Posts

VOTD: Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes By Peter Sciretta/Sept. 8, 2008 12:00 am EST Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes The Pitch: Two years after Stanley Kubrick’s death, Jon Ronson was invited to the director’s estate to explore the hundreds of boxes the legendary film director had collected during his decades at Childwick Manor in Hertfordshire. He’s been returning ever since, and the story of Kubrick and the archive, now housed at University of the Arts London, is revealed in this fascinating 2007 television documentary....

Alex Gibney And George Hickenlooper Fighting Over Casino Jack Abramoff By Brendon Connelly/Nov. 13, 2009 2:11 pm EST For once it isn’t M. Night Shyamalan getting stuck into a bitter dispute over a film’s title (see The Woods/The Village and the Avatars) but some fresh meat. The combatants this time are documentarian Alex Gibney and sometime documentarian, sometime fiction filmmaker George Hickenlooper. At this moment, they’re both at work with films about the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff – Gibney a doc, Hickenlooper a drama set to star Kevin Spacey – and both of the films are claiming the title Casino Jack....

Alex Proyas’ The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 20, 2008 2:49 am EST After Knowing, Alex Proyas will begin adapting Robert Heinlein’s novela The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag. The Dark City director will write and helm the $40 – $50 million psychological thriller for Phoenix Pictures. Heinlein is probably best known to today’s moviegoers as the author of Starship Troopers. Originally published in a 1942 edition of Unknown Worlds magazine, the story was later republished in Heinlein’s 1959 collection of short stories....

Cool Stuff: Clint Eastwood: 35 Films, 35 Years At Warner Bros. DVD Set By Peter Sciretta/Feb. 15, 2010 10:46 pm EST We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. I have the set in my hands now and it is a very nice package. Some DVD fanatics will gripe over the two-sided discs, which make up 16 of the 19 DVDs in this set, but that fact doesn’t bother me much....

Cool Stuff: LEGO Imperial Base By Peter Sciretta/July 8, 2008 2:31 am EST And I thought LEGO’s new Star Wars Death Star set was insane… check out Tim Goddard’s custom created LEGO Imperial Base. The gigantic doors slide open in sunk groove track to reveal a bunch of AT-ATs. This set also includes a fully loaded TIE Fighter launch rack and a small external landing pad. A right hand gun turret can be turned to move TIE Fighters forward....

Do Pixar Movies Tell The Story Of Life? By Peter Sciretta/May 22, 2009 2:39 pm EST Some of the associations are a bit of a stretch, but overall you can definitely see a progression. When asked about the theory, Up co-director Bob Peterson (and voice of Doug the Dog) explains that Pixar animators and directors are getting older, developing families, and “you write what you know.” Which makes sense. “From sibling rivalry, early attachment (Toy Story) and socialization (A Bug’s Life), to maturation (Monsters, Inc....

Early Box Office: Transformers Grabs $38 Million In First 28-Hours By Peter Sciretta/July 4, 2007 12:19 am EST The Tuesday night box office estimates are in, and FM’s Steve Mason reports that Transformers took in an estimated $29.5 million. This means that Michael Bay’s new film is now holds the record of the biggest Tuesday opening of all time, easily surpassing Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest [$15.7M]. It’s likely that this will become the 4th-best opening day of 2007 (behind only Spidey, Pirates and Shrek)....

Final Poster For Morgan Spurlock’s Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? By Hunter Stephenson/April 1, 2008 3:25 pm EST He didn’t ensnare America’s version of Mumm-Ra, so how does one market rascally documentarian Morgan Spurlock’s Where In the World is Osama bin Laden? With a goofy camel and a lasso, duh! The final poster for Spurlock’s April follow-up to 2004’s Super Size Me has landed over at Cinematical, and I think it’s a step up from the earlier, cheesier Indiana Jones spoof....

Geek Deal: Rescue Me Seasons 1-4 For $99 By Peter Sciretta/Sept. 11, 2009 8:00 pm EST We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Is Eva Longoria The Newest Member Of The Avengers? By Peter Sciretta/Sept. 14, 2008 4:29 pm EST FlawedHollywood has a photo of Eva Longoria leaving the offices of Marvel Studios with a business card and a hand full of reading material, an Avengers comic book on the top of the stack. Longoria’s television show Desperate Housewives will be coming to an end right around the time the Marvel comic book team-up is being adapted into a feature film....

Michael Apted To Direct The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader By Peter Sciretta/April 17, 2007 3:44 pm EST Neil Burger (The Illusionist) won’t be directing the third installment of the Chronicles of Narnia series after all. That turned out to be just a rumor. AICN breaks the big news: Michael Apted (The World is Not Enough) has been hired to helm the project. Apted’s filmography also includes: Amazing Grace, Enough, Enigma, Extreme Measures, Nell, Thunderheart, Class Action, and Gorillas in the Mist....

New Footage From Disney’s The Princess And The Frog By Peter Sciretta/May 4, 2009 9:40 pm EST Frogless has uploaded a clip from the television show/special Backlot Buzz which has John Lasseter talking about and showing clips from Disney’s upcoming return to hand drawn animation, The Princess and the Frog. The footage includes a bunch of new never-before seen footage, including our first real look at the film’s villain. At the end of the clip Lasseter says that “To actually see a hand-drawn animation this well done is like seeing something brand-new again....

New Super High Resolution Toy Story 3 Photo By Peter Sciretta/Dec. 17, 2009 12:37 pm EST /Film reader Zach D sent over this new still from Pixar’s Toy Story 3. The photo features Jessie, Buzz Lightyear (who may have been reset at this point) and Woody outside Sunnyside Daycare Center, possibly planning for the toys’ escape? After the jump, check out the full uncropped photo. Click on the image to see the full super duper high resolution render (something I always love including with Pixar releases, and just because they make good computer desktop wallpaper)....

Spielberg’s Lincoln Revving Up, Ready For Oscar Season? By Brendon Connelly/Feb. 10, 2009 8:49 am EST Playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner last night took part in a panel discussion at the Harvard University Institute of Politics under the rather prolix heading of Looking For Lincoln: In his Time and Ours – A Conversation on the Meaning of Abraham Lincoln. Kushner’s invitation was most likely on the basis of his longterm engagement, scripting a Lincoln picture for Steven Spielberg....

Steven Spielberg Directs Indiana Jones In New Featurette By Peter Sciretta/May 14, 2008 11:55 am EST Paramount has released a new featurette for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull focusing on the directing talents of Steven Spielberg. It’s essentially just a bunch of shots edited together of Spielberg directing. There isn’t even interviews, so it might be considered more of montage than a featurette, but I digress....

This 5-Minute Clip From 2012 Will Destroy Your World By David Chen/Oct. 2, 2009 5:13 am EST “California is going down!” Last night between 10:50 and 11:00 p.m., Columbia Pictures apparently executed the largest American media roadblock ever, airing a 2-minute clip from 2012 on the major broadcast networks, local stations in the top 70 markets, and nearly 450 television stations in North America. The projected television audience alone for this project was 110 million, which I found staggering for its sheer audacity....

VOTD: Medellin Reviewed On Ebert & Roeper By Peter Sciretta/Oct. 3, 2008 12:00 am EST Medellin Reviewed on Ebert & Roeper The Pitch: From the season premiere of Entourage, the fictional film within the show is reviewed on Ebert & Roeper (which makes it technically the last reviewed film in the shows history). Watch Ari Gold’s response at this link. Watch More Cool Videos Here! Video of the Day is a daily feature of /Film showcasing geekarific video creations....

Zac Efron, The Rock And Andy Flickman To Ruin Johnny Quest? By Peter Sciretta/Feb. 16, 2009 2:45 pm EST IESB has some new news regarding Warner Bros upcoming adaptation of The Adventures of Johnny Quest. Before we get into the news, let me remind you that the original Hanna-Barbera produced sci-fi animated tv show followed an eleven-year-old boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures. So the question is, what can you possibly do to ruin this concept?...

Blockbuster Releases Official iPhone App By Russ Fischer/Jan. 4, 2010 10:54 am EST With this app you can quickly see new releases, browse the entire catalog, add films to your delivery queue and check to see what’s in stock at local stores. The design is clean, and if you use Blockbuster as a regular rental service the app might come in very handy. [via Gordon and the Whale]

Car Crashes Into Movie Theater By Peter Sciretta/Feb. 15, 2007 5:29 am EST Imagine watching the latest Hollywood action movie in your local multiplex when a SUV comes barreling through the theater wall during the film’s big chase sequence. I’ve always wondered if this has ever happened. Turns out it has, but instead of a popcorn action flick, it occured during a screening of Dreamgirls. According to the reports, no one was hurt, even though the SUV came within inches of some moviegoer heads....