Movies & Cinemas Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films (also referred to as movies or motion pictures) are produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating — or indoctrinating — citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue. Films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement. The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photo-play and flick. A common name for film in the United States is movie, while in Europe the term cinema is preferred. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema and the movies. The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898[citation needed] was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. Already by 1917, Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars. From 1931 to 1956, film was also the only image storage and playback system for television programming until the introduction of videotape recorders. In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world.[4] Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.[citation needed] Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish. Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits. There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts. While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon of fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts[who?] predicted the demise of local movie theaters[citation needed]. Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s[citation needed]such as the development of color television and large screens, motion picture cinemas continued. In fact with the rise of television's predominance, film began to become more respected as an artistic medium by contrast due the low general opinion of the quality of average television content[citation needed]In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing, industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local cinemas.[citation needed] In the 1990s and 2000s the development of digital DVD players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction[citation needed]. These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past only local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker sound system. Once again industry analysts predicted the demise of the local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 2000s and moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for easier and quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their predicted demise.[citation needed] The cinema now faces a new challenge from home video by the likes of a new High Definition format, Blu-ray, which can provide full HD 1080p video playback at near cinema quality[citation needed]Video formats are gradually catching up with the resolutions and quality that film offers, 1080p in Blu-ray offers a pixel resolution of 1920×1080 a leap from the DVD offering of 720×480 and the paltry 330×480 offered by the first home video standard VHS[citation needed]The maximum resolutions that film currently offers are 2485×2970 or 1420×3390, UHD, a future digital video format, will offer a massive resolution of 7680×4320, surpassing all current film resolutions. The only viable competitor to these new innovations is IMAX which can play film content at an extreme 10000×7000 resolution[citation needed]. Despite the rise of all new technologies, the development of the home video market and a surge of online copyright infringement, 2007 was a record year in film that showed the highest ever box-office grosses. Many expected film to suffer as a result of the effects listed above but it has flourished, strengthening film studio expectations for the future. # Will Alice Eve Be Captain America's Main Squeeze? It still feels weird we're not talking about Captain America casting anymore. What with Chris Evans donning the star-spangled suit and all . Before we can even talk about Bucky, Sebastian Stan was cast . Not to worry though. 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He is,” tweeted Iron Man director Jon Favreau yesterday, referring to his upcoming sci-fi action pic that pits cowboys against earth invaders. “Please don’t tell anybody,” he added. Sorry, Jon. We... continued From Popwatch # Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:36 PM MCP: F.E.A.R. 3 ANNOUNCED, JOHN CARPENTER CONSULTING By no@spam.com (Alex Riviello) Alma's at it again! From ChudNews # Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:30 PM Date Night's William Fichtner Is...That Guy! From the Joker to the Armageddon, William Fichtner has been killed by the best. An actor this good deserves Nine Lives, let's see what he has done with them. From UGO # Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:27 AM Alice Eve Could Be Captain America's Girlfriend She's not out of his league. From Cinemablend # Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:23 AM Jon Gosselin Sues Kate for Custody of 8 Children READING, Pa. – Jon Gosselin has sued ex-wife Kate for primary custody of their eight children. The former reality TV star also asked the Berks County Court on Wednesday to review his child support obligation. Gosselin’s attorney, Anthony List, has previously accused Kate Gosselin of... continued From Fancast # Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:20 AM Vincenzo Natali Wants to Remake the Swamp Thing The director also wants to adapt the J.G. Ballard novel "High Rise." From MovieWeb # Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:18 PM New Extended The Losers Video and Photo Gallery Arrive We have a new three-minute video and 31 photos from the action film. From MovieWeb # Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:18 AM Check Out the First Photos from Ralph Fiennes Coriolanus Take a look at Fiennes contemporary take on this William Shakespeare trajedy. 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There’s barkeep Joe on... continued From Fancast # Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:12 PM WATCH THIS NOW: RETRO VIDEOGAMES ATTACK NYC