of Transformers next Monday, screenings that are seemingly entwined with an alleged attempt to cook the books.

- Disney are launching a Ratatouille wine.

- According to Jeffrey Wells, Russell Crowe is to star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Ridley Scott's Penetration.

- The DVD specs for Eaten Alive are out.

- Nintendo are expected to unveil WiiWare today - a shopping channel for original, downloadable games. Indie developers will be welcome.

- There are 11 Harry Potter 5 clips online now.

- Warners are to make a series of tween-centric direct-to-DVD films from the Clique books.

- For one day only: Palm Pictures will be streaming The Method online on June 29th. That's tomorrow, as I write. The film is, apparently, really rather good indeed.

- Richard LaGravanese and Hanif Kureishi have tied for the feature film award at the Humanitas awards this year.

The Top Twenty-One British Directors Of All Time

The Telegraph have compiled a list of those they would say are the best 21 British film directors ever. I'll run the list by you, and then tell you what I make of it; then, please, chime in with your own comments too.

1) Alfred Hitchcock 2) Charlie Chaplin 3) Michael Powell 4) David Lean 5) Nicolas Roeg 6) Carol Reed 7) John Boorman 8) Terence Davies 9) Alexander Mackendrick 10) Stephen Frears 11) Ridley Scott 12) Michael Winterbottom 13) John Schlesinger 14) Danny Boyle 15) Lindsay Anderson 16) Bill Douglas 17) Ken Loach 18) Thorald Dickinson 19) Mike Leigh 20) Shane Meadows 21) Ken Russell

Let's delete some of those, first of all. My list would never feature Shane Meadows, Michael Winterbottom, John Boorman or Charlie Chaplin and Powell would be admitted only in the company fo a chaperone - that is, as an adjunt to Emeric Pressberger.

So who would I add? Alan Clarke, without a shadow of a doubt. How he was left off in the first place I could never suppose. Lynn Ramsey - even if she'd only ever made shorts and her career was curtailed before Ratcatcher, she'd deserve a spot in the top twenty. Jonathan Glazer too - he'd be notable if he'd never 'graduated' to features from promos and adds. For the more mainstream-friendly picks, I'd go for Edgar Wright and Garth Jennings, directors of the second-best and best film I've seen this year so far this year (those being Hot Fuzz and Son of Rambow).

Notable mentions in no particular order - some of these would make it into the twenty one and I guess some wouldn't, though they're better choices, I believe than the 'delete list' above: John and Roy Boulting, Paul Greenaway, Mike Hodges, Iain Softley, Bruce Robinson, Derek Jarman, Nick Park, Chris Menges, John Hough, Richard Eyre, Michael Reeves and Lewin Fitzhamon.

Definitely Lewin Fitzhamon.

Tales Of A Festival

A huge archive of footage from the Cannes film festival has gone online today. Clips can be streamed for free, while many can also be purchased for around 50p-75p a pop to download.

The database is fully searchable and users can also submit their own clips shot during the fest.

Here are some of my favourite clips found in my first, rather cursory, search through. Be aware that many have French narration with no subtitles and, very often, if anybody does sepak English, they have a French translator mixed over the top.

Groucho Marx talks about the political aspect of his films, and Alfred Hitchcock plays detective on a boat.

Interview with American director Quentin Tarantino in Paris about the upcoming release of his movie Pulp Fiction, recipient of the Palme d'Or at the 1994 Festival de Cannes.

Extract of the award ceremony and Grand Prix to If... by Lindsay Anderson.

The winners of the 36th festival: Andrei Tarkovski, the Monty Python team, Hanna Schygulla and Gian Maria Volonte.

The Palme d'Or at the 53rd Festival de Cannes this evening crowns Dancer in the Dark, the film from Danish director Lars Von Trier. Icelandic singer Björk, who plays the heroine in this musical drama, won the Best Actress Award. Interview with Lars von Trier (about Björk) and interview with Björk. The Best Actor Award is bestowed on Tony Leung for his role in In the Mood for Love; Jiang Wen for Devils on the Doorstep; Taiwanese filmaker Edward Yang receives the Best Director Award for Yi Yi.

A Pub Shoe, Innit?

Tonight's Culture Show on BBC2 featured Mark Kermode playing pool with Danny Boyle, and a trailer for next week when he's going to play darts with Shane Meadows. I hope Michael Winner's getting better, they'll needing him at the fruit machine the week after, I expect.

Why are so many British filmmakers so bad? As fars as true greats go, wll, we've got Edgar Wright and Lynn Ramsey and... Garth Jennings... (of course, how could I forget Garth Jennings... doh!)...

Er... Um... there's always Richard Curtis. How many of you are going to agree with that? I love Curtis, but I know he's not a popular choice amongst bloggers and blog readers.

Some of the greatest directors of all time came from the UK: Alfred Hitchcock, Alexander Mackendrick and Alan Clarke (The Three Als) are amongst the very best from anyplace, at any time. And now?

I suppose there's Terry Gilliam. He's forfeit his US citizenship, so I think we can claim him now.

Maybe the fact that there's almost no film industry in the UK is part of the problem; maybe the fact that the prevailing British film culture is one of imitation is another.

Ciggie Science

What do The Birds and The Usual Supects have in common?

Thanks to Mart for the tip off.

Bryce Dallas Howard In Talks To Topline Shyamalan's Green Film

M. Night Shyamalan is currently rewriting his Green Planet/Green Effect script, budgeting the project and putting together the cast. Today, I've learned that Bryce Dallas Howard is in talks to take a lead role in the film.

This gels with comments Shyamalan made on The View before the whole Green script controversy. He mentioned in an interview that a) he wanted Howard to star in his next film and that b) the two scripts he had nearly completed were an Agatha Christie-meets-Alfred Hitchcock mystery and something 'like Jurassic Park'.

It's the latter that we now know as the Green film.

Expect more casting news soon.

Rebello Book On Hitchcock To Be Filmed

Stephen Rebello's book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho is to be filmed. More than that, I cannot tell you - but let the casting specualtion commence. Who will play the big man? Who will be Janet Leigh, or Tony Perkins?