Q&A with
Duncan Jones, the director of the recent Hugo winner
Moon plus Gavin Rothery - concept designer and VFX supervisor, Barrett Heathcote - visual effects editor and Hideki Arichi - art director (MLYT) (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5)
posted by fearfulsymmetry
on Sep 10, 2010 -
30 comments
Toy Story 3 hits theaters today, and it's already winning
universal acclaim as an enchanting and heartbreaking wonderwork, employing
understated 3D and a
"real-time" perspective that
deftly capitalizes on the nostalgia and can't-go-home-again angst of a generation that grew up with the series.
It has a strong pedigree, with 11-year-old predecessor
Toy Story 2 the rare sequel to equal its forebear, 1995's
Toy Story (itself the first CGI feature in history).
And it joins a lofty stable of films: over the last 15 years, Pixar has put out an unbroken chain of
ten commercial and critical successes that have grossed over $5 billion worldwide and collected
24 Academy Awards (including the
second-ever Best Picture nom for animation with
Up), a legacy that
rivals some of the greatest franchises in film history.
But there's rumbling on the horizon. Although the studio has been
hailed for its originality (of the 50 top-grossing movies in history, only nine were original stories -- and
five of them were by Pixar), two of their upcoming projects are
sequels, both of them based some of their least-acclaimed films (
Cars 2 in 2011 and
Monsters, Inc. 2 in 2012). And while 2012 will also bring
The Bear and the Bow Brave, the first Pixar flick to feature a female protagonist
[previously], fellow newcomer
Newt has been
canceled. With
WALL-E/Up/Toy Story 3 guru Andrew Stanton focusing on
his 2012 adaptation of
John Carter of Mars and with
forays into live-action already in development,
does this mark the end of the golden age of Pixar? Or is this latest entry lasting proof that even the toughest case of sequelitis can be raised to the level of masterpiece?
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 18, 2010 -
227 comments
Some kind soul recently uploaded, in five parts, a 1991 BBC
Omnibus television documentary about
Peter Greenaway, who never ceases to inspire me in his dedication to push film into new, richly interesting places, to liberate it from its addiction to stale 19th-century psychological narrative and to open it up to accept and incorporate all manner of artistic information it's usually denied. Cleverly titled
Anatomy of a Filmmaker — Greenaway is an enthusiast of the nude human figure, which he sees as the single constant of art — it covers the filmmaker's career from his earliest shorts up through
Prospero's Books. There are bits about the time he spent honing his skills cutting together British propaganda, his experience with painting and his longtime collaboration with Sacha Vierny. It also presents subsections on Greenaway's own inspirational creators, including John Cage and the increasingly-intriguing-to-me R.B. Kitaj.
posted by colinmarshall
on Jun 14, 2010 -
16 comments
Pure by Jacob Bricca. A meditation on genre, a commentary on visual cliches, and a celebration of the visceral pleasures of cinema. Music by The Jesus Lizard. Please play full screen at top volume!
posted by lazaruslong
on Jun 4, 2010 -
15 comments
Salo has been discussed
before here in the blue, but last week the
Australian Classification Review Board determined that the DVD release can be classified R18+ (available, but with sale restricted to adults), if it includes 3 hours of additional material proposed by the potential distributor,
Shock. In the decision, the Board notes that the additional material "facilitates wider consideration of the context of the film."
While this decision is a win for anti-censorship campaigners and film buffs, it may not be the final chapter. The film has had a
checkered history in Australia.
The Board's media release is
here (PDF).
posted by Artaud
on May 9, 2010 -
32 comments
I mean, in these days of indoor plumbing, the toilet is a naturally potent metaphor for everyday repression, for all the bile and rage and memories and sins and other impure thoughts and unclean urges that can't always kept down or flushed away. Every once in a while when the psychological plumbing gets clogged, the load of excrement becomes more than one's psychological pipes can handle, and the shit all comes bubbling back up from below and spews out onto the surface.
A survey of plumbing in the movies. Wee bit NSFW in both word and image.
posted by kipmanley
on Mar 9, 2010 -
33 comments
Despite my absolute fidelity to Sade's text, I have however introduced an absolutely new element: the action instead of taking place in eighteenth-century France, takes place practically in our own time, in Salò, around 1944, to be exact. (some links extremely NSFW)
posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 14, 2010 -
95 comments
Patrick Sauriol's
Corona Coming Attractions, the comprehensive insider film news site of the late-'90s (resurrected in December 2008), presents the top unproduced screenplays for 2009 as selected by film professionals (
Part 1 |
Part 2). "Over 300 film professionals were asked to submit the titles of up to ten of their favorite screenplays. The only condition for the picks were that the projects would not be released in theaters this year." Some sound fascinating, others cringe-inducingly tired.
posted by AugieAugustus
on Feb 4, 2010 -
21 comments
He invented or popularized a startling array of the fundamental elements of film: the dissolve, the fade-in and fade-out, slow motion, fast motion, stop motion, double exposures and multiple exposures, miniatures, the in-camera matte, time-lapse photography, color film (albeit hand-painted), artificial film lighting, production sketches and storyboards, and the whole idea of narrative film.
By 1897, in a studio of his own design and construction – the first complete movie studio – his hand forged virtually everything on his screen. Norman McLaren writes, "He was not only his own producer, ideas man, script writer, but he was his own set-builder, scene painter, choreographer, deviser of mechanical contrivances, special effects man, costume designer, model maker, actor, multiple actor, editor and distributor." Also, his own cinematographer, and the inventor of cameras to suit his special conceptions. Not even auteur directors such as Charles Chaplin, Orson Welles, John Cassavetes, and Stanley Kubrick would personally author so many aspects of their films."
Inside: 57 films by Georges Méliès, the
Grandfather of Visual Effects.
[more inside]
posted by Paragon
on Feb 3, 2010 -
31 comments
Budd Boetticher,
Randolph Scott, and the remarkable
Ranown Cycle of Westerns. "Boetticher is one of the most fascinating unrecognized talents in the American cinema...Constructed partly as allegorical Odysseys and partly as floating poker games where every character took turns at bluffing about his hand until the final showdown, Boetticher's Westerns expressed a weary serenity and moral certitude that was contrary to the more neurotic approaches of other directors on this neglected level of the cinema." -
Andrew Sarris. Hero to the French New wave and early subject of Cahiers du Cinema auteur theory, Boetticher's films are true treasures of American cinema. Martin Scorsese on
Ride Lonesome and
The Tall T: Clint Eastwood on
Comanche Station: Taylor Hackford on
Buchanan Rides Alone and
Decision at Sundown.
[more inside]
posted by vronsky
on Nov 27, 2009 -
14 comments
Will the future of cinema be live or remixed? "There is a level of panic in Hollywood I haven’t seen for a while." So begins USC Professor Jon Taplin, also a producer of films by Martin Scorsese. Taplin speaks about Francis Ford Coppola's recent
interview where the director states that "I think the cinema is going to live off into something more related to a live performance in which the filmmaker is there, like the conductor of an opera used to be." Taplin bemoans "the dearth of imagination in Hollywood", while the
comments section lights up with various prognostications.
posted by joetrip
on Oct 19, 2009 -
33 comments
DSLR News Shooter is a new photo site featuring the use of the latest HD-dSLRs like the Canon Eos5DmkII, 7D and Nikon D300s for news, documentary and factual shooting. By Guardian news photographer
Dan Chung, it's a place for professionals, educators, students and industry figures to discuss the practice and the art of cinematic photography in documenting the real world. For example, the time-lapse and slow-motion film of the recent
60th anniversary parade of the PRC. Other places to look for information and discussion of DSLR video are the
Planet5D blog, and filmmakers such as
Vincent Laforet and
Phillip Bloom. (previous
1,
2)
posted by netbros
on Oct 7, 2009 -
32 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
A new documentary by a Swedish-based Italian filmmaker examines how media mogul turned two-time president Silvio Berlusconi's 30-year grip on Italian television has shaped the country, its politics, its culture and society. Erik Gandini's
Videocracy, which screens at the Venice Film Festival, starts 30 years ago, when Berlusconi introduced a quiz show whose female contestants stripped for the camera, and charts 30 years of showgirls, celebrities, reality TV shows and Berlusconi's rise to political power, and interviews characters of the system, including a talentless but fame-hungry TV contestant, a fascist-sympathising media fixer, and a paparazzo/extortionist turned celebrity. More details
here and (with a trailer)
here.
[more inside]
posted by acb
on Sep 5, 2009 -
14 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
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
Multipart interview with film maker Kevin Smith on his career so far, why he's directing a film he didn't write, the internet and dying an early death.
Part 1 - Selling Out And Salty Language,
Part 2 - Writing & Film Making,
Part 3 - Change, Death, Legacy,
Part 4 - The Dark Side Of The Internet,
Part 5 - The Curse Of
Chasing Amy,
Part 6 - Bright Side Of The Internet,
Part 7- Talking To People He Wrote,
Part 8 - Gretzky, Gratitude & God,
Part 9 - Risking His Life & Starting A New One (and more to come apparently...)
posted by fearfulsymmetry
on Jun 7, 2009 -
67 comments
"Because the camera is so close to the character(s) being followed, we feel that we're physically attached to those characters, as if by an invisible guide wire, being towed through their world, sometimes keeping pace, other times losing them as they weave through hallways, down staircases or through smoke or fog." A video montage and essay by Matt Zoller Seitz. All shots are identified at the end; you may know more of them than you think. (
via)
posted by maudlin
on Jun 3, 2009 -
15 comments
