Martin Cuff Consulting

With a 10 year old daughter about to take up permanent residence in our household, I guess I’d better (finally) get hip with teen culture. And what better way to understand teenage girls than the Twilight phenomenon? Well, the plot is simple enough: girl meets boy, boy is good vampire, bad vampires try to eat [...]

Strangely enough, I wasn’t really looking forward to Quantum of Solace, the 22nd Bond offering. In South Africa, movie critics roundly labelled the movie as dull, muttering that the artsy German director couldn’t “do” action, and they hinted darkly that the demise in standards marked the end of the Bond franchise globally.  So to be honest, [...]

OK, let me start by saying; 1) Heath Ledger is as good as the hype and 2) the latest three hour Batman movie isn’t – at least not quite. Batman may have hoped to inspire goodness in mankind, but at the start of Christopher Nolan’s latest saga, it’s kind of backfired. Vigilantes and bad guys alike have [...]

As a kid, I remember not enjoying the tv series The Incredible Hulk because of the intense, weighty sadness of it all; a man who could never go home (complete with plinky soundtrack) was just too depressing for words. This 99 minute movie version is depressing for other reasons altogether. Inspite of the best efforts of [...]

Caught the uncut version of Tarantino’s Deathproof on DVD over the weekend. Actually a bit of a blast, faux-70′s styling with dodgy edits, scratchy film, wandering colour balance etc. Check out the dents on 1970 Dodge Challenger – they get less as the crashes get worse. Deathproof features a deranged killer named Stuntman Mike – [...]

Finally saw Atonement over the weekend. Hadn’t been until now, because I’m a noisy sobber, and I didn’t want to embarass myself with too much loud and protracted weeping. But: I’m glad I saw it. It’s a beautifully-made film, with a truly memorable score, great costumes and period locations that are recreated with vivid attention to detail. [...]

We have a pet hate in our family; the incessant and omnipresent Greek Tourism ad that tops and tails movie news on CNN. At 59 seconds, the (admittedly well-produced) spot seems longer than the snippet of film news it supports. Now in comparison, last night we caught Shirley Valentine on tv. It’s a great little movie [...]

For a Locations junkie, I took my own sweet time to get around to blogging about Jumper, the Hayden Christiansen / Samuel L Jackson sci fi pic about a young man who learns that he has the power of teleportation. Given his special skills, it’s unsurprising that the movie’s locations include Paris, China, Egypt, the [...]

Cape Town has had a decade-long reputation as a thriving film hub with a “can do” attitude. However, this season, the sector has been hit by a number of locations management issues that industry insiders are calling a “crisis”. Following an Industry Locations meeting called on 6th December 2007, the Cape Film Commission has responded swiftly and positively: [...]

I once attended Production East, a movie industry trade show in New York, where the troublesome subject of “runaway production” was repeatedly raised. (“runaway” being the quaintly xenophobic term used by certain people in America who believe they are entitled to sole ownership of the production processes of the worldwide film industry). New York at the time [...]