Hey folks, Harry here... Silvain and I had a chance to chow down upon some ol patat met a few years ago and folks, he was a real outstanding fellow. Just amazing. It was one of those nights that just everything went exactly the opposite of how you thought it would end up. As I ventured into the safety of my room that fateful night, my fingers were greasy from the fried potatoes covered in dutch Mayo (which is served warm btw) and a giant smile on my face. Sigh... wish I could say I'm in the same shape now.. snifle sniffle... and this lucky supergenius also mnaged to not be able to still get Patat met, but he saw Fincher's PANIC ROOM.... UN---- FAIR!!! Heh... of course I got to watch CLASS OF NUKE'M HIGH introduced by Lloyd Kauffman. So who's laughing now buddy boy???

Hi There Harry!

Silvain here.

We met and hung around a couple of days,... 3 years ago. At the Rotterdam Film Festival, in Holland. Anyways...

Just wanted to tell you I saw a pre-"playing in a cinema near you" edition of Panic Room. "The" Panic Room. From the man, D. Fincher. And well..., yes, he has done it again. It was a press-screening, missing the eventual highlights, shadows and final sound remixing. But what the hell!

Allthough not as mindboggling as Fight Club, surely as visually stunning as Tyler Durden's cinematic attack on corporate America.

Well...

First of all, this being a Fincher film, I was allready losing salivar once the (horribly ugly Columbia Pictures intro, pardon my french) started, knowing that we we're in for a treat with the upcoming credit sequence. It was so cool. I'm not sure if I should tell you what it was like, for in the case you haven't seen the film yourself yet... But here it goes:

Every credit (every name) was 3-dimensionally and digitally composited in real (moving) footage of New York City. As if 40 feet words were hanging in the air between buildings. Above streets, next to building facades and above Parks. All with cool wide angle (lens) tilts and pans.

Than, all over the film were cool,... very cool, photogrammetry shots. (As you can see, today's magic word is "cool") Geez, there was even one shot that timed to about, I'd say, 4 or 5 minutes. Beginning in Jodie's bedroom, going down the stairs (2 floors), moving through the kitchen, through all kinds of kitchen appliances towards a window. There we start to follow a couple of people outside. As these people go from one side of the house to the other, we keep following them in a tracking shot. Than when they start scaling the house outside, the camera moves upwords, through the floors, inside... Ans all this in an apparent one taker!!! (Of course we all know that this has been a sequence of about 100 different shots and effects, all cut together marvelously to a jawdropping climactic visual effects scene).

Phew...

What else... Well, the acting was darn good. Jodie was plain cool! Actually every actor was cool in this film. Especially Jered Leto. Fincher gave him tight dreds on his head!!! He plays such a cool character. The colorgrade was great, sort of blueish... The lighting was even cooler. Cudo's to the two DP's. (By the way..., why did they have 2 DP's?)

Anyway...

All in all, I enjoyed it a lot. Can't wait to see it again. Can't wait to have it on DVD!!! I think the special features will be ejaculatingly cool!!!

I'll be seeing ya! Bye now...

Silvain.