Side By Side
Year: | 2012 |
Production Co: | Company Films |
Director: | Christopher Keneally |
Producer: | Keanu Reeves |
Writer: | Christopher Keneally |
Cast: | Keanu Reeves |
Keanu Reeves should do much more of this kind of thing. Unlike the image most of his acting conveys about him, he's actually a very intelligent guy and he knows just what questions to ask (and who to ask) given the topic.
When celluloid film now an endangered species and only really kept alive by a small cadre of very powerful filmmakers, director Chris Keneally has assembled the greatest collection of talking heads from the movies so Reeves can ask them what they like, don't like, will miss and will never give up about making movies with film or digital.
It also intersperses the discussion with visuals and explanations of exactly what the difference is and why it matters to image acquisition, distribution and exhibition.
If you've taken notice behind the scenes in Hollywood for the last decade, it's also not that much of a surprise who says what – this topic is usually Chris Nolan, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino versus George Lucas, Jim Cameron, Danny Boyle and Martin Scorsese (a recent convert).
In fact the film contains a very impressive number of famous faces to comment – ones even many cinephiles won't know like veteran cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak and ILM visual effects guru Dennis Muren.
Side by Side doesn't take a position or have an agenda either way (perhaps revealed by the title) and there's inherently not much controversy or drama in the subject matter, but it's s clearly presented primer on what it all means.