MCN: Movie City News

The theory is that eventually our televisions will work like our computers do, with the ability to download material and store it on a hard drive. With high-definition programming growing by the day, we will eventually reach a point where we can download movies or television shows, store them on our insanely large hard drives, and watch them in perfectly crisp high-definition. This is the next wave of the home theater.

The big concern for a lot of people is: what will this do to the movie theater experience? And the really sad fact is that, for me, I don't really care.

Confession: Watching the Wachowski brothers' Speed Racer, often felt like i was getting my head jammed down the gullet of a huge, monstrous video game/pinball machine. Sheeeesh! Based on the celebrated Japanese anime TV series about a young race-car driver, this is a blazing, whiplash-cut, CGI-laden screamer of a movie - not entirely a pleasurable experience, but you sure won't forget it soon.

Bronston's Rome set, which is unseen until near the end of the movie's first half, is an amazing piece of industry. Constructed in Spain and close to a half-mile in length, it is a recreation of the actual plaza in front of the Roman senate that is as exact as possible in both size and detail. The movies had seen nothing like it since Intolerance and now, because of CGI, they never will again. Ultimately, there are not enough motion picture spectacles in the history of cinema - what happened to Bronston is one of the main reasons why - so that those which did manage to make their way to the screen are loved unconditionally by many fans for the shear grandeur of their existence, and The Fall of the Roman Empire is not only a prime example of this romance, but a justification of it.

"I knew that we had something really powerful with Waiting for Hockney and the question that presented itself was "what is the right vessel for this?" Content really determines form. While the piece initially started out as a story for public radio, it quickly outgrew the time allowed for exploration on radio and also exceeded---because of it's visual nature---what sound (in which I strongly believe) can do alone 99% of the time."

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The Hot Button
The Billion Dollar
Paramount '08 Illusion
by David Poland

You might remember that it was only a few years ago when Sherry Lansing and financial architect Jon Dolgen were getting creamed in the media for not risking enough, finding financial partners on pretty much every single movie they made for Paramount.

That complaint could emerge again this summer, as their four biggest likely grossers this summer are all deals that will not be terribly profitable for the studio.

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Since 2006, IFC In Theaters has launched nearly 50 films, day-and-date, on VOD and in theaters, where the program is called IFC First Take. Its Festival Direct service showcases films that previewed on the festival circuit but weren't considered commercial enough to inspire a full-blown marketing and distribution campaign. An IFC spokesman estimates that the VOD services currently are available to customers in 50 million homes, although only a small fraction of that number is ever likely to consider ordering a Mister Lonely, Anamorph, Paranoid Park or 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

While undeniably entertaining and revealing, Charlie Wilson's War and The True Story of Charlie Wilson beg a question raised countless times by ethics professors and at least one Twilight Zone episode, If you were transported back in time to Nazi Germany, on or around Krystalnacht, would you have attempted to assassinate Adolph Hitler, and save the world from the horrors of World War II? Or, as it applies here, If a well-meaning American congressman, CIA operative and Dallas socialite hadn't conspired to provide Afghan mujahedeen with the Stinger missiles used to drive Soviet forces from their soil, would we have been spared the events of 9/11 and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?.

Also .. The Savages, Cloverfield, Nana, Starting Out in the Evening, Cuba: An African Odyssey