The Psychology of Character Bonding: Why We Feel a Real Connection to Actors
Children can be very cruel to one another. As adults, many of us vividly recall moments of social ostracism on the playground, perhaps when a bully shoved us, a classmate made fun of the way we dressed or no one picked us to play on the kickball team.
Director Robert Zemeckis likely kept this in mind when he filmed the “seat’s taken” scene of Forrest Gump. As the young Forrest makes his way down a school bus aisle,
Eastern Influence: Pacific Rim Latest Film to Draw Inspiration From Japan
The early reviews suggest that Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim (which opens this Friday) is nice blend of what you want out of your summer blockbuster—spectacle, suspense and solid storytelling.
Pacific Rim is also a nice blend of the Japanese tradition of Kaiju films (the most famous example being Godzilla) and mecha stories (about robots or machines), popularized in Japanese manga and anime.
Call of the Holly-Wild: Animal Trainer David Meeks
If you’ve ever seen a rhino in a television commercial, his name is Tank and he’s the only working rhino in show business. Maybe you’ve noticed zebras, bears, leopards, African lions, panthers or Siberian tigers in TV ads or on the big screen and wondered how they're train to stand still, lie down, run around or roar on command for the camera?
Many of the animals you see on the big and small screen belong to David Meeks,
2013’s Best Movie Industry Commencement Speeches
Celebrities doling out sage advice during college commencement speeches is nothing new, but this year’s crop was especially entertaining. The Class of 2013 was treated to talks by everyone from Julie Andrews, who spoke to the University of Colorado Boulder, to Robert Redford, who got downright sentimental at Westminster College, to Ed Helms, who broke it down for the kids — and busted on the school mascot — at Knox College. (Cue The Hangover jokes!)
If,
Walt Disney Studios Reimagines The Lone Ranger & Breathes Life Into Westerns
“So who was that masked man, anyway?” A question invariably asked at the end of every episode of The Lone Ranger television series. Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski hope to provide a definitive answer to that question with the brand-new film The Lone Ranger, their reinvention of both the Western genre and the titular hero, in theaters today.
John Reid,
How’d They do That? Creating the Presidential Limo in White House Down
White House Down, which opens today starring Jamie Foxx as the President and Channing Tatum as the man who springs into action when the White House is besieged by a paramilitary unit, isn't a gear-head car movie. It’s a pure, fun action flick—a buddy movie where one of the buddies happens to be the leader of the free world. But that didn't stop Columbia Pictures, the studio behind the movie, from obsessing about creating one particular car —
The Art of Animatronics: How Old School Movie Magic Compliments CGI
The release of Jurassic Park 3D earlier this year has people talking about more than just the technological update of a classic. For all of its digital wow when Jurassic Park debuted in 1993, the film employed unmatched animatronics and puppetry as well.
The question is, will that movie prove to be the last hurrah for spectacular practical effects? At least one practitioner of the craft admits to having his moments of doubt,
Is Monsters University the Best Film Website Ever?
It’s one thing to be surfing the web and stumble upon an outrageously awesome movie trailer that you watch over and over again just because it really is that good. But have you ever found a website all of its own dedicated to a single film that was just as mind-blowing? Like a site that was created all about one movie, complete with interactive extras and a calendar of events to go along with?
These days most movies and TV shows have content-heavy,
5 Pre-Ordained Flops That Defied the Odds & Soared
The highly anticipated premiere of Brad Pitt’s World War Z is just a few days away, but critics have been salivating for months about what a disaster it will be—long before anyone had seen any footage.
Hardly the first film with advance reports of onset complications, bloated budgets, and release delays, World War Z is only the latest victim of the Hollywood press’ eagerness to deem movies dead in the water before they’ve had the chance to set sail.
UCLA Theater, Film & TV Students Receive Awards Totaling $900,000
Close to 200 students, faculty, donors, and parents attended the 2013 Student Awards Ceremony for the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television last Friday. The award ceremony was made possible by the various donations received from donors. Over $900,000 was given out to deserving students. A large portion of those funds were made possible by monies the school received from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
Katia Sanchez-Aldana, a senior, was the student speaker for the Department of Film,
The Internship: Bringing “Start Over” Comedies into the 21st Century
To celebrate the release of this weekend’s soon-to-be Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson classic, we’ve chosen ten of our favorite career-in-crisis comedies released since 1980. (Sorry Baby Boom, you were thisclose!)
1) Private Benjamin (1980), dir. Howard Zieff
The poor little rich girl-turned Army recruit comedy was co-written by Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated) specifically for Goldie Hawn,
From Minority Report to Iron Man, the Genesis of Gesture Technology
Good sci-fi movies have a way of influencing, if not actually predicting, the future when it comes to technological innovation. Take, for example, gestural interactions with computers — they are the next step after today's virtual keyboards.
One of the most popular movie approximations of this tech is used by Precrime Police Chief John Anderton in the 2002 movie Minority Report. Anderton solves a future murder by shuffling through holographic data with special gloves and a burning intensity.
Looking Back at Iconic Tentpole Movies and Imagining Their 2013 Versions
As summer movie season officially kicked off this past Memorial Day weekend, the slate of “tentpole” movies — the ones that are expected to hold up (like a tentpole, get it?) and turn a profit, bringing in big bucks both domestically and overseas — is bigger than ever: There’s Hangover 3, After Earth, Man of Steel, Monsters University,
Steven Soderbergh Through the Looking Glass: Behind the Candelabra
One of most fascinating developments out of this year’s Cannes Film Festival has been the inclusion of Steven Soderbergh’s cinematic swan song, the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, in this year’s main competition as per the insistence of festival director Thierry Fremaux. Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as his live-in lover Scott Thorson, and based on the Thoson-penned tell-all of the same name,
A Spotlight on Korean Cinema, Presented by CJ Entertainment and the MPAA
“If 2012 was the year of K-Pop, 2013 is on track to be the year of K-Movies.”
South Korean Ambassador Young-jin Choi spoke these words before the screening of Korean blockbuster Masquerade last Tuesday evening, held at the MPAA headquarters on 16th and I St. in Washington, D.C. He declared that with the influence of Korean actors and music, we are currently “riding the Korean wave.” Choi continued: “When Masquerade was released,
10 of the World’s Best Movie Theaters
The Grand Théâtre Lumière in Cannes is just about the most exciting movie theater in the world right now. As the 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival enters its second week, we got to thinking about some of the greatest theaters around the world.
America is, of course, no slouch in the great movie theater department–from the iconic Ziegfeld in New York City to the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin (which is now opening up a theater in downtown Los Angeles),
In Honor of Star Trek: Into Darkness—Our 7 Favorite Invented Languages
Admittedly, writing about Klingon on the Internet is akin to shaving one’s entire body and jumping into a salt bath—we're opening ourselves up to an onslaught of criticism and fastidious fact-checking, so we’ll tread lightly here. But when Bing introduced Klingon to its web-based translation service on Tuesday in anticipation of this weekend’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, it couldn’t go without mention.
Though many movies have “invented”
Where to Watch: New Site Offers Films & Shows, Legally & Seamlessly
Since our launch last September, The Credits has interviewed a diverse group of filmmakers, working our way through all the different jobs one could have in pre-production, on a film set, and in post. Directors, actors, cinematographers, screenwriters, art directors, costume designers, composers, editors, visual effects supervisors, casting directors, music supervisors, stunt performers and more have told us what it’s like to make a living making movies.
Jane Campion, Cannes, & the Power of the Short Film
Short films have figured prominently in the Cannes official selection from the Festival’s earliest days, with a jury awarding a Palme d’Or (and occasionally, Jury and Grand Prix prizes) to that year’s most successful short. Famous past winners include Jim Jarmusch’s 1993 Palme d’Or for Coffee and Cigarettes (Somewhere in California), which was later expanded into a feature-length portmanteau comprising 11 interlinked stories, and British director Lynne Ramsay’s 1996 and 1998 Jury Prize wins for her shorts Small Deaths and Gasman (Ramsay sits on the jury of the main competition this year).
Heavyweight American Films Populate the 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival
The 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival is nearly upon us. Running from May 15th to the 26th, the Festival has already been praised for a well-curated lot of films drawn from an eclectic mix of established and rising international filmmakers. This year’s competition films seem a placid bunch, likely to garner more reflection and praise than controversy, but with one of the most Hollywood- and American- leaning competition slates and jury committees in recent years,
