In the 1975 Disney movie Escape to Witch Mountain two orphans with paranormal abilities discover a clue to their past.  These clues lead them to Witch Mountain and the knowledge that they are in fact aliens.  This movie was followed up by a sequel in 1978 called Return from Witch Mountain, and a TV movie in 1982 called Beyond Witch Mountain, and then it was remade in 1995.

I’ve talked about this re-imaging before, but somewhere along the way my attitude has shifted.  Let’s say that I want to make a really cool movie about these kids with special abilities.  Every good movie needs a good McGuffin, so I make them orphans with a mysterious past.  They work to uncover evidence of who they really are.  It’s an allegory of us all trying to find our place in the world, and hoping that we can prove that the things that make us different are the things that make us special.  These kids find out that they aren’t oddballs, but they are actually part of an alien society.  They discover that they aren’t alone in the world and their abilities are real gifts.

Now, to help separate my movie from all of the other movies out there I want to tie into some sort of existing fan base.  I happen upon the old Disney movie Escape to Witch Mountain.  I research it a bit and discover that the movie is based on the 1968 Novel by Alexander Key.  After reading the novel I find this is really a “a very cool dark thriller”.

I find myself wondering how many melodies can be made from the same 12 notes, but then I sit back and enjoy the music.  I’m looking forward to sharing this movie with my kids.

Not really.  This is an image from a new film by Sandy Collora.  The movie is called Hunter Prey and the story centers around a crew of special forces commandos who must recapture an alien prisoner that has escaped after the military transport ship carrying it crashes on a desolate and hostile planet.  You can read the interview with Sandy over at io9.  I became familiar with Sandy’s work after seeing his fan film Batman: Dead End.  You can see it below.

I mentioned earlier today about the Boba Fett costume that was made for Jeremy Bulloch.  Here’s a video about the presentation of the suit.

Well, I’m off to see the Quantum of Solace.  The title of the post is in reference to a previous post I made about the proposed Theme Song for the new Bond movie.  You can see it here.  I’ll let you know what I think of the movie on Monday.

Quantum of Solace from phoenix on Vimeo.

The new Canon 5D Mark II is a pretty awesome camera.  It retails for $2700.00, which is quite a lot of money for a camera, but the results a remarkable.  I’m not a big photography buff, so it’s actually not the still image capabilities that caught my attention.  These new cameras are capturing High Definition images AND can capture video.  The full frame, 21.1 Megapixel EOS 5D Mark II is the first EOS with full High Definition video capability.  Click here for more info, or just watch some of the videos below.

I haven’t fully researched these but it looks like there are two great sample videos from this camera. The first video was done by a professional with tons of extra equipment and the second video was done by a news photographer and a laptop.  Here is a link to the super professional one, and I’ve posted the other video below. 

Spike TV recently held their Scream Awards.  They presented the Comic Con Icon award to George Lucas and put together quite the presentation.  In the video below, you can see the film montage of George’s work  as well as him entering the event with his personal body guard, the 501st.

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In this day and age of digital effects and computer animation, I find myself not really being surprised by what I see on TV or in the movies.  It’s nice to see a fun video and then see the behind-the-scenes to discover that most of the elements were real.

The Barclaycard in the UK introduces a new cashless, hassle-free way to pay.  See for yourself.

Here is the behind the scenes clip.

In preparation for Halloween, I was showing my kids and nephews the Michael Jackson Thriller video.  When it started, my 12 year old nephew said, “Which one is Michael Jackson?”.  I thought that was pretty funny. 

For some reason the Thriller video has embedding disabled.  You can go and watch the video here or you can remember how great it felt to remember the song by watching this scene from 13 going on 30.

Batman the Brave and the Bold was the cover story of the San Diego ComicCon edition of Animation Magazine.  I noticed right away that the style was a bit of a throw back to early versions of the not-so-dark knight.  I saw the trailer on Otis Frampton’s site and was pretty impressed with the music and the classic feel to it.  I’m waiting till I get through about 3 episodes before I pass final judgment, but I’ve got a good feeling about it.  It’s got a Johnny Quest/New Scooby Doo kinda feel to it.  Here’s the trailer.

 Just in case you weren’t getting that classic vibe, a fan has remixed the audio and added some of the old sound effects to it.  It nudges the style right back to my childhood.

I found this video from the Star Wars Blog and was pretty impressed with it.  Fanboy Corey Vidal has absconded the Theraputic Harmonies of Moosbutter and made his own video.  I’m not sure how or if Corey is associated with the group, but the video is fun.