Word: films
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Blame it on Blair Witch. When a hit summer film revolves around three kids who run around the woods with cameras and don't even use the steadycam setting, it is only going to be a matter of time before something equally weird happens to home movies. The Project was famous for being filmed on a camera bought at (and returned to) Circuit City, edited on a $30,000 shoestring and promoted like hell on the Internet. This holiday season, however, millions of wannabes can go through exactly the same process for less than $3,000--cast party not included...
Apple's machine is, as the name suggests, specifically designed to get you into the digital-movie business. It has two FireWire ports and comes with iMovie--film-editing software so intuitive that it doesn't have a manual, or need one. Learn to crop, clip and swap scenes with the tutorial, plug in the camera and bingo--you're in postproduction. Other editing suites include Adobe Premiere ($895) and top-of-the-line Avid Express...
...chores, it quickly becomes clear to the father of the family (Sam Neill) that the robot, which they have named Andrew, has great artistic and intellectual abilities. Andrew also becomes the closest friend of the youngest Martin daughter, known only as "Little Miss" (Embeth Davidtz as an adult). The film progresses, as the title suggests, over 200 years, and in that time Andrew is granted his freedom and embarks on a lengthy search for others like him. What he finds instead is an eccentric scientist (Oliver Platt) willing to help Andrew look and feel more like a real...
...emotion, not science, drives Bicentennial Man. The film's heart is Andrew's relationship with four generations of the Martin family, particularly Little Miss and her granddaughter (also played by Davidtz). This story manages to be heartwarming and engaging, as does Andrew's struggle to find his identity. But all of these emotions partially paint over the plot's more intriguing implications. By the second half of the film, when Asimov's grander concepts begin to emerge, Kazan and Columbus too often choose obvious tearjerking over any true exploration. The film's vision of the future is drawn in similar...
...Then again, perhaps we should not expect too much gritty sci-fi out of what may just be a futuristic family film. As seen here, the cityscapes and landscapes of tomorrow are indeed gorgeous to look at. The neat visual surprises include a double-decker Golden Gate Bridge. And the key futuristic detail, the robot star himself, is a lot of fun to watch. His movements strike an intriguing balance between fluidity and mechanics, while in the face, Robin Williams the robot is a curious metallic echo of Robin Williams...