Telephones have always figured prominently in film, as a plot device, a prop, a way to generate suspense or a way to reach out and touch someone. But now that we’re all reachable all the time, screenwriters have to contrive ways of using our phones in symbolic or surprising ways, and figure out how to take them away from us altogether. Freelance journalist Zachary Pincus-Roth wrote about the effect that cell phones are having on movie plots in this Sunday’s Los Angeles Times.
Filmmakers have long been fascinated by the idea of the grizzled reporter chasing a scoop. In the silent era, titles like “The Daring of Diana” and “The Final Extra” treated journalism as adventure – and it’s no different in the modern age. Joe Saltzman, director of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture, discusses the movie reporter.
With movie-ticket sales flat, the film industry is looking for a way to entice audiences back into the theater with new digital 3-D technology. Big name directors and major studios all have 3-D projects in the works, but Portfolio Magazine's Kevin Maney says many hurdles remain before 3-D becomes commonplace.
Since the medium began, movies from “Metropolis” to “Iron Man” have plundered science, molding and sometimes mangling it. But physicist Sidney Perkowitz argues in his new book, Hollywood Science: Movies, Science and the End of the World, that science in cinema probably does more good than harm.
Private investigator Anthony Pellicano is on trial in Federal District Court in Los Angeles. He's defending himself against charges of intimidating reporters on behalf of his high-powered Hollywood clients. With wiretapping, celebrities, and lots of money and intrigue, David Carr of The New York Times says the story would make a great movie.
If you watch movies on DVD, you’re using an outdated technology. But no single high-definition disc has emerged as the replacement to the inferior DVD, mainly because of a battle between two competing formats: Sony’s Blu-ray and Toshiba’s HD-DVD. Shane Buettner of Home Theater Magazine explains that Blu-ray may have won the war.
Do you LARP? Live Action Role-Playing is the subject of “Darkon,” a documentary about people who don costumes and characters and make believe. But co-director Andrew Neel says that LARPing, while partly escapism, is in fact a ticket to reality.
