7 scripts you gotta read [more inside]
posted by philip-random on Nov 13, 2009 - 60 comments

Jerry Fielding (1922-1980) was one of cinema's most distinctive voices in the 1960s and especially '70s, the perfect musical complement to the films of Sam Peckinpah*, Michael Winner, Clint Eastwood and others. His scores are marked by modernism and intricate orchestrations but also a poetic beauty and intensity—an appropriate accompaniment to the decade's strange and often sad (but never sentimental) criminals and antiheroes, be they in westerns (The Wild Bunch) or crime films. He was, however, capable of numerous styles (he was a former Vegas bandleader), and wrote a great number of scores (from sticoms to dramas to sci-fi) for television. - Film Score Monthly [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Nov 13, 2009 - 2 comments

Last year, Spotify made news as a revelation in music availability, by providing ad-supported free access or paid subscriptions to more than 6 million streaming songs. This year, Sweden is the home to another streaming media landmark, with Voddler. Currently limited to Sweden but with goals of reaching the world, the streaming video-on-demand provider was well-received, but initial movie selection did not impress all. That should change, as Voddler recently expanded the potential list of movies when they signed The Walt Disney Company Ltd and Paramount Pictures, netting access to the Disney assets and the Paramount library. A deal with Sony may be forthcoming. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Nov 12, 2009 - 22 comments

As I write this, I realize I am about to do something that, for the most part, is never done. I am going to criticize a critic. Filmmakers are never supposed to respond to a critic about their work. It's an unspoken rule of engagement. But in this case, I feel compelled. [more inside]
posted by philip-random on Nov 10, 2009 - 54 comments

What's After the Credits? is a handy website which tells you if a movie, television show or video game has any extra or special scenes during the credits or post credits, known 'in the biz' as a Stinger. And if after checking out those websites you're tired of just reading about these post-credit scenes, check out a whole bunch of them by following this link to Youtube.
posted by Effigy2000 on Nov 9, 2009 - 62 comments

Name That Movie The illustrator, Paul Rogers, description of his project: I started a series of drawings in my sketchbook, it's a kind of visual quiz of great movies. Each series is a sequence of six drawings of shots from classic films (in the order they appear on screen.) No portraits of movie stars, just iconic images from the film.
posted by TimTypeZed on Nov 8, 2009 - 20 comments

[FlickrPoolFilter] Crappy Bootleg DVD Covers: Here, you will find Tom Cruise's hit movie, Pepe Likes Tacos. In this universe, Star Wars features Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dustin Hoffman stars in Lost in Translation; witches, pirates, and hobbits inhabit the same world. Titles are improved upon. Reviews are refreshingly frank (if they make any sense at all). Your DVD may also contain subtitles in French, Chinese, Spamsoc, or Martian. (Don't say there was no warning.) Remember, kids: Piracy Creates Jobs!
posted by not_on_display on Nov 5, 2009 - 58 comments

What's 51 years old and made of silicone with red food dye? The Blob, best known for it's work in The Blob, an independent film released in 1958, with Steve McQueen's second movie role (following Never Love a Stranger, which was released earlier that same year). The movie has been considered the definitive '50s film about a town that won't listen to the kids until it's too late (as noted in a review for the Criterion laserdisc release), with a super-catchy theme song (extended single version and b-side Saturday Night in Tiajuana) that was Burt Bacharach's third US hit song. (See more: theatrical trailer, full film on Veoh, full film as YouTube playlist) Times change, and so do monsters, and things got a bit wacky in the 1970s, with Beware! The Blob (aka Son of Blob; wiki, trailer, full film). The sequel played more to the slapstick comedy than the sci-fi/horror spectrum of things. Thirty years after the original, The Blob was remade in 1988 (wiki, trailer, full film), and is supposedly being re-created by Rob Zombie, though his statement about reviving The Blob without "the big red blobby thing" has people asking, then why remake The Blob? (previous blobby goodness) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Nov 3, 2009 - 53 comments

Just Add New Zealanders — a compilation of short-form film, music videos, movie trailers, and interactive promos. Check out the locations section for photos of the world-class scenic beauty New Zealand is famous for.
posted by netbros on Oct 28, 2009 - 7 comments

While some might believe that Walt Disney had the first feature-length animated film with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937, the Disney film is the fourth animated feature-length film, and was two decades late for first place. The first two animated feature-length films were directed by an Italian in Argentia in 1917 and 1918, though all prints of those films are presumed lost or destroyed. The third animated full-length feature, Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed), came out the same year that the first two were lost to fire. This third animated film was a silhouette animation made by a German artist named Lotte Reiniger. The original negatives are considered lost, but a supposedly first-generation positive (from the camera negative) remains and the film has been restored from this stock (full film with limited subtitles, 5 minute preview with English subtitles and the full film viewable with Veoh plug-in). More information and videos inside. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Oct 27, 2009 - 15 comments

Classic Cinema Online. A ton of old movies watchable in an embedded player.
posted by Turtles all the way down on Oct 26, 2009 - 9 comments

From Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe to Zombie Nightmare, Canuxploitation is your guide to the world of Canadian B-movies. Via the always indispensable (and occasionally NSFW) Mondo Digital.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Oct 24, 2009 - 32 comments

Eleanor Powell was born to dance. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Oct 24, 2009 - 15 comments

In their heyday in the 1960s and '70s, "spaghetti westerns" redefined a genre. The Spaghetti Western Database has a Beginner's Guide to the Spaghetti Western, a tribute to Sergio Leone, and Top 20 viewing lists, including Quentin Tarantino's favorites. A Fistful of Pasta has its own Essential Top 20 and an article about Spaghetti Westerns and Politics. Shobary's Spaghetti Westerns has trailers and bloopers. [more inside]
posted by amyms on Oct 24, 2009 - 24 comments

Classic Movie Lines, with Peter Serafinowicz. Now with Mos Eisley spaceport re-edit.
posted by Artw on Oct 18, 2009 - 27 comments

Chris Sims of the Invincible Super-Blog has tangled with the undead before, most notably with The Annotated Anita Blake, but now he's taking on the big daddy with the cape and the fangs: It's Dracula Week! Over on Comics Alliance Chris lists Dracula's Greatest Comics Appearances, then back on ISB he's followed up with Batman versus Dracula and Dracula versus Superman. Now he's taking on Dracula in his ultimate, most 70s form. Behold... BLACULA!
posted by Artw on Oct 15, 2009 - 11 comments

A New York City film location scout (mentioned before, here and here) revisits the scenes of the movie Taxi Driver (1976) and compares them to what's there now. [more inside]
posted by monospace on Oct 15, 2009 - 28 comments

Matt Helm is a fictional character created by author Donald Hamilton. He is a U.S. government counter-agent—a man whose primary job is to kill or nullify enemy agents—not a spy or secret agent in the ordinary sense of the term as used in spy thrillers. ... The character appeared in 27 books over a 33-year period beginning in 1960... A movie series was made in the mid-to-late 1960s starring Dean Martin... the series bore no resemblance at all to the character, atmosphere, or themes of Hamilton's original books, nor to the hard-edged action of Bond. One reason was the attitude of the filmmakers that the only way to compete with the Bond films was to parody them. - Wikipedia (links may be mildly NSFW) [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Oct 14, 2009 - 17 comments

Paul Giamatti and Matt Damon star in Resident Hunting: Shoot ’Em Up by the Dozen 2. For decades, Toronto has been a cheap, versatile city in which to shoot movies. Most of the time, Toronto pretends to be some other place – mostly New York. Using DVD screencaps, city blog Torontoist takes a sightseeing tour through over 50 films shot in Toronto that mostly pretend to be set somewhere else, from (yes) Good Will Hunting to the HBO version of Grey Gardens. [more inside]
posted by joeclark on Oct 13, 2009 - 70 comments

Early or not, Rotten Tomatoes brings us the 100 worst films of the decade.
posted by kittens for breakfast on Sep 28, 2009 - 229 comments

No Signal - A montage of cellphones in horror movies. [more inside]
posted by flatluigi on Sep 24, 2009 - 24 comments

OVER THE EDGE: An Oral History of the Greatest Teen Rebellion Movie of All Time Vice Magazine gets Matt Dillon (it was his first movie) and a bunch of other cast and crew together for a detailed oral history of Kurt Cobain's favorite flick and "the Apocalypse Now of teen films." Buried by Orion on its original 1979 release, in part because of violence in theaters which had just shown The Warriors, it found a big cult following among kids with HBO in the early 80s. Co-writer Tim Hunter would later go on to direct River's Edge. [more inside]
posted by mediareport on Sep 23, 2009 - 36 comments

Apache (a-POSH) dancing (French, not Native American), popular in Paris in the early parts of the 20th century, pitted a male and a female dancer against each other in over-the-top--and sometimes hawt--mock violence. [more inside]
posted by gillyflower on Sep 22, 2009 - 24 comments

Single Link Marlon Brando Beatles Mashup
posted by philip-random on Sep 21, 2009 - 12 comments

Hitchcock's first in 1925. Kubrick in 1957. Sturges in 1963. Bergman, Huston, Ophüls, and Wilder. Sound of Music in 1965. Willy Wonka in 1971. Also, Monty Python made their Fliegender Zirkus specials there in 1971 and 1972. Film history and all that. Sure. But to my mind, the best part of the Bavarian Film Studios is being able to go inside the actual submarine from Das Boot. Or you can ride on that flying dog thing from Neverending Story... if that's how you roll.
posted by Brosef K on Sep 17, 2009 - 9 comments

Movie trailers: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1951), starring Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, and Peter Lorre; Forrest Gump (1949), starring Jimmy Stewart. From the creator of Ghostbusters (1954), with Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Dean Martin. via I Watch Stuff
posted by You Should See the Other Guy on Sep 15, 2009 - 26 comments

"I will not read your fucking script."
posted by Artw on Sep 11, 2009 - 416 comments

How does a director follow up the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time*? (*adjusted for inflation) He remakes a French classic - taking an international cast to a Caribbean nation ruled by a military dictatorship, where hurricanes, irascibility, other difficulties take him far over a budget already large enough to be shared by two studios. The result is his personal favorite among his films. But deceptive marketing and cute robots contribute to its making back less than half of its costs. (previously)
posted by Joe Beese on Sep 7, 2009 - 65 comments

In praise of the sci-fi corridor -- a geeky look at that staple of sci-fi movie sets - the corridor.
posted by empath on Sep 3, 2009 - 71 comments

The day after Kristallnacht, Hitler said: "It was necessary not to make propaganda for violence as such, but to explain certain matters of foreign policy to the German people in such a way, that the inner voice of the people all by itself gradually would call for violence." Towards that end, Goebbels commissioned and closely supervised the production of a propaganda documentary titled Der ewige Jude - "The Eternal Jew". Few if any of the inhabitants of the Łódź Ghetto who appear in its footage survived the war. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Sep 1, 2009 - 11 comments

" There were lots of small children in the audience. I thought about asking one little girl if she had voted for the paddle, the rod or the cattle prod." In 1995, a company called Interfilm revolutionized the movie industry. Oh, no, wait, it didn't. Audiences at Mr. Payback, "the first interactive movie," pressed buttons on a joystick attached to their seat to vote on the actions of the characters on-screen -- for instance, what kind of physical abuse a captured thug should undergo. Despite the pedigree of director Bob Gale (writer/producer of Back to the Future) and co-star Christopher Lloyd, critics were not impressed. The company folded a week after releasing its third interfilm, "I'm Your Man," scored by Joe Jackson, which did, a few years Interfilm was the brainchild of "conceptualist" and guy-with-gigantic-glasses Bob Bejan (Dateline NBC interview), who now works at a next-generation, data-driven marketing agency that delivers strategic, multi-channeled communication solutions designed to cultivate and sustain relationships between brands and their audiences. Watch: Clips from "Mr. Payback." The making of "I'm Your Man." (warning: A. Whitney Brown.) Read: the New York Times on the 1998 DVD release of "I'm Your Man." Booklet copy from the "I'm Your Man" DVD.
posted by escabeche on Aug 31, 2009 - 43 comments

District 9 has generated some discussion here and elsewhere. But, what do South African viewers of the film think about it?.
posted by smrtsch on Aug 31, 2009 - 121 comments

Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high,
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

The MGM musical version of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz turned 70 this week. It wasn't the first time it was a movie, nor the last time it was a movie or a movie musical. [more inside]
posted by crossoverman on Aug 28, 2009 - 53 comments

Welcome to District 9. Director Neill Blomkamp turns his sci-fi short "Alive in Joburg" into a full-length feature film - examining xenophobia in an allegory of Apartheid, set in a slum recalling District 6 of Cape Town in South Africa.
posted by crossoverman on Aug 23, 2009 - 135 comments

The Adam Hughes Corollary to the Gene Siskel Movie Test - “Before making a movie based on a licensed property, ask yourself: is this movie going to be less entertaining than just Googling for Adam Hughes drawings of these same characters?” [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Aug 10, 2009 - 113 comments

But have they become tools of the Left? Seventy-five years on, the murderous pair is still provoking comment. This time, from neocons.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit on Aug 6, 2009 - 38 comments

With the initial belief that there is no story, or at least no fluid story behind the events of the events of the classic Kurosawa film Rashomon, MeFi's Own Shepherd set about diagramming the movie in an attempt to figure it all out. Join him as he, in his own words, Ruins Rashomon For Everyone, Forever. [via mefi projects]
posted by Effigy2000 on Aug 4, 2009 - 36 comments

Multiplex is a webcomic about life at a movie theater.
posted by lunit on Aug 3, 2009 - 83 comments

In the name of the Smith and Wesson and Glock.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Jul 31, 2009 - 24 comments

Fox have offocially announced that Ridley Scott has officially signed on to direct the new 'Alien' prequel. He certainly did a great job on the original but can he match his previous truimph? Given the number of projects he has in gestation (heh) maybe any celebration is premature...
posted by Mintyblonde on Jul 31, 2009 - 166 comments

Favorite Worst Movies by the writers and readers of The Morning News. [more inside]
posted by billysumday on Jul 23, 2009 - 260 comments

USA ♥'s Antigua ∴ Zookz
posted by bigmusic on Jul 16, 2009 - 10 comments

It's RAAAAAAAANDY!!!!!!!! (nsfw) [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Jul 15, 2009 - 83 comments

28 years ago they came to Earth. Explore the world of District 9. Consider a career with Multi-National United. Find out about enhancing your math skills with DNA from outer space. Play the game. And learn the truth behind the lies.
posted by scalefree on Jul 13, 2009 - 120 comments

Maybe you already know about film noir, how Italian-born French film critic Nino Frank coined the term in 1946, and that Dashiell Hammett's book The Maltese Falcon was adapted for film 3 times in 10 years. Or perhaps you've just browsed through the detailed Wikipedia page, and found the list of film noir series and films to be daunting, and IMDB search provides a list that is lacking. Either way, Noir of the Week has a wealth of information if you crave more details, but focuses on one film per week if long lists are daunting. Not interested in this week's film? They have over 240 movies covered to date.
posted by filthy light thief on Jun 30, 2009 - 20 comments

Have you ever dreamed of moving an object with the power of your mind? Mindflex, the new mental acuity game from Mattel, makes that dream a reality. A lightweight headset containing sensors for the forehead and earlobes measures your brainwave activity. When you focus your concentration, a small foam ball will rise on a gentle stream of air. Relax your thoughts and the ball will descend. By using a combination of physical and mental coordination, you must then guide the ball through a customizable obstacle course, the various obstacles can be repositioned into many different configurations. [more inside]
posted by litterateur on Jun 27, 2009 - 39 comments

Pauline Kael called it "a huge, jerry-built, crumbling ruin of a movie". Roger Ebert called it "such a silly and stupid movie... our immediate reaction is pity". Few directors of Michelangelo Antonioni's stature have followed a film as acclaimed as Blowup (1966) with one as reviled as Zabriskie Point (1970). [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Jun 25, 2009 - 30 comments

Dying of vascular cancer, all this girl wanted to do was to see Up!
posted by Heliochrome85 on Jun 18, 2009 - 132 comments

Gorilla Men !!!
posted by onkelchrispy on Jun 15, 2009 - 8 comments

Pixar has released ten feature films thus far, and none of them have had a female main character. This has not gone unnoticed. In fact, it has been the subject of commentary for years. But when Linda Holmes at NPR weighs in on the subject (with thoughtful comments), some of the counter-blogs get downright nasty.
posted by hippybear on Jun 14, 2009 - 647 comments