Final movie scenes
A collection of final frames from well-known movies…see if you can guess them all.
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kottke.org posts about movies
Harry Potter summed up in seven minutes
If you’re headed out to see the final Potter movie this weekend, here’s a recap of the previous seven films in just seven minutes:
Tabloid’s star breaking the fourth wall
Joyce McKinney, the subject of Errol Morris’ documentary film called Tabloid, has been popping up at screenings of the film around the country, seemingly on her own dime, to conduct Q&A sessions of her own.
“I sat till the audience started to leave and waited for the precise moment, and then jumped up and yelled, ‘I’m Joyce McKinney!’” she said, with considerable glee. “They went crazy.”
There are also reports of some reviewers receiving anonymous legal threats.
A day in the life of John Lasseter
I wasn’t going to watch all twenty-five minutes of this day-in-the-life feature about Pixar’s John Lasseter, but I got sucked in after the first two minutes for some reason and couldn’t stop. The main takeaway is that Lasseter is a relentlessly upbeat, absurdly rich, hugging, cheeseball train freak.
Watching it, I found it almost impossible to reconcile his cheeseball personality with the kind of movies that Pixar makes, except to note that the Pixar films he’s been involved with in a directorial or story capacity (Toy Storys 1-3, Cars 1-2) are the studio’s syrupiest (and Randy Newmanest). (via devour)
Errol Morris making a movie with Paul Rudd and Ira Glass
It’s fictional but based on a This American Life story about a man whose cryogenics business goes wrong.
The film, as previously reported, is an adaptation of a 2008 report on Bob Nelson, a self-styled cryogenics pioneer. Mr. Morris claims the film, not listed on IMDB, will be written by Zach Helm, writer of the aptly titled Will Ferrell vehicle Stranger Than Fiction. This American Life previously spawned the kids’-movie adaptation Unaccompanied Minors, but Mr. Morris’s pedigree — and unique interests-promise to make this a bit more highbrow, and simultaneously more intriguingly tabloid-y.
The Star Wars blueprints
Star Wars: The Blueprints is a $500 limited edition book that contains photographs and illustrations about how the Star Wars movies wre created.
Star Wars: The Blueprints brings together, for the first time, the original blueprints created for the filming of the Star Wars Saga. Drawn from deep within the Lucasfilm Archives and combined with exhaustive and insightful commentary from best-selling author J. W. Rinzler, the collection maps in precise, vivid, and intricate detail the very genesis of the most enduring and beloved story ever to appear onscreen.
Star Wars: The Blueprints gives voice to the groundbreaking and brilliant engineers, designers, and artists that have, in film after film, created the most imaginative and iconic locales in the history of cinema. Melding science and art, these drawings giving birth to fantastic new worlds, ships, and creatures.
Most importantly, Blueprints shows how in bringing this extraordinary epic to life, the world of special effects as we know it was born. For the first time, here you will see the initial concepts behind such iconic Star Wars scenes as the Rebel blockade runner hallways, the bridge of General Grievous s flagship, the interior of the fastest hunk of junk in the Galaxy, and Jabba the Hutt’s palace. Never before seen craftsmanship and artistry is evident whether floating on the Death Star, escaping on a speeder bike, or exploring the Tatooine Homestead.
And hey, Amazon’s got it for only $450.
Arrested Development = The Godfather!
Basically, Arrested Development is a sitcom version of The Godfather. Michael = Michael, G.O.B. = Sonny, and Fredo = Buster.
Fredo Corleone is the second oldest son of Don Vito Corleone, but is unfit to run the family business. His stupidity, lack of confidence, and otherwise child-like behavior prevent him from being taken seriously by any member of the family. Despite his attempts at success, integration into the family usually comes to no avail. He is often humored by deciding family members (Michael), and given menial business tasks (i.e. casinos, whorehouses) for the family.
Buster Bluth is the youngest son of George, Sr., and is unfit to run the family business. His stupidity, lack of confidence, and otherwise child-like behavior prevent him from being taken seriously by any member of the family. Despite his attempts at success, integration into the family business usually comes to no avail. He is often humored by deciding family members (his mother), and given menial tasks (i.e. learning cartography) to distract him.
(via mlkshk, sorta)
The complete Harry Potter, in comic form
Epic comic version of all eight of the Happy Potter movies by Lucy Knisley.
Knisley is also offering large format images of the comic for personal use…for a limited time only.
SnorriCam
The SnorriCam is the chest-mounted camera that directors like Darren Aronofsky have used to great effect. You can see a bit of Aronofsky’s use of the SnorriCam in these clips from Requiem for a Dream. (Note: that second clip is a bit graphic.)
NYC summer movies
Today’s service journalism: here’s a simple one-page list of outdoor movie screenings in NYC this summer. The lineup includes Rosemary’s Baby, Airplane!, and Spiderman. (thx, matthew)
Partying with Captain America
In this profile of Chris Evans (aka Captain America) for GQ, Edith Zimmerman catches a movie actor on the rise testing the boundaries of his soon-to-be mega-fame.
Since we’re both single and roughly the same age, it was hard for me not to treat our interview as a sort of date. Surprisingly, Chris did the same, asking all about me, my family, my job, my most recent relationship. And from ten minutes into that first interview, when he reached across the table to punctuate a joke by putting his hand on top of mine, Chris kept up frequent hand holding and lower-back touching, palm kissing and knee squeezing. He’s an attractive movie star, no complaints. I also didn’t know how much I was supposed to respond; when I did, it sometimes felt a little like hitting on the bartender or misconstruing the bartender’s professional fliirting for something more. I wanted to think it was genuine, or that part of it was, because I liked him right away.
Is this the part of a celebrity profile where I go into how blue the star’s eyes are? Because they are very blue.
(via @choire)
Fellowship of the Ring back in theaters tonight
A bunch of theaters in NYC (and around the US I would assume) are showing the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring at 7pm tonight.
The event will include a personal introduction from director Peter Jackson captured from the set of his current film and “Lord of the Rings” prequel “The Hobbit,” immediately followed by the feature presentation.
The same thing will happen with Two Towers on June 21 and Return of the King on June 28. Can’t believe Fellowship came out 10 years ago already.
Where has all the drama gone?
From very small array, an infographic look at which movie genres have done well at the box office and at awards time. Dramas have all but vanished from the box office chart in recent years. (thx, jon)
Trailer for Tabloid, Errol Morris’ new film
It’s a documentary about Joyce McKinney and the so-called Mormon sex in chains case.
Here it is on Apple Trailers in case the YouTube one gets yanked.
Hollywood Career-O-Matic
Taking ratings data from Rotten Tomatoes, Slate made a neat little toy called the Hollywood Career-O-Matic that tracks the movie ratings of actors and directors since 1985.
Most Improved: Josh Brolin, Dakota Fanning, and Ken Loach. If the average Hollywood career is a slow decline into mediocrity, an actor or director whose films actually improve deserves special recognition. Among actors with at least 20 films in the Rotten Tomatoes database since 1985, Brolin has seen the greatest increase in average rating from the first half of his career to the second half — an improvement of 28.4 percentage points. Despite Brolin’s early appearance in The Goonies (63 percent), the first half of his career was marred by abominations like The Mod Squad (4 percent), and Hollow Man (27 percent). His later transition into gems like No Country for Old Men (95 percent), Milk (94 percent), and True Grit (96 percent) is a tale of redemption that not even Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (54 percent) could derail. The most improved actress is Fanning, with a 20.1-point increase from such duds as I Am Sam (34 percent) to critical darlings like Coraline (89 percent). Among directors, the award goes to Ken Loach, the British filmmaker whose reviews went from great in the first half of his career (80 percent) to stunning in the second half (88.1 percent).
For actors it would be interesting to see a similar analysis of box office gross and especially a weighted analysis that takes both critical acclaim and box office gross into account…the RT ratings for many actors are all over the place as they bounce from crappy big gross/paycheck blockbusters to lower grossing/paying critical darlings.
Behind the scenes
A great collection of behind-the-scenes shots from famous movies. Here’s Kubrick and Sellers on the set of Dr. Strangelove:
(via df)
Terrence Malick loves Zoolander
Not from The Onion, folks. Turns out that the reclusive and celebrated director really likes the movie Zoolander.
He is also said to be such a fan of Zoolander, the 2001 send-up of the fashion world, that colleagues say he watches it regularly and likes to quote it. Ben Stiller, the star of the film, once dressed up in character and recorded him a special birthday video message.
Trailer for Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Larsson? Fincher? Reznor? Rooney Mara’s brief NSFW nipple flash? What’s not to like?
I was skeptical about this (and The Social Network) but lesson learned: never doubt David Fincher.
Ten modern movies that are better in black and white
Last month, Steven Soderbergh’s list of what he’s been watching and reading told us that the director watched Raiders of the Lost Ark in black & white three times in one week, presumably to emphasize the film’s structure and cinematography. Flavorwire’s Jason Bailey wondered what other films might be better in black & white and compiled a list of ten, with video examples and commentary of each. Included are Raiders, Fargo, and A Christmas Story.
Indiana Jones’ stunt double
Vic Armstrong just published a memoir about his career as a Hollywood stuntman; the LA Times has an excerpt. Armstrong worked as Harrison Ford’s double on all three Indiana Jones films…and no wonder, they look amazingly similar:
The next day we shot the fight around the plane. Harrison and Roach squared up to each other and Harrison threw a punch. “That’s great. Moving on,” said Steven. Now as a stunt co-ordinator my job is to make sure that, on film, those punches look like they’ve connected. I was standing looking right over the lens of the camera and in my opinion it was a miss. Now I was stuck between a rock and a hard place because Steven had called it good, but I thought I’d better say something. “Excuse me sir, that was actually a miss.” He went, “Oh, you again.” I said, “Yeah, sorry, it was a miss.” Steven paused briefly. “Well, I thought it was a hit.” I said, “No, I was actually looking over the lens and it was a miss, I think.” Finally Steven said, “OK, we’ll do it again.” After that take was completed Steven, sarcastically almost, turned to me and said, “How was that?” I went, “That was good. That was a hit.” And we carried on and created a great fight routine. Three days later we were all watching dailies when the shot that I’d said was a miss came on screen. Steven had printed it. The old heart started to go, but sure enough it was a miss and Steven, who was right in front of me, turned round and said, “Good call Vic.” I couldn’t do much wrong after that, it was great.
(via ★robinsloan)
Back to the Future as period piece
Theory: Robert Zemeckis intentionally made Back to the Future not as a contemporary film set in the present but as a period piece set in 1985.
Back To The Future is both undeniably timeless (its place in pop culture is beyond question) and incredibly dated (it’s very much a product of its time). Interestingly, it’s a period piece made in 1985 that depicts 1985 as an era as distant-seeming as its version of 1955. Of course, when Back To The Future was first released, 1985 just looked like “now.” It’s entirely possible that director Robert Zemeckis and co-writer Bob Gale referenced Ronald Reagan and Eddie Van Halen and dressed Fox’s Marty McFly up in a denim jacket and Calvin Klein underwear because they wanted Back To The Future to exist in the same universe as The Breakfast Club, Girls Just Want To Have Fun, and other teen films from 1985. But I’m going to give them way more credit than they probably deserve. I think Zemeckis and Gale knew all the timely accoutrements signifying “the present” in Back To The Future would inevitably look like 1985 within just a couple of years; in fact, they were banking on it. Zemeckis and Gale were trying to create an archetypical representation of 1985 just like they did for 1955, with its soda fountains, social repression, and subjugated black people. In this way, Back To The Future only gets better the further we get from the ’80s. Everything that defines Marty McFly-how he walks, talks, acts, and dresses-acts as instantly recognizable shorthand for the year he comes from.
(via ★joanne)
Movie references in Kill Bill
Following on from the Kill Bill section of episode 2 of Everything is a Remix, this video contains what feels like an exhaustive look at the movies that Tarantino referenced in Kill Bill.
(via @kbandersen)
Tintin trailer
Produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Steven Spielberg, it looks like an all-CGI adventure. I got sort of a Polar Express vibe from the trailer though, which is not encouraging.
(via ★fchimero)
Original ending of Election found at flea market
In this version, Tracy Flick tries to buy a car from Mr McAllister.
I bought a box of old VHS tapes at the Farmers Market in Wilmington, DE for $5 on Mothers Day. I had no idea that this working print was included in the box when I purchased it.
(via @kombuchakamp)
Tarantino’s next movie: Django Unchained
Hint: it’s not about the Python MVC framework…Django Unchained is Tarantino’s spaghetti western.
According to Indiewire, Waltz’s character “joins up with former slave Django to save his wife from an evil plantation owner.” According to Deadline, Django will reunite Tarantino with Pulp Fiction producer Stacey Sher, and the movie will begin production as soon as this summer or fall.
Christoph Waltz, who was excellent in Inglourious Basterds, and perhaps Will Smith, who was excellent in the Parents Just Don’t Understand video, will star.
You come at the Lion King, you best not miss
The Lion King movie recut into a five-minute summary of all five seasons of The Wire.
I almost didn’t post this because it dogs on the underrated season 2. (via ★vuokko)
OS X Inception
For those of you who are still confused about what happened to whom and in whose mind, here’s a 1-minute silent explanation of Inception using only the OS X Finder.
(via stellar)
Orson Welles, media theorist
It’s the 70th anniversary of Orson Welles’s masterpiece Citizen Kane:
Audacity and genius his trademark, and with a third medium to conquer and transform, Welles didn’t think small. With the Mercury players in tow, he enlisted veteran satirist and screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. Together they crafted a story that began with the death of an enigmatic protagonist, and explored his life through flashbacks told from multiple points of view. As questions are answered, questions are raised. The script ultimately compares a man’s life to a jigsaw puzzle missing pieces, and thus impossible to solve. The writers very loosely based the title character of Charles Foster Kane on William Randolph Hearst, thus incurring the newspaper titan’s wrath. Welles, Mercury, RKO, and the studio heads endured journalistic scandalmongering, and the film eventually earned a blacklist. Welles would later remark, “If Hearst isn’t rightfully careful, I’m going to make a film that’s really based on his life.”
By coincidence, as related by Welles in his autobiography, he once found himself alone in an elevator with Hearst. It was the night of Citizen Kane’s San Francisco premiere, and Welles invited him to the opening. “He didn’t answer. And as he was getting off at his floor, I said, ‘Charles Foster Kane would have accepted.’”
Everybody talks about the movie’s formal innovations, but I wish the content would get more love. As A.O. Scott says, “Citizen Kane shows Welles to be a master of genre. It’s a newspaper comedy, a domestic melodrama, a gothic romance, and a historical epic.” Pauline Kael said Kane was “more fun than any great movie I can think of.”
Citizen Kane is The Beatles of movies, not just because of its universal influence and acclaim, or because it really does live up to the historical hype, but because on top of its arty aspirations, what it really wants to do is entertain the hell out of you.
Also, if you’re watching it carefully, the movie’s self-reflexiveness hides and reveals a devastating history of media. You’ve got CFK, accidental heir to a fortune based on “oil wells, gold mines, shipping, and real estate,” who trades it all for a communications empire: newspapers, radio stations, paper mills, opera houses, and grocery stores, only to be pushed to the margins after a failed political run in favor of the next generation: magazines and movies, the trade of the newsreel producers who try to track down the labyrinthine origin of “Rosebud.”
The whole movie’s about trying to invent something from nothing, about pretenses to real value, and how that whole house of cards tumbles apart. Eventually you’ve just got a giant room, where you can’t tell the art from the jigsaw puzzles, the childhood heirlooms from the tchotchke snowglobes. Everything propping up value disintegrates. (That’s what Kane figures out at the end, by the way, not that he misses his sled or his mom.)
As Borges wrote, it’s a metaphysical detective story that leads us to a labyrinth with no center. All that’s left is paper, just kindling for the fire.
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