As is annual tradition, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has announced this year’s 25 film set to join the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Selected for their “cultural, historic and/or aesthetic importance,” the films picked range from such beloved actioners as “Die Hard,” childhood classic “The Goonies,” the seminal “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” and the mind-bending “Memento,” with plenty of other genres and styles represented among the list.
The additions span 1905 to 2000, and includes Hollywood blockbusters, documentaries, silent movies, animation, shorts, independent, and even home movies. The 2017 selections bring the number of films in the registry to 725.
“The selection of a film to the National Film Registry recognizes its importance to American cinema and the nation’s cultural and historical heritage,” Hayden said in an official statement. “Our love affair with motion pictures is a testament to their enduring power to enlighten, inspire and...
The additions span 1905 to 2000, and includes Hollywood blockbusters, documentaries, silent movies, animation, shorts, independent, and even home movies. The 2017 selections bring the number of films in the registry to 725.
“The selection of a film to the National Film Registry recognizes its importance to American cinema and the nation’s cultural and historical heritage,” Hayden said in an official statement. “Our love affair with motion pictures is a testament to their enduring power to enlighten, inspire and...
- 12/13/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Since 1989, the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress has been accomplishing the important task of preserving films that “represent important cultural, artistic and historic achievements in filmmaking.” From films way back in 1897 all the way up to 2004, they’ve now reached 725 films that celebrate our heritage and encapsulate our film history.
Today they’ve unveiled their 2017 list, which includes such Hollywood classics as Die Hard, Titanic, and Superman along with groundbreaking independent features like Yvonne Rainer’s Lives of Performers, Charles Burnett’s To Sleep with Anger, and Barbara Loden’s Wanda. Also making this list are a pair of Kirk Douglas-led features, Ace in the Hole and Spartacus, as well as Christopher Nolan’s Memento and more. Check out the full list below and you can watch some films on the registry for free here.
Ace in the Hole (aka Big Carnival) (1951)
Based on the infamous...
Today they’ve unveiled their 2017 list, which includes such Hollywood classics as Die Hard, Titanic, and Superman along with groundbreaking independent features like Yvonne Rainer’s Lives of Performers, Charles Burnett’s To Sleep with Anger, and Barbara Loden’s Wanda. Also making this list are a pair of Kirk Douglas-led features, Ace in the Hole and Spartacus, as well as Christopher Nolan’s Memento and more. Check out the full list below and you can watch some films on the registry for free here.
Ace in the Hole (aka Big Carnival) (1951)
Based on the infamous...
- 12/13/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
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...
“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...
- 9/12/2017
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
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,...
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,...
- 11/27/2016
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (Rob Young)
- Cinelinx
Don’t you even dare call it a “kid’s movie.”
Animation has been around for a while now, starting with silent experiments such as Gertie the Dinosaur, followed by the more traditional Disney fare such as Snow White or Cinderella, and becoming more modern with another round of Disney hits like The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast but also with a touch of the outside thanks to Japanese imports like My Neighbor Totoro or Spirited Away.
But time and time again, the medium is relegated to kids duty. Like being sent to the smaller table at Thanksgiving dinner.
Brad Bird, director of The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, said it best when he referred to animation as a medium rather than a genre. Let’s define genre real quickly: “a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form.”
So that doesn’t confine animation; instead,...
Animation has been around for a while now, starting with silent experiments such as Gertie the Dinosaur, followed by the more traditional Disney fare such as Snow White or Cinderella, and becoming more modern with another round of Disney hits like The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast but also with a touch of the outside thanks to Japanese imports like My Neighbor Totoro or Spirited Away.
But time and time again, the medium is relegated to kids duty. Like being sent to the smaller table at Thanksgiving dinner.
Brad Bird, director of The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, said it best when he referred to animation as a medium rather than a genre. Let’s define genre real quickly: “a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form.”
So that doesn’t confine animation; instead,...
- 6/24/2015
- by Zach Dennis
- SoundOnSight
Throughout the summer, an admin on the r/movies subreddit has been leading Reddit users in a poll of the best movies from every year for the last 100 years called 100 Years of Yearly Cinema. The poll concluded three days ago, and the list of every movie from 1914 to 2013 has been published today.
Users were asked to nominate films from a given year and up-vote their favorite nominees. The full list includes the outright winner along with the first two runners-up from each year. The list is mostly a predictable assortment of IMDb favorites and certified classics, but a few surprise gems have also risen to the top of the crust, including the early experimental documentary Man With a Movie Camera in 1929, Abel Gance’s J’Accuse! in 1919, the Fred Astaire film Top Hat over Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps in 1935, and Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing over John Ford’s...
Users were asked to nominate films from a given year and up-vote their favorite nominees. The full list includes the outright winner along with the first two runners-up from each year. The list is mostly a predictable assortment of IMDb favorites and certified classics, but a few surprise gems have also risen to the top of the crust, including the early experimental documentary Man With a Movie Camera in 1929, Abel Gance’s J’Accuse! in 1919, the Fred Astaire film Top Hat over Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps in 1935, and Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing over John Ford’s...
- 9/2/2014
- by Brian Welk
- SoundOnSight
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present a 40th anniversary screening of “Young Frankenstein” with special guests Mel Brooks, Cloris Leachman, Teri Garr and executive producer Michael Gruskoff on Tuesday, September 9, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Film historian Leonard Maltin will introduce the comedy classic and host a live onstage discussion with Brooks, Leachman, Garr and Gruskoff.
“Young Frankenstein,” Brooks’s 1974 homage to the Golden Age of monster movies, features a large ensemble cast including Leachman, Garr, Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars and Gene Hackman. It earned Oscar® nominations for Adapted Screenplay (Wilder, Brooks) and Sound (Richard Portman, Gene Cantamessa).
Additional Academy events coming up in September at the Bing Theater in Los Angeles are listed below, with details at www.oscars.org/events:
“Let There Be Fright: William Castle Scare Classics”
The...
“Young Frankenstein,” Brooks’s 1974 homage to the Golden Age of monster movies, features a large ensemble cast including Leachman, Garr, Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars and Gene Hackman. It earned Oscar® nominations for Adapted Screenplay (Wilder, Brooks) and Sound (Richard Portman, Gene Cantamessa).
Additional Academy events coming up in September at the Bing Theater in Los Angeles are listed below, with details at www.oscars.org/events:
“Let There Be Fright: William Castle Scare Classics”
The...
- 8/25/2014
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
From 1914 to Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes in the present, Ryan charts the evolution of animated characters in live-action film...
Feature
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and this year's Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes chart the ascendance of a new, genetically-modified species of intelligent ape. Yet behind the scenes, these films also show us the technical evolution of digital effects, and how seamlessly live-action and computer-generated characters can be blended.
Where 20th Century Fox's earlier Planet Of The Apes films, beginning in 1968, used actors and prosthetic effects to bring their talking simians to life, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes used the latest developments in performance capture to create some extraordinarily realistic characters. With its story told largely from the perspective of a genetically-modified chimpanzee named Caesar, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes' success hinged on the quality of its effects...
Feature
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and this year's Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes chart the ascendance of a new, genetically-modified species of intelligent ape. Yet behind the scenes, these films also show us the technical evolution of digital effects, and how seamlessly live-action and computer-generated characters can be blended.
Where 20th Century Fox's earlier Planet Of The Apes films, beginning in 1968, used actors and prosthetic effects to bring their talking simians to life, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes used the latest developments in performance capture to create some extraordinarily realistic characters. With its story told largely from the perspective of a genetically-modified chimpanzee named Caesar, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes' success hinged on the quality of its effects...
- 6/17/2014
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
With Godzilla and even Gamera getting all the giant monster love lately, we'd be remiss if we didn't wish a hearty Happy Birthday to one of the big screen's most incredible creatures, Gertie the Wonderful Trained Dinosaurus!
From Wikipedia: Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur.
McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act; the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. McCay's employer, William Randolph Hearst, later curtailed McCay's vaudeville activities so McCay added a live-action introductory sequence to the film for its theatrical release. McCay abandoned a sequel, Gertie on Tour (c. 1921), after producing about a minute of footage.
Although Gertie is popularly thought to be the earliest animated film, McCay had earlier made Little Nemo (1911) and How a Mosquito Operates...
From Wikipedia: Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur.
McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act; the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. McCay's employer, William Randolph Hearst, later curtailed McCay's vaudeville activities so McCay added a live-action introductory sequence to the film for its theatrical release. McCay abandoned a sequel, Gertie on Tour (c. 1921), after producing about a minute of footage.
Although Gertie is popularly thought to be the earliest animated film, McCay had earlier made Little Nemo (1911) and How a Mosquito Operates...
- 2/28/2014
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
Today, February 8th, is the 100th birthday of the world’s oldest living dinosaur. Gertie, a charming and playful brontosaurus, was created by pioneering American animator Winsor McCay back in 1914. She dances, she does tricks and she has an enormous appetite. And, given that she’s a cartoon, she’s got a much better chance of survival than the rest of her species, buried forever under Alberta or somewhere similar. February 8th is actually the anniversary of the first time McCay and Gertie “performed” together. The original Gertie the Dinosaur cartoon was part of the animator and cartoonist’s vaudeville act. He would stand next to the screen and command Gertie to perform tricks for the audience, perfectly timed to his short film. Unsurprisingly, this was incredibly popular and McCay’s vaudeville performances began to occupy so much of his time that he began to slouch on his print work for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. When...
- 2/8/2014
- by Daniel Walber
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Walt Disney Animation’s ‘Frozen’ took top honors as Best Animated Feature at the 41st Annual Annie Awards held Saturday, February 1 at UCLA’s Royce Hall. The Best Animated Special Production was awarded to ‘Chipotle Scarecrow’ (Chipotle Creative Department, Moonbot Studios); Best Animated Short Subject ‘Get A Horse!’ (Walt Disney Animation Studios); Best Animated TV/Broadcast Commercial ‘Despicable Me 2’ (Cinemark-Illumination Entertainment/Universal); Best General Audience Animated TV/Broadcast Production for Preschool Children ‘Disney Sofia the First’ (Disney Television Animation); Best Animated TV/Broadcast Production for Children’s Audience ‘Adventure Time’ (Cartoon Network Studios); Best General Audience Animated TV/Broadcast Production ‘Futurama’ (20th Century Fox Television); Best Animated Video Game ‘The Last of Us’ (Naughty Dog); and Best Student Film ‘Wedding Cake’ (Filmakademie Baden- Wuerttemberg – Viola Baier, Iris Frisch). Often a predictor of the annual Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the Annie Awards honor overall excellence as well as...
- 2/2/2014
- by Josh Abraham
- Hollywoodnews.com
Walt Disney Animation’s ‘Frozen’ took top honors as Best Animated Feature at the 41st Annual Annie Awards held Saturday, February 1 at UCLA’s Royce Hall. The Best Animated Special Production was awarded to ‘Chipotle Scarecrow’ (Chipotle Creative Department, Moonbot Studios); Best Animated Short Subject ‘Get A Horse!’ (Walt Disney Animation Studios); Best Animated TV/Broadcast Commercial ‘Despicable Me 2′ (Cinemark-Illumination Entertainment/Universal); Best General Audience Animated TV/Broadcast Production for Preschool Children ‘Disney Sofia the First’ (Disney Television Animation); Best Animated TV/Broadcast Production for Children’s Audience ‘Adventure Time’(Cartoon Network Studios); Best General Audience Animated TV/Broadcast Production ‘Futurama’ (20th Century Fox Television); Best Animated Video Game ‘The Last of Us’ (Naughty Dog); and Best Student Film ‘Wedding Cake’(Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg - Viola Baier, Iris Frisch).
Often a predictor of the annual Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the Annie Awards honor overall excellence as well as...
Often a predictor of the annual Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the Annie Awards honor overall excellence as well as...
- 2/2/2014
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Pixar’s fifteenth feature film The Good Dinosaur will hit theaters next May. It might sound strange, then, that the beloved animation studio has just fired the film’s director, Bob Peterson, from the project, according to the La Times. But Pixar has lately made swapping directors Standard Operating Procedure — most controversially with last year’s Brave, the company’s first-ever female-headlined film, which was also going to be its first-ever female-directed film before the ousting of original helmer Brenda Chapman. Chapman now works for cross-court rivals DreamWorks Animation, and recently implied to the New York Times that Pixar chief John Lasseter micro-manages; coincidentally,...
- 8/30/2013
- by Darren Franich
- EW - Inside Movies
Commercials are not to be mistaken for works of art. While a TV commercial may utilise many of the same skill sets as a film- writing, direction, editing, cinematography, acting and so on- due to their explicit business agenda, we do not equate them with actual cinema.
Though we may duly admire the artistry of an illustration for Coca Cola, no matter how well executed, we distinguish such works from those that hang upon the walls of a gallery. This line is blurred when advertising material is appropriated into a work of art (see: Andy Warhol) or when artists begin to achieve tremendous success, but nonetheless, this sacred/profane dichotomy between art/design is clear-cut once we ascertain the intention or motivation of the work’s creator.
So while it is not my contention that these 10 toy commercials are films, I believe they can be appreciated on a filmic level,...
Though we may duly admire the artistry of an illustration for Coca Cola, no matter how well executed, we distinguish such works from those that hang upon the walls of a gallery. This line is blurred when advertising material is appropriated into a work of art (see: Andy Warhol) or when artists begin to achieve tremendous success, but nonetheless, this sacred/profane dichotomy between art/design is clear-cut once we ascertain the intention or motivation of the work’s creator.
So while it is not my contention that these 10 toy commercials are films, I believe they can be appreciated on a filmic level,...
- 4/21/2013
- by Jon Marco
- Obsessed with Film
It’s been a very good week for Ang Lee and novelist Yann Martel. Lee, of course, won the Best Director Oscar for The Life of Pi, adapting Martel’s magical novel. The film itself was warmly received, earning it admiration from the Academy. The film is being released by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray and DVD on March 12. Based on the acclaimed best-selling novel from Yann Martel that has been published in 40 languages, and brought to life by visionary Academy Award winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), this magical adventure of hope, wonder, survival, and the power of the human spirit has been celebrated by critics all over the world. Much was made of the animals brought to life through digital legerdemain but the film was far from the first to bring artificial animals to the screen, dating all the way...
- 3/2/2013
- by ComicMix Staff
- Comicmix.com
The great thing about prehistory is that you can speculate pretty much any old hogwash about it. Sure – science has given us a reasonably educated guess, but when has science ever stopped us from making shit up? Who’s to say that dinosaurs didn’t talk, or that mankind wasn’t created by a super-species of cat-like beings? That would certainly explain their sense of entitlement. The film industry knows what’s up, and has given us some great depictions of pre-life over the years. Some are unique in their beauty and/or accuracy, while others are just downright silly. Both are great, so let’s celebrate 9 creative ways to look at the world before we came to be. 9. Adorable Talking Dinosaurs in The Land Before Time Maybe I’m uneducated – but with the exception of Gertie the Dinosaur, was there any kid-friendly dino cartoon that existed prior to The Land Before Time? This...
- 1/10/2013
- by David Christopher Bell
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Movies such as Ice Age and Madagascar are reliably popular with audiences, but surely, Ryan argues, computer animation is capable of so much more…
Since the earliest days of film, artists have sought to mix live-action footage with animation. Examples include the once cutting-edge stop-motion effects work in the 30s King Kong or the seminal 1914 short, Gertie The Dinosaur, a film that laid the groundwork for movies such as Pete's Dragon and Who Framed Roger Rabbit with its amalgam of hand-drawn characters and human actors.
In the modern era of computer-generated effects, we've been able to mix real world footage with non-existent characters and environments more seamlessly than was even remotely possible a few decades ago.
1982's Tron was perhaps the first film to place actors in an almost entirely animated environment, which was brought to life using a mixture of computers and traditional animation techniques.
From those groundbreaking films to the present day,...
Since the earliest days of film, artists have sought to mix live-action footage with animation. Examples include the once cutting-edge stop-motion effects work in the 30s King Kong or the seminal 1914 short, Gertie The Dinosaur, a film that laid the groundwork for movies such as Pete's Dragon and Who Framed Roger Rabbit with its amalgam of hand-drawn characters and human actors.
In the modern era of computer-generated effects, we've been able to mix real world footage with non-existent characters and environments more seamlessly than was even remotely possible a few decades ago.
1982's Tron was perhaps the first film to place actors in an almost entirely animated environment, which was brought to life using a mixture of computers and traditional animation techniques.
From those groundbreaking films to the present day,...
- 3/29/2011
- Den of Geek
While not as widely publicized as the Oscars, the self-serving Golden Globes or even the WGA or SAG Awards, the Annies (2011 winners here) are given out each year to honor achievements in animation.
This year, Brad Bird was given the Winsor McCay Award, which recognizes an outstanding or lifetime contribution to the art of animation – and you have admit the man has earned it. The award’s namesake was a pioneer in animation and cartooning, creator of the influential comic strips Little Nemo in Slumberland and Gertie the Dinosaur. Past recipients include such luminaries as Walt Disney, Tex Avery, Max Fleischer and Mel Blanc.
Since Bird has his hands full with the Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, he had to accept the award in a pre-recorded video. Keep watching (around 4 minute 30 seconds mark) after the rather nifty overview of his career for Bird’s acceptance speech, which extols the virtues of live-action filmmaking,...
This year, Brad Bird was given the Winsor McCay Award, which recognizes an outstanding or lifetime contribution to the art of animation – and you have admit the man has earned it. The award’s namesake was a pioneer in animation and cartooning, creator of the influential comic strips Little Nemo in Slumberland and Gertie the Dinosaur. Past recipients include such luminaries as Walt Disney, Tex Avery, Max Fleischer and Mel Blanc.
Since Bird has his hands full with the Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, he had to accept the award in a pre-recorded video. Keep watching (around 4 minute 30 seconds mark) after the rather nifty overview of his career for Bird’s acceptance speech, which extols the virtues of live-action filmmaking,...
- 2/8/2011
- by Anthony Vieira
- The Film Stage
In the fall of 1946, Frank Stauffacher mounted a major, and very influential, retrospective of avant-garde film in the U.S. at the San Francisco Museum of Art. The series was called “Art in Cinema” and it featured ten different programs from filmmakers in the U.S., France, Germany and Canada.
By the mid-’40s, the avant-garde hadn’t taken a strong hold in the U.S. yet, so the majority of the films screened came from Europe, or by Europeans who relocated to the U.S. However, by that time also, the European avant-garde had pretty much completely petered out. Still, Stauffacher wanted to show that there was a continuity to avant-garde film history that, up until that point, had yet to be fully considered.
In conjunction with the series, the San Francisco Museum of Art published a catalog, pretty much like one would find with any major art exhibit.
By the mid-’40s, the avant-garde hadn’t taken a strong hold in the U.S. yet, so the majority of the films screened came from Europe, or by Europeans who relocated to the U.S. However, by that time also, the European avant-garde had pretty much completely petered out. Still, Stauffacher wanted to show that there was a continuity to avant-garde film history that, up until that point, had yet to be fully considered.
In conjunction with the series, the San Francisco Museum of Art published a catalog, pretty much like one would find with any major art exhibit.
- 12/15/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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