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18 June 2008
[movies] The Video Nasty Project … this blog will watch all 73 original video nasties so you don’t have to … ‘The plot is basic Frankenstein stuff. A mad surgeon replaces his terminally ill son’s heart with that of a gorilla, which transforms him into a half-man, half ape creature – or at least a man in cracked, slathered on makeup who makes silly growling noises.’ [via Metafilter]
15 June 2008
[movies] ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ props, from The Shining … these pages from Jack’s “novel” are taken from The Kubrick Archive‘The annotation noted how there is still some conjecture as to whether Kubrick had every individual page typed, or they were photocopied. Some of these pages looked typed. Others didn’t.’ [via Daring Fireball]
12 May 2008
[007] The name’s Ronson, Jon Ronson … Ronson follows one of the journeys of James Bond …

I phone Zoe Watkins at the Ian Fleming Centre, the literary estate. She’s known within Bond circles for having an encyclopedic knowledge of the books.

“I want to recreate a great Bond journey,” I say. “I want to take a passage from one of the novels and assiduously match Bond car for car, road for road, meal for meal, drink for drink, hotel for hotel.”

“What a wonderful idea,” she says. “But which journey do you want to recreate?”

“I dunno,” I shrug. “One in Moonraker?”

“Moonraker is basically a drive from London to Margate,” Zoe says. “Fleming’s fans were disappointed by the absence of exotic locations.”

2 May 2008
[movies] Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001 Diary … the diary entries concern the time he spent working with Stanley Kubrick on 2001 …‘July 9. Spent much of afternoon teaching Stanley how to use the slide rule — he’s fascinated.’
15 April 2008
[apollo] Hollywood Hunts Star to Play First Man on the Moon‘[Neil] Armstrong was 38 when he and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. Matt Damon, star of the Bourne trilogy, will be 38 this year, while Eric Bana, whose credits include Hulk and the next Star Trek movie, is 39. Christian Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jake Gyllenhaal could also be in the running.’
6 April 2008
[movies] Throwing bones in the air as 2001 turns 40 … looking back at Kubrick’s 2001 … Roger Ebert: ‘The fascinating thing about this film is that it fails on the human level but succeeds magnificently on a cosmic scale.’ [via Metafilter]
3 April 2008
[movies] Spaced Duo Savour Sweet Taste of Success‘[Edgar] Wright, 33, is working on two films in the US: Scott Pilgrim vs The World and an adaptation of the Marvel comic book character Ant-Man.’
31 March 2008
[films] Recovering Reality … More from Errol Morris on Abu Ghraib … [via Kottke]

‘When Brent Pack talks about [Gilligan’s treatment] as being standard operating procedure, I find that a powerful and odd moment. He’s sincere, he’s not a bad guy, and yet he’s telling us something that is actually surreal and disturbing-even more so because he’s not a bad guy, because he’s being sincere. Or just seeing Lyndie England and how devastated she was by all of this. I’m moved by it. Call me crazy, but I am. She gives this final speech, which to me is so sad, about how maybe the whole world is just backstabbing and lying. You’ve got all of these players caught in this strange drama. The perversity of it all.’

26 March 2008
[movies] From hell … Joe Queenan on the worst movies of all time … ‘While it may disappoint those who welcome my occasionally unconventional opinions, I am firmly in the camp that believes that Heaven’s Gate is the worst movie ever made. For my money, none of these other films can hold a candle to Michael Cimino’s 1980 apocalyptic disaster. This is a movie that destroyed the director’s career. This is a movie that lost so much money it literally drove a major American studio out of business. This is a movie about Harvard-educated gunslingers who face off against eastern European sodbusters in an epic struggle for the soul of America. This is a movie that stars Isabelle Huppert as a shotgun-toting cowgirl. This is a movie in which Jeff Bridges pukes while mounted on roller skates. This is a movie that has five minutes of uninterrupted fiddle-playing by a fiddler who is also mounted on roller skates. This is a movie that defies belief.’
23 March 2008
[movies] Errol Morris talks with Werner Herzog‘If everything was planned, it would be dreadful. If everything was unplanned, it would be equally dreadful. Cinema exists because there are elements of both in everything. There are elements of both in documentary. There are elements of both in feature filmmaking. It’s what makes, I think, photography and filmmaking of interest. Despite all of our efforts to control something, the world is much, much more powerful than us, and more deranged even than us.’
21 February 2008
[comics] Warner Bros revs up live action Akira‘The Times suggests that Akira purists may not be entirely happy with the fact that the story is set in New Manhattan, rather than the futuristic Tokyo of the original Manga classic.’
17 February 2008
[movies] Happy Groundhog Day! — Jaime Zawinkski wonders how many days Bill Murray re-lived in Groundhog Day‘Between days #21 and #22, he memorized the entire Jeopardy show, which would take at least a few viewings. It’s possible he did that while learning piano, or French.’
14 February 2008
[doco] True Films – 200 Documentaries You Must See Before You Die — a PDF E-Book on documentaries written by Kevin Kelly now available as a free download.
13 February 2008
[comics] V Vs Scientology — interesting comment on the Forbidden Planet Blog about V for Vendetta masks used at recent protests against Scientology … ‘V masks have been a tremendous bestseller for us for a while, now I am starting to understand why!’
14 December 2007
[movies] Blade Runner: Final Cut Review — nice comprehensive review of Blade Runner: Final Cut‘Back in 1982, actress Joanna Cassidy wasn’t allowed to do the stunt where Zhora crashes through the window panes. But if you watch the film closely, especially now in high-definition, it’s painfully obvious that it’s a stuntwoman in those shots. So Cassidy was brought back in, dressed in her original costume, and was shot on a greenscreen stage, going through the same movements as the stuntwoman. Her face and body angles were matched to those of the stuntwoman’s frame by frame. Cassidy’s head was then digitally inserted over the stuntwoman’s, and the resulting image was blended, color-corrected and matched seamlessly. So now, when you see Zhora crash through the glass, it’s actually Zhora all the way through. The result is amazing.’
10 December 2007
[movies] What’s new in Blade Runner: The Final Cut? — contains some spoilers … ‘In the scene where Batty confronts Tyrell, the line, “I want more life, fucker” has been replaced with “I want more life, father”.’ [via linkbunnies.org]
5 December 2007
[funny] Arnold Shares his Deepest Feelings — yet another of those amusingly weird YTMND pages. [via linkbunnies.org]
2 December 2007
[comics] The Ha Ha Ha Times — nicely done viral promo site for the new Batman film. Metafilter has more links: Marketing the Bat.
22 November 2007
[evil] Ask Mefi: What fictional evil has great corporate branding?‘OCP, Omni Consumer Products. From Robocop.’
31 October 2007
[horror] Battle of the bloodsuckers — Who’s the best Dracula – Christopher Lee or Max Schreck? …

I have met Count Dracula. The real one. Some years ago, while researching an article about Transylvania, I was introduced to the charming and erudite man who was heir to the region spoken of in Bram Stoker’s book. Having been exiled to Germany with his family throughout the Ceausescu years, the authentic count had returned to reclaim his legacy, and was in the process of restoring his baronial castle, which nestled in the shadow of the Carpathian mountains.

He recounted how, in 1992, while still fighting to reclaim his birthright, he’d wandered into a cinema showing Francis Ford Coppola’s awkwardly titled Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He watched the perverted version of his heritage on screen with a growing sense of frustration. When Gary Oldman, playing Dracula, introduced himself with the line, “I am Vlad, prince of Szekely”, the real count could contain himself no longer. He stood up and shouted across the auditorium: “No, you are not! I am!”

22 October 2007
[funny] Entire Precinct Made Up Of Loose Cannons

‘The officers’ darkest moment reportedly came in November 1992, when they shot and killed three dozen children who darted out of a dark alley holding toy guns. Following the incident, Henderson traveled to the San Pedro, CA marina where all 34 officers docked their houseboats. He found them passed out with bottles of Wild Turkey in their left hands and .44-caliber Magnum handguns in their right.

“I dragged every one of those sorry bastards into the shower myself, brewed 28 gallons of coffee, and made them drink it. By the time I was done, it was 3 a.m. and I was completely exhausted, but I got them back on the right track,” Henderson said.’

7 October 2007
[movies] The Real Deal — an exhaustive examination of all the various versions of Blade Runner and a look at what’s different in the Final Cut [via Feeling Listless] …

Scott’s final cut – was painstakingly assembled from original elements, including the original 65mm negative. De Lauzirika has been working on it over a seven-year period. “And this time, Ridley approved every single thing that went into it – every single cut, every single effect,” he says. “We’re right back to square one,” Galvao says of The Final Cut elements. “We scanned the cut negative, plus the negatives we dug out of vaults in England, here at Warner Bros., and [co-executive producer] Jerry Perenchio’s vault as well. We went through and viewed every frame of every roll that we could find.” “Honestly, I got to go through 977 boxes and cans of mag, IP, INs, 65mm visual effects comps, 35mm original dailies … everything ever printed,” de Lauzirika says.

1 October 2007
[movies] Ridley Scott Has Finally Created the Blade Runner He Always Imagined — Ridley Scott on the absolutely, positively, Final Cut of Blade Runner‘The director’s cut removed the voice-over and that silly ending and put in the unicorn daydream, but the disc didn’t look that great. And it should look great, because Blade Runner at the time was pretty formidable – it’s pretty formidable even now, actually. A lot of people don’t notice whether they’re watching something beautifully technical or not, but it’s important to me. So that always got in the way of the director’s cut being the final version. I think it’s final now because I’ve done all the nips and tucks and tidied up one or two of the visual areas that we couldn’t do properly at the time because we didn’t have the technology.’
9 September 2007
[movies] In the Shadow of the Moon — trailer for a documentary about the Apollo Moon Missions.
30 July 2007
[film] $78 million of red ink? — eye-opening analysis of the costs and losses incurred by the film Sahara‘The documents, obtained by The Times, provide a rare behind-the-curtain peek at the thousands of expenditures that drain the budget of a major motion picture. The line items cover such things as “local bribes” within the Kingdom of Morocco and the salaries and “star perks” paid to Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz. Movie budgets are one of the last remaining secrets in the entertainment business, typically known to only high-level executives, senior producers and accountants…’ [via Metafilter]
10 July 2007
[movies] The Veidt Method — viral marketing campaign for the Watchmen movie‘Latest News: President and C.E.O. Adrian Veidt interviewed in latest edition of Nova Express – on newsstands now!’ [via plasticbag.org]
4 July 2007
[films] Hello, come in, do have a nibble — Interesting interview with Dennis Hopper‘He certainly isn’t in the mood to discuss any of the half a dozen films he is due to appear in this year, a roster which is due to include a performance in Speed 3, even though I have plenty of questions about that. Surely his character Howard Payne died in a decapitation incident in the last reel of Speed 1? “It’s a river of shit,” he tells me pleasantly but firmly, “from which I have tried to extract some gold.”‘
22 June 2007
[quotes] Grouphug.us: ‘In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max’s toupee and I glued it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew School play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and I blamed it on the dog…When my mom sent me to the summer camp for fat kids and then they served lunch I went nuts and I pigged out and they kicked me out…But the worst thing I ever done — I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa — and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life.’
21 June 2007
[comics] Scans from Jack Kirby’s Comic Adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey — spotted on scans_daily – it really looks like Kirby was having a blast with this one…

panels from Jack Kirby's comic adaptation of 2001

16 April 2007
[comics] A Script Review of Grant Morrison’s We3 — a look at Morrison’s script for New Line Cinema’s adaptation of We3‘Much of the film is a long chase, a blend between one of Disney’s Fantastic Journey films and, perhaps, The Iron Giant by way of Robocop or another hard, gristle-strewn actionaer. It is also a brilliant and incisive exploration of freedom, instinct, will the universe’s natural orders… and the desire to identify yourself as an individual.’
19 March 2007
[film] Color Me Kubrick Trailer — John Malkovitch and Jim Davidson… together at last! ‘For months Alan Conway, a perfect stranger, passed himself off as one of the greatest film directors of all time, Stanley Kubrick. Conway knew nothing of the filmmaker or his films, but this didn’t prevent him from using and abusing the credulity of those who thought they had come in contact with the mythical and equally discreet director.’
10 March 2007
[movies] Tom Cruise’s Starring Role in Watchmen Narrowly Averted‘I asked him point blank about Cruise, and he confirmed that he and Tom had been talking about it. A lot. But that now it looked like Cruise would not be appearing in the film. “He was interested,” Snyder confirmed to me. “I did talk to him about it for a while.” And would the role he wanted be Ozymandias? “That would be the role,” Snyder said.’
2 March 2007
[movies] Long Flicks: to Cut or Not to Cut?‘Some critics thought Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” or Robert De Niro’s “The Good Shepherd” – both clocking in at about two hours, 40 minutes – would have been greatly improved at closer to two hours. But who’s going to tell Scorsese or De Niro to chop 30 minutes?’
15 February 2007
[movies] Crichton’s Closet of Tech Horrors — Wired looks at the films Michael Crichton directed in the 70’s and 80’s… ‘The movies are filled with high-concept ideas, purple dialogue, supremely creepy moments and nifty gadgetry. They are both implausible, sometimes to the point of being ridiculous, and a few degrees too earnest. And the primary weapon for the bad guys — doctors, computer programmers, robotics experts — is technological know-how. Now Crichton positions himself as an authority on global warming and enters the policy-making slipstream, advising President Bush and testifying at a congressional hearing on the nuances of climate change.’
6 February 2007
[movies] RoboCop, PhD — According to Wired Peter Weller is getting a PhD in Italian Renaissance Art History … ‘This is no vanity degree; Weller teaches courses, writes papers, and is doggedly climbing the academic ladder. Buckaroo Banzai, the polymath who was arguably Weller’s most famous character – acclaimed neurosurgeon, race car driver, particle physicist, and, of course, rock star – would be proud.’ [via Ghost in the Machine]
3 February 2007
[movies] When Harry met Sally Recut — the romance film with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as a thriller … ‘Don’t Fuck with Mister Zero.’ [via Metafilter]
29 January 2007
[film] What if Ferris Bueller really was sick? — another remixed film trailer. [via Sore Eyes]
5 January 2007
[movies] Ask Metafilter: Why is the CGI in Jurassic Park so good? ‘…largely because of Spielberg’s restraint. ILM’s ambitions were commensurate with their abilities: their animators could create convincing scaly creatures, and that’s what they did. They could not create convincing CG cities, battlefields, or human faces, and they didn’t try. Additionally, they did a great job of simulating how large, heavy creatures move.’
10 December 2006
[film] Hot Fuzz — another trailer this time for the new movie from Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright. [via Sore Eyes]
9 December 2006
[film] 300 — movie trailer for Frank Miller’s 300. ‘Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty… For tonight we dine in hell!’
23 November 2006
[movies] The Top 10 Movie Spaceships‘The Nostromo is little more than a space tugboat, pulling a giant ore refinery through space. Though it has no weapons, when given the (famously complex) command to self-destruct, it really goes off with a bang. An underrated ship, it could land on planets and scope out foreign lifeforms… which turned out to be not such a great idea after all.’
19 November 2006
[film] Who killed Superman? — more from the Guardian on the true story behind the movie Hollywoodland‘As with the many theories that swirl around the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short – the tortured and mutilated Black Dahlia – there are too many contradictory pieces to assemble a single coherent jigsaw puzzle of Reeves’ death/murder. Or rather, there are perhaps three jigsaws with not enough pieces to complete any of them.’
7 November 2006
[comics] Come fly with me — the Guardian previews the film Hollywoodland – includes an interview with Ben Affleck on playing George Reeves‘When the actor George Reeves died in 1959, the headline ran: “Super hero, out of work, kills Self”.’
2 November 2006
[books] My Mother and the DahliaJames Ellroy on the Black Dahlia and his Mother … ‘I wrote six good novels and crashed Betty and Jean with The Black Dahlia. It was a salutary ode to Elizabeth Short and a self-serving and perfunctory embrace of my mother. I acknowledged the Jean-Betty confluence in media appearances and exploited it to sell books. My performances were commanding at first glance and glib upon reappraisal. I cut my mother down to sound-bite size and packaged her wholesale. I determined the cause of my ruthlessness years later. She owned me…’
31 October 2006
[movies] 40 Things That Only Happen In Movies‘Anyone can land a 747 as long as there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.’
30 October 2006
[film] Good Day, Mr. Kubrick! — in 1984 Stanley Kubrick placed an advert in Variety asking for audition tapes from unknown actors for his next film Full Metal Jacket – Brian Atene’s amazing tape has been posted to YouTube along with an update from the actor in 2006. Go watch, you won’t regret it… ‘D’You Wanna Know Somethin’!? I Scared. I Scared.’ (more…)
14 October 2006
[comics] ‘300’ Comic-to-Screen Comparison — blog entry comparing images from Frank Miller’s comic on the Battle of Thermopylae to the movie trailer for 300. [via linkbunnies.org]
11 October 2006
[film] Ask Metafilter: Borat Ruined my Life‘Last year, a guy came to my town claiming to be filming a documentary for Kazakhstan. He recruited my friend John to be in it. John signed the papers and everything- that’s not the issue. However, the producers got John really drunk and he said some things he really regrets that made it to the final cut. John’s terrified that everyone’s going to see the movie and think he’s an awful human being (which he’s not). He’s very distraught…’
9 September 2006
[movies] The Queen Trailer — it’s probably a very British thing but I’m really looking forward to watching Helen Mirren’s performance in a film about the Queen’s reaction to the death of Diana.
28 June 2006
[wikipedia] My Wikipedia Contrail: Alfred Henry Hook — I took a look at this because I wondered what happed to Hooky from Zulu after the Battle of Rourke’s Drift … ‘In the film Zulu, Hook is portrayed as an insubordinate malingerer and drunkard who only comes good during the battle. In fact he had been awarded Good Conduct pay shortly prior to the battle, and reports also suggest he was a teetotaller.’
6 June 2006
[pi] The Mountains of Pi — the 1992 New Yorker article which influenced Darren Aronofsky’s Pi about two mathematicians who build supercomputers in their Brooklyn flat. ‘…the digits of pi may ramble forever in a hideous cacophony, which is a kind of absolute perfection to a mathematician like Gregory Chudnovsky. Pi looks “monstrous?” to him. “We know absolutely nothing about pi,” he declared from his bed. “What the hell does it mean? The definition of pi is really very simple — it’s just the ratio of the circumference to the diameter — but the complexity of the sequence it spits out in digits is really unbelievable. We have a sequence of digits that looks like gibberish.” “Maybe in the eyes of God pi looks perfect,” David said, standing in a corner of the room…’
30 May 2006
[film] Blade Runner Final Cut Due‘Warner Home Video will issue a new remastered director’s cut of the classic SF movie Blade Runner in September now that it has cleared up rights issues, followed by a theatrical release of a version promised to be truly director Ridley Scott’s final cut, Variety reported.’ [via Feeling Listless]
[film] Predilections — a profile of Errol Morris‘I like the idea of making films about ostensibly absolutely nothing,” Morris says. “I like the irrelevant, the tangential, the sidebar excursion to nowhere that suddenly becomes revelatory. That’s what all my movies are about. That and the idea that we’re in possession of certainty, truth, infallible knowledge, when actually we’re just a bunch of apes running around. My films are about people who think they’re connected to something, although they’re really not.’ [via Kottke]
[film] An Inconvenient Truth — movie trailer for Al Gore’s documentary about climate change.
26 May 2006
[comics] Warren Ellis on Superman Returns: ‘…[the Superman Returns Trailer] hits the high points of the mythos in a sequence of painterly, carefully composed shots over an altered John Williams score. My appreciation of the Superman movies stops about halfway through the first one, but those high points have over the years accreted the strange magic of Judeo-Christian myth about them, and as a writer I can admire that.’ [from Bad Signal]