links of interest – Media Services News

A lament for DVD commentary

When Fox decided to stop publishing The Simpsons on DVD, one thing we lamented (apart forcing you to get a cable subscription to watch the show) was the fate of the show’s audio commentary. The creators of The Simpsons recorded in-depth, insightful discussions for every episode of the show, and although you can still access … Continue reading “A lament for DVD commentary”

When Fox decided to stop publishing The Simpsons on DVD, one thing we lamented (apart forcing you to get a cable subscription to watch the show) was the fate of the show’s audio commentary. The creators of The Simpsons recorded in-depth, insightful discussions for every episode of the show, and although you can still access the commentary through the official streaming app, it’s significantly more hidden than it was on the DVDs. And we’ll probably never have commentary for shows and movies released through Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming platforms.

On the bright side, maybe we’ve been spared. As D. K. Holm at Crooked Scoreboard points out, the quality of movie commentary tracks has plummeted recently.

When the Criterion Collection first devised commentary tracks, the concept attracted film scholars and served as an useful outlet for behind-the-scenes stories. As more DVDs included them, the tracks became more and more obligatory and less enthusiastic. Although it’s over a decade old, I still remember the commentary track for the action movie Ultraviolet, where star Milla Jovovich plays with her cats for an hour and doesn’t really say anything.

But we’ll also miss out on the occasionally deeply entertaining track, like an example Holm gives of a low-budget action movie where the director is completely frank about its doomed production.

If they’re going to be phoned in, they may as well not exist. It’s a shame that the good ones may as well not exist now either.

Silent Movie GIFs shows the sausage-making behind old special effects

Special effects aren’t usually exciting anymore. Filmmakers can create worlds and human beings from whole cloth now, so digital trickery doesn’t wow like it used to. 100 years ago, though, every difficult shot took a herculean effort. The Twitter account Silent Movie GIFs recently shared a few explanations for how silent films pulled off their … Continue reading “Silent Movie GIFs shows the sausage-making behind old special effects”

The Twitter account Silent Movie GIFs recently shared a few explanations for how silent films pulled off their most difficult shots. Many involve the clever use of matte paintings and partially blocked shots. In the above clip from Sherlock Jr., the motorcycle and trucks were filmed separately; the rest of each shot was blacked out, then both were combined.

The level of work needed to pull off even the simplest shots makes you appreciate how relatively easily we can now throw Spider-Man into a movie.

Horror films had another strong year

For all the jokes about 2016 being terrible, last year was in fact a year of horror – for film at least. As Slashfilm points out, 2016 had an unusually strong showing of horror movies of all stripes, and the site’s Jacob Hall attempted to break down what led to the genre’s success. Hall mentions … Continue reading “Horror films had another strong year”

Hall mentions a litany of factors, like a focus on character and intimate settings. Two of the biggest driving forces, though, seem to be politics and auteurs. Last year’s horror movies embraced politically charged messages (like the uncomfortably timely Neo-Nazi horror of Green Room), and many others fit the mold of an alienating arthouse film that might turn off broader audiences. The author cites the divisive The Neon Demon in particular filling a niche that wouldn’t exist without the director’s vision.

We see some immediate parallels to the best horror of the 70s, movies like Dawn of the Dead that used their horror for inventive scares, terrific visual art, and social commentary. We’ll admit some skepticism too, but the horror renaissance kicked off by It Follows in 2015 is apparently still going.

14,000 copies of Jerry Maguire to be built into a desert pyramid, because why not

For several years, the online group Everything is Terrible has searched through ephemeral videotapes to find some truly weird art, much like the Found Footage Festival. But they’ve also had an even stranger side project to collect every known VHS copy of the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire. We still don’t really understand why they’ve undertaken … Continue reading “14,000 copies of Jerry Maguire to be built into a desert pyramid, because why not”

For several years, the online group Everything is Terrible has searched through ephemeral videotapes to find some truly weird art, much like the Found Footage Festival. But they’ve also had an even stranger side project to collect every known VHS copy of the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire. We still don’t really understand why they’ve undertaken their project. With over 14,000 tapes collected, EiT has more copies of Jerry Maguire than all of our old VHS collection combined.

To commemorate the film’s twentieth anniversary, Everything is Terrible is building a video store that only has VHS copies of Jerry Maguire as part of an art exhibit in Los Angeles. This isn’t even their final resting place: all proceeds from the show will go towards building a Jerry Maguire pyramid somewhere in the desert.

There’s basically no reason for either video store or the pyramid to exist… except as monuments to late-90s consumer excess. Maybe that’s as good of an excuse as any.

Sadly, we don’t have our own copy to give to the pyramid.

New blood or old blood? What experienced directors bring to big movies

You might have missed that a new Steven Spielberg movie came out this year. The BFG was a bit of a flop, a surprise considering the beloved director at the helm. As movie studios are learning, director choice holds less and less sway over audiences as studios recruit new talent to headline their films somewhat … Continue reading “New blood or old blood? What experienced directors bring to big movies”

http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/rogue-one-gareth-edwards-tony-gilroy.html

You might have missed that a new Steven Spielberg movie came out this year. The BFG was a bit of a flop, a surprise considering the beloved director at the helm.

As movie studios are learning, director choice holds less and less sway over audiences as studios recruit new talent to headline their films somewhat anonymously. Take Colin Trevorrow, who directed Jurassic World after only a few small independent successes. He was affordable, it brought new blood into Hollywood, and frankly, he nailed it. So why would studios hire a marquee name?

Kevin Lincoln suggests in a new Vulture article that the cracks are finally showing in this model. The last two years have been filled with stories of blockbuster movies delayed by reshoots or production troubles, and often, the fingers point to inexperienced directors not accustomed to working with massive budgets under studio control. The horror story behind last year’s Fantastic Four reboot is an extreme case (extensive reshoots, the director openly fighting his producers, and a barely coherent final product), but the benefits of confident directors are becoming clearer in their absence.

Don’t expect Martin Scorsese to direct the next Star Wars movie. But maybe by the next Fantastic Four movie, the director will have more experience under their belt.

A closer look at the realities of an awards bait movie

We’re only two months from the start of awards season, which means all the high-profile Oscar contenders about serious, relevant social issues are hitting theaters. Or, as someone more cynical might put it, all the Oscar bait has finally been released into the waters. Filmmakers want to tell meaningful, engaging movies, but to be frank, … Continue reading “A closer look at the realities of an awards bait movie”

Filmmakers want to tell meaningful, engaging movies, but to be frank, studios back those films because they want to capitalize on popular topics and snag awards attention. The Los Angeles Times went into this tension in a recent article; they interviewed directors and writers of current Oscar contenders and found their interests divided between the creative and social dimension and the realities of the movie business.

Take Jeff Nichols, director of the upcoming interracial marriage drama Loving, who found the film’s true story important to tell. He also recognized that his film was checking a lot of boxes for distributor Focus Features, adding that fitting into a targeted, award-friendly slot in a studio’s schedule is “a big part of the business of this particular film and this model – and to deny that would be kind of silly.”

Movies can’t exist without support or some plan for revenue, no matter how heartfelt or timely. You might understandably be skeptical that all the serious movies come out right before Oscar nominations begin, but that’s a reality that allows them to get made.

No, a silent film of a train probably didn’t cause mass hysteria

You’ve probably heard this one before: back during the dawn of motion pictures, a short movie showing a train heading for the camera caused audiences to freak out and try to run from the theater. It’s a funny anecdote about how much of an impact film made – and it makes those audiences look pretty … Continue reading “No, a silent film of a train probably didn’t cause mass hysteria”

But as Atlas Obscura’s Eric Grundhauser explains, this probably never actually happened. We can trace the story to a specific film (1898’s Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat), the lack of circumstantial evidence like news stories and police accounts of a mobscene suggests this was just a myth. If anything, it was a metaphor for the powerful impact of film, one that spread so quickly it was parodied in a 1901 short (embedded above).

So although audiences probably didn’t actually panic, the mental image was real. It might’ve been exaggerated shorthand. Think of it like a turn-of-the-century straw man argument.

A new lost Méliès was discovered… after it was mislabeled

A Trip to the Moon, not Match de Prestidigitation First there was the lost Hitchcock film. Then, the lost Laurel and Hardy sequence. Now, film conservationists have found a long-list film by Georges Méliès, one of the pioneers of cinema. Méliès was one of the pioneers of film as an art form, especially in the … Continue reading “A new lost Méliès was discovered… after it was mislabeled”

A Trip to the Moon, not Match de Prestidigitation

First there was the lost Hitchcock film. Then, the lost Laurel and Hardy sequence. Now, film conservationists have found a long-list film by Georges Méliès, one of the pioneers of cinema.

Méliès was one of the pioneers of film as an art form, especially in the area of special effects: the director was an illusionist, and he used his skills to create astounding effects that had never been previously achieved on screen. Méliès reportedly produced over 500 films, and although you may know his famous A Trip to the Moon, most of his work has been lost.

This particular film, Match de Prestidigitation, had the wrong name on the container when it arrived at a Czech film archive. So in addition to the joy of recovering a foundational piece of film history, this is also a great lesson in keeping things organized and described correctly.

How the West was whitened

The Western genre is having something of a mini-comeback between Westworld and The Magnificent Seven. (Or, maybe we all just love Yul Brynner?) This year’s trips to the Old West look a little different than in the past, specifically the actors. Our collective imagined memory of the Western looks white, middle-aged, and male. But if … Continue reading “How the West was whitened”

The Western genre is having something of a mini-comeback between Westworld and The Magnificent Seven. (Or, maybe we all just love Yul Brynner?) This year’s trips to the Old West look a little different than in the past, specifically the actors. Our collective imagined memory of the Western looks white, middle-aged, and male. But if anything, Denzel Washington showing up in The Magnificent Seven is closer to the reality of the western than film has us believe.

Leah Williams wrote a great piece for The Atlantic about how classic Western films do a disservice to the historical truth of race in the West. The Searchers was inspired by the stories of a black cowboy named Britton Johnson, but the lead role was played by John Wayne, a notorious white supremacist. Casting non-white actors in a Western is often seen as an act of subversion, but if anything, that’s closer to reality.

Sadly, that all-white image is so ingrained in pop culture that it won’t be erased anytime soon. In another 50 years, maybe Denzel will be the new John Wayne?

Rolling Stone declares The Sopranos the greatest TV show

Alright, everyone gather ’round, we have another Top 100 list to fight over. This time, Rolling Stone put together its list of what it considers the greatest television shows of all time . The top of the list is pretty much what you’d expect – The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Simpsons, et al. … Continue reading “Rolling Stone declares The Sopranos the greatest TV show”

Alright, everyone gather ’round, we have another Top 100 list to fight over.

This time, Rolling Stone put together its list of what it considers the greatest television shows of all time . The top of the list is pretty much what you’d expect – The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Simpsons, et al. – but as with all these similar lists, we liked seeing that rounded out the rest of the top 100. Rolling Stone included game shows, talk shows, animation, and reality TV in addition to scripted series, so they cast a wide net.

Best of all, Rolling Stone didn’t intentionally try to get such an eclectic mix. They sent ballots out to a wide range of television industry figures, and the results they got back just happened to be such a jumble. It reflects well on the past, present, and current state of television: even if the Difficult Men genre still gets the most accolades, TV is a unique space where Jeopardy and The Golden Girls can live side-by-side.