In Movie, I Mean Film, News

Some movie news to take you into the weekend:

Particle Fever, a documentary about the Large Hadron Collider and the search to confirm the Higgs Boson, was released to several online platforms earlier this month.  It is also available through video on demand services with some cable television companies.  Check your local listings.  The film continues to move through the festival circuit, so check the website to see if you will have a chance to catch it in a theater.

I Origins was released theatrically earlier this month, and Brit Marling sat down with Craig Ferguson to talk about the film on the July 30th edition of The Late, Late Show.  She plays one of the main scientist characters in the film, which hinges its dramatic arc in part on theories around the evolution of the eyes.

Finally, The Wall Street Journal reported (H/T Entertainment Weekly) on a series of negotiations between Kodak and movie studios to try and salvage the production of film.  Kodak is the only major company producing movie film, and the market for film has declined dramatically over the last decade.  With digital production and distribution growing, having a movie that doesn’t use any film (in production or distribution) will happen more frequently.  However, several filmmakers and film watchers argue that there is a distinct difference in shooting on film versus shooting on video (whether it is digital video or videotape).  Keanu Reeves co-directed Side By Side, a documentary that explored the differences.  Read this Guardian article to get a taste of that conversation.

An agreement was reached that forestalls Kodak’s departure from film production, and gives further support to Reeves’ opinion that film will not be going away, at least right now.  However, instead of investing in Kodak’s plant, the studios have opted to commit to purchasing quantities of film over the next several years.  Hopefully someone or some company will be willing to preserve any stock that might remain after the studios allot whatever they need for their own productions.