movies

$200 James Bond tome stirs up memories

Bond fanatics, we've found a book for you: "The James Bond Archives" by Paul Duncan.

Duncan, who previously worked on major compendiums about Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, spent the last two years researching Bond by combing through more than 1 million images and 100 filing cabinets full of related documentation from EON Productions.

More than 150 cast and crew members from the various films also retold their behind-the-scenes stories to Duncan, stories you can now relive in a book that gives a complete history of her majesty's most ambitious secret agent. … Read more

Apple Maps confuse 'Batman'

One or two jokes have been directed at Apple Maps ever since a less than perfect launch last month. We made one of our own on Rumor Has It a few weeks ago.

It seemed, to some at least, that the maps app had been created after a very drunken lunch between Siri and the Joker.

What a coincidence, then, that a film has emerged of "Batman" losing his way because of his new iPhone 5.

While Siri attempts to direct him as best she can, given her seeming predilection for a tincture at any time of day, … Read more

Celtx brings media preproduction into the digital age

In media, "preproduction" generally means drawing stuff: sketching out ideas on storyboards, whiteboards, legal pads, and even cocktail napkins. Greyfirst's Celtx is a free tool that finally brings preproduction into the same century as the media it creates, with some old-school touches, too. It includes Project Templates for planning and creating Film, Audio-Visual, Theatre, Audio Play, Storyboard, Comic Book, and Novel projects. Sample projects help get you started. Celtx integrates with free online and cloud-based resources and syncs with your mobile devices, so your creative projects are always available and safely stored online in the cloud, as … Read more

Have an Apple TV? Don't miss these four new features

Apple released an update for the Apple TV shortly after iOS 6 was made available for iOS devices. You should have already been alerted to update your black box to Apple TV software version 5.1. If not, you can manually update by going into Settings > General > Update Software. The update should take less than 20 minutes, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.

Here are four new features the update brings to your Apple TV, each with a link to a guide covering how to use them.

Rearranging icons Finally! Up until now, Apple TV owners … Read more

Best monitors for movie-watching

Why would anyone want to watch a movie on a sub-40-inch screen? Well, ideally you wouldn't, but we don't all get what we want in life, now do we?

In a perfect world, all screens would span 50 inches diagonally and sport superhigh resolutions. Also, we'd all have enough space to fit them in every room.

Real life just ain't chock-full of unicorns and seven-year wizard colleges, though, and real-life dorms and apartments can be small. Doesn't mean you'd want to miss out on watching movies the way they were intended. Well, at least from a color, black-level, and contrast ratio perspective. We addressed the whole difference-in-screen-size thing earlier.… Read more

Hollywood-style movies with an iPhone 5? It can be done

It might not be easy to use an iPhone to record and edit a Hollywood-style short, but it's possible.

Anna Elizabeth James and Michael Koerbel, the duo behind Majek Pictures, have a history of seeing how well the latest Apple devices handle cinema production values, not just point-and-shoot video, and this time around they've used an iPhone 5 to create "All Up To You," an amusing 96-second mini-musical about running out of gas in the desert with only Siri to help.

Creating the short was a scramble to find dancers, to print app icons on boxes, … Read more

How to add, manage multiple Apple IDs on the same Apple TV

The recent software update to the Apple TV, version 5.1, allows users to add more than one Apple ID to the little black box. Access to multiple Apple IDs makes it easier for family members to view movies and TV shows purchased by family members.

To add another Apple ID to your Apple TV, you'll first need to make sure it's running software version 5.1 (Settings > General > About). Once you have verified it's running the latest software update, you can then go into Settings and select iTunes Store. At the top you'll … Read more

Use your Apple TV to view movie showtimes in nearby theaters

Being able to watch a movie trailer while deciding which movie to go watch the same night, or in anticipation of a new release isn't a new feature on Apple TV. You open the Trailers app, select the trailer you want to watch, and it's streaming in just a few minutes on your HDTV. Up until now, though, you couldn't view local showtimes if you found a movie you wanted to go watch. Thankfully, showtimes have been added to the Apple TV with software update 5.1; and it's very easy to access.

As you can … Read more

Massive 'Indiana Jones' exhibit headed to U.S.

The "Indiana Jones" film saga contains a plethora of real-world archaeology and stunning cinematography, an epic score by John Williams, and cunning characters. Perhaps the greatest charm of the movies, however, falls upon the main protagonist played by Harrison Ford.

To celebrate the legacy of the films more than 30 years after the Indiana Jones franchise debuted with "Raiders of the Lost Ark," National Geographic and Lucasfilm teamed with X3 Productions on the Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology exhibition, which is set to open October 12 at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, Calif. The exhibit runs through April 21, 2013, and features an extensive collection of film props, set designs, models, and concept art used in the films. … Read more