CINEMA BuZZ - 19 October 2014

Quidditch - The New Sport

A contact sport - Quidditch is rough to play

No the players do not fly on brooms, but they do run with them. The 'snitch' isn't a small round, golden ball with wings, but a ball hanging from a pole attached to a person clad in yellow who runs around with 'seekers' in pursuit.  This is no joke, but a new sport with over 150 teams in the U.S. alone, playing a human version of the Harry Potter movie game. And as many sports' movies have visited the silver screen so to has Quidditch in the new film called, 'Mudbloods'.

Started in 2005 at Middlebury College, VT the sport is now global and played mostly on university campuses.  The players swap flying brooms for plain ones which they grip in one hand and run with between their legs. The last Quidditch World Cup (number 'V') was held in New York City and won by the team from UCLA - a real under-dog. That, cinderella story, is the premise of the 'Mudbloods' documentary. "When I first saw it being played it was embarrassing to look at. Players running around on brooms, it was silly. But then I realized how athletic the game really was " Farzad Sangari, the movie's producer told me, "and that inspired me to make the film".

UCLA winners of Quidditch - World Cup V

With World Cup V, Quidditch may have gone from fledgling sport to mainstream, at least on college campuses. In World Cup V,  96 teams competed from around the world and since that event the sport's following has swelled - with over 150 teams in the U.S. alone and hundreds more worldwide. Spectators and fans now number in the tens of thousands, which is no small feat given the fact that the game's play book is over 200 pages long with 700 rules and regulations.

'Mudbloods' provides the first glimpse of the 'real' sport of Quidditch.  It may sound weird at first, but the sport is real, hard to play, and may be the next mainstream 'must watch' sport. All it takes is a few endorsements from the likes of Nike, Adidas, or a major auto or beer manufacturer and it just may be a refreshing diversion from all of the crap and big money that now drives virtually every major sport.

Who Gets The Job of Playing Jobs

Jobs at launch of the iPod

It appears that Christian Bale will get to play Steve Jobs in the upcoming biopic about Apple's co-founder and main mover.  Leo DiCaprio, who originally was to star in the role backed out in order to " take a break from acting".   The movie, based on the biography by Walter Isaacson entitled, 'Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography', will be divided into three long scenes taking place on the eve of an Apple product launch - those products being: The Mac in 1984, the NeXT computer in 1990 (which Jobs launched after leaving Apple), and the iPod, which launched in 2001 after Jobs returned to Apple.

The movie is set to start production next spring. From the sound of things, this film could be a great one or a real yawn'er. Almost everyone owns at least one Apple product (the average household in the U.S. owns three). No doubt Jobs was a technology wiz and his efforts and vision changed the entire way people work, play, and function on a daily basis. Lets hope the movie does him justice.

At right, current photo of Bale.




ILM Opens Studio in London

Industrial Light and Magic, the great movie special effects firm started by George Lucas has opened a new studio in London to take on the task of doing the effects for the Star Wars trilogy of films to be produced.  Disney, which purchased LucasFilms in 2012 for a reported $2.4 billion, is the current owner of ILM.  In a statement, Kathleen Kennedy, the President of LucasFilm said, "once again ILM will oversee all of the visual and special effects for the upcoming installments of Star Wars, most of which will be performed at the new London studio".  ILM currently has facilities in San Francisco, Vancouver, and Singapore.

As the films, of this lengthy franchise, are being shot in London it made sense for ILM to set up shop in London. The first film, in the three movie sequel, is scheduled to be released in December 2015.

ILM has performed the effects to over 300 movies - everything from 'Back to the Future' to 'Avatar'. On the finance side, it was revealed that Disney was given $350 million in tax relief from the Inland Revenue (the IRS of England) in return for agreeing to make the Stars Wars films in the UK.  The British government's tax breaks and other 'investments'  has made the movie industry in England very vibrant which has, in turn, brought a lot of talent and money into London.

Best
Jim