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

Three frames. And then three frames again. And repeat. [more inside]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Jun 14, 2009 - 39 comments

I've listened to dozens of film podcasts, but Left Field Cinema is the first that devotes its episodes only — or at least primarily — to movies worth discussing. I'm talking about Malick's Badlands. I'm talking about Tarkovsky's Solaris. I'm talking Kieslowski's Dekalog which gets a two-parter. I'm talking about Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies. I'm talking Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. At long last, I say.
posted by colinmarshall on Jun 12, 2009 - 38 comments

Always die with your eyes open. Actor Mike Doyle walks us through his seven onscreen deaths. [via]
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jun 3, 2009 - 21 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

I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess. Clad only in garter belt and one dress shield, I held off the entire elite of the Trobriand Islanders, a race who possess no words for "why" or "because." Wielding a stone axe, I broke the arms, the limbs, the balls (nsfw) of their finest warriors, my beauty blinding them, as it does all men... [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Jun 1, 2009 - 20 comments

A creative New York couple and their wonderful, vintage photographs: pioneering filmmaker, Morris Engel, and award-winning photojournalist, Ruth Orkin, who is renowned for her iconic American Girl in Italy. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on May 31, 2009 - 5 comments

Three years after the failure of his recklessly ambitious Marxist epic 1900, Bernardo Bertolucci returned to directing with La Luna - a story of opera and incest featuring a Golden Globe-nominated performance by Jill Clayburgh, then at the height of her late 70s fame. [Also appearing in small roles were Fred Gwynne and an up-and-coming Roberto Benigni.] Writing in The New York Times, Vincent Canby described it as "one of the most sublimely foolish movies ever made by a director of Mr. Bertolucci's acknowledged talents." Roger Ebert wrote, "Bertolucci has sprung his gourd this time." [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on May 30, 2009 - 4 comments

Ruined Endings... because you fell asleep during the last part of that movie and you just want to know what happened, this site exists.
posted by not_on_display on May 29, 2009 - 39 comments

Hollywood Bloopers: 1936-1947 A couple of the years won't load for me, but the ones I can watch are fun.
posted by grumblebee on May 29, 2009 - 14 comments

You've probably seen (and heard) his version of Alice in Wonderland, but have you seen The King and I, Harry Potter, The Sword in the Stone, or Mary Poppins?
posted by flatluigi on May 26, 2009 - 32 comments

Remember the M&M's Dark Movies game from 2006? Empire Magazine has a new movies-hidden-in-a-painting-vaganza, called The Cryptic Canvas.
posted by starzero on May 23, 2009 - 16 comments

Every movie has a few scenes in there somewhere that aren't crucial to the plot. Every movie has a few minutes you can miss and not be lost when you sit back down. Now you can go see a movie and get that extra large soda without worrying about missing anything important. No more guessing when to run and pee!
posted by rhapsodie on May 21, 2009 - 64 comments

The National Film Board of Canada's 5th annual online short film competition "Internet votes will decide the best film, and the winner will be announced at Cannes on May 21." NFB previously. [via Drawn!]
posted by mediareport on May 14, 2009 - 6 comments

Luke, I am your father. FTFY. Some of the most beloved lines quoted from the movies are not as they originally appeared, and movie rental site LOVEFiLM.com surveyed its members for the most memorable misquotes. Darth Vader's number one, with The Wicked Queen, Dirty Harry and Captain Kirk among the top ten. filmsite.org made a more comprehensive list, with .wavs to back them up. [more inside]
posted by wendell on May 13, 2009 - 51 comments

Twenty-five years later, the main cast of The Goonies reunite for Empire Magazine.
posted by Rhomboid on May 8, 2009 - 84 comments

People have been trying to make the appearance of three-dimensional movement almost as far back as the first movie cameras. The very first efforts used stereoscopy (more pre-vious-ly), which wasn't functional for theater-settings. In 1915, the first public test of 3D film was deemed unsuccessful, as images presented with green/red lenses detracted from the plot, but that didn't stop people from trying to make 3D films. Polarized glasses are another inexpensive method of simulated 3D, while shutterglasses are a more costly method. Up to 1998 or so, there were approximately 187 3D movies made, not counting porn, cartoons and shorts (which bring the 1998 total to 263). 2009 is supposedly the year that 3D movies really take off, as it has been reported that 3D films are expected to gross over $1bn (£700m) at the box office next year, a five-fold increase on their $200m haul in 2008. There are some really big titles coming, including the "3D drug trip" that is Avatar, and all of the announced future Pixar releases will get the Digital Disney 3-D treatment. But 3D isn't limited to the big screen and big companies. The next format war could be over 3D TV. And now the independent production company MeniThings has released the feature-length movie, Battle for Terra. [via mefi projects, and a bit more on the movie after the jump] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on May 8, 2009 - 56 comments

Where are you in the movie? If we started a movie on the day you were born, and stretched it over your lifespan, this is where you’d be in that movie.
posted by 40 Watt on May 4, 2009 - 83 comments

One Hundred Years, One Hundred Scores. The Hollywood Reporter and a jury of film music experts select the 100 greatest film scores of all time. One of the jury is Dan Goldwasser, editor of Soundtrack.net, which publishers interviews with composers, reviews of soundtracks and keeps a valuable list of trailer music - for when a new trailer uses old film music and you can't quite remember where it's from. [more inside]
posted by crossoverman on Apr 30, 2009 - 60 comments

Worst Film of the Century ... a very bad move, (slavc) --- is set to open soon. Can anyone explain how these things happen? Anyone?
posted by shockingbluamp on Apr 22, 2009 - 88 comments

Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style. A video essay in five parts by Matt Zoller Seitz. (Links go to the text of the essay; click on the embedded video to view.) [via]
posted by Horace Rumpole on Apr 14, 2009 - 36 comments

137 Uncomfortable Plot Summaries of a wide variety of movies, TV series and even a couple books, from varying points of view (whatever is the most uncomfortable). A treasure trove of pop culture redefinition.
posted by wendell on Apr 14, 2009 - 425 comments

20 movies which make you wish you'd gone to college from UK flim critic Jo Berry. [more inside]
posted by needled on Apr 11, 2009 - 64 comments

Internal drama at Fox: longtime Hollywood columnist Roger Friedman fired - or not? - for posting a review on FoxNews.com of 20th Century Fox's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," which leaked onto the internets April 1. He apparently liked it. But Fox is freaking out about the leak, more than a month before the theatre premiere, and the FBI has conducted raids. Speculation about what happened here.
posted by CunningLinguist on Apr 5, 2009 - 45 comments

...[Change of scene. We are looking out of a car window; it is raining, or has recently rained. Shops go by.] I treated myself to a taxi. I rode home through the city streets! There wasn't a street--there wasn't a building--that wasn't connected to some memory in my mind. There I was buying a suit with my father. There I was having an ice-cream soda after school. When I finally came in, Debby was home from work. And I told her everything about my dinner with André

Keep watching the skies - The New York Times looks back at 50s Sci Fi films in anticipation of Alien Trespass, the new film from X-Files veteran R.K. Goodwin. One or two of those classics haven't even been remade yet!
posted by Artw on Mar 28, 2009 - 19 comments

How Science Fiction Found Religion
posted by shoesfullofdust on Mar 13, 2009 - 72 comments

Movie posters that are just one letter off.
posted by zardoz on Mar 11, 2009 - 46 comments

Vintage photos and a history of General Cinemas. Before the 1960s, concessions were rare at movie theaters, but GCC introduced them widely and even launched their own exclusive drink: Sunkist soda. Also part of the GCC experience was their feature presentation bumper. [more inside]
posted by mattbucher on Mar 9, 2009 - 15 comments

The Oscar-nominated "Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello" is an "adventurous tale of a navigator’s journey to save his ailing wife set in a beautiful world of Victorian science-fiction" and one the many fine film shorts and videos available to watch at shortof theweek.com - a site dedicated to "finding those few [video] gems amongst the enormous heap of garbage they're buried in..." [more inside]
posted by taz on Mar 9, 2009 - 7 comments

The Science Of Back to The Future [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Feb 27, 2009 - 35 comments

Clue : 60 years, the movie, the books, the TV series, the fan site, the musical, the Harry Potter edition, the movie remake.
posted by crossoverman on Feb 25, 2009 - 91 comments

After 20 years in development, Watchmen has finally had it's premiere. The reviews--both geek and mainstream--have begun to trickle in. Is it a masterpiece or a disaster? Dave Gibbons likes what he's seen. Alan Moore still won't comment (well, about the movie, but he does go on.)
posted by empath on Feb 24, 2009 - 192 comments

The bumping off of a famous person is the sort of oyster that any detective delights to open, so you can just bet the family jewels that I was pretty much elated when my Chief, the late Thomas Lee Woolwine, District Attorney of Los Angeles County, called me into his private office on the morning of February 3rd, 1922, and assigned me to represent his office in the investigation of this greatest of all murder mysteries. -- Excerpted from an article archived at Taylorology, a site exploring the life and death of William Desmond Taylor, a silent movie actor and director whose unsolved murder was among the earliest Hollywood true crime scandals. Researcher Bruce Long first published his accumulated information about the case as a small fanzine which evolved into a monthly electronic newsletter and is now a vast archive of articles and interviews, official documents, photos, and more. Although the Taylor case is the main focus, there's also a wealth of supplemental information about the silent film industry and its stars. [more inside]
posted by amyms on Feb 22, 2009 - 7 comments

Jimmy Page's lost soundtrack for Kenneth Anger's Lucifer Rising is worth checking out on a Saturday night (scroll down to the middle of the page to hear it). Droning and dark, it might have fit the completed film (NSFW) quite well if Anger hadn't fired Page before he finished the tracks. Anger, the legendary avant garde filmmaker and gossip, replaced Page with former Charles Manson associate and convicted killer Bobby Beausolei, who recorded the official soundtrack with a group of fellow prisoners called The Freedom Orchestra.
posted by Bookhouse on Feb 21, 2009 - 24 comments

He predicted a losing season for the White Sox in 2007 and foresaw that the Tampa Bay Rays would be the best team in the American League in 2008, although he wrongly predicted that the Rays would win the World Series. He also predicted Obama's 6-point victory over McCain. Now the stats guru Nate Silver is picking the Oscar winners and predicting an upset win for Taraji P. Henson in the Best Supporting Actress category.
posted by jonp72 on Feb 19, 2009 - 30 comments

It's Bad Movie Club night! You have until 9 GMT / 4 ET to procure #1: a Twitter account and #2: a copy of M. Night Shyamalan's critically misunderstood masterpiece, The Happening. Good luck!

Graham Linehan, of Father Ted and IT Crowd fame, will be your master of ceremonies, and there will be a second screening at midnight GMT / 7 ET, hosted by Phill Jupitus. But remember kids, piracy is stealing.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Feb 13, 2009 - 32 comments

16 Mindf**k Movies. There’s a certain brand of movie that I most enjoy. Some people call them “Puzzle Movies.” Others call them “Brain Burners.” Each has, at some point or another, been referred to as “that flick I watched while I was baked out of my mind.”
posted by billysumday on Feb 12, 2009 - 132 comments

The day will come when the words of Shakespeare are no longer known. Roger Ebert looks back on a long career and waxes philosophical.
posted by The Card Cheat on Feb 10, 2009 - 60 comments

Concept art for the Alien 3 that never was - Before the Walter Hill version was shot, entirely in brown, by David Fincher there were many iterations of the Alien 3 script. One of the more exotic ones was the Vincent Ward & John Fasano "monks in space" script, illustrated here. [via io9]
posted by Artw on Feb 4, 2009 - 46 comments

"The biggest problem with the metal bikini, was that it wasn’t metal. ——Not that metal would’ve been an improvement over what it was actually made of, which was kind of a hard plastic. Whatever it was, it didn’t adhere to one’s skin. MY skin. My young, soon to be popular, unlucky skin. SO, when I was relaxing leisurely against Jabba the Hutt’s gigantic, albiet grotesque stomach, my hard, plastic bikini bottom……….well, it had the tendency to make my now not so private privates quite public. Especially for the actor standing behind Jabba playing Bobba Fett—–I believe his name was Jeremy—–from where Bobba/Jeremy stood, so straight and tall and severe behind his mask——to put it simply and weirdly, Jeremy could see beyond my yawning, plastic bikini bottoms all the way to Florida."

- Carrie Fisher goes from writing the occasional book to daily blogging, from substance abuse to abusing punctuation
posted by crossoverman on Feb 3, 2009 - 66 comments

Is Slumdog Millionaire

A) A white man's imagined India
B) The reality of Mumbai
C) An immensely likeable slice of broad entertainment – nothing else
D) All of the above?

And will it win the Oscar for Best Picture now that it's taken the Producers Guild Award for Best Picture and the SAG award for Best Ensemble?
posted by crossoverman on Jan 26, 2009 - 118 comments

Asian Horror Movies.com. 100's of free, streaming video, full movies, which have English subtitles. Index of titles updated regularly. Japanese, Korean, Thai. Includes a wide variety of films from an eccentric fantasy like 100% Wool to a psychological thriller like Angel Dust. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Jan 25, 2009 - 52 comments

And the nominees for the Razzies worse movie of 2008 are: Disaster Movie, The Happening, The Hottie and the Nottie, In the Name of the King - (Which was based off a video game), Meet the Spartans , and lastly..... (Drum roll) The Love Guru. Sadly enough I have seen most of these movies. (Previously) 2, 3 [more inside]
posted by Mastercheddaar on Jan 22, 2009 - 237 comments

Mentioned here earlier in its beta form, Canada's National Film Board has released the bulk of its films online, for free, in the NFB Screening Room. With hundreds of films from the 1920s onwards, including groundbreaking work by animator Norman McLaren, documentaries, dramas, bizarre anti-smoking (or pro-smoking?) screeds and much, much more, it's a breathtaking trove of amazing film to be discovered from north of the 49th. [more inside]
posted by Shepherd on Jan 22, 2009 - 53 comments