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Keyword: cinema

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  • 'The Expendables 3' tanks at the box office: 5 things that went wrong

    08/18/2014 1:22:20 PM PDT · by EveningStar · 31 replies
    Los Angeles Times ^ | August 18, 2014 | Oliver Gettell
    "The Expendables 3" lived down to its title over the weekend as moviegoers shunned the third installment of the shoot-'em-up franchise featuring the action heroes of yesteryear. The movie grossed an estimated $16.2 million, falling short of Lionsgate's projected take of $20 million to $25 million and putting it in the No. 4 spot for the weekend. "The Expendables 3" also trailed the series' previous two movies, which debuted with $34.8 million and $28.8 million, both good for the No. 1 spot. What happened this time around?
  • The 10 Most Underrated Classic Science Fiction Films

    08/09/2014 12:34:57 PM PDT · by EveningStar · 162 replies
    PJ Media ^ | August 4, 2014 | Pierre Comtois
    In these days of seemingly weekly science fiction blockbusters (which are usually SF in name only… they're actually just big gun actioners that take place in the future) and the hype that surrounds them, it's easy to forget that once such films were the low man on the totem pole. Stuff fit for kids and juveniles but not serious adult audiences. Thus, in past decades, except for a few A list films like Them and The Day the Earth Stood Still in the 1950s and Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, and Logan's Run in the '60s and '70s, many...
  • Menachem Golan, Who Headed Cannon Films, Dies at 85

    08/08/2014 7:40:11 PM PDT · by EveningStar · 18 replies
    Variety ^ | August 8, 2014 | Richard Natale
    Menachem Golan, the colorful, free-spending Israeli-born producer and director whose Cannon Films yielded hundreds of productions starring the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris before going bust, died Friday in Israel, according to Haaretz. He was 85. Golan, whose first name is sometimes spelled Menahem, was famous for his overblown pronouncements and business plans, and partnered for many years with his cousin, Yoram Globus. The duo started their U.S. career making fast-paced action exploitation titles starring the likes of Norris and Charles Bronson. Then, in the '80s, Golan and Globus headed the ill-fated public company Cannon Entertainment, which began...
  • Scarlett Johansson's New Movie Is Based on One of the Biggest Scientific Myths of All Time (Lucy)

    08/03/2014 10:42:01 AM PDT · by EveningStar · 49 replies
    RealClearScience ^ | July 22, 2014 | Ross Pomeroy
    The reviews aren't yet in for Scarlett Johansson's new movie Lucy, but a single viewing of the trailer is enough to give the film a resounding "two thumbs down" on science... The idea that humans only use 10% of their brains is a complete, utter, and total myth. Lucy is entirely premised on neuroscientific BS...
  • Dick Smith Dies at 92; Makeup Artist of Vast Reach

    08/01/2014 8:43:32 AM PDT · by Borges · 18 replies
    NYT ^ | 8/1/2014 | WILLIAM YARDLEY
    *** Those growling jowls of Marlon Brando in “The Godfather” movies? Mr. Smith applied them. The brooding F. Murray Abraham in “Amadeus”? Mr. Smith helped turn Mr. Abraham’s Antonio Salieri, the composer and rival of the upstart young Mozart, into a hoary relic as an embittered, and somewhat mad, old man. David Bowie aging before your eyes in “The Hunger”? Mr. Smith’s were the hands of time. And little Linda Blair, who played the 12-year-old possessed by evil in “The Exorcist”? Mr. Smith made her head spin and spew green vomit and filled her mouth with decaying teeth.
  • Why is science fiction so hard to define?

    08/02/2014 8:55:22 AM PDT · by EveningStar · 51 replies
    BBC ^ | July 30, 2014 | Quentin Cooper
    A recent list of top science fiction films had some unusual choices and left out some well-regarded classics. But, says Quentin Cooper, that's part of the problem – sci-fi is such a broad church it's often very hard to define. Time Out, the weekly listings magazine, recently ranked the 100 best sci-fi movies of all time. They did it by polling 150 "leading sci-fi experts, filmmakers, science fiction writers, film critics and scientists" and getting them to each provide their 10 favourites. As lists go it's a decent one. It's hard for me to take issue with a top three...
  • 25 best Texas movies of all time

    07/18/2014 10:23:53 AM PDT · by EveningStar · 107 replies
    DFW.com ^ | July 16, 2014 | Cary Darling, Robert Philpot and Preston Jones
    We round up our 25 favorite films set in Texas. If you’ve seen them, maybe it's time to see them again. If you haven’t seen them, what are you waiting for?
  • Rex Reed: Melissa McCarthy Gives ‘Tammy’ Her All, but It’s Nowhere Near Enough

    07/04/2014 11:10:56 AM PDT · by EveningStar · 44 replies
    New York Observer ^ | July 3, 2014 | Rex Reed
    The good news is that Tammy is not a crappy remake of the 1957 Tammy movie with Debbie Reynolds that spawned three sequels and a TV comedy series. The bad news is that this one is much worse. It’s a desperate and brainless vehicle for Melissa McCarthy, which she wrote herself, with her husband, Ben Falcone, who also directed, with all the efficiency and verve of an abandoned Volkswagen on the Jersey Turnpike. There isn’t a single shred of evidence that either of them has one iota of talent in the world of filmmaking. Tammy is not just a celebration...
  • Paul Mazursky dies at 84; director chronicled trends of '60s and '70s

    07/01/2014 1:56:32 PM PDT · by EveningStar · 6 replies
    Los Angeles Times ^ | July 1, 2014 | Elaine Woo
    Paul Mazursky, the Oscar-nominated writer-director who excelled at mining the urban middle class for laughs as well as tears in such movies as "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," "Blume in Love," "An Unmarried Woman" and "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," has died. He was 84. Mazursky died of pulmonary cardiac arrest Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to family spokeswoman Nancy Willen. A gentle satirist of contemporary society, Mazursky at his best chronicled the social trends of the late 1960s and the '70s, including its touchy-feely self-improvement fads, shifting rules for love and sex,...
  • Faith in film: Why science-fiction movies abound with religious themes

    06/16/2014 9:29:23 AM PDT · by EveningStar · 27 replies
    Deseret News National ^ | April 6, 2014 | Kandra Polatis
    In "Man of Steel," the most recent Superman film, when Superman's parents send their son away from their dying planet to save his life, his mom worries he will not be accepted on Earth because he is an alien to the planet. "He will be an outcast. They'll kill him," his mother says. "How? He'll be a god to them," says his father, Jor-El, who believes Superman will be an ideal Earth's inhabitants will strive to reach.
  • 8 stars whose box-office draw is nosediving

    06/15/2014 10:24:06 AM PDT · by Perdogg · 163 replies
    NY Post ^ | 06.14.2014
    With an opening weekend take of $28 million, Tom Cruise’s new sci-fi film “Edge of Tomorrow” — which debuted June 6 — did even worse than his last sci-fi movie, 2013’s “Oblivion.” In the last eight years, Cruise has had only one hit (2011’s “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol”). It looks like he’s nearing the end of his run as a major movie star, though we’ll see how “Mission: Impossible 5” does when it comes out next year.
  • Actress Carla Laemmle, a link to Hollywood's past, dies at 104

    06/13/2014 1:27:18 PM PDT · by Borges · 24 replies
    Chicago Tribune ^ | 6/13/2014 | Claire Noland
    *** She became a ballet dancer and actress and appeared in “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925) and “Dracula.” For that 1931 classic she spoke the film’s first lines: “Among the rugged peaks that frown down upon the Borgo Pass are found crumbling castles of a bygone age ... . “
  • Angelina Jolie stars in ‘Maleficent,’ a feminist-revisionist take on Sleeping Beauty

    05/29/2014 3:34:08 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 18 replies
    WaPo ^ | Thursday, May 29, 3:23 PM | Ann Hornaday,
    Watching Jolie pose and smolder and glower is the chief attraction of “Maleficent,” which posits that the reason for Maleficent’s rage wasn’t being left out of a christening party for Aurora, but instead started years earlier, when she fell in love with the princess’s father, Philip. Propelled by passion, power and betrayal, this iteration of the fable — written by Linda Woolverton and based on stories by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm — isn’t a lot of fun. (“I wish she had smiled more,” one tween viewer was overheard saying after a recent screening.) It’s dark and brooding and...
  • Harrison Ford Asked To Reprise Role In ‘Blade Runner’ Sequel

    05/27/2014 3:50:41 PM PDT · by Para-Ord.45 · 238 replies
    http://www.deadline.com/ ^ | May 14 2014 | ANITA BUSCH
    Alcon Entertainment has an offer out to Harrison Ford to reprise his role of Rick Deckard in its Ridley Scott-directed sequel to Blade Runner. Original screenwriter Hampton Fancher and Michael Green are writing the new one, which takes place several decades after the conclusion of the 1982 original. Alcon acquired Blade Runner‘s film, television and ancillary rights in 2011 from producer Bud Yorkin to produce prequels and sequels of the sci-fi cult classic. Yorkin will serve as a producer on the sequel along with Alcon’s Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson. Cynthia Sikes Yorkin will co-produce. Frank Giustra and Tim Gamble,...
  • 'Godfather' Cinematographer Gordon Willis Dies at 82

    05/19/2014 8:55:15 AM PDT · by EveningStar · 9 replies
    The Hollywood Reporter ^ | May 19, 2014 | THR Staff
    Gordon Willis, the acclaimed cinematographer behind the Godfather trilogy and such Woody Allen films as Annie Hall, Manhattan, Broadway Danny Rose and Zelig, has died. He was 82.
  • Top 10 Hated Actors

    05/18/2014 1:00:23 PM PDT · by EveningStar · 83 replies
    YouTube ^ | May 18, 2014 | WatchMojo.com
    Sometimes, not even the glamor of the silver screen can cover up personality flaws. Join http://www.WatchMojo.com as we count down our picks for the top 10 hated actors.
  • 'Blazing Saddles' Review: Buy a Copy Before the Left Burns Them All

    05/09/2014 7:05:49 AM PDT · by rktman · 215 replies
    breitbart.com ^ | 5/8/2014 | John Nolte
    There are plenty of lousy film comedies, but there are only two that I outright hate: "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." Both were released in 2006 when Hollywood's fury against George W. Bush had reached its peak, and both let the voters who re-elected him in 2004 have it with both barrels. On its face you would think that Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" chose the exact same targets (rural Red Staters) to humiliate, but he didn't. With his masterpiece (that has just been released as...
  • How 'Star Wars' ruined sci-fi

    05/04/2014 2:13:54 PM PDT · by Dallas59 · 194 replies
    CNN ^ | 5/2/2014 | CNN
    Now that the cast of the seventh "Star Wars" movie has been announced, you can imagine the anticipation among the millions of fans of the film franchise. And why not? The six "Star Wars" films have been enormous successes: they have grossed over $2 billion domestically at the box office, spawned scores of books, comic books and merchandise (how many kids have their own light saber?) and made household names of characters like Darth Vader, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.
  • How Many Science Fiction Movies Have You Seen?

    05/03/2014 2:17:42 PM PDT · by EveningStar · 102 replies
    BuzzFeed ^ | April 28, 2014 | Louis Peitzman
    Check the films you've watched all the way through.
  • 'Gone With the Wind' Actress Mary Anderson Dies at 96

    04/07/2014 2:50:59 PM PDT · by EveningStar · 20 replies
    The Hollywood Reporter ^ | April 7, 2014 | Mike Barnes
    Mary Anderson, who played Maybelle Merriwether in Gone With the Wind and was one of the nine survivors cast adrift from a torpedoed ship in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, has died. She was 96.