The 2004 retro sci-fi caper Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was the first major film to shoot entirely on greenscreen. In an era when blockbuster movies eschew physical sets and use CGI wizardry as a crutch rather than a tool, that doesn’t seem like a groundbreaking or even welcome accomplishment. But no movie […]
Continue readingSee which rejected films survive an audience gauntlet tonight at Cheers and Sneers
The annual DC Shorts festival showcases some of the best short films from local talent, but not all submissions make the cut. And every so often, presumably and hopefully with their creators’ blessings, DC Shorts celebrates these rejections at Cheers and Sneers, an audience-driven showcase of the DC film scene’s near misses, secret triumphs, and […]
Continue readingComing soon: the most epic slapstick of the silent era
Dr. Strangelove nearly ended with an extended war room pie fight, but Kubrick eventually deemed the idea as too ridiculous for his otherwise subtler satire. The footage was never released, but it might have been one of the greatest on-screen pie fights in history. Pie tossing has been a staple of vaudevillian slapstick since the […]
Continue readingWhy should you care about Ennio Morricone?
San Diego Comic-Con wraps up today, and amid all the Batman and Star Wars news, you might have missed a little announcement that has classic film fans in a tizzy. During a panel on Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming The Hateful Eight, the director announced that film composition icon Ennio Morricone would score the movie, his first […]
Continue readingA glimpse behind the Library of Congress’s film preservation vaults
You may be familiar with the National Film Registry, the Library of Congress group that annually selects significant American films to maintain in perpetuity. That’s only a fraction of the over one million video recordings held by the Library of Congress, but all undergo a rigorous preservation process. For the first time that we’ve seen, […]
Continue readingFilming permit map reveals NYC’s hotspots in film
Many of us who do not often visit New York City are still intimately familiar with its iconic buildings and streets mainly because of its over-representation in film and television. Every other sitcom takes place in Manhattan, and aliens have destroyed the New York skylines more times than we can count. This keeps NYC’s film […]
Continue readingDC’s West End Cinema is back!
Great news, DC film fans! The Washington Post reports that West End Cinema, which shuttered back in March, is reopening later this month! West End was one of the area’s most beloved limited-run independent theaters, and its closure earlier in the year left a hole in the DC film market only partly filled by E […]
Continue readingRoot around for something good in this fridge shot supercut
We had been looking for an occasion to post this supercut of refrigerators in films, and the post-Fourth of July leftover glut seems like a good occasion to do so. The classic point-of-view shot of a character look for food in a fridge has become almost background noise at this point. When previously groundbreaking cinematography […]
Continue readingCelebrate ‘merica with an irrationally patriotic movie marathon
Fourth of July falls on a Saturday this year, so many DC businesses are taking Friday off too – including us! The extended weekend gives us an opportunity to cram in a few more patriotic movies. We have fond memories of spending the Fourth lazily watching Independence Day on basic cable, and for America’s 239th […]
Continue readingDocumentaries answer: what’s happening in Greece?
News broke today that Greece is in serious financial straits, having missed a major loan repayment to the IMF and now teetering on the edge of default. We admit to not following this situation closely and to being less literate in international politics than likely a majority of the AU students. As is our tendency, […]
Continue reading