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When we recently compiled our list of science fiction movies based on true stories, one film that didn’t make the list was Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer. After all, the technology behind the nuclear bomb can no longer be said to be undiscovered, sadly. Nonetheless, Oppenheimer remains the archetypal science fiction story—one about a mad scientist who devises a new machine that changes the world through terrible unforeseen consequences. He is an an American Prometheus, yes, but also a regular Yankee Frankenstein. More than that though, by ushering in the nuclear age, Oppenheimer may have lit the fuse on the genre of cinematic science fiction.

It is hardly a new observation, but walk into any cinema in the 1950s and you will find no shortage of creatures, monsters, or occasionally people grown to giant size by the mysterious power of radiation. You don’t need to look too closely...

On paper, the plight of a pair of families fleeing 1979’s East Germany in a hot air balloon sounds like fabricated fodder for a spy novel. But as implausible as it sounds, this “The Mysterious Island”-esque grand escape from Deutschland’s then walled-in, oppressive slice really did happen. And nearly four decades after being the subject of Disney’s “Night Crossing,” it is now a tale told in small-screen comedian Michael Bully Herbig’s “Balloon,” a competently made political thriller that sadly mines for suspense in all the wrong places.

Still, “Balloon” is decent entertainment to a degree, and that is mostly thanks to its handsome production values. The quaint environs and row houses of Thuringia as well as the era’s eye-popping costumes by Lisy Christl — well-tailored clothes and floral-heavy fabrics with traces of ’70s cool — are admittedly easy on the eyes. But considering the film’s stretched...

MGM’s gigantic silent sci-fi extravaganza took three years to make, by which time the talkies arrived and everything went to pieces. Lionel Barrymore emotes (Emotes!) in his early sound footage, and terrific effects take us to the bottom of the ocean where monsters and a race of Donald Duck creatures menace our heroic adventurers. And don’t forget a few sundry other elements: a Russian revolution, torture scenes, and cool steampunk nautical hardware. All this Life Aquatic lacks is Steve Zissou!

The Mysterious Island

DVD

The Warner Archive Collection

1929 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 93 min. / Street Date March 26, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 19.99

Starring: Lionel Barrymore, Jane Daly (Jacqueline Gadsdon), Lloyd Hughes, Montagu Love, Harry Gribbon, Snitz Edwards, Gibson Gowland, Dolores Brinkman, Karl Dane, Robert Dudley, Sydney Jarvis, Bob Kortman, Angelo Rossitto.

Cinematography: Percy Hilburn

Film Editor: Carl L. Pierson

Technical Effects: James Basevi, Irving G. Ries, Louis H. Tolhurst

Original Music: Martin Broones,...

Elizabeth Rayne Oct 31, 2016

Regret is the theme of the latest Once Upon A Time season 6 instalment, Dark Waters...

This review contains spoilers.

See related DC Comics movies: upcoming UK release dates calendar Batman V Superman: where does it leave the Justice League? Why cinema needs Batman: the world’s greatest detective Zack Snyder interview: Batman V Superman Deborah Snyder & Charles Roven interview: Man Of Steel

6.6 Dark Waters

This might be the most emo episode of Once Upon A Time we’ve seen in a while. Hook is brooding, Belle doesn’t know what (or who) she wants anymore, Emma thinks she’s going to die every times she blinks, and a sea captain washes up full of regrets.

Hook has issues. Not like we didn’t already know a reformed sword-happy pirate captain with a hankering to skin himself a crocodile has issues. Being sold into servitude at a young...

Brad Peyton has carved himself a nice directorial career thanks to a partnership with Dwayne Johnson. The two did Journey 2 The Mysterious Island together, followed by San Andreas, and they have plans for Journey 3 and the video game adaptation Rampage. Now Peyton has signed for a movie that doesn’t (yet) feature The Rock: […]...

Omar Sharif in 'Doctor Zhivago.' Egyptian star Omar Sharif, 'The Karate Kid' producer Jerry Weintraub: Brief career recaps A little late in the game – and following the longish Theodore Bikel article posted yesterday – below are brief career recaps of a couple of film veterans who died in July 2015: actor Omar Sharif and producer Jerry Weintraub. A follow-up post will offer an overview of the career of peplum (sword-and-sandal movie) actor Jacques Sernas, whose passing earlier this month has been all but ignored by the myopic English-language media. Omar Sharif: Film career beginnings in North Africa The death of Egyptian film actor Omar Sharif at age 83 following a heart attack on July 10 would have been ignored by the English-language media (especially in the U.S.) as well had Sharif remained a star within the Arabic-speaking world. After all, an "international" star is only worth remembering...

Legendary Egyptian-born, British trained actor Omar Sharif has died at the age of 83.

Though studying maths and physics at University, and working in the family business of precious woods, Sharif felt the lure of performing and ended up appearing in more than twenty productions in Egypt from 1953.

His big international break came in 1962 when he joined David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" and scored both a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination for his work as Sherif Ali Ben El Kharish. He went on to roles in various major movies including "Doctor Zhivago," "Funny Girl," "Behold a Pale Horse," "Che!," "Top Secret," "Hidalgo," "The Fall of the Roman Empire ," "The Pink Panther Strikes Again," "The Mysterious Island," "The Last Valley," "The Baltimore Bullet," "Mayerling," "The Night of the Generals," "Genghis Khan," "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna," "One Night with the King " and "Monsieur Ibrahim".

Surprisingly he also became famous...

The Rock vs Earthquakes? Well, not quite, but San Andreas is still a decent enough disaster movie.

San Andreas could be one of the easiest films to pitch in a review, as your predisposition towards it can be gauged by two simple questions: 1) Are you a fan of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson? 2) Do you love effects driven disaster movies that pit character archetypes against massive peril? If the answer is yes to both, then please proceed in an orderly fashion to your nearest cinema, purchase snacks of choice and let the loud and destructive spectacle entertain you.

After last year saw Into The Storm bring back some Twister style antics to the big screen, so San Andreas plays out like a combination of 1974’s Earthquake and the Dennis Quaid’s fight against a slight chill in The Day After Tomorrow (minus the ropey CGI wolves). The central plot follows the...

Director Brad Peyton reveals why Lobo, starring Dwayne Johnson, hasn't made it to the DC movie universe yet...

Before Warner Bros announced its slate of films for the DC cinematic universe, one project that had been bubbling along was Lobo. This had been mooted to feature Dwayne Johnson on the lead role, with Journey 2 The Mysterious Island and San Andreas helmer Brad Peyton set to direct (after Guy Ritchie evenutally left the project). However, when the announcement about the assorted DC films came along, Lobo was nowhere to be seen, and Johnson has since signed up to play Black Adam in Shazam instead.

So: what happened?

"I think what's happening with DC is that they have prioritised what they need to make first in order to kind of lay the foundations for the DC universe", Peyton told Coming Soon. "This is what I believe is happening just from what they've been talking about.

It's Dwayne Johnson and his helicopter versus earthquakes in San Andreas. Here's the new trailer...

We've got until May 29th to wait in the UK for Dwayne Johnson's second blockbuster of the year, San Andreas (Fast & Furious 7 arrives first, at the start of April). In this one, he reunites with his Journey 2: The Mysterious Island director Brad Peyton, and he plays a search and rescue helicopter pilot.

The plot? Well, after a major earthquake hits California, it's up to Johnson to get together with his estranged wife to rescue their daughter. To do so, they need to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco (checks Google Maps, yep, that's a bit of a journey), and as the official synopsis teases, "their treacherous journey north is only the beginning. And when they think the worst may be over…it’s just getting started". Yikes.

Alongside Johnson in the case are Cara Cugino,...

Dwayne Johnson faces a natural disaster in San Andreas. Here's the first trailer for next summer's earth-moving movie...

Here's one of the smattering of next year's summer blockbusters that's not a sequel, reboot, or based on a comic book. Such things do exist. As such, we've got a big budget disaster movie here by the name of San Andreas.

It stars Dwayne Johnson, Paul Giamatti, Iaon Gruffudd, Kylie Minogue (who you may remember from the Street Fighter movie), Ken Watanabe and Colton Hayes. And basically, it looks like an effects-driven extravaganza, with Johnson playing a rescue helicopter pilot dealing with the aftermath of a massive earthquake.

The film reunites him with his Journey 2: The Mysterious Island director Brad Peyton (who also directed Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore), and it's set for release in UK cinemas on May 29th 2015.

Here's the trailer...

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Once Journey 2: The Mysterious Island performed well at the box office, New Line and Walden naturally began figuring out another sequel to 2008’s Journey To The Center Of The Earth, kicking off development of a script. Their plans have expanded somewhat, with news today that The Conjuring duo Chad and Carey Hayes are set to work on not one but two new films.According to The Hollywood Reporter, Dwayne Johnson remains attached to reprise his role as Navy code breaker and pec-pop enthusiast Hank, likely alongside Josh Hutcherson’s franchise veteran Sean. No plot details have been released, and there's no word on whether Michael Caine or Vanessa Hudgens might also rejoin them, though the end of The Mysterious Island left a few hints about a potential trip into space in tribute to Jules Vernes' moon-exploration tales.The Hayes brothers, who have recently worked on earthquake adventure San Andreas...

(Cbr) After chronicling the early years of Superman on "Smallville," Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have decided to reimagine another famous character, Captain Nemo. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the duo just sold a script based on the Jules Verne creation to Sony. Little is known about the premise, other that it “offers a new take” on Nemo, who was characterized as a a stern leader of men who have come to live and work on his ship, the Nautilus. Fueled by a hatred of all things imperial, Nemo gave up living in populated areas, instead favoring his ship or his own island. The character debuted in the 1870 sci-fi classic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." From there the Nautilus‘ captain appeared in the sequel "The Mysterious Island" and briefly in a play called "Journey Through the Impossible" before moving into other works like Alan Moore’s "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and a variety of adaptations.

Lately we've seen the work of Jules Verne brought to the big screen in subpart adventures like Journey to the Center of the Earth and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. There was hope that we might get a spectacular adaptation of Verne's classic tale 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with David Fincher and Brad Pitt, but Disney was never able to get the project going. Now THR reports one of the characters from the latter Verne title may still end up in theaters as Sony Pictures (Columbia Pictures) has landed a spec script from "Smallville" creators Alfred Gough & Miles Millar with a new take on Captain Nemo. Read on! Captain Nemo was introduced in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1970 and appeared in The Mysterious Island and Journey Through the Impossible. He's known for traversing the depths of the ocean in his submarine, The Nautilus, which he built on a deserted island.

European animators mourn passing of producer-director Thilo Rothkirch.

The European animation community is mourning the passing of producer-director Thilo Graf Rothkirch at the age of 65 after a serious illness.

After studying Graphics Design in Kassel, Rothkirch worked as a graphics designer, storyboard artist, background artist, cartoonist, author and director in London and Bonn before setting up his own animation studio Rothkirch Cartoon Film in 1976.

With his wife Maya, he began working on an international level from an early stage and, thanks to the Media Programme and Cartoon, was instrumental in setting up one of the first animation studio groupings E-Toons with the UK’s Honeycomb Animation Studios and France’s Duboi.

Projects like the Feodor TV series and the feature film Tobias Totz and His Lion were made in collaboration with studios in Belgium, the UK and Germany.

A fruitful collaboration with the German outpost of Warner Bros began with the theatrical distribution of Tobias Totz and...

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World’s Finest Heroes – in an Instant!

Warner Archive Instant Now Streaming The New Adventures of Batman & The New Adventures of Superman; Filmation’s AquamanComing in June

Warner Archive Instant (Wai) Now Available with Airplay on AppleTV; Free Two-Week Wai Trial Membership Open to Everyone

Continuing to make available rare and hard-to-find classic films, TV movies and TV series, Warner Archive Instant is now streaming 50 animated episodes of The New Adventures of Batman& The New Adventures of Superman, with the animated Aquaman series making its debut this June on the popular streaming service.

Warner Archive Instant (Wai) is now even easier to incorporate into your digital life through Airplay on AppleTV. Simply download the app and log in for access to hundreds of films and TV series episodes running the gamut from fanboy favorites and cult classics to some of the finest films...

Aaron Birch Mar 31, 2017

Here's our pick of the top 50 underappreciated PlayStation One games for the console that changed home gaming as we know it...

Sony's original PlayStation was launched in Japan in 1994, hitting the rest of the world in 1995, and it proceeded to revolutionise the console market. It took a pastime that was seen as exclusive to geeks and children, and turned it into a true mainstream phenomenon. PlayStation made gaming 'cool', and it brought with it a huge catalogue of games, introducing us to all-time classics like Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Wipeout, Resident Evil and many, many more.

However, for all the critically and publicly acclaimed titles the unit had, it also had a whole selection of underappreciated releases. Some of these are titles that may not be for everybody, but still offer superb entertainment to many, and others are simply great, but failed to shine due...

This Sunday on ABC’s Once Upon a Time, a familiar face surfaced in Storybrooke carrying a giant grudge, the first leg of Mr. Gold’s road trip took an unsettling detour and a seed was planted for the fairytale land characters to one day return home.

Related | Casting News: [Spoiler] Is Returning to Once Upon a Time

On The Road…. | Mr. Gold came calling for Emma, to begin their search for his son Bae, and Emma insisted that Henry come along. Wearing the “talisman” shawl around his neck, Gold survived the first hurdle — actually crossing the town line — but an...

Today, the adventure genre of gaming is all but ignored by the vast majority of gamers. Websites like this are dominated by articles about first person shooters, World of Warcraft, Halo and the like. Of course, that makes perfect sense given that those types of games are what keep the gaming industry thriving. But for me, adventure games are the best possible rebuttal to critics who insist video games cannot be art. And nothing exemplifies the adventure genre better than the Myst series. Roger Ebert has become particularly notorious among gamers for his repeated assertion that video games will never be an art form. I doubt your average shoot’ em up would persuade him otherwise. But if he were to play Myst, he might begin to reconsider.

Released in 1993, Myst helped to popularize the CD-rom format and was the best selling computer game of all time until The Sims took that title.

Two months after being replaced on the He-Man movie Greyskull, Justin Marks has lost another big screenwriting gig: McG's Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. You can speculate and snicker all you like. In the meantime, The Hollywood Reporter says that screenwriter Randall Wallace has been brought aboard to rewrite the script before taking his directing job with Disney's Secretariat. (So handy to have those screenwriter / director guys just hanging around the studio!)

20,000 Leagues is being envisoned by Disney as an origin story for Captain Nemo, and that nifty little colon after his name indicates that they'd like to make him over into a nautical franchise to complement their ongoing Pirates of the Caribbean series. Everyone is kind of hoping they'll draw on Jules Verne, and explore Nemo's background as given in that lesser-known sequel, The Mysterious Island. He was revealed to be the Indian Prince Dakkar, who had lost his wife,...

“Braveheart” scribe Randall Wallace has been brought in to re-write Disney’s latest incarnation of the classic Jules Verne novel 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. The film, titled Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was originally to be written by Justin Marks and is said to tell the origin story of Captain Nemo and his submarine warship, the Nautilus.

According to THR:

“Nemo” aims to tell the origin of Captain Nemo and his submarine warship, the Nautilus. Nemo is a mysterious but noble antagonist in the book, a scientific genius with a thirst for knowledge and a desire for revenge against the forces of imperialism.

In Verne’s lesser-known sequel, “The Mysterious Island,” Nemo is revealed as Indian Prince Dakkar, a rajah’s son who took part in a failed rebellion and lost his wife and children. It is unclear how close to that back story Disney will stick, but...

Here’s a good sign that Disney’s McG-directed reboot of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is heading in the right direction: a new writer has already been brought on board.Randall Wallace, the writer of Braveheart (good), We Were Soldiers (bad) and Pearl Harbor (oh God), has replaced the original scribes, Bill Marsilii and Justin Marks, on the big-budget action-adventure Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.Nemo, of course, is the shadowy anti-hero who captains the massive submarine, the Nautilus, and drives two of Verne’s books, 20,000 Leagues… and its sequel, The Mysterious Island, in which he is revealed to be an Indian prince. It’s not yet known if Wallace and Disney will retain Nemo’s Indian heritage for the new movie, but we’re not overly optimistic.Whatever his take on the material, Wallace had better get a move on. He starts filming on his next directorial project,...

Randall Wallace has been brought aboard to rewrite "Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," Disney's take on the classic Jules Verne character being directed by McG. Idealogy's Sean Bailey is producing with McG.

"Nemo" aims to tell the origin of Captain Nemo and his submarine warship, the Nautilus. Nemo is a mysterious but noble antagonist in the book, a scientific genius with a thirst for knowledge and a desire for revenge against the forces of imperialism.

In Verne's lesser-known sequel, "The Mysterious Island," Nemo is revealed as Indian Prince Dakkar, a rajah's son who took part in a failed rebellion and lost his wife and children. It is unclear how close to that back story Disney will stick, but "Nemo's" tone will be decidedly action-adventure.

The script previously was worked by Bill Marsilii and Justin Marks.

Brigham Taylor and Todd Murata are overseeing for Disney.

Wallace is...

Last week, the trades announced that McG was going 20,000 leagues under the sea to tell the origin story of Captain Nemo and his incredible submarine. I'm sure we all began making a mental list of who would make a really cool Captain Nemo because that's what film fans do.

Well, McG is doing the same thing, and when Latino Review caught up with him at the Terminator: Salvation roadshow, they asked who his dream captain was. "Man I'm trying to get Will Smith to do it, been trying to get a hold of him. I've been wanting to work with him for a long time already. That guy's great." Oh. While Smith is capable of good work, he isn't the actor that first comes to mind when McG describes this version of Nemo. "The character Nemo in this film is more about obsession, he is obsessed and people tend to...