Today is a big one for stories that boil down to “hey, this guy might do this movie.” (See Russell Crowe in Noah and RoboCop, and Ed Harris in Pain and Gain.) The latest along those lines is a bit more exciting, however.
Brad Bird has got to be at the top of a lot of director wishlists after the performance of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. With that movie, the animation director proved beyond a doubt that he could do thrilling live-action. (Not that there were many doubts in the first place.) While we’ve known that Bird still wants to make the San Francisco earthquake movie 1906, he’s at the point now where there must be quite a few other offers flying his way. One is Here There Be Monsters, the story of a 18th century naval office who runs across a sea monster. Read More »
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Last year, a small report surfaced that Paul Thomas Anderson would be using 65mm film to shoot some of his new film The Master, and now we’ve got confirmation that PTA did indeed use the large-size negative film for at least part of the movie. And it comes from a surprising source: a Twitter conversation between current and former Pixar directors Brad Bird, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich. Read More »
Odds are if you visited a movie theater recently, you might have been there to see Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol or War Horse. The former has been deservedly sitting atop the box office charts since its release and the latter is the latest, tear-jerker live-action drama from one of our most beloved filmmakers, Steven Spielberg. And while the fact they’re both currently playing in theaters is more or less the only thing the films have in common, both are undoubtedly improved by their sound and score.
John Williams‘ score to War Horse is one of his best in many years. It perfectly compliments the sweeping story of how a single animal can bring out the best in people at the worst of times. With Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, director Brad Bird and his team use not only Michael Giacchino‘s score, but a steady barrage of sound, to amp up the drama surrounding Ethan Hunt and his disavowed IMF agents.
After the jump, watch in-depth videos and interviews regarding the sound and music from both Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Steven Spielberg’s War Horse. Read More »
Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol is Brad Bird‘s first live-action movie. Think about that for a second. In the film community he’s easily one of the most exciting and respected directors out there but he’s never released a movie with a flesh and blood person in it. It’s fairly mind-boggling. Then you watch The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille and realize the characters in those are way more human than humans are in most movies.
The fact of the matter is Brad Bird was simply born to tell entertaining, exciting stories and he’s finally doing it with humans with Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, which opened last week in IMAX and opens everywhere else today. Tom Cruise returns as IMF agent Ethan Hunt whose team, including Simon Pegg, Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner, are disavowed and must fight to save the world.
In October, /Film spoke to Bird at a Beverly Hills hotel about his first foray into live action, shooting for IMAX, its early release, the then-rumor of The Dark Knight Rises prologue being in front of his movie and the latest on his long discussed disaster film 1906. Read the interview after the jump. Read More »
Chances are you saw the new trailer for Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises and didn’t catch Robin the boy wonder or a reference back to the very beginning of the trilogy: Batman Begins. And you probably also saw Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in IMAX but somehow missed the hidden Pixar easter eggs that Ratatouille/The Incredibles director Brad Bird hid within the film. Aren’t you glad we’re here to point them out to you? Find the easer eggs, after the jump.
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Without exaggeration, you can probably count the amount of static dialogue scenes in Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol on one hand. In seemingly each and every scene, director Brad Bird’s first live-action film is bursting with vitality. Things are always moving, situations are stressful, not everyone is who they say they are, and more often than not there’s some kind of awe-inspiring stunt or intense fight happening. From frame one, Ghost Protocol is a high-octane drag race of non-stop action and that in itself would almost be sufficient. Bird, however, separates this film from not only the rest of the series, but most action films in general, by having these scenes advance the plot as well as character, all while maintaining a welcome balance of levity and heart. Read More »
Over the years, we’ve learned a lot about how Pixar develops and produces their feature animated films, but we’ve learned very little about how the beloved short films get created. So I decided it was time we find out. I shot a message over to Enrico Casarosa, the director of Pixar’s next short film La Luna, who was happy to shed some light on the process. “How Does A Pixar Short Film Get Made?” Find out, after the jump.
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/Film readers were the first to know a 6-minute prologue to The Dark Knight Rises would be appearing exclusively in front of IMAX prints of Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol. It was then revealed the prologue wouldn’t be at all IMAX locations showing Brad Bird‘s film, just the 70mm ones, which cuts the number down drastically. Warner Bros. has finally fessed up to the fact that this is happening and they’ve released a full list of theaters that will be showing the prologue to Christopher Nolan‘s highly-anticipated film.
Let’s not short change Mission: Impossible though. Bird shot upwards of 30 minutes of his film in IMAX and is releasing it exclusively in that format five days before any normal theater can show it. It’s a big part of the movie and the best way to see it. So, odds are, you are going to want to click below, find the theater closest to you and buy your tickets as soon as possible. I know I will. Read More »
