Spectre has opened to huge audiences in England already, and it’s about to drop in the U.S. One of the most buzzed elements of any new Bond movie is the new theme song and the opening title sequence. Take a spin through the past 52+ years of title sequences. You’ll find every video embedded below (along with a few bonuses), and ranked in an apparently very arbitrary order of preference.
Worst to first:
1979 – Moonraker
Why is this a 007 theme song? Kudos for working one of the series’ sillier titles into the lyrics though. Read more…
Guillermo del Toro loves his monsters. His filmography is packed with them; Cronos, Mimic, Blade II, Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, and Pacific Rim all burst at the seams with beasts both fantastical and hellish. His latest, Crimson Peak is more of a ghost story, but don’t worry – ghosts are still well within his wheelhouse. After all, Crimson Peak borrows a few themes from one of del Toro’s best films, The Devil’s Backbone (2001), another ghost story of sorts.
Crimson Peak begins in Buffalo, NY, at the dawn of the 20th century. Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is an aspiring novelist haunted by the ghost of her mother. She’s also being courted by both a handsome doctor (Charlie Hunnam), and an English entrepreneur. After her father dies under mysterious circumstances, she marries Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and leaves for England with him and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain).
Legendary Pictures
The Sharpes live in their centuries-old family mansion, a run down estate named Allerdale Hall, and nicknamed “Crimson Peak.” Despite Allerdale’s grandiosity, it is sinking into the earth it was built upon because of an abundance of soft red clay. Clay literally bleeds through the walls and seeps up through the floor boards. Worse yet, Edith continues to see ghosts, more now than ever before, and they’re adamant about her leaving Crimson Peak. Read more…
20th Century Fox
The Martian has landed in theaters. No matter what people say about The Counselor (2013), or Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), I always rejoice when a Ridley Scott film is poised for release. When Scott, 77, directs a film, you always know going in that you’re in for a singular experience. He is a world builder, not a universe builder (though things can change).
The Martian is sci-fi lite, as it features only realistic science and is set in a recognizable near-future. The reality that Scott’s best work has come in the sci-fi genre has helped to posit his newest film as a mammoth hit. Scott has had a long, fruitful career as a director, and regardless of what he does from here on out, his golden ticket into Movie Heaven will be punched by a Xenomorph and a Replicant. That reality aside, the optimism is well-deserved, and The Martian is one of Scott’s very best films.
Based on the novel of the same name by Andy Weir, and adapted by Drew Goddard, The Martian is the story of astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) using every last bit of his cunning to survive alone on Mars. Watney was abandoned by his crew after being presumed dead during a storm that resulted in the abortion of their mission, the Ares III. Left for dead, Watney has many obstacles to overcome, not the least of which are making contact with NASA and growing food for what could be a four year wait for rescue. Read more…
Recalling two of Ridley Scott’s most iconic film environments in preparation for The Martian
Ridley Scott has a new movie coming out. It’s called The Martian and stars Matt Damon. Ridley Scott directing a film is always cause for excitement, but The Martian isn’t just any Scott Free production. It marks another visit to science fiction, a genre Scott contributed incalculably to early in his career.
Considering that Scott, 77, is most closely associated with his seminal sci-fi films, it’s at least a little surprising that he’s made so few of them. As of this writing, Alien (1979),Blade Runner (1982), and Prometheus (2012) make up the complete list. The Martian (2015) will be the fourth and a scheduled sequel to Prometheus would be the tentative fifth. Scott’s directorial career has been humming since the 70s, so the fact that Alien and Blade Runner still stand apart from most of his work is a testament to just how good they were and still are.
Ridley Scott is known as an intensely visual director. This is not to say that he has shortcomings with storytelling. Quite the contrary, as his well-documented tic of sketching storyboards for his films (with pencil and paper, natch) is his way of not only seeing, but immersing himself the stories he tells. Scott’s mastery of visual storytelling has allowed him to engineer some of the most memorable film environments committed to celluloid. You could say he’s been terraforming our imaginations since the late 70s. Read more…
The End’s Not Near, It’s Here…
Ah, the final 16 episodes of The O.C. Here we are (again). Fox ordered an abbreviated fourth season, a sign that the series’ dwindling viewership had finally prompted them to move on for good. Does it manage to provide proper closure? The short answer is a resounding “yes.” The long answer is that, like every show beloved by an audience, there were ups and downs, but nothing that wasn’t easily overcome by the bountiful reserves of back-stocked good will.
Season three ended with Marissa Cooper being killed an in auto incident caused by a vengeful Kevin Volchok. The final season picked up a few months after that fateful night. Summer was wallowing at Brown, Seth was wallowing at home, and Ryan was tending bar, and moonlighting as the guy getting his face caved in in cage fights. It was a pretty dark entry point to the final season, but deep down, we all knew that the path to a warm, gooey series finale would lead us through the woods of Marissa Era closure.
Mercifully, this closure was attained by the third episode, leaving plenty of real estate for a satisfying final season. And what a whirlwind season it was. Sandy and Kirsten got back to basics. Julie took a little time for herself. Seth learned a little self-respect. Summer made an unforgettable friend at Brown. Taylor was officially absorbed into the group. Kaitlin ruled at Harbor, as promised. And oh, yeah, Ryan finally found a way to transcend his past.
With the quasi-nitpick that the finale was a bit more chaotic than I generally care to remember, The O.C. couldn’t have gone out on a higher note. Here are some of the broad strokes: Read more…
This isn’t just in, but if you haven’t heard yet, the new Fantastic Four is not very good. Arguably not even worth writing about, but I feel compelled to nevertheless. Although Fantastic Four probably isn’t an A-list property at this point, I prepared myself to be very excited for this film as it was coming together. Josh Trank, director of Chronicle (an interesting small budget film I thought was OK), was set to direct Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan (also of Chronicle), Kate Mara, and Jamie Bell as the titular quartet.
This is a fascinating group of actors, and the movie figured to make a splash with a re-imagining of the origin story. Now, as I type these words, I realize this is not exactly a unique selling proposition these days, especially in the wake of Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man debacle. DC and Warner Bros. may very well find an innovative way of handling their bulging stable of supers, and Fox has done right by the X-Men, but if the reception for Fantastic Four has proven anything, it’s that comic book movies still need to deliver the goods to make any real money. Read more…
Our Planet Burke 