ethan's Blog

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• Movie Studios: The Huge Five plus the Little Three
  Inside the 1920s the movie industry was still in its infancy, however it was already having growing pains. By the mid-1920s, five studios (often referred to as "The Huge Five") had been producing most of the movies. The "Big Five" included 20th Century-Fox, RKO, Paramount Photos, Warner Brothers, and Loews (MGM).
  
  The structure of these conglomerates led to some misunderstanding of the usually accepted terms of the movie business. The word ...



• Cold War Movies
  The "Cold War" lasted 45 or 46 years, depending upon which theory you accept about when it started. The Cold War was the consummate staring contest. The Eastern Block, led by Russia, kept one finger on the button that would destroy the West, although the West (that's us) kept its finger on the button that would destroy the East. The Cold War world was filled with espionage, spying, and counterspying � and a whole lot of what can only be called mi...



• Special Effects for Movies
  Special effects are sometimes what make a movie, well, unique. In today's computerized world, with the aid of computers, movie makers can put moviegoers correct into the action. Unique effects are employed in practically each film right now. But the first movie (not a full-length movie, but a short) with unique effects was in fact the result of an accident.
  
  It happened in 1896. George Milies (a name regularly discovered in any historical a...



• The World just before Movies
  We take movies for granted right now. We can pick up a newspaper and find advertisements for movies in practically any genre on any day of the week. The only difficulty we have is choosing which of the lots of offerings to acquire tickets for. What a dilemma!
  
  There is not anybody alive these days who remembers the world prior to movies. The first commercial movie even was on December 28, 1895. That was 112 years ago.
  
  Two French brot...



• Anti-War Movies
  Lots of action war movies depict the excitement, the heroism, plus the glory of war. We call them pro-war movies. Then there are war action movies that depict the human toll that war takes. These films are frequently referred to as anti-war films. Some anti-war movies shove their anti-war message down the viewer's throat, while other people deliver the message in a much a lot more subtle way. Still, the films do demonstrate the horrors of war on ...