The term “space opera” gets thrown around every time a big-budget fantasy set in space rolls into theatres, but Jupiter Ascending actually earns the title: whatever you may think of it, there’s no denying that it’s pretty damn operatic. There’s a pure-hearted earnestness here which might have felt run-of-the-mill thirty years ago but feels fairly bracing in 2015. It’s a movie filled with flying dinosaur soldiers, shape-shifting aliens, genetic splicing, bonkers performances, grandiose concepts, political statements, royalphile bees, anti-gravity roller blades, Brazil references and a metric…

Some of these old “making of” documentaries are so great. While Return of the Jedi is easily the least of the three original Star Wars films, it’s still quite good. Among the good things is the fact that they just didn’t have access to modern CGI filmmaking and so were forced to do things that were physical, and in my opinion, more real. In fact, in this documentary, they say that even at the time, George Lucas wanted to use CGI but they just couldn’t do it because of the limitations of the time. He was unhappy with the look and the puppetry. Well, I have to tell you that Jaba looks the most…

Do not watch this if you are opposed to gruesome horror scene explorations. In some ways this is more yucky than actually seeing it in the film — though the shock factor is toned way down because you know it’s coming and the music and story is not affecting you.

I love seeing how some of this classic stuff came to live and this is a great exploration of what all went into this. And I’m not just talking from a technical point of view here, they also explore some of the dominos that had to line up to even get to this point. Great stuff.

This will be the second time I’ve posted an ‘Every Frame a Painting’ episode. I really need to subscribe to that or something. Anyway, I have not, sadly, seen Drive, but now I really, really want to. It came out just before I really started paying attention to film and wanting to write and podcast about it. So I need to correct this lapse in my education.

But, as regards this video, this really shows the craft of framing and cinematography. When I was an indy filmmaker full time, I could tell when a shot was well composed, and I’ve composed a few shots fairly well myself, but I was never…

Lego has just announced their most massive, epic Marvel set ever. It’s the S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier, a 2,996 behemoth of a set featuring mini-figures of Nick Fury, Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye and Maria Hill. The Helicarrier hits shelves in March and will retail for $349.99. Below, see a bunch of images and more info about the Lego Avengers Helicarrier.

I MUST HAVE THIS!

Want yet another way to watch Guardians of the Galaxy? Last night co-writer/director James Gunn popped onto Facebook (accompanied by Sean Gunn, Michael Rooker, and Stephane Ceretti, the VFX supervisor for Marvel) and held a communal screening! As he watched the film, he typed up a real-time commentary track and answered questions from fans. This Q&A format allowed Gunn to delve into a few aspects of the film, including a troubling moment between Drax and Gamora, and we got some insights into Rocket and Groot’s relationship!

There’s a lot of interesting information here you will enjoy…

2014 was a pretty solid year for film. Until I sat down to write up this list, I thought 2014 may have been a down year in film, but I have been reminded that it’s been a long year with a lot of solid and engaging films– well worth viewing AND discussing.

I thought I would remind you all that my top films of 2014 is in dispute and my opinion does not (unfortunately) reign supreme. I disagree with a couple of these, but there’s a lot more cross over than I might have thought.

Obviously, I also have to quote his bit about my official favorite film from 2014:

A really great spy/thriller…

In the essay collection Harry Potter and History, there is an essay titled “Severus Snape and the Standard Book of Spells: Ancient Tongues in the Wizarding World” by M. G. DuPree that points out something you might have missed between your swishes and flicks:

There’s a linguist’s saying about English speakers that we go to work in Latin and come home in Anglo-Saxon. Meaning that much of our professional language (words like office, supervisor, colleague — even computer and telephone) comes from the Latin-derived French. While the language of home (house, hearth, fire) comes to us from the…

As far as Chris is concerned, the war he’s eventually asked to participate in is a simple one: there are a bunch of violent savages over there, and it’s America’s job to go over there and kill them before they kill us.

Based on what I’ve read, this seems like a fairly accurate portrait of Kyle’s mindset, but the problem is that the film itself seems to share the same mentality. It oversimplifies an incredibly complex war for the sake of permitting American Sniper to double as a propaganda film; the American equivalent of that fictional German sniper biopic featured at the end of Quentin…