Film buffs who missed “Blade Runner,” “Alien” and the “Rocketeer” in theatres the first time around are getting a long-delayed chance for a do-over. Cineplex is bringing its national Great Digital Film Festival to Ancaster’s SilverCity from Jan. 30 to Feb. 5, showing 16 popular films released between 1979 and last year, at a ticket price of $6.99.
The festival’s roster hones in on action, sci-fi and cult favourites, most of them shot on celluloid film, before the industry began its ongoing transition to digital cinematography.
Festival programmer and film critic Richard Crouse says the trouble with showing older movies in theatres is that the film itself breaks down with time and use. By selecting older films that have since been released digitally, viewers get to see a picture that is as sharp as when it was first released.
“Often it’s difficult to find really crisp prints,” Crouse told The Spec on Thursday. “These films have been remastered. You’ll see them as they were meant to be seen…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Richard sits in with legendary loudmouths Humble and Fred to talk about the Great Digital Film Festival, colon cancer, rating H&F’s caricatures, blasphemy and Humble’s addiction to yoga porn.
“The focus is to show great movies that haven’t been seen on the big screen for a long time — kind of in the way that they are best seen,” Richard Crouse, a film critic responsible for choosing the films screening at the festival, said. “The best way to see movies is to see them in the theatre with the picture and the sound that the director wanted you to see, and be surrounded by strangers who are laughing and crying and gasping and doing whatever it is that they do.”
The festival will bring a wide-selection of movies back into cinemas, including the entire X-Men series, Blade Runner, Alien and Aliens, Kill Bill and Pan’s Labyrinth… READ THE WHOLE THIKNG HERE!
This year, St. John’s will be participating in Cineplex’s annual Great Digital Film Festival. 2015 marks the sixth year of the festival, in which certain Cineplex theatres all over Canada screen a set of films spanning a variety of genres and years. This year’s lineup, playing from January 30 to February 5, includes selections from Alien all the way to X-Men: Days of Future Past. Behind the selections are Matt DeVuono and well-known film critic Richard Crouse, who spoke with the Muse before the festival.
Award season is a busy time for Crouse. When it comes to perhaps the most popular award show, the Oscars, Crouse believed there were certain notable snubs. In terms of the best picture nominees, he felt that The Lego Movie was overlooked. Crouse also noticed an underrepresentation of female directors… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Like most movie critics, Richard Crouse has strong and fairly predictable views of how to best watch films.
“The best way to see a movie is in a big dark room surrounded by strangers, watching it as big and loud as possible, they way that the director intended you to see it and hear it,” says Crouse, in an interview from Toronto. “I love sitting in a crowd of strangers, hearing them laugh or hearing them scream at something that scares them. Whatever the reaction might be, I really like being part of the community of all that.”‘
Which is a guiding principle for Cineplex’s Great Digital Film Fest, which will start on Friday at Scotiabank Theatre Chinook.
Crouse, an author and film critic who appears on CTV’s Canada AM and CP24, co-programmed the sixth annual festival with a focus on films that beg to be seen on a giant screen… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
THUNDER BAY — Movies are meant to be seen on the big screen.
“For me the best way to see a movie is to see it on the big screen surrounded by strangers so you can listen as they laugh all at the same time or as they gasp in horror or whatever reaction they have,” said film expert Richard Crouse.
Crouse, who is Canada AM’s regular film critic, is participating in Cineplex’s sixth annual Great Digital Film Festival from Jan. 30 to Feb. 5 by interacting with fans on Twitter, answering questions and engaging in conversation on the classic and fan-favourite films chosen for this year’s lineup.
Thunder Bay’s SilverCity is one of the theatres that will be hosting the festival.
As a reviewer, Crouse has every closet and cupboard in his house filled with DVDs and Blu-rays, but he finds he doesn’t watch them that often.
“Given the choice, I’d always rather see something on the big screen,” he said, adding this festival is a way for him to see some of these films the way they were meant to be seen…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
I saw Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” on its opening day in Toronto. I sat through it once, transfixed and while everyone else stayed glued to their seats for the credits, discussing the movie and picking up their jaws from the floor, I rushed out and bought another ticket for the next screening and sat through it once more. Not sure how many times I’ve seen it since then, but I was reminded of that first screening when I looked at “Pulp Fiction: The Complete Story of Quentin Tarantino’s Masterpiece,” Jason Bailey’s book on the making of the film.
From amazon.ca: ”
When Pulp Fiction was released in theaters in 1994, it was immediately hailed as a masterpiece. The New York Times called it a “triumphant, cleverly disorienting journey,” and thirty-one-year-old Quentin Tarantino, with just three feature films to his name, became a sensation: the next great American director.
“Nearly twenty years later, those who proclaimed Pulp Fiction an instant classic have been proven irrefutably right. In Pulp Fiction: The Complete Story of Quentin Tarantino’s Masterpiece, film expert Jason Bailey explores why Pulp Fiction is such a brilliant and influential film. He discusses how the movie was revolutionary in its use of dialogue (“You can get a steak here, daddy-o,” “Correct-amundo”), time structure, and cinematography—and how it completely transformed the industry and artistry of independent cinema. He examines Tarantino’s influences, illuminates the film’s pop culture references, and describes its phenomenal legacy. Unforgettable characters like Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), Vincent Vega (John Travolta), Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), and Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) are scrutinized from all-new angles, and memorable scenes—Christopher Walken’s gold watch monologue, Vince’s explanation of French cuisine—are analyzed and celebrated.
“Much like the contents of Marcellus Wallace’s briefcase, Pulp Fiction is mysterious and spectacular. This book explains why. Illustrated throughout with original art inspired by the film, with sidebars and special features on everything from casting close calls to deleted scenes, this is the most comprehensive, in-depth book on Pulp Fiction ever published.”
Thanks to Sophie Sinemania for the cool portrait! I’m really excited that she took the time to draw me!
Her excellent new book Sinemania! (graphic interpretations of the lives and careers of 23 North American and European directors from the past and present, including Woody Allen, Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Quentin Tarantino, and Orson Welles from ECW Press) is in fine and not so fine book stores everywhere!
Diane Kruger almost didn’t win the part of German movie-star-turned- Mata-Hari Bridget von Hammersmark in Inglourious Basterds because Quentin Tarantino’s didn’t think she was German enough. He was familiar with her from National Treasure, Wicker Park and Troy, but assumed she was American and would have trouble with the German dialogue and accent.
“It’s a testament to my dialect coaches throughout the years,” says the actress, born Diane Heidkrüger thirty-four years ago in Algermissen, Germany. “They eventually convinced him I was actually German,” she says, but unfortunately Tarantino wanted Natasha Kinski for the role.
When Kinski backed out Kruger saw her chance. “I can be really obnoxious when I want something badly,” she says. For the audition she flew herself to Berlin and learned thirty pages of dialogue in German and in English. “I knew if I got my chance he couldn’t hire anyone else.”
The Berlin set of Inglourious Basterds was a long way from Algermissen. “I come from the middle of nowhere,” she says. “No one in my family knows anyone in the business.”
Her first taste of “the business” was at the Royal Ballet in London before an injury sidelined her dancing career. Returning to Germany she pursued modeling and became a top model. After starring in campaigns for Chanel and Giorgio Armani it was time for a change.
“You can only care so much about free clothes and posing. I wanted to be intellectually engaged.
At the suggestion of The Fifth Element filmmaker Luc Besson she left the runway to try acting. Working internationally—she’s fluent in three languages—she made an impression in a series of French films like Mon idole before Wolfgang Petersen cast her as Helen of Troy opposite Brad Pitt in the big budget epic Troy.
Admitting to being “inexperienced and completely overwhelmed” while making the movie, it nonetheless put her “on the map” in Hollywood. Soon she was starring opposite Nicolas Cage in National Treasure and its sequel while still finding time to make challenging films like Frankie and the Oscar nominated Joyeux Noël.
Inglourious Basterds is another jewel in her crown, but don’t expect her to return to that kind of role again anytime soon.
“Every movie has to be a different challenge,” she says. “I don’t want to play the same part that I’ve played in a different movie. I have to be scared of it to want to do it.”
By Saira Peesker – Hamilton Spectator
