As one of the super-genres in filmmaking, the action movie genre is one of American cinema’s biggest, most successful genres. While there’s no consensus on when the first action film was produced, it’s generally believed Edwin S. Porter‘s 1903 silent film The Great Train Robbery paved the way for the genre. Alongside the science fiction super-genres, the action genre greatly benefited immensely from the incorporation and advancement of technology in filmmaking. With an ever-growing audience, many famous filmmakers across several generations have produced work in the genre at one point in their careers. In the early decades of the genre,...
- 1/9/2024
- by Onyinye Izundu
- TVovermind.com
Animal Movie Review Rating:
Star Cast: Ranbir Kapoor , Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Rashmika Mandanna, Tripti Dimri, Charu Shankar, Babloo Prithiveeraj, Saurabh Sachdeva, Prem Chopra
Director: Sandeep Reddy Vanga
Animal Movie Review Out! (Picture Credit: T-Series/Youtube)
What’s Good: Ranbir Kapoor putting everything in, but for what? The interval block could be a separate short film, and I would surely hoot for that one
What’s Bad: Everything you thought was bad in Arjun Reddy/Kabir Singh it’s worse here
Loo Break: There should be a competition among friends of who can sit through this almost three-and-a-half-hour film without taking a loo break, and that would have an interesting outcome than this film
Watch or Not?: Only and only if you can leave the cinema hall after the first half
Language: Hindi
Available On: Theatrical release
Runtime: 3 hours 21 minutes
User Rating:
Ranvijay Singh (Ranbir Kapoor) is the son...
Star Cast: Ranbir Kapoor , Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Rashmika Mandanna, Tripti Dimri, Charu Shankar, Babloo Prithiveeraj, Saurabh Sachdeva, Prem Chopra
Director: Sandeep Reddy Vanga
Animal Movie Review Out! (Picture Credit: T-Series/Youtube)
What’s Good: Ranbir Kapoor putting everything in, but for what? The interval block could be a separate short film, and I would surely hoot for that one
What’s Bad: Everything you thought was bad in Arjun Reddy/Kabir Singh it’s worse here
Loo Break: There should be a competition among friends of who can sit through this almost three-and-a-half-hour film without taking a loo break, and that would have an interesting outcome than this film
Watch or Not?: Only and only if you can leave the cinema hall after the first half
Language: Hindi
Available On: Theatrical release
Runtime: 3 hours 21 minutes
User Rating:
Ranvijay Singh (Ranbir Kapoor) is the son...
- 12/1/2023
- by Umesh Punwani
- KoiMoi
Clockwise from top left: Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 (Disney), The Shining (Warner Bros.), Creed (Warner Bros.), Goodfellas (Warner Bros.)Graphic: AVClub
All hail the oner! Moviegoers love great acting, brilliant visual effects, a soaring score, and palpable chemistry between the stars, but few things wow an audience more than the single-take shot,...
All hail the oner! Moviegoers love great acting, brilliant visual effects, a soaring score, and palpable chemistry between the stars, but few things wow an audience more than the single-take shot,...
- 5/31/2023
- by Ian Spelling
- avclub.com
Although "Heaven's Gate" is now regarded in some circles as a misunderstood masterpiece, Michael Cimino's lavish box office flop had a lot to answer for at the time. Not only was it blamed for the death of the American New Wave, but it was also seen as the final nail in the coffin of the Western. Released in 1980, the subsequent decade was an especially fallow period for the genre, but at least we got "Three Amigos."
The drought lasted almost exactly 10 years until Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves" became a massive box office success and went on to win seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, reinvigorating the oldest and most resilient of U.S. genres once again. Two years after Costner's triumph, Clint Eastwood's harsh but lyrical "Unforgiven" was also a big hit with audiences and won the same big prizes at the Oscars. The Western was back.
The drought lasted almost exactly 10 years until Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves" became a massive box office success and went on to win seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, reinvigorating the oldest and most resilient of U.S. genres once again. Two years after Costner's triumph, Clint Eastwood's harsh but lyrical "Unforgiven" was also a big hit with audiences and won the same big prizes at the Oscars. The Western was back.
- 4/30/2023
- by Lee Adams
- Slash Film
The Warner brothers — Harry, Sam, Albert and Jack — were different from Hollywood’s other movie moguls in the industry’s early years. They were shrewd, brash, outspoken and passionate in ways that deviated from the industry norm. The most publicly consistent brother was Harry, a stoic businessman and proud immigrant. Sam was the technical visionary who was gone too soon. Albert largely avoided the public eye, although he served as a loyal ambassador to the family brand. Jack was the wild child, the entertainer, the sometimes unpredictable one.
Those talents served them well during a transitional time for what would become the filmed entertainment industry. The year 1903 marked that transition, moving from what historian Tom Gunning calls a “cinema of attractions,” based on simple spectatorship of an event, to narrative storytelling, which allowed audiences to get lost in what they saw onscreen. There was only one way to test the...
Those talents served them well during a transitional time for what would become the filmed entertainment industry. The year 1903 marked that transition, moving from what historian Tom Gunning calls a “cinema of attractions,” based on simple spectatorship of an event, to narrative storytelling, which allowed audiences to get lost in what they saw onscreen. There was only one way to test the...
- 4/4/2023
- by Chris Yogerst
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Some of the oldest films ever made in Australia can now be found on YouTube after being restored by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (Nfsa).
The Corrick Collection, containing 135 of the world’s earliest films, depicts scenes from the Corrick Family Entertainers variety act from more than a century ago.
Five films from the collection are now available to audiences worldwide on the Nfsa’s YouTube channel, with a further selection to be screened at Tasmania’s Ten Days on the Island festival next month to celebrate the Corricks’ connection with the state.
It comes after the Nsfa undertook photochemical film-to-film restoration of the original nitrate prints, collaborating with Haghefilm Conservation in Amsterdam to lay the groundwork for the digital updates.
Nfsa curator Elena Guest, who is based in Sydney, told If the process has spanned more than a decade.
“The film-to-film restoration started in 2007 and went...
The Corrick Collection, containing 135 of the world’s earliest films, depicts scenes from the Corrick Family Entertainers variety act from more than a century ago.
Five films from the collection are now available to audiences worldwide on the Nfsa’s YouTube channel, with a further selection to be screened at Tasmania’s Ten Days on the Island festival next month to celebrate the Corricks’ connection with the state.
It comes after the Nsfa undertook photochemical film-to-film restoration of the original nitrate prints, collaborating with Haghefilm Conservation in Amsterdam to lay the groundwork for the digital updates.
Nfsa curator Elena Guest, who is based in Sydney, told If the process has spanned more than a decade.
“The film-to-film restoration started in 2007 and went...
- 2/24/2021
- by Sean Slatter
- IF.com.au
The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Above: The Great Train RobberyThe western has been around since nearly the advent of cinema. Some of Thomas Edison’s earliest films incorporated standard conventions of the genre, established in preceding works of popular fiction, and other key tropes were solidified in Edwin S. Porter’s pioneering The Great Train Robbery (1903). Primarily originating on the East Coast, American motion picture production soon made its general migration west where the geographic consequences only amplified the form, enticing the likes of producers and directors including Thomas Ince and Cecil B. DeMille. The western swiftly flourished as an exuberant, manifold survey of idealized, often exaggerated themes concerning heroism, progress, and the myth of the American dream. The genre became a beloved compendium of cultural dichotomies, iconic symbols, locations, and character types, evincing countless variations alongside the tried and true.
- 7/21/2020
- MUBI
It’s the understatement of the century to say that life for moviegoers — and everyone, really — was different in 1895. This was the year that, on March 22, 125 years ago today, Auguste and Louis Lumière debuted “Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory,” a short film widely regarded as the invention of movies for mass audiences. The premiere was held at a private screening for an audience of 10. Watch the film below.
The film was shot in 35mm, with the aspect ratio of 1.33.1 at 16 frames per second. The Lumière brothers were among the first filmmakers in world history, pioneering cinematic technology as well as establishing the common grammar of film. The brothers went on to work on hundreds of films in less than a decade. The Lumières also created the cinematograph, a motion-picture film camera that serves as both a projector and a printer. Developed in Lyon, this technology allowed multiple moviegoers to experience...
The film was shot in 35mm, with the aspect ratio of 1.33.1 at 16 frames per second. The Lumière brothers were among the first filmmakers in world history, pioneering cinematic technology as well as establishing the common grammar of film. The brothers went on to work on hundreds of films in less than a decade. The Lumières also created the cinematograph, a motion-picture film camera that serves as both a projector and a printer. Developed in Lyon, this technology allowed multiple moviegoers to experience...
- 3/22/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Tony Sokol Feb 15, 2020
Prog will rock the future in a film adaptation of Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9" from the producers of Jumanji.
"Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends. We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside," Greg Lake opened side 2 of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 1973 album Brain Salad Surgery. The song it comes from, "Karn Evil 9," is being adapted into a science-fiction movie, according to Deadline.
Developed with the full cooperation of Elp and its management, Karn Evil 9 will be executive produced by Radar Pictures, who made the Jumanji film series.
“The visionary world that Elp created with their recording 'Karn Evil 9' is much closer to reality today,” Radar's Ted Field said in a statement. “Our team at Radar looks forward to bringing this vision of where things may be headed to the big screen and beyond.”
The screenplay will be...
Prog will rock the future in a film adaptation of Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9" from the producers of Jumanji.
"Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends. We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside," Greg Lake opened side 2 of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 1973 album Brain Salad Surgery. The song it comes from, "Karn Evil 9," is being adapted into a science-fiction movie, according to Deadline.
Developed with the full cooperation of Elp and its management, Karn Evil 9 will be executive produced by Radar Pictures, who made the Jumanji film series.
“The visionary world that Elp created with their recording 'Karn Evil 9' is much closer to reality today,” Radar's Ted Field said in a statement. “Our team at Radar looks forward to bringing this vision of where things may be headed to the big screen and beyond.”
The screenplay will be...
- 2/15/2020
- Den of Geek
Auguste and Louis Lumière were two of the pioneers of filmmaking, but you’ve never seen a Lumière brother film like this before. YouTube user Denis Shiryaev is going viral after uploading a fan-made restoration of the Lumière brothers’ 1885 short film “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat,” presented in 4K and at 60 frames per second. The restoration brings one of the most historic short films of the 19th century firmly into the 21st. The image is so clear it almost makes it appear as if the Lumière brothers shot “Arrival of a Train” on digital. The fan-made restoration was uploaded to YouTube on February 2 and has already amassed over 1.1 million views and counting in less than a week.
“Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” was shot in 1895 but did not publicly screen for the first time until January 1896. The silent short film runs 50 seconds and depicts a train...
“Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” was shot in 1895 but did not publicly screen for the first time until January 1896. The silent short film runs 50 seconds and depicts a train...
- 2/5/2020
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
By David Kozlowski | 18 August 2017
Welcome to Issue #9 of The Lrm Weekend, a weekly column offering strong opinions about film, TV, comics, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, animation, and anime. We also want to hear from you, our awesome Lrm community! Share your feedback or ideas for future columns: @LRM_Weekend and we'll post your Tweets below!
Previous Issues: 8.11.17 | 8.4.17 | 7.28.17 | 7.21.17 | 7.14.17 | 7.7.17
Hey Lrm Weekenders, this week we're featuring some of the most intriguing, powerful, and successful women in Hollywood. Its easy to become fixated on our male action stars, since that's how Hollywood tends to market their films, so we sometimes fail to recognize the contributions and accomplishments of our female action stars! But first, we want to discuss the elephant in the room: the dwindling audiences at movie theaters -- we'll explore some problems, one potential solution, and hopefully provide some insight into an issue that's only going to get worse if everything remains status quo.
Welcome to Issue #9 of The Lrm Weekend, a weekly column offering strong opinions about film, TV, comics, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, animation, and anime. We also want to hear from you, our awesome Lrm community! Share your feedback or ideas for future columns: @LRM_Weekend and we'll post your Tweets below!
Previous Issues: 8.11.17 | 8.4.17 | 7.28.17 | 7.21.17 | 7.14.17 | 7.7.17
Hey Lrm Weekenders, this week we're featuring some of the most intriguing, powerful, and successful women in Hollywood. Its easy to become fixated on our male action stars, since that's how Hollywood tends to market their films, so we sometimes fail to recognize the contributions and accomplishments of our female action stars! But first, we want to discuss the elephant in the room: the dwindling audiences at movie theaters -- we'll explore some problems, one potential solution, and hopefully provide some insight into an issue that's only going to get worse if everything remains status quo.
- 8/18/2017
- by David Kozlowski
- LRMonline.com
In 1903, Edwin S. Porter‘s short film The Great Train Robbery became one of the first blockbuster films. At just 12 minutes long, it was still a milestone achievement in American filmmaking as it employed production and editing techniques previously unheard of in filmmaking. It’s considered the first ever American action film, and one of […]
The post Lol: ‘The First Pitch’ Imagines How the Second Ever Blockbuster Was Sold appeared first on /Film.
The post Lol: ‘The First Pitch’ Imagines How the Second Ever Blockbuster Was Sold appeared first on /Film.
- 3/10/2017
- by Ethan Anderton
- Slash Film
Since 1989, the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress has been accomplishing the important task of preserving films that “represent important cultural, artistic and historic achievements in filmmaking.” From films way back in 1897 all the way up to 2004, they’ve now reached 675 films that celebrate our heritage and encapsulate our film history.
Today they’ve unveiled their 2015 list, which includes classics such as Douglas Sirk‘s melodrama Imitation of Life, Hal Ashby‘s Being There, and John Frankenheimer‘s Seconds. Perhaps the most popular picks, The Shawshank Redemption, Ghostbusters, Top Gun, and L.A. Confidential were also added. Check out the full list below.
Being There (1979)
Chance, a simple-minded gardener (Peter Sellers) whose only contact with the outside world is through television, becomes the toast of the town following a series of misunderstandings. Forced outside his protected environment by the death of his wealthy boss, Chance subsumes his late employer’s persona,...
Today they’ve unveiled their 2015 list, which includes classics such as Douglas Sirk‘s melodrama Imitation of Life, Hal Ashby‘s Being There, and John Frankenheimer‘s Seconds. Perhaps the most popular picks, The Shawshank Redemption, Ghostbusters, Top Gun, and L.A. Confidential were also added. Check out the full list below.
Being There (1979)
Chance, a simple-minded gardener (Peter Sellers) whose only contact with the outside world is through television, becomes the toast of the town following a series of misunderstandings. Forced outside his protected environment by the death of his wealthy boss, Chance subsumes his late employer’s persona,...
- 12/16/2015
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
wiki
A single shot shows a mustachioed cowboy as he stares directly into the eyes of the audience before raising his gun and firing it point blank into the camera. It was 1903, and the release of The Great Train Robbery signalled the birth of the action movie.
Few other movie genres have proven to be quite so enduring; in the century since Edwin S. Porter’s 12 minute silent film action movies have morphed into countless subgenres starring dozens of household names, frequently clearing up at the box office. Netflix certainly delivers when it comes to blockbuster action movies. but if you dig a little deeper you’ll find that there’s more on offer than just the latest crowd-pleaser starring Dwayne Johnson, and Tom Cruise.
There are plenty of straight-to-video 80s action movies available for those feeling nostalgic (or fancy a reminder of just how bad many of these much-loved...
A single shot shows a mustachioed cowboy as he stares directly into the eyes of the audience before raising his gun and firing it point blank into the camera. It was 1903, and the release of The Great Train Robbery signalled the birth of the action movie.
Few other movie genres have proven to be quite so enduring; in the century since Edwin S. Porter’s 12 minute silent film action movies have morphed into countless subgenres starring dozens of household names, frequently clearing up at the box office. Netflix certainly delivers when it comes to blockbuster action movies. but if you dig a little deeper you’ll find that there’s more on offer than just the latest crowd-pleaser starring Dwayne Johnson, and Tom Cruise.
There are plenty of straight-to-video 80s action movies available for those feeling nostalgic (or fancy a reminder of just how bad many of these much-loved...
- 9/19/2015
- by Andrew Dilks
- Obsessed with Film
There’s a moment in Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation — Tom Cruise career-saver, franchise Mvp and the summer's best non-Imperator Furiosa action blockbuster — where the CIA director refers to the film's relentless hero as "the living manifestation of destiny." As a government official talking about an unpredictable agent, the line is patently (if knowingly) ridiculous. As Alec Baldwin talking about Tom Cruise, the dialogue sounds right on the money. That phrase could be dropped into the first sentence of his biography and nobody would think twice.
When the superstar first stepped...
When the superstar first stepped...
- 9/1/2015
- Rollingstone.com
Hondo (1953), which is set to play June 13 - July 4 at the Museum of Modern Art as part of their "3-D Summer" series, was John Wayne's first Western in three years. It was produced by his own Wayne/Fellows Productions (later named Batjac), founded just the year prior by Wayne and producer Robert Fellows. And James Edward Grant, who had already written several Wayne features and had a particular flair for writing classic John Wayne dialogue, penned the screenplay. All told, one gets the sense that everything about this exemplary return to the genre was a carefully conscious decision by the iconic American star. Hondo is a definitive Western. Moreover, it's a definitive John Wayne Western.When Wayne made Hondo, his masculine persona was already firmly established. After viewing the film at one point, Wayne supposedly declared, "I'll be damned if I'm not the stuff men are made of." Such a comment,...
- 6/12/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- MUBI
It's fitting that Clint Eastwood and John Wayne both have the same birthday week. (Wayne, who died in 1979, was born May 26, 1907, while Eastwood turns 85 on May 31). After all, these two all-American actors' careers span the history of that most American of movie genres, the western.
Both iconic actors were top box office draws for decades, both seldom stretched from their familiar personas, and both played macho, conservative cowboy heroes who let their firearms do most of the talking. Each represented one of two very different strains of western, the traditional and the revisionist.
As a birthday present to Hollywood's biggest heroes of the Wild West, here are the top 57 westerns you need to see.
57. 'Meek's Cutoff' (2010)
Indie filmmaker Kelly Reichardt and her frequent leading lady, Michelle Williams, are the talents behind this sparse, docudrama about an 1845 wagon train whose Oregon Trail journey goes horribly awry. It's an intense...
Both iconic actors were top box office draws for decades, both seldom stretched from their familiar personas, and both played macho, conservative cowboy heroes who let their firearms do most of the talking. Each represented one of two very different strains of western, the traditional and the revisionist.
As a birthday present to Hollywood's biggest heroes of the Wild West, here are the top 57 westerns you need to see.
57. 'Meek's Cutoff' (2010)
Indie filmmaker Kelly Reichardt and her frequent leading lady, Michelle Williams, are the talents behind this sparse, docudrama about an 1845 wagon train whose Oregon Trail journey goes horribly awry. It's an intense...
- 5/26/2015
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
The following article has been adapted from a lengthier essay on the film written in 2011.Cinema is always in a state of change. Consequences of this constant flux become more obvious in retrospect, as movements come and go and film form evolves. One of the clearest indications of cinema’s major shifts lies in its technological advancements. Today’s changes are anything but subtle—we can notice them as they occur before us. Regardless of where one stands on the topic of cinema’s health as an art form, it can be agreed that it is going through some of its most monumental changes. Indeed it is even technically switching mediums, as the digital revolution is rendering celluloid obsolete. In Martin Scorsese’s Hugo (2011), new technology is revealed to be not a danger but a challenge, and an opportunity to explore new potential in filmmaking. The essentials of film form...
- 5/13/2015
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
Let's travel back in time to 1910, when the skirts were longer, the hats bigger and the films way silent-er. Behold, 17 reasons 1910 was a golden year for culture.
1.) A 16-minute film adaptation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is released.
2.) Mardi Gras looked especially creepy.
3.) Igor Stravinsky's ballet "The Firebird" premieres in Paris.
4.) Silent fantasy film "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" brings black-and-white ruby slippers to the screen.
5.) Egon Schiele paints a kneeling nude self-portrait aptly titled "Kneeling nude self-portrait."
.
6.) Garment workers go on strike in New York City.
7.) Mark Twain passed away at 74 years old. In his biography he wrote: "I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It's coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. The Almighty has said no doubt, 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'"
8.) Russian lit giant Leo Tolstoy died at 82 years old.
1.) A 16-minute film adaptation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is released.
2.) Mardi Gras looked especially creepy.
3.) Igor Stravinsky's ballet "The Firebird" premieres in Paris.
4.) Silent fantasy film "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" brings black-and-white ruby slippers to the screen.
5.) Egon Schiele paints a kneeling nude self-portrait aptly titled "Kneeling nude self-portrait."
.
6.) Garment workers go on strike in New York City.
7.) Mark Twain passed away at 74 years old. In his biography he wrote: "I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It's coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. The Almighty has said no doubt, 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'"
8.) Russian lit giant Leo Tolstoy died at 82 years old.
- 8/29/2013
- by Priscilla Frank
- Huffington Post
The Kickstarter campaign for "Be Natural," a film about pioneer female filmmaker Alice Guy-Blache, has reached its goal of $200,000. Guy-Blache made her first movie at the end of the 19th century, predating iconic early movies like Edwin S. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery" and D.W. Griffith's "Birth of Nation." Filmmakers Pamela Green and Jarik van Sluijs have begun work on a movie that traces the career of Guy-Blache, her role in the development of cinema and her importance for young women who aspire to direct. They turned to Kickstarter to raise money...
- 8/26/2013
- by Lucas Shaw
- The Wrap
(This article contains some minor spoilers for Django Unchained and be warned that most of the clips included are Nsfw)
Like many of Tarantino’s previous films Django Unchained is filled to the brim with film references. Below I’ve attempted to guide you through some of these references and links to other films.
I’ve only seen the film once at a screening and am sure that given the opportunity to sit down with the film on Blu-ray I will undoubtedly find even more, so the following is in no way definitive but hopefully provides some answers to for those wondering what Tarantino was referencing in Django Unchained. Also, most importantly, hopefully it will lead you to check out some of the films in question.
The most obvious film reference in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is right there in the title. Django was a 1966 ‘spaghetti western’ directed by...
Like many of Tarantino’s previous films Django Unchained is filled to the brim with film references. Below I’ve attempted to guide you through some of these references and links to other films.
I’ve only seen the film once at a screening and am sure that given the opportunity to sit down with the film on Blu-ray I will undoubtedly find even more, so the following is in no way definitive but hopefully provides some answers to for those wondering what Tarantino was referencing in Django Unchained. Also, most importantly, hopefully it will lead you to check out some of the films in question.
The most obvious film reference in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is right there in the title. Django was a 1966 ‘spaghetti western’ directed by...
- 1/18/2013
- by Craig Skinner
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The Western was a movie staple for decades. It seemed the genre that would never die, feeding the fantasies of one generation after another of young boys who galloped around their backyards, playgrounds, and brick streets on broomsticks, banging away with their Mattel cap pistols. Something about a man on a horse set against the boundless wastes of Monument Valley, the crackle of saddle leather, two men facing off in a dusty street under the noon sun connected with the free spirit in every kid.
The American movie – a celluloid telling that was more than a skit – was born in a Western: Edwin S. Porter’s 11- minute The Great Train Robbery (1903). Thereafter, Westerns grew longer, they grew more complex. The West – hostile, endless, civilization barely maintaining a toehold against the elements, hostile natives, and robber barons – proved an infinitely plastic setting. In a place with no law, and where...
The American movie – a celluloid telling that was more than a skit – was born in a Western: Edwin S. Porter’s 11- minute The Great Train Robbery (1903). Thereafter, Westerns grew longer, they grew more complex. The West – hostile, endless, civilization barely maintaining a toehold against the elements, hostile natives, and robber barons – proved an infinitely plastic setting. In a place with no law, and where...
- 1/3/2013
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
When actors study their craft, be it the method, the Miesner technique, Adler, or any other of the many forms taught around the globe, they are taught to use their entire body. Movement, often dance is taught to the students so they will understand how important the use of their entire being is in any performance. When Hannibal Lector makes his first appearance in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) he is standing erect in the middle of his cell, as if at attention, his entire body taut, ready for the meeting he already knows is going to happen, like a predator patiently waiting for its prey. That was a decision made by actor and director, knowing already that the audience had heard so much about the character, they decided how best to allow that first visual. There are close ups in the film, several of Lector’s face, up close and personal,...
- 12/29/2012
- by jfblog@hollywoodnews.com (John H. Foote)
- Hollywoodnews.com
You generally don’t see them in theaters, and if you do, they are often a tacked on as a bonus, or come packaged as a group deal. They make up one of the categories that most tend to close-their-eyes-and-point-to when it comes to the office Oscar Pool. They are where film began, in the experiments of Edison Manufacturing Company, or, perhaps more officially, with Edwin S. Porter’s “The Great Train Robbery.” They’re also often where filmmakers begin, and in the case of many great filmmakers (Kurosawa, Godard, Altman, Soderbergh, and so on) at some point return to. They are short films. While today the short form is often considered a calling card or stepping stone, they’re also an opportunity to test narrative waters, or to try a new technique, and as video-sharing sites grow and improve, so does a short's potential for a much wider audience.
- 10/29/2012
- by Leah Zak
- The Playlist
Dear Fern,
I'm glad you caught Oliveira's Gebo and the Shadow too, and inadvertently placed it next to To the Wonder. I felt like those were inverse films of each other: one constantly floating, the other firmly rooted; one whose spoken words are all offscreen, the other who's words are all stringently, theatrically on camera; the Malick repeating abstractions on light and love, the Oliveira on loss and misery. And each resolutely, repetitiously dedicated to these methods of presentation, fluid, searching philosophy in flitting figures vs. the concrete weight of bodies, age, poverty. Gebo, based on a play by Raul Brandão, saves its magic for outside of its single setting house, a glimpse of a Virgin Mary on a street corner, the flat, computer generated harbor you mention that opens the film, hands coming out of the shadows to grasp at the audience like the gunfighter who ends Edwin S. Porter...
I'm glad you caught Oliveira's Gebo and the Shadow too, and inadvertently placed it next to To the Wonder. I felt like those were inverse films of each other: one constantly floating, the other firmly rooted; one whose spoken words are all offscreen, the other who's words are all stringently, theatrically on camera; the Malick repeating abstractions on light and love, the Oliveira on loss and misery. And each resolutely, repetitiously dedicated to these methods of presentation, fluid, searching philosophy in flitting figures vs. the concrete weight of bodies, age, poverty. Gebo, based on a play by Raul Brandão, saves its magic for outside of its single setting house, a glimpse of a Virgin Mary on a street corner, the flat, computer generated harbor you mention that opens the film, hands coming out of the shadows to grasp at the audience like the gunfighter who ends Edwin S. Porter...
- 9/16/2012
- MUBI
Second #6862, 114:22
In an unnervingly comic touch Frank approaches the closet where Jeffrey hides loaded up with his props, which include Dorothy’s blue velvet gown and his gas mask. He is the exterminator now, inhaling his chemicals, approaching Jeffrey and, ominously, the camera. For Frank has seen us, now. The invisible camera has been called out, hailed, interpolated. Frank stares back at us, returning our gaze, just as the bandit, gun in hand, did in Edwin S. Porter’s 1903 film The Great Train Robbery:
Out of the shadows he comes, Dorothy’s tortured, neck and wrist bound husband at his side like a soft wax museum figure from an imaginary film lightning-bolted from black-and-white into anamorphic Technicolor. In your dream, Frank is successful; he dispenses with Jeffrey, and then hunts down Detective Williams and Mrs. Williams (sparing Sandy), and, upon returning to Ben’s place, reloads his gun,...
In an unnervingly comic touch Frank approaches the closet where Jeffrey hides loaded up with his props, which include Dorothy’s blue velvet gown and his gas mask. He is the exterminator now, inhaling his chemicals, approaching Jeffrey and, ominously, the camera. For Frank has seen us, now. The invisible camera has been called out, hailed, interpolated. Frank stares back at us, returning our gaze, just as the bandit, gun in hand, did in Edwin S. Porter’s 1903 film The Great Train Robbery:
Out of the shadows he comes, Dorothy’s tortured, neck and wrist bound husband at his side like a soft wax museum figure from an imaginary film lightning-bolted from black-and-white into anamorphic Technicolor. In your dream, Frank is successful; he dispenses with Jeffrey, and then hunts down Detective Williams and Mrs. Williams (sparing Sandy), and, upon returning to Ben’s place, reloads his gun,...
- 8/3/2012
- by Nicholas Rombes
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Second #6298, 104:58
Another dissolve.
1. This one from a montage that’s as expressionistic and compressed as anything in any of Lynch’s films. Having been strapped into the gurney and loaded into the circa 1960s ambulance in all its hallucinatory, candy apple red, hearse-like terror, Dorothy struggles against her bindings, screaming, “Hold me! I’m falling! I’m falling.” The frame captures Dorothy’s dream-terror as it slowly dissolves into a shot of the ambulance siren, a moment that is both horrifying and deadpan, as the dull wail of the siren lends a sort of flat, matter-of-factness to sequence.
2. From Charles Musser, Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company, University of California Press, 1991.
Two multishot films made early in 1901 are significant for yet another reason: they made use of a dissolve. In The Finish of Bridget McKeen, [Edwin S.] Porter dissolved between the main narrative gag in the kitchen and the tombstone gag.
Another dissolve.
1. This one from a montage that’s as expressionistic and compressed as anything in any of Lynch’s films. Having been strapped into the gurney and loaded into the circa 1960s ambulance in all its hallucinatory, candy apple red, hearse-like terror, Dorothy struggles against her bindings, screaming, “Hold me! I’m falling! I’m falling.” The frame captures Dorothy’s dream-terror as it slowly dissolves into a shot of the ambulance siren, a moment that is both horrifying and deadpan, as the dull wail of the siren lends a sort of flat, matter-of-factness to sequence.
2. From Charles Musser, Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company, University of California Press, 1991.
Two multishot films made early in 1901 are significant for yet another reason: they made use of a dissolve. In The Finish of Bridget McKeen, [Edwin S.] Porter dissolved between the main narrative gag in the kitchen and the tombstone gag.
- 7/9/2012
- by Nicholas Rombes
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Quentin Tarantino will likely have hundreds if not thousands tips of the cap to films of old in his upcoming Django Unchained. As one person said to me on Facebook when I posted the trailer yesterday, "I hope there's a coffin with a Gatling gun in it somewhere in the movie. Django and The Good the Bad and the Ugly are my favorite westerns." Well, I haven't read the script so I don't know if Franco Nero's Gatling gun will make the film, but for anyone that saw the trailer Nero is in the film getting a grammar lesson from Jamie Foxx at the tail end of this first trailer. Yet, that isn't the only nod thrown in there as a keen Reddit user noticed the above screen capture in the first trailer for the film. For those that don't recognize the name, Edwin S. Porter was the director of The Great Train Robbery,...
- 6/7/2012
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has undertaken a unique expansion in film preservation. As the rise of digital technology drastically reduces the availability of film stock, the project accelerates the work of the Academy Film Archive to acquire and create new archival film masters and prints from at-risk elements. Under the banner “Film-to-Film,” the $2 million initiative, approved by the Academy.s Board of Governors, focuses largely on Academy Award®-winning and nominated films from across motion picture history, including works made as recently as the 1990s.
“This is a moment of great transition for our industry, and we are responding to the urgency of that moment,” said Dawn Hudson, Academy CEO. “By increasing our preservation efforts now, we are building a vital pipeline of films and film elements that we will not only safeguard, but also make available for audiences well into the future.”
Until recently, the...
“This is a moment of great transition for our industry, and we are responding to the urgency of that moment,” said Dawn Hudson, Academy CEO. “By increasing our preservation efforts now, we are building a vital pipeline of films and film elements that we will not only safeguard, but also make available for audiences well into the future.”
Until recently, the...
- 5/7/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Before we get further, this article was made for both diehard film fanatics and those just discovering the wonder of early cinema. If you fall into the former category, I suggest bookmarking this and returning after you see Martin Scorsese‘s Hugo. The director has included endless nods to the films that made him who he is and it is a joy to see their inclusion in his adventure film.
If you fall into the latter category, get caught up with my rundown of the classic films most prominently featured in his magical ode to the beginnings of the medium. Check them all out below where they are also free to stream in their entirety, unless otherwise noted.
Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor; 1923)
Not only is the homage directly on the theatrical poster and in the actual film, but our lead characters go see this silent classic featuring...
If you fall into the latter category, get caught up with my rundown of the classic films most prominently featured in his magical ode to the beginnings of the medium. Check them all out below where they are also free to stream in their entirety, unless otherwise noted.
Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor; 1923)
Not only is the homage directly on the theatrical poster and in the actual film, but our lead characters go see this silent classic featuring...
- 11/23/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Note: Hugo was screened at the New York Film Festival as a work-in-progress with color correction, sound mixing, titles, 3D and visual effects not fully complete. Check out my detailed impressions below, but look for a full review on the final film when it releases next month.
Being a film lover and director go hand in hand, but it is difficult to find a more passionate, well-educated cinema historian than Martin Scorsese. The director of classics such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull has a seemingly endless knowledge of the medium, frequently noting the influence that filmmakers like Satyajit Ray and Italian neo-realist pieces such as The Bicycle Thieves have had on him. One can see the profound effect in his filmmaking, with such a firm control on and expertise in the medium coming through his frames. By presiding over a film preservation foundation, the auteur also hopes the profound...
Being a film lover and director go hand in hand, but it is difficult to find a more passionate, well-educated cinema historian than Martin Scorsese. The director of classics such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull has a seemingly endless knowledge of the medium, frequently noting the influence that filmmakers like Satyajit Ray and Italian neo-realist pieces such as The Bicycle Thieves have had on him. One can see the profound effect in his filmmaking, with such a firm control on and expertise in the medium coming through his frames. By presiding over a film preservation foundation, the auteur also hopes the profound...
- 10/11/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
The definition of what a Western is has radically altered since the days of Edwin S. Porter and John Ford. The mythical archetypes that permeate this most American of genres have been consumed, regurgitated, bastardized, transcended, dissolved and liquefied to the point that almost every conflict-driven picture today can be read as distillation of the old black-hat-vs.-white-hat aesthetic. (Don’t believe us? Just check out our series of articles this issue on the work of John Carpenter…let’s just say that without the strong influence of the oaters of Howard Hawks, said articles most likely would have never ended up in this magazine at all.)...
- 5/7/2011
- by samueldzimmerman@gmail.com (Chris Alexander)
- Fangoria
Chances are that unless you're at least an amateur film scholar, you've never heard of Edwin Stanton Porter. When it comes to legendary early silent film pioneers, George Melies or the Lumiere Brothers seem to steal all of the love. Porter worked for Thomas Edison's film company at the turn of the 20th Century and he's credited with being one of the creators of the editing dissolve. Fortunately, he did not create the star-wipe. He's also credited with pioneering the use of cross-cutting to create tension. [Thanks to the awesomeness of YouTube, you can check out 1903's "The Great Train Robbery"...
- 11/22/2010
- by Daniel Fienberg
- Hitfix
There are several speculations surrounding Farah Khan’s Tees Maar Khan, which is supposed to be a spoof on Michael Crichton’s 1979 thriller The Great Train Robbery, starring Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland. The film revolves around a master criminal’s plans to steal a shipment of gold from a moving train.Before that, in 1903, Thomas Edison’s film company had produced a movie directed by one of its employees, Edwin S. Porter, also titled The Great Train Robbery. It was the first silent movie that told a story. A classic western, it was about bandits who rob a train and are then ...
- 10/1/2010
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
We decided to start our little research of immortal young lady Alice in Wonderland, that still, after exactly 145 years, has a power to inspire directors all over the world.
You all guess that the main reason for this certainly is the latest, Tim Burton’s new incarnation of this story.
But let’s start from a beginning. We were all young, we all liked fairy-tales (well, some of us still do), and enjoyed so many characters, we all had our special heroes. Then, what’s so magical about this story, when it still manages to stay on the top of the list?
Ok, we all know the facts, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is written by the English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who used a pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The story tells what happens to a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit-hole into a fantasy world which is populated...
You all guess that the main reason for this certainly is the latest, Tim Burton’s new incarnation of this story.
But let’s start from a beginning. We were all young, we all liked fairy-tales (well, some of us still do), and enjoyed so many characters, we all had our special heroes. Then, what’s so magical about this story, when it still manages to stay on the top of the list?
Ok, we all know the facts, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is written by the English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who used a pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The story tells what happens to a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit-hole into a fantasy world which is populated...
- 3/13/2010
- by Fiona
- Filmofilia
First, the good news. A thousand hours ago, before Avatar won its Golden Globes, when the picture was only a hit-to-be, people had already begun to speak in wild, sweeping terms about the revolutionary effect it was destined to have on the future of Hollywood film making. In those early weeks, we all reveled in the thrilling swell of communal enthusiasm that seemed to come from everywhere. Avatar was necessary viewing. At first, I was one of the heretics. I didn't want to see what looked like an action adventure starring the Las Vegas contingent of Blue Man Group. But that was then. I see now that Avatar represents the next step in a tradition of immersion cinema that began all the way back in 1903, with Edwin S. Porter's film, The Great Train Robbery. It's a famous story: some who saw...
- 1/20/2010
- by Sam Wasson
- Huffington Post
Above: Ninety-seven years after he retired from filmmaking and several decades after his rediscovery by historians, Georges Méliès (left) continues to be a relevant and emblematic figure. James Cameron (right) is an innovator at the center of the new digital form of making movies, but will he be remembered a hundred years from now?
Part One. My Life In The Repertory Screening House; Or, How I Started The Argument
It started in mid-September, when the ballots for the Cinematheque Ontario's Best of the Decade (2000-2009) poll were due. Not long after, in November, the choices had been tallied, prints had been reserved for a retrospective series consisting of many of the top voted titles, and curator James Quandt had put together a nifty analysis of the results (fashioned much like J. Hoberman's year-end introductions for the Village Voice). Commentary followed, personal lists emerged—the decade seemed to be the...
Part One. My Life In The Repertory Screening House; Or, How I Started The Argument
It started in mid-September, when the ballots for the Cinematheque Ontario's Best of the Decade (2000-2009) poll were due. Not long after, in November, the choices had been tallied, prints had been reserved for a retrospective series consisting of many of the top voted titles, and curator James Quandt had put together a nifty analysis of the results (fashioned much like J. Hoberman's year-end introductions for the Village Voice). Commentary followed, personal lists emerged—the decade seemed to be the...
- 1/6/2010
- MUBI
There have been westerns almost as long as the medium of cinema has existed. The first ever-narrative film, Edward Porter’s 1903 twelve-minute milestone The Great Train Robbery was a western. In terms of sheer cinematic proliferation, the western simply stands unmatched and there is a very good and very simple reason – they’re bloody cheap. A couple of guys, a couple of horses and some wide-open space and you’ve essentially got yourself a western. But just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should nor that there is value in doing that thing.
With that in mind we arrive at Come Hell or High Water, writer-director Wayne Shipley’s Dv, no-budget, horse opera where, at first glance, a Maryland amateur dramatics society comes together to chart the vast outreaches of incomprehensible thespian inadequacy. Coming across like some bizarre hybrid between a civil war reenactment, a wild west...
With that in mind we arrive at Come Hell or High Water, writer-director Wayne Shipley’s Dv, no-budget, horse opera where, at first glance, a Maryland amateur dramatics society comes together to chart the vast outreaches of incomprehensible thespian inadequacy. Coming across like some bizarre hybrid between a civil war reenactment, a wild west...
- 4/7/2009
- by Neil Pedley
- JustPressPlay.net
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