Portent

In the USA you’ll often see telephone numbers in TV and films with the area code 555. This is a made up area code, specifically for entertainment purposes. This site has an incredibly exhaustive list. Simpson’s fans will know that the numbers occur very frequently, whether it’s the Sleep-Eazy Motel(555-1000) which is the same number as the Yellow Cab Company in the film the Fast and the Furious! Or Moe’s tavern (555-1239) or the Marital Stress Hotline (555-1680).

One thing’s for sure. Whenever you see a 555 number in a film etc. in future, it will remind you of this website!

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How many times have you seen someone shot in a film and sent flying backwards? it only happens in films (movies) and not real life.

This site looks at popular films from the point of view of the physics in them and then points out the flaws. Cars don’t explode when they roll down a hill. Throw a cigarette in a bowl of petrol (gas) and it won’t ignite. Spaceships don’t make noise in space. There’s a review of recent blockbusters concentrating on the bad physics in them. Plus a few films which get highlighted for their accuracy and general good physics but they’re easily outnumbered by the bad ones!

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I’d seen these kicking around the web for some years but this is an expanded list, up to 100 and I think they’re just great. Things like hackers being able to crack passwords in a few seconds (as if!) or chase scenes on foot in the road where a car screeches to a halt as people run in front  and the driver leans out the window and shouts at them.

Film and TV cliches occur because Directors generally like to avoid the minutiae of real life. If the hero can’t park his car straight away (#17 in the list) it will detract from the plot or make it less action filled. It’s hard to avoid doing things the same way which is why we the film viewing public are starting to notice them.

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Recreating the entire 2001 film in Lego would be a massive undertaking and wisely this doesn’t attempt to do that. Instead in just one minute it gives a potted take of the best scenes, e.g. the ape striking the bone which segues into Discovery (not as nice looking as this Lego Discovery!), then the scene where HAL 9000 tries to prevent Dave Bowman from re-entering the ship and the final psychedelic trip voyage and finish in the Hotel room.

However it does play for laughs with digital text on the Monolith “Hit things with Sticks!” and an accurate observation by HAL “I can’t Dave, I’m nuts…”. This is nicely done and very professional looking. It may only last a minute but clearly a lot of time and effort went into making it.

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I’m not sure if this site is still being updated as it has 2005, 2006 copyright dates but it has a fair amount of stuff on it so worth while for that.

It shows the locations (on Google Maps) where some films (that’s movies for US readers!) and TV shows were made. I’ve been watching Prison Break a lot, so as it is filmed in a real prison (Joliet Prison in Illinois according to the website), I thought’d I’d use it as the screen dump. If you haven’t seen the TV show, don’t miss it, it’s excellent.

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Films these days cost a lot to make so they have marketing budgets to match, and of course a website. The website often includes a gimmick- a game, etc and because there is a decent marketing budget the quality is usually pretty good and its done in flash of course.

Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy aims to be the next Harry Potter and the first film- the Golden Compass comes out in December. I’ve read the books and they are different- possibly more in the CS Lewis “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” mould but that is a big generalisation of course! The website includes a 20 question personality test to tell you what your daemon is. Mine is Marchestra, a female gibbon.

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Ever fancied being in a movie? This British website (movie? We call them films!) lets you audition by video for one of many roles.

Additionally you can invest as an angel, with a £109 minimum, which also gives you voting privileges to help choose a cast that doesn’t appear to be made of solid timber. They need £1.2 million and are already 10% of the way there. The director and script are both award winning and if you register you can view the script. There’s a directors blog and an online community. An interesting approach and I hope the film is a smash hit.

Having said that, the site has two things I hate- white text on black and too much Flash animations- it eats up CPU time! Bring out an HTML version of the site please! (There might be one I didn’t see it).

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There are plenty of film review websites but this one is about movie posters. It’s only been going for a few months and is really a blog but if you like films you will probably like this.

It’s not just the individual posters, for example you can see several different posters for the 3rd Bourne film and best films (posters) for last year.

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Ever thought you’d heard a particular dying scream in a film before? There’s a good chance you have. It could be the Wilhelm scream. It’s been used in many Westerns, Star Wars films, the Peter Jackson King Kong, Lord of the Rings, Sin City, Reservoir Dogs, even computer games like Command & Conquer.

Don’t believe it? Follow the link to a video on youtube.com and watch and listen. The picture shows one of the earliest films “The Charge at Feather River.” and that’s Private Wilhelm who is about to shuffle off his mortal coils in 2 seconds. There’s an article on Wikipedia as well with as very comprehensive list of films etc that feature it.

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