Category: Movies (Page 55 of 498)

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It’s amazing how fast the movie business is changing with the evolution of HD, gadgets and technology. Just several years ago it was all about DVDs. The Blu-ray won the war on higher def movies, so now that affects the TVs people buy and the video players. Now that’s all changing with streaming as Netflix and all sorts of online options further disrupt the business. Now there are tons of ways to watch new movies like “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.”

With all the gadgets being sold this holiday season, these new ways to watch movies and TV shows will just keep growing. One huge trend is the emergence of Amazon with the Kindle Fire. It didn’t get the best reviews for functionality, but at $199 it was an incredibly popular gift this year. This was a huge boost to Amazon which now lets it market movie downloads from their ecosystem to buyers who got used to buying eBooks from them. This makes Amazon a legitimate competitor to Apple and the iTunes store.

Of course this will also have an impact beyond movie and TV downloads to stuff like games as well. Older women who liked reading romance novels on their own Kindle can now use Amazon to download romantic comedies and also to play online bingo games or other games they like. They can also communicate through social media with their kids and grandkids.

Everything is changing, and the movie business is bracing itself for more changes.

David Fincher’s obsession with detail

There’s plenty of buss around The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the new film from director David Fincher. Wired has a great profile of Fincher, with some interesting stories about his obsession with detail.

For much of the past year, Fincher has been filming The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, his roughly $100 million adaptation of the macabre Swedish mystery that centers on a punk-hacker heroine with distinctive skin art. On one of the first nights of shooting, Fincher and his crew were in Sweden, filming a murder scene that takes place alongside a gloomy dock. But after a night’s work, Fincher didn’t have the shot he wanted, and the film’s ultratight schedule meant he wouldn’t be able to return for months.

When Fincher began planning the reshoot, he learned that the property had been sold to one of the guys in ABBA. Apparently, the new owner—either Benny or Björn, it’s not really clear—wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of having his evening stroll interrupted by a simulated drowning, and he refused to let the crew come back. Rather than find a new location or make do with the footage he had, Fincher decided to build his own Swedish dock.

Which is why, on a late-summer afternoon, we’re standing on a Los Angeles soundstage, examining a replica of a rural-Scandinavia mise-en-scène: mossy rocks, foliage-fat trees, and—perched high above the docks, turtlenecking out of the woods—a squat, deceptively cozy faux cottage. Like most sets, it looks a bit weird naked. But once the lights hit and the smoke drifts in, we are suddenly in the land of stunted summers and moderately high suicide rates.

I guess his approach is a bit different than that taken by Clint Eastwood, who loves going with the first take when he feels it’s good enough.

Award season kicking into high gear

The end of the year is upon us, and at this time everyone in Hollywood starts gearing up for the award shows. Who will be nominated and who will win? Everything culminates with the Oscars, but there are tons of other important awards as well. We just heard from the Golden Globes who announced their nominations. So far “The Artist” has been the huge hit that is generating the most buzz.

As these initial award shows release their nominations, we start to get a better idea of who might be nominated and then ultimately win the Academy Awards. But, of course there are always surprises. Predicting this stuff can be tricky.

Because of that, fans have a field day with office pools and other ways to guess who will be nominated and who will win. There are tons of websites now devoted simply to information and gossip of which film, which starlet and which director might get the final nod.

Stuff the the award shows fuel entertainment betting which has become more and more popular. Everything in entertainment is fair game, from box office winners, Blu-ray sales to which song Madonna will lead with at the Super Bowl.

I think “The Artist” is going to clean up. You?

25th anniversary of “Hoosiers”

“Hoosiers” is one of the best basketball movies and sports movies of all time, and this year we reached the 25th anniversary of its release. Barry Locke at ESPN has a pretty funny article about the movie, arguing that Gene Hackman’s Norman Dale wasn’t a great coach, but we don’t have to buy that argument.

It’s been 25 years since “Hoosiers” immortalized the legend of Hickory High, the small school that beats long odds to make underdog history by winning the Indiana state basketball championship. Yes, it’s been a generation since we were inspired by the story of a coach seeking redemption, a team coming together and a town being transformed in one of the greatest sports films ever made.

But every time I watch the movie — and who hasn’t seen it at least five times — I come to the same conclusion:

Norman Dale can’t coach.

There, I said it. The Wizard of Hickory High, at least as he was shown in the film, manages a game about as well as Shooter manages his booze. Sure, Dale took an undermanned, undersized, undisciplined group of farm boys all the way to the state title. But watch closely. Time and again, they won in spite of their coach.

Regardless of your thought’s on Norman Dale’s coaching ability, this movie definitely gets most people fired up about basketball. It’s a great game for kids and adults as well, and it offers a great way to get in shape. There are so many ways for people to get involved, whether they join gyms or buy in-ground, adjustable basketball goal systems for their home driveways. For kids it offers valuable lessons in teamwork, but it also gets them out running around, and in today’s world with obesity problems that’s a great thing.

So rent the movie and watch it with your kids, and then play some hoops outside!

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