I always thought of Star Wars as the story of two slaves [C-3PO and R2-D2] who go from owner to owner, witnessing their masters’ folly, the ultimate folly of man… I thought it was an interesting idea in the first two, but it’s kind of gone by Return Of The Jedi.
—David Fincher talking to TotalFilm.com
via The Verge
—American Dreaming Teaser from Jim Toscano on Vimeo.
taken from The Combustion Chamber
My first thought when I saw the above UI Reel for Guardians of The Galaxy was, Those are incredible visual effects.
My second thought was, these graphics look familiar.
In particular, It reminded me of GMUNK‘s work (aka Bradley G Munkowitz). GMUNK has been working in the VFX world for around 15 years, most recently being the guy behind the UI in Tron: Legacy:
He’s also worked on Oblivion.
The Guardians UI also reminded me of Mark Coleron’s work that goes back 10-12 years on films like Deja Vu, Children of Men, Mission Impossible 3, The Bourne Identity, Alien vs Predator, Blade II, The Island & Mr. & Mrs. Smith:
It’s interesting how the vision of future computer interfaces has been remarkably consistent over the last 12 years.
I wonder if this will change.
I was at a bar this weekend and The Backwater Gospel was being projected on one of the walls. Beautiful animated short.
“Harrison Ford sustained an ankle injury during filming today on the set of Star Wars: Episode VII. He was taken to a local hospital and is receiving care. Shooting will continue as planned while he recuperates,” said a statement from Disney.
A source tells THR that the actor, who reprises his role as Han Solo from the original franchise, was injured by the door of the Millennium Falcon, the spacecraft that his character pilots in the original films. The spaceship looks to be making a return in the sequel.
—Rebecca Ford, Hollywood Reporter
This is the kind of shit that happens when you have to help Chewy fix the hyper drive.
In other news, actor Mark Hammill lost a hand during filming of a fight scene with his on-screen father, Vader.
via The Verge
A Kickstarter to help Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt finish his documentary about, “Cuba’s drag-racing community and their quest to hold the first official race since the Revolution.” Awesome.
via Kickstarter Tumblr
Melena Ryzik on Jim Jarmusch (via kateopolis):
The filmmaker Jim Jarmusch is old school. He writes all his scripts out by hand and then dictates them to a typist. Ideas are jotted down in small, color-coordinated notebooks and, despite the presence of an iPad and iPhone in his life, he doesn’t have email. “I don’t have enough time as it is to read a book or make music, or see my friends,” he said. “People don’t believe me, too. They think I’m just saying that because I don’t want to give it to them. But no, I do not have email.”
Successful artists possess the ability to say “no” to shit, so they can get shit done. I said no to the awesome weather this past weekend.
[I love Jim Jarmusch’s films, particularly Stranger Than Paradise and Coffee and Cigarettes.]
via ParisLemon
Over at his Empty Balcony, Larrick reviews American Hustle:
I never had a hard time following the plot, I just found that telling a story was this film’s secondary purpose. Showcasing
the actors was the first.
Overall I agree with Bryan’s assessment, although I don’t feel quite as strongly as he does on the miscasting of the movie:
There are some weak spots in the performances, as well. Christian Bale was miscast. His character was too dependent on hiding his face behind big glasses and ridiculous hair. I suppose it was meant as a transformation, but all it really did was remind me that, sometimes, Hollywood makes ridiculous decisions when famous people are cast to play characters based on real people. This was James Brolin as Pee-wee Herman.
If you want to see a movie where showcasing Christian Bale and Amy Adams is secondary, I recommend seeing The Fighter.
[One thing that bothered me watching the film was Bradley Cooper’s and Jennifer Lawrence’s inability to hold onto their New York accents. It reminded me of DiCaprio’s inconsistent Irish accent in Gangs of New York and his inconsistent Boston accent in The Departed. Drives me nuts.]
Kirby Ferguson, the man behind one of my favorite short documentary series, Everything Is A Remix, is back with a new series, This Is Not A Conspiracy Theory.
Kirby is such a great storyteller.
I used to think it was forgivable for a director to be ‘flexible’ with the facts when creating movies based on historical events. The job of a movie is first and foremost to entertain, right? Facts are optional.
I’m not sure I still agree with this perspective.
It’s one thing to portray scenes where characters are behind closed doors—where there are no accounts of what was actually said and done. It’s another thing to inaccurately depict scenes based on events which actually took place and for which we have confirmed records of what was actually said and done.
What got me thinking about this topic were comments on Google+ by Steve Wozniak back in August of 2013, where he reacted to the inaccuracies in the movie Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher:
Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me. I was an engineer at HP designing the iPhone 5 of the time, their scientific calculators. I had many friends and a good reputation there. I designed things for people all over the country, for fun, all the time too, including the first hotel movie systems and SMPTE time code readers for the commercial video world. Also home pinball games. Among these things, the Apple I was the FIFTH time that something I had created (not built from someone else’s schematic) was turned into money by Jobs. My Pong game got him his job at Atari but he never was an engineer or programmer. I was a regular member at the Homebrew Computer Club from day one and Jobs didn’t know it existed. He was up in Oregon then. I’d take my designs to the meetings and demonstrate them and I had a big following. I wasn’t some guy nobody talked to, although I was shy in social settings. i gave that computer design away for free to help people who were espousing the thoughts about computers changing life in so many regards (communication, education, productivity, etc.). I was inspired by Stanford intellectuals like Jim Warren talking this way at the club. Lee Felsenstein wanted computers to help in things like the antiwar marches he’d orchestrated in Oakland and I was inspired by the fact that these machines could help stop wars. Others in the club had working models of this computer before Jobs knew it existed. He came down one week and I took him to show him the club, not the reverse. He saw it as a businessman. It as I who told Jobs the good things these machines could do for humanity, not the reverse. I begged Steve that we donate the first Apple I to a woman who took computers into elementary schools but he made my buy it and donate it myself.
I believe it’s possible to have your cake and eat it too: you can have a historically accurate movie and have it be highly entertaining as well.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
