Oliver Gettell

Two classic episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” are about to reach an unexpected frontier — the big screen in 44 states. On Monday night at 7 p.m., theaters across the country will screen new, digitally spruced-up versions of “Where No One Has Gone Before” (October 1987) and “Datalore” (January 1988) as well as behind-the-scenes programming as part of  the silver anniversary celebration for the sci-fi series. Tickets for the screenings went on sale early last month but the event will arrive in a changed country. The “Trek” program from CBS TV and Fathom is the first nationwide event for a “fan tribe” in the wake of the Colorado movie theater massacre that left 12 dead and 50 wounded at a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.” It was 25 years ago this October that “Star Trek: The Next Generation” arrived with a promise of […]

When director Christopher Nolan brought Batman out of the shadows seven years ago in “Batman Begins” and carried on the character’s adventures in “The Dark Knight,” he produced a hero and setting appropriate for the times: a grim, hard-nosed loner in a world racked by corruption, shaken by terrorism and standing on shaky moral ground. With the concluding chapter “The Dark Knight Rises” poised to plunge into blackness once again, here’s a refresher on what brought us to the brink: CLICK THROUGH THE PHOTO GALLERY ABOVE TO REVISIT KEY CHARACTERS AND EVENTS.  BE SURE THE “CAPTIONS ON” OPTION IS ACTIVATED. (And if you haven’t seen either film, just an obvious warning that spoilers lie ahead.) – Oliver Gettell RECENT AND RELATED Christopher Nolan opens up about Bane choice Christian Bale says goodbye to Gotham ‘DKR’: Where to see the IMAX […]

What’s the most effective way to depict a teenage superhero swinging through the urban canyons of New York City, trudging through subterranean tunnels and battling a 9-foot humanoid reptile? Such were the questions faced by “The Amazing Spider-Man” director Marc Webb and the visual effects artists at Sony Imageworks. For many key scenes, the answer was to create and animate fully digital environments and actors, which allowed for a great deal of creative freedom but presented their own artistic and practical challenges. We caught up with digital effects supervisor Dave Smith to talk about his team’s vision for Spidey’s return to the big screen. The exclusive video below (narrated by David Schaub, supervisor of additional animation) demonstrates how digital effects were used to bring some of Spider-Man’s classic comic-book poses to life and to re-create New York streetscapes in painstaking detail. HC: […]

The most frightening element of the 1982 John Carpenter horror classic “The Thing” is the title creature, a shape-shifting alien parasite brought to gruesome life with detailed practical effects. For actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the scariest part about starring in a new prequel to the film, also called “The Thing” and opening Friday, was the risk of not living up to a cult favorite. “I think there was some pressure going into it knowing that we were going to be watched very closely and that if we didn’t do it justice, there was going to be a lot of anger,” Winstead said in Los Angeles. But the 26-year-old actress, known for her roles as a Hollywood starlet in Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof” and as the object of Michael Cera’s affection in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” saw in “The Thing” […]