So I was looking for some stationery yesterday, so naturally I went to my local book store. I couldn't get what I was looking for, so I spent a while looking at the DVDs (I'm almost positive that book stores will be the cities of the future; all they need to do is offer lodging, and possibly a pub, and there'll be no reason to leave). While I was there, I noticed a trend appearing on newer DVD boxes.

The formula goes like this:
Close up headshot of lead actor either staring at or facing a point 20% from the front + (1 part perplexed expression + 3 parts steely determination) + an explosion somewhere on the case = success.

Here it is in Michael Clayton:

And again in Déjà Vu:

The Constant Gardener had a fire instead of an explosion, but it's still colourful, hot and dangerous:



Although Die Hard 4 deserves a bit of slack, as nobody ever expected it'd have anything else on it's cover:



And whilst you may think this is a recent phenomenon, I've done some research and it turns out that films have been following this formula for years, it's just that nobody has noticed:

Dear film-makers of the world,
                                         I regret to inform you that your services will no longer be needed. Yes film-making as an industry is now obsolete. You see there is this new film out. Its name is not important but all you need to know is that it concerns robots that are in disguise. Yes I do realise that it was directed by Michael Bay. He may have made some mistakes in the past which may have included the butchering of historical events or the repeated casting of Ben Affleck. However this time he has hit the mark and with such unerring accuracy that his hand can only have been guided by divine powers.

Now I realise that many of you may believe that you can top this cinematic masterpiece. Some may even try. However it will surely be a waste of the public's and your time, so why burden yourself with trying to compete with this majestic film.

Now you may feel a bit slighted at the closure of an entire industry due to a single film, but all hope is not lost. There will be staff required for the inevitable legion of Transformers sequels which will surely be appearing in short order.

I hope that you can find acceptance that this is the natural order of things.
With best regards
Dave

P.S. I was going to post this as one of those review things, but for some inexplicable reason, they only go up to 5 stars.

I can definitely relate to this article. The first two years at least have held true for me.

I realised a little while ago that there are far too many good films (or at least, films that everyone should watch at some point) that I haven't seen. Many of the modern day classics I have missed entirely (Hell, I only saw Forest Gump a couple of weeks ago). So I have endeavoured to watch a new film for every day of this month.

The problem is...I'm stuck. I can think of a number of films worth adding to the list, but not a full 30. Right now, the list of films to watch this month is:
Saving Private Ryan
Amelie
Pan's Labyrinth
Schindler's List
Catch Me If You Can
A Clockwork Orange
City Of God
Cube
Napoleon Dynamite
Scarface
The Usual Suspects

But that'll only take me up until about half way through the month, so I need some new ideas. Any film that you'd consider worth seeing is a welcome suggestion, just so long as I have a reasonable chance of getting my hands on it in the next month. I'm going to be keeping a running list of the films I've seen on here throughout the month. Currently this list is:

April 1st - Rush Hour 2 - Not exactly my pick; I was at a friend's house and it was the best of an exceptionally dire bunch.
April 2nd - Evil Dead - I was out late so this became the day's choice with its 82 minutes running time.
April 3rd - The Usual Suspects - Easily the most enjoyable of the films so far, even if I already knew the twist.
April 4th - Mr Bean's Holiday.But that was rubbish and I ended up watching Catch Me If You Can afterwards
April 5th - A Clockwork Orange
April 6th - Amelie
April 7th - Top Gun
April 8th - Jaws
April 9th - Saving Private Ryan
April 10th - Italian Job (Original)
April 11th - Once Upon A Time In The West
April 12th - 2001: A Space Odyssey
April 13th - Spirited Away
April 14th - Fong Sai-Yuk, although half way through I realised I'd already seen it, so my film for the day became Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai instead.
April 15th - Scarface
April 16th - City of God (I'm really far behind on these, but after 3pm on the 26th the rest of the month is time to catch up)
April 17th - Jacob's Ladder (I know it isn't on the list but I had to replace Fong Sai Yuk. I ended up really enjoying this, which was a bonus)
April 18th - The Philadelphia Story
April 19th - Apocalypse Now
April 20th - Schindler's List
April 21st - Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
April 22st - Napoleon Dynamite
April 23nd - Seven Samurai
April 24rd - Blade Runner
April 25th - Raising Arizona
April 26th - Crash
April 27th - Time Bandits
April 28th - Sunset Boulevard
April 29th - Monty Python and the Holy Grail
April 30th - Pan's Labyrinth

With some film series, you can tell at a certain point where it is only being continued for the money. The good news is that this film isn't that point. The bad news is that that point was reached all the way back when Hannibal was released. Quick recap of the series:
Silence of the Lambs - The epitome of what a thriller should be. Hopkins and Foster were both fantastic, the script was brilliant and the directing was marvellous (5 stars)
Hannibal - Helmed by the still capable Ridley Scott rather than Jonathan Demme. This was the cash-in film of the cash-in book. A wonderful character becomes less like his original incarnation and more like Sideshow Bob. A decent plot, but it just doesn't fit next to the original. (2 stars)
Red Dragon - A welcome return to form. The attempt to make Hopkins look younger are rather transparent, but a good cast and a engaging storyline made this a welcome part of the series. (4 stars)
(Also Manhunter, but I haven't seen it)

The most obvious problem with Hannibal Rising is that
is no

French star Gaspard Ulliel may be talented in his own right, but he just doesn't feel like the character that Hopkins made his own.

The second major criticism is that another prequel was highly unnecessary. Red Dragon explained how Lecter was captured, which was quite a nice touch. But knowing everything about a character doesn't always make them any more three dimensional, and if anything , often takes away some of the mystery. The Empire Strikes Back was a fine film before the full history of Darth Vader was given. The same applies here.

The contradiction is that this doesn't really feel like the childhood of Hannibal Lecter. Without giving any secrets away, this is a story of Lecter seeking vengeance against those who wronged him. There is no causal connection between the revenge seeking killer of Rising and the psychotic Hannibal Lecter who killed a flautist for being untalented. The most worrying thing about this is that it implies that there could be yet another sequel still to come.

Much of the subtlety of Silence and Red Dragon is gone as well. Whereas in Silence, there was a subtle inclination that whilst Hannibal was a monster, he still had more redeeming value than glory-seeking hypocrites like the warder, Dr Chilton; in Rising, you are clearly meant to be rooting for this cold-blooded murderer.

My biggest problem with the film was that, if 3 minutes or so (the cannibalism related footage from the part of Lecter) was selectively cut from this film, the only connection with the series it would have is the character's name. By connection with Silence of the Lambs, this film is inherently compared with one of the best films ever made, and suffers for it. As part of the series, I'd give this about 2.5 stars. But taken on its own, this film has the emotion and intensity that Kill Bill wishes it had. The hatred shown on screen is almost palpable. If you can overlook the identity the protagonist, then this film is at least a 4 starer.

(Plus, Rhys Ifans as a villain has to be worth almost a star in itself)

So the Oscars are tonight, and as always, every minor and insignificant awards ceremony has been touted as 'an indicator of the Oscar result'. Well all these indicators are entirely unnecessary, as I will explain exactly who is going to get the Oscars and why*. Naturally I am the obvious person to choose, being free from such outside influences as cinematic bribery or actually having watched most of the films.

*May be incorrect or facetious.

Best Supporting Actor - Alan Arkin. Mark Wahlberg should be the man to get this for his wonderful role in the Departed (my favourite film this year and one that I won't stop mentioning). Alex Baldwin has also had a good set of recent supporting roles, but didn't quite get the nomination. This will go to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine since I really think Eddie Murphy has effectively ruined his near certainty of getting an Oscar by releasing the catastrophe of Norbit onto the screens. If he'd waited a few more weeks to bring it out, I really think he'd have gotten away with it. As things are, I don't see it happening (although he is still the bookies' favourite).

Best Supporting Actress - Jennifer Hudson. This is a fight between an American Idol reject and the tiny girl from Little Miss Sunshine. Even though Hudson has the most experience at losing popularity contests, she deserves credit for apparently (for obvious reasons I haven't watched Dreamgirls) completely upstaging Beyonce Knowles in what was supposed to be a vehicle for her.

Best Leading Actor - Peter O'Toole. I haven't seen his film (in fact, I've only seen one in this category) and Forest Whitaker is the heavy favourite for pretending to be Idi Amin. But 8 rejections for Best Actor would be taking the piss, especially since it'll probably be his last. If I were to bet, it'd probably be for Whitaker, but O'Toole is definitely my outside shot.

Best Leading Actress - Helen Mirren. Much as I'd like to see Penélope Cruz win this, the odds are better for Judi Dench getting into a fist fight than anyone other than Mirren winning Best Actress.

Best Animated Film - Cars. The other two seem to be falling into the "come up with enough famous voices and we don't really need an original script" problem plaguing most of the animated films lately. It's quite telling that there's been more CGI films this year than all the other years put together, and yet nobody could come up with more than 3 worth even nominating. Either way, I'm expecting Shrek 3 to blow away the competition next year.

Best Foreign Language Film - El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth). I haven't seen any of these. I can't pronounce most of them (except the wonderfully foreign sounding Canadian film 'Water'). This is a pick based entirely on which film looks most interesting.

Best Documentary - Deliver Us From Evil. Even though Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' seems the obvious, it's hard to argue against a film that has gotten completely unanimous approval.

Best Director - Martin Scorsese. Once again, Departed, best film of the year. If you haven't already seen it then go watch it. Repeatedly. By any means necessary. Even if he had made the long awaited sequel to 'man getting hit by football', Scorsese would have won, just because he is heavily owed it by now.

Best Film - Take a wild guess. I'm actually torn between which of the Departed and the second favourite Little Miss Sunshine seems least like traditional Academy fare. Third favourite Babel however, seems right up their alley, so I wouldn't rule that out under any circumstances. The odds favour the Departed (me too, as if you didn't already know that). The critics favour Little Miss Sunshine. And history favours Babel. I've been picking a lot of underdogs so far, so I'll keep the trend going and pick Sunshine for the win, against my better urges.

Most Likely To Cry During An Acceptance Speech - I can't choose between Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy.

Most Likely To Get Into A Fight - If Martin Scorsese wins, Colin Farrell (If he's there, I'm not really sure), If Martin Scorsese loses, then Martin Scorsese.

Apologies for posting this so late, it's been a busy day and this took longer than I thought it would. Coverage starts in about 10 minutes and continues on until 5:30. Luckily, I have an essay to write so I'll be boring people with a play by play analysis of this most pretentious of awards ceremonies.

So it looks like I'm a little late for Satan Day. But I still thought I'd chip in with my fun trip to the cinema this evening.

I'm a big fan of the 'if it's not broke, don't fix it' philosophy but with this film you sometimes had to wonder why they bothered. It wasn't quite on par with Gus Van Sant's Psycho remake, but it was close. There is a new opening scene, but aside from that, there's possibly 2-3 minutes of scenes that weren't in the original in some form.

Throw into this mix, a particularly bad scriptwriter. Most of the lines that weren't in fact direct lifts from the first Omen felt clunky and false. Very much a touch of George Lucas syndrome (where it seems as though a line would have read much better on a page than said aloud).

The acting was variable, Liev Schrieber would have seemed a lot better if the film hadn't been so uncannily faithful to it's predecessor. But, unfortunately for him, he's expected to walk in the footsteps of Gregory Peck; a task he often seems to fall short of. Julia Stiles on the other hand really impressed me. She really fully crafts a character out of Katherine Thorne, something Lee Remick failed to do before her. A stellar supporting cast also help to keep up the quality, (I particularly liked the use of Mia Farrow, Rosemary from Rosemary's Baby, as the Mrs Baylock, the evil nanny). But this was likely to rise or fall on the casting of the character of Damien. And for me, he just didn't cut it. He had the requisite type of appearance, but whenever he tried to look menacing, I just thought his face looked like a frog.

Clearly this was only made to coincide with the date, as there was absolutely no need to remake the original. I'm saying 3 stars anyway, just because I'm a big fan of the story, even though it hadn't changed since the last time I saw it. That, and that they managed to alter the famous death scene without lessening it in any way, and ended up improving it considerably (the only way in which I'd really say this is any better than the original).

I already did an entry about films that have been re-edited to seem completely different. However, this is a whole new clip, in that it takes clips from dozens of other movies to create an entertaining thriller for the film that never was (and never should be). This is one of the finest examples of film-editting that I've seen. Video will be posted as soon as YouTube gets back on the air.

This is partly me posting a video that has been all over the web for months but that I have only just found, and partly me playing around with imbedding videos.

This is a trailer for the Shining (brilliant film) recut to make a heartwarming family drama out of it. Whether it is a travesty or not is debatable, but it's quite funny.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ipuqHA6Jmh4

Some of these are also worth checking out:
West Side Story as a Zombie Flick - Not that much use of actual footage but not bad.
Sleepless in Seattle as a Thriller - Nice use of footage but rarely believable.
Titanic as a Horror Film - Funny concept but it doesn't actually work that well
Psycho as a Romantic Comedy - Relies too much on the voiceover but works quite well
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as a Horror Film - Some fairly deft editting marred somewhat by an overly-obtrusive voiceover.
Cabin Fever as a Drama< - If you haven't seen the original it's a average at best horror film. This actually looks more watchable than the original.
Gandhi as a Comedy - You need to log in to see it. The user name is holy, password is cow. I really wouldn't bother. It isn't any good.

There's also about 50 Brokeback Mountain/Insert film here edits. None are really worth linking to.

Now this is the type of film that I generally loath because it a) is a sappy Christmas film, b) contains Tom Hanks and c) is targeted at kids. This does not a enjoyable film for me equal. But I went anyway, partly because I'd never seen a full film in 3D before, and partly because I had nothing better to do. It was a tough decision though, as 3D glasses always make you look like a pillock, and it is the kind of film that you seem out of place going into without a child accompanying.

What can I say? By all reasonable logic, I should have hated it. But for some reason I loved it. The animation was spectacular, with the 3D techniques being used not for cheap effects, but to give everything a depth that you can't see in normal films. The storyline, though cliched and somewhat predictable was involving and, dare I say it, heartwarming. By the end of the film, I found myself really liking all of the characters, which is a rare feat. There were also some quite entertaining nuances, such as the compass at the north pole that has S painted on all four points, or Steven Tyler (of Aerosmith fame) as a singing elf. Whilst Shrek succeeds as a family film by being funny to all ages, this succeeds by being genuinely likable. Not once did I even feel stupid to be wearing those ridiculous glasses or to be watching what, in theory is just a kid's film. I walked the 45 minute journey home in British December temperatures with a huge stupid grin plastered across my face.

4 stars. I'm just a little too jaded and cynical to give it 5.