There hasn’t been a movie since The Sixth Sense that had more potential for disaster than Star Trek: Into Darkness. No, Spock doesn’t see dead people, but that doesn’t take away for the desperate need to avoid that annoying co-worker who loves to talk about the movie he watched this weekend. Kudos to J.J. Abrams for pulling off one of the hardest challenges in Hollywood – making a movie that appeases the long-time faithful while still offering a complete experience to those who aren’t as familiar with the source material. Rotten Tomatoes, the consolidated source of reputable reviews, gave the…

IBM is one of the largest firms in the world in terms of both market capitalization and number of employees. It has held the record for most patents generated by a company for twenty consecutive years. A lot of time and effort was required to bring this company to the point is is today, but don’t let that fool you. Even the hard-working employees at IBM need to take some time off work and have a little fun. On Tuesday, IBM released a video on their YouTube channel called “A Boy and His Atom”. It’s a short, stop-motion movie created by a small team of nanophysicists as a part of a side project. It isn’t…

We’ve all seen the shots in sci-fi movies where the background was obviously manufactured. Background fill video technology is nothing new with green screens being the predominant type in Hollywood and around the world. What many don’t realize is that many of the television shows that they watch today aren’t filmed on location the way that they appear. Technology has made a film set much easier to create. One simply has to put the moving parts in front of a green screen and everything else can be added seamlessly in a way that nobody could ever recognize. Cost savings are obvious; it’s cheaper to…

In theaters, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s first major motion picture Ted was a huge hit.  It combined the brash frat boy humor of Judd Apatow comedy films with the over the top toilet humor of Family Guy, and included a sexy love interest in Mila Kunis.  How could you go wrong?  This isn’t the most incredible feat of the movie Ted though, shockingly.  Ted is still gaining fans at an alarming rate. Long after leaving theaters, the Facebook page for Ted continues to gain followers as the movie’s creators continue to create new images, videos, and written content as if the page is run…

The hashtag has become a symbol of sentiment in a society where the people are often so connected virtually to one another that real-world relationships often revolve around our online and mobile personae. With social media acting as a bellwether for our interpersonal connections, it’s no wonder that so many people are finding (and losing) love as a result of the growing influence of our digital connections. When Lebanese filmmaker Robert Cremona sent me his short film “#signhereplease” I was a little skeptical after finding out that it was shot entirely from a smartphone. It was just today…

So Google is pitching a YouTube pay-per-view service to Hollywood studios that would enable video rentals for five bucks a pop. That’s not… so bad, I guess. I mean, if you’re not already a Netflix convert. But we’ll go over that in a second. YouTube’s pay-per-view is, in fact, not new. Yeah, I was surprised, too. Open since January of this year, YouTube’s rental service has offered video rentals from indie and niche publishers from $1.99 – $3.99. That is nothing if not rad, but so far, no one’s really biting. With only 1500 views in its first weekend (featuring Sundance festival titles), and only…

Andreas Hykade, the director of short films such as The Runt and Ring of Fire, has another film slated to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival this year. The film entitled Love & Theft marks a new direction for Hykade, this is a pure experimentation in animation and design as images loop and distort fluidly into each other. The whole film is set to a thumping, grinding soundtrack almost as hypnotic as the visuals. The film never stops moving as we are taken on a psychedelic journey through animation references and even other filmmakers make an appearance in the loops. It is one film that art and design…

Bet you thought the stiff-assed pencil pushers at NASA were all business, didn’t you? Yeah, don’t sweat, so did I. But very few things make me literally LOL in my chair, and today, NASA has done it. Turns out for every mission since STS-96, NASA’s been creating mock movie posters for their Space Flight Awareness program. I won’t bother pointing out the mission particulars or which poster is a parody of which blockbuster – just keep a smile on your face knowing that the folks pictured are all megageek astronauts, much less movie stars. [Via CNet]…

Spike Jonze has teamed up with Absolut Vodka to present ‘I’m Here’, a touching short film about robots in love. The best part? The film is available free to watch online. Potential viewers have to be quick, though, as ‘seating’ for each screening of the film is limited. Viewers can log in with their Facebook accounts for a really unique experience. I’m not going to spoil anything, though – just check out the trailer and go watch it. It’s a beautiful film. As if robots couldn’t be any more rad today. [Via Laughing Squid]…