2014 was a great year for movies, but — if anything — 2015 looks to be even better. If you’re fretting over which films to build your year around, look no further: Cult of Mac has you covered.
From sci-fi epics from the brains behind The Matrix, to the next instalment in the James Bond franchise, to, yes, the next Star Wars movie, here are the flicks you’ll want to check out this year.
Nearly 900 insanely complex shots full of live-action and computer-generated imagery were created for Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier by the geniuses at Industrial Light and Magic, the effects house created by George Lucas back in the original Star Wars days.
The movie is an action-fest full of fighting, exploding, and comic-book reality all rolled into an engaging tale of patriotism, loyalty, and the possible corruption of big government. To create the magical movie illusions that help you suspend your disbelief in superheroes, the crew of more than 300 at ILM did a ton of painstaking work.
Here’s a short reel representing only a small sample of the full work done by the effects house – it’s amazing how complicated and layered everything is in a movie like this. Check it out.
The holidays are upon us, and that means you’re probably about to spend a lot of time with your family. Your family is probably great, but some people aren’t so lucky. And for those rare cases of people who dread all of the “quality time” they’re about to be exposed to, we’ve collected an assortment of movies to make them appreciate what they have a little more.
Because things could almost always be worse. For example:
As we watch the hordes of moviegoers heading out to see the final film in The Hobbit trilogy, The Battle of the Five Armies, we can’t help but rejoice a little that this endless epic journey is about to end.
In this parody trailer for the previous installment, The Desolation of Smaug, you can “Rejoin Middle Earth’s other, shorter, less interesting fellowship as they continue their slow journey to Scrooge McDuck’s vault,” as the gravelly-voiced narration actor says in the hilarious trailer.
Check it out below.
2014 has been an intriguing 12 months for movies. With no obvious breakout Oscar winners (a la 12 Years a Slave) or billion-dollar box office smashes (like The Avengers), it’s easy to think it’s been a forgettable year.
But that’s not really true. Peer beneath the surface and it has, in fact, been a very strong year for movie fans — from emotional masterpieces like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and returns-to-form like Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street to action-packed blockbusters such as Guardians of the Galaxy, there’s truly been something for everyone.
So what are our picks for the 10 “must see” movies of 2014? Keep reading to find out.
We’ll admit it: we were all squeeing like fanboys when we saw the official trailer for the upcoming sequel, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
We may have watched it quite a bit more than once, but the YouTubers below have taken their fandom to another level, with some really well crafted remixes of the official short film.
Check out trailers below starring the cast of (and scenes directly from) the original trilogy, the trailer as Wes Anderson would do it, and a bizarre rendering of it all with pets in place of human actors. Oh, and there’s also the obligatory Lego version, as well, so be sure to scroll all the way down.
Just like The Force, the Internet has both dark and light sides. How you see the possible spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens that just leaked is mostly a matter of perspective.
If you read on, you’ll be exposed to an embarrassing wealth of spoiler-y plot and character details about J.J. Abrams’ upcoming film. But be aware: Whether true or not, the sheer volume of close-up detail and conflicting information will change you.
If you want to go in unspoiled, read the following rumors at your own risk.
As for the supposed insider who leaked the information? Who knows their motivation? Even the Sith think they’re doing “the right thing.”
In what seems to be a new pattern of movie promotion, the next entry in the Terminator film series, Genisys, got a teaser trailer Wednesday for the official trailer coming the following day.
Take a look at this tiny trailer, which features a liquid-metal Terminator that looks a lot like ex-Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Well, that didn’t take long.
It’s only been four days since The Force Awakens trailer appeared on all of our computer and iPhone screens, and here we have the entire thing recreated with the ubiquitous plastic building toy.
Why did this YouTuber build his stop-motion homage?
“Made this out of boredom,” he says, “… enjoy!”
With the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer hitting everywhere this weekend, anticipation for the new movie — and thirst for all the details and rumors we can handle — is at an all time high. What are the story details? Who are the characters in the trailer? What about all the original cast members?
Set 30 years after The Battle of Endor (seen in 1983's The Return of the Jedi), The Force Awakens is directed by hotshot and super Star Wars fan J.J. Abrams, fresh off his success with the Star Trek franchise. If the trailer is anything to go by, the new films are in fantastic hands. What the final product will be is any fan’s guess, so here are seven crazy rumors about the details coming to the films next December.
You think you know Peter Pan’s story? Guess again, because director Joe Wright (Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice) has got an entirely new tale to tell.
Pan is the origin story of the boy who never grows up. He’s an orphan, left on a doorstep with a mysterious note from his mother. He’s secreted away to Neverland, where he mixes things up with Tiger Lily, Blackbeard (played by an almost unrecognizable Hugh Jackman) and a young, idealistic Captain Hook.
Check out the gorgeous trailer below for the full details.
The fourth movie in the Jurassic Park series is slated to terrorize movie screens a full year from now. In order to drum up some excitement for Jurassic World, then, Universal has created this tiny trailer to advertise yet another trailer for the upcoming blockbuster.
The new trailer for a trailer shows very little, with some dinosaurs, a bubble car, an inquisitive Bryce Dallas Howard, and megastar Chris Pratt looking determined. Check it out.
Amazon will roll out a new, standalone video streaming service next year that won’t be bundled with a $99 Prime subscription, according to sources familiar with its plans. The retail giant hopes to take on rivals like Netflix and Hulu and undercut their prices in an effort to attract customers.
Photo: Sony Pictures Classics
Now that Universal Studios has decided to go the Marvel route and create its own cinematic universe built around its classic monsters like Frankenstein and The Wolf Man, we thought it might be a good time to reach back into the archives and re-watch the originals.
As the new Universal monster movies will likely be more action-adventure-oriented, it’s good to look back to see what made the original features so great, and which of the old oeuvre were just stinky cash-grabs meant to pad the studio’s bottom line.
With that, let’s get into the best and worst of the genre.
In this new, three-minute-long trailer, Warner Bros. teases us with the epic conclusion to Peter Jackson’s Hobbit film trilogy.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies will complete the story of Bilbo Baggins’ journey with Thorin Oakenshield and his company of dwarves as they reclaim the wealth of their homeland. But the heroes also must deal with Smaug (that pesky dragon they unleashed in the last movie) and take care of that badass orc that’s been following them from the get-go.
Check out the full trailer below.
The thing about robots in science fiction, especially recently, is that they’re often portrayed as living in a clean, distant future.
The brilliance of Neill Blomkamp is his gritty, dirty, realistic portrayal of the future, and he’s bringing us a new robot to live there, named Chappie.
Chappie, motion captured by Blomkamp favorite Sharlto Copley, is a gifted young robot, an artistic and emotional prodigy. In the trailer below, you can see how much of the real world Blomkamp sets around Chappie: He-Man on the television, a wristwatch on the main propellerhead kid that befriends the robot, and a variety of militaristic types trying to blow up the special kid.
Check it out.
Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige took to the stage at a special event at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood Tuesday to talk about the next slate of blockbuster films the company is planning to release over the next few years. The full docket, with projected dates, is as follows:
· 5/1/15 – Avengers: Age of Ultron
· 7/17/15 – Ant-Man
· 5/6/16 – Captain America: Civil War
· 11/4/16 – Doctor Strange
· 5/5/17 – Guardians of the Galaxy 2
· 7/28/17 – Thor: Ragnarok
· 11/3/17 – Black Panther
· 5/4/18 – Avengers: Infinity War Part I
· 7/6/18 – Captain Marvel
· 11/2/18 – Inhumans
· 5/3/19 – Avengers: Infinity War Part II
While most of us are clear on who The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy are, there are some lesser-known characters getting the full movie spotlight that you may not be aware of. Here’s how they fit into the larger Marvel cinematic universe.
Tired of the same old boring pitch that flight attendants have to give you in accordance with FAA regulations? Well, Air New Zealand decided to make its own briefing a lot more epic in the latest video for the official airline of Middle Earth stand-in country.
Watch as Elijah Wood and other cast members grace this light-hearted, good natured air safety briefing, complete with fake Gandalf explaining how to position yourself in the event of a crash landing.
Update: The leaked Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer has been pulled from several sources, but once the toothpaste is out of the tube, even superheroes can’t put it back. Marvel Entertainment has responded with an appropriately cheeky tweet (see below) and released the official trailer in HD.
It’s hard not to contain our excitement for the upcoming Joss Whedon joint, Avengers: Age of Ultron, especially with this new leaked trailer. It’s not the high-quality one you’ll likely see when Marvel Studios puts the official trailer up on YouTube, but it definitely looks legit.
The trailer gives us our first glimpse of baddie Ultron, voiced by James Spader, and features some creepy use of the Pinnochio song, “I Got No Strings” — a reference to the fact that Ultron is no longer a puppet, perhaps?
Check it out below:
At a Time Warner investor meeting on Wednesday, Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara laid out his company’s plans to plaster movie houses with big DC-themed movies over the next six years, starting with Zach Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, set to release in 2016.
Disney-owned Marvel already dominates the box office with its comic-book team-ups like The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy as well as movies based on top characters like Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America.
It’s going to be a tough job for Warner Bros. to catch up to Marvel, which has already laid a ton of groundwork in it’s previously released films for the ongoing cinematic dynasty, but this new list promises to please fans new and old.
Popcorn Time makes it ridiculously easy to “freely” stream almost any movie you want to your iOS device, but unless you have a jailbroken iOS device, actually getting it on the iPhone 6 is impossible, unless you know of a little loophole that allows you to install the banned app.
Adventurous iPhone owners can finally get Popcorn Time by utilizing the same time-hack loophole that allowed others to install Nintendo game emulators and other apps, no jailbreaking required. Popcorn Time isn’t strictly legal, but that’s not stopping thousands from pirating the app onto their iPhones and iPads by simply rolling back the clock on their device.
Here’s how to get ‘the Netflix of torrents’ on your iPhone right now:
Popcorn Time is finally out for iOS, giving iPad and iPhone users direct access to “The Netflix of Pirated Movies” service for the first time ever. There’s just one catch: it requires a jailbreak.
Over 50% of iPhone and iPad users have already upgraded to iOS 8 and a jailbreak isn’t coming out anyday soon, but if you want to stream movies to your iOS device you’re still in luck. A competing service called MovieBox does pretty much the exact same thing as Popcorn Time, and you can get it on your iPhone 6 and 6 Plus 8 without needing to jailbreaking.
Here’s how to install it:
This new trailer has flying robots, stunningly massive spaceships, and baroque alien societies galore. It’s a heart-pounding glimpse into the new film, Jupiter Ascending, which comes out in February of 2015.
It’s also got some Channing Tatum with pointy ears (a sci-fi staple!) and Mila Kunis looking badass in pleather. Also, some delightful moments with Sean Bean, and he doesn’t even die in this trailer. The trailer is stunning, and you can see hints of The Matrix and Cloud Atlas all over this thing, which makes sense — it’s a Wachowski film, thorough and through.
Give this two minute eye-candy reveal a look.