What “Rio” Means to Brazil Movie Makers
Brazilian movie director Carlos Saldanha may just have reintroduced the world to Rio de Janeiro. And without knowing it, his animated feature film “Rio” might go down as the equivalent of a Hollywood moon landing.
This time, a Brazilian makes a move about Brazilians (well, Brazilian animals, at least) set in Brazil with issues related to Brazil, like animal trafficking and Rio’s street children even making an appearance. Like Neil Armstrong’s one small step for man, Saldanha’s Hollywood release of what is actually a uniquely Brazilian story might very well get other studios and investors to do the same — make movies about Brazil.
Small theater owners forced to switch to digital projectors
As the cost of digital cinema distribution dwindles, theater owners are increasingly transforming their offerings to digital. No more so than small and independent theater owners who have to realize cost savings and profit margins.
For more than three decades, the Kim family has operated a popular 800-seat neighborhood theater on Crenshaw Boulevard in Gardena.
The single-screen movie house — a rarity anywhere — has weathered multiple storms. It thrived in the 1970s and early 1980s by specializing in Spanish-language movies, until its Mexican film distributor went out of business. The Kims switched to screening conventional Hollywood movies, but soon confronted growing competition from new multiplexes. They adapted by selling lower-priced tickets, catering to budget-conscious families looking for an affordable night out.
Now they face what could be their biggest hurdle: how to foot the bill for a new digital projection system.
Designing HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’
http://youtu.be/-GznqbMnaXM?
Sarah Polley’s new film supposed to impress
hen was the last time you saw a movie and continued to think about it -- how the plot moved, the characters developed, how the visual effects made you feel -- the next day? How about the last time you saw a movie and excitedly told everyone you bumped into that they should see it too?
Was it Inglourious Basterds? Million Dollar Baby? Or, maybe Titanic?
Can't think of any film that has knocked your socks off in the past year or two, or more, right? That's because there hasn't been any.
The Hollywood machine readily admits the only thing dramatic about movies this winter -- as we're pounded with silly remakes and banal sequels -- is that the amount of tickets sold has plummeted 22% over last year. The Hollywood executives agree: "So far there is just nothing terribly compelling about what we're delivering as an industry," said Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures.
But before you lose all faith, know there's at least one picture waiting in the wings that may have some key ingredients that go into clever filmmaking. Naturally, it's a movie being made by Canadians.
Take This Waltz, written and directed by the awesome Sarah Polley, is expected to debut in September at the Toronto Film Festival. While the soundtrack is still being laid in Toronto at Tatersall Sound & Picture, the rest of the editing has been done and word is it's a refreshing winner.
Product placement searches for a billing in a movie
Product placement is when a movie shows a product, or set of products, in return for a fee or payment in kind from that product’s manufacturer. It happens all the time, as Morgan Spurlock’s new documentary, “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,’’ makes plain. Spurlock blows the whistle on product placement the way his “Super Size Me’’ did on fast food in 2004.
Product placement belongs to the realm of commerce and advertising. Really, what’s product placement but a commercial by other means? Related to product placement, but quite different from it, is something you might call product emplacement, which belongs to the realm of entertainment and imagination. That’s when a particular product is so integral to a movie that it becomes part of film lore. No money changes hands. What changes is movie history.
Catherine Zeta-Jones Bipolar Disorder: Her Private Struggle
Walking the red carpet at New York City's Museum of Modern Art this week, Michael Douglas was feeling grateful for all the well wishes he'd received from friends and fans as he battled cancer.
"I feel great!" the actor, 66, told PEOPLE at Tuesday night's event to celebrate Carnegie Hall’s 120th anniversary. "I feel a tremendous amount of support from so many people."
Absent from the event was his biggest supporter: wife Catherine Zeta-Jones. Hours later, it was revealed that she has quietly sought healing of her own. Her rep says the actress recently checked into a facility for a few days to treat her bipolar II disorder.
YouTube studios pop up to create more content for the web
The film set was professional, even if the actors kept messing up the scene by laughing at the star, who was flailing in front of a green screen, pretending to be eaten alive.
“We need it clean,” the sound man shouted. They shot it yet again, the actors holding back their hysterics until the cameras were off.
The scene, an episode of a sketch comedy show called “AsKassem,” was destined not for theaters or TV, but for YouTube. But with the green screen, film crew, actors and expensive cameras and lights, it went far beyond the typical one-man YouTube videos filmed in a basement with a webcam.
It was produced by Maker Studios, one of several production houses that have sprung up to help create and distribute videos for the Web. Financed by venture capitalists and grants from Google’s YouTube, these studios are trying to play the same role for the online video service that United Artists did almost a century ago for movies or MTV did for television in the 1980s.
5 Best Sidney Lumet Movies
Sidney Lumet was known as a director who crafted smart, solid films, full of substantive topics and strong performances. They weren't showy or pretentious: Lumet was a storyteller, plain and simple. And his output was prodigious.
His death last week of lymphoma at age 86 truly marked the end of an era — a phrase that tends to get overused, but in this case, it's sadly apt. It's hard to pick just five of his best films, but we humbly gave it a try.
Film school in Orange County wants to overtake USC and NYU
Last August, at a high-end hilltop Orange County restaurant, Bob Bassett told his fellow faculty members how he intends to make Chapman University's scrappy Dodge College of Film and Media Arts into what he calls "the film school of the future."
A major strategic component, said Dodge's longtime dean, would be spring's launch of Chapman Entertainment, a for-profit movie company that will make and distribute five to 10 feature films each year in commercially popular genres such as comedies and thrillers. Bassett said that the venture, which Bassett formally announced last month and over which he will preside as president and CEO, is aimed at boosting the careers of participating Dodge alums and raise the school's national profile to the level of its more glamorous rivals.
"I'm absolutely convinced this is the thing that's going to push us past NYU and USC," Bassett told the faculty that day.
‘Mad Men’ DVD features look at Ford Mustang
As many of us sulk over news that the next season of AMC's Mad Men isn't going to air until sometime next year, at least there is a consolation prize for car-loving buyers of the Season 4 DVD and Blu-ray disc set. It's one of the bonus features, a history of the creation of the Ford Mustang.
The feature is quite a pleasant surprise. The series, after all, traces a fictitious Madison Avenue advertising firm through the 1960s, complete with the boozing and skirt-chasing. It doesn't have much connection to the the auto industry at the time, or its own drinking and womanizing.
But the half-hour-long feature is actually pretty compelling. That's a sample in the video, above. You'll see the cars that led up to the Mustang and the marketing secret --hence the Mad Men tie-in -- that led to the pony car becoming the breakthrough car of the era. Worth watching.