Greetings Film Fans!
Some films to see this week…for the horror lover who is in the mood for something different, there’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, on TCM. It sets a slow pace, but don’t be fooled- there are some moments designed to make you lose your popcorn. Also recommended for fright fans: Seeing the Original Halloween before seeing any remake with or without Jamie Lee Curtis!
At the Movies this week: First Man is opening with Ryan Gosling and has been getting generally good reviews.
The MCU in Hollywood: Here’s one recommended read in 6 Degrees magazine. The article is titled: “How the Marvel Cinematic Universe Changed Hollywood.” There are some valid points made: 1) Big actors are not needed in these films; 2) A Billion-dollar industry has been created where plot points can glide from one film to another and be picked up and shared with different films; 3) The ‘coolness’ of superheroes (I guess?) is another argument… but they also claim that ‘movies will never be the same again’; which is a stretch, as the world of Harry Potter, in my opinion, has had more of an effect. I’ve written a book about the real game-changer, which, of course, was the Star Wars Universe. Comic book genre films are here to stay, and that is true, but the impact due to the huge impression made with the post-film credits is an exaggeration. Marvel films are hits; Star Wars changed the direction of cinema forever.
Here’s an excerpt from the book:
6 Degrees of Film: The Future of Film in the Global Village:
From Star Wars to Sin City:
Industrial Light and Magic has framed the era
and defined it with their many breakthroughs in visual effects.
The storyboarding that is critical to their vision is now a major
part of most successful film series, and the comic genre that
has emerged would not have been a reality without the effects
of ILM.
The criticism that Lucas and Spielberg films have
juvenilized the movies, to my mind, is unfair. These filmmakers
have given the public what they want, and there never has
been a dearth of creative talent in the film industry.
On the contrary, there are many exciting new avenues for young
and innovative minds to bring their creations to the screen,
including Internet productions and independent venues. We
are always seeing new ways for artistic talent to emerge as the
next big thing.
Film is changing and evolving as it has from the beginning,
and the medium as a mass-communication tool and an art
form make this an exciting time to break into the market.
The future of film may involve the type of images seen in Sin
City and Waltzing with Bashir, where actors are not filmed in
the traditional way but with a kind of brushstroke or cartoon
quality that enables the plot to go in many different directions.
There might be alternate endings and story lines to follow with
endless variations. Online, the viewer can access alternative
views from various characters’ perspectives.
The experience of going into a darkened theater to view
a film is changing forever. As in the penny arcades and
nickelodeons that began the first century of film, we now
see the evolution and dawn of a new age and a new way of
understanding the world through the medium of film.
George Lucas spoke of his ideas on the future path that
might occur using film and some kind of drug to enhance
the experience. His ideas regarding future films would make
theatrical, narrative-driven movies, in his words, “as quaint as
an old silent-reeler”:
Lucas: ‘I see true environments being created and
combined with a lot of biotech things going on,
in terms of manipulating people’s senses through
drugs. This combination will have the most powerful
effect on the kind of storytelling we’re doing today.
It’s too far off for me to worry about, and I’m
not interested in virtual reality at its current level,
because it’s just too crude. But if you can program
virtual reality or simulator rides with biotech, you
will have a very interesting non-world. The first
step would be to take the simulator ride part of an
environment . . . where you can just implant the
story in a pill and live it.
That’s not outside the realm of possibility.
You’d take the pill and go to sleep. It’d be like
a dream and you’d have an actual, real, physical
experience of something completely imaginary.
What that’ll mean for society, I have no idea, and
how you’d get there from here is way beyond me,
but I know enough to know it’s within the realm
of possibility. Because they’re already going there,
creating images without actually making them, just
as you create them in a dream.’
Six Degrees of Film 