ray harryhausen Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Watch This: Tim Burton Interviews Ray Harryhausen
Filed under: Fandom », Trailers and Clips »
It's charming to watch a director with his own fanbase become a fan himself, sitting down with someone he admires and conducting an informal interview. Thanks to the blog AustinTranslation, we've found a three-part interview on YouTube in which director Tim Burton chats with special-effects master Ray Harryhausen about the ways in which Harryhausen designed creatures and spacecraft of all sorts for classic science-fiction and fantasy movies like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Mighty Joe Young and Jason and the Argonauts. You can check out the three clips after the jump. After you've watched the clips, read the blog entry on AustinTranslation, since it includes artwork from Gustav Dore, a big influence on Harryhausen.
The three interviews total about 25 minutes, and the talk ranges from flying saucer design to the reasons why audiences sympathize with the creatures in monster movies, to the odd ways Harryhausen has collected sound effects. Burton is very passionate about many of these topics, especially stop-motion animation, but discusses them in an intelligent, non-fanboy-ish way. Occasionally, inserts pop up in a corner of the screen with clips from Harryhausen effects, so when they're talking about tentacles you can actually see what they mean.
I was interested to hear Harryhausen praising the current methods of colorizing films, which he says have recently made vast improvements. He's delighted that several of his black-and-white films are about to undergo colorization, pointing out that the films would have been shot in color if only the budgets had been large enough. I've always been anti-colorization but he's persuading me to perhaps give it another chance.
The Rocchi Review -- With Devin Faraci of CHUD.com
Filed under: Drama », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Awards », Podcasts », Interviews », Comic/Superhero/Geek », The Rocchi Review: Online Film Community Podcast »
What's going on with Summit Entertainment pulling Catherine Hardwicke off of the Twilight films? And who should they get to replace her? Does The Day the Earth Stood Still work as 'hard" science fiction, or is it just hard to watch? And what can cooking with pork tell us about modern leading men? Joining us to talk about these topics and much, much more on The Rocchi Review this week is writer and editor Devin Faraci of Chud.com, who shares his thoughts on the Oscar race and why, precisely, Punisher: War Zone works for him and a wide variety of other topics. You can listen to the podcast here at Cinematical by clicking below:
As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
Spin-ematical: New on DVD for 10/7
Filed under: Animation », Classics », Comedy », Drama », Foreign Language », Independent », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Noir », New on DVD », Home Entertainment », Cinematical Indie »
Above: You Don't Mess with the Zohan, The Happening, Sleeping Beauty
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Adam Sandler wandering into topical territory, actually making sense, and stll making the funny? I was surprised too! Don't worry, he still packs in plenty of juvenile gags about the outlandish size of his package and drags in every ancient ethnic stereotype possible, but as an Israeli intelligence operative who wants to become a hairdresser, he pulls off the neat trick of creating a completely silly character in a wish-fulfillment scenario that, well, nearly everyone wants to see. Rent it. Available rated (theatrical cut) on a single-disc DVD and unrated in single-disc and double-disc DVD editions. The Blu-ray includes both the rated and unrated versions.
The Happening
Maybe the inclusion of "over 1 hour of intense bonus footage not shown in theaters!" -- extended versions of "Lion Attack" and Survivalist Porch" among them -- will convert me. Maybe I'll watch M. Night Shyamalan's first R-rated horror flick again some day to see if it still makes me roll my eyes and laugh out loud at scenes that were evidently intended to make me shiver in my seat. Maybe one day pigs will fly. Skip it. Available on DVD and Blu-ray with deleted scenes and "making of" features.
Sleeping Beauty
Scott Weinberg has already written about the awesomeness of the new edition of Disney's animated treasure on Blu-ray. This is a classic no-brainer, a movie that both young and old can dip back into time and again. Buy it. Available on DVD and Blu-ray.
After the jump: Indies on DVD, Blu-ray, and Collector's Corner. Join us, won't you?
Ray Harryhausen's Greatest Hits
Filed under: Action », Animation », Classics », Documentary », Horror », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Fandom », Family Films », Home Entertainment »
I constantly complain about modern special effects, how CGI creatures don't look realistic enough, but I have to admit this is pretty hypocritical of me. I love the work of effects legend Ray Harryhausen, and his models were never believable. There was a lot more inventiveness and craftsmanship in his effects, though, and there's no denying that the films he worked on have a creative spark that many modern fantasy films lack. Sometimes I think that my preference for model work over CGI has to do with their tangible appearance, but then that doesn't explain my forgiveness for the composite shots in Harryhausen films, which typically appeared as flat as today's worst CGI. Anyway, despite our now having films with great computer effects like Jurassic Park and Peter Jackson's King Kong, Harryhausen will never be forgotten. Earlier this year, the 86-year-old received a well-deserved George Pal Memorial Award at the Saturn Awards and he was celebrated in the documentary The Sci-Fi Boys, which screened at Tribeca. Now, thanks to YouTube, someone is presenting all of Harryhausen's creatures and spaceships in a chronologically edited montage. Check it out below:
Tribeca Review: The Sci-Fi Boys
Filed under: Documentary », Horror », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Tribeca », Universal », Theatrical Reviews », Fandom », Tech Stuff », George Lucas », Steven Spielberg », Peter Jackson », Comic/Superhero/Geek »
Paul Davids' documentary The Sci-Fi Boys is the kind of mediocre effort that makes its way onto DVDs as supplement material, although finding an appropriate special edition to include it with would be tough, as its focus isn't limited to any specific film or filmmaker. Davids, an admitted "sci-fi boy" filmmaker, spotlights other directors like Peter Jackson, Stephen Sommers, John Landis, Roger Corman and William Malone, all who grew up as fan boys before acquiring their own followers. Of course, with all the attention Davids gives to himself (the photo above shows him on the left as a young model maker), he could include the film as an extra on one of his own films, except that it wouldn't quite fit with his '97 debut Timothy Leary's Dead.
Harryhausen Gets Well Deserved Saturn Award
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Awards », Fandom », Tech Stuff »
For fans of classic science-fiction and fantasy films, Ray
Harryhausen is an important guy. He was not the most prolific man in his time, but the visual-effects master
produced some of the early greats, most notably Jason and the
Argonauts and The 7th
Voyage of Sinbad. The man had an eye for effects in an age where visual effects were just starting to emerge.
The Saturn Awards (presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films) plans to give Harryhausen the
George Pal Memorial Award at this year's 32nd annual awards festival on May 2nd.The two flicks mentioned above are among my all-time favorites (particularly Jason and the Argonauts), and I can think of few men more deserving of special notice by the Saturn people. Harryhausen is something of a legend in the geek community, and I imagine nearly everyone out there agrees with this award. I'm just glad the 80-something year old is still around to receive it in person.
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