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Putting the “Audio” in “Audio Visual” with the Golden Reel Awards
To be fair, some great films came out before the advent of sound cinema. Still, when the link between sound and image was formed by the coming of the first "talkies," the art of moviemaking made a mad dash to achieve levels silent features could only dream of. A tribute to the value of sound can be seen at many major awards ceremonies in the form of a Best Sound Editing award... but when it comes to something as important as sound, a dedicated awards ceremony is well-deserved. That's where the Motion Pictures Sound Editors (MPSE) comes in.
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Say Hello to Your 2012 Oscar Nominees
Hugo and The Artist Lead Nominations
This morning saw the announcement of the 2012 Academy Award nominations, and while many of the films to have their names called out by nominee presenters Jennifer Lawrence and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) president Tom Sherak came as no surprise, there were (as always) some additions and snubs that have Oscar pundits scratching their heads.
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PGA Win Helps The Artist Break (Further) from the Pack
The Artist continued its intermittent awards season domination on Saturday, winning the Producers Guild of America (PGA) Award for Best Feature Film and shoring up its chances for Best Picture victory come Oscar night. While Steven Spielberg and co-producer Kathleen Kennedy didn't take home an award for War Horse, nominated in the Best Feature Film category, the producing duo didn't go home empty-handed; their The Adventures of Tintin was named the year's Best Animated Film. In the documentary category, director Michael Rapaport's Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest was the surprise winner.
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Underworld: Awakening Takes a Bite Out of the Box Office
Underworld: Awakening took a bite out of the box office last weekend, earning $25.4 in its first three days and beating out second-place finisher, fellow new release Red Tails, by a substantial margin. Last week's number one film, Contraband, fell two spots to number three, while Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close celebrated its first weekend in wide release—it hit select theaters across the country over Christmas weekend—with a weekend gross of $10.5 million. Rounding out the top five was the newest from Steven Soderbergh, Haywire, which earned $9 million over its first weekend.
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Why Sundance?
With the 2012 Sundance Film Festival now in full swing, we've asked some Park City-bound moviemakers one burning question: Why Sundance? Here's what they had to say.
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Re-Vamping: Ten Unique Takes on Vampire Mythology
It’s pretty much impossible to escape vampires these days. The Twilight movies are as insanely popular as ever, the HBO series “True Blood” has a large and dedicated fanbase and Justin Cronin’s best-selling novel The Passage looks poised to kick off the next must-read vampire series. The newest piece of vampire pop culture to sink its teeth into movie audiences’ necks is Underworld: Awakening, out in theaters today. With so many blood-suckers baring their fangs, vampires have started to feel a bit tired and clichéd. But never fear, MM is here to save the day. We’ve come up with a selection of ten films that put wonderfully original spins on vampire mythology.
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Haskell Wexler: The Last Indie Rebel
As the director’s cut of Latino is released, the Oscar-winning moviemaker/social philosopher looks back on his long career
Haskell Wexler is simply one of our greatest living cinematographers. He’s in a class by himself as much for his fearless sense of justice as for his groundbreaking technical innovations, but it’s his lifelong commitment to putting his lens where his mouth is—as with his second film as a writer-director, 1985's stunning Latino—that makes Wexler such a unique source of inspiration to so many moviemakers.
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The World’s Weirdest Shakespeare Adaptations
Featuring Lions, Fry Cooks and Robot Butlers
In Coriolanus, out in theaters tomorrow, director and star Ralph Fiennes brings to the screen one of Shakespeare's least-adapted plays. Replete as it is with guns, tanks and army fatigues, Fiennes' directorial debut is a decidedly modern take on a story that was originally set in pre-Imperial Rome. Still, even with all its modern accoutrements, Coriolanus is actually fairly traditional adaptation of the Bard's work... at least compared to some of the more off-the-wall approaches that other directors have taken in years past.
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Exploring the Mystery of Creativity with Old School New School
My documentary Old School New School explores the nature of creativity, all within the context of storytelling through various crafts, including acting, cinematography, music, theater, dance and poetry. The film is an extension of many conversations I’ve had over the years with my artist friends. We’d meet in a café to talk about life, art and philosophy. They were stimulating discussions that ultimately segued to the obligatory question all serious artists eventually examine: How can we, as creative people, grow in the direction we want to grow?
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The Artist, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Lead 2012 BAFTA Award Nominations
Though Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has been notably absent from much of the awards season hoopla, the spy drama's dry spell may now be over. Its 11 nominations in this year's British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards, announced today, place it on the top of the heap; the only film to receive more nominations is The Artist, with 12. Martin Scorsese's Hugo also cleaned up with nominations in 11 categories, including Best Director.
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Top 10 Cities to be a Moviemaker: 2012
It’s been more than 10 years since MovieMaker began citing the best cities to be an independent moviemaker—those places that go the extra mile in welcoming lower-budget productions just as much as they do the “big guns.” With more and more moviemakers opting to shoot in their own backyards, a city’s ability to offer a sustainable, creative community in addition to production support, tax incentives and local and experienced crew bases has never been more important to the indie industry. Read on to discover which cities topped our list for 2012.
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Ed Burns Is Forever Indie
Edward Burns is no stranger to the world of indie film. He launched his career with the $25,000 The Brothers McMullen at the Sundance Film Festival back in 1995, during the dark, pre-digital days of 16mm cameras and now-foreign concepts like optical houses and film prints. In 2010, after seven larger-budget features as a writer-director, Burns returned to the low-budget arena with Nice Guy Johnny. He bypassed traditional distribution methods by releasing the film himself, first with a short festival tour and then with a simultaneous day-and-date rollout on VOD, DVD and Pay-Per-View. Now Burns is taking this new model even further with Newlyweds, which he produced for a staggering $9,000 sum.
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Sorry, Disney: Contraband Beats Beauty and the Beast 3-D to Number One
Crime drama Contraband had a better-than-expected opening weekend run at the box office, earning $24 million in three days and outpacing second-place finisher, Beauty and the Beast 3-D, by a substantial amount. The re-released Disney classic earned $18.4 million over the weekend—less than the 3-D release of The Lion King earned on its opening weekend last September, but still pretty good for a movie that's only one year shy of being able to buy itself alcohol.
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The Artist Comes Out on Top at the Golden Globes
At last night's Golden Globes, it was Oscar frontrunner The Artist that came out on top, winning three awards, including Best Picture—Comedy or Musical. Still, it's probably best to keep the film's name written in pencil on your Oscar ballot for now; though it was one of only two films to win multiple awards, the winner in the Best Picture—Drama category (this year, The Descendants) historically has a better chance at victory come Oscar night. Additionally, The Artist missed out in both the Best Screenplay and Best Director categories, in which Midnight in Paris and Hugo, respectively, walked away with the gold.
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Martin Scorsese and Steve James Pick up Nominations for the 2012 DGA Awards
Three days after receiving a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award nomination for Hugo, Martin Scorsese has picked up another nomination from the guild, courtesy of his documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World. Scorsese's competition in the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary category consists notably of Steve James for The Interrupters. James' Hoop Dreams was famously snubbed by the Academy in 1995; this year, The Interrupters, despite receiving near-universal critical acclaim, was not included on the Academy's shortlist for Best Documentary nominees.
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The Ins and Outs of How to Sell a Banksy
When Christopher Thompson came across a work of art by Banksy—the infamous, anonymous street artist whose work sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars—he saw his acquisition as a twofold opportunity. First, there was a potentially huge amount of money to be made in selling the piece. Second, the effort it would take to find a buyer—getting it restored, authenticated and evaluated, all of which would require gate crashing the business world that's sprung up around the counterculture icon—would make for an interesting documentary. Four years later, co-directors Thompson and Alper Cagatay's debut film, How to Sell a Banksy, is finally complete.
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