The All Movie Guide is an excellent guide to films, actors and actresses, directors, and more.
The Ebert Movie Files contain Roger Ebert's movie reviews since 1985. You can search for any review by title or names, and limit your search by date and "star rating".
Oscars are awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences which has a large website separate from the ceremony site.
Widescreen Museum is a comprehensive compilation of movie technology history, including info on anamorphic widescreen systems (such as CinemaScope, Panavision, Cinerama, and Superscope) and their aspect ratios, the development of Technicolor, "talkies" (with info on sound on film and magnetic soundtracks), and more, including a classic film poster gallery.
Variety has the the latest entertainment industry news.
The Hollywood Reporter is the movie industry's original daily trade paper.
OpenSubtitles.org provides over 1 million film subtitles files for free, and also offers the Open Subtitles MKV Player to easily play downloaded movie files along with the subtitles.
Formerly Mr. ShowBiz, Movies.com includes film news, reviews, interviews, a 'what's showing' guide, box office numbers, and more.
ReelViews has thousands of reviews by newsgroup critic James Berardinelli, who considers Patton the greatest film of all time, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service one of the three best James Bond films.
The Kubrick Multimedia Film Guide is "a source for information regarding the work of film director/producer Stanley Kubrick. The site leaves the interpretation of his films to the viewer and serves mainly images and sounds from Kubrick's films".
The Killing (Harris-Kubrick; United Artists) announces the arrival of a new boy wonder in a business that separates the men from the boys.
At 27, Writer-Director Stanley Kubrick, in his third full-length picture, has shown more audacity with dialogue and camera than Hollywood has seen since the obstreperous Orson Welles went riding out of town on an exhibitor's poll. What's more, Director Kubrick made his entire film for a price ($320,000) that would hardly pay for the lingerie in an Ava Gardner picture, with the result that The Killing seems likely to make a killing at the cash booths.
BadMovies.org is a site for B-movie fans.
DocumentaryFilms.net includes reviews and filmmaker resources.
High School Confidential (M-G-M), based on the story (TIME, Dec. 3, 1951) of a young narcotics agent who broke up a Texas dope ring by posing as a teen-age addict, is written in the sort of hipsterical slanguage that can only be understood by the underprivileged few who really dig that crazy talk. The film is reviewed by TIME's Endsville correspondent.
Man, this one's so far out the trains don't run there anymore. It's Endsville and there's no more room. Now blow this on your axe. A real cool cat from East Desperation comes wheeling up to the village school in a real crazy short, and starts to stink up the upholstery. Man, he's got life with a belt in the back. He bugs the teach and rains the warden, a real sad square: "Man, you're draggin' your rear axle in waltztime."
Pretty soon the hipster is smitten with a kitten who is all the way out and talking tight. But this boy is looking for more than a ball. He's hip that half the oofuses in this school are on, and he's got a stack of big ones to buy the hard stuff and muscle in on the gig. So he sounds the cat that pushes the junk, and then he tries to score. So they fall up to the main man's pad, and before you can blast a joint everybody is tuned in. The main man offers him a pop of H, but this kid ain't dry-- he's a plainclothes fuzz.
And the next day, when it's time to deliver the stuff, there's a shuffle that's very tough toenails for the busters. Be there with your bear, and if you don't flip I'm sorry, man. It's terrible and you got it all.
Theater Mania "has theater news, reviews and discount tickets for your favorite Broadway shows as well as the other major theater markets across the country."
Rhinoceros, Avant-Gardist Eugene Ionesco's new play, opened [in Paris] with Sir Laurence Olivier triumphing over the din-and-delirium direction of Orson Welles. Ionesco's famed earlier one-acters dealt opaquely with such subjects as a girl with three noses and a man and wife who share their apartment with a growing corpse. This time the playwright almost approaches realism: everyone but the hero merely turns into a rhinoceros.
Rhinoceritis, implies Ionesco, is the most communicable disease of the 20th century: under the pressures of mass-think, man loses his individuality and is driven to to joining the bestial herd. Many characters protest the change, but relentlessly their skins thicken and wrinkle, their voices become grunts, and great ski-jump tusks appear on their faces. "We must resist rhinocerization at any cost," cry the seemingly unafflicted, but already they start, rhino-like, to munch odd bits of paper, ivy leaves, potted plants.
Soon the only human left is Olivier... who does not agree with the new rhinos... When even the woman in his life becomes a snorting rhinoceros, his own defeat seems close at hand. But he finds the courage to resist rhinocerization. In the most "committed" line of Ionesco's career, Olivier shouts past the descending curtain: "I'm not giving up!"
Over Twenty Millions of Dollars Paid to See These Shows Every Year in New York Alone.
...Records indicate that the first moving picture machine was patented in 1867. It possessed but little merit, excepting that it marked the beginning of the high development since attained by this art. In 1893 the "Cinematograph" was produced by Lumiere, and was the first machine to project from the film. Edison improved upon this machine in 1896 when he produced the "Vitascope." These machines provided the models for the improved types in use to-day.
"It was not long before I was ready to leave," confided Mr. Loew, "but the door was locked and I could not go until the show came to an end. Finally we were allowed to pass out. This was the first picture show I had ever seen, and I believe it was the first in this country. From there I went to Cincinnati, where I opened a show of my own. Four thousand nine hundred and ninety-three people came to see the first day's show. I then came to New York and opened a place at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. It was the first one in the city. I had the first picture show in Brooklyn, also. The opening day my receipts were ten cents. At the end of the year I had cleared $63,000.
"The motion picture business has made vast strides in the past six years," he added, "and now there is hardly a town or village in this entire country which does not possess its picture show..."
Millions Spent to See Pictures.
It is estimated that there are in Greater New York 1,200 picture shows. The average seating capacity is 300 persons. While some of the houses are filled as high as five times daily, others accommodate their full capacity but once during the day. After compiling these figures an estimate is reached which places the average audience per day for each theatre at 600 persons. Summing up these figures, we arrive at a total of 720,000 persons who are entertained daily.
The total arrived at from these figures is 5,760,000 pennies taken in daily by the moving picture theatres in Greater New York, or $57,600. The total per week is $403,200; per year $20,966,400.
Vast Sums Paid in Salaries.
Some shows are large and employ more people than the smaller ones. To arrive at a conservative figure of the actual wages paid out of this sum to those actually employed in the motion picture theatres we will use the smallest number of employees with which it is possible to run a show seating 200 people. The men who operate the machines will average $3 per day. The girls who sell the tickets will average $1 per day. The doorman will average $1.50 per day, and the pianist, though only employed a few hours daily, will average $1 per day.
A large part of the money which, through the rental of films finds its way into the coffers of the film manufacturing companies, is again put into circulation through the same means. A large company will employ about 600 people the year round. There are, of course, times when this force is greatly increased. When a large spectacular play is under way as many as 1,500 extra people are taken on. When it is considered that there are over forty companies, some larger than others, of course, but all more or less important, it is easy to realize that in salaries alone a large sum is spent yearly.
In the engine room are two immense boilers and three latest pattern engines. These supply the power for lighting the plant and running the machinery in the various departments. The next department in line is the negative developing department.
The positive is returned to the exhibition room and is finally passed on and sub-titles added whereever they are thought necessary to explain. After the various heads of departments are satisfied that all is as it should be the negative of the film and sub-titles are sent to the printing department, where the amount of films necessary to supply the "movies" are made. The positives or completed films are then developed, cleared and washed. They are then put on racks and the racks are placed within a large rotary drying machine, where they are dried by the circulation of an air current kept at a certain temperature.
The positives of each play are now forwarded to the joining room, where, after being joined together with cement, they are wound on reels, placed in cans, and gotten ready to be shipped to the film exchanges, through which they are supplied to exhibitors the world over.