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Luke Skywalker’s medal from A New Hope is but one lot in a huge array of film memorabilia going up for auction this month.

Most of us don’t have tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars to spend on film memorabilia, but still: it’s nice to dream. This month will see Propstore auction off a quite mind-melting array of movie-related items, with costumes and props from major blockbusters to cult obscurities.

One of the big-ticket items is arguably Luke Skywalker’s medal, as seen at the end of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope. It has a starting bid of $150,000, and is expected to fetch somewhere between $300,000 to $600,000.

According to Propstore’s listing, only two of these medals – made from resin and covered in gold leaf – were made for the production, and while Mark Hamill wore the one up for sale in A New Hope, Harrison Ford...

Ghostbustersfans wanting to own a piece of their favorite movie franchise may want to call their bankers because several screen-used items are hitting the auction block for Propstore’s Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction. Per Ghostbusters News, the auction, held March 26 through March 28, contains items worn by Harold Ramis’ character, Dr. Egon Spengler, among other unique collectibles.

Perhaps the marquee item for Spengler fans is the screen-matched jumpsuit worn by Ramis in 1989’s Ghostbusters II. Per the listing on Propstore, the jumpsuit was worn by Spengler throughout the movie, from the initial Ghostbusters reunion until the end when the team triumphed over Vigo the Carpathian. The listing states, “Wrinkles and stitchings around the patches screen-match the jumpsuit to early scenes where the team investigated the museum that held Vigo’s haunted portrait.”

The jumpsuit has an estimate of $25,000 to $50,000 and currently has one bid of $12,500. The suit was designed by costume designer Gloria Gresham.

Fiery dame Susan Hayward carries this far-flung ‘women’s epic’ to delirious romantic extremes, as her Irish heroine defies nature and exploits admirers to claim the hunky Dutchman of her dreams. Using apartheid-ridden South Africa as a background for a cheerful white conquest wasn’t as touchy an idea in 1955 as it is now, but it should have been. Just the same, Henry King’s film is an impressive production from the early years of CinemaScope.

Untamed

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date January 22, 2019 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Richard Egan, John Justin, Agnes Moorehead, Rita Moreno, Hope Emerson, Brad Dexter, Henry O’Neill, Eleanor Audley, Kevin Corcoran, Philip Van Zandt.

Cinematography: Leo Tover

Film Editor: Barbara McLean

Original Music: Franz Waxman

Visual Effects: Ray Kellogg, Matthew Yuricich

Written by Talbot Jennings, Frank Fenton, Michael Blankfort, William A. Bacher from a novel by Helga Moray.

The Visual Effects Society on Friday announced its inaugural inductees to the Ves Hall of Fame. Syd Mead, Douglas Trumbull, Ed Catmull and 19 others will be inducted on Oct. 28 during the 9th annual Ves Summit, which this year also marks the society’s 20th anniversary.

As Blade Runner 2049 opens in theaters, the Ves honors include several alums from the original 1982 film Blade Runner, such as concept artist Mead, VFX supervisor Trumbull and the late matte painter Matthew Yuricich.

The Ves also will induct Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Oscar-winning VFX supervisors John Knoll and Dennis Muren.

Early VFX and...

Banished by Josef Goebbels and threatened by the Reich, the creative core of the German film industry found itself in sunny Los Angeles, many not speaking English but determined to carry on as writers, directors and actors. More than simply surviving, they made a profound impact on Hollywood moviemaking. Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 2009 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 117 min. / Street Date April 12, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Cinematography Joan Churchill, Emil Fischhaber Film Editor Anny Lowery Meza Original Music Peter Melnick Written, Produced and Directed by Karen Thomas

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood is the perfect docu to introduce people to the way film and world history are intertwined... and also to generate interest in older movies and classic cinema. Instead of a story about the making of movies, it's about a fascinating group of filmmakers forced to abandon...

A few years ago the editors of Shadowlocked asked me to compile a list of what was initially to be, the ten greatest movie matte paintings of all time. A mere ten selections was too slim by a long shot, so my list stretched considerably to twenty, then thirty and finally a nice round fifty entries. Even with that number I found it wasn’t easy to narrow down a suitably wide ranging showcase of motion picture matte art that best represented the artform. So with that in mind, and due to the surprising popularity of that 2012 Shadowlocked list (which is well worth a visit, here Ed), I’ve assembled a further fifty wonderful examples of this vast, vital and more extensively utilised than you’d imagine – though now sadly ‘dead and buried’ – movie magic.

It would of course be so easy to simply concentrate on the well known, iconic,...

Long before filmmakers had access to the finest digital effects the industry has to offer, they had to get creative with matte paintings to blend like actors into locations and environments that couldn.t be achieved in real life. These are delicate works of art that date back to the early 20th century, when painters and artists helped directors achieve a nearly impossible vision. The website ShadowLocked.com writes a thorough history of the art of matte painting, singling out accomplished artists like Walter Percy Day, Peter Ellenshaw, Mark Sullivan and more. Beyond that, the site names what it believes to be the 50 greatest matte paintings, including imagery from such classics as Mary Poppins (above) to near-misses like Ghostbusters II, which often looked prettier than it deserved to look. This montage shows matte painting artist Matt Yuricich working on Ben-Hur, to give you an idea how a painter would create...

Where were Andy Griffith, Larry Hagman and other well-known celebrities in this year's Oscars In Memoriam montage? They were online at Oscar.com.

Every year it's one of the more reliably ridiculous award show controversies: Who didn't make the cut for In Memoriam?

When it comes to the Oscars, these "snubs" are particularly sensitive given the prestige and viewership of the show, and the fact that the montage inevitably leaves out names and faces of recognizable stars -- usually those known far more for their work in television than their work in film, which is the medium that the Academy Awards actually celebrate.

However, the Academy is hip to the annual controversy and this year produced a supplemental slideshow on their website featuring 114 names and photos of entertainers and film craftspeople who passed away in the past year.

Among the late greats included in the slideshow but not on the...

The art of the glass shot or matte painting is one which originated very much in the early ‘teens’ of the silent era. Pioneer film maker, director, cameraman and visual effects inventor Norman Dawn is generally acknowledged as the father of the painted matte composite, with other visionary film makers such as Ferdinand Pinney Earle, Walter Hall and Walter Percy Day being heralded as making vast contributions to the trick process in the early 1920’s.

Boiled down, the matte process is one whereby a limited film set may be extended to whatever, or wherever the director’s imagination dictates with the employment of a matte artist. In it’s most pure form, the artist would set up a large plate of clear glass in front of the motion picture camera upon which he would carefully paint in new scenery an ornate period ceiling, snow capped mountains, a Gothic castle or even an alien world.