Month: November 2024

30 Nov

Gladiator II DP walks back comments that Ridley Scott is “lazy”

By . FilmTV No Comments
gladiator ridley scott

Directors tend to use the same cinematographers throughout their career. And while Ridley Scott only began working with DP Jon Mathieson with 2000’s Gladiator, the two have had enough collaborations for Mathieson to know just how Scott operates. And apparently that’s not always for the better.

But first, some context. Jon Mathieson says that a two-hour interview he did – most of which wasn’t even about Gladiator II, as it was eight months from release – was cut down to just 30 minutes, leaving plenty of room for interpretation and out of context comments about both the film and Ridley Scott.

The most damning found Mathieson saying that Ridley Scott has grown lazy in his age, relying on post-production to handle any sloppy work he employed on the set of Gladiator II. “It’s really lazy…It’s the CG elements now of tidying-up, leaving things in shot, cameras in shot, microphones in shot, bits of set hanging down, shadows from booms…And they just said, ‘Well, clean it up [in editing].’…Look at his older films and getting depth into things was very much part of lighting. You can’t do that with a lot of cameras but he just wants to get it all done.” Here is where you should note all of the ellipses, strung together from The Telegraph in a way that helps highlight just how much these pieces were cobbled together.

GTo clear the air, Mathieson and the host of the podcast, Nigel Levy, sat down with Deadline ahead of Gladiator II’s second week in theaters. In his own statement, Mathieson said that he got to talking about the digital age of the film industry and the work that goes into it from the perspective of a modern cinematographer. “We talked about that and I said that people just come in the morning, switch the coffee machine on, switch the cameras on, say, what are we doing? Because the digital stuff doesn’t cost anything, but so you shoot a lot. And I saying that is that, and I said, this was the quote. I said, the industry, it’s really lazy. Lazy and sloppy are not two words I would ever put with this gentleman of a certain age and genius. But if you slide out — and you can hear it — you slide out a paragraph and put it right next to, oh, let’s talk about Rid and multi cameras. And he edits the piece down to 30 minutes…I could hear the blip of the sound. I said, well, that wasn’t said against that. That was probably said maybe 20 minutes later. However, this is what has risen to the surface. And I’m deeply regretful of that.”

For his part, Levy worked to salvage the interview, protect the marketing of Gladiator II and push for nothing but positivity for Ridley Scott. “One thing I was sure about was that John never intended to criticize Ridley. It does seem that bringing separate comments closer together might have made things ambiguous if people chose to take things out of context – which they did. I’m sorry John and I didn’t have a chance to go through it after my cutdown. In the end, some people have chosen to listen to it and imply things John certainly never meant…I’m sorry for any problems this has caused John, the film and Ridley Scott. He is, after all, a clearly brilliant film director.” Now, will Ridley Scott hire Jon Mathieson back for Gladiator III…?

The post Gladiator II DP walks back comments that Ridley Scott is “lazy” appeared first on JoBlo.

29 Nov

Where’s Ransom? The Ron Howard-Mel Gibson thriller is another hard-to-find movie

By . FilmTV No Comments

Yesterday, I wrote a story about how one of my favourite Thanksgiving movies, Dutch, seems to be nearly impossible to find nowadays, with the out-of-print DVD and Blu-ray pretty pricey and the movie not streaming at all on any service (although some readers noted it used to be on HBO Max). I’ve written at length about movies that are hard to find, but just how popular some of the missing titles are shocks me. It’s gotten to the point where niche titles, or at least ones with some kind of cult behind them, are often easier to find than formerly popular ones. Consider the fact that just today, Michael Mann’s The Keep, which never even got a DVD release, has just been announced for 4K Blu-ray. I was pondering this very thing when I received a text from a friend of the site, Paul Shirey, who used to be our editor-in-chief back in the day. He noted that yesterday he wanted to watch the 1996 movie Ransom, with Mel Gibson (and directed by Ron Howard), but was unable to find it anywhere. Indeed, a quick search shows the movie isn’t streaming anywhere, nor is it available for digital purchase. It was released on Blu-ray around 2011 (for its 15th anniversary), but it’s long out of print, and it seems the easiest (and cheapest) way to see it now is via the old DVD.

While Gibson’s stock has diminished in recent years, it can’t be denied that the man made his share of classics. Thankfully, many of them are pretty easy to find. But Ransom, which was phenomenally successful when it came out, seems to have vanished. That’s pretty wild, considering it made over $300 million worldwide in 1996 dollars. It’s a famous movie, with Gibson’s “Give me back my son” line being a famous catchphrase in the era. 

If you don’t remember Ransom, it’s a pretty gritty thriller in which Gibson plays a multi-millionaire whose son is kidnapped. When his attempt to pay the ransom fails, he instead uses the money they requested as bounty on their heads, much to the shock of his wife, played by Rene Russo. Gary Sinise memorably played the movie’s bad guy, and it’s easily the most violent movie Ron Howard ever directed. 

Many view it as a classic, which makes the fact that it’s so hard to find pretty puzzling. About a decade or so ago, it would have been unthinkable that a movie as popular as Ransom would be so hard to see unless you pirate it. But, nowadays, where studios often let their biggest hits sit on the shelf gathering dust (for whatever reason), it seems to be a thing. Some may say it’s because Disney, who owns the rights, may not want to be associated with Gibson, but I doubt that has anything to do with it. They also have the rights to another classic Mel Gibson movie, Signs, and that movie is everywhere.

What other movies are surprisingly hard to find? Let us know in the comments!

The post Where’s Ransom? The Ron Howard-Mel Gibson thriller is another hard-to-find movie appeared first on JoBlo.

29 Nov

Where’s Ransom? The Ron Howard-Mel Gibson thriller is another hard-to-find movie

By . FilmTV No Comments

Yesterday, I wrote a story about how one of my favourite Thanksgiving movies, Dutch, seems to be nearly impossible to find nowadays, with the out-of-print DVD and Blu-ray pretty pricey and the movie not streaming at all on any service (although some readers noted it used to be on HBO Max). I’ve written at length about movies that are hard to find, but just how popular some of the missing titles are shocks me. It’s gotten to the point where niche titles, or at least ones with some kind of cult behind them, are often easier to find than formerly popular ones. Consider the fact that just today, Michael Mann’s The Keep, which never even got a DVD release, has just been announced for 4K Blu-ray.

I was pondering this very thing when I received a text from a friend of the site, Paul Shirey, who used to be our editor-in-chief back in the day. He noted that yesterday he wanted to watch the 1996 movie Ransom, with Mel Gibson (and directed by Ron Howard), but was unable to find it anywhere. Indeed, a quick search shows the movie isn’t streaming anywhere, nor is it available for digital purchase. It was released on Blu-ray around 2011 (for its 15th anniversary), but it’s long out of print, and it seems the easiest (and cheapest) way to see it now is via the old DVD.

While Gibson’s stock has diminished in recent years, it can’t be denied that the man made his share of classics. Thankfully, many of them are pretty easy to find. But Ransom, which was phenomenally successful when it came out, seems to have vanished. That’s pretty wild, considering it made over $300 million worldwide in 1996 dollars. It’s a famous movie, with Gibson’s “Give me back my son” line being a famous catchphrase in the era. 

If you don’t remember Ransom, it’s a pretty gritty thriller in which Gibson plays a multi-millionaire whose son is kidnapped. When his attempt to pay the ransom fails, he instead uses the money they requested as bounty on their heads, much to the shock of his wife, played by Rene Russo. Gary Sinise memorably played the movie’s bad guy, and it’s easily the most violent movie Ron Howard ever directed. 

Many view it as a classic, which makes the fact that it’s so hard to find pretty puzzling. About a decade or so ago, it would have been unthinkable that a movie as popular as Ransom would be so hard to see unless you pirate it. But, nowadays, where studios often let their biggest hits sit on the shelf gathering dust (for whatever reason), it seems to be a thing. Some may say it’s because Disney, who owns the rights, may not want to be associated with Gibson, but I doubt that has anything to do with it. They also have the rights to another classic Mel Gibson movie, Signs, and that movie is everywhere.

What other movies are surprisingly hard to find? Let us know in the comments!

The post Where’s Ransom? The Ron Howard-Mel Gibson thriller is another hard-to-find movie appeared first on JoBlo.

29 Nov

JoBlo TV roundup: This week’s free movies are Wu Lin: The Society and Solum!

By . FilmTV No Comments
JoBlo TV

At the end of September, JoBlo Media and Octane Multimedia teamed up to launch a new YouTube channel named JoBlo TV, which hosts multiple feature films to watch for free throughout the week. The genres we’ll be focusing on at JoBlo TV are Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Thrillers – and the free movies we shared this week were both sci-fi action thrillers!

The movies are Wu Lin: The Society and Solum, and here’s some information on both of them:

Directed by Johnny K. Wu, who also crafted the screenplay with Andras Zold, Wu Lin: The Society has the following synopsis: During a global pandemic in the year 2050, two detectives investigate a series of strange murders. They soon discover that a mysterious ninja who is connected to a dangerous cult may be responsible. In the future, revenge has no limit. The film stars Jerry Sur, Thomas H.F. Gassaway, Pauline Nowakowski, Kyle Houstyn, Kyle Znamenak, Yvonne Yorke, Ern Gerardo, Matt Kane, Seth Bellinger, Zenobein Adams, Jennifer Anderson, James Bellanca, James Gappy Burney, Keith Collins II, Alex Daniels, Lou DeNardo, Larry DiBartolomeo, and Krista Dotson.

Directed by Diogo Morgado, who wrote the screenplay with Pedro Morgado, Solum shows us what happens when a reality show on an inhabited island where eight contestants must fight for their survival becomes more than it appears to be. Maria Botelho Moniz, Carlos Carvalho, Francisco Froes, Luís Lourenço, Anna Ludmilla,Catarina Mira, Diogo Morgado, Gonzalo Ramos, Cláudia Semedo, and Darwin Shaw star.

To follow our JoBlo TV releases, click over to the YouTube channel and subscribe! We also recently launched a new page at JoBloYouTubeNetwork.com, where you can access all of our YouTube channels from one place. 

The post JoBlo TV roundup: This week’s free movies are Wu Lin: The Society and Solum! appeared first on JoBlo.

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