Spoof Trailers: The Avengers ('52 & '78)

What The Avengers might look like if it had been made in 1952... ...and 1978... I'd see either version in a heartbeat!

Classic Trailer: Compulsion

Continuing to surprise us with the odd unexpected back catalogue gem, Vendetta Films are due to release Compulsion, Richard Fleischer's 1959 take on the notorious "crime of the century" case of Leopold and Loeb, two college students who murdered a fourteen-year-old boy solely to see if they could commit the "perfect time". The case has also inspired films like Funny Games, Murder by Numbers and perhaps most famously, Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. Fleischer's film is considered one of the most faithful to the story. Essential viewing for fans of true crime flicks. Here's the trailer:

The Secret Life of Pixar's Pizza Planet Truck

Last week NZ Herald film blogger Dominic Corry wrote about "universe building" in movies, where you'll find the same characters popping up in movies other than the one they originally appeared in, e.g. Michael Keaton's Ray Nicolette in Jackie Brown, then reappearing briefly in Out of Sight a year later. This is most probably old news, but I just stumbled (thanks tumblr) onto a similar thing, albeit at a much more obscure, detail-obsessed level with Pixar and their prop/character Pizza Planet Truck. Check this out, this little dude really gets around, having cameod in every Pixar film except The Incredibles:

Films from top to bottom: Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc, Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up

End-of-Week News Round-up

Time for another one of these compendium posts.... cool/interesting film/entertainment stuff that's popped up in the past week which I haven't had the time to post about until now.

GENERAL NEWS

• Here's the first look at Anthony Hopkins as as the Master of Suspense in Sacha Gervasi's forthcoming biopic Hitchcock. Verdict? I love the fatsuit. The shape of Hitchcock's head looks perfect, and can't wait to see what Hopkins does with this role.
• After initially having an exciting wishlist of slightly off-centre directors for The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire (David Cronenberg, Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro González Iñárritu), Lionsgate have settling a much less exciting director helm the project: Francis Lawrence, the dude behind Constantine and I Am Legend who is not related at all to star Jennifer Lawrence.
• Cannes 2012 line-up have been announced and in competition are new films by Ken Loach, Michael Haneke, John Hillcoat, Jacques Audiard, Andrew Dominik and more. For full list, click here. 

CLIPS

• Trailer: Cosmopolis - hard to tell exactly what the film is about from the trailer, though from what I've cautiously read around the place, it's about billionaire Robert Pattinson trying to get across Manhattan for a haircut, or something. Can tell you this though: it looks awesomely sleek, sensual, futuristic, and certainly more vintage-feeling Cronenberg than his last few films have been.
• Viral Vid: Happy Birthday David - Michael Fassbender in creepy life-like android mode for this cute little marketing vid for Prometheus.
• Parody: Donald Duck - A Dogme Film - possibly the funniest thing I've seen this week. Imagine a live action Donald Duck film directed by Lars von Trier. Works better than you'd think.

Short Film: Caine's Arcade

Feeling a little down this morning? Watch this charming short doco about Caine, a 9-year-old boy who builds an arcade entirely out of cardboard in his dad's auto parts store. Totally worth 10 minutes of your day, and safe for work...

Teaser for a Trailer: Looper

I know I've ragged on about this "teaser trailer for a teaser trailer" business recently, but I'm gonna make another exception (ha!), 'cos it's Looper, and I'm crazily excited about Looper. Also I dig the presence of star Joseph Gordon-Levitt and director Rian Johnson in this clip... nice personal touch, etc. The full teaser trailer will be out in the next few days. In the meantime enjoy some quick flashes of footage from the flick here.

Celebrities Read Tweets About Themselves

A bit late with this one, completely slipped my mind to blog but in case you missed it... some good laughs.

For the Star Wars Fan with Everything #20

Rear Window Timelapse

All I can say is, holy hell.