The Reel World

“They just want the same thing over and over again. They put me in a coffin…and now they’re nailing it shut.”

He has been regarded as “the master of suspense”, “the greatest British filmmaker”. He is Alfred Hitchcock; well, in this case, Anthony Hopkins portraying the infamous director. Set during the time of Hitchcock’s most notable and influential film, Psycho, the film walks you the through the entire process of the making of said movie without that boring documentary vibe typically found.

If you’ve been to a multiplex over the last few months, there’s a decent chance you’ve seen the one-sheet promoting Playing for Keeps accompanied by the tagline, “This Holiday Season, What Do You Really Want?” Let’s pretend we know absolutely nothing about this film, shall we? Gerard Butler occupies the biggest rectangle, so he’s clearly the star. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine as to what this movie is actually about.

"They cry, they plead, they beg, they piss themselves, they cry for their mothers. It gets embarrassing. I like to kill 'em softly. From a distance."

Brad Pitt demonstrates that very well during one of his execution scenes. Killing Them Softly is director Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of the 1974 novel, Cogan’s Trade by George V. Higgnins. This film is Dominik’s third go-around serving as both writer and director (the other two times being Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James), and I must say that he seems at home with double the amount of work.

"For them this is just some place. For us it's our home… it's up to us to fight for it."

For decades it was the doomsday scenario. Cold War Americans lived in almost constant fear that the Soviets might drop a nuke on us and begin Armageddon. It was unthinkable that a conventional invasion could reach our shores instead. Red Dawn stirred its own mushroom cloud of controversy when it reached theaters in August of 1984.

"Pause...take a breath."

At first you might expect A Late Quartet to be about the music. There is certainly plenty of it to go around. The film even manages to convince us that Christopher Walken is a renowned cello player even though we all know what he can do with a pocket watch. Yeah, you caught yourself smiling there, even if you'd like to believe you're above such things. It demonstrates the real strength of the film.

There’s an old showbiz adage warning performers to “never work with children or animals.” There’s also an impressive list of legendary filmmakers — including Steven Spielberg and James Cameron — who struggled mightily to make water-based blockbusters like Jaws and Titanic. (That list also includes somewhat less legendary names like Kevin Reynolds and Waterworld.) Apparently, no one told Ang Lee any of this before he agreed to make Life of Pi.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this..."

These were strong words, and the man who spoke them was certainly a dominant figure in American history.

"Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don't really go in for that sort of thing anymore."

It was 1962 and Ursula Andress emerged from the tropical island surf sporting a provocative swimsuit, and a tradition was born. The seductive scene would become the first iconic image in a line that has lasted a half a century and counting.  Fifty years; 23 movies makes it the longest running film franchise in motion picture history. He had many faces over those 50 years: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, George Lazenby and even David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen in a 1967 spoof. For the last three films he's been played by Daniel Craig. They all had somewhat different styles. They all had a line of beautiful women. They all faced different challenges and foes. But they all shared the same name: Bond...James Bond.

Can a scumbag also be considered a hero? Lance Armstrong fans probably mull that question each time a new, unsavory revelation about the now-disgraced cyclist comes to light. The issue was addressed in 1992’s Hero, which starred Dustin Hoffman as a low-life who saves a group of passengers on a crashed airplane. Flight also takes to the not-so-friendly skies to examine whether it’s possible to reconcile a lifetime of destructive behavior with an extraordinary act of valor.

"I'm bad and that's good. I will never be good and that's not bad."

One of the easiest ways to let your age show is to talk about your favorite video games. If you're old enough, you even remember a time when there weren't any video games at all. Most people refer to this era as The Dark Ages. But I'm willing to admit that I put a deposit down on an Atari 2600 system these many years ago. If you have a love of all things video games and a great appreciation for the history of the field, Wreck-It Ralph was built just for you.