While everybody's attention is on 82nd Academy Awards winners its easy not to notice the astonishing success of Alice In Wonderland début in the theatres. Alice became a box-office 3D monster by blowing away James Cameron's Avatar becoming the biggest 3D bow ever, the best March release ever and the highest grossing movie of 2010 with116,3M on it's opening weekend. Although Avatar's international numbers were better ($242M worldwide on the first weekend), we still have a chance of witnessing Tim Burton's picture to triumph in this category as well - the movie is still awaiting release in Spain, France, Japan, Brazil, Switzerland, Netherlands, Israel, Finland and Belgium.

We do not forget about the higher ticket prices that help this 3D blockbuster-beasts. We also may assume that Alice is having such a success mostly because of James Cameron's achievement – most people who saw Avatar apparently enjoyed it and now, even though the critics are giving mixed-feeling reviews of Tim Burton's new movie, are seeking for the similar experience.

This is where we come to conclude that Alice in Wonderland has a crucial role in this 3D box-office occupation movement that we all are told to witness very soon. If the audience will enjoy it as much as they enjoyed the world of Pandora, we may expect the similar success of upcoming 3D pictures (Clash of the Titans for example), or if movie-goers will decide that avatar was once in a lifetime theatrical experience we apparently will see no new grossing records in the nearest future (it doesn't mean that this 3D creatures wont be successful though).

Here's this weekend box-office The Observer Conversation: Will 3D change cinema for ever?

GOOD MORNING MR. JENKINS

"We wanted to make something a bit different in the 3 minute limit."



‘Good Morning Mr Jenkins’ is a story about a guy who has everything, a loving marriage and is great at his job. After witnessing an event one day, his life starts crumbling all around him.

Written by Marty Stalker and Rick Trainor
Directed by Marty Stalker
Written and produced for the Final Round of the Filmaka competition (Jury Level Round).
Special Thanks to all that were involved in the production. Filmed on the Canon 5D Mark II with 50mm f1.4 USM lens and edited in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 with Magic Bullet Looks.
Music from The Black Bear Saloon and Video CoPilot's Pro Scores.

BEHIND THE SCEENES: GOOD MORNING MR JENKINS

I've wrote recently about the new Rebel T2i camera by Canon here. Now check out one of the first comparisons of the new camra with it's older brother 7D!

I don't need a long intro to tell you about Martin Scorsese's contribution to the world of cinema. It's enough just to name some titles from his filmography and anybody will get the idea  –  The Departed, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Casino, Goodfellas and Taxi Driver. While it's highly rumoured in the press that Scorsese teams-up with Robert De Niro and director Lars von Trier(!) to create a sequel of his 1976 classic (Taxi Driver), I want to concentrate on his last work - Shutter Island which premièred recently at the Berlin International Film Festival. Scorsese have told about the atmosphere on the set, what influenced him, and the nature of the work with Leo DiCaprio in his latest interview for filmofilla.com. Read on!

Click Read More to watch videos!

NO WAY THROUGH

Thought provocative, political, thrilling.
shot on Canon 5D Mark II.

Imagine if London was controlled by the military and you had to go through specific checkpoints to go to school, go to work, visit your friends or go to the hospital.

No Way Through brings the shocking reality of Palestinian life in the West Bank uncomfortably close to home.



Produced for Ctrl.Alt.Shift - a movement for a new generation fighting social and global injustice (www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk)

**CAST**
Amy : Amy Loughton
Rob : Tim Plester
Soldier #1 : Michael Parr
Soldier #2 : Barry Murray
Other soldiers : James Lomax / David Chrysanthou / Sam Skempton / Tony Dixon
Paramedics : Robert Mellor / Alex Gardner

**CREW**
Co-Writers/Co-Directors : Sheila Menon & Alexandra Monro
Director of Photography : Dave Tree
Editor : Graham Taylor
Composer : James Edward Barker
Production Designer : Gareth Thomas

Producer : Andy Noble
Co-producer : Aneta Chalas

You can find an enormous amount of blogs, websites, videos and other information about filmmaking on the net (such as this blog :)..). In order to help you not to get lost in this info chaos, Moviemaker magazine published a list of 50 Best Blogs For Moviemakers. Here it is:

New Canon EOS 550D, also called Rebel T2i (and it got that name for a reason) is claimed to be the best entry level DSLR camera form moving images. 550D is 18 megapixel and has all the video modes of Canon 7D and 1D Mark IV, BUT will be available for an astonishing price of 700£ (another price is 799$) - thats twice cheaper that 7D! Althogh there may be some minor drawbacks comparing to Canon 7D (less weather coating, slower continuous shooting in still mode, and SD cards instead of CF), the afortability may be it´s main advantage over other cameras.

Canon EOS 550 will be available from 24th February 2010.

Videos after the jump!

Ever thought about what great filmmakers were doing at the dawn of their careers? Here is the very first movie of the most talked-about director of the present, the creator of groundbreaking, most-grossing movie of all time - James Cameron. It's called Xenogenesis and was filmed in 1978, six years prior to Cameron's breakout classic The Terminator.

From now on you'll find a new short film posted on FRAMEmag at the start of every week.

Here is the first choice:


Validation from Robert Rowe on Vimeo.


"Validation" is a fable about the magic of free parking.
Starring - TJ Thyne & Vicki Davis.
Writer/Director/Composer - Kurt Kuenne.

• Winner - Best Narrative Short, Cleveland Int'l Film Festival, 
• Winner - Jury Award, Gen Art Chicago Film Festival, 
• Winner - Audience Award, Hawaii Int'l Film Festival, 
• Winner - Best Short Comedy, Breckenridge Festival of Film, 
• Winner - Crystal Heart Award, Best Short Film & Audience Award, Heartland Film Festival, 
• Winner - Christopher & Dana Reeve Audience Award, Williamstown Film Festival, 
• Winner - Best Comedy, Dam Short Film Festival, 
• Winner - Best Short Film, Sedona Int'l Film Festival.

"It’s very scary when you realize people are buying this image. That’s scarier than a dictator who looks nice." - Erik Gandini



by Filmmaker Magazine

Television has been blamed for the dumbing down of the American public since the ascendance of the boob tube in the 1950s. But in Italy, where scandal-plagued prime minister Silvio Berlusconi controls the flow of information through his monopolistic holdings in that nation’s biggest media conglomerates, there is a more insidious aspect to the chronic press muzzling at RAI and trashy tits-and-ass programming that predominate on his Mediaset channels. If you want to get a sense of how the billionaire entrepreneur’s televisual imagination has transformed the political and mass-media landscape in Italy, Erik Gandini’s cunningly choreographed documentary Videocracy provides plenty of food for thought, taking a gimlet-eyed view of the Berlusconi phenomenon. But instead of stampeding into this tangle of cultural conflict with rhetorical guns a-blazing, Gandini, an Italian-born filmmaker based in Sweden (Gitmo: The New Rules of War), adopts a far subtler, more intriguingly first-person approach.

Read the interview on filmmakermagazine.com

By Rebecca Murray, About.com Guide
2010 won't have Spider-Man or Batman (we do get Christopher Nolan's Inception) movies, but Iron Man returns, Robin Hood's back to steal from the rich, and the long, long, long-awaited sequel to Tron finally arrives. 2010 also finds a new batch of superhero types heading to theaters in Jonah Hex and Kick-Ass. Plus, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, Sam Worthington, and John Travolta have action films ready to launch in '10.
Check out this list of action movies hitting theaters throughout 2010, listed in order of release, to see if there's something that might persuade you to take action and buy a ticket.

In this issue:

• Disney closes down Miramax
• Sequels: Avatar 2, Sherlock Holmes 2, Fockers and Mad Max 4
• The Book
• Sundance Film Festival
  
  

In this issue:

• Director Jon Favreau: 'the secret weapon' of Iron Man 2,
• The 3D Hype,
• Spider Man - new director, new movie,
• Review Corner: Youth in Revolt,

Click on the image to read or download




After the jump!
Watch a video interview on Iron Man 2 with Robert Dawney Jr!
Movie Trailers!

Click on the pictures to zoom, read or download!