John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Matrix a Lego

If Star Wars and Indiana Jones can get the Lego treatment, why not The Matrix?

If you know the "Trinity Help" sequence of The Matrix, you may be wondering just how closely the Lego parody comes to the original. This side-by-side comparison shows you just that.

Movie poster makeovers

Movie buffs love picking apart the variations between an original film and a remake; design buffs turn their eyes to other things, like the posters. Six Revisions, a design blog I follow, compared a slew of posters used to sell different versions of films, including Scarface, above.

A Deathy Hallows peek

Warner's has teased the Harry Potter universe with a glimpse into what the film version(s) of Deathly Hallows will look like. The first part still won't be out until next November, so we can expect plenty more to stream out in the next 11 months.

Dh Preview One - For more amazing video clips, click here

When Ralphie, the Christmas Story kid, sold chocolate milk

We kicked off the Christmas season at our house with a command performance of A Christmas Story, which never fails to get a smile. (I've been a fan since the late 1980s, when the late Art Rockwood all but insisted I buy a copy.) I was curious to learn that Peter Billingsley, who played the BB-gun-loving Ralphie, had appeared as Messy Marvin, the kid in the Hershey's chocolate syrup commercials of the early 1980s. A collection are below. Billingsley, incidentally, is flourishing, albeit behind the camera. He directed this year's Couples Retreat, and was one of the producers of Iron Man, among other movies.

Here are three more, unfortunately with subpar sound:

A backward glance at ridiculous movie moments

Remember 2008? Not sure? If you took in a lot of movies last year, you may enjoy this fine list of absurd scenes, including how you can get outstanding cell service in the middle of the planet.

Lost: The poster

Eric Tan is a California artist who does incredible posters, and often just for his own purposes. (He works for Disney, though.) Above is a poster he did for Lost, the TV show; many of the items on his blog relate to movies. He doesn't post often, but much of what you'll see are gems.

Stop Making Sense after 25 years (and in Blu-Ray)

I had one of those "25 years? Really??" moments today, when I read about how Stop Making Sense, the 1984 Talking Heads concert film, is being gussied up for a Blu-Ray re-release. (Rave review of the transfer here.) I'm with those who put at the top of the concert-film heap; even now, there's nothing like it, with the stunning musical performances and, especially, how Jonathan Demme shot it.

I saw it several times when I was working in Ottawa between 1985 and 1987; the Bytown rep cinema, then in Vanier (and a short walk from our apartment) seemed to play it at least once a month. How popular was it? We, and many others, got up to dance to it. I have a copy on DVD, and if I play it now, it's almost because I want something to listen to while I do the laundry and that kind of thing. But it's still worth watching, from beginning to end; the end, in fact, is a bit of a payoff, when Demme finally reveals the unseen audience at the Pantages theatre in Los Angeles, who are shown to be as sweat-soaked as the band itself. Small wonder.

Here's Once in a Lifetime, a good sample of both the look and sound of a terrific film.

It's a Wonderful Lime

... and it's one of the entries in a Worth 1000 competition this summer called One Letter Off, in which players rejigged movie posters by adjusting a single letter in the title. Hence, Wall, The Depanted and Pam's Labyrinth, among others. 

Were you aware you were dead?, David Letterman asks Matt Damon

David Letterman had some fun the other evening with Matt Damon, ostensibly hawking The Informant!, about TMZ-fuelled reports that Damon was dead.

Odd Job: Celebrity endorser

Odd Job remains one of the great villains in the James Bond canon ... but did you know the character lent his brute force and peculiar charm to cough suppressant commercials, too? Here's a gem from 1968.