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A special event capped off Friday November 3 at the Trieste Science + Fiction Festival, namely the 21st Golden Méliès ceremony. This culmination of the European Fantastic Film Festival Federation's (Effff) Méliès competition saw 8 feature films and 17 short films - silver Méliès winners of either affiliated or adherent festivals - compete for the top prize. The jury, comprised of film critics Beatrice Fiorentino, Fabrizio Liberti, and Jean-François Rauger awarded the feature film Méliès d'Or to Joachim Trier's supernatural love story, Thelma, while Magali Magistry's dystopian fantasy Expire took home the short film award. It's only fitting that the award ceremony was followed by a live piano concert during which famous Méliès shorts like Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902), Les Quat'cents Farces du...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

In honor of its 20th anniversary, the Visual Effects Society polled its membership to list the 70 most influential VFX films of all time. James Cameron led the pack with six entries (“The Abyss,” “Aliens,” “Avatar,” “Terminator,” “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” and “Titanic”); Steven Spielberg followed close behind with five (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T. the Extraterrestrial,” “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “Jurassic Park”); and Peter Jackson had four Oscar winners (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “King Kong”).

“The Ves 70 represents films that have had a significant, lasting impact on the practice and appreciation of visual effects as an integral element of cinematic expression and storytelling,” said Ves board chair Mike Chambers. “We see this as an important opportunity for our members, leading visual effects practitioners worldwide, to pay homage to our heritage and help shape the future of the global visual effects community. In...

Warner Bros. certainly seems to be working towards capitalizing on the success of Harley Quinn. While Suicide Squad may have been received negatively by critics, there’s no denying two things: the film made some real cash money, and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn was a big hit with fans. Warner Bros. has already started development on two films that may further utilize her.

The first Harley Quinn-led film is Gotham City Sirens, and the second is Suicide Squad 2 (we still don’t know for sure if Harley will be in it). It sounds like Warner Bros. is aiming for a trifecta of villain-led films. According to a new report from Screen Rant, they are hard at work at a Harley Quinn vs. the Joker film. As of right now, that’s supposedly only the working title, and there are no plot details.

It’s very possible that Warner Bros....

Netflix may be a bit of a juggernaut in today’s Golden Age of television, but they’re anything but on the film front. Earlier this year, audiences booed Okja at the Cannes Film Festival — not because it was bad, mind you, but because mere pretentiousness. In short, they’re up against a lot of film snobs stuck in their ways, so it’ll be more of an uphill battle for them to achieve the same kind of success.

This year, they have a few major releases. Already on the streaming on the service are War Machine and Okja, and later this year will see two more films released. The first major one is Death Note, a horror/thriller from The Guest director Adam Wingard. However, while that may be an anticipated film for manga fans, director David Ayer’s new film, Bright, is definitely the biggest one coming in...

Gambling, backstabbing, accidental brilliance, industrial sabotage, and suspicious disappearances all had a role in the birth of film. This is a look at the Victorian-era men who played vital roles in making movies possible.

The transition of film from still photography to the burgeoning industry that it is today did not happen overnight. Moving pictures began as a novelty act. In the mid 19th century, photographers would place successive metal film prints into spinning disks to create pictures that “moved”. Later, it was a wager by railroad tycoon Leland Stanford that gave moving pictures their first practical application. In 1878, he wanted to see if a horse ever had all of its legs off the ground when it ran, and a set-up of cameras in quick succession by Eadweard Muybridge gave him the answer of “yes”. Muybridge would develop this idea further, into a spinning lantern called the Zoopraxiscope to study the movement of animals.

Ryan Lambie May 31, 2017

A major exhibition at the Barbican explores the history of the sci-fi genre. We catch up with curator Patrick Gyger to tell us more...

Science fiction is now part of the mainstream. No longer confined to the pages of niche pulp magazines or cheap mass-market novels, no longer the preserve of low-budget B-movies, the genre is just about ubiquitous in modern pop culture. From hit films like Interstellar and Guardians Of The Galaxy to such TV shows as Black Mirror and best-selling novels like The Hunger Games, sci-fi has become a vital means of exploring and making sense of the world around us.

See related  John Wick 3 already on the cards John Wick 3: Keanu Reeves confirms his interest

For proof, look no further than Into The Unknown: A Journey Through Science Fiction, a major new exhibition which starts at the Barbican Centre on the 3rd June.

The film industry has been around for well over 100 years. Today, Cinelinx looks at some of the famous firsts that set the foundation for the movie industry and made cinema what it is today.

As a bit of trivia to begin with, the first known piece of moving film footage was the The Horse in Motion (1878), a 3-second experiment consisting of 24 photographs shot in rapid succession. It’s just a scene of a jockey riding a horse, but it ultimately led to the development of modern film.

Most early films were short, silent bits of daily life, showing such exciting events as boarding a train, which was captured in The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station (1895). This film footage supposedly scared the bejesus out of the viewing audience, who thought a real train was coming at them and ran for cover. Early films began to include documentary footage and newsreels,...

When Georges Méliès released his pioneering short film A Trip To The Moon in 1902, he was setting a precedent that filmmakers would follow for decades to come. If there’s one thing the movies still like to do over a century later, it’s putting human beings into rocket ships and firing them like bullets into the inky, unforgiving void of the cosmos. Fandor Keyframe celebrates this strange heritage with a video essay by Daniel Mcilwraith called “Cinematic Space Trips.” Here are some of moviedom’s most memorable excursions to infinity and beyond, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Gravity, Solaris, Interstellar, Dark Star, and The Martian.

Cinematic Space Trips from Fandor Keyframe on Vimeo.

The supercut focuses not on fantastic space operas like Star Wars; apart from the fanciful Méliès film, most of the titles included here aim for some kind of realism and authenticity. The result is not ...

George Lucas’ Thx 1138, Byron Haskin’s The War Of The Worlds and 1918 silent film A Trip To Mars among 27 features set to screen.

The Berlin Film Festival’s annual retrospective will be devoted to science fiction films at the 67th edition of the festival unfolding Feb 9-19 in 2017.

The sidebar – Future Imperfect. Science · Fiction · Film” - will screen a total of 27 international features, including classics, cult films and largely unknown productions from countries including Japan as well as central and European Europe.

Describing science fiction films as one of the most “visually stunning and spectacular genres in the history of film”, the festival said the event would focus on two themes: ‘the society of the future’ and ‘the strange and the other’.

“The possible worlds on earth or in space open up a vast scope for re-defining questions of collective visions and fears. So as a mirror for society’s public debates, science fiction...

Earlier this year, it was announced that Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection — perhaps the two most trusted names in the distribution and exhibition of important classic and contemporary cinema — would be joining forces to create a streaming service dedicated to sharing their combined library with cinephiles around the world. For months, it sounded too good to be true. Today, it suddenly became as real as the screen in front of your face.

If the movies are truly as dead as they say, then FilmStruck is nothing short of heaven on Earth. It’s here, it’s alive, and hot damn has it come out of the gate swinging. Hundreds of essential titles are ready to go on launch day, and while hundreds more are imminently on the way, there’s already more than enough to satisfy whatever mood you’re in and scratch itches that you didn’t even know you had.

The seemingly endless supplies of candy that come with Halloween are always a highlight of the holiday, but one of the sweetest treats for horror fans this time of year is Scream Factory's announcement of upcoming Blu-ray releases. This year is no exception, as Scream Factory has revealed ten new Blu-ray releases due out in 2017, including a Firestarter Collector's Edition, Deadtime Stories, The Screaming Skull, 1998's Psycho, Tales From the Hood, and more.

From Scream Factory: "Okay by now you know we couldn’t let this day go by without some title announcements right? ;-) Here’s some treats to look forward to on Blu-ray in 2017:

- Tales From The Hood (1995) – The often-requested anthology film (Executive Producer by Spike Lee!) will finally make its Blu-ray format debut.

- Deadtime Stories (1986) – Another fun and highly-requested anthology movie that many remember from the 80s which features Scott Valentine, Melissa Leo...

Between 1896 and 1912, Georges Méliès directed over 500 films, and his work during this crucial period of early cinema has left an indelible legacy in the past century. Pioneering early narrative films and employing theatrical illusions, Méliès’ films are powerful examples of what seemingly “simple” technological achievement can accomplish. Films like “A Trip to the Moon” (1902) and “The Impossible Voyage” (1904) still command attention after all of these years because of the imagination and craft on display.

Read More: Air’s Soundtrack For Georges Méliès ‘A Trip To The Moon’ Getting A Release

Now, researchers at the Czech national film archives have found two-minute 1904 silent film “Match de Prestidigitation” by Méliès thought to have been lost forever. In the film, a magician divides himself into two; the doubles then take turns performing magic before joining back together again.

“The reel was titled ‘Les Transmutations Imperceptibles,’ which is the name of another work by Méliès.

This was a busy year at Tiff, where I was a juror for Fipresci, helping to award a prize for best premiere in the Discovery section. Not only did this mean that some other films had to take a back burner—sadly, I did not see Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge—but my writing time was a bit compromised as well. Better late than never? That is for you, Gentle Reader, to decide.Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa, Germany)So basic in the telling—a record of several days’ worth of visitors mostly to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienberg, Germany—Austerlitz is a film that in many ways exemplifies the critical theory of Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. What is the net effect for humanity when, faced with the drive to remember the unfathomable, we employ the grossly inadequate tools at our disposal?Austerlitz takes its name from W. G. Sebald’s final novel.

Abramorama is now a one-stop shop for theatrical and digital film distribution.

The company has partnered with digital distribution platform Distribber.com to give Abramorama’s new U.S. theatrical titles a digital release. Rather than taking a percentage of a movie’s video-on-demand revenue, however, Distribber.com charges a one-time flat fee and annual fee, letting filmmakers keep 100 percent of revenue generated from subscription services like Amazon Prime and Netflix and from transactional platforms like iTunes. The arrangement prevents artists from having to give up ownership of their intellectual property.

Read More: How This Robert Redford-Narrated Doc Went From Self-Distribution to Finding a Home

“Something that has been our mandate from the beginning is to empower filmmakers so that they’re not signing their lives away,” Abramorama President Richard Abramowitz told IndieWire. Filmmakers whose movies have been released theatrically have traditionally had to give up control of their...

“It can be said with certainty that any reviewer who pans [Mission to Mars] does not understand movies, let alone like them,” declared Armond White in 2000. While perhaps an over-corrective to the critical drubbing the film had just received, there’s nonetheless a grain of truth in his statement. Far from being a pale imitation of 2001: A Space Odyssey, as many reviewers accused, Mission to Mars actively deflates its predecessor’s misanthropy and grandeur – on one level, it’s a lavish, epic-scale lark from a director who’s often been as much a satirist as a craftsman.

With a budget of $100 million, it was and still is the most expensive project Brian De Palma has tackled. It’s also the only straight-up piece of science fiction among his filmography, as well as a relatively wholesome, PG-rated affair – a rarity for this most salacious of mainstream American filmmakers. Originally to be directed by...

The movies have been a great inspiration for real-life space programs since Georges Melies gave us A Trip to the Moon, so it's not surprising to learn that members of the movie industry are now actually working for the space industry. No, today's equivalent of Stanley Kubrick hasn't been hired to fake a Mars landing. We're talking a legimate gig. Costume designer Jose Fernandez, of Ironhead Studio (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; Captain America: Civil War), revealed to Bleep magazine that he's been working on real spacesuits for the private aerospace company Space X. He wasn't even aware of who they were when he was contacted to particpate in the bidding process. And then Fernandez, who's worked on numerous sci-fi movies...

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Mars has fascinated astronomers and filmmakers in equal measure. Ever since 1918's "A Trip to Mars," filmmakers have been eager to journey to the red planet. Some of the more memorable movies to land on Mars include "Total Recall" and last year's Oscar-nominated Matt Damon vehicle, "The Martian." With President Obama's recent declaration that a manned mission to Mars could be viable for orbit by the 2030s, our overall renewed fascination with the fourth planet from the sun, and "The Martian" racking in more than $630 million dollars in box office receipts, it was inevitable that Hollywood's focus on the planet would continue. "Approaching the Unknown" is the next one in line. Directed by first-timer Mark Elijah Rosenberg and starring Mark Strong, it follows William D. Stanaforth, an astronaut who heads on a one-way mission to explore the red planet. Of course, since we're dealing with science fiction and the unknown,...

Photo: M.Craig

Georges Méliès’ A Trip To The Moon, Apollo 13, The Right Stuff, HBO’s “From The Earth To The Moon.” Since the birth of cinema, audiences have been preoccupied with trips to our closest celestial body. Hollywood and Nasa merge once again – this time to tell the story of Captain Gene Cernan in the documentary The Last Man On The Moon.

This is the story of one of the very few men who went to the moon not only once, but twice. He first went to the moon on the Apollo 10 mission. It was the dress rehearsal for Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. His next flight was Apollo 17, the last time men would go to the moon. Riding aboard a Saturn V rocket, the largest and most powerful and impressive rocket that ever successfully flew, he was on man’s last mission to explore earth’s closest neighbor.

The silent film era is one of the richest and most interesting periods in the history of motion pictures, though it’s also an era we don’t know as much about as, say, the "golden era" of the 1970s. Yet it’s hard to escape the influence of this age — after all, many hardened cinephiles consider the filmography of directors like Charlie Chaplin and George Melies to be required viewing for anyone who takes cinema seriously as an art form. It was Melies, after all, who gave audiences “A Trip to the Moon,” whose iconographic image of the man in the moon appears in Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,” and also in this new video essay, which takes a look at the ways in which the silent era was impactful for more contemporary filmmakers. Read More: 12-Minute Video Essay Breaks Down The Art Of Movie Editing In many cases, it...

I’m nominated for an Oscar for Ex Machina’s visual effects, but the increasing sophistication and falling costs of CGI means almost all movies feature it – and it’s no longer the scapegoat for shoddy work elsewhere

Visual effects are not new. They’ve been integral to cinema from the start, from Georges Méliès’s 1902 film A Trip to the Moon to Citizen Kane; from Star Wars to, well, Star Wars again. But unlike other departments such as costume design or sound mixing, the technology that drives VFX advances quickly. This innovation is directly reflected on screen, and when a film seems shoddy, it’s the new and unfamiliar which are often blamed.

Computer-generated imagery has been the technology pushing change in VFX for the past 20 years. The term is something of a misnomer: these effects are no more created by a computer than Microsoft Word creates the modern novel.

20th Century Fox

Before technological advances and audience thirst for innovation and unique creativity changed how cinematic achievements are charted, it used to be that we could chart watershed moments in easy chapters.

In 1897 the first studios were formed; 1902 saw A Trip To The Moon in colour; in 1927 sound came with The Jazz Singer… Now, everything is so grand and epic that the spectacular is normal. But that wasn’t the case in 1985, the last truly transformative film year.

If you were lucky enough to live it, it was like a series of ground-zero events that would shake cinema to its core, but because of its importance, there’s no way even the youngest ticket buying film fans could escape its legacy.

Obviously the best films of the year are important to note, but bringing up classics like Brazil, Prizzi’s Honour, Out Of Africa, Ran and The Color Purple is too easy,...

From George Melies through to Peter Jackson and Jj Abrams' Star Wars film, the rise, fall and rise of practical effects explored...

From the very earliest days of cinema, practical effects have been the big draw for audiences. The very first films may have wowed the crowds with images of trains pulling into a station, but it was the fantastical made real that fired the imaginations of millions, and led to film as we know it - narrative flights of fancy which have entertained and made us gasp for well over 100 years. But the last 25 years have seen practical effects fall by the wayside.

Digital effects created in a computer took over, and allowed filmmakers to dream even bigger. But practical effects are beginning to make a comeback. Some of this is due to audiences feeling the CG burnout; no longer quite believing what they’re seeing, resulting in...

As kids, we looked ahead to the imminent 21st century and thought of a big bold, sci-fi future. The robot butler and trips to the drug store in hovercars version hasn’t yet arrived, but the first 15 years of this century have been extremely fruitful for big-screen science fiction. Sci-fi is almost as old as cinema itself —1902's Georges Méliès’ “A Trip To The Moon” is generally seen as the first example— but it became hugely popular in late 20th century filmmaking in the aftermath of “Star Wars,” if also somewhat watered down. Many so-called sci-fi blockbusters were really action movies with some fantastical trappings, rather than thoughtful, provocative examinations of the world we live in through speculation about worlds we might live in. That’s still true to an extent, but the last decade-and-a-half have seen a flourishing of smaller-scale, ingenious sci-fi pictures, as well as some dazzling bigger-scale...

Universal Pictures released their new action film, "Fast And Furious 7" (Furious 7) into theaters today, and all the top, major movie critics have submitted their reviews. It turns out that it resonated pretty well with most of them, getting an overall 66 score out of a possible 100 across 38 reviews at the Metacritic.com site. The film stars: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Tony Jaa, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Djimon Hounsou, and Lucas Black. We've posted blurbs from a couple of the critics, below. Peter Travers from Rolling Stone, gave it a great 88 score, stating: "Furious 7 is the best F&F by far, two hours of pure pow fueled by dedication and passionate heart." Betsy Sharkey from the Los Angeles Times, gave it an 80 score, stating: "Furious 7 is the fuel-injected fusion of all that is and ever has been good in "The Fast and the Furious" saga.

Whether you're interested in becoming an experimental film artist or a documentarian in need of archive material, we've got just the thing for you: The Public Domain Project is a compilation of lots of free video footage, still images, audio files and 3D models. Going back as early as the 19th century and as recent as stock photos of President Obama, this content is all in the public domain, as the name implies, and it's a mix of nonfiction and fiction works, the latter including Georges Melies's 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon and Charlie Chaplin's 1914 short Kid Auto Races at Venice.  You don't have to be creative to appreciate the project, though. I've enjoyed just perusing the clips on the site and watching bits of history and...

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"Reach for the Stars" is a supercut of space exploration films that is cut to the trailer of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. The video was created by Movieclips, and some of the movies included in it are 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apollo 13, The Right Stuff, several Star Trek films, and even George Méliès classic 1902 feature, A Trip to the Moon. I also included the Interstellar trailer that the video was cut to so that you could compare if you wanted.

I’m a huge fan of this type of movie, as I’ve always been fascinated by space exploration and astronomy. Interstellar is easily one of my favorites. It’s strange for me to see so many mixed reviews for it, but I guess some people just couldn’t handle the greatness of it.

There is no better art form for space travel than cinema. Sure, there are plenty of excellent high flying science fiction novels, and television has had plenty of great interplanetary adventures over the years, but nothing really holds a candle to the movies. One can even compare a cinema to a spaceship, the theater going experience a less hokey version of a ride at Disneyland. 2001: A Space Odyssey is the intergalactic elephant of the genre, of course, but audiences have been captivated by space travel at least since Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon. That’s over a century of grand, bombastic and enormously ambitious films that explore the breadth and depth of the universe. And now we have Interstellar, equally convinced of the magic of cinema and the essential task of maintaining its majesty on 70mm, while extending its reach into IMAX. It follows in the large, distant...

As most everyone in America knows by this point, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar arrives in theaters this weekend. Not every critic has been blown away, but that shouldn't stop it from making an absolute fortune in the coming weeks. If at all possible, try to see it on an iMax screen.

 

Now we have a question for you: What is the greatest science fiction movie of all time? Feel free to vote for an classic like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Godzilla, a more recent flick like Gravity or Children of Men...

Over the last few decades, we've seen many filmmakers take audiences to the reaches of outerspace, and with Christopher Nolan's Interstellar hitting theaters this weekend, we have a brand new supercut that celebrates some amazing cinematic trips to the stars. The video comes to us from the folks over at Fandango, and while it's (understandably) a little heavy on the Interstellar footage, it's hard not to be impressed. There are more than 20 films that come together to make up this supercut, and while it comes together beautifully, it's actually kind of funny that some of the movie's sourced were not exactly celebrated pieces of cinema. Can you guess all of them? Write down as many titles as you can and then compare it to the list of 21 films below! 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apollo 13, Apollo 18, A Trip to The Moon (1902), Europa Report, Gravity, Interstellar, Noah, Nutty Professor 2, October Sky,...

As Interstellar arrives in cinemas, James salutes those films that take us, well, somewhere else...

(Note: this article discusses the ending of Gravity and 2001: A Space Odyssey and it will also hurl you into the void of outer space. Don't panic, and remember: "In space no one can hear you scream".)

We're going Interstellar. Finally, one of the most-eagerly awaited films of the year has landed in cinemas to pick us up and take us beyond the stratosphere and out of Earth's orbit. Interstellar will then, as the title suggests, propel us even further and push us beyond the outer reaches of the Solar System.

That's an exhilarating prospect but, putting the conceptual idea aside for a moment, Interstellar is exciting simply because it's a Christopher Nolan movie. For his first feature since The Dark Knight trilogy's finale he's assembled a cast of high-calibre stars (Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway,...

If you say 2001: A Space Odyssey, you lose a testicle. That’s how I feel about the talk around Christopher Nolan‘s Interstellar and its comparisons to the Stanley Kubrick classic. Yes, there are a few reasons to mention the almost 50 years old sci-fi epic, but there are also reasons to mention the more than 100 years old A Trip to the Moon. Those are ancient, highly influential basics, and in a way any movie involving space travel should be linked back to them. They’re also understood by anyone to be essentials, so there’s little need for my added recommendation. I’d rather devote this week’s list of movies to see to less obvious works, especially since I’m including more titles than usual with this one. Interstellar is an original feature, but it’s very much drawn from other material, one predecessor of which may have had footage directly transplanted by Nolan. It...

The movies’ love affair with space exploration is almost as old as the movies themselves, reaching all the way back to A Trip To The Moon with that iconic image of a rocket planting itself in the eye of the man in the moon way, waaay back in 1902. For most of the next decades, outer space became a backdrop for flights of fancy, from the classic 1930’s “Flash Gordon” kiddie matinee serials through the “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” franchises (with this Summer’s mega hit Guardians Of The Galaxy igniting another series). It wasn’t until 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey that film makers really began grounding space flight flicks in a more scientific reality, much like last year’s Gravity, while The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 looked back on the history of manned space missions. Now, after completing a successful screen revamp of the caped crusader for...

There's no getting around it. Science fiction provides the bedrock for pretty much all of the biggest blockbusters Hollywood is producing at the moment.

The genre has fuelled the imagination of filmmakers right the way back to Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon, a 9-minute black-and-white short that charted an expedition into space.

Sci-fi moved quickly as Hollywood developed new visual effects to tell vastly different stories. From the transcendent 2001: A Space Odyssey to the galaxy-hopping soap opera of Star Wars, right through to horror Alien and the thrill-ride of Gravity, the genre has proved to be more malleable than any other.

Just this year, we've seen Marvel infuse the superhero movie with a dose of sci-fi in Guardians of the Galaxy - a movie that currently sits on top of the 2014 worldwide box office with a staggering $650 million in ticket sales.

The BFI are also launching...

Sometimes it’s just a joke, sometimes it has hidden meaning, and sometimes it’s simply the director showing off their eclectic taste in all things celluloid (read: Quentin Tarantino). But one thing’s for sure: the annals of cinema history are littered with movie-in-movie moments.

The granddaddy of movie-in-movie moments comes from The Shawshank Redemption – released twenty years ago today. So in honour of its anniversary, we thought we’d go all “meta” by looking back at ten of the most memorable movie-in-movie moments to grace the multiplex.

Gilda (1946) in The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Though it’s probably a little bit cruel to show prison inmates Rita Hayworth at her finest, this 40’s classic plays a prominent role in the film’s plot as Andy later uses a poster from the 1946 noir to cover the entrance to the tunnel that he’s painstakingly carved out of the prison walls.

The Evil Dead...

United Artists

As everyone knows, cinema is largely male-centric. From early shorts like The Great Train Robbery (1903) or A Trip to the Moon (1902), to the biggest superhero films of this current summer, males have and continue to dominate movie screens across the world.

One common storyline in this male dominated medium are tales which revolve around close male friendships. Now, the content of these stories can fall across a broad spectrum, but those where the men involved express any affection for one another are often referred to in pop culture as being “bromantic” in nature. Now, more often than not, films featuring a male friendship do not consider the topic seriously. Typically, the best case scenario is that these relationships appear as comedic relief. At worst they often suggest something insidious or inflammatory, such as the accusations of “gay panic” often directed at the bromantic films of Judd Apatow.

Still,...

Over at The Telegraph, Robbie Collin has chosen to take on the impossible, he's set out to create a list of films that tells the story of Hollywood "in terms of how one picture or director led to the next." It's a daunting task that creates an interesting narrative and he prefaces his ten selections saying: ...none of the individual works is "great" or "important" enough to drown out the others. I've avoided films such as Citizen Kane, Vertigo, Singin' in the Rain, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia and The Godfather, not just because we already know they're great, but because their greatness might throw the story off-balance - although I wouldn't hesitate to describe any of the films that are on this list as a masterpiece. So how does his list shape outc Have a look: One Week (1920) - dir. Buster Keaton It Happened One Night (1934) - dir.

We return with another edition of the Indie Spotlight, highlighting recent independent horror news sent our way. Today’s feature includes first details from Kadence and soon-to-be feature length film, Headless, a new Phantasmagoria poster, a teaser video for Bad Kids Go 2 Hell, a review of The Well, and more:

First Details on Kadence: “Still reeling from the loss of his mother, a damaging and complex relationship with his father, and a relentless battle with his own inner demons, Kadin’s [17] grip on reality is loosening by the day. Amid this struggle comes an enigmatic and brazen new neighbor, Marissa [19], who, along with the promise of a budding new friendship gives Kadin an ancient voodoo doll. Her reassurance is seductive and the promise of a brighter future leads Kadin to make a sinister choice.

Kadence, a short film blending psychological horror with a chilling character drama that could...

Just over a week ago, Ok Go premiered the video for their new single “The Writing’s on the Wall”. Appropriately, the Internet responded with the expected “oohs” and “ahhs”. But, of the dozen or so articles I checked out regarding the video, said articles were no longer than a couple hundred word blurbs that briefly mentioned that Ok Go makes cool videos and this was another one of them. I would not call myself a music connoisseur by any means, but I do adore music and I adore music videos. I think we should talk about them with more respect. Let’s talk about their relationship to film, both formally and textually. Let’s talk about how film informed music video aesthetic and how, subsequently, music video informed film aesthetic. Let’s talk about how directors have jumped back and for between the medium and how that’s affected their overall style.

If you want to see how far the visual effects industry has come in 136 years, look no further than this incredible three-minute video by YouTuber Jim Casey. Also read: ‘Gravity’ Dominates Visual Effects Society Awards “The Evolution of Visual Effects” has been a viral hit since it premiered on the video sharing site May 6. Casey's video features rapid clips of movies starting all the way back in 1878, when the zoetrope first introduced the moving image. Classics like “A Trip to the Moon,” “King Kong,” “Steamboat Willie” and “The Ten Commandments” all make appearances before “Jurassic Park,” “Independence Day,” “Gravity” and.

Recently, someone on my Twitter feed ruminated that directors used to proudly point out instances of visual effects, where today, they are want to highlight in camera effects. The times they are a changin’. This supercut from Jim Casey neatly considers the evolution of VFX across 136 years, from 1878 to today. With glimpses of Le Voyage dans la Lune and Metropolis to Gravity and Inception, the aesthetic beauty of the films has arguably improved, if at the expense of the overall storytelling. I’m still scratching my head over last year’s rapturous response to Gravity, which merely proved that 3-D could be artful, even if the script was still pedestrian.

Recently, someone on my Twitter feed ruminated that directors used to proudly point out instances of visual effects, where today, they are want to highlight in camera effects. The times they are a changin’. This supercut from Jim Casey neatly considers the evolution of VFX across 136 years, from 1878 to today. With glimpses of Le Voyage dans la Lune and Metropolis to Gravity and Inception, the aesthetic beauty of the films has arguably improved, if at the expense of the overall storytelling. I’m still scratching my head over last year’s rapturous response to Gravity, which merely proved that 3-D could be artful, even if the script was still pedestrian.

Isabella Rossellini and Salman Rushdie with Antonio Monda. Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The 2014 Le Conversazioni literary festival celebrating the relationship between art, architecture, literature, and film took place at the Morgan Library & Museum on Thursday, May 8 in New York. Artistic Director of Le Conversazioni, Antonio Monda, discussed with Isabella Rossellini and Salman Rushdie films that influenced their lives and work.

Isabella Rossellini chose Charlie Chaplin's The Circus (1928), Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli (1950), A Trip To The Moon (Voyage Dans La Lune,1902) by Georges Méliès and Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959).

Salman Rushdie picked François Truffaut's Jules Et Jim (1962) and three of the most influential science fiction movies from the second half of the 20th century, two of them directed by Stanley Kubrick. Dr Strangelove (1964) and his 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). His fourth selection was Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982).

Dancing In The Dark from The Bandwagon

Eight clips,...

We love a good supercut around these parts and while I won't say that this new one is the end-all-be-all of supercuts, it is one hell of a spectacular watch. 1001 Movie You Must See (Before You Die) is a list based on the book of the same name by Steven Jay Schneider and compiles an outstanding batch of footage from the films in the line-up, which includes films from every genre and time period since the beginning of the medium, from A Trip To The Moon to Skyfall. It's a great...

The latest slice of broody Scandinavian quality drama, Pioneer, is already touted for a Us remake. Like The Abyss without all the bothersome alien space tubes, it tells of a group of civilian divers who encounter the perils of the deep first-hand when they're sent to help construct a new oil pipeline deep below the surface of the North Sea. To add the requisite atmosphere and mood, French band Air have stepped up to deliver a score that is rich in both. There's no official soundtrack per se, but the band has composed a series of unnamed cues for the film and Empire is happy to be able to share six of them with you right here.Air, of course, have a rich film pedigree. They scored Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides and supplied tracks for Lost In Translation and Marie Antoinette, and in 2010 composed a new score for Georges Méliès great silent sci-fi,...

Writing in Artforum in 2009 about what he called "the New Real-ness" of digital cinema, critic J. Hoberman identified two basic tendencies present at cinema's inception, contrasting the "undirected" actualities of the Lumiere brothers with the trick films of Georges Melies. In the former, the camera primarily captures recognizable images of the real world. In the latter, camera and editing conspire to produce filmic effects, and to create a reality that we can only experience through film. A trip to the moon, for example. Digital cinema, the argument goes, erased the relationship between the camera and reality inherent in the photographic image. The picture made of pixels is infinitely malleable, and reality can be built from the ground up. But how reliable was the photographic image? Matthew Brady, chronicler of the American Civil War and one of the world's first photojournalists, famously altered elements in the compositions of his photographs, rearranging debris on a battlefield.

Here’s a montage showing the “evolution of film” from vimeo user Scott Ewing that grabbed my attention. It’s well put together and definitely reminds you of just how far we have come in terms of size, scope and technology when it comes to film. He describes it as:

The following montage chronicles the evolution of film from its conception in 1878 by Edward J. Muybridge to the Lumiere brothers in 1895. Georges Melies a trip to the moon in 1902 was a total game changer and from there we go to the first theatrical releases starting in 1920-2014.

Read his full description of the work here and watch the video below along with a list of the movies shown:

Film Clips Used

1878 – Eadweard J. Muybridge – Pioneer of Motion Photography

1895 – Auguste & Louis Lumière- Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon

1902 – A Trip to the Moon – Viaje a la Luna – Le Voyage dans la lune...

This short video definitely has an affection for Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Steven Spielberg, but I found it to be an entertaining peek through the history of cinema while also managing to include quite a few 2014 features in its running time. Created by Scott Ewing, he posts in the description the following: This montage began as a labor of love and quickly became an obsession of mine. Many days and hours were spent researching clips, downloading and editing. This could not have been possible without the complete and total encouragement from my wife Tiffany ... you rock! The following montage chronicles the evolution of film from its conception in 1878 by Edward J. Muybridge to the Lumiere brothers in 1895. Georges Melies A Trip To The Moon in 1902 was a total game changer and from there we go to the first theatrical releases starting in 1920-2014 ... this portion of the montage is chronological.

In the Austin Film Society's ongoing Godard vs. Truffaut series, it's time to return to the world of Antoine Doinel this weekend. The 1962 short film Antoine Et Collette will be paired with 1967's Stolen Kisses. Both films will screen in 35mm tonight and again on Sunday afternoon at the Marchesa. On Tuesday night, you can head up to the Afs Screening Room at Austin Studios for an Avant Cinema screening of the 1929 experimental Russian film Man With A Movie Camera.

Make sure you're back at the Marchesa on Wednesday night as Richard Linklater kicks off his new series Jewels In The Wasteland: A Trip Through '80s Cinema with Martin Scorsese's The King Of Comedy screening in a brand new print. This is the first film in the 1980-1983 portion of the 35mm series, which will be programmed through May. Linklater himself will be introducing all the films and hosting post-screening discussions,...

Today’s film is the 1902 short A Trip to the Moon. Also known by the title Le voyage dans la lune, this film is one of the earliest shorts in existence, and the precursor to the science fiction genre. It is directed and written by George Méliès, who adapted it from novels by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Méliès also stars in the film, one of over 500 shorts he made over the course of a career spanning 17 years. Méliès has been credited by many for pioneering a number of film techniques, and many of his works are now in the public domain. He was also the focus of the 2011 film Hugo.

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The post Saturday Shorts: ‘A Trip to the Moon’, by George Méliès appeared first on Sound On Sight.

This fall, Alfonso Cuarón’s much-anticipated follow up to Children of Men, Gravity, opened to nearly universal acclaim with many proclaiming that its groundbreaking use of 3D and CGI set a new standard for visual FX. Like other cinematic pioneers before him, Cuarón built upon a legacy of technological innovation to help him invent a new and enthralling way to tell a cinematic story.

A long history of cinematic evolution paved the way for what Cuarón accomplished with his new feature; so, in the interest of placing Gravity’s achievement in context, we will take a look back at the films that took those first few steps on the evolutionary road that would lead to Gravity: ten movies with mind-blowing FX that pushed the envelope.

(Minor Spoilers)

9. A Trip To The Moon (1902)

French illusionist George Méliès gave the world its first special effects extravaganza with his 1902 film A Trip to The Moon.