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1-20 of 63 items from 2012 « Prev | Next »
'Star Wars' Anniversary: A Long Time Ago In A Theater Far, Far Away
22 May 2012 7:00 AM, PDT | MTV Movies Blog | See recent MTV Movies Blog news »
Thirty-five years ago this week, on the 25th of May, 1977, something pretty big happened. At the time, no one knew just how big the thing was. Because on that day, a new movie called “Star Wars” opened in just a few theaters across the country. I think you know what happened next.
So this Friday, May 25th, why not do something to celebrate the anniversary of the event that brought us all so much joy? Here’s a whole day’s worth of suggested activities:
Make your bed: Deck out your room with “Star Wars” linens. You’ll be the coolest kid on the block.
Bake a batch of Wookiee Cookies: Get yourself some flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, chocolate chips and The Star Wars Cookbook. If cookies aren’t your thing, the book also has a recipe for Bossk Brownies.
Learn how to use »
- Tami Katzoff
As 'Battleship' Flops: Ten Other Memorable Box-Office Bombs
21 May 2012 10:43 AM, PDT | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
To have one giant money-losing tentpole is unfortunate. To have two starts to look careless, and that's what's happened to Taylor Kitsch. The actor, who broke out on TV's "Friday Night Lights," was seen as Hollywood's next great hope, picked out to star in two great big blockbusters with a combined cost of half-a-billion dollars. But when "John Carter" arrived in March, the film wildly underperformed, with Disney taking a hit of at least $100 million on the project. And after this weekend, it looks that his other film, "Battleship," is going to lose similar amounts.
The film, Universal & Hasbro's adaptation of the board game, directed by "Hancock" helmer Peter Berg, had taken the unusual step of opening everywhere else in the world six weeks ahead of the U.S, in the hope of bagging lucrative foreign coin and building buzz for the U.S. release. But while the film did ok abroad, »
- Oliver Lyttelton
The Dictator – review
19 May 2012 4:12 PM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
The jokes come thick and fast and occasionally hit home as Sacha Baron Cohen unveils his latest grotesque creation
Most comedians create a screen persona that lasts a lifetime or they use a version of themselves. A few steadily assemble a formidable gallery of notable figures while retaining a personal identity known only to a circle of friends. The two most notable actors in the second category are Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers, and it is in their company that Sacha Baron Cohen belongs, though he has yet to make his Kind Hearts and Coronets or Dr Strangelove. Cohen has turned in some creditable performances, each sporting an outrageous foreign accent, in what are essentially other people's films: the Italian pedlar of phoney elixirs in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd; the gay French grand prix driver in the Will Ferrell vehicle Talladega Nights; and the Parisian cop reminiscent of Sellers in Scorsese's Hugo. »
- Philip French
5 Things You Might Not Know About David Lean's 'Lawrence Of Arabia'
18 May 2012 12:12 PM, PDT | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Is there a greater film than "Lawrence of Arabia?" Perhaps. There are certainly few longer ones, or few that are more epic and sweeping in their scope (thanks to the timeless Panavision 70 photography by Freddie Young). But even if the film isn't your absolute favorite, it is the number one of many, including Steven Spielberg, who credits the picture with making him want to be a filmmaker.
David Lean's tale of T.E. Lawrence's adventures in Arabia in World War I is fifty years old this year, and ahead of a brand-spanking-new Blu-ray release next month, a glorious new 4K restoration of the film is screening at Cannes tomorrow night. To mark the occasion, as well as the anniversary of the death of Lawrence himself, who died 77 years ago tomorrow, we've assembled five things you might not know about Lean's unassailable classic.
1. David Lean nearly directed a biopic of »
- Oliver Lyttelton
John Badham on The Ladykillers
10 May 2012 10:22 PM, PDT | Trailers from Hell | See recent Trailers from Hell news »
Alexander Mackendrick’s final film for Britain’s Ealing Studios is one of its most celebrated comedies as well as a pivotal film for an embryonic Peter Sellers, thrilled to be working with his idol Alec Guinness. Sellers later emulated Guinness by taking on numerous multi-character assignments. The macabrely witty (Oscar-nominated) script is a virtual catalog of post-war English manners and traditions, yet it was penned by an American, William Rose (it’s a Mad, etc. World). Sellers and costar Herbert Lom later teamed for the Pink Panther series. Remade in 2004 with the locale switched from London to Biloxi, Mississippi.
»
- Danny
Happy Star Wars Day and May The Fourth Be With You!
4 May 2012 10:00 AM, PDT | ScifiMafia | See recent ScifiMafia news »
May the 4th is upon us once again, which means it’s time for us to wish our awesome fans a Happy Star Wars Day! Even though Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was released on May 25th, 1977, due to the clever (force/fourth) pun, May the 4th has become known among fans as Star Wars Day. With that being said, May the Fourth be with you… always.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope was released on May 25th, 1977 and stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker and Peter Mayhew. The film was directed by George Lucas.
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back was released on May 21st, 1980 and stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker. The »
- Jason Moore
Top 10 sci-fi and fantasy beards
3 May 2012 4:44 AM, PDT | Den of Geek | See recent Den of Geek news »
The sci-fi and fantasy genres simply wouldn’t be the same without a bit of arresting facial hair on its protagonists. Here are Sarah’s top 10 beards...
Beards are awesome, aren’t they? The right kind of beard can make any man into… well, a slightly hairier man, but theoretically a much more awesome man. Beards seem pretty intrinsically linked with sci-fi and fantasy, too: there are some kinds of facial hair that just scream “this is the future!” while “beardy” has been used as an adjective to suggest excessive nerdiness.
We, of course, would never use “beard” in a pejorative sense, ever. Because, as previously mentioned, beards are awesome. Here are the ten best beards in all of sci-fi and fantasy:
10. Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane)
The Harry Potter franchise
According to an article in Scotland on Sunday, part of the character concept for Hagrid is that he’s a “mountain of leather and hair. »
Shame on the censors for trying to cut McQueen and Fassbender’s masterpiece
27 April 2012 1:15 PM, PDT | Flickeringmyth | See recent Flickeringmyth news »
Liam Trim on why Steve McQueen's Shame should never be censored...
Steve McQueen’s (Hunger) film about a sex addict in New York, played by Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, Prometheus), will not be shown in Singapore. Censors there have demanded that certain scenes be cut. In particular, a graphic threesome involving Fassbender’s protagonist Brandon Sullivan and two women offended the authorities. Even after these alterations, Shame would only have been shown to those aged 21 and over. Faced with the prospect of his original work being butchered, McQueen has decided not to release the film in Singapore.
To which I say, good for him. The issue of censorship often only raises its ugly head above the parapet because of films like The Human Centipede or The Human Centipede 2. Such films are designed to shock and give the censors a problem. Many of them aim to be banned or controversially released, »
- Liam Trim
Stunning Ben Kenobi, Desert Nomad Statue
27 April 2012 1:01 PM, PDT | GeekTyrant | See recent GeekTyrant news »
Check out this incredibly awesome statue of Ben Kenobi, Desert Nomad. The statue was created by Joe Allard and Tom Gilliland, and it's a representation of Obi-Wan in the years between the films Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. The concept for the artists were to "imagine the life of Kenobi as he became the reclusive, mystical figure of Tatooine." They also went on to explain,
It also allowed us to have fun imagining both Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness as the character, but at different ages than we have seen them in the films.
The statue was sculpted in castiline and wax, with a sculpey base. Some of the lightsabers were sculpted by hand, and Tusken Raider weapons were output from digital models (which is why they look clear).
There's a lot of great detail, and I love how they managed to combine the look of both McGregor and Guinness. »
- Venkman
Why 'Pariah' Tops Indiewire's 5 DVD/Blu-ray Picks This Week
24 April 2012 6:35 AM, PDT | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »
Here the director shares a scene with Indiewire. Extras: A lot of good stuff here. You'll find a featurette on Peagler's story, a Sundance Q&A, deleted scenes, film crew bios and info about Debbie's campaign, a nonprofit project to help prevent domestic violence and wrongful incarceration. #4. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (The TV Miniseries) Before Gary Oldman came along to net his first Academy Award nomination for his brilliant turn as George Smiley, an espionage veteran who comes out of retirement to help uncover a Soviet mole in MI6’s ranks in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"; Alec Guiness won a BAFTA TV Award for playing the same role in the acclaimed 1980 BBC miniseries adaptation of John le Carre's spy novel. If you're a fan of Tomas Alfredson's film, you'll no doubt want to see this sterling take that provides a easier-to-follow narrative, thanks to its expanded running time. Extras: Fans of the. »
- Nigel M Smith
Records of Material Objects in the Cinema #12: Alec Guinness' White Suit
16 April 2012 7:56 PM, PDT | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »
“And, of course, there’s the question of dyeing” —Sidney Stratton
Few candidates could be more obvious for this column than Alexander Mackendrick’s The Man in the White Suit (1951), for the film’s narrative itself is a record of the eponymous material object in time. When wacko scientist Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) invents a super-fabric that could be neither tarnished nor torn, he brings home the wrath of both the board of directors and the laborers of the company he is working for. Taking Stratton’s brainchild to the market would mean people will not buy new clothing for the rest of their lives. For the executives this implies a stock price collapse and for the workers, no more livelihood. So they pursue the only logical course of action: chase Sidney down London streets at night before he gets to the press. As all these folks dressed in black »
Films To Watch Before You Die #82 - Star Wars (1977)
10 April 2012 8:56 AM, PDT | Flickeringmyth | See recent Flickeringmyth news »
D.J. Haza presents the next entry in his series of films to watch before you die...
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, 1977.
Directed by George Lucas.
Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse and James Earl Jones.
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope is the first film made in George Lucas’ epic six film Star Wars saga and the fourth installment in the list of episodes. Star Wars was groundbreaking in 1977 and brought about new special FX, used unconventional editing and introduced a new wave of sci-fi and fantasy storytelling to cinema. The film is one of the most successful and influential films of all time and won six Oscars, but missed out on Best Picture.
The story follows Luke Skywalker (Hamill) who comes into possession of two droids carrying a distress message »
- flickeringmyth
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
9 April 2012 11:45 AM, PDT | JustPressPlay.net | See recent JustPressPlay news »
John le Carré’s spy novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy has long stood as one of the greatest espionage novels ever written, and now it has two faithful and superb adaptations with stellar casts to help it reach a wider audience. The original TV mini-series, starring Alec Guinness, really took its time exploring each of the characters and planting the red herrings in a pace that matched the novel quite well. 2011’s adaptation by Tomas Alfredson and starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, John Hurt, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch, doesn’t have that same freedom of time to explore all the nuances of the novel. Instead, it strips the story to the essentials and then reloads enough of the details to make it a well-acted and pleasing spy thriller with only a few pacing issues.
Read more...
»
- Lex Walker
Exploring Ridley Scott's Directorial Debut, 'The Duellists'
3 April 2012 12:28 PM, PDT | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »
Harvey Keitel and Matthew Guinness in The Duellists
Photo: Paramount Pictures With all the excitement surrounding Ridley Scott's upcoming film Prometheus marking the director's much anticipated return to the world of Alien, which he brought to life back in 1979, I've heard many people reference Scott's 1977 directorial debut, The Duellists. Strangely I've heard it mentioned not only because Scott has a new film coming out, but I've read it mentioned in articles discussing its accomplished cinematic swordplay. My interest was piqued and I took to Netflix. Based on Joseph Conrad's 1908 short story "The Duel" (download it for free here), which itself is based on a true story, The Duelists centers on Armand d'Hubert (Keith Carradine) and Gabriel Feraud (Harvey Keitel), a pair of officers in Napoleon's army. The film begins with Feraud in a duel with a man we'll later learn is the nephew of the Mayor of Strasbourg. »
- Brad Brevet
Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni: Lincoln Center
2 April 2012 8:36 PM, PDT | Alt Film Guide | See recent Alt Film Guide news »
Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni Screen legend Catherine Deneuve was honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at a gala ceremony held this evening in New York City. Deneuve is the 39th recipient of the Film Society's Chaplin Award. In the above photo, she is seen with her daughter Chiara Mastroianni. (Needless to say, Marcello Mastroianni was the father.) [Full list of Chaplin Award Honorees.] Catherine Deneuve's career spans more than five decades. Among her dozens of notable movies are Jacques Demy's Palme d'Or-winning musical Les Parapluies de Cherbourg / The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964); Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965); Demy’s Les Demoiselles de Rochefort / The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), in which Deneuve co-starred with her sister Françoise Dorleác, in addition to Danielle Darrieux, Gene Kelly, Jacques Perrin, and George Chakiris; Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967) and Tristana (1970); François Truffaut's Le Dernier Métro / The Last Metro (1980), with Gérard Depardieu; Tony Scott’s The Hunger »
- Andre Soares
Blu-ray Review: ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ with Gary Oldman
2 April 2012 11:14 AM, PDT | HollywoodChicago.com | See recent HollywoodChicago.com news »
Chicago – Gary Oldman scored his first Oscar nomination for his incredible, subtle work in Tomas Alfredson’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” recently released on Blu-ray and DVD. The film is ultimately a bit too cold and clinical for this viewer but it features enough amazing parts, including Oldman’s performance and incredible production design, that the lack of a more-impressive sum shouldn’t hold you back.
Blu-ray Rating: 3.5/5.0
The mini-series version of John le Carre’s influential novel that starred Alec Guinness is beloved in certain circles, especially most of the U.K. and so the bar was set pretty high for the remake. I’ll admit to finding some of “Ttss,” especially the first act before the great Tom Hardy injects it with some fire, a bit too cold. However, the technical expertise on display here is remarkable. Every element of the production, including the design and Hoyte Van Hoytema’s stellar cinematography, »
- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
Anglophile Acorn Media is 28 and Profitable, Growing and Getting Into Production
28 March 2012 3:42 PM, PDT | Indiewire Television | See recent Indiewire Television news »
From little acorns massive oaks grow might apply to Acorn Media, which was started in its chairman’s spare bedroom in 1984. This week, Peter Edwards, the chairman, told the New York Times that Acorn believes it is the second largest distributor of British programming on DVD in North America, bested only by the BBC. The company also streams its Brit content. Acorn Media recently added the epic 1976 BBC miniseries, "I Claudius," starring Derek Jacobi as the Roman Emperor to its burgeoning DVD catalog. Next month comes the original 1979 miniseries, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," starring Alec Guinness as the clever little man who smokes out a mole in the British secret service. For Anglophiles and/or mystery buffs, $25 a year will buy hundreds of hours of watching classic British television series streamed by Acorn TV for five weeks before they are replaced by other classic series. (Acorn TV is available online, »
- Aljean Harmetz
Introducing the films of Ebertfest 2012
27 March 2012 12:21 PM, PDT | blogs.suntimes.com/ebert | See recent Roger Ebert's Blog news »
Something nice happened to us while we were preparing the schedule for Ebertfest 2012, which plays April 25-29 at the Virginia Theater (above) in Champaign-Urbana, Ill. We'd invited Patton Oswalt to attend with his "Big Fan. He agreed and went one additional step: "I'd like to personally choose a film to show to the students, and discuss it." That sounded to me like a splendid idea, embodying the spirit of this festival, which combines the love of good films with volunteerism. This is a rare festival where no business takes place. No films are bought or sold. No deals are signed. It's simplicity itself: We join in a classic 1920 palace, 1,600 of us, and watch a film as it should be seen, on a vast screen with perfect sound. Then we talk about them afterwards. The festival and the theater come to us through the work of countless volunteers from the University and the community of Champaign-Urbana. »
- Roger Ebert
Memory as Mise-en-scène: A Conversation with Terence Davies
21 March 2012 5:42 AM, PDT | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »
Photo by Liam Daniel.
"I don't want you
But I hate to lose you
You've got me inbetween
The devil and the deep blue sea." —Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler
The idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" refers to a dilemma where one must choose between two undesirable situations. In Terence Davies' filmic adaptation of Terence Rattigan's 1952 play of the same name—The Deep Blue Sea (2011) was commissioned by the Sir Terence Rattigan Charitable Trust to commemorate the centenary of the playwright—it might be thought that Davies is playing with the idiom's unconfirmed nautical origins. As a portrait of class structure in post-wwii England, Davies could be said to be borrowing from the reference that "between the devil and the deep blue sea" signifies how English Navy sailors were pressed unwillingly into service and then positioned beneath the upper deck (officer territory). Or, perhaps more accurate to its romantic subtext, »
5 Reasons Why 80s Films Were Best Decade Of Cinema
19 March 2012 4:04 AM, PDT | Obsessed with Film | See recent Obsessed with Film news »
As a child of the 90s, previous decades seem almost mythical to me. I have only experienced the aftermath and the reputation that they have been granted. Because of this I like to think that I have much less nostalgia towards anything before the 80s. Therefore I can approach my argument in this article without as much bias as someone who experienced them.
As I was watching Ghostbusters the other day it made me realise something. The 80s was one of, if not the, best decades for Hollywood film ever. Many of you may not agree with this, but I believe that it is fundamentally true and shall now state why…
Stories Were More Creative Than Ever
Films nowadays are often described as being uncreative and uninspiring. In a large pool of remakes, sequels and safe bets, it’s hard to argue against this. So I won’t. Instead try »
- Addison Crosbie
2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1994 | 1991
1-20 of 63 items from 2012 « Prev | Next »
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