Portal:Film

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Introduction

An animated sequence showing a horse galloping, with a jockey on its back

An animated gif of a photographic sequence shot by Eadweard Muybridge in 1887. His chronophotographic works can be regarded as movies recorded before there was a proper way to replay the material in motion.

Film, also called movie or motion picture, is a medium used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty or atmosphere by the means of recorded or programmed moving images along with other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it.

The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects.

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Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 black-and-white independent horror film directed by George A. Romero. Early drafts of the script were titled Monster Flick, but it was known as Night of Anubis and Night of the Flesh Eaters during production. The film stars Duane Jones as Ben and Judith O'Dea as Barbra. The plot revolves around the mysterious reanimation of the dead and the efforts of Ben, Barbra, and five others to survive the night while trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse. Romero produced the film on the low budget of $114,000, but after a decade of theatrical re-releases it had grossed an estimated $12 million in the United States and $30 million internationally. Reviewers criticized the graphic contents, but three decades later the Library of Congress placed Night of the Living Dead on the United States National Film Registry with other films deemed "historically, culturally or aesthetically important". The culture of Vietnam-era America had a tremendous impact on the film. It is so thoroughly riven with critiques of late 1960s American society that one historian described the film as "subversive on many levels." While not the first zombie film made, Night of the Living Dead influenced subsequent films in the subgenre. The film is the first in a tetralogy directed by Romero and spawned four unofficial sequels. It has been remade twice.

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Credit: Eadweard Muybridge

American bison ("buffalo") galloping - set to motion using photos by Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge was an English-born photographer, known primarily for his early use of multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the celluloid film strip that is still used today.

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Did you know...

...that Battlefield Baseball, a Japanese film, features elements of the sports, martial arts and horror genres, as well as including three musical numbers?

...that the title of the movie I Married a Communist was so unappealing to audiences that their response led the film to be re-released under the title The Woman on Pier 13?

...that Tanaz Eshaghian's film Be Like Others explores the experiences of transsexuals in Iran, a country that outlaws homosexuality but sanctions sex-reassignment surgery?

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Aaron Sorkin is an American screenwriter, producer and playwright. His stageplay A Few Good Men caught the attention of Hollywood producer David Brown, who bought the film rights before the play even premiered. Castle Rock Entertainment hired Sorkin to adapt A Few Good Men for the big screen. The movie, directed by Rob Reiner, became a box office success. Sorkin spent the early 1990s writing two other screenplays at Castle Rock for the films Malice and The American President. In the mid-1990s he worked as a script doctor on films such as Schindler's List and Bulworth. In 1998 his television career began when he created the TV comedy series Sports Night for the ABC network. Sports Night's second season was its last, and in 1999 overlapped with the debut of Sorkin's next TV series, the multiple Emmy-award-winning political drama The West Wing, this time for the NBC network. In 2006, after a three year hiatus, he returned to television with a dramedy called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, about the backstage drama at a late night sketch comedy show, once again for the NBC network. His recent feature film screenplay is Charlie Wilson's War, which was set to open in movie theaters on Christmas day 2007.

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The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008. The 1996 law also created the non-profit National Film Preservation Foundation which, although affiliated with the National Film Preservation Board, raises money from the private sector. The National Film Registry names to its list up to 25 "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films" each year, showcasing the range and diversity of American film heritage to increase awareness for its preservation. However, inclusion on the list is not a guarantee of actual preservation. To be eligible for inclusion, a film must be at least ten years old. For the first selection in 1989, the public nominated almost 1,000 films for consideration. Members of the National Film Preservation Board then developed individual ballots of possible films for inclusion. The ballots were tabulated into a list of 25 films which was then modified by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and his staff at the Library for the final selection. Beginning in 1997, members of the public were able to nominate up to 50 films a year for the Board and Librarian to consider. The Registry includes films ranging from Hollywood classics to orphan films. A film is not required to be feature-length, nor is it required to have been theatrically released. The Registry contains newsreels, silent films, experimental films, short subjects, films out of copyright protection, film serials, home movies, documentaries, independent films, television movies, and music videos. As of the 2009 listing, there are 525 films preserved in the Registry. The earliest listed film is Blacksmith Scene (1893), and the most recent is Fargo (1996). The year with the most films selected is 1939, as 17 films were chosen for preservation. The time between a film's debut and its selection varies greatly. The longest span is 109 years, when the 1894 Dickson Experimental Sound Film was selected in 2003. The shortest range is the minimum 10 years; this span is shared by Do the Right Thing, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Toy Story, and Fargo.

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I have always enjoyed dealing with a slightly surrealistic situation and presenting it in a realistic manner. I've always liked fairy tales and myths, magical stories. I think they are somehow closer to the sense of reality one feels today than the equally stylized "realistic" story in which a great deal of selectivity and omission has to occur in order to preserve its "realist" style.

— Stanley Kubrick

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