Fatso's Top 20 Most Popular Romance Movies

Time for another special occasion list... to mark Valentine's Day, here's our Top 20 most-rented films in the "Romance" genre (both Drama and Comedy included). I would've pegged The Notebook to be #1 but no, Michel Gondry's quirky Eternal Sunshine seems to be the romantic flick that's flown off our shelves the most!

1. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
2. The Notebook
3. Brokeback Mountain
4. The Holiday
5. Amelie
6. The 40 Year Old Virgin
7. Knocked Up
8. Music And Lyrics
9. Wedding Crashers
10. Closer
11. Atonement
12. The Lake House
13. Cold Mountain
14. Stranger Than Fiction
15. Love Actually
16. Failure To Launch
17. Hitch
18. Prime
19. The Break-Up
20. Second Hand Wedding

Breaking Out the TV Baby

It's a hard life for us TV fans. Deciding what to watch, when to watch, and who to watch it with. Sometime it's just too daunting to dive into a massive series - it's a HUGE commitment, and you gotta find the right time. If you know what I'm talking about, then this funny, well-acted sketch from College Humor, which smartly uses Breaking Bad as an example, will play like the gospel for you:

Meanwhile, because the Internet is great here's a cat dressed as Walter White:

Oh, also: Breaking Bad - Season 4 has just been confirmed for release on DVD and Blu-ray on 3rd April!

Trailer: Fast & Furious 6

Never thought I'd be getting all amped for another Fast and Furious movie, but after the unexpected delirious surprise that was Fast Five (best action movie of 2011 imho), I'm definitely eager to see what kind of mayhem returning director Justin Lin has in store for us. The minute-long trailer that premiered at the Super Bowl earlier this week definitely promises "bigger" and "more": planes, tanks (!) and The Rock telling us, "We've graduated to a whole new level". I might be alone in thinking this but the franchise is shaping up to be like the live-action, testosterone-pumped, petrol-head version of Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines. Ogle at some vehicular warfare here:

Animated Short: Paperman

If you caught Wreck It-Ralph at the movies, you would've probably been charmed by Paperman, a gorgeous animated short from John Kahrs and Walt Disney Animation Studios that harks back to the era of silent storytelling. But for those who missed it, it's now available to view on Youtube and totally worth six minutes of your day. The music swells a bit too much at the end for me, but that doesn't take away from the fact this is one of the most beautiful things Disney has produced lately and I hope to see more of this exquisite blend of hand-drawn and CGI animation from them in the future.

Trailer: Olympus Has Fallen

Hollywood's knack for producing two movies in the same year with similar-sounding plots returns with Olympus Has Fallen, one of two "Die Hard in the White House"-type blockbusters coming to a theatre near you soon (the other one is White House Down from Roland Emmerich). Directed by competent-enough go-to action-hack Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), it looks like a big, dumb hunk o' cheese, featuring Gerard Butler doing his best Jack Bauer impression, a cast of typecast familiars (Morgan Freeman and Aaron Eckhart in authority roles) and some ropey CGI effects. I'm half-there.

End-of-Week News Round-up

Bits and pieces from the past week or so in case you missed them:

GENERAL NEWS 

Lindsay Lohan with co-(porn)-star James Deen in The Canyons

• Walking celeb trainwreck Lindsay Lohan has completed filming the low-budget, partially crowd-funded (and non-Sundance-accepted) noir The Canyons with director Paul Schrader (Affliction), and if you've ever wondered to yourself, "Hmm what would it be like to work with Lohan on a film? Is she that bad?", then this amazing New York Times Magazine piece by Stephen Rodrick should answer all your questions (and then some). A truly eye-opening, compulsively entertaining read.
• I generally hate doing Year-in-Review lists but I ended up doing a few for Flicks.co.nz. See here for my favourite films of the year.
• Kathryn Bigelow's Osama Bin Laden manhunt movie Zero Dark Thirty is stirring a storm of controversy over its portrayal of torture lately, with lines divided between those who think it endorses torture and those who think depiction does not = endorsement. The director's now written a response to her critics in the LA Times, which you can read here. Also for more Bigelow-related reading, check out AV Club's unpacking of her "fascinating, elusive" filmography.
• Awards season is in full swing. The Golden Globes happened and Oscar nominees were announced.  

• Acclaimed Austrian director Michael Haneke (Amour) addresses the (hilarious) parody Twitter account under his name, and says he doesn't really care for it.
• A few reviews of Arnie's new action flick The Last Stand are starting to surface, with the most glowing coming from Slant Magazine.

CLIPS 

• Jodie Foster receives Life Time Achievement Award and comes out to the world:
• A full-length shot-for-shot recreation of Toy Story using Toy Story toys. Holy crap.  
• And MORE Tarantino shenanigans. Can't get enough of hearing this guy speak, especially when he's telling you he's "shutting your butt down!":

DVD NEWS

• Delays: Vendetta Films's releases of Safety Not Guaranteed and Hit and Run have been delayed until Jan 25. Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning is now coming out Jan 24, and Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden pushed back to March 13.
• Looking ahead to March, several cool Madman titles to keep an eye out for: Arbitrage, Searching for Sugar Man (one of last year's best docos!), Monsieur Lahzar, Turn Me On Dammit!, Elena, Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present.

They see me DeLoreanin', they hatin'...