Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the film’s release, this is the definitive story of the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey, acclaimed today as one of the greatest films ever made, including the inside account of how director Stanley Kubrick and writer Arthur C. Clarke created this cinematic masterpiece. This is the ultimate "DVD Extra" of a book. Every single detail of the genesis and revelation of 2001 is documented in painstaking detail. The author has exclusive access to original m…
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I'm incredibly disappointed with "Doctor" Emmett Brown. His forays into time-travel could have extremely profound consequences for the space/time continuum. Worse than that, his time machine has a crap user interface. In this clip from "Back To The Future" we get a brief glimpse at the controls for setting the destination date: Ok, we can forgive Brown for not sticking to ISO-8601 - that is the eminently sensible Year-Month-Day-Hours-Minutes-Seconds format - the standard was finalised in…
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The horror of the quantified audience The cinema is on the deserted outskirts of Pinewood Studios. It's a wet and windy day — not unusual for England in late summer — and I'm here to take a look at the future of audience test screenings. My friend, Ross, has asked me to take a test drive of his company's newest way of destroying artistic integrity helping movie studios connect better with their audiences. Thursday mornings aren't my preferred time to sit on a cheap polyester chair and tip my …
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I'm watching all of Woody Allen's films in chronological order. After his previous films, it's hard to see why anyone would let Woody Allen make another comedy. I'm glad they did! "Bananas" is the first truly funny Woody Allen film. Right from the start it contains gags which - amazingly - make you laugh. A departure from his earlier films! The jokes come at an even pace, a good mix of satire, slapstick, surrealism, and sight gags. The semi-improvised dialogue has a "stand-up" feel to…
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I'm watching all of Woody Allen's films in chronological order. Take The Money And Run has a promising start. A faux documentary with some excellent gags. But it leaps around the story with no real regard for the viewer. It's possibly the first "mockumentary" and, as such, is a trail-blazing piece. But as with his earlier films the gags are few and far between. Once the jokes hit, they're often substandard and fall flat. You can buy Take The Money And Run from Amazon. …
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I'm watching all of Woody Allen's films in chronological order. Set in Paris, a struggling writer on the brink of a loveless marriage seeks solace in the city's many nocturnal delights. Featuring a suicidal young woman, a cameo by Toulouse-Lautrec, and some delightful shots of Paris and its surrounding countryside. Is this Woody Allen's "Midnight In Paris"? No, it's his 1965 film "What's New Pussycat". It is a film of its time - a bawdy sex comedy set in the swinging sixties - so it seems…
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I'm watching all of Woody Allen's films in chronological order. I'll confess, I tried watching What's Up Tiger Lilly a few years ago. I didn't get more than 40 minutes into it before switching it off in a mixture of boredom and disgust. I'm not sure who first came up with the idea of revoicing a movie - making snarky comments about the action on screen - but this is one of the most influential and successful. How it became so successful is entirely a mystery to me. For a comedy film, it is…
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As I watched Woody Allen's latest film - Midnight in Paris - I realised that there are so many films of his that I haven't seen. So, I have a brand new resolution for 2012. Watch every single film Woody Allen has made. In chronological order. Posting reviews on this blog. Woody has made over 40 films - so I'll be aiming to watch one per week over the next year. I'll be watching all the films he has directed and - where possible - those he has written. Let's go! …
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To whoever is responsible for this QR code marketing monstrosity: go home. Seriously, pack up the tools of your trade, go home, pour yourself a stiff drink, and weep at what you have done. The Poster Here's a fun game for all the family! Play "spot the QR code" on this poster... Bzzzzzt! Time's up! Did ya see it? What? No! How could that be? Let's zoom in... There! Right beside the warnings of "mild peril" lurks the QR code. Tiny, overly dense, and with no call to action. Try…
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Seen in the latest issue of Sport Magazine - this rather interesting QR advert for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. This is a really well executed campaign which should serve as a template to other advertisers. There are, of course, one or two issues that I have with it. Let's start by zooming in to the QR Code. Explanatory Text It's great to have a little note to explain to people what to do with a QR code. A couple of interesting points. It recommends get.beettagg.com - this is…
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Well, looks like I was right. The good folks at ShowFilmFirst did treat us to an advanced screening of Tron: Legacy. They specifically asked us to embargo our reviews until 2200 tonight. That's given me plenty of time to ruminate on just how disappointed this movie left me. This review is spoiler free. By which I mean, there's so little plot, there's not much to spoil. Neo goes into the Matrix, fights Boba Fett, recovers Excalibur, Learns A Valuable Lesson, gets the girl. WARNING! This…
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I'm a big fan Show Film First. A company which aims to get people to preview screenings of films - for free. There's also a confusingly similarly named company called See Film First with broadly similar aims. I'm not sure what, if any, relationship the two have. Show Film First concentrate mainly on bloggers - getting them to exclusive screenings in the hope that they will generate some online buzz about a movie before release. To help you on your way to creating a blog, they've created a…
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