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Who would have thought ten years ago that Hollywood’s biggest action stars would be Tobey Mcguire (Spider-Man), Matt Damon (Bourne), Elijah Wood (LoTR), Christian Bale (Batman), Johnny Depp (Pirates), and maybe even Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man)? No Stallones, Schwarzeneggers, or Van Dammes in that group.
The Star Wars empire has grown into one of the most fertile incubators of talent in the worlds of movies (Lucasfilm), visual effects (Industrial Light & Magic), sound (Skywalker Sound), and video games (LucasArts). Along the way, some of the original Lucas crew has gone on to become his biggest competitors.
The Flash interface is really annoying and not useful…the whole image is a better way to look at it. Very Mark Lombardi. (via vc)
A profile of Alec Baldwin by Ian Parker for the New Yorker.
He recalled a day, a few years ago, when he was driving through L.A., saw a car run a red light, smash into another car, and keep moving. Baldwin gave chase and, eventually, blocked the culprit in a cul-de-sac. Before the police arrived, the driver got out of his car — “Typical drug-addict, alcoholic, fuckhead look on his face. He was, ‘O.K., what? What? You’re chasing me. What?’ This nineteen-year-old kid, his eyes blazing. I’m thinking, I’m going to come over there and knock your teeth down your fucking throat just because you’re asking me ‘What?’ You know what, you little fuck? I saw you. I’m a pretty liberal person, but my liberalness comes from what the government should be doing with its excess of wealth. That doesn’t mean I’m not a law-and-order person. I’m the kind of person — you catch the kid who’s drunk and high and he almost killed a girl, let’s take him in and beat the shit out of him for a couple of hours. Then he’ll learn.” He laughed. “I believe that!”
Things I have enjoyed Alec Baldwin in:
The Hunt for Red October
Glengarry Glen Ross
The Departed
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Aviator
But what firmly installs Baldwin onto my list of favorite actors of all time is his many Saturday Night Live appearances. Watching Schweddy Balls and Inside the Actors Studio (with Baldwin as Charles Nelson Reilly) still brings tears of howling laughter to my eyes. I gotta bump 30 Rock to the top of my viewing queue.
The R-rated trailer for Kevin Smith’s new film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Promising!
Don LaFontaine, the voice of countless movie trailers, is dead at 68. I liked this tribute from the Washington Post:
In a world of people who all have some sort of private omniscient voice-over running things inside their heads, sometimes God, sometimes Mom, and sometimes Don LaFontaine…
In a world where marketing is far more important than content…came one man…with a Voice.
Check out a brief bio video of LaFontaine with his voice in action.
Panopticist has a quick round-up (with clips) of a few adult movies inspired by the films of Stanley Kubrick.
There have been several other porn films inspired by Kubrick’s oeuvre, including Spermacus, 2002: A Sex Odyssey, Thighs Wide Shut, and A Clockwork Orgy.
NSFW.
Thirty-five minute video in which Saul Bass talks about some of the iconic movie title sequences he created in his career. (via smashing telly)
This is my favorite scene from Koyaanisqatsi.
Unaware at first of the camera, she sees it. Then smiles almost imperceptibly and turns away. Then self-consciously looks everywhere but at the camera. And finally, a last contemptous peek at the camera.
Update: Sorry, the video is not available outside of the US.
I triple endorse every single one of these 17 simple rules for going to the cinema with me.
9. You will not involuntarily exclaim any of the following, or any derivatives of the following, ten minutes before and ten minutes after the end of the screening: “Oh SHIT! OUCH!”, “Woah!”, “Oooooooh!”, “PAIN CITY!”, “Holy [anything]!”. Such exclamations are not involuntary. If you are a Tourette’s sufferer, you will provide a confirmatory note from a registered and reputable practitioner of medicine before purchasing your tickets, whereupon you will be politely refused entry.
My insistence on the strict adherence to rule #1 is why I often find myself at the movies alone (sobbing quietly, friendless).
I linked to Hands on a Hard Body yesterday. If you need a little extra prodding to watch it, check out the first segment of this old episode of This American Life.
We hear a long interview with Benny Perkins, who won the truck one year and was back the year they made their film to try to win again. He says a contest like this is not easy money. You slowly go crazy from sleep deprivation.
They’re making an animated movie of my favorite book from childhood, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
“It’s actually only loosely — very, very loosely — based on the book,” Faris explained. “But it’s about a small town that rains food, basically. So hamburgers come down, and ice cream, and [the residents] have to figure out a way [stop it]. Eventually, it gets more and more dangerous, and they have to figure out a way to stop the satellite machine that’s raining food.”
It stars Andy Samberg and Anna Faris. I’m prepared to be *very* disappointed. (thx, kimberly)
Paintings of notable movie families, including the Clark W. Griswolds and the Jack Torrences from The Shining.
Hands on a Hard Body is available on Google Video in its entirety. From Wikipedia:
Hands on a Hard Body: The Documentary is a 1997 film documenting an endurance competition that took place in Longview, Texas. The yearly competition pits twenty-four contestants against each other to see who can keep their hand on a pickup truck for the longest amount of time. Whoever endures the longest without leaning on the truck or squatting wins the truck. Five minute breaks are issued every hour and fifteen minute breaks every six hours.
I *love* this movie. (via waxy)
Update: Whoa! The contest on which this film is based was cancelled after a 2005 competitor shot himself shortly after he left the contest.
Vega had been a contestant in the internationally popular Hands on a Hardbody contest at Patterson Nissan in Longview when he killed himself Thursday morning after leaving the contest at the beginning of its third day. The 24-year-old East Texan walked away around 6 a.m., when he politely excused himself just before a scheduled 15-minute break for competitors, a witness said.
A lawsuit filed by Vega’s widow alleging that the dealership was “negligent in organizing and conducting the contest” was just recently settled. (thx, justin)
Amazon is having a Blu-ray sale…selected Blu-ray movies are 50% off. Titles include Mad Men season 1, No Country for Old Men, Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Reservoir Dogs, and Gangs of New York.
Roger Ebert is not a fan of 3-D movies.
Ask yourself this question: Have you ever watched a 2-D movie and wished it were in 3-D? Remember that boulder rolling behind Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark?” Better in 3-D? No, it would have been worse. Would have been a tragedy. The 3-D process is like a zombie, a vampire, or a 17-year cicada: seemingly dead, but crawling out alive after a lapse of years. We need a wooden stake.
Bottle Rocket, Wes Anderson’s first film, is getting the Criterion treatment in both DVD and Blu-ray formats. Lovely cover. (via goldenfiddle)
Some movies Rex didn’t realize you could watch in their entirety (for free and in 480p) on Hulu: Metropolitan, The Fifth Element, 28 Days Later, Requiem for a Dream, Lost in Translation, Koyaanisqatsi, and Eternal Sunshine.
Me either! Also available are Raising Arizona, Lost Highway, Hoop Dreams, Sideways, Master and Commander, Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, and Groundhog Day.
The Parallel Universe Film Guide catalogues hundreds of movies that never were but may exist in another quantum reality. Titles include Help! Our Camera Has Palsy, Adorable Italian Stereotypes Al Dente, and Who’s Tired of Philosophical Hit Men? Not Me! (via vsl)
Recent critical clinkers The Mummy: The Third Mummy Movie and The Journey to the Middle of 3-D Mediocrity caused me to wonder: has Brendan Fraser ever appeared in a good movie? A trip to IMDB refreshed my memory — soiled by several Pauly Shore vehicles — that Fraser appeared in Crash, Gods and Monsters, and Dead Poets Society School Ties, and a couple of other movies that didn’t suck.
The entirety of Hoop Dreams, which appeared at the top of the best documentaries list I posted yesterday, is available on Hulu to watch for free. Watch for Gates getting his pocket picked. (thx, skeets & david)
Neat infographic of the 2008 US movie box office. It’s more or less the same as this epic chart from the NY Times earlier in the year.
In October 2007, the International Documentary Association made a list of the 25 best documentaries.
1. Hoop Dreams (1994), Steve James
2. The Thin Blue Line (1988), Errol Morris
3. Bowling for Columbine (2002), Michael Moore
4. Spellbound (2002), Jeffrey Blitz
5. Harlan County U.S.A. (1976), Barbara Kopple
6. An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Davis Guggenheim
7. Crumb (1994), Terry Zwigoff
8. Gimme Shelter (1970), Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin
9. The Fog of War (2003), Errol Morris
10. Roger & Me (1989), Michael Moore
11. Super Size Me (2004), Morgan Spurlock
12. Don’t Look Back (1967) D.A. Pennebaker
13. Salesman (1968), Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin
14. Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance (1982), Godfrey Reggio
15. Sherman’s March (1986), Ross McElwee
16. Grey Gardens (1976), Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer
17. Capturing the Friedmans (2003), Andrew Jarecki
18. Born into Brothels, (2004), Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski
19. Titicut Follies (1967), Frederick Wiseman
20. Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Wim Wenders
21. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Michael Moore
22. Winged Migration (2002), Jacques Perrin
23. Grizzly Man (2005), Werner Herzog
24. Night and Fog (1955), Alain Resnais
25. Woodstock (1970), Michael Wadleigh
The first trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been released, featuring a wee Voldemort. Movie is out in November.
HD version of Presto, the short film shown before Pixar’s Wall-E. The shorts shown before Pixar films seemingly have something to do with the next film in the company’s pipeline. Boundin’ preceded Cars (both were set in the desert Southwest), One Man Band came out before Ratatouille (the former set in Italy, the later in France, but with similar “set” design), and Lifted preceded Wall-E (both featured outer space and spaceships), but I can’t figure out what Presto has to do with Up (the teaser’s no help).
Objectified is an upcoming film about industrial design by Gary Hustwit, director of Helvetica.
Objectified is a documentary about industrial design; it’s about the manufactured objects we surround ourselves with, and the people who make them. On an average day, each of us uses hundreds of objects. (Don’t believe it? Start counting: alarm clock, light switch, faucet, shampoo bottle, toothbrush, razor…) Who makes all these things, and why do they look and feel the way they do? All of these objects are “designed,” but how can good design make them, and our lives, better?
The film is due out in early 2009. (via design observer)
Nice remembrance from Roger Ebert on the end of the long-running At the Movies show.
One thing we never did, apart from an occasional special show, was depart from the format: Two critics debating the week’s new movies. No “advance looks” at trailers for movies we hadn’t even seen. No celebrity interviews. No red carpet sound bites. Just two guys talking about the movies. At one point, our show and two clones were on the air simultaneously. Then we were left alone again: The only show on TV that would actually tell you if we thought a movie was bad.
YouTubers are adding innappropriate new soundtracks to movie scenes, thereby ruining them. I stumbled across the Richie suicide scene from The Royal Tenenbaums set to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird (instead of Needle in the Hay) and then found a bunch more:
Terminator 2
The Matrix ruined
Star Wars, under pressure
2001
This Monsters Inc. one is actually fantastic.
Starship Troopers
A Clockwork Orange
Reservoir Dogs
Contact
Several of these originated on Something Awful.
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