movies

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Brain Game: LLBBCK

Today's Wednesday Wordplay puzzle is a new set of entries in a popular challenge we ran on the mentalfloss.com Brain Game back in March. Enjoy! The following are five of history's most famous feature film quotes. (Each appears on the AFI's list of Top 100 Movie Quotes.) We've altered these quotes, however, by removing each instance of vowels (A, E, I, O, and U) and eliminating all spaces and punctuation. As an example, the title of today's quiz - LLBBCK - represents "I'll be back!" from the 1984 film... READ ON

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The Late Movies: Free, Full-Length Classic Movies on YouTube

As part of YouTube's entry into the online movie-streaming business, it has created something called OpenFlix -- a collection currently boasting 670 free, full-length movies. As far as I can tell, they're all public domain films -- but some are classics, and worth a look. They all have ads at the beginning and periodically throughout the feature. Many of these are also available (commercial-free, but not in the convenient YouTube format) at Archive.org's Moving Image Archive. Night Of The Living Dead... READ ON

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10 Director's Cuts That Change The Plot

Whether because of a dispute with the studio or just a plethora of unused material, a director often feels the need to re-release a classic (or not-so-classic) film. Often these directors’ cuts or extended editions are just more bloated versions of the original, but on occasion they represent a departure from the entire original. By the way, there are spoilers within for both versions of these movies. Proceed with caution. 1. Blade... READ ON

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Everything is a Remix Part 3: Innovation and Creation

Today I'm pleased to point you to the third part of the Everything is a Remix series. This one is my favorite so far, as it demystifies a series of inventions and creative works, explaining how creators are performing a copy-transform-combine cycle, using existing ideas to build upon them and make something new. Perhaps the best example of this phenomenon in pop culture (briefly discussed in the documentary) is Bob Dylan. See the film Bob Dylan: No Direction Home for more on that. But today, enjoy... READ ON
  1. FIND THESE T-SHIRTS AND MORE IN THE STORE!

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Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera

In this seven-minute video, Walt Disney describes the MultiPlane camera. Invented by William Garity for Walt Disney Studios, the camera allows photography of multiple layers of film, with control over the relative movement of each layer. This allows for more realistic control of things like zoom-ins -- it's sort of "3D-ish," at least for cel animation. Worth a look for anyone interested in animation, technology, or photography. My favorite part is around 6 minutes in, when two clearly dubbed camera... READ ON

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Brain Game: An Oscar Trio (or Better)

Ponder today's Tuesday Test Time to see if you can come up with the four famous names in question. Good luck! In the history of the Academy Awards, only two actors and two actresses have won more than two Oscars for acting. Name them. Here are the ANSWERS. THE ANSWERS: JACK NICHOLSON (2 for Best Actor, 1 for Best Supporting Actor) WALTER BRENNAN (3 for Best Supporting Actor) KATHARINE HEPBURN (4 for Best Actress) INGRID BERGMAN (2 for Best Actress, 1 for Best Supporting Actress) Thanks... READ ON

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All Chewie, All the Time

Want to see every Chewbacca appearance in the original Star Wars trilogy? Of course you do; you've got nothing better to do today. Chewie only gets thirteen minutes of screen time in A New Hope and just over nine in Jedi -- but he looms much larger in our minds. Enjoy, my sweet nerds: Warning: the creator included some scenes from the re-cut version of the trilogy, including that awful Jabba the Hut/Millennium Falcon walk-around (slither-around?) scene. Just close your eyes when that's happening.... READ ON

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The Quick 10: 10 Iconic Movie Costumes Owned By Debbie Reynolds

Long before it was popular to do so, Debbie Reynolds collected Hollywood memorabilia. When costume departments were cleaning out their closets or repurposing garments for a new movie, Reynolds would swoop in and purchase items for her personal collection. Along the way, she has amassed more than 3,500 costumes and thousands of props and costume sketches. Sadly, her museum had to file for bankruptcy in 2009, and as a result, her amazing collection is being auctioned off next week. Here are a few of the... READ ON

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Han Solo + Princess Leia = Worst Couple in the Universe

In this nerdy three-minute Star Wars mashup, footage from Star Wars is mixed with audio from a film called "Who's Right?" which in turn is based on a 1948 book entitled Marriage for Moderns by Henry A. Bowman. Here we reimagine Han and Leia's relationship as a 50's-era couple named Honey and Frank Carson. You'll be moderately surprised by the "solution" to their marital problems revealed at the end of the video. The original Who's Right? video is after the... READ ON

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Everything is a Remix: "Kill Bill"

In this video, the second part of the Everything is a Remix series, filmmaker Kirby Ferguson explains how Hollywood films are now overwhelmingly based on existing properties -- almost everything that comes out these days is a sequel, remake, or adaptation of something else that was already successful. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing -- but it does mean that a lot of what we see at the theater is actually recycled. It's instructive to know what the source material is, and how the movie business... READ ON

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