Category Archives: News

Blockbuster Bankrupt

According to the L.A. Times, Blockbuster has lost over 1.1 billion dollars since 2008 and is finally going bankrupt.  They have already closed almost a 1,000 stores in the last year and will close another 500 of their weaker outlets.  The plan is to move further into the Redbox and Netflix game to stay competitive, something the major studios support.  Right now Blockbuster is the only place where you can watch most brand new releases, since Netflix has a 28 day holding period on most new films as per their contract with big film distributors like Warner Bros.  If Blockbuster goes under then it’s open season.

One of the other big rental chains, Hollywood Video, recently went under and Blockbuster has failed to properly maneuver itself to stave off bankruptcy.  I just moved to Iowa City and the ONLY video rental store is a lonely Blockbuster.  So enjoy your video stores while you have them folks.

The Walking Dead Trailer Released

After many low quality youtube recordings from Comic Con, AMC has released a trailer for its latest tv series, The Walking Dead:

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Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan Trailer

imdb.com has the release date set for December 1, 2010.

And here I thought the film might be a bit boring from the synopsis and the trailer is more f*cked up than I could have imagined.  Guess Aronofsky won’t break into the comedy genre anytime soon considering this path of trauma that is his filmography.*

*Comments aside, love his work.

How they shot Inception’s hallway scene without CGI

Back in February I had a chance to talk with one of the crew members from Inception.  Turns out that hallway fight scene was not CGI, they did that for real:

However, more interesting were his comments on Christopher Nolan (a bit chaotic in his shooting style), since he worked with him on Inception and The Dark Knight. He showed me a video of the rig they used for a hallway scene in the film, which was larger than a semi-truck’s trailer, that completely rotated. He went on to explain that they rubberized everything inside and painted it so the actors inside could roll around and fight. They also locked down a camera inside the hallway and used a camera crane that could go inside the moving rig. Evidently I’m one of the only guys outside of the film industry to see his little cell phone video of this rig.

Click here for the original post.

In Conclusion: The Best and Worst of the Edinburgh International Film Festival

After almost two weeks of festival events and screenings, I have posted over 30 items about the festival.  So here is a breakdown of all the films, ranked along the scale: Awesome, Good, Eh…, Bad.  Click the title of the film to read the review.

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“Winter’s Bone” Director Q & A (no spoilers)

I know the video quality isn’t great (my camera can’t handle low light situations), but I figure it might be worth the audio to interested parties.

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EIFF Daily Roundup (part 11)

*The Dry Land drops some PTSD knowledge

*Soul Boy is a lot of fun

*Restrepo is mildly depressing.

EIFF Daily Roundup (part 9)

* Only killed one thing when spending an afternoon with The Hunter

*and then took a trip to Snowman’s Land

*Spoiler free Q & A with the Monsters cast and crew.

other news

I utilized the EIFF’s videotheque to check out the above titles.  While I was bored during parts of The Hunter I would look around at what other people were watching.  One guy was just loving his film, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.  I was delighted to see a lot of people watch Au Revoir Taipei and HIGH School.

The person next to me was watching Snowman’s Land and after seeing an old man run in the snow in slow-motion and someone about to (what looked like) get their foot chopped off, I was curious how it all fit together (and figured it would be better than what I just watched).

If you’re in the Edinburgh area this weekend, you should try to get tickets for the Best of the Fest.  On Sunday they’ll screen a selection of films from the festival and some of my favorites will be showing.  So now that you’ve read my reviews, you can check out Monsters, Au Revoir Taipei, Jackboots on Whitehall, or The People vs George Lucas.  Click here for Sunday’s films.

reviews to come

The Dry Land, Soul Boy, Restrepo

“Monsters” post-screening Q & A (no spoilers)

Director Gareth Edwards is to the right, actors Whitney Able and Skoot McNairy to the left.

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Edinburgh Film Fest Daily Roundup (part 8)

*I go into the dark to find out about The Dunwich Horror

*My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is dream cinema

other news

Scrambling around to find more films to watch as the festival comes to a close: Press screenings end Friday, festival officially ends Sunday.  Crazy.  When you’re in the middle of it you lose all sense of time.

Between screenings I’ve taken some pictures around Edinburgh.  I’ll have some up tomorrow.

reviews to come

The Hunter, Snowman’s Land