Entertainment
NYC mayor: Coney Island ‘is coming back, big time’
Feb 17th
NEW YORK — State-of-the-art new rides including a roller coaster and a pendulum will open this summer at Coney Island to jump-start the resurgence of the famed Brooklyn amusement park, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday.
"Coney Island is coming back, big time," Bloomberg said at a news conference near the boardwalk where the decades-old Astroland rides were dismantled in 2008.
The new rides are being created by Zamperla, the world’s leading manufacturer of mechanical rides, based in Altavilla Vicentina, Italy.
Luna Park at Coney Island will open on Memorial Day weekend with 19 rides. Among them will be the Air Race, which sends riders swinging and soaring around a control tower. It will be the ride’s global debut.
Also promised are games, live entertainment, and concessions including Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand, which opened in 1916, pioneering America’s concept of fast food.
By the summer of 2011, Scream Zone at Coney Island will offer two roller coasters, go-carts and a human slingshot launching people more than 200 feet into the air.
Central Amusement International of Parsippany, N.J., is investing about $30 million to build and operate the park. The company signed a 10-year lease for about 6 acres of land including the former Astroland site, paying the city $1 million plus part of gross receipts.
"We will have rides that will flip you, turn you, launch you, drop you, splash you and make the mayor want to lose his lunch," said David Galst, a CAI spokesman.
Not all of Coney Island’s old amusements were scrapped.
Avatar sparks 3-D makeover for action classics
Jan 11th
Hollywood is preparing to re-release some past hits, including Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in 3-D following the record-breaking success of Avatar.
Studio executives are drawing up schedules of popular films that will be “retro-fitted” with 3-D technology after the science fiction blockbuster, directed by James Cameron, last week became the second highest grossing movie of all time.
A 3-D version of Avatar has driven ticket sales to more than $1.14 billion (£700m) in just three weeks; only Titanic, Cameron’s 1997 epic, has made more money at the box office.
Rival studios had been waiting to see if Avatar took the 3-D experience — albeit using special glasses — beyond the popularity of animated tales such Monsters vs Aliens.
Experts now predict that 3-D will become the new multiplex standard within five years. This will be as dramatic a shift as when the “talkies” killed off silent movies in the early 20th century.
Retro-fitting a screen classic with 3-D imagery could take as little as four months, using software to manipulate a digital copy of the film.
Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings, said last spring that he wanted to reissue the trilogy in 3-D if Avatar persuaded enough cinemas to put in new 3-D projectors. Last week technicians at Weta, the production company that had worked on the trilogy, said they had experimented with 3-D battle scenes and proclaimed them to be “gob-smacking”.
The Lord of the Rings is expected to be re-released after Jackson has finished producing the two-part version of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit over the next two years. This would mean that a 3-D version of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of the trilogy, could be in cinemas by Christmas 2012.
It may be beaten to the screen by a revamped version of Star Wars. George Lucas, the director, spent $13m filming the original in 1976, added special effects in 1997 and 2004, and will now spend another $10m to change it into a 3-D spectacular.
“George cannot leave it alone,” said an associate. “He is salivating at the opportunity to play with it again. This time the Death Star is really going to explode all over the audience and leave them gasping.”
Read more at the Times Online (UK).
Avatar: yes, it changed everything after all
Jan 4th
A review from Gizmodo…
Put simply, Avatar is the most visually fantastic film I’ve ever seen. It will be hailed as the groundbreaking 3D release of its time while setting a new standard by which all blockbusters are measured. Yes, it’s that good.
I’m not going to talk about plot (or that I thought to myself, Dances with Wolves in space more than once). I’m not going to talk about dialog or pacing (or that the limited narration was totally unnecessary). There are other reviews, more reviewy type reviews, that have all that covered. I’m not going to spoil anything, either. Heck, I’m not even going to talk about Avatar…not just yet.
Andrew W.K. wins again
Oct 29th
If you can watch this without laughing then you have more self control then I do. Those who have met Andrew shouldn’t be too surprised.
See the original post at Fail Blog.
3-D glasses a sticking point for movie industry
May 13th
More than a dozen 3-D films will hit multiplexes this year, and theaters are installing thousands of digital 3-D systems amid fervid public approval of the fledgling technology.
If the industry could only figure out how to pay for the 3-D glasses.
Complicated virtual-print-fee (VPF) agreements are in place to fund the rollout of digital hardware, enabling theaters to add the 3-D systems. But until reusable 3-D glasses come into greater use or the $1-per-pair cost for disposables is cut substantially, squabbling will continue over millions of dollars in costs tied to the extra-dimensional eyewear.
With an installed base of fewer than 1,400 domestic 3-D screens, distribution has been limited, keeping the cost of outfitting customers in the low- to mid-single-digits. But once 3-D movies start playing in 2,000 or more theaters at a time, that expense is expected to swell quickly to $10 million or more per release.
Such outlays come on top of about $15 million per picture in extra production costs tied to 3-D, as well as multimillion-dollar VPF payments. 20th Century Fox executives quietly spread the word a couple months ago that they intended to rein in their payments on glasses, but details of a new arrangement have yet to emerge. Read the rest of this entry »
