AMPAS Selects Best Visual Effects Candidates

Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS®) announced the seven contenders for Best Visual Effects in the 82nd Academy Awards®: Twentieth Century-Fox’s $400 million gamble, Avatar, Tri-Star’s alien allegory to Apartheid, District 9, Warner Bros. Pictures’ releases Terminator Salvation andHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Paramount Pictures’ rebooted Star Trek, DreamWorks’ Transformers: [...]

Terminator Salvation

I wondered, having just left the theater, “What audience was this film engineered to please?” The giant, translucent grey shapes coming across the screen, revealing themselves to be letters, remind us of the original Terminator title sequence. The grainy cinematography and post-apocalyptic set design makes us think of Blade Runner and the various films it [...]