film

Apple TV+ gives chilling first look at Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon

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Apple gives chilling first look at Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’
Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio will star in Killers of the Flower Moon on Apple TV+.
Photo: Apple TV+

It should be a happy scene — a man courting a woman. But the reality is much darker. The man and woman will marry, then he’ll kill many of her relatives to get control of the oil riches they inherited. All of this will play out in Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon.

The film will star Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro — and will appear on Apple TV+. An image of DiCaprio and Gladstone in character, released Monday, offers our first glimpse of the upcoming movie.

Hollywood wants Apple to sell movies within weeks of theater debuts

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Apple TV Dark Mode
The wait for new movies could be just two weeks.
Photo: Apple

Hollywood is pushing for iTunes to show the latest blockbuster movies just weeks after they hit the theater.

Sources say a deal between Apple and a number of major studios could be signed as early as next year without the blessing of theater chains. However, talks are currently held up over the price that Hollywood wants to charge for new rentals.

Apple drops the beat in its first documentary, 808: The Movie

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The 808 drum machine changed music forever.
The 808 drum machine changed music forever.
Photo: Beats 1

The first documentary from Apple has finally arrived — and it has nothing to do with iPhones or Macs. The film, titled 808: The Movie, chronicles Roland’s legendary TR-808 drum machine and how it influenced the music industry from the ’80s all the way up to today.

Narrated by Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe, the Apple Music exclusive features appearances by Pharrell Williams, David Guetta, Rick Rubin, Diplo, Questlove, Phil Collins, Beastie Boys and more.

Check out the trailer:

iPhone app gives digital shooters a taste of film

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This app may inspire you to grab an old camera and shoot a roll of film.
Photo: Filmborn screenshot/Mastin Labs

What is the best way to convince a global community of mostly digital photographers that they should pick up an old camera and shoot film? Put film on the iPhone.

That is exactly what Seattle-based Mastin Labs has done with its new film emulation app for iOS, Filmborn.

Apple tried to sign Chris Rock to iTunes movie deal

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AppleTV_TV-Movies-PRINT
Making TV shows is just one of Apple's many hobbies.
Photo: Apple

Cupertino’s slow flirtation with Hollywood nearly landed Apple an exclusive iTunes movie deal with comedian Chris Rock, according to a new report.

Apple has shown interest in producing original video content of its own. The company bought the rights to James Cordon’s Carpool Karaoke TV show, and it appears Apple has some tepid interest in making the type of movies you’d find on Netflix.

This iPhone film festival wants you to submit your masterpiece

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The Disposable Film Festival showcases video shot on iPhones and similar gadgets.
The Disposable Film Festival showcases video shot on iPhones and similar gadgets.
Photo: Disposable Film Festival

Calling all iPhone filmmakers! The Disposable Film Festival is now accepting submissions for its 10th annual program in March 2017.

Heralded as the “Oscars of online video,” the Disposable Film Festival showcases the finest films made on everyday devices and “disposable media,” including cellphones, point-and-shoot cameras, DSLRs, webcams, screen-capture software, Flip cams, and newer technology like Google Glass, 3-D printed stop animation, and more.

Fill your Apple TV shortlist with Tribeca films

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Get your fill of high-quality film recommendations here.
Get your fill of high-quality film recommendations here.
Photo: Tribeca Shortlist

Looking to watch peerless films on your Apple TV? Look no further than Tribeca Shortlist, a service for film lovers that showcases a high-quality, curated list of films that are worth watching.

Already chosen as a Best New App for iPhone and iPad by Apple, Tribeca Shortlist is now available on the biggest screen in your home via Apple TV.

James Bond goes rogue to catch his Spectre

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Why so introspective, Mr. Bond?
Why so introspective, Mr. Bond?
Photo: Columbia Pictures

Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as famous super spy James Bond looks to take a darker, more roguish turn than ever, with Bond looking to “disappear” from the British spy agency that gives him the “00” license to kill rating.

The new trailer has all sorts of dramatic moments interspersed with the action, gadgetry, cars, women, overly-confident villains and explosions fans want to see.

Check it out below and be ready to see your first glimpse at the big bad behind the scenes of anti-spy organization, SPECTRE, which seems to be aimed squarely at Bond, James Bond’s broad shoulders.

Plan better stories to make your iPhone videos come alive

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Mobile editing is much easier when you have a plan.
Mobile editing is much easier when you have a plan.
Photo: Apple

We’ve all done it before: we head to the family reunion, the wedding, the kid’s birthday party and we just shoot everything. We have no plan except that we think we’ll have time later to edit it down to something interesting.

Unfortunately, that just leads to a bloated iPhone with too many unnecessary video files. Plus, you know you’re never going to get around to sitting down and looking through all that footage again. Ugh.

With a good plan, however, and a firm grasp of one simple storytelling technique, you’ll avoid this problem and create some amazing videos without a whole lot of extra work.

Here’s how.

The life cycle from your iPhone’s point of view

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Twelve months in the life of an iPhone.
Twelve months in the life of an iPhone.
Photo: Paul Trillo

I’m a sucker when it comes to upgrading to the latest iPhone, but like a lot of people I’ve stopped to think about how bizarre it is that new iPhones go from coveted items we’ll queue up for hours to get our hands on, to scratched, slightly-battered handsets we’ll sell or pass on to friends — all within the course of just one year.

Filmmaker Paul Trillo has taken this idea and used it to put together a pretty nifty short film showing off the life, death and reincarnation of one such device — all shot from the point-of-view of the iPhone itself.

Check it out below:

Bill Hader’s wacky WWDC vid skewers Hollywood, Cupertino

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An elevator full of Tim Cook-alikes.
An elevator full of Tim Cook-alikes.
Photo: Apple

“Why did I want to direct the WWDC opening number?” asks comedian Bill Hader in the video that opened Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday morning. “Good question. You know, I think I’ve always been attracted to risk, you know?”

Then the production assistant comes to get Hader’s character, “David LeGary,” from his dressing room, and we find out that the pretentious “genius” has just been talking to himself. What follows is an over-the-top rehearsal of a Hollywood-like awards show, full of funny cameos and goofy dialogue. Check it out.

Explosions! Intrigue! Casual sex! First SPECTRE TV spot goes full Bond

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That's quite a suit, Mr. Bond.
That's quite a suit, Mr. Bond.
Photo: Sony PIctures

“You’ve got a secret,” says Naomie Harris’ Miss Moneypenny in the new TV spot for upcoming Bond film SPECTRE. “Something you can’t tell anyone because you don’t trust anyone.”

Daniel Craig is back in a new Bond film, this one named after the fictional spy syndicate that figured heavily in the Ian Fleming novels and debuted in the film Dr. No in 1962.

Here’s a full trailer full of the things you’ve come to associate with James Bond, including explosions, intrigue, and plenty of women. Bond is such a slut, right?

The Martian trailer shows stranded astronaut surviving the red planet

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Duct tape does actually fix everything.
Duct tape does actually fix everything.
Photo: 20th Century Fox

Based on the highly acclaimed novel of the same name, The Martian will chronicle astronaut Mark Watney’s incredibly plausible scientific survival on the surface of Mars for four years in a habitat designed for 30 days.

With Matt Damon in the title role, an all-star cast and Ridley Scott in the director’s chair, The Martian is shaping up to be the one film science nerds must see this summer.

The official trailer came out Monday and you’re going to want to see it right now. Too bad you’ll have to wait until the end of November.

Jon Snow and Agent Carter tag-team a romantic WWI drama

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War is hell.
War is hell.
Photo: Sony Pictures Classics

If you can’t get enough of Marvel’s Agent Peggy Carter, played to perfection by Haley Atwell, or Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow, broodingly acted by Kit Harrington, here’s a new movie that stars both of them: Testament of Youth.

It’s a deeply romantic period piece set in Britain during the first world war, based on a memoir by Vera Brittain, a young woman who overcame the serious sexism of her day to attend Oxford University, only to have her studies interrupted by the war.

Critics are going mad for Fury Road

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Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron headline this already successful reboot.
Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron headline this already successful reboot.
Photo: Warner Bros.

Mad Max: Fury Road is crushing it, according to spectacular early reviews all over the ‘net. Review aggregator Metacritic has the apocalyptic film pegged at a 91 out of 100 based on 39 reviews and competitor Rotten Tomatoes has its own aggregate hitting the 99/100 mark, based on 133 reviews.

That’s a lot of awesome right there.

The new post-apocalyptic car-fetish reboot comes to theaters this Friday and if the early reviews of the film, written and directed by original Mad Max creator George Miller, are any indication, it’s one hell of a ride.

Let’s take a look at a few of the better reviews to see what all the fuss is about.

Thor’s giant schlong makes its debut in Vacation reboot

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Yeah, we cropped it. Photo: New Line Cinema
Yeah, we cropped it. Photo: New Line Cinema

Rusty Griswold is all grown up in the upcoming reboot of classic comedy National Lampoon’s Vacation. If you’ve ever laughed out loud when someone says “prairie-doggin’,” you’ll love this new reboot just as much, what with it’s scatological and sexual humor.

Bonus: The new red-band trailer for the upcoming flick gives us a look at Thor’s Chris Hemsworth playing an Airbnb owner and showing off his six-pack abs (along with his other, less-family-friendly assets).

Giants gobble tiny humans in first Attack on Titan trailer

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The Titans are back, and they're hungry. Photo: Toho Distribution
The Titans are back, and they're hungry. Photo: Toho Distribution

Attack on Titan, the cult-hit in ink (manga) and on the small screen (anime), is getting a live-action treatment this summer. The good news is that the feature film is hitting Japan on August 1 and Australia and New Zealand later this same year. The bad news is that we have no details on a U.S. release, though both the manga and anime are still available in this country.

The film is the first of two planned parts, with the second flick, Attack on Titan: End of the World, headed to Japan this coming September.

These kids can’t handle the awesomeness of new Star Wars trailer

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Literally blown away. Photo: America's Funniest Home Videos
Literally blown away. Photo: America's Funniest Home Videos

Looks like you don’t need to be a long-time Star Wars fan to totally geek out over The Force Awakens trailer that appeared online last week, as these cuties so ably prove.

Even super young babies get it: this is the coolest, most exciting trailer ever in their young lives: it’s time to completely freak out.

Check out how these little ones react to the best Star Wars thing in recent years in their own America’s Funniest Home Videos YouTube post.

New Tomorrowland trailer surprises us with loads of sci-fi action

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Not your standard kid-fare, then, Disney? Photo: Disney
Not your standard kid-fare, then, Disney? Photo: Disney

Disney’s has been showing us glimpses of its Brad Bird-helmed live action film for some time now, with the slow burn first trailer last October focusing on the young woman who gets a mysterious pin that transports her to an unseen, futuristic world, complete with jetpacks and glittering skylines.

That and present-day George Clooney, who convincingly portrays the curmudgeon next door with secrets of his own.

This new trailer, however, ratchets up the sci-fi action, giving us several more shots of the eponymous future city, even more jetpacks, and a team of future SWAT cops with ray guns coming after our heroine and Clooney as they climb into a bathtub and launch themselves into an uncertain, well, future.

Maybe Tomorrowland won’t be the sappy kid flick we all thought it would turn out to be, after all.

New Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser brings fans back ‘home’

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This is how a Star Wars flick should look. Photo: Lucasfilm
This is how a Star Wars flick should look. Photo: Lucasfilm

“The Force is strong in my family,” says Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker voices over this second teaser trailer for the hotly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie that will hit the big screen this coming December. “My father has it, I have it, my sister has it. You have that power, too.”

That’s how the nerdgasmic second trailer begins, and then slams into some seriously amazing scenes from the upcoming film, including a massive, crashed Star Destroyer, close ups of new stars Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, and Daisy Ridley, and a brilliant moment of fan service with everyone’s favorite smuggler and his humongous furry sidekick.

“Chewie,” says Han Solo, “We’re home.”

Tiny hero, giant fun: Ant-Man’s new trailer packs a punch

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Rudd looks a bit skeptical. Photo: Marvel Studios
Rudd looks a bit skeptical. Photo: Marvel Studios

While we might all be waiting breathlessly for Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron this summer, there’s another big contender for tiny superhero dominance: Ant Man.

Starring Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, Ant Man will show up on the big screen this July. The new trailer below gives us the first glimpse of Rudd in his Ant Man suit, which gives the character superhuman strength, the ability to shrink to a miniscule size, and the ability to communicate and control ants.

It’s a pretty ridiculous set of powers, but, as Rudd says near the end of the trailer, “I know; it wasn’t my idea.”

New Terminator trailer brings big twist to familiar franchise

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We've never seen a robot like this. Photo: Paramount Pictures
We've never seen a robot like this. Photo: Paramount Pictures

The crazy machines are at it again, only this time it’s not what we’ve come to expect from the long-running Terminator franchise, now coming to theaters in July as Terminator: Genisys

In the first film, Arnold Schwarzenegger played the original bad-ass invincible robot from the future out to kill Sarah Connor, originally played by Linda Hamilton, and her son John. Subsequent movies with the governator messed with the formula a bit, bringing in the scary liquid metal terminators and placing the original metal skeleton monster into a savior role.

But none of the movies have gone this far in messing with our heads or the plotline.

Spoilers abound; consider yourself warned.

Second Mad Max trailer is even more unhinged than the flaming guitar in it

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I can hear the power chords now. Photo: Village Roadshow Pictures
I can hear the power chords now. Photo: Village Roadshow Pictures

The world has gone mad again, and Max is there to witness. We’ve got a whole new trailer for the Mad Max: Fury Road reboot, and it’s full of insane-looking characters, viciously modded cars and a simply deranged flaming electric guitar that shows up a little over halfway through the trailer.

“In this wasteland, I am the one who runs from both the living and the dead,” says (presumedly) Tom Hardy’s Mad Max in a voiceover. “A man reduced to a single instinct: survive.”

An extra bonus — besides a shaved-headed Charlize Theron looking like a totally sane badass — is that bizarre-looking long-haired dude with the Bane-like dentistry mask who seems to be glaring at everyone and everything in several of these short, action-packed scenes.

Pixels gives Pac-Man creator his moment of fame

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Pac-Man is NOT a bad guy, says the Professor. Photo: Columbia Pictures
Pac-Man is NOT a bad guy, says the Professor. Photo: Columbia Pictures

Sure, it’s an Adam Sandler/Kevin James summer blockbuster with a ridiculous premise: the Earth is besieged by huge video game characters bent on destroying everything by turning stuff into pixels.

While Peter Dinklage and Jane Krakowski might elevate this potentially awful movie, Pixels, to something more cult status than forgettable popcorn fodder, it’s the nostalgic use of Pac-Man himself that made us watch the trailer in the first place.

First up, we’ve got the Mini Coopers all painted up to look like the iconic Pac-Man ghosts, Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde, which is all kinds of awesome. However, it’s the lovely tribute to Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani, portrayed by Denis Akiyama (Johnny Mnemonic, Dead Ringers) at about 1:52 in.