A pensive Daniel Day-Lewis turned Abraham Lincoln appears in this black and white poster of DreamWorks' Lincoln due to hit U.S. theaters in November - actually only days after the 44th POTUS or the 45th POTUS wins the U.S. election. Directed by Steven Spielberg, Lincoln spotlights the 16th President of the United States during his final months in office.
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Steven Spielberg likes IMAX's Raiders of the Lost Ark conversion. He really likes it! In an interview with Yahoo!, the uber-director said that he was "dubious" when IMAX approached him about giving his 1981 action-adventure classic the 70 mm mega-screen treatment, but ended up being way more than pleasantly surprised. more »
A simple E-F-E-F bass line progression is all it took to make a generation of moviegoers scared spitless to swim in the ocean. With Steven Spielberg's classic 1975 beach emptier Jaws set for Blu-ray release on Tuesday, composer John Williams talks about the simple-but-oh-so-effective theme he created for the film's voracious Great White shark in an interview with John Burlingame.
According to the interview, the first and only music Williams played for Spielberg prior to the recording sessions was what would eventually become known as the Jaws theme that Williams says was "so simple, insistent and driving, that it seems unstoppable, like the attack of the shark." more »
The deep thoughtful look, the craggy face — the signature beard. Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis resonates as Abraham Lincoln in this first shot of him in full character for Steven Spielberg's upcoming epic about the nation's 16th president, Lincoln. more »
Also in Friday morning's round-up of news briefs, China is readying a simultaneous roll-out of Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises; a rundown of new titles in an otherwise quiet weekend for new specialty releases. And highlights from the upcoming HollyShorts Film Festival in Hollywood.
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No one really doubted that Steven Spielberg's long-gestating, class-AA historical biopic Lincoln wouldn't land a release date in the middle of Oscar season. But with Disney announcing today that it will release the Daniel Day-Lewis-starring, Tony Kushner-written film in limited release on Nov. 9 — three days after Election Day — the studio has situated Lincoln in a zone ripe for hype.
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Indiana Jones junkies and future admirers will have a field day come September. The series of films are all coming out on Blue-ray full restored. It's hard to believe that it was back in 1981 when Steven Spielberg and executive producer George Lucas first brought Indiana Jones to the screen with Raiders of the Lost Ark. Now that film has been fully restored along with the archeologist's (played of course by Harrison Ford) other adventures.
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I went to see Prometheus over the weekend, and like many of you, I was disappointed (to put it lightly). Although a technical achievement in every way, the narrative and characters left much to be desired. The mystery I wanted solved was not the black goo or the Engineers — it was how the creative team of Ridley Scott, Damon Lindelof, and Jon Spaihts could produce a movie with such rudimentary mistakes. There have been casts of Scream movies with more intelligence than this lineup of characters. The connective tissue between the film’s big set pieces felt as if plucked from a Random Idea Generator program online; even the mythology was mucked up as the film dissolved into a by-the-book sci-fi thriller by the end.
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It's not every day that a studio turns 100. As such, Universal is making the most of its centennial with a host of events including the recent Tribeca Film Festival shout out to the the company courtesy of Robert DeNiro and Judd Apatow. But today, April 30, is the big day itself, and to kick off the first day of its second century, the company released "100 fun facts" from its history.
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"He then began threatening the exhibitors to put his movie in their theaters, or else he said he might detonate imaginary bombs underneath their seats. 'Is that chewing gum underneath your seat? Certainly they are not plastic explosives,' he teased. 'Trust me, there are bigger bombs in John Carter. Just shoot the executive behind that. Oh — wait, you did,' he said, referring to [Rich] Ross's recent departure from Disney. But perhaps the harshest zinger was aimed at Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks. To urge CinemaCon attendees to see a screening of The Dictator later Monday evening, Cohen promised free Rolexes, blood diamonds, and young girls — 'or boys, if you are from DreamWorks.'" [LAT]
Despite (nay, thanks largely to) its $12.76 budget, Steven Spielberg's contribution to the 'Laser Cats' canon last night on SNL — featuring callouts to most of his major films and/or franchises — was arguably his most entertaining work since Catch Me If You Can. I liked it a lot more than War Horse, anyway. This is a man turning a creative corner!
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*: As determined by Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics after crunching 23 weeks of data from the awards cognoscenti and beyond. Thank you for reading; our work here is done.
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You know that when two of the most respected pundits in all of Oscardom argue (within days of each other!) for curtailing both the epic Academy Awards season race and the ceremony in which it culminates, patience for all this crap is wearing thin. With that in mind — and also considering that the "race" for most of these categories ended weeks or months ago — who's up for an Oscar Index lightning round? (The entire staff at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics raises its hands.) OK, then — to the Index!
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"Let's have a moment of silence for the suffering Oscar bloggers as they enter the most trying and mortifying weeks of their labors." Such was Glenn Kenny's tweeted lament earlier this week -- one eerily anticipating today's latest, sanity-thrashing edition of Oscar Index. And that's just its effect on readers! You really don't want to see the catatonic pall saturating Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. On the other hand, we're gonna make a fortune recycling this mounting pile of wine bottles. To the Index!
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It's a little difficult for the specialists at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics to come into work these days, what with the pall of predictability settling in over the awards landscape and the painstaking studies into backlash physics yielding less and less of practical substance. What's a frustrated kudologist to do? Besides drink for the next four weeks straight, I mean. Let's look for ideas and encouragement for all in this week's Oscar Index.
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