Posts filed under 'Uncategorized'
July 20th, 2009
If you’re trying to figure out the Movie Weapons puzzle I posted a few days ago, here’s a link to a high-res version of the image that might make things easier. (That small bundle in the front with the string around it, for instance, becomes obvious once you can read the label — though again, it’s not really a weapon.)
Here in the newsroom, we’ve got just about everything except the barbecue fork-looking thing on the left (under the boxing glove — which is from THE GOONIES, not ROCKY) and the cloth (?) under the STAR WARS rifle on the right.
July 13th, 2009
From Sci Fi Squad.com….
 In an effort to do something unexpected and pretty cool, tech-geek Casey Pugh has assembled a project that will allow hundreds of fans to take part in a giant fan-made Star Wars remake, DIY style. Pugh has broken up Star STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE into 15-second clips, and asked folks to claim up to three clips per person. Once fans have selected their clips, it’s off to the races — with each person (or group) responsible for re-creating their 15-second clip in any way they see fit. Once all the clips are done and sent to Pugh, he’ll piece them together into one final (and probably hilarious) finished film.
It’s too late to claim a clip — they’ve all been taken – but Pugh says he’s working out a way to get everyone involved who wants to be. Sure, this could be a fan-fueled mishmash of bad sci-fi filmmaking, or it could be the greatest movie ever made. Just like the original one was, 32 years ago.
July 8th, 2009
Simon Hsu isn’t just any film fan. When he’s not watching movies, he spends his time doing research on protein structure at the University of California San Diego’s School of Medicine. He’s been published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and will be publishing in an upcoming issue of Biochemistry.
But he is a film fan, and in this post from The House Next Door, he lists and discusses five movie scientists. Skipping the usual subjects who tend to put the word “mad” in front of the word “scientist,” he comes up with some intriguing selections — including one of my personal favorites, Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) from Wes Anderson’s THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU. Sure, he’s more moviemaker than scientist (and more goof-off than anything else), but as Hsu points out, he’s on a constant search for the truth — not so much in Anderson’s deliberately fake deep blue sea as much as in his own head.
The more I think of it, the more I love THE LIFE AQUATIC. I’m putting together a list of the best movies of the decade for later this year, and this largely ignored oddball epic keeps bobbing up to the top. Here, in case you’ve never seen it, is a sample of its strange charms…
June 19th, 2009
Ever since 10-year-old Colby Curtin of Huntington Beach, Calif., saw the previews for UP, she couldn’t wait to see the movie.
But Colby had vascular cancer, meaning she was too weak to make a trip to the theater. Worse, she didn’t have long to live – and almost definitely wouldn’t be alive in the fall, when the movie would arrive on DVD.
Read what happened here.
June 16th, 2009
Here, for your viewing pleasure, are a few of what urlesque.com proclaims to be the best recut movie trailers of all time — trailers where the original meaning of the movie is turned on its head, via music and editing. For example, MRS. DOUBTFIRE as a horror movie…
And, also getting the horror movie treatment, Disney’s beloved MARY POPPINS…
Somehow, though, this one is mentioned but didn’t make their list. It was one of the first, and actually manages to be even creepier by turning a horror movie into a sweet family comedy…
See the whole list here.
June 9th, 2009
If you’ve got some time to spare and you want a fascinating pop culture history lesson, swing your browser over to the continuously updated blog If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be A Whole Lot of Dead Copycats. It’s a collection of all sorts of images — film stills, publicity photos, movie posters, comic book panels, etc — that’s always fascinating to look at. Here are a few pix I pulled from recent postings, all film-related…
Four movie legends: Spanky McFarland, Oliver Hardy, Darla Hood and Stan Laurel
Great still from the film noir HE WALKED BY NIGHT
Dramatic poster for THE BIG HEAT, featuring Gloria Grahame and Glenn Ford
June 9th, 2009
A tightly wound, somewhat repressed hero. His over-the-top, colorfully dressed alter ego. Exploding buildings. The Pixies’ song “Where Is My Mind”
As Erik Davis points out over at Cinematical, a new HBO promo for THE DARK KNIGHT (which premieres on the cable channel Saturday) makes it look a lot like FIGHT CLUB, the sequel. See for yourself here.
Image from Cinematical
June 8th, 2009
You’ve probably never heard of the movie MAN HUNT, but it’s a great World War II thriller that just made its debut on DVD. Based on a popular 1939 novel, MAN HUNT has a heck of a compelling hook: A big game hunter gets Hitler in his sights, then gets caught by the Nazi’s guarding Adolf’s Bavarian retreat.
It was directed by the legendary Fritz Lang, who knew a little something about the Third Reich himself. (He was offered the chance to run the German film industry by Josef Goebbels himself, but refused and fled the country instead.)
Here’s my Movie Man column focusing on the DVD, and here’s a video review with some clips that will hopefully encourage you to check it out. Seriously. Give the new movies a break just this once and watch a true – and almost unseen — classic.
June 2nd, 2009
We all know about the STAR WARS prequels, and depending on how you view time travel, TERMINATOR SALVATION was arguably a prequel to the other TERMINATOR movies (Sure, it took place after them, but it also took place before John Connor sent Reese back in time to the era of the original TERMINATOR — and yes, it’s confusing. Time travel always is.) So it should be no surprise that there’s another sci-fi prequel in the works: ALIEN.
According to Cinematical.com, director Tony Scott (brother of Ridley, who directed the original ALIEN) has said during a PELHAM 1-2-3 interview that Fox has OK’d the ALIEN prequel, though he won’t be directing — Carl Rinsch will.
If you remember — and you can be forgiven if you don’t; ALIEN hit theaters 30 years ago — the original movie begins with the crew of the space freighter Nostromo hear a distress signal, go down to a planet and find lots of alien eggs in a wrecked spaceship. A crew member (John Hurt) peeks into one, it shoots an embryo into his helmet and the rest is horror sci-fi history.
So will this prequel be the story of that ship? The pilot, as you can see by the photo above, was giant, so I have to think any prequel will be more human-centered. One thing’s for sure — it’ll be tough to match the original (or James Cameron’s shoot-em-up sequel, ALIENS).
May 13th, 2009
From Cinematical.com…
… the big names behind TITANIC, Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, and James Cameron, have pulled together $30,000 to help Millvina Dean, a 97-year-old woman who just so happens to be the last living survivor of the Titanic disaster. The woman, who has been struggling with steep monthly bills at her nursing home, had begun to auction personal belongings and Titanic memorabilia to make ends meet. Now a fund has been set up for her, and the Titanic trio pitched in.
Read the whole story here.
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