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Check This Out: xkcd's Brilliant/Confusing Movie Narrative Charts

Movie Narrative Charts - xkcd

I love xkcd. It's one of my favorite webcomics and is daily reading for me. It's very geeky, mainly for tech and math geeks, but it's brilliant. Simple style with big ideas. The latest comic created by Randall Munroe on xkcd.org features a series of Movie Narrative Charts that map out characters throughout an entire trilogy (specifically Lord of the Rings and Star Wars). It maps their relation (are they near or far from each other) over the horizontal axis of time. Take a look, it's pretty damn cool, you'll understand once you see it. And to top it all off, he threw in charts for 12 Angry Men and Primer as well, for a laugh. You've just got to see this!

November 2, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Discussion | 13 Comments

Joss Whedon's Open Letter to Buy the Terminator Franchise

Joss Whedon and Terminator

If you haven't heard yet, the rights to the Terminator franchise are going up for auction later this month. The Financial Times reports that The Halcyon Co. is selling off the entire rights to the franchise, which will "give the buyer the ability to make new Terminator films, TV programmes and other spin-offs that build on the popularity of the franchise." Sounds like a hell of a deal. It will reportedly sell for more than $60 million, which is what the TMNT franchise sold for recently. But that's not the best part. Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood published an open letter from Joss Whedon to the owners of the rights and it's just hilarious.

November 2, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Movie News, Opinions | 44 Comments

Exciting New Avatar Featurette on James Cameron's Vision

Avatar Featurette

Are you ready to dive head first into the mind of James Cameron and the world of Avatar? You've read about him, seen the world he's created, now you can get a glimpse behind his vision in this new featurette released by Fox. This video was released in coordination with the new trailer to continue to build hype and excitement for Avatar and show us a little behind-the-scenes of it all. There's lots of new footage (almost too much) as well as a few good interviews with actors and so much more. If you're still excited for Avatar (or need more to get you pumped), then just watch! It shows the world of Pandora like you've never seen before.

November 1, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Hype, Worth Watching | 41 Comments

Martin Scorsese Picks 11 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time!

Martin Scorsese

If there is anyone I would want to choose what movies I watch this Halloween weekend (besides Stephen King or Wes Craven), I'd want it to be Oscar winning director Martin Scorsese. He's a genius filmmaker and I'm sure he knows great horror when he sees it. I think this would've been much better coordinated if his new movie Shutter Island was actually out in theaters (damn you Paramount), but either way this is a great list. The Daily Beast asked Scorsese to choose some horror movies for Halloween and he came up with his own list of the 11 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time. Read on to see what great classics he chose!

October 30, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Editorials, Featured | 70 Comments

New Sherlock Holmes Facebook Viral Game Launches Online

Sherlock Holmes - 221B

I'm not entirely sure if this is connected with the "Widen your gaze Mr. Holmes" mini-viral from August, however, I get the feeling that this is the next step in that game. Earlier today I received an email in my inbox with a telegram saying: "London seethes with crime — STOP — find your partner upon whom you will rely — STOP — evidence secured for your advance assessment — STOP — the game is afoot — STOP — make all haste to 221B now." It then linked to a site located at 221B.sh where users can visit and participate in a viral game on Facebook for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie. It's not amazing, but it is a lot of fun.

October 30, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Hype, Viral Marketing | 3 Comments

Orson Welles' Original War of the Worlds Broadcast Returns

Orson Welles' War of the Worlds

With our society's extensive use of the internet, viral marketing has become an invaluable tool for movie marketing. In recent years I think it's safe to say The Dark Knight is the reigning champion for best viral marketing campaign which inspired activity from people all over the world. However, the greatest publicity stunt ever achieved goes all the way back to 1938, when Orson Welles' radio broadcast of H.G. Wells novel War of the Worlds created unparalleled panic and fear of a real alien invasion. Now, exactly 71 years later, the broadcast will return as a live stream brought to you by the upcoming film Me and Orson Wells.

October 29, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Indies, Viral Marketing | 4 Comments

You Are the Experiment: Richard Kelly's The Box Has a Viral

The Box Viral

If you've seen any of the TV spots for Richard Kelly's The Box, they all include the phrase "You are the experiment." What does it mean? Well, we're not entirely sure yet, but a new viral website has popped up: youaretheexperiment.com. Warner Bros is obviously not trying to cover it up (their info is at the bottom, as is a link to buy tickets), but it does have some interesting videos labeled Exhibit A, B, and C. If you watch the three of them, you'll notice that they are all about NASA's Viking program from the 1970's where they sent two space probes to Mars. What does Mars have to do with The Box? Another answer we don't know yet.

October 29, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Hype, Viral Marketing | 25 Comments

Check This Out: TwitCritics Real-Time Movie Ratings from Twitter

TwitCritics

While Rotten Tomatoes still remains the king of the movie rating world, I've started to really care less about them, mainly because of their ridiculous rules that allow for such hacks as Armond White to be included in the Tomatometer. Thanks to SlashFilm, I finally discovered a potential alternative called TwitCritics (twitcritics.com) that capitalizes on the Twitter craze, compiling reviews of movies and giving an average rating, like Rotten Tomatoes. There are obviously issues (such as how does it know what you said was good or bad), but I think this may be the first time that Twitter feedback is being harnessed in a usable way.

October 22, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Opinions | 19 Comments

A Christmas Carol Featurette with Jim Carrey & Robert Zemeckis

A Christmas Carol

Yesterday a new Japanese trailer for Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol hit the web. Not only was it too low quality, but it just wasn't that exciting, so I decided not to feature. I'm glad I decided to wait, because a new featurette just hit the web today that not only includes a lot of great new footage in it, but also includes some interviews with Jim Carrey and Robert Zemeckis. It's not truly a behind-the-scenes featurette per se, because it doesn't show us how this made, but instead features the two talking about their collaboration in bringing the Charles Dickens' tale to life. It's a great little featurette that I suggest everyone check out!

October 16, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Hype, Worth Watching | 3 Comments

Spike Jonze and Max Records' Short Film 'Vampire Attack'

Vampire Attack

I promised I wouldn't share any more footage from Where the Wild Things Are, but then I came across this! I've seen the movie already and it's wonderful, thanks especially to Max Records' performance as the kid in it. I don't know where this came from, but it's a little behind-the-scenes video showing director Spike Jonze and Max Records making a 30-second short film called Vampire Attack. Yea it's funky and fun, but that's exactly the kind of spirit that made this movie so amazing. Other examples of this kind of brilliance can be found in the book they're putting out - I took some photos here and here. Anyway, check this out!

October 8, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Hype, Worth Watching | 4 Comments

Check This Out: Sequels That Bombed Box Office Graphic

Sequels That Bombed

I love the graphics that MovieFill makes. We've featured plenty of them before (the $400 Million Club one most recently) and now they've got another one that I've got to share! It's called simply Sequels That Bombed and is inspired by the overwhelming success of The Final Destination, as they say it should've failed miserably (and didn't). So instead, they chart the biggest sequel bombs from 1982 to 2009. "Most of the films we included made under $35 million. A few (Blair Witch 2, Analyze That), made over $35 but were still considered bombs because of the significant drop in sales from their predecessor. Bombs away!"

October 6, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Opinions | 25 Comments

Fan Art Contest: Where the Wild Things Ought to Be…

Where the Wild Things Are - Max on Wire Fan Art

Spike Jonze, director of the upcoming film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, is currently running a fan art contest on the film's official blog - We Love You So. Scheduled to end on Friday, with the winners announced the following Monday, the only guideline the site gives is as follows: Show them where the Wild Things ought to be — "the basic idea is to send in images or GIFs or videos inserting Wild Things artwork, clips, etc. into places that could use some 'wilding-up.'" The prize for all of your hard Photoshop work? The complete series of WTWTA skate decks (check these out). Check out a few of these below.

September 20, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Hype, Movie News | 6 Comments

Check These Out: Unused Posters for Duncan Jones' Moon

Moon Poster

It's always heartbreaking to get a glimpse of the posters that were not used in a film's marketing campaign. One of the most recent examples of this was the beautiful hand-drawn poster for Inglourious Basterds that James Goodridge drew. Another set of unused posters have been dug up by our friends at Quiet Earth for Duncan Jones' brilliant low-budget sci-fi flick Moon that hit theaters earlier this summer. While I liked the actual poster they ended up using (it was handpicked by Duncan), some of these posters are also pretty gorgeous and I'm sad we never got to see them until now. They're definitely worth checking out, so read on!

September 20, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Indies, Posters | 25 Comments

Awesome TV Spot for Pixar's Toy Story & Toy Story 2 in 3D

Toy Story in 3D

I can't wait for this! As much as I've been enjoying every last minute of this epic 28-day film festival tour, I'm excited to settle down and watch some of my personal faves. I'm even wearing my Pixar shirt today (coincidence?). Anyway, this TV spot for Pixar's re-release of Toy Story / Toy Story 2 in glorious 3D in October is just too awesome to pass up. I love that Pixar has gone back and created entirely new footage just for promotional purposes. Isn't it great to see all your favorite toys back up on the big screen again? Oh and special thanks to TheMovieBox for pulling this off and putting online for our viewing pleasure. Check it!

September 19, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, Hype, Worth Watching | 6 Comments

First Logo Unveiled for Jackie Chan's Karate Kid Remake

Karate Kid Remake

It looks like Sony is still going back-n-forth on whether they want to call this Karate Kid remake The Karate Kid or The Kung Fu Kid, as it was supposedly retitled to. Maybe they're concerned about losing some brand recognition by changing the name. Anyway, considering they've starting shooting in China, it's not a surprise that some details and photos have started to leak out. SlashFilm discovered the first official title treatment for the film hidden on some Sony site. It's not that impressive but it is a cool first look at the film, in addition to that photo at the top of Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith working on some kung fu training.

September 18, 2009 | Posted in: Cool Stuff, First Look, Hype | 26 Comments