It’s October 25th. My copy of the new Tom Waits album on vinyl should arrive in the mail soon and Halloween is around the corner. Most importantly, Attack the Block is now available for the general public to own on DVD or Blu-Ray. This review will cover some of the features available on this must own film and it will be peppered with little nuggets of information provided by writer/director Joe Cornish himself when The ‘Stache interviewed him at this years New York Comic Con. For The ‘Stache’s review of the film, just click the picture of the DVD to your left.
Attack the Block is packed with some great features. There are multiple commentaries with the cast and crew, a meet the cast feature and a few deleted scenes that weren’t even filmed. The jackpot here though is the in-depth behind the scenes feature that follows Mr. Cornish and the cast through the entire shooting schedule. It provides informational tidbits as well as letting the viewer into the whole process as if they were part of it themselves.
Even more fascinating is the bonus material entitled, Creature Feature. It was a shock to me when I was watching the behind the scenes feature and saw that the production actually had meticulously detailed suits built, allowing the aliens to be present on set and in the action. My assumption when first seeing the film was that the creatures were purely digital creations. Thanks to the Creature Feature, the extent to what really happened on set is now, public record.
As stated, we sat down with Mr. Cornish to discuss the film and DVD at this years New York Comic Con. Here are some select pictures and quotes from the session.
On the choice and treatment of the film’s location:
“We were keen to respect the reality of the environment and show actually how important their home is to those kids. You know, they go to great lengths to protect it, because they love it.”
On the idea of portraying kids you want to think of as bad people, but are not:
“I did a lot of research and the movie is all about trying not to see things in binary terms…When you actually talk to young people like that, yeah they’re capable of doing bag things, but they’re smart and clever and they’re articulate and this movie is an attempt to show the full spectrum.”
On the surprising little use of CGI in the film:
“We didn’t have the budget to do CGI creatures, but I didn’t want to use CGI creatures. As a filmgoer, I find digital monsters very [samey], they all feel the same and I don’t understand this obsession with hyper realistic detail. All the movies I loved, whether it was Gremlins, E.T., Critters, The Predator; I believed those creatures. I could go home and draw them and you can’t draw the dragon from Harry Potter without a fine art degree.”
On the choice of naming the main character, Moses:
“I liked the ides of his parents naming him that and I liked imagining his parents and the hope and faith they would have in a kid to name him that and I thought it would juxtapose nicely with where we found him at the beginning of the story.”
On casting John Boyega for the main role:
“I think he was going to make it, with or without us, but I feel very lucky that we discovered him for this.”
