News

Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi epic "Metropolis" regularly appears on lists of the best movies of all time, and is certainly one of the most important works of science fiction ever produced. "Metropolis" takes place in an industrialized future where the world's wealthy live in meticulously constructed towers, and commute via fantastical blimps and flying machines. They engage in frivolous romantic misunderstandings, and enjoy lazing about in gardens eating rich foods. Meanwhile, under the city, impoverished laborers are literally working themselves to death to keep the machines running. 

One of the city's most prominent rich brats is Freder (Gustav Fröhlich) who, by happenstance, witnesses a peaceful labor protest. He becomes instantly enamored of Maria (Brigitte Helm), the pacifist ruler of the movement, and becomes curious as to what the lives of laborers are actually like. He moves underground and sees the sweat, oil, and terror first had. The machines, he feels,...

Time and again, cinema demonstrates its ability to bring brilliant sci-fi stories to life. These futuristic films have captivated audiences since the early days of Hollywood, and continue to bring in strong numbers at the box office. Compared to classics of the sci-fi genre, contemporary movies aren't limited by the boundaries that previously defined genres.The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a prime example of how sci-fi has gone mainstream in recent years.

The franchise installments are packed with hyper-advanced technological concepts and inexplicable scientific phenomena. Yet, nobody is quick to label them as overtly sci-fi works. Star Wars is widely accepted as part of the genre, but George Lucas himself has stated that it's meant to be a space fantasy. Regardless of any conflicting perspectives, there have been many breathtaking sci-fi masterpieces releases over the years that have a clear-cut position in the genre. These masterpieces are just a few...

The most magical experience I’ve ever had watching a movie wasn’t in a regular movie theater. It used to be a movie theater, but today it’s the home of my hometown symphony: the beautiful Jacobs Music Center in downtown San Diego. Once a Fox Theatre movie palace, Jacobs maintains its 20s and 30s grandeur as a gorgeous destination for live orchestra and jazz, but also the occasional film screening with live music. In 2018, I got to see Russ Peck perform his own organ arrangement of the score for ‘Metropolis’, a silent science fiction epic of truly epic proportions by Austrian filmmaker Fritz Lang, accompanied by the film. I was truly star struck. I made sure to get Peck’s autograph on my ticket after the show, and have been more than obsessed with this movie and broader film history ever since. There is something magical about old...

This post contains spoilers for "Metropolis" and Tim Burton's "Batman."

The colossal Gotham Cathedral, which stands more than 800 feet tall and towers over every other skyscraper in Gotham, is turned into a battleground towards the end of Tim Burton's "Batman." The director's distinct, often eccentric visual aesthetic directly informs the film's moody, noir-tinted visuals, the atypical camera angles and editing choices adding more palpable depth to the climactic Gotham Cathedral confrontation between Batman (Michael Keaton) and Joker (Jack Nicholson).

The cathedral's massive gargoyles, traditional symbols of warding off evil, take on new meaning as Joker toys with journalist Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), who is forced to climb the rickety steps and play along with Joker's twisted game. There are many reasons why this scene feels singular — be it Batman stumbling over the pews and knocking them in his weakened, vulnerable state or the Joker dropping Vicki's shoe down the...

In 1516, English philosopher Thomas More published Utopia, a piece of speculative fiction filled with musings about the ideal society. Of course, it was all nonsense. So even though it took a few more centuries for the word to come into use, “dystopia” has always captured the human imagination better than utopia. Literally stories about “bad places,” dystopias show humanity at its worst.

As you might expect, dystopias tend to be cynical works of imagination. But that’s not all they are. By looking at how dark things could be, dystopias shine a light on the world as it currently is. Works of literature like Watchmen and television series such as Black Mirror have told their stories about bleak alternate realities to issue warnings about the arms race and social media, making grotesques out of the real world.

While this list of darkest cinematic dystopias may not contain the absolute worst images of humanity,...

What, another docu about Nazis? Rüdiger Suchsland’s show tells the entire story — with many rare clips and interesting actor and filmmaker profiles — of the hundreds of state-produced German films made during the Third Reich. It’s the most thorough, informative and eye-opening show on the subject I’ve yet seen. It comes with revelations about some surprising names, like Douglas Sirk and Ingrid Bergman.

Hitler’s Hollywood

DVD

Kino Lorber

2017 / Color & B&W / 1:78 enhanced widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date July 10, 2018 / Hitlers Hollywood: Das deutsche Kino im Zeitalter der Propaganda 1933 – 1945 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Narrated by Udo Kier

With film clips of Hans Albers, Heinz Rühmann, Zarah Leander, Ilse Werner, Marianne Hoppe, Gustaf Gründgens, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Alfred Abel, Lída Baaroví, Willy Fritsch, Gustav Fröhlich, Lilian Harvey, Johannes Heesters, Brigitte Helm, Paul Henreid, Margot Hielscher, Emil Jannings, Pola Negri, Magda Schneider, Kristina Söderbaum, Anton Walbrook.

Film Editor: Ursula Pürrer

Produced by Gunnar Dedio,...

How the robots of ‘Metropolis’ and ‘Ex Machina’ chart our changing perspectives towards artificial intelligence.Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland, 2015).

The title of Alex Garland’s 2015 thoughtful psychological thriller Ex Machina derives its name from the ancient Greek phrase deus ex machina, meaning ‘god from the machine.’ By omitting the deus from the film’s title, it’s clear Garland wants his audience to question both the roles of God and man. There’s the godly referencing and positioning of Oscar Isaacs’s secluded genius, Nathan, the creator of Ava, a robot with consciousness played by Alicia Vikander. And Ava’s emotional existence itself goes against the idea of the natural in God, since she is a manmade creation. Meanwhile, the natural world of Ex Machina — the trees that blend Nathan’s perfectly rectangular home into the forest — acts as a direct juxtaposition to the technological imagery that fills the rest of the film.

The...

Jim Knipfel Jan 17, 2017

We take a look back at the enduring legacy of the world’s first cinematic sci-fi epic, Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich shortly before his death in 1976, Fritz Lang said of Metropolis, “You cannot make a social-conscious picture in which you say that the intermediary between the hand and the brain is the heart. I mean, that's a fairy tale – definitely. But I was very interested in machines. Anyway, I didn't like the picture – thought it was silly and stupid – then, when I saw the astronauts: what else are they but part of a machine? It's very hard to talk about pictures - should I say now that I like Metropolis because something I have seen in my imagination comes true, when I detested it after it was finished?”

See related Peter Ramsey interview: revisiting Rise Of The Guardians

Lang wasn’t...

Jim Knipfel Jan 10, 2019

We take a look back at the enduring legacy of the world’s first cinematic sci-fi epic, Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich shortly before his death in 1976, Fritz Lang said of Metropolis, “You cannot make a social-conscious picture in which you say that the intermediary between the hand and the brain is the heart. I mean, that's a fairy tale – definitely. But I was very interested in machines. Anyway, I didn't like the picture – thought it was silly and stupid – then, when I saw the astronauts: what else are they but part of a machine? It's very hard to talk about pictures—should I say now that I like Metropolis because something I have seen in my imagination comes true, when I detested it after it was finished?”

Lang wasn’t alone back in 1927 when the film was first released. Critics applauded...

Metropolis (entire movie, above), the 1927 silent film directed by Fritz Lang, is regarded as one of the most important and influential films of all time. The world’s first epic science fiction movie, it continues to serve as inspiration for countless films, and forced humanity to look critically at it’s increasingly complex relationship to industrial and technological growth. In cinematic terms, evidence of its influence can be seen everywhere from to Soylent Green to Snowpiercer.

Aesthetically, it's influence is still present in popular culture, with contemporary artists like Guy Maddin and Tim Burton liberally borrowing stylistic elements from Metropolis is also a film that contains serious cultural and political messages. For example, the dystopian society it portrays was direct commentary on the possible result of the industrial revolution. Metropolis has also proved itself to be prophetic, as many of the themes it explored almost a century ago are as relevant,...

What’s difficult about making this list is finding a balance between a successful Kubrickian film that either predates or pays homage to Kubrick and, for lack of a better term, is a ripoff. Now that we’ve hit the apex, it’s clear that these are, regardless of influence, quality films. What sets them apart is their ability to evoke Kubrick’s greatness (or inspire it), while delivering a stand-alone masterpiece. If Kubrick took the helm for any of these films, the result wouldn’t delineate too much. Still. Kubrick is a genius because he always kept us guessing.

courtesy of theweeklings.com

10. Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Directed by Werner Herzog

What makes it Kubrickian? It’s a film about extreme obsession and the unreasonable lengths a man will go to when consumed by it. Fitzcarraldo is the story of Brian Sweeny “Fitzcarraldo” Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) and his entry into the rubber industry.

Metropolis original poster Who says silent movies don't make money? Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist has grossed more than $100 million worldwide, in addition to winning a total of five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Jean Dujardin). And now comes an original poster of Fritz Lang's 1927 Ufa classic Metropolis, which you can buy now for $850,000 at Movie Poster Exchange. The information below is from Mpe: Posters from this all-time classic science-fiction film are the rarest of the rare and this, the most famous image ever associated with the film is no exception. Created by art deco artist Heinz Schulz-Neudamm, this poster depicts the classic image of the automation Maria and the fantastic cityscape of Metropolis itself. There are four copies of this poster known to exist. Two of them are in permanent museum collections (Museum of Modern Art and the Austrian National Library Museum) while...

Hitting movie theaters this weekend:

Happy Feet Two - Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Pink

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 - Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner

Movie of the Week

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

The Stars: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner

The Plot: The Quileute and the Volturi close in on expecting parents Edward and Bella, whose unborn child poses different threats to the wolf pack and vampire coven.

The Buzz: The only drawback to having to choose a movie of the week becomes apparent on weeks such as this one, wherein I have absolutely zero interest in any of the new releases. First of all, I hated what I saw of the first Happy Feet, and the trailer for Happy Feet Two advertises a film which looks to be about as bearable as swallowing a glass full of shards of glass. And so, the...

The Complete Metropolis [Blu-Ray]

The Film

I had only seen the film that featured the futuristic city that would inspire Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) and Tim Burton's Batman (1989) once before sitting down for the Fritz Lang's restored, "complete," two and half hour Metropolis (1927). It was a film, like D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916) or Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), that I had always appreciated with regard to its influence on film style and storytelling and felt deserving of a redemption beyond it's original reception. Like Intolerance, Metropolis, despite its mold-breaking craftsmanship, imploded at the box office. Budgeted at 5 million Reichsmarks (I believe that is roughly 16 billion dollars today, given that $1 dollar bought 4.2 Reichsmarks in 1927, that budget would have been just over $1 million dollars at the time). The large budget of the film and its meager return at the international box office nearly bankrupted the German film studio Ufa,...

Chicago – One of the cinematic highlights of my life happened earlier this year when I was lucky enough to see “The Complete Metropolis” on the big screen. Fritz Lang’s legendary film is not only riveting by virtue of being one of the most influential of all time but the story that developed after it was made is a historically fascinating one. Almost a century after it was released, we can now see “Metropolis,” recently released on Blu-ray, in a more complete manner than ever before.

Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0

The fact is that most early filmmakers and film watchers had no concept of where we would be today in terms of the longevity of the medium. Most historians estimate that a majority of the films released before 1930 are completely gone, likely destroyed and never to be found. Even the films we do have from that era are often truncated with whole reels lost to history.

Hitting movie theaters this weekend:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint

The Next Three Days – Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Olivia Wilde, Liam Neeson

Movie of the Week

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

The Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint

The Plot: Harry, Ron and Hermione set out on a treacherous quest to hunt down and destroy the secret to Voldemort’s immortality — the Horcruxes.

The Buzz: I am the least qualified to helm a discussion on the buzz surrounding Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. I’m the least qualified to discuss anything at all about Harry Potter, as I’ve read a mere ten pages of the first book, and only recently caught up with the films. That being said, having watched the first six films in swift succession, immersing myself in Rowling’s world, I...

Fritz Lang, 1927

Although many sci-fi films followed, none have had the lasting, seemingly self-regenerating appeal of Fritz Lang's silent classic – perhaps because, after its Berlin premiere in 1927, it is arguable that no authoritative version of it has ever really been established.

Originally clocking in at two hours and 33 minutes, Metropolis has since become a movable feast, with new scenes and scores – Giorgio Moroder issued a derided, colour-tinted synth version in 1984 – that have kept Lang's epic current.

For its time, the film was a milestone, innovative miniatures and camera tricks to create its city of the future, taking two years to shoot and bankrupting its producers (in modern money, the budget was close to $200m). But the real key to its longevity is its thematic content: more a warning than a romance, it deals with issues of modernity that have never gone away. Class conflict is its main thread: when...

It is by far the most influential film in the history of science fiction and following a triumphant tour of the freshly restored version assembled after the discovery of twenty five minutes of footage long believed to be lost, Fritz Lang's Metropolis is hitting BluRay all buffed and polished and restored back to the form it was in when originally released.

With its dizzying depiction of a futuristic cityscape and alluring female robot, Metropolis is among the most famous of all German films and the mother of sci-fi cinema (an influence on Blade Runner and Star Wars, among countless other films). Directed by the legendary Fritz Lang (M, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, The Big Heat, etc.), its jaw-dropping production values, iconic imagery, and modernist grandeur - it was described by Luis Buñuel as "a captivating symphony of movement" - remain as powerful as ever.

Drawing on - and defining - classic sci-fi themes,...

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (15)

(Werner Herzog, 2009, Us) Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier, Chloë Sevigny, Grace Zabriskie. 93 mins

Herzog produced by David Lynch: it sounds like an outsider cinephile's fantasy but it's sadly not a patch on the best of their individual works, though worth watching for the cast alone. If it weren't supposedly based on a true story, you'd think the story came out of a late-night Lynch/Herzog weird-off. While delusional am-dram actor Shannon is holed up with two hostages, having just killed his mother with a sword, the cops try to work out how it came to this. Clues include ostriches, flamingoes, jelly, Greek tragedy and, yes, a dwarf.

Tamara Drewe (15)

(Stephen Frears, 2010, UK) Gemma Arterton, Roger Allam, Bill Camp. 111 mins

A postcard of the English countryside with a rude message on the back, Frears's pastoral satire balances bubbly comedy and cutting observation expertly,...

Metropolis is a film that is often celebrated by critics for its importance in film history and also for being an incredibly effective and beautiful film too. This praise is entirely justified as Fritz Lang’s 1927 film is a true masterpiece for so many reasons and this week it returns to UK screens with a beautiful new print featuring approximately 25 minutes of previously missing footage.

The Metropolis of the title is a huge futuristic city run by the dictator like figure of Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel). The city is divided in two; the rich live high above where everything is plentiful and they are free to relax and enjoy life and below them is the lower level where the working class struggle for their lives, working long and arduous hours dominated by physical labour on the huge machines that run the city. Whilst frolicking in the gardens of the great city,...

Metropolis returns on DVD and Blu-ray November 16Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi classic Metropolis will be re-released on both DVD and Blu-ray in a fully-restored "complete" edition on November 16. This new release will contain 25 minutes of lost footage which was found in a museum in 2008, making this 147-minute version the most complete version of the film since it's initial premiere. The new DVD will be priced at $29.95 Srp while the new Bd will be priced at $39.95 Srp. You can take a look at the special features below and read more about the history of the film and its restoration:

Metropolis takes place in 2026, when the populace is divided between workers who must live in the dark underground and the rich who enjoy a futuristic city of splendor. The tense balance of these two societies is realized through images that are among the most famous of the 20th century, many of which presage...

The Fantasia Festival's 2010 edition, its 14th, was a resounding success, with more sellout screenings than ever and special events that can only be considered coups.  One of those special events was The Complete Metropolis - Restored Original Cut that was screened before yet another sold-out crowd at the 3000-seat Place-des-Arts and featured a new score composed by renowned silent-film composer Gabriel Thibodeau and performed live by a 13-piece orchestra.   Metropolis, with 25 minutes of previously lost footage and now as close to director Fritz Lang's original 1927 vision as ever, was a visual and aural treat to watch on the big screen with live musical accompaniment.  Entire new sequences have been added back into the film and help make for a more complete experience, although even before this version came to light the film had been hailed as a sci-fi masterpiece ahead of its time, influencing such modern classics as Blade Runner,...

Silent film fans rejoice. The 1927 classic Metropolis has gotten even better! One of the most ambitious movies of the silent era, Metropolis, which has often been called the first great science fiction film was last released theatrically in 2001 in a newly restored version but since then, 25 more minutes have been excavated, bringing the running time up to 148 minutes and now they.re calling it The Complete Metropolis. The sets, cinematography, art design, and special effects of Metropolis have influenced countless subsequent movies, and are still most impressive today. Metropolis is a futuristic city run by industrialist Fredersen (Alfred Abel), whose pampered son Freder (Gustav Frohlich) becomes interested in the welfare of workers after he becomes smitten with Maria (Brigitte Helm), a mysterious quasi-religious figure, and follows her into Metropolis’ subterranean depths where he discovers the army of slaves that really make Metropolis run. Meanwhile, Fredersen is plotting with deranged scientist...

Rating: 5.0/5.0

Chicago – Not since the restoration of Orson Welles’s “Touch of Evil” has a butchered cinematic classic been brought to such startling new life as “The Complete Metropolis.” Though Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece “Metropolis” may never be restored to its original cut, this latest theatrical re-release is as close as film preservationists have ever gotten to recreating the legendary science-fiction epic in its entirety.

The twenty-five minutes of new footage added to this cut of “Metropolis” are nothing short of miraculous, especially in light of how they were found. Two summers ago, a 16mm back-up copy of the film’s original 35mm nitrate print was discovered in Buenos Aires. Though the print was badly damaged, it offered a wealth of missing scenes, as well as a complete blueprint for the film’s editing. Despite its permanently scratched surface, the Murnau Foundation decided to add the new material into the...

The TCM Classic Film Festival closed out an incredible weekend last night with a bang, with the North American premiere of The Complete Metropolis, the definitive restoration of Fritz Lang’s science fiction masterpiece, incorporating footage discovered in Buenos Aires in 2008. Nearly a half an hour has been restored into the film, seen here (almost) complete for the first time since the film’s Berlin premiere in 1927.

Immediately after the premiere, German distributor Ufa re-cut the film from 153 minutes to 114 minutes, and it was this version that was distributed internationally, including American release through Paramount Pictures, who performed their own editing job on the picture, excising content to fit the film into a 90 minute slot as well as to tone down the political themes at the core of the film. This is the version that had been available to audiences for nearly 80 years. In 2001, Kino International released a superb restoration of what was then available,...

It’s an especially exciting weekend to be living in Los Angeles, as Turner Classic Movies comes to Hollywood for its first ever Classic Film Festival, a four day celebration of classic film, with 35mm screenings of some of the best films ever made, including the premieres of several notable restorations.

The screenings will take place across the Grauman’s Chinese, Mann’s Chinese and the neighboring Egyptian theatres. As part of the festival, the Roosevelt Hotel will play host to several panel discussions and celebrations, including a welcome party this evening at 4:30 pm.

Taking a glance at the schedule, fans of Famous Monsters have plenty to scream about — here’s an overview of the genre offerings that the festival will host:

Friday, April 23rd

2001: A Space Odyssey — Egyptian Theatre at 9:00 am.

Stanely Kubrick’s groundbreaking science fiction achievement, presented in full 70mm. With a screenplay co-written...

"Maybe you’ve heard the buzz about Metropolis," reads a newsletter from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. "The incredible discovery of long-lost footage from director Fritz Lang’s masterpiece. Found in a vault in Buenos Aires, the complete film has been reconstructed and restored by the F.W. Murnau Foundation." The restored 1927 silent classic starring Alfred Abel, Brigitte Helm, and Gustav Fröhlich had its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on February 12. Come next July, Sfsff will screen the restored version as part of its 15th anniversary festival. The screening will be accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra. Back to Metropolis at the Berlin Film Festival: The sold-out screening at the Friedrichstadt Palace was beamed simultaneously to [...]...