We announced our tournament last week. It begins this week. Over the next 24 weeks, we winnow out 2/3 of the titles in the competition, with the first 16 being evaluated this week. Note that we are not taking a set number of films from any given week of round one: this is being broken into 24 weeks just to make each week’s batch of votes smaller to promote participation. Please start voting here, marking our first 16 titles as “above average,” “average,” “below average” or titles you haven’t seen.
Category Archives: Movies
New Trailer For… a Trailer for Iron Man 3
The Iron Man 3 teaser trailer will premiere at Apple.com/trailers on Tuesday. The announcement was made when Marvel released this teaser trailer for the teaser trailer through YouTube earlier today.
The Greatest Science Fiction Film Tournament
Science fiction has been around for centuries, and science fiction has appeared on film since 1902. Many website purport to offer lists of the greatest science fiction films of all time. We’re going to produce the definitive list, with your help. Read on for details.
Science Fiction Movies (just over) 110 Years Old
We missed a milestone. Two weeks ago today marked the 110th Anniversary of Science Fiction in feature films. The first science fiction film was A Trip to the Moon, released October 4, 1902. The loose adaptation of Jules Verne made scientific errors not present in the Verne original, but the final product was still the first big budget science fiction film. It is now in the public domain, and can be found on YouTube and other websites for your viewing pleasure. The runtime is 11 minutes and 49 seconds. We originally reviewed the film in 2004.
Halloween Review: Frankenweenie (2012)
Tim Burton first made this film in 1984, as a darkly whimsical, live-action short for Walt Disney. Disney executives disliked the result– reviewed today by Blaine–, which they considered too frightening for children. They shelved plans to play the film before the rereleased Pinocchio, though the original “Frankenweenie” did accompany some showings of Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. They also let go of the young director. Years later, with Burton established as a brilliant (though wildly uneven) crafter of darkly whimsical films, Disney decided to give him another chance. This time he used stop-motion animation. The result, while not perfect, succeeds, a stitched-together monster of a movie with a likeable heart
Halloween Review – “Frankenweenie (1984)”
Back in 1984, Tim Burton was just starting his film career. He had never directed a feature film, but he came to Walt Disney Pictures with a concept and vision that was approved as a 30 minute short. This year, Frankenweenie got the feature film treatment, but this was the original version.
Halloween Review: Devil Seed (2012)
Once more, across the northern hemisphere, leaves fall from trees to be crunched underfoot, masks by the Silver Shamrock corporation stare from store windows and oatmeal-faced zombies prowl the streets. Cornfields turn into mazes along haunted highways while costumed kids take candy from suspicious strangers. And, here at the Bureau, we begin our annual countdown of creepy films. We’ll review the famous and familiar and, certainly, some newly unleashed horrors, a couple of old-time scares and (perhaps) unfamiliar finds.
Our October Countdown appears at the end of this review.
First up: every town has that house, that haunted place where something horrific happened. Where I live, it can be found a fifteen minute walk away. That house. We all know the horror that happened there, even if we dare not talk about it. The shooting—the principal shooting for this 2012 straight-to-video, straight-to-download horror hit….
Weekend Review: Looper
The last time Bruce Willis looped in time, it resulted in a much more thought-provoking film. Nevertheless, Rian Johnson’s time travel/ganster/action movie has much to recommend it. Predictably, SF fans may be less impressed than viewers of the mundane persuasion. I’m not trying to be a speculative snob here; it’s just a statement of fact.
Weekend Review: Backwater Gospel
This week’s film can be watched online at Youtube. No, it’s NOT the ineptly-made, months-old film that certain religious extremists and opportunistic demagogues are using as an excuse to rampage. It’s a remarkable short film from 2011 that, oddly enough, addresses religious extremism and opportunistic demagoguery.
It begins when a sinister, familiar figure comes to town.
Summer Movie Double Feature: “Jaws”
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
–Martin Brody (Roy Schneider)“It’s about being bloody frightened of being eaten by a bloody great shark.”
–Kinglsey Amis, on the various metaphoric and sociological interpretations of Jaws
Ya had to know what it was like.
Back in the day, films got to your town when they got to your town. Film prints cost money. The studio released copies, typically to the larger centers and, when those places were done with them, the films toured. If a film proved particularly successful and was getting “held over,” the studio printed more copies. If you lived in Smallville, Kansas or Revelstoke, BC, it might be awhile before the latest film got to you.
All that started to change in the summer of 1975, when Steven Spielberg’s Jaws left previous hit movies in its wake and birthed the Summer Blockbuster. Thanks to this suspenseful ride (and a certain Lucas film, a couple years later), it wouldn’t be long before summer meant the heavy promotion of high concept, and hit films increasingly turned up everywhere at once.
Summer’s almost over, and so are 2012’s Summer Reviews. So, as Chrissie says, “come on into the water!” A bloody great shark awaits.