ENTERTAINMENT
April 24, 2012 | By Jamie Wetherbe
“Ghost,” the hit movie starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, has been resculpted for Broadway. The movie-turned-musical opened Monday night at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in a special effects-heavy production that takes audiences from the streets of New York to an unsettling afterlife. The staged story doesn't stray far from the 1990 film: Molly is a love-struck artist while her boyfriend, Sam, a banker, is less inclined to return her sentiments, at least verbally. Sam is shot and killed in a robbery, but with the help of a psychic, the couple can continue their affair while Sam waits in spiritual limbo.
ENTERTAINMENT
February 6, 2012
"2001: A Space Odyssey" Trumbull was in his early 20s when he worked as one of four special effects supervisors on Stanley Kubrick's 1968 masterwork. "Silent Running" Not only did Trumbull supply the effects for this cult 1972 environmental sci-fi classic, he also made his feature directorial debut on the film. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" Trumbull and his staff had only five months to create all of the elaborate effects shots for the 1979 feature film — the first based on the 1966-69 sci-fi TV series.
ENTERTAINMENT
November 28, 2011 | By Susan King, Los Angeles Times
Director D.W. Griffith once said of French filmmaker Georges Méliès, "I owe him everything. " Charlie Chaplin described him as "the alchemist of light. " Méliès built the first movie studio in Europe and was the first filmmaker to use production sketches and storyboards. Film historians consider him the "father of special effects" — he created the first double exposure on screen, the split screen and the dissolve. Not to mention that he was one of the first filmmakers to have nudity in his films — he was French, after all. And thanks to Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed 3-D family film, "Hugo," contemporary audiences are being lovingly introduced to the silent film pioneer.
ENTERTAINMENT
September 11, 2011 | By Scott Collins, Los Angeles Times
Yes, it has dinosaurs. But at its core Fox's new sci-fi epic "Terra Nova" is an environmental fable. And a pretty darned expensive one at that. In fact, even though it has no big-name stars raking in giant paydays, "Terra Nova" is probably the costliest TV show ever, with a two-hour pilot that reportedly ran nearly $20 million. This in a world where an hour-long network drama typically shells out about one-tenth of that sum for each episode. Part of the dough went to the labor-intensive special effects needed to create those magical prehistoric beasties, who alternately menace and beguile a family (led by Irish American actor Jason O'Mara and British actress Shelley Conn)
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
June 3, 2011
Pauline Betz Addie 1940s tennis champion in Hall of Fame Pauline Betz Addie, 91, a champion tennis player who won Wimbledon in 1946 without dropping a set during the entire tournament, died Tuesday at an assisted-living facility in Potomac, Md., the International Tennis Hall of Fame said. She had Parkinson's disease. She reached the finals of the U.S. National Championship (now the U.S. Open) every year from 1941 to 1946, winning the title four times (1942, '43, '44 and '46)
BUSINESS
April 5, 2011 | By Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times
The movie "Soul Surfer," which opens Friday, tells the true story of Hawaiian teen surfing star Bethany Hamilton, who lost her arm in a shark attack and overcame huge odds to get back on her surfboard and compete professionally. Hamilton's inspirational tale provided filmmakers a dramatic focal point for their $18-million movie, which was in large part made possible through the visual wizardry of a small Los Angeles effects company that has also managed to beat the odds amid a tough economy.