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‘The Martian’ Movie Review – It’s sci-fi at its finest

The Martian is a fantastic movie — it cannot be stated quickly enough. Ridley Scott’s film about a man stranded on Mars after his crew evacuates without him is the director’s best work in years. The Martian features a stellar supporting cast, a well written script that’s clever and funny, and an Oscar caliber performance from a Hollywood A-lister at the top of his game.

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‘Blade Runner 2’ a go with Harrison Ford confirmed, Denis Villenueve to direct

Ridley Scott nostalgia is having an awful good week. Back in November there were talks that a sequel to Blade Runner, Scott’s 1982 sci-fi masterpiece, was in the works, but that Scott would be unable to direct due to schedule conflicts with Prometheus 2. Now however, a replacement has been found in Denis Villeneuve, Oscar …

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‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ needs more divine inspiration

Exodus: Gods and Kings Written by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, Jeffrey Caine & Steven Zaillian Directed by Ridley Scott UK/USA/Spain, 2014   Perhaps the End Times are finally upon us.  How else to explain a year that began with Russell Crowe playing Noah and ends with Christian Bale as Moses?  Whereas Darren Aronofsky’s Noah reached …

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The Definitive Scary Scenes from Non-Horror Films: 40-31

40. Night of the Hunter (1955) Scene: The Preacher on the Horizon Video: http://youtu.be/9PyNL2ahKwc?list=PLZbXA4lyCtqolaQOAXly96de5FYQlPzqK Just like a few others in this section of the list, Charles Laughton’s brilliant Night of the Hunter isn’t really a horror film, but still sets out to keep the audience on edge. Starring a diabolical Robert Mitchum as a preacher/serial killer …

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Week in Review: ‘No Jokes’ in DC movies

We can debate all day which comic book hero is cooler: DC or Marvel? Superman or Spiderman? Justice League or The Avengers? Batman or anyone who isn’t cool enough to be Batman? But it’s no question that Marvel has a serious leg-up on DC in the movie business. Outside of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, DC …

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The Definitive Kubrickian Films: 10-1

What’s difficult about making this list is finding a balance between a successful Kubrickian film that either predates or pays homage to Kubrick and, for lack of a better term, is a ripoff. Now that we’ve hit the apex, it’s clear that these are, regardless of influence, quality films. What sets them apart is their …

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A Look Back At The Most Famous Super Bowl Commercial ‘1984’ by Ridley Scott

When Steve Jobs launched the Macintosh, he had to generate buzz about a computer that was unfamiliar to most people. It was in 1984, that the  relatively unknown computer company,  launched a new product named after a particular type of Californian apple – the Macintosh – and in the process changed the world. There were …

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Alien 3: Assembly Cut redeems a dark and unforgetable nightmare

It’s a classic chapter of Hollywood lore, one of those great cautionary tales of executive mismanagement and shattered dreams but Alien 3’s production also brought a solid and respectable sequel butchered in post, one that can be found in the rough and tumble Assembly Cut.

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‘The Counselor’ a Cormac McCarthy tale of venality and death through and through, save one bit of miscasting

In his later years, the novelist Cormac McCarthy has circled like a vulture around the theme of death, specifically its inevitable grip on humanity. No Country for Old Men and The Road presented very different worlds, both filled with men trying desperately to withstand the inexorable hand of the reaper, and eventually realizing that there wasn’t much left but to give into what comes for us all. Such an existential fear is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the foundation of McCarthy’s newest foray, his screenplay for the crime thriller The Counselor. Its director is the prolific Ridley Scott, and its cast is impressively stacked, but this is a McCarthy story through and through, which is mostly heartening news.

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Greatest Sci-fi Horror Films

The concept of the sci-fi horror genre allows us to address the built-in terrors and tensions developed in society that are difficult, if not impossible, to actualize and confront directly. It has the strengths of sci-fi’s ability to question our potential as a developed species, breaking current conceptions of reality to attain a scenario that …

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New Giclee Prints Inspired By ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Pyscho,’ from Marko Manev x Bottleneck Gallery

Marko Manev’s Blade Runner print is to be released for sales on Tuesday, August 20th at www.BottleneckGallery.com at around 12pm eastern. The Giclee print from Marko, titled Mother, and inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho, also goes on sale at the same time.

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‘Prometheus’ & The Death of a Masterpiece

If you flashback to the early 00’s, there was still a sense of excitement and anticipation at the announcement of Ridley Scott working on a new project. This was a visionary director who’s expansive, ambitious and heart capturing visual eye had given the world of cinema such wonders as Alien and Blade Runner, masterpieces of …

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‘Kingdom of Heaven: The Director’s Cut’ epic filmmaking at its finest

Various directors take very differing stances when it comes to the ongoing threat of executive meddling. This, of course, is when the studio moneymen stop what you’re doing and tell you that what you’ve made will simply not cut it at the box office, that key demographics that their marketing department has been stringently working on (usually in the form of charts) will dislike your movie.

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Argo and the Search for Historical Authenticity

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock since the Oscars, you’ve heard about the controversies surround Argo’s (lack of) historical accuracy. Whether it’s Iran threatening to sue Ben Affleck and George Clooney, Canada feeling relegated to postscript of history, or most recently the parliament in New Zealand motioning that Affleck “saw fit to mislead the …

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More Equal Than Others: Six Films of 2012 Done Better

For better or worse, films don’t exist in a vacuum. If literature derives from itself, and, according to Marshall McLuhan, the content in any new medium is always the same as in the old, then films don’t exactly have a wealth of opportunities to be original. You can always compare a film to one that …

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‘Grabbers’ Movie Review – a slight and impermanent genre affair

Grabbers Directed by Jon Wright Written by Kevin Lehane Ireland, 2012 For a movie about aliens, Grabbers feels all-too-familiar. Reaching as far back as Ridley Scott’s Alien, Grabbers is a perfectly serviceable and well-cultivated collection of creature features, but, despite its earnest convictions, it lacks a certain novelty to garner any postmortem traction. The movie …

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Director’s Cut – 3 Essential Recuts (And 3 Worthless Ones)

Ever since the birth of the concept in the early eighties, the prospect of a ‘Director’s Cut’ has become one of the most mouth watering morsels for film fanatics, a chance to glimpse an expanded version or in some cases a radically altered vision to their favorite movies. Whether it be the lengthening of an …

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Tony Scott – Love ‘im or hate ‘im, it’ll be a long time before anyone forgets him

In the late 1970s and 1980s, composer Giorgio Moroder was often accused of trying to replace the orchestral movie soundtrack with high-energy, synthesizer-heavy disco pop laid on with a trowel in movies like Thank God It’s Friday (1978), Flashdance (1983), Scarface (1983), and Top Gun (1986). I remember a magazine story on Moroder which quoted …

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