Is anyone in Hollywood making movies we’ll
Is anyone in Hollywood making movies we’ll actually watch in 50 years?. And who are the actors and actresses doing so?
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kottke.org posts about movies
My God, it’s full of stars…
For reasons which are kind of interesting in a weird way (but won’t get into right now[1]), I’ve changed the movie ratings around these parts from a 100-point scale to a 5-star scale.
And as long as we’re talking movies, I’ve gotten several emails over the past few months to the effect of: “you moron, how can you possibly justify giving the same rating to Casablanca as you gave to Barbershop?” The answer is that I’m not a movie critic (my review of Me and You and Everyone We Know didn’t even have anything to do with the actual movie) and my ratings are almost entirely subjective, except when they’re somewhat more objective. The subjective/objective ratio depends on the movie and my mood and which star is in the house of which planet and/or Greek god and hence is not to be trusted at all, unless you’re a regular reader of my “reviews” and have gotten a sense over many months just what makes me like or dislike particular movies. Also, it’s just a stupid rating. You know, for fun. Relax.
[1] Ever wondered why movie ratings assigned by critics are usually on 4 or 5-point scales and not on, say, 100-point scales? Yeah, me neither. But after using the 100-point scale for over a year, I may have discovered part of the reason. 100 is just way too many points[2]. How can there be any tangible difference between a 75 movie and a 76 movie? And when you start looking the whole list of ~220 movies ordered by rank on a 100-point scale, it gets even worse…why are the 15 movies rated 91 better than the 8 movies rated 90? From the standpoint of the rater, thinking about those one or two point differences is a big waste of energy (it gets worse with time as you try to “fit” a particular movie into the ever-lengthening ranked list) and it just confuses the reader anyway.
Also, the stars look nicer[3].
[2] Aggregated ratings (a la Metacritic) are an exception.
[3] I got the star from Zapf Dingbats (the capital H character at 16px). Astute readers will notice the similarity with the iTunes song rating stars, which is not altogether unintentional.
Profile of filmmaker Michael Winterbottom
Profile of filmmaker Michael Winterbottom. Winterbottom directed the excellent 24 Hour Party People and the upcoming 9 Songs.
Have you ever wondered how actors seem
Have you ever wondered how actors seem to play the piano so well in movies?.
A list of mini golf holes based on movies
A list of mini golf holes based on movies. “Raiders of the Lost Ark: You must putt the ball precisely into the idol’s head, or a 15-foot-high, 1-ton golf ball comes rolling after you.”
Some film directors’ top ten movies lists
Some film directors’ top ten movies lists. Directors Michael Mann, Sam Mendes, Cameron Crowe, Quentin Tarantino, and others choose their favorite films.
“Lord of the Bings” cherry advertisement in supermarket
“Lord of the Bings” cherry advertisement in supermarket. “One bing to rule them all” and in the parfait bind them?
Leather master Tom Cruise
Leather master Tom Cruise. “Owning one leather jacket: cool. Owning eleven (and counting) different leather jackets: not so cool.”
Jason Scott on why his BBS documentary
Jason Scott on why his BBS documentary will never make it onto TV.
Pixar’s stock drops because of smaller-than-expected sales
Pixar’s stock drops because of smaller-than-expected sales of The Incredibles DVD.
Brando’s annotated Godfather script fetches $312,800 at auction
Brando’s annotated Godfather script fetches $312,800 at auction.
Great, sounds like we’ll be seeing a
Great, sounds like we’ll be seeing a lot more advertisements before the movie at the theater.
“Dear hipsters, No matter how much you
“Dear hipsters, No matter how much you loved Napoleon Dynamite, Vote For Pedro shirts aren’t cool anymore.”. The Google Ads on this entry feature Vote for Pedro shirts. Hee.
Interview with Soso Whaley, director of Mickey
Interview with Soso Whaley, director of Mickey D’s and Me, counterpoint to Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me. “Even without seeing [Super Size Me] I could tell from the clips and the description by Spurlock that this was nothing more than junk science masquerading as legitimate scientific discovery.”
Depressing article on how much hassle it
Depressing article on how much hassle it was for the makers of Mad Hot Ballroom to clear all copyrighted music in the film. “If I had known all that I had to go through, I’m not sure I would have done it.”
AFI’s top 100 movie quotes
AFI’s top 100 movie quotes. Anything missing from the list or something that should be dropped?
The scoring of movies and the -atsi
The scoring of movies and the -atsi movies scored by Philip Glass.
Neal Stephenson on the larger lessons of Star Wars
Neal Stephenson on the larger lessons of Star Wars. “Nothing is more seductive than to think that we, like the Jedi, could be masters of the most advanced technologies while living simple lives: to have a geek standard of living and spend our copious leisure time vegging out.”
Finding a rough model for how films
Finding a rough model for how films fare at the box office. “They assume that revenue relies on three major factors: the size of the possible audience, the initial desire of audience members to see the film (which is often dictated by the amount spent on marketing and publicity), and audience response to the film.”
The friendship and rivalry of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg
The friendship and rivalry of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
Interview with Errol Morris
Interview with Errol Morris. He says he’s going to be doing some more commercials for Apple.
Drawing Restraint 9 is the first collaboration by
Drawing Restraint 9 is the first collaboration by super-couple Matthew Barney and Bjork.
On the art of the movie trailer
On the art of the movie trailer. “There are few more cynical forms of art, or of advertising. Trailers are full of deception. Because what they want you to do is to see the movie they want you to see, not the movie that it is.”
Rolling Stone interview with George Lucas from 1977
Rolling Stone interview with George Lucas from 1977.
Nancy Cartwright says The Simpsons movie is now in production
Nancy Cartwright says The Simpsons movie is now in production. Will one of the entertainment industry’s biggest pieces of vaporware actually get shipped?
65,000 photocopies of 300 different films made into a 14-minute short
65,000 photocopies of 300 different films made into a 14-minute short. Quite clever.
Jason Scott on why he decided to
Jason Scott on why he decided to license his straight-to-DVD documentary under a Creative Commons license. “It was in some ways a tough decision, because you want to ‘protect’ yourself, but then you realize you’re not really ‘protecting’ anything; all you’re doing is being a paranoid twitch-bag. And once you realize this, then it becomes a little easier.”
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