Immediately following my coverage of the 2010 Edinburgh International Film Festival, my wife and I packed our tiny flat and moved back to the U.S. We spent a month home and then finally moved to Iowa where she is now working on her PhD.
Thus, the summer was very busy and scattered; I left many films in my wake with nary a commentary post. I will now provide a quick rundown of what you should check out and what you should chuck out. Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged Alice in Wonderland, Avatar, CGI, Clash of the Titans, Danny the Dog, Dead Alive, Dead Snow, deux ex machina, Diary of Wimpy Kid, Dod Sno, Edward Norton, Gus Van Sant, Halloween, House of the Devil, Johnny Depp, Kids, Larry Clark, Last Action Hero, Louis Leterrier, Mystery Team, Nazi, Norwegian, Paranoid Park, Pixar, Planet of the Apes, Practical effects, Robocop 2, Sam Worthington, Terminator Salvation, The Incredible Hulk, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Ti West, Tim Burton, Tom Noonan, Toy Story, Toy Story 3, Unleashed, Up, Vin Diesel, Woody, Zombie
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.
Posted in News
Tagged CGI, Christopher Nolan, Fight Scene, Hallway, Inception, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Practical effects
The original Predator (1987) is one of those films that is a defining moment for masculinity. I saw Predator when I was 8 years old and the mixture of mass muscled men, “bad” words, bullets, and bravado introduced me to what it meant to be male. The film is not a traditional work of art, but like director John McTiernan’s Die Hard, Predator is a quintessential action/sci-fi film. Continue reading
The Filmsmith
The Filmsmith 