Over a decade since its release, Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream remains a visceral and disturbing piece of modern cinema. The filmmaker’s gnawing portrayal of drug addiction coupled with a hyper stylized aesthetic can make even the most tough-stomached person squirm in their seat.
You’d think seeing the same images with puppets would soften the blow, but Brendan James Boyd‘s 60 -econd film for the 2012 Vancouver Fake Film Fest proves likewise. Hearing puppets say “tail to tail” in place of another famous line, watching a fuzzy arm get chopped off or puppet electroshock therapy is almost more disturbing when it’s non-humans. Check it out after the jump. Read More »
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It’s easy for some to completely write of Transformers: Dark of the Moon as a forgettable Summer big budget blockbuster, but I think it would be wrong to overlook the technical achievements of some of the awesome action sequences.
ILM and Digital Domain have both released videos breaking down all the work that went into the action you saw on screen. You might be surprised to find out that Optimus Prime, Autobots and Decpticons weren’t the only CG additions in the film. Whole real-world environments and complete shots were created within the computer – buildings, vehicles, bridges, skyscrapers, cities and planets.
For me, these visual effect breakdown videos are the closest thing we have these days to the “Movie Magic” specials from my childhood. While I agree those were more fun, and nothing will beat the magic of practical effects done right, its still fun to get a look behind the curtain and see how the magic was constructed. Watch the videos embedded after the jump.
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Jamie Benning has made three excellent ‘making of’ documentaries — or ‘filmumentaries,’ as he calls them, about the original Star Wars trilogy. His efforts collate interviews and rare behind the scenes footage and photos in what are essentially the most detailed commentary tracks a fan could hope for.
Benning followed his Star Wars docs with Raiding the Lost Ark, which tracks the creation of the first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. We’ve showcased the beginning of this ‘filmumentary’ in the past, but the full-length version is now available online. It’s a must-see for any Raiders or Steven Spielberg fan. No matter how much a viewer knows about the making of Raiders, I’d be very surprised if there was nothing here that is new, as Benning has incorporated everything from classic interviews to the minutia of little-seen production reports. Read More »
Each year some of the commercials from the biggest brands during the Super Bowl are directed by big name filmmakers (remember Ridley Scott‘s classic Apple “1984″ Super Bowl ad). The 2012 Super Bowl commercials feature spots directed by Todd Phillips, Bobby Farrelly, David Gordon Green, Miguel Arteta, Noam Murro, Craig Gillespie, Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., Joe Pytka, Jake Scott, Fredick Bond, Peter Berg and others. After the jump I’ve collected 18 of the tv spots directed by big screen talent, breaking down who directed what.
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It’s a big weekend for Max Landis. Sure, the son of legendary director John Landis has a few screenplays in various stages of production but this weekend marks his first to finally make it to the big screen, Chronicle (read a review here). He’s also picked this weekend to release his much ballyhooed short film The Death and Return of Superman.
The Death and Return of Superman, described as “an educational parody,” tells the hilarious, literal, insider version what happened in 1992 when DC Comics decided to kill, then resurrect, Superman. It’s a story many of us remember, but have long since forgotten.
Starring Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, Ron Howard, Chris Hardwick, Simon Pegg and more, you can check it out after the break. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 by Angie Han
There are plenty of reasons to skip Katherine Heigl‘s One for the Money, starting with its truly pathetic score of 3% on Rotten Tomatoes. And based on its weak opening performance this past weekend, it seems most moviegoers are already well aware of what those reasons are. But just in case you needed one more, there’s also the fact that you may have already seen One for the Money before — in the form of a 2010 Jennifer Aniston / Gerard Butler movie called The Bounty Hunter.
After the jump, check out a mashed-up trailer that makes the very convincing argument that One for the Money may just be warmed-over version of The Bounty Hunter.
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While the “Shit People Say” Meme is in full effect, I thought I’d do a round-up of the Hollywood/movie centric videos that have been produced. Videos include: Shit People Say in LA, Shit People Say at Sundance, Shit Filmmakers Say, Shit LA People Say “Westside Edition”, Shit LA Actors Say, Shit New LA Actors Say and Shit Background Actors Say. Enjoy.
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Let’s take a break from the flood of Sundance news and all the Oscar talk to look at one of the weirder indie projects out there: the crowd-assembled Star Wars remake. Star Wars Uncut is a project that started over two years ago when Casey Pugh invited Star Wars fans to do their own recreations of specific scenes from the 1977 film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Fifteen seconds at a time, fans made their own version of the ’77 film, the most special of all editions.
You might have seen the first assembled release of Star Wars Uncut, but the entirety of the film has been re-edited into a more seamless whole, and it is the sort of weird, unpredictable ride that only the internet can provide. This movie is the internet, really, or at many of the internet’s most common obsessions, all filtered through Star Wars. (Itself an internet obsession, of course.)
Despite the fact that fragments of scenes were created one bit at a time, in a wide variety of styles and with technique that ranges from ‘inspired’ (Darth Vader’s breathing represented by a bottle of Johnny Walker Black that fills and drains) to the ‘cute but clueless,’ (quite a lot of it) there is a surprising uniformity here, and the assembled whole is more watchable than you’d expect. this one is a slightly more artfully assembled version that flows much better. Check it out below. Read More »
