Film

Technicolor Inc. plans to lay off 50 employees at its relatively new Flower Street facility by Jan. 14, according to a recent state filing. Plans for the layoffs, filed with the California Employment Development Department, affect the 40,000-square-foot lab in the San Fernando Road corridor where the company moved roughly 100 film-processing jobs last summer. Technicolor transferred the jobs to Glendale after it downsized and shuttered its North Hollywood facility. Last month, Technicolor released an update of its 2011 financial performance and objectives for 2012, in which the company said it was “considering a number of cost-reduction action plans.” Last January, Technicolor officials said the move to Glendale was a natural choice because of the city's push for its San Fernando Road Creative Corridor and because the facility would be close to DreamWorks Animation and the Walt Disney Co.'s Creative Campus.

Merchants in Montrose are mulling ways to better accommodate a burgeoning demand for their location from production companies who have been flocking to the area for its quaint setting. On Monday, NBC's “Awake” shut down the first block of Honolulu Avenue in the Montrose Shopping Park for much of the day and a commercial shoot could close off a block all day later this month. The easternmost block of Honolulu Avenue, especially, is popular with film shoots because of its high density of small shops and restaurants.

With my oldest son away on a boy scout camping trip, I've had some one-on-one time with my youngest son. The house has been much quieter this week since no compromises have had to be made between the two brothers in terms of video game playing time and TV show choices. I was able to take my 7-year-old to see the new Winnie the Pooh film, something I couldn't drag my other son to.  Boy, what a surprise that movie is. No foul language, no sexual innuendo, not even a flatulence comment or sound.  An old-fashioned G-rated movie that's imaginative, not boring or condescending.  Oh, and two other unusual aspects to the film:  it's not in 3-D, and it's not computer animated.  How strange this film must appear to young children who have grown up solely on a diet of computerizedanimation.

Al Gore's new documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" in limited release around Southern California, is by far one of the best documentaries released in years. The film deals with a slideshow Gore presents on global warming. This has been a passion of the former vice president since the early 1990s, when he wrote his best selling book, "Earth In The Balance." That book was a warning of things to come with the thinning ozone layer and the warming of the Earth. This film takes that warning further, using studies and technology that have scientists agreeing that the Earth is heating up at a more rapid pace because of human involvement.

There were two big movies released last week, one of which was amazing, while the other was a classic done poorly. First "V for Vendetta," starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving. Set several years in London's future, a corrupt and all-controlling government is abusing its power over its citizens. They are defenseless except for one voice known only as V. One night, he saves a woman named Evey (Portman) and takes her to see his handiwork of violence when he blows up a government building.

A La Crescenta woman is on a mission to solve a mystery involving a man with three last names for each of the three countries he lived in. The inventor, artist, filmmaker, medical student and businessman was born in Russia in 1895, and he would eventually create the Bolex line of cameras. The cameras have been used by professional filmmakers as well as those who simply wanted to document their lives. Jacques Bolsey's desire to bring filmmaking capability to the masses first came to life in 1914 with the Cinegraph-Bol 35mm motion-picture camera.

Joyce Rudolph, Weekend GLENDALE -- A deluxe, blue-ribbon selection of Three Stooges classics is planned for the fourth annual Alex Film Society's Big Screen Event, said board member Frank Gladstone. Those who can't catch the 2 p.m. matinee, can catch the second show at 8 tonight at Glendale's Alex Theatre. Gladstone, head of training and recruitment at DreamWorks/SKG Animation in Glendale, chose the films along with fellow society members Steve McCoy and Leonard Maltin and Michael Schlesinger, head of the film department at Sony Pictures, which owns the Stooges' film rights.

Weinstein Fine Books on Brand Boulevard was the site of a film shoot Wednesday. About 25 members of the cast and crew of the independent feature film, "They Would Love You in France," spent several hours shooting scenes in the bookstore. Co-director Sheldon Strickland, 35, described the Glendale bookstore as "classy and artsy" and exactly the look he wanted for the scene. The scene will feature actors Jennifer Crystal Foley and Branton Boxer meeting and talking in a bookstore.

Robert Chacon Columbia Pictures representatives will appeal to La Canada Flintridge City Council members tonight to OK filming scenes for a movie at Descanso Gardens. City staff in November denied Columbia's permit to film at Descanso Gardens because the filming would take place overnight, which is against the city's film ordinance. But the movie studio appealed that decision, and in doing so, had to get the OK from more than 50% of the residents within 500 feet of the film shoot.

For all of us who grumble that movies offer up little of value, "Good Night and Good Luck" is here. You may have to hunt for a theater to see it, in spite of the film grossing a staggering $38,000 per screen early on. But when you do find a screening, it will be like finding a polished diamond in a mountain of slag. To call this film a George Clooney spectacular might be misleading. We have come to expect extravagance from this "s" word, something this film is not. It is spare and smoky (both literally and figuratively)

Sacha Baron Cohen's central shtick - semi-documentary episodes in which he entraps real people - has always, by its nature, had a built-in self-destruct mechanism. The more famous he becomes, the less likely that anyone will fall for his masquerades as Ali G, Borat and Bruno. With “The Dictator,” he finally abandons his “Candid Camera”-like stunts for a fully written script - perhaps with some improvisation - acted by professionals. In other words: No innocent bystanders were humiliated in the production of this motion picture.

Amid mounting evidence that rival states are chipping away at California's movie and TV production business, a coalition of entertainment unions and film industry officials is renewing a push to provide long-term funding for California's popular film tax credit program. But the effort faces an uphill challenge in Sacramento, where lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown are wrestling with a wider-than expected $16-billion budget deficit. California currently sets aside $100 million annually for dozens of projects applying for credits that cover 20% to 25% of qualified production expenses.

In “Dark Shadows,” Tim Burton exhumes the Dan Curtis gothic soap opera of the same name, which ran five days a week from 1966-1971. Not surprisingly, Burton's frequent collaborator Johnny Depp takes over the role of vampire Barnabas Collins. (Jonathan Frid - who played Barnabas in over a thousand episodes of the TV show and who died just a few weeks ago - can be spotted in the film as a guest entering a gala ball.) Curtis also made two features from the material: Burton's film cleaves fairly closely to the plot of 1970's “House of Dark Shadows,” the first of these.

If you've seen the predecessors to “The Avengers” - “Iron Man” (2008), the Edward Norton version of “The Incredible Hulk” (2008), “Iron Man 2” (2010), “Thor” (2011) and “Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011) - part of the new entry's fun is seeing how each of those films' central characters reacts when demoted from sole hero to just another ingredient in a superhero stew. If you haven't seen them, that particular thrill may be lost, but you can still follow the plot well enough to take a good guess at our heroes' back stories.

Thanks to a flurry of low-budget celebrity-packed pictures, location shoots jumped 74% in April over last year, continuing double-digital gains from the first quarter of the year. But the welcome news was tempered that most were features costing less than $20 million that don't pack the same economic punch as big studio movies that mostly film in Louisiana, Georgia and other states with richer incentives. California offers a credit of up to 25% of qualified production expenses, but the credit applies only to movies with budgets lower than $75 million.

The fourth “Mission: Impossible” is arguably the best in the series and the best action film of 2011. Paramount Home Entertainment has just released the video version in the U.S. It has a gorgeous transfer (on Blu-ray disc, at least), rich sound, and a great selection of extras - kind of. That is: everything about it is first-rate - except the marketing, which creates a problem that requires a warning. There are three versions you can purchase: the normal, one-disc DVD has only a few extras; the standard Blu-ray package (one BD with the film and a few more extras, plus one DVD with only the film)

Edgar Allan Poe's place in American literature would have been secure even if his death hadn't been completely bizarre and mysterious ... just like his stories. But to be found on the streets of Baltimore, delirious, ill, and wearing someone else's clothes - well, that's the stuff legends are made of. Many theories have been presented over the years, and “The Raven” - directed by James McTeigue and starring John Cusack - comes up with another. This theory is presumably new, given that it barely matches any of the historical record of Poe's last days.

A new film school in Glendale has pledged to issue more than $17,000 worth of scholarships at the city's Man's Inhumanity to Man event on Thursday. The International Academy of Film and Television will award scholarships for summer classes to 15 people who enter a drawing at the event Thursday, according to an announcement released today. Now in its 11th year, Man's Inhumanity to Man focuses on various acts of crimes against humanity throughout the world's history, part of a series of city-sponsored events that center on the April 24 commemoration of the Armenian genocide.

Hollywood keeps making adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels, even though they've never really burned up the box office. Maybe “The Lucky One” will be, well, the lucky one, but it's hard to imagine why. Sparks films have become their own subclass within the Romance genre; and this one feels so familiar that, in my mind, its details began to blur with those of its predecessors before the closing credits had finished. Zac Efron plays Logan Thibault, a recently returned Iraq vet, who is determined to track down a beautiful girl (Taylor Schilling)

Have you purchased a gift for the tiara wearer in your life? Don't worry, there's still time. The Walt Disney Co. and Target are introducing National Princess Week April 22-28. Like Secretary's Day and Grandparents Day, National Princess Week is designed to move merchandise -- with it comes a 10th anniversary Blu-ray release of “The Princess Diaries” and “The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement,” starring Julie Andrews and Anne Hathaway, as well as an array of pink-hued products.