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Regrading this: Summer Movies Other Than March of the Penguins That Conservatives Are Rallying Behind. “The Dukes of Hazzard: Not once is the word ‘evolution’ used in this movie. Many pundits proclaim this to be a tacit endorsement of intelligent design.”
Some technical notes on how Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride was shot and edited. They shot it with a Canon dSLR; they originally wanted to use a Nikon D2H, but the darks were too noisy. More Apple-specific info here. (via df)
With attendance up in September, the movie studios are beginning to admit that, gosh, maybe crappy movies are to blame for this summer’s poor box office performance.
Awesome awesome awesome alternate trailer for Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (local mirror). Andy calls this “one of the best video clips I’ve seen all year” and he’s not wrong.
The co-screenwriter of War of the Worlds on getting credit for said screenwriting (he wrote early drafts which were later rewritten by someone else) and then going to the NYC premiere of the film. (thx stephanie)
For what seems like the last 2 hours, I’ve been reading Kevin Smith’s blog (Flickr photos here), and I have no idea why. He calls it “Kevin’s Boring Ass Life” and that’s what it is…a typical entry is not much more than “got up, checked email, dropped off kid at school, lunch, dinner, sex with wife, then watched movies/Simpsons until asleep”. Couldn’t stop reading though…
Interview with Hayao Miyazaki about Howl’s Moving Castle and his films in general.
Here’s a sampling of the rest of the AIGA Design Conference, stuff that I haven’t covered yet and didn’t belong in a post of it’s own:
1. Design is the easy part.
2. Learn from your clients, bosses, collaborators, and colleagues.
3. Content is king.
4. Read. Read. Read.
5. Think first, then design.
6. Never forget how lucky you are. Enjoy yourself.
For more of what people are saying about the conference, check out IceRocket. There’s a bunch of photos on Flickr as well.
Clip of Dj Spooky’s “Rebirth of a Nation”, a remix of D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” adapted from a Ku Klux Klan propaganda piece.
Dear The Onion, please stop paginating your stories. I know you’re trying to increase your ad real estate, but it’s annoying to have to click to read more, especially on shorter stories. From now on, when I link to stuff like this excellent Errol Morris interview, it’s going to be to the handy one-page print version with zero ads. NY Times, Salon, WaPo, Wired News, that goes double for you.
March of the Penguins has become a favorite for conservative moviegoers, who cite it as making a good case for monogomy, intelligent design, and a pro-life stance on abortion. I wonder if liberals watch the film and come out advocating universal health care…all those dead penguin babies could have been saved with proper medical care.
According to paleontologist Gareth Dyke, “fossil evidence that [predatory] dinosaurs were feathered is now ‘irrefutable’”. Digitally remastered Jurassic Park can’t be too far down the road.
As technology plunges ever forward (or as we perceive it doing so), it’s not often that we stop to take a look back at how people thought the future was going to unfold before them. Peter Edidin of the NY Times recently did so, reviewing prognostications about radio, films, and television. It’s fun to read the ones where people thought the new technology was going to complete overtake and eliminate an older technology (which does happen, but not as often as people expect). Bruce Bliven on radio in 1922:
There will be only one orchestra left on earth, giving nightly worldwide concerts; when all universities will be combined into one super-institution, conducting courses by radio for students in Zanzibar, Kamchatka and Oskaloose; when, instead of newspapers, trained orators will dictate the news of the world day and night, and the bedtime story will be told every evening from Paris to the sleepy children of a weary world…
D. W. Griffith, the great filmmaker of the early era, had this to say of film in 1915:
The time will come, and in less than 10 years, when the children in the public schools will be taught practically everything by moving pictures. Certainly they will never be obliged to read history again. Imagine a public library of the near future, for instance. There will be long rows of boxes of pillars, properly classified and indexed, of course. At each box a push button and before each box a seat. Suppose you wish to “read up” on a certain episode in Napoleon’s life. Instead of consulting all the authorities, wading laboriously through a host of books, and ending bewildered, without a clear idea of exactly what did happen and confused at every point by conflicting opinions about what did happen, you will merely seat yourself at a properly adjusted window, in a scientifically prepared room, press the button, and actually see what happened.
But it’s also fun to see when people got it right, more or less. In 1936, J.C. Furnas had this to say of television:
It is my hope, and I see no reason why it should not be realized, to be able to go to an ordinary movie theater when some great national event is taking place across the country and see on the screen the sharp image of the action reproduced - at the same instant it occurs. This waiting for the newsreels to come out is a bit tiresome for the 20th century. Some time later I hope to be able to take my inaugurals, prize fights and football games at home. I expect to do it satisfactorily and cheaply. Only under those conditions can a television get into my house.
Under that set of criteria, it probably took awhile for a TV set to enter the Furnas household, but by the time NBC started broadcasting sporting events in the mid-1940s, they probably had one.
A few days ago, I reviewed March of the Penguins, a well-regarded documentary film that’s doing quite well here in the US (despite being a well-regarded documentary film):
Like many sleeper hits, there’s something quite unHollywood about it; it wasn’t manufactured to push specific demographic buttons or market tested to within an inch of its life. It’s handmade, crafted, and full of soul.
Turns out the film is not quite so unmanufactured as I thought. The original film (en français) features voiceovers for each of the main family characters (dad, mom, baby boy) and some French pop songs. The effect is quite cheesy at times, particularly during the singing of the love songs. I wish I had a video clip for you watch…I’ve seen bits and pieces of the French version and can vouch for Joe Leydon’s take on the film:
Once he focuses on the primary couple, however, Jacquet uncorks the schmaltz while employing actors Romance Bohringer and Charles Berling to voice penguins murmuring sweet nothings to each other. It’s easy to understand helmer’s desire to personalize the birds with anthropomorphic affectation. But it’s difficult not to laugh out loud as nuzzling penguins pledge their troth as each other’s “soul mate.”
After seeing the film at Sundance, an exec at Warner Bros. initated a change in the film to ready it for American viewers:
Warner Bros. president Mark Gill saw the film at Sundance, called writer-director Jordan Roberts and asked if something could be done to make it more appealing to American audiences. Jordan wrote a narration, performed by Morgan Freeman, and hired composer Alex Wurman to create a new score. The final result is showing in close to 2,000 theatres across America.
The narration by Morgan Freeman is not a close translation of the original French voiceovers and I think it’s a better film that way (for a US audience, at least). It also explains the odd pacing of Freeman’s narration at times. Anyway, as I said above, not quite the clear expression of artistic vision as I’d assumed.
Short article about Pixar on the 10th anniversary of Toy Story. Their work process takes a cue from improv comedy by opening up possibilities with “yes, and…” rather than “no, but…” Gladwell talks about this aspect of improv at length in Blink.
Trailer for Shopgirl, based on a book by Steve Martin and starring, tada, Steve Martin (and Claire Danes and Jason Schwartzman). “I can either hurt now or hurt later…”
Trailer for 10 mph, the Segway across America movie.
Among Roger Ebert’s most hated films are Catwoman, Baby Geniuses, Battlefield Earth, and The Usual Suspects(?!?). About North, he says: “I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie.”
When I saw these Star Trek business cards the other day, I knew that Star Wars ones had to exist. Novelty business cards must have been a popular thing back in the day. Anyone up for making Matrix and LOTR cards?
Remember that the Dukes of Hazzard movie was in danger of not being released because the TV show was originally based on a movie? Well, the movie was released but the holder of the rights to the original movie got a settlement of $17.5 million, way more than the original film probably made.
Movie title sequences designed by Saul Bass. Be sure to click through to the image galleries.
Thanks to Napoleon Dynamite, ligers have a new-found popularity.
Following the elimination of tipping at Per Se, an op-ed by Steven Shaw says tipping should be abolished in restaurants. (via tmn) Considering the statistics on tipping, perhaps he’s right. For a less refined take, here’s why Reservoir Dog Mr. Pink doesn’t tip.
Metacritic, my first stop when looking for movie reviews, has been purchased by CNET. Press release here. (Odd stat in press release: 170K uniques a month…seems low.)
Are Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson making a Zoolander 2? I loved the original, but I’m not so sure about this one.
Some lesser-known prequels to popular movies, including There Are Plenty of Mohicans and Triassic Park.
When estimating losses due to piracy in the media, movie studios are fond of using the full purchase price of the pirated DVD or movie ticket. So if I download a copy of Bewitched off of the internet, Sony (and associated companies, the theater, distributors, etc.) feels like they’ve lost $10.50[1], even if I had no plans to ever see the movie in the theatre.
So why is it when Sony defrauds their customers by fabricating movie reviews to promote the theatrical releases of some of their films, they’re only refunding $5 of the total ticket price for those that actually saw those films? Why not the full price? Or better yet, how about a refund for transportation costs, the price of any concessions purchased, estimated loss of wages for time spent watching the film, and compensation for any emotional trauma suffered as a result of thinking the movie was going to be great when it in fact sucked? That sounds about fair.
[1] Well, $10.50 if you live in Manhattan. If you live in rural Wisconsin, you’re only cheating Sony out of $8.00 or so. Well, until the movie comes out on pay-per-view and it costs $3.95. But then when the DVD comes out, Sony’s loss will shoot back to $26.99. Twelve months after the DVD release, when Bewitched is available in a value two-pack with Anchorman, Sony will only be losing $6. Whew, must be hard to keep all those losses straight.
How the DVD is changing Hollywood and the movie business. “Most important, the new DVD audience is so diverse that companies can target niche markets and still sell millions of disks. Because specialized markets are more predictable, the risk of failure is much lower, and so small-to-mid-budget movies can be very profitable indeed.”
Is Owen Wilson the secret factor to Wes Anderson’s success?. I’m of the opinion that The Life Aquatic didn’t suck, but I can see the point here.
Another in Edward Jay Epstein’s series on the business of Hollywood. This one’s about the secret industry reports done by the MPAA that reveal hard-to-come-by statistics about how much Hollywood is making from which businesses.
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