Category: Movies

1. Do you know that famous drawing of Kate Winslet in Titanic? It was actually drawn by the director James Cameron.

2. A machine holding all the data for the film Toy Story 2 was accidentally deleted by a glitch in the system. the backup system also failed but luckily the technical director had a copy at home and most of the work was saved.

3. After the release of Finding Nemo, there was a 75 percent drop in the number of clownfish in the Australian reef as people wanted them for pets.

4. One of Robert DeNiro’s most famed role is the lead in the psychological thriller Taxi Driver. despite being a complicated and thrilling plot, the writer, Paul Schrader, actually wrote the script in just two weeks.

5. The fake snow in The Wizard of Oz was asbestos-based. It wasn’t just the film, asbestos was used in a variety of decorations across Europe and America at the time. Toto the dog also earned more than the actor’s playing the munchkins on the film.

6. The film scream was actually supposed to be called Scary Movie – the name of its latterly produced parody.

Bollywood, which is otherwise known as Hindi cinema, is India’s movie-making industry and based in the sprawling city of Mumbai. Bollywood is actually larger than its American sister, producing as many as 2000 films a year and generates a little under half of India’s box office revenues. A study back in 2001 looked at the number of ticket sales in Bollywood which totaled over 3.5 billion in India compared to Hollywood which sold just over 2.5 billion tickets worldwide.

Bollywood is very stylised and always almost contains music and dancing – although not always. The most popular genre of Bollywood film is masala which is unlike any western genre and combines the fields drama, comedy, history, music, and dance into one spectacle. Bollywood is heavily influenced by Indian culture and, as in the classic Indian style, has many different subplots and side stories in addition to the main action.

In recent years, Bollywood has become popular around the world and is viewed as one of the country’s most influential sources of soft power and is credited as being one of the main drivers of people changing their perception of India.

The start of the movie industry is a difficult point to define as technology developed gradually and the definition of a movie changed rapidly over the decades until the emergence of modern film in the 20th century. However, the Lumière brothers are largely considered to have made the first recognizable movie in Paris in the late1800’s. These early films were often only minutes or even seconds long as not the cinematic masterpieces we are familiar with today.

At this early stage, movies were also merely a selection of movies pictures and had no constructed narrative or even sound. By the start of the 20th century, rapid developments in technology meant that the feature film was in its inception stages. Films at this stage were also silent films as the technology to capture sound and film together was still in its infancy.

Throughout the early 2oth century and into the First World War, the film became a popular form of entertainment and the industry exploded in both the United States. While France also has a popular film industry – with a cottage industry blooming in Germany, despite its politically turbulent circumstances, came to a halt due to the war. It was during this tumultuous time that Hollywood was truly born – a place that would forever remain the unquestionable home of the cinematic medium.

<p>It was during the 1920s that Hollywood reached its peak, producing over 800 films a year which is more than the industry produces today. It was also the time when the famed and infamous studio system was developed and made stars of Hollywood’s legends. By the end of this decade, sound would dominate film with the end of the silent movie era.

The 1930s became the most successful decade of film to date, with color films becoming the norm and the latter part of the decade saw the production of some of history’s most iconic films including Gone with the Wind and the beloved Wizard of Oz starring a teenage Judy Garland.

The following decades saw several transitions in the film era from the propaganda war films in the 1940s to the sci-fi explosion of the 1970s. The 70s also saw the emergence of some of modern cinema’s popular filmmakers including Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Terrence Malick.

Recent decades have been noted both for their technological developments and also for their growth in inclusivity. While Hollywood is still dominated by a few overused narratives, since the 1990s, many more films about minorities such as black people and the LGBT community have entered the film canon.

As streaming has become popularized, the film industry is once again undergoing rapid and seismic shifts, with many in the film industry critical of platform such as Netflix who they argue divert revenues away from the industry.

Action

Action movies are often based on comic books and adhere to the theme of overcoming a threat to a person, institution or even civilization itself. They regularly have large budgets and are known as crowd pleasers as they tend to be very popular with audiences. Popular action films include the Avengers and James Bond franchises, which tend to be a common feature of the action movie genre.

Comedy

Comedy is considered to be one of the harder genres of films to make, despite the fact that they are often light on plot and don’t require special effects or large budgets to make. Comedy films such as The Hangover and American Pie are modern examples, while Some Like It Hot with Marylin Monroe, made in 1959, is considered to be one of the best comedies ever made.

Historical

Historical films cover a wide range of film ranging from the costume drama to epic war movies. While these films are often based on fact, they can be fictional accounts of a particular time or period in history. These films can be low or big budget but when they are the latter they are often referred to as epics. Famed examples of historical films are the 1959 classic Ben-Hur, Schindler’s List, and Titanic. Historical films are known for winning many awards.

Horror

Horror films can either be a niche product or mainstream and often prey on our fears to evoke a sense of terror while watching the movie. They can be realistic or incorporate a wide range of special effects and cross over into other genres such as sci-fi and psychological. There are also many sub-categories of such a teen horror and slasher horror. Famous horror films include the Haloween movies, the Scream franchise and the 80s hit, Carrie with Sissy Spacek.

Musicals

In the early years of cinema with sound, musical films were very mainstream and formed a major part of the cinema lexicon. However, they began to die out in the 70s and laid dormant for many decades but have recently enjoyed a resurgence. Old musical favorites include Oklahoma, The Wizard of Oz, Grease and the Sound of Music while modern musical hits include Les Miserables, Chicago, and the ever-popular Mamma Mia.

There are many different ways which films make money, these range from merchandise related to the film to people who buy the DVD. However, the most common way in which the popularity of a film is measured is through its takings at the movie theatre box office. Here is a list of the top grossing films when adjusted for inflation. All revenues are from 2017.

1. Gone with the Wind – This 1939 classic starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh earned a staggering $3,703,000,000 worldwide making it the highest grossing film of all time. However, in real terms, this wouldn’t even make the top 50.

2. Avatar – Number 2 on the list is the James Cameron epic Avatar which took $3,251,000,000. the film was revolutionary in its use of technology and the depiction of life on the mythical Pandora instantly became a sci-fi classic.

3. Titanic – In at number 3 is another of James Cameron’s films. A world away from the sci-fi of Avatar, this movie of the famed ship which sank in 1912 off the coast of Canda in the Atlantic Ocean earned a tidy $3,078,000,000.

4. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope – This installment of the classic franchise which introduced the world to the likes of Princess Leia took home $3,041,000,000 and instantly became one of the most successful films of all time.

5. The Sound of Music – The number 5 spot was taken by this classic movie-musical starring the irrepressible Julie Andrews as Maria von Trapp. Based on a true story of a family fleeing the Nazis, the film captured the hearts of audiences around the world and earned $2,547,000,000.