Movies, in general, have happy endings. The hero triumphs over adversity and the audience leaves the theater feeling good. But what if the bad guy won? What if the bomb went off? While the happy ending dominates cinema, some of the best movies of all time have taken the ‘dark ending’ route, and now some that did not have been reimagined with new conclusions.
Alternate Endings is a brand new art show presented by the Silver Screen Society and opening December 14 at the Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Each artist in the show picked one of their favorite movies and created a piece of art showing an “alternate ending.” So, for example, Godmachine surmised that Tetsuo won in Akira. Mark Englert reimagined James Bond’s childhood in Skyfall. Others changed the endings of Home Alone, RoboCop, The Dark Knight Rises and more.
After the jump, check out a few images from the show and get all the pertinent info. Read More »
.
Please Recommend /Film on Facebook
The Bond films have a rich tradition of elaborate opening credits sequence featuring ever-more complex blends of animation, graphics, and film footage. For Skyfall, director Sam Mendes went to Daniel Kleinman, who created a long credits sequence featuring a procession of underwater images, shadow combat, and, naturally, women.
Kleinman has been with Bond since Goldeneye, with the exception of Quantum of Solace, which went to a different design house, MK 12. Here Kleinman does a great job underscoring the simplicity of the movie that follows, melding his own notions and the thematic underpinnings of Skyfall with some of the ideas original Bond title designer Maurice Binder established for the series.
Revisit the Skyfall credits — without any actual credits overlaid — below. Read More »
Why wait for DVD? The “bonus features” on many older DVD releases (and laserdiscs, for the ’90s folks) pale in comparison to some of the effects breakdowns and other filmmaking explanations that are available in video form all over the internet. The entire internet is now a cache of info about the creation of films, even as they’re in theaters.
So here are a few choice bits of info. One is an effects overview for Robert Zemeckis‘ new film, Flight, in which a drunk pilot played by Denzel Washington narrowly pilots a plane away from certain doom. The featurette goes into some of the general effects used for the film, before detailing that crash sequence. You might be surprised at how much practical photography was used to create the views of the inside of the plane during that sequence.
Then there’s a piece on Dredd, and just as parts of Flight required extensive digital alteration or augmentation to present the view the filmmakers wanted, Dredd digitally altered the landscape of Johannesburg and Capetown, South Africa to generate the film’s sprawling Mega-City One. FInally, get some details on how a real Aston Martin was preserved for Skyfall, even as the filmmakers had a real product to damage. Read More »
Part way into the new James Bond film, Skyfall, 007 is led to a deserted island, wherein waits the film’s villain, Silva. But this isn’t your typical deserted island — it’s no sandy outcrop with a couple palm trees and a few buried, empty bottles of rum. No, this is a portrait of urban blight in miniature, a place where everyone’s luck ran out, but the city-like structures they built still stand.
And it’s a real place. Or, at least, it is based on a real place. The island in the film gets its own fictional backstory, but the look of the place is based in great detail on an island called Hashima, on which thrived a tiny but densely populated company mining town. Abandoned in the ’70s, Hashima stands now as one of the strangest ghost towns on Earth. Read More »
Odds are if you’ve been to the movies in the past four weeks, you saw Wreck-It Ralph, Argo, Flight or Skyfall. They’re the top four movies at the box office at the moment and each have their own merits. One is great family fare with fun geeky spin. The next is a taut thriller in the mold of old Hollywood. The third is a well-done, but slightly preachy, character study and the last one is a crowd-pleasing addition to an action-packed franchise.
Basically, the current wide releases having something for everyone. Each is very distinctive, and if you’ve seen any of them, videos about each title, from the SoundWorks Collection, are a must see. The fantastic site has posted very cool videos on all four films, detailing their sound mix, scores and more. Check them out below. Read More »
Posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2012 by David Chen
This week, Dave, Devindra and Adam review Skyfall and discuss its place in the James Bond Canon. Special guest Matt Singer joins us from Criticwire. Be sure to check out Matt’s 007-themed articles at Criticwire, including his Best Bond Films Ever and his query as to whether you are truly a Bond fan if Daniel Craig is your favorite Bond.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993.
Read More »
Posted on Friday, November 9th, 2012 by Angie Han
Director Sam Mendes and star Daniel Craig may be the big marquee names of Skyfall, but the real driving forces behind the Bond franchise have long been Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. The half-siblings are the daughter and stepson, respectively, of late producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli — the man who, along with producer Harry Saltzman, first brought Ian Fleming‘s now-iconic spy to the silver screen in 1962 — and have been involved with the series since the Roger Moore era.
At a recent Skyfall press day in New York, I got to speak with the pair about what Mendes brings to the franchise, the advantages of having Craig on board, the importance of interesting female characters, and whether perennial fan favorite Christopher Nolan might ever direct an installment. Hit the jump to read on.
Read More »
The latest installment of the James Bond series hits theaters this week, and this is one of the movies for which IMAX offers a special enhanced experience. Skyfall was not shot with IMAX film cameras like The Dark Knight and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol were. In fact, it wan’t even shot on film – Roger Deakins shot most of the movie with the Arri Alexa M digital camera. Deakins and director Sam Mendes shot the entire film framing for not only the 2.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio, but also a 1:90:1 aspect ratio for the IMAX version of the movie. The result is that you see more in the IMAX version of the movie.
IMAX’s presentation of SKYFALL has been specially formatted to feature a larger aspect ratio (the relationship between an image’s width and height) for the entirety of the film. The IMAX team worked with filmmakers in the post-production process to increase the aspect ratio of the film and designed the IMAX presentation of SKYFALL to allow audiences to see up to 26% more of the originally captured image than the conventional release.
IMAX has sent over the comparison chart above to show you the difference. They have also released a pretty standard featurette promoting the IMAX version of the film. Unfortunately the featurette doesn’t go into much depth about the different aspect ratio of the IMAX release (maybe they think that is too technical or boring for general moviegoers?).
Read More »
