The studio won’t trademark “SEAL Team Six” after all.
I think they did the right thing, in more ways than one. You don’t want to get in the PR mess that would result from fighting the Navy over the right to exploit the SEAL’s commercially…
Tagged: Film RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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FilmLadd: “Converting two-dimensional movies into stereoscopic ones ‘after the fact’ just doesn’t work.”
That’s just the studio trying to capitalize on 3D to sell tickets. In other words, it’s a gimmick. So it adds nothing to the experience. In fact, it probably gets in the way of it. And – according to one study – in the way of selling tickets, too!
Related: Boston Globe: Many theaters are misusing 3D lenses while showing 2D films…ruining the experience in the process.
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Arnold is very much in the news today, at least in the world of entertainment news.
But here’s another side of Arnold that you didn’t know about…or 30 sides, to be precise:
UPDATE: Heh.
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THR: The movie poster art of Bill Gold.
A gallery of some of his great ones here.
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Slate: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…I was a ‘Star Wars’ fan.
Weren’t we all?
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“WANTED,” it says, “Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke … You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.“
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At last! You can download it from the Android Market, free!
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...at the Mudville Gazette, with quotes from an account of the story by the teacher himself.
Prior discussion here, including links to the documentary’s official site and to a movie (fiction) based on the same events, playable on line for free. Two readers have now told me by e-mail that they saw this movie on TV back in 1981.
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Your Moment of Geek: Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says.
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Lesson Plan: “One day in 1967, a Palo Alto high school student asks his history teacher how the German people could have missed the signs of the ongoing genocide being perpetrated by the Nazis. This innocent question ignites an idea, and teacher Ron Jones launches a classroom ‘simulation,’ or experiment, to illustrate how good Germans -how anyone – could fall prey to totalitarian thinking.”
It’s not a high-concept Hollywood studio release. It’s an indie documentary. The experiment actually took place, with pretty creepy results. It’s a piece of recent American history with which I wasn’t familiar. I wonder if I’m the only one? Amusingly enough, the teacher who launched the experiment wasn’t exactly a right wing extremist. On the contrary. Let’s just say this docu might bring a smile to Jonah Goldberg’s [happy] face. Anyway, Read the whole thing™.
Lesson Plan was screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival last week. I can’t find any information on whether it’s available for home watching just yet; but a decent documentary can often find distribution pretty easily, compared to fiction movies. It may be coming to Netflix instant before you know it…
UPDATE: If you’re near Vancouver, you may be able to catch a screening this week. The movie’s official site is here.
MORE: Linked by Ed Driscoll at Insty’s. Thanks!
Also, compare and contrast with actual, college-level, non-simulated instruction in the methods of labor union shocktroop tactics. Astounding, when you think about it, the sort of conduct that can be excused in the name of pursuing certain political goals. But then again, (More …)
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By Jean-Paul Sartre and George Lucas.
Short video, but strangely amusing…
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Terrific 3+ minute video by Martin Woutisseth:
I’ve seen every title except for Spartacus
and Eyes Wide Shut
.
I really recommend The Killing
, a Film Noir work that evidently has influenced Tarantino a great deal.
Via Anne Thompson.
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One of our on-air hosts saw it Tuesday night. She said it wasn’t half bad. Richard Roeper is a notoriosly tough critic, but he was even more enthusiastic.
I haven’t seen any of the films in the The Fast and The Furious franchise, but I’m tempted to see this one. Dr. Wife can’t stand Vin Diesel, though, so I guess I’m on my own…
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RIP, Tim Hetherington. He was killed while shooting a documentary with the Lybian rebels.
Coincidentally, Dr. Wife and I just saw Restrepo
for the first time a few days ago (you can play it on demand on your PC or Mac from Amazon Instant Video at the link). The docu made me respect and admire our brave servicemen and women even more; but one can’t help to be amazed at the work of the documentarians themselves, who followed the troops closely while in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, even in combat situations.
Related content: Hetherington’s last tweet: “No sign of NATO”. Plus, colleagues remember Hetherington.
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There was more to it than 12 Angry Men: “Lumet’s vision and moral critique of the law was always depicted as urban, gritty and dehumanizing—the tormented faces of failed humanity everywhere.”
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How Star Wars costumes would have looked in 1942.
The backpack-sized battery for the lightsaber is a great touch, I must say…
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When Fanboys Attack: People Who Bought This Armored Jacket From Amazon Also Bought The DVD of Kick-Ass.
Let’s hope it’s for Comi-con…
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He sure doesn’t look it. Live long and prosper. Happy birthday!
If you’re a Shatner fan, no doubt you’ll enjoy watching him marvel at microchip technology while on an old gig for the Bell Labs.
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The old-fashioned way: he earned it.
UPDATE: Related (marginally): The likely reason why the Number 1 movie in America last weekend is doing so well at the box office: it deals with themes Lefties despise.
MORE: Why do I say that? Because movies that paint our military in a less than flattering light tend to bomb.
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…at FilmLadd‘s, where he also points out the same worries about tyranny that I suppose anyone who’s paying attention must have when watching the show.
Like Ladd, I was also late to the Firefly
party until my wife introduced me to the series some years ago while we were dating. I was unaware of its libertarian subtext. Otherwise, I would have probably watched sooner. I’ve never quite been sold on its blending of the Western and Sci-fi genres, though.
Still, I have a lot of respect and admiration for Whedon, especially because of Buffy
and his writing talent in general. I read his screenplay for Alien Resurrection
back in the 90′s before the movie went into production, thanks to a friend who was working as a script reader at the time. The script was nothing like the movie. I mean, it was great. I read it in 60 minutes because I couldn’t put it down. Needless to say, I was sorely disappointed at the film (and I wasn’t the only one) which was directed by another filmmaker I also admire, Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Whedon is currently in pre-production for the Marvel Avengers movie on the same studio lot in New Mexico where I happen to work. My admiration for him is such that I find it very hard not to stalk him, especially given that his parking space is only a few steps away from my desk…
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Punk who encouraged murder of South Park creators gets 25 years in prison.
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Great piece by Mark Harris in GQ: The Day the Movies Died.
Plus, scientific evidence of the phenomenon…
Sigh.
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…Solved.
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Michael Moore in 2009: “Capitalism is…about protecting the wealthy and legalizing greed.”
Michael Moore today: “Filmmaker Michael Moore has sued Harvey and Bob Weinstein accusing the brothers of [having] cheated him out of at least $2.7 million in profits from the hit documentary Fahrenheit 9/11“.
Michael Moore has personally profited from Farenheit 9/11 to the tune of at least $21 million (as of 2005). I guess it’s ok to use the law to protect one’s own right to wealth…if you are Michael Moore, that is…
UPDATE: “He redefines the term ‘greedy’”, says the Weinstein’s attorney. Of course he would say that. But he has a point.
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ToplessRobot: Making a Princess Leia hologram at MIT…barely.
Plus, a 14-part Star Wars documentary you don’t want to miss, free on YouTube.
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…finds a home on basic cable…
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The Law Movie Review blog.
And here I was thinking I was the only non-practicing lawyer obsessed with movies…
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A PBS documentary about actor Jeff Bridges that you can watch online for free, in its entirety.
Via Anne Thompson.
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And starring Sacha Baron Cohen!
The Dictator is based on Saddam Hussein best-selling novel, Zabibah and The King, and is described as “the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.”
It’s not April Fool’s yet; and Anne Thompson’s blog is not known for pranks. We’ll see…
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FSR: “Let’s just attempt to break down the hallmarks of a good action film. No matter what differences they may have, action films share a lot of things in common.”
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Plus, a number of scholarly papers on the topic of young vampires in the movies.
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Jon Stewart vs. Glenn Beck.
Sounds to me like Stewart’s writers weaved Star Wars into their rhetoric more skillfully. Still, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t get the whole thing wrong. Of all the Star Wars characters, Sarah Palin most resembles Obi-Wan Kenobi, because they both have a particular experience in common.
As to whether Obama is like Luke Skywalker, there are some parallels. The TelePrompter is like Obama’s lightsaber. However, Luke was as adept at using his Jedi powers whether he was wielding a lightsaber or not. Obama – on the other hand – is not very skilled at exercising executive power, despite his skillful use of the TelePrompter.
The above aside, there is a bit of Star Wars dialogue that describes the Obama presidency so far with a great deal of accuracy: Han Solo’s immortal words: “It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.”
Related: The Weekly Standard: Why everything you think you know about Star Wars is wrong.
UPDATE: Ed Driscoll links, with more. Thanks!
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“Cameron’s House” is on the block for $1.65 million.
Dr. Wife went to college in that neighborhood. Nice area, she tells me…
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Some of them, at any rate. It’s like the movie geek version of Where’s Waldo?
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Well, not so secret. You can learn more about it by watching the documentary, now available on DVD.
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Anne Thompson explains in Popular Mechanics.
Anne has her own movie blog, here. Whether your interest lies with indie, foreign or Hollywood studio pictures, she’s got’em covered.
She’s also a Tisch School of the Arts grad, like me. So you know she knows her stuff…
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The Chicken-powered Steadicam.
Great way to cut below-the-line production costs, but don’t expect to see these chickens on union shoots.
Seriously now, at least one group will condemn this practice on animal rights grounds…
