Media critics widely lamented the cancellation of NBC’s Hannibal this year; the show is considered one of the best adaptations of the iconic serial cannibal series. Non-fans might not understand the appeal since we’ve heard that story several times before, but even for those without an appetite for the antihero doctor might see an exciting […]
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Epix deal (sadly) signals a new phase of streaming fragmentation
Netflix subscribers might have notice their queues empty a little in the coming weeks. Digital film distributor Epix ends its billion-dollar licensing deal with the streaming giant at the end of this month, and many of its biggest films – including the Hunger Games and Transformers franchises – are moving to Hulu. This is a […]
Continue readingBuenos Aires film festival puts decades of Latin American films online for free
Our comfortable routine of watching major blockbusters and idly browsing Netflix often blinds us to titles we wouldn’t otherwise seek out, and too often, that includes world cinema. Our usual outlets sometimes either downplay or outright omit films from other countries and in other languages. If you want to watch something from elsewhere on the […]
Continue readingEasily tally up how long you’ve watched TV and come face-to-face with your mortality
We understand that statistics about how much time we spend watching television tend to be exaggerated, often because we watch it while talking, eating, or working. But it’s still shocking to see that our favorite shows run for days if not weeks. How much time have we dedicated to this glowing rectangle? Rather than parse […]
Continue readingThe Flintstones was the ultimate warning about cohesive writing
The second season of HBO’s True Detective has not received kind reviews, but in defense of its creative ambition, it is the singular product of creator Nic Pizzolatto. He has almost exclusive writing credit for the series, and for better or worse, it undeniably carries his signature. That’s a rarity in commercial film and television […]
Continue readingWe might see The Day the Clown Cried in 2025
A year and a half ago, now-removed footage from Jerry Lewis’s The Day the Clown Cried surfaced online for the first time. For those unacquainted with the legend, The Day the Clown Cried was a Holocaust melodrama about a clown sent to a concentration camp. The film was never released and has acquired an apocalyptically […]
Continue readingA tribute to analog computers in film
Continuing this week’s accidental theme of production design, we came across a terrific article summarizing the history of analog technology in science fiction films. Minority Report‘s gesture-controlled holographic interfaces and touchscreens changed the popular idea of a futuristic interface, but before that, the future in film looked a lot like the 70s: toggle switches, dials, […]
Continue readingProduction design in an HD world
For all the brouhaha about greenscreen effects changing filmmaking, props, costumes, and sets still matter. Production design continues to be vital to even the most effects-heavy movies: just ask the craftspeople who hand-made all the chainmail armor for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, embedded above. But as high-definition cameras, Blu-rays, and auto-smoothing televisions produce […]
Continue readingHow Hollywood’s color correctors are playing with your emotions
We’ve talked about the color correction process in the past and how a once-cosmetic technique has become a fundamental part of the film production process. Total control of a film’s color range and palette allows filmmakers to tailor create visually resplendent works and sometimes to ignore other steps in the process. But the colors their […]
Continue readingWhat happened to the makers of Sky Captain?
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 […]
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