Robert Downey Jr reacting to Avengers: Age of Ultron footage at SDCC 2014. (x)
Any of you guys hit up Comic Con this past weekend?!
Movie Classics with Phin Upham: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
Considered one of Stanley Kubrick’s best films, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY became the highest grossing picture from 1968 in North America. The film is known for its scientific accuracy and pioneering special effects, winning the 1969 Academy Award for Visual Effects. Many recognize the film as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
This Chewbacca robe is really rad. I need it and I need it now.
This Star Wars robe would make an excellent addition to my film memorabilia collection!
Costume designed by Walter Plunkett for Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind (1939)
From the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
Stunning costume design from this film. Check out my Movie Classics with Phin Upham: GONE WITH THE WIND edition.
James Garner in Marlowe (1969). May this wonderful actor rest in peace. He made charm seem so easy—and we all know it’s not!—on both the big and small screens.
Movie Classics with Phin Upham: LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
The most recent film on our series, LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING is definitely an instant classic. The film was nominated for thirteen Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor and, as of January 2014, the film ranked number 33 on the highest-grossing films (worldwide) of all time.
$73 million…
The science fiction sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the weekend’s only new mainstream release, has galloped away with the box office crown on its debut weekend, earning an estimated $73-million.
Trailing well behind but holding down the next few spots are all holdovers, most of them also sequels.
The hit, Transformers: Age of Extinction, was a distant second with $16-million. Third was the comedy,Tammy, with $13-million. And fourth and fifth were two more sequels: 22 Jump Street with $7-million; andHow to Train Your Dragon 2 with $6-million.
Although industry-wide totals were well below those of a year ago, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes appears to be a legitimate blockbuster, accounting for over half of all ticket sales on its initial weekend.
Source: CBS
FACT: Rita Moreno, of WEST SIDE STORY fame, is the only female performer to have won all four major annual American entertainment awards (Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy) - a feat that earned her a listing in the Guiness Book of World Records!
This film was shot over a 12-year period. Can’t wait to check it out!
Usually when characters age in movies, they’re covered with makeup and outfitted with prosthetics – or directors use different actors as the character ages. But in the new film Boyhood, none of that is necessary.
The film takes place over the course of 12 years, and it was shot over the course of 12 years. So we watch the actors getting older for real, which gives their characters a sense of authenticity.
Director Richard Linklater told what it was like to cast a 6 year-old boy (Ellar Coltrane) not knowing who he would become:
“It was a huge leap. I just went with a kid who seemed kind of the most interesting. I liked the way his mind worked — he was a little mysterious and sensitive and very thoughtful. He was cut from no ordinary cloth. He was homeschooled and his parents were artists and I thought, "Well, that’s cool, there’ll be some family support for this undertaking. It will be a fun thing to do in his life.”
So I think I had the family support but as far as he goes, you kind of have to admit that your main collaborator here has a really unknown future. But I would have each year to incrementally adjust and maybe go toward who he was becoming. That was sort of the design of the movie.”
Boyhood .gif of Ellar Coltrane via CBC