A man trades one bottle of beer for bigger and better things.
Runtime: 1 min 39 sec
Beer Bottle Upgrade
July 4th, 2007Magical Beer Party
July 4th, 2007
Many beer commercial clichés are present in this spot, including bikini clad babes and beer raining down from the heavens.
Runtime: 30 sec
Pole Dancing Gone Wrong
July 4th, 2007
This particular pole was not meant for dancing...unless you want to be kicked in the face.
Runtime: 31 sec
4th of July BBQ Bonanza!
July 4th, 2007
As you BBQ on this day, remember those who BBQ-ed before you.
Runtime: 50 sec
Lots of Money… in Disguise
July 4th, 2007
First reported figures are indicating that Michael Bay’s Transformers has taken in over $8.1 million on its opening day and a further $29.5 million dollars on Tuesday. Which, for the calculator-less among us, amounts to a total of $38 million in it’s first 28 hours on screen and furthermore, has bagged Bay and his robots the biggest Tuesday opening of all time, topping the wretched Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest by nearly $14 million.
Now the bad news: we in the Republic of Ireland and the UK can’t open our wallets to Michael Bay along with the rest of America until the 27 July. That’s a depressing 3 and a half weeks of robot-free time to pass. However, there are ways for the super-nerdy among us to pass the time (presuming you’re a big enough Transformers fan not to have a job or social life):
1. Rewatch the original Transformers movie once a day and pour a bit of your beer onto the carpet every time Optimus Prime dies, whilst saying ‘for my homes.’ (If you’re too young to drink beer, then…. How have you even heard of the Transformers? You should be watching… Pokemon or something)
2. Make a mixed tape in honour of Soundwave.
3. Bring out all your old Transformers toys and arrange them in hilarious sexual positions. Then laugh to yourself, sigh and utter ‘I’m so alone.’
4. Change your name to Rodimus Prime by deed pole.
Let the wait begin.
Source of figures: Fantasy Moguls
Top Secret ‘Cloverfield’ Trailer
July 4th, 2007
There’s been a lot of internet buzz about a JJ Abrams monster movie going under the working title of Cloverfield. This film has been kept a major secret and nobody had heard of it before a teaser trailer was screened before showings of Transformers in the States.
No official trailer could be found online… until now. Some camera-armed super-pirate has caught it and uploaded it onto YouTube for all to enjoy. The quality is obviously pretty poor, but the effect still comes across. Check out the trailer below (and hurry before it’s taken down)
This top-secret hype building is marketing at its best and already me and the rest of the internet excited about what the hell this film could turn out to be. Rumour has it that the entire film will be shot in the Blair-Witch handy-cam method that is employed in the trailer, but I personally think that these rumours are as substantial as a silent fart. The technique is much more suited to this teaser trailer.
AICN are reporting that the as yet untitled film will be directed and written by Abrams collaborators Matt Reeves and Drew Godard respectively. According to the trailer, we can expect it to hit cinemas on the 18th January 2008. Get excited.
**UPDATE** Paramount got to it and the trailer has been taken down.
**MORE UPDATES** It’s back! Can’t keep those pirates down. Click below.
Read More about Cloverfield:
Official Title of Cloverfield Revealed?
Cloverfield - the story so far
Transformers (2007)
July 3rd, 2007
Without a doubt, Michael Bay’s latest film, Transformers will please many of the built-in fanbase, and it is really tough to hate a film which says it will deliver giant robots smashing into buildings and each other, and then proceeds to do as promised. I am not the biggest Bay fan. Aside from the first half of The Island, in fact, I believe I have despised every film this guy has directed. Yet given Bay’s ADD methods of filmmaking, he is the right director for this live action pile of mayhem. (more…)
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Hollywood’s Next Big Things
July 3rd, 2007Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Hold the 'Fone
In Hollywood, hot young stars come and go like truckers at a rest stop. Only a handful will ever crack the A-list, a destination reserved for those who've climbed the ranks thanks to an extraordinary combination of talent, charisma, looks... and luck.
Predicting the stars of tomorrow is no easy task, but it helps when we can look at their present-day role models: Is John Krasinski the next Tom Hanks? Is Shia LaBeouf the next Harrison Ford? Or maybe LaBeouf is the next Hanks, and Krasinski the next George Clooney. Check out who Moviefone predicts will be the next generation of movie stars. then tell us what you think.
Lift and Sift Cat Litter Tray
July 3rd, 2007
"Is your cat a pirate? Must you dig for buried treasure?"
Runtime: 49 sec
Linear writing for non-linear films
July 3rd, 2007When writing a narrative that jumps back and forth throughout time and events (ie. PULP FICTION, THE KILLING) is it standard operating procedure to write the story in a more traditional straight ahead format then re-arrange the script; or is the script written in a non-linear format as we see it in the movie?
–Matt Higgins
While there have been cases where a film’s timeline was juggled after-the-fact (HEAVEN AND EARTH was one), the vast majority of scripts are written with the non-linear elements in place. It’s a cliché, but screenplays are really blueprints for making a movie, so the two forms should match up scene-by-scene.
If you’re planning to write a story that will ultimately unfold in a non-linear way, such as GO or MEMENTO, it’s a good idea to make a second outline of the story as it happens in "real time," to make sure the logic tracks. In fact, this kind of outline is helpful with any kind of story, because even if a script moves forward scene by scene, inevitably characters will refer to things that happened "earlier," and it’s important to make sure all these events could have happened in the sequence you propose.
Personally, I find that non-linear structure is often just a flashy trick to disguise bad storytelling, or worse, a boring plot. It demands that the audience pay closer attention in order to figure out what’s going on, but rarely rewards the effort.
An analogy: When laser printers first arrived, they gave people access to calligraphy fonts like Zapf Chancery Italic, a typeface designed for wedding invitations. Suddenly, people printed entire newsletters in 9-point Zapf Chancery Italic, without any consideration of whether it was the right tool for the job. (It’s not. It’s almost unreadable.) Now I cringe whenever I see the font. It’s been ruined for me.
What these novice designers - and many novice screenwriters - failed to recognize is that just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. I wrote GO with three overlapping chunks because that’s the only way it made sense; to intercut between the plotlines would have slowed everything down too much and made it confusing. In short, I used a strange timeline because that’s what the story required.
Always ask yourself why you’re choosing a particular way of telling the story. Used well, and with the right material, non-linear structure can be a very powerful technique. Used poorly, it just makes a crappy movie harder to follow.
(Originally posted in 2003.)
