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Entertainment September 8, 2015

Today in Movie Culture: Michael Jackson in 'Guardians of the Galaxy,' Hayao Miyazaki's Theme Park and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Movie Takedown of the Day:

In honor of a new M. Night Shyamalan movie coming out, Honest Trailers happens to The Happening:

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Alternate Dimension Movie of the Day:

What if Michael Jackson and Andy Warhol starred in Guardians of the Galaxy in the 1980s? Peter Stults designs alternate dimension movie posters imagining other era castings for everything from Fantastic Four to Bridesmaids. See the lot at Live for Films.

Movie Character Lesson of the Day:

Learn how to be James Bond with these seven simple steps:

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Alternate Dimension Theme Park of the Day:

In a perfect world, Hayao Miyazaki really would have his own Disneyland-like theme park, as designed by animator Takumi and seen below. See more detail at Nerdist.

Vintage Image of the Day:

Marilyn Monroe in one of her final musical performances, for Let’s Make Love. The film opened on this day 55 years ago.

Before They Were Stars Video of the Day:

Here’s some recently unearthed footage of Angelina Jolie in an acting class from 2000. Yep, right around the time she was about to win an Oscar (via The Hollywood Reporter):

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Cosplay of the Day:

This year’s Dragon Con brought out a lot of Mad Max: Fury Road fans and cosplayers over the weekend, and they managed to all take a group photo (via Joanna Robinson):

Star Wars of the Day:

People make fun of how easily it was to destroy the Death Star in Star Wars, but in this funny cartoon the architect of the structure offers his defense of the exhaust ports (via Geek Tyrant):

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Poster Parody for a Good Cause of the Day:

The iconic Jaws poster is reinvented for a campaign to raise awareness against shark culling (via Design Taxi):

Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 15th anniversary of the premiere of Almost Famous at the Toronto International Film Festival. Watch the original trailer below:

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Entertainment September 7, 2015

Box Office Report: Faith in ‘War’ Bests NWA Over Holiday Weekend

Here’s your estimated 4-day box office returns (new releases bolded):

1. War Room – $12.5 million ($27.8 million total)

2. Straight Outta Compton – $11.2 million ($150.2 million total)

3. A Walk in the Woods – $10.5 million ($12.6 million total)

4. Mission Impossible Rogue Nation – $9.3 million ($182.5 million total)

5. The Transporter Refueled – $9.0 million ($9.0 million total)

6. No Escape – $7.0 million ($20.0 million total)

7. Inside Out – $4.5 million ($349.6 million total)

8. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. – $4.44 million ($40.3 million total)

9. Un Gallo con Muchos Huevos – $4.42 million ($4.42 million total)

10. Sinister 2 – $4.2 million ($24.5 million total)

The Big Stories

The unofficial end of summer is here at the box office. There have been winners and a few big losers. But it’s been fun hasn’t it? There were 45 wide releases from May to Labor Day but just 19 of them received positive ratings at Rotten Tomatoes from critics and, more importantly to the studios, only 11 of them can undoubtedly boast themselves as successful as of this weekend (Jurassic World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Minions, Inside Out, San Andreas, Pitch Perfect 2, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Insidious Chapter 3, Spy, Magic Mike XXL and Ant-Man). Two or three more may still break into the black (believe it or not, Terminator Genisys is nearly there thanks to it rallying in China) and the summer box office looks to, surprisingly, be one of the top grossing to date, but it is of little consolation to those who spent so much to get back so little.

Refueled On Empty

The Transporter Refueled may have seemed like the big opener of the weekend, but how could it have been. A Jason Statham headliner without the benefit of the Expendables, some furious fast stuff or Melissa McCarthy hasn’t opened to more than $10 million since 2011’s The Mechanic. January of 2011. And this fourth entry did not even have Statham in it. The last Transporter film back in 2008 opened to $12 million and that was down from the $16.5 start of the second one three years earlier. Not one film in the series made three times its opening weekend and only the third film made over $100 million worldwide. Though with a $65 million overhead (the first wide release distributed by EuropaCorp) it hardly justified a fourth go-round. Finishing just 26th on the all-time Labor Day opening weekend chart, you can expect a huge dropoff on another lackluster weekend next week as the film struggles to make $25 million total for the lowest-grossing film in the series.

It’s Turning Broad Green

Speaking of a company’s first wide release, Broad Green Pictures said to heck with platforming its Robert Redford/Nick Nolte Sundance pickup, A Walk in the Woods, and just put it out there in 1,960 theaters. The result? The 18th best Labor Day opening. Combine that with opening it on Wednesday (where it was actually #1 for a day) and it looks like they have a nice end-of-summer/early Fall release on their hands. Critics may not have been too fond of the Ken Kwapis film (47% at Rotten Tomatoes) but this appears to be a title that will catch on with adults. It only needs another $4 million to supplant Dope (which was re-released by Open Road this weekend) as the highest-grossing Sundance film of the year to date after Fox Searchlight could just not find the younger audience for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl ($6.7 million to date.)

Broad Green has three more releases on the slate for 2015 and are likely to see small releases for Sarah Silverman in I Smile Back and Fear the Walking Dead‘s Cliff Curtis in The Dark Horse. But it would be cool to see if they go a bit wider with Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes with Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon (in a performance that deserves to be remembered come awards time) and see if they can bring in the same audience. It may not have the goofy sentiment of A Walk in the Woods but it would be nice to see Broad Green go after an adult audience where others have failed in the past.

Tales of the Top Ten

Last week I said the #1 slot would be close this week between Straight Outta Compton and War Room, if the latter expanded its release. Well Tri-Star did just that, adding 391 theaters for a total of 1526. And succeeded. With nearly $28 million in the bank, War Room is climbing the faith-based chart and should be heard from throughout all of September. Universal’s NWA biopic missed the opportunity to give Universal its second four-week victory of 2015 after Furious 7 dominated the month of April. The last film to have a four-peat was The Hunger Games back in March/April 2012. The last Universal films before this year to do it were 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Meet the Parents. Before that, 1995’s Apollo 13.

With $182 million in the bank now, where does Mission Impossible Rogue Nation stand amongst its predecessors? It has finally outgrossed the 1996 original. It is still $15 million off the pace of both the fourth and second entries. Paramount will do whatever it can to make it reach $200 million here in the U.S. It might, just might, have one more week in the top five, then the release schedule starts to get loaded so it may find itself pushed out of the top ten by the last weekend on September. Maybe. Ant-Man, meanwhile, is going to officially outgross Captain America: The First Avenger in the U.S. sometime this week. It has already surpassed it worldwide.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. may make a push for $50 million here in the States, but without a healthy overseas infusion it is currently one of the biggest bombs of the summer ahead of just Tomorrowland and Fantastic Four. Both No Escape and Sinister 2 are marching towards the atypical late summer gross of $30 million each. But jumping back into the top ten is Pixar’s Inside Out which was re-released on an additional 2200 screens this weekend. The highest-grossing animated film of the year in the U.S. (it’s still $300 million behind Minions worldwide) and the highest-grossing original film in Pixar’s history is going to soon pass $350 million where it will reside as the 5th highest-grossing animated film ever in the U.S. behind Shrek 2, Toy Story 3, Frozen and Despicable Me 2. The Lion King and Finding Nemo increased their loads thanks to re-releases in 3-D.

Not to be outdone though, Pantelion’s Mexican animated film, Un Gallo con Muchos Huevos (aka A Rooster with Many Eggs) grossed $4.4 million over the holiday weekend on just 395 screens. That is more than Zac Efron’s We Are Your Friends has grossed in 11 days; the lowest-performing release on over 2,000 screens since 2012’s Oogieloves In The BIG Balloon Adventure.

Erik Childress can be heard each week on the WGN Radio Podcast evaluating box office with Nick Digilio.

[box office figures via Box Office Mojo]

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Entertainment September 6, 2015

An Unlikely Archivist For Armenian Aleppo: A Punk Drummer From D.C.

A 2010 photo of Father Yeznig Zegchanian of Forty Martyrs Armenian Apostolic Church in Aleppo, Syria.
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A 2010 photo of Father Yeznig Zegchanian of Forty Martyrs Armenian Apostolic Church in Aleppo, Syria. Jason Hamacher hide caption

itoggle caption Jason Hamacher

An American punk drummer has become an unlikely historian of the Armenian community in Aleppo, Syria. And he’s recently released a recording of their religious music — just as the city is crumbling during Syria’s ongoing civil war.

Archivist Jason Hamacher at the archaeological site of Ain Dara, Syria, in 2010.

Archivist Jason Hamacher at the archaeological site of Ain Dara, Syria, in 2010. Courtesy of Jason Hamacher hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Jason Hamacher

Jason Hamacher doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would be drawn to a place like Syria.

“I am the son of a Southern Baptist minister,” he says. “I was born in Texas, I have no cultural ties or blood ties whatsoever to the Middle East, or to the populations that inhabit the Middle East.”

Back in the early 2000s, Hamacher was a punk drummer in Washington, D.C., playing in several hardcore bands. A little musical competition between friends changed the direction of his whole life.

“We each challenged ourselves, saying each person has to find something online that we could write music to, and report back to each other,” he says. “So a couple of days later, a friend of mine calls, and said, ‘Hey. I found this really amazing chant from Serbia that you should check out.’ It was a bad phone connection, and I completely misunderstood him and thought he said ‘Syria.'”

He wasn’t a trained musicologist or photographer. But beginning in 2006, he made several trips to Syria, taking photos and recording music he found along the way. He documented many of Syria’s diverse minority communities, including Jews, Sufi Muslims and several different Christian denominations. He’s been releasing those recordings, one by one, on his own label.

His most recent release is an album that Hamacher made at a 15th-century Armenian church in Aleppo. It’s just one priest, Yeznig Zegchanian, chanting.

“It’s the famed Forty Martyrs church, and it’s the actual voice inside the church, which is what really makes the album so special,” Hamacher explains. “The songs are common songs. They can be heard throughout the liturgical year. There’s nothing rare about the songs.”

But the church and its neighborhood are another matter. The Armenian neighborhood of Judayda was a place where everybody went. It’s full, Hamacher says, of “really windy back alleys, and it opens up onto this really amazing square that’s lined with restaurants, trees and silver shops.”

“It was always one of those magical places where you had multiple communities living together, says Elyse Semerdjian, a historian of Syria at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. “From neighborhood to neighborhood, you could switch languages, from Armenian to Kurdish to Turkish to Arabic.”

Semerdjian comes from an Armenian family from Aleppo, and she wrote the liner notes for Zegchanian and Hamacher’s Forty Martyrs: Armenian Chanting from Aleppo. She says the city became important to Armenians many centuries ago, because of Armenia’s religious heritage. Armenia officially became a Christian country 1700 years ago, in the year 301.

“You know, Aleppo was always situated along a pilgrimage route to Jerusalem,” she says. “And so we have very early accounts of Armenians who passed through Aleppo, and stayed in Aleppo for a period of time.”

Semerdjian says that Aleppo became even more of a refuge after 1915, when up to a million and a half Armenians were killed or deported from the Ottoman Empire.

“When the Armenian genocide took place in 1915,” Semerdjian says, “Aleppo was one of the major deportation routes for Armenians, where, on what were, in effect, death marches, that people were very lucky to survive. If they survived them at all, they ended up, many of them, in Aleppo.”

Father Zegchanian was born in Aleppo. He was first recorded by Jason Hamacher in 2006. Hamacher returned to Forty Martyrs four years later to try to record him again. But a deacon refused to even let him speak to Father Zegchanian until the priest himself happened to walk by — and Hamacher chased after him.

“It’s like, ‘I don’t know if you remember me,'” Hamacher recounts. “‘I would love to record an record with you inside the church. He’s like, ‘OK.'”

“‘Oh, that’s great!'” Hamacher continues. “And then he just started walking into the church. I was like, ‘Wait, not now, I don’t have my stuff!’ He’s like, ‘Yes.’ I was like, ‘Yes, you’ll do it? Or … yes to later?’ It’s like, ‘OK … let me go get my equipment!'”

And that recording, made totally on the fly, became an important historical document of an Aleppo that is nearly gone. In April of this year, the church of Forty Martyrs was bombed.

“At first, it seemed that the church, and everything related to the church, was completely destroyed,” Hamacher says. “And fortunately, it turned out to just be the courtyard and complex related to the church.”

Hamacher hasn’t been able to contact Father Zegchanian in the past couple of years. And he hasn’t been able to go back to Syria because of the war — but he says that’s made his work all the more urgent.

“Major portions of the iconic symbolism of that city has been wrecked and destroyed,” Hamacher says emphatically. “The importance to continue at least the memory of these places is to keep the arts going. That’s my attempt, you know, that’s my contribution, is trying to represent these communities in a way that is informational, respectful, artistic and honorable.”

In the meantime, Hamacher is eager to share what he’s collected. He’s working on a book of photos from Aleppo, and says that he’ll be releasing an album a year of music from Syria, as long as he’s got material.

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Entertainment September 5, 2015

Classic Sounds And Fresh Updates With Betto Arcos

Totó La Momposina's new album, Tambolero, is a reworking of her 1993 album La Candela Viva, regarded by many as one of Colombia's most important albums.
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Totó La Momposina’s new album, Tambolero, is a reworking of her 1993 album La Candela Viva, regarded by many as one of Colombia’s most important albums. Betto Arcos for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Betto Arcos for NPR

Betto Arcos hosts Global Village on KFPK in Los Angeles, and he frequently visits All Things Considered on the weekends to share the new music he’s discovered while traveling the world. This time, he brings NPR’s Arun Rath a stack of new records that re-imagine classic styles of Latin music, from Afro-Cuban jazz to Mexican banda.

Hear the conversation at the audio link above, and delve deeper into the music below.

Hear The Music

Nueva Era

Nueva Era Courtesy of the artist hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of the artist

Daymé Arocena

  • Song: El Ruso
  • From: Nueva Era
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En Vivo

En Vivo Courtesy of the artist hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of the artist

Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro

  • Song: Marejada
  • From: En Vivo
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Cover for Tambolero

Totó La Momposina

  • Song: La Candela Viva
  • From: Tambolero
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Banda de los Muertos.

Banda de los Muertos. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of the artist

Banda de Los Muertos

  • Song: El Paso
  • From: Banda de Los Muertos
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Entertainment September 4, 2015

Best of the Week: New 'Star Wars' Toys, Our Summer Movie Recap and More

The Important News

Star Wars Updates: Benicio Del Toro pretty much confirmed he’s the villain in Star Wars: Episode VIII. Three actresses were shortlisted for Star Wars: Episode VIII. Great new Star Wars: The Force Awakens toys were unveiled for Force Friday.

Casting Net: Vincent Cassel will play a villain in Bourne 5. Steve Carell is replacing Bruce Willis in Woody Allen’s next film. Nicholas Hoult will play J.D. Salinger in a biopic. Cate Blanchett will play Lucille Ball in a biopic.

Franchise Fever: Daniel Craig might be done with James Bond after Spectre. Michael Shannon clarified his Batman v Superman “flipper hands” comment. Straight Outta Compton could get dueling sequels.

Remake Report: Steven Spielberg made everyone think Jaws and Back to the Future were getting reboots.

Home Video News: Amazon Prime video rentals can now be watched offline.

Box Office: War Room was a surprising box office success.

Oscar Talk: The Oscars will have two hosts next year. Beasts of No Nation was worth almost dying for.

The Videos and Geek Stuff

New Movie Trailers: Goosebumps, Pay the Ghost, Concussion, Knock Knock, The Danish Girl, The Fifth Wave, Miss You Already, A Christmas Horror Story, The Night Before and The Gamechangers.

Watch: A fan-made trailer for the never-made Superman Lives!

See: The best Star Wars goodies for Force Friday.

Watch: An Avengers: Age of Ultron gag reel.

See: Video proof that the Star Wars Ring Theory is true.

Watch: Christina Applegate portrays Meryl Streep in a fake Lifetime Movie.

See: What Steven Spielberg thinks of superhero movies.

Learn: How to make a homemade Ghostbusters ghost trap.

See: How the first two Terminator movies defined action movies. And see the Termiantor and tons more iconic movie characters mashed into one great nightclub scene.

Watch: Sesame Street parodies Clash of the Titans. And Sesame Street parodies When Harry Met Sally.

Learn: The science of The Matrix human batteries. And the science of Star Wars laser blasters.

See: This week’s best new movie posters. Plus three new posters for Dragon Blade.

Our Features

Monthly Movie Guide: Here’s our calendar for all the important release dates for this month.

Summer Movie Recap: We presented our awards to the best of summer 2015.

R.I.P.: We remembered Wes Craven. And we remembered all the reel-important people we lost last month.

Geek Movie Guide: Everything movie geeks need to know about this month.

Horror Movie Guide: The best documentaries about horror movies.

Comic Book Movie Guide: Why it’s okay that the Hulk isn’t in Captain America: Civil War.

Home Viewing: Here’s our guide to everything hitting VOD this week. And here’s our guide to everything hitting DVD this week. And here’s our guide to everything hitting Netflix Watch Instantly this month. And here’s our guide to everything hitting HBO Now this month.

and

MORE FROM AROUND THE WEB:

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Entertainment September 3, 2015

Today in Movie Culture: The Science of 'The Matrix,' Martin Scorsese in Focus and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Movie Science of the Day:

Speaking of Keanu Reeves, for Nerdist Kyle Hill looks into the plausibility of The Matrix, specifically how humans serve as batteries for the title virtual world:

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Movie Parody of the Day:

Your kids have to learn about sexual pleasure sometime, right? Cookie Monster stars in Sesame Street‘s take on When Harry Met Sally, and they do go there with a parody of the “I’ll have what she’s having” bit:

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Filmmaker in Focus:

Filmscalpel spotlights close-ups on eyes in Martin Scorsese movies:

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Online Film School:

Learn what a Dutch Angle is from Fandor Keyrame and this illustrative montage of shots from famous movies:

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Cosplay of the Day:

One woman made herself up to look like Batman, The Joker and Harley Quinn, all new Suicide Squad versions (via KamiKame):

Film Festival Trailer of the Day:

It’s not enough that the programming for this year’s Beyond Fest is amazing, but they had to go and dub a scene from The Shining that makes it all sound even more exciting/terrifying:

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Film Festival Contest of the Day:

Fantastic Fest is crowd-sourcing its bumpers again, this time holding a contest where you remake a scene from your favorite movie, but cast only kids as the characters. Here’s one based on Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Magnolia. Warning NSFW language.

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Supercut of the Day:

We’ve seen enough supercuts of villains lately, so it’s time for the heroes to get their spotlight (via Geek Tyrant):

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

This weekend marks the 15th anniversary of the premiere of Christopher Nolan‘s Memento at the Venice Film Festival. Celebrate the occasion by watching the innovative thriller’s original trailer below.

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Entertainment September 2, 2015

Today in Movie Culture: 'Captain America: Civil War' Posters, 'Back to the Future' in 1.21 Seconds and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Fan Build of the Day:

Have a ghost that needs busting? The DIY Prop Shop tells us how to make a Ghostbusters ghost trap:

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Fan Made Posters of the Day:

BossLogic designed two posters for Captain America: Civil War, including the one with Iron Man being punched by Captain America below. See the other, depicting Iron Man smashing through Captain America’s shield at Live for Films.

Abridged Movie of the Day:

Finally catch up with the entire Back to the Future trilogy in only 1.21 minutes (via Devour):

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Lucille Ball and Katharine Hepburn with their Stage Door director, Gregory La Cava, in 1937. Cate Blanchett has already portrayed Hepburn in The Aviator and is now set to star in a Ball biopic, so maybe one day she can also play La Cava.

Movie Parody of the Day:

It’s not the most timely of targets, but here’s a cute Sesame Street parody of Clash of the Titans starring Cookie Monster:

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Classic Cartoon of the Day:

Porky Pig and Daffy Duck star in a violent game show parody in The Ducksters, a Merrie Melodies animated short directed by Chuck Jones that hit theaters 65 years ago today. Watch it in full below.

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Cosplay of the Day:

It appears Jabba the Hutt got his hands on some Disney Princesses for this mashup of Star Wars and Frozen, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan and Pocahontas. See individual portraits at Live for Films.

Movie Countdown of the Day:

Cinefix ranks the 10 best movie villains of all time, which going by current fan discourse trends will probaby be redone tomorrow as the 10 best movie heroes:

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Filmmaker in Focus:

Filmscalpel highlights the color red in the movies of Martin Scorsese (via Cinematic Montage Creators):

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Venice Film Festival debut of Capote, which would go on to earn Philip Seymour Hoffman an Oscar for Best Actor in addition to being nominated for Best Picture. Watch the original trailer for the biopic below.

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Entertainment September 2, 2015

First Listen: Petite Noir, 'La Vie Est Belle/Life Is Beautiful'

Petite Noir's debut album, La Vie Est Belle/Life Is Beautiful, comes out Sept. 11.
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Petite Noir’s debut album, La Vie Est Belle/Life Is Beautiful, comes out Sept. 11. Travys Owen/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

itoggle caption Travys Owen/Courtesy of the artist

Yannick Ilunga, the South African musician who records under the name Petite Noir, was born to a Congolese father and an Angolan mother; as a young child, he was relocated to Cape Town by his parents when the situation in Democratic Republic of Congo deteriorated. But listen to “Freedom,” from Ilunga’s vigorous debut, La Vie Est Belle, and African music doesn’t spring to mind. As the horns and drums grow in volume and gather steam, Ilunga’s assured voice starts to soar at the shout of “Freedom!” and he sounds for all the world like a hybrid of Tears For Fears’ Roland Orzabal and Duran Duran‘s Simon Le Bon.

“Freedom comes when you least expect it,” Petite Noir sings, and he exhibits an exhilarating sense of such autonomy on La Vie Est Belle. Already championed by the likes of Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) and Solange Knowles (who featured him on her Saint Heron compilation), and following in the footsteps of fellow Cape Town artist Spoek Mathambo, Ilunga is that bright new star from South Africa that no longer needs to be sonically tethered to his roots to gather notice in rock and electronic-music circles. With its heady blend of ’80s new wave and anthemic ’00s rock, Petite Noir’s debut thrills.

“Just Breathe” shows off Ilunga’s deep voice, stretching it into a plea, while in the title track, he has his croon flutter up toward a fragile falsetto as he sings of a stolen past and heartbreak. In “Chest,” he makes it as angelic and gossamer as Antony Hegarty‘s. Elsewhere, Ilunga’s beguiling voice can bring to mind Bryan Ferry, Depeche Mode, Roland Gift from Fine Young Cannibals, and Ian Curtis. But that doesn’t mean he only mines the ’80s for his references. Amid the bright, lilting beat of “MDR,” he exhales audibly before singing, “‘Cause you’re the one that I want … you’re the one that I need,” a sly little reference to Grease.

While Petite Noir’s debut features nods to early-’80s new romanticism (and that aforementioned musical), Ilunga still draws on Afrobeat and South African house music when he needs to. “Intro Noirwave,” the instrumental that opens the album, layers thrilling polyrhythms atop birdcalls and distant shouts as a snare roll builds up and then fades away. In “Colour” and “Seventeen (Stay),” Ilunga has the tracks ride a relaxed yet tricky rhythm reminiscent of what Tony Allen used to tap out behind Fela Kuti in the ’70s. But in the latter track, he’s not content to just have the groove remain steady. The song bursts out at the chorus and then, about four minutes in, Ilunga has the drums drop out entirely to let shimmering ambience ripple in their wake. The sound reflects the cover art itself, with Ilunga seeming to float away from the confines of gravity. “I will shine,” he sings as affirmation. On La Vie Est Belle, Petite Noir does, brightly.

First Listen: Petite Noir, ‘La Vie Est Belle/Life Is Beautiful’

Cover for La Vie Est Belle

Intro Noirwave

  • Artist: Petite Noir
  • From: La Vie Est Belle
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Best

  • Artist: Petite Noir
  • From: La Vie Est Belle
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Freedom

  • Artist: Petite Noir
  • From: La Vie Est Belle
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Just Breathe

  • Artist: Petite Noir
  • From: La Vie Est Belle
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MDR

  • Artist: Petite Noir
  • From: La Vie Est Belle
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Colour

  • Artist: Petite Noir
  • From: La Vie Est Belle
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Down

  • Artist: Petite Noir
  • From: La Vie Est Belle
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Inside

  • Artist: Petite Noir
  • From: La Vie Est Belle
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Chess

  • Artist: Petite Noir
  • From: La Vie Est Belle
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Entertainment September 1, 2015

Today in Movie Culture: Meryl Streep's Lifetime Channel Biopic, Disney's 'X-Men' and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Wes Craven Tribute of the Day:

More videos in memory of Wes Craven are coming in, like this supercut of screams from the horror-meister’s movies from Screen Crush:

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Actress Parody of the Day:

Watch Christina Applegate portray Meryl Streep for a fake Lifetime Channel biopic from Funny or Die:

Fan Art of the Day:

Maybe one day if Disney and Marvel Studios ever get the rights to X-Men movies, they can do an animated feature and it will look like these Disney-inspired drawings by Randy Bishop (via Geek Tyrant):

Movie Takedown of the Day:

Speaking of Disney Animation, Honest Trailers roasts the short film Frozen Fever and boy does it burn:

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Video Essay of the Day:

The latest episode of Frame by Frame looks at two set pieces to show how the first two Terminator installments define action movies:

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Anniversary Movie Poster of the Day:

You can almost hear the painful screeching of nails on the chalkboard when you look at Scott Woolston’s new Jaws poster, which celebrates the film’s 40th anniversary (via Bloody Disgusting).

Vintage Film of the Day:

Edwin S. Porter parodied his own famous silent film, The Great Train Robbery, with The Little Train Robbery, which debuted 110 years ago today. Watch it in full below.

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Alternative Poster Art of the Day:

Big Eye Agency has created minimalist-design character posters for The Breakfast Club, including the one for Claire “The Princess” (Molly Ringwald) below. See the others at the Big Eye website (via Paste).

Star Wars of the Day:

Here’s a parody of the Batman: Arkham Origins commercial (see it here) with Darth Vader instead of the Dark Knight (via Cinematic Montage Creators):

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Venice Film Festival premiere of George Clooney‘s Best Picture-nominated Good Night, and Good Luck. Watch the original trailer for the film below.

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Entertainment August 31, 2015

Today in Movie Culture: 'Superman Lives' Trailer, The Sound of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Filmmaker Tribute of the Day:

In honor of Wes Craven, who died over the weekend, supercut master Jacob T. Swinney showcased the sounds of A Nightmare on Elm Street:

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Alternate Dimension Movie of the Day:

Inspired by the recent documentary The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened?, here’s a fan-made trailer for what Superman Lives might have looked like had Tim Burton been able to actually make it, with Nicolas Cage, Sandra Bullock and Kevin Spacey (via Geek Tyrant):

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Movie Mashup of the Day:

Vulture has remade the Suicide Squad trailer by turning it into a mashup with The Dirty Dozen (via /Film):

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Movie Retelling of the Day:

Here’s how Ancient Egyptians enjoyed the Avengers movies. They even had some coming attractions at the top (via Design Taxi):

Movie Prequel of the Day:

The final Guardians of the Galaxy origin story for the new animated series is for Gamora, but it also stars Nebula and Korath:

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Grab a drink and toast Ingrid Bergman, whose 100th birthday was this past Saturday. Here she is having one with Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca:

Classic Cartoon of the Day:

Another title for the classic Walt Disney animated short Pluto’s Judgment Day could be “Pluto Goes to Hell.” But that might not be as family friendly. Not that it won’t already give kids nightmares. Watch the cartoon, which turns 80 years old today, in full:

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Filmmaker in Focus:

The latest video essay from Jorge Luengo showcases the close-ups of Alfred Hitchcock movies:

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Star Wars of the Day:

This video puts the original Star Wars trilogy side by side with the prequels to prove the Star Wars Ring Theory, which says that the two parts of the franchise mirror one another (via Cinematic Montage Creators):

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Venice Film Festival premiere of the iconic cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Watch the original trailer below.

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