... FOR "DETAILS YOU PROBABLY NEVER NOTICED IN POPULAR FILMS BEFORE ('DIE ANOTHER DAY' EDITION)"

One of the most derided entries in the James Bond canon, Die Another Day opened in November of 2002 to coincide with 007's 40-year cinematic anniversary. It was Pierce Brosnan's fourth and final outing as the inimitable superspy, and the first Bond film to embrace the use of CGI for its action scenes (which was a major source of said derision). Yet despite the misgivings of critics and Bond fans alike, Die Another Day managed to gross $432 million worldwide - the highest-grossing franchise entry up to that point (unadjusted for inflation). The plot, for the uninitiated, centers around a failed mission in North Korea during which Bond is captured and held prisoner for 14 months. Once released, Bond finds he's been disavowed by MI6 and that his 00 status has been rescinded... but never one to shrink from a challenge (ahem), decides to go "rogue" in order to clear his name and discover the identity of the agent who betrayed him. Along the way, Bond makes friends with a bikini-clad sidekick, engages his enemy in a “winner takes all” sporting match, drives around in his patented Aston Martin with built-in patented ejector seat, hangs off cliffs, has his cover blown by facial recognition software, and disarms a solar-powered superweapon (not in that order).

If any of that sounds at all familiar to you, congratulations: you've seen enough James Bond in your lifetime to know that Die Another Day cribs from the best (and some of the not-so-best) of them. (And those are: Bond going rogue = Licence To Kill; betrayed by fellow agent = GoldenEye; bikini sidekick = Dr. No; sporting match + ejector seat = Goldfinger; cliff-hanging = For Your Eyes Only; facial recognition = A View To A Kill; solar superweapon = The Man With The Golden Gun.) But is this a case of pure laziness on the filmmakers' part, or simply par for the course at this point? Like any good soup or stew, we expect our Bond films to be stuffed with all the familiar ingredients - a sprinkle of outlandish gadgetry here, a dollop of double entendres there, three cups of vehicular mayhem over there. And while I admit having a soft spot for the film itself (I like the devil-may-care, adrenaline-pumping pace of the thing, despite the ridiculousness of the plot), I'll also be the first to admit that Die Another Day, more than The World Is Not Enough before it, plays more like a Greatest Hits assemblage of previous Bond adventures than an actual movie.

The franchise's 40th Anniversary might have more to do with this than we initially suspected. The makers of Die Another Day had two simple requirements: one, make the movie accessible to The Fast And The Furious set, and two, include enough homages to Bond's cinema past while trying to appeal to the The Fast And The Furious set. As such, 007's 20th big-screen endeavor is not only loaded with crash-zooms and extreme sports sequences but also references to every (official) Bond film ever made. Some of these are subtle - others, not so much. Then again, James Bond has never been one for subtlety.

... FOR "HALLOWEEN HORROR PROJECT 2016"

Well, it's Halloween again, folks! That time when we fire up our cauldrons and our jack-o'-lanterns, and line the grocery stores for our Kit Kats and costumes for the kiddos, all in anticipation of everyone's second favorite holiday of the year (or, as we like to call it in the Lundberg home, The Night We Stock Up On Enough Stinking Candy To Last Us Through Easter At Least). It is also the time for movies about ghouls, ghosts, and goblins to flood our cinematic consciousness, and in keeping with tradition here at FTWW, I wanted to do something fun for you guys as a countdown to the big night.

This year, though, I wanted to make it a bit more personal, so instead of offering up a generic list of Horror titles guaranteed to worm their way into everyone's torture chamber at night, I've decided to share 31 (31 - get it?) of the biggest frights of my entire movie-going experience - specific moments from specific films, in order of intensity, which managed to scare the ever-living bejeebus out of me since I first fell in love with movies as a kid.

... FOR "'ANT-MAN,' 'TERMINATOR GENISYS,' AND THE ART OF DE-AGING ACTORS FOR BIG SCREEN PURPOSES"

If Ant-Man and Terminator Genisys have taught us anything this summer, it's that there's still plenty of life left in our older generation of actors yet. And I don't mean that in the metaphorical, gee-I-never-knew-they-still-had-it-in-them sprightly performance kind of way. After all, Michael Douglas is merely a supporting player in Marvel's latest bid for superhero supremacy, and spends most of his time standing on the sidelines, spouting exposition. Schwarzenegger, too, plays more of an expository machine than killing machine this time out, trying to make sense of so many fractured timelines and cracking jokes about being "old but not obsolete" (though box office pundits might beg to differ on that last one). The problem is, most of our marquee movie stars of yesteryear simply can't compete with the Vin Diesels and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnsons of today - Douglas, for all his vim and vigor, turns 71 this September, while Schwarzenegger celebrated his 68th birthday on July 30 - so they've been "promoted" to mentor roles or crotchety figures of fun in order to stay relevant. For one brief shining moment in both Ant-Man and Terminator Genisys, however, we're reminded of their past glories (and unwithered faces) with the help of some revolutionary CG effects, and the results, for a change, are breathtaking. Never before has a digital face-lift looked so good.

Granted, CGI hasn't always had the best track record for replicating human flesh on screen. Skin tones tend to look plastic, and contrary to popular belief, human beings do not move with the dexterity of stop-motion animated figures, with rubbery, elongated limbs. And yet filmmakers insist on pushing the technology to its absolute limits, regardless of necessity or common sense. Close-ups of faces, in particular, are especially unforgiving, since we're practically invited to get a cold, hard look at the imperfections of the process. Like this computer-generated visage of actor Bruce Lee, resurrected for a Johnnie Walker whiskey commercial that aired on Chinese television in 2013:

... FOR "THE DC/MARVEL CHARACTER CASTING SHUFFLE"

When we last saw him in 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, depending on which screening you were (un)lucky enough to attend, Mr. Wade Winston Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) - aka Deadpool, aka Weapon X - was lying amongst the rubble of Three Mile Island, having literally lost his head in a battle with a certain adamantium-clawed superhero. Of course, not even a good decapitation can keep a good Deadpool down, which is why our final fleeting glimpse of the Merc With A Mouth came as a shock to absolutely no one: As his clearly not-dead hand crawled toward his clearly not-dead severed head, his eyes fluttered open, and his lips offered a pre-emptive "Shhhh...", in a bit of fourth-wall breaking that was perfectly in keeping with the comic books. X-Men Origins didn't get a lot of things right, but that was certainly one of them, and fans have spent the last six years anxiously awaiting the promise of that shot - a Deadpool solo spin-off movie, or at the very least, a follow-up film in which Deadpool played anything other a superfluous side character.

Which, come February 12, 2016, is exactly what we're gonna get. Directed by former VFX artist Tim Miller, and starring Reynolds, Ed Skrein, and Morena Baccarin, Deadpool: The Movie finally sprung to life following a two-minute sizzle reel that leaked to the Internet in July 2012. This bootleg test footage (also directed by Miller), in which a fully-costumed, heavily-CGI'd Deadpool slices, dices, and sarcasms his way through a car-load of hapless henchmen, really seemed to get the character's trademark snark down pat, and wowed 20th Century Fox executives enough to greenlight a feature film. Production then began on March 23, 2015, and ended on May 29; in between, Mr. Reynolds, always the cad, Tweeted a number of memorable reveals about the shoot (most of them NSFW), in an epic attempt to assure fans that the property was in good hands. And then, on July 11, all fears about the movie were finally laid to rest, when an exclusive trailer debuted to cheering crowds at the San Diego Comic-Con. It will be everything Deadpool devotees have come to expect from the character: quippy, profane, gratuitously violent, and a kick in the pants to all other comic book movies that came before it.

... FOR "CRASHING PLANES AND SUPER-RESCUES"

On Wednesday, CBS released the extended trailer for their upcoming Supergirl series (set to debut this November), to general acclaim from fanboys and network nitpickers alike. Developed by Greg Berlanti (whose production company also oversees The Flash and Arrow for The CW) and Ali Adler (ABC'S No Ordinary Family), Supergirl stars Melissa Benoist as Kara Zor-El, Superman's Kryptonian cousin, who, "after 12 years of keeping her powers a secret on Earth, decides to finally embrace her superhuman abilities and be the hero she was always meant to be." In short, it's your typical superhero origin story, on a TV budget, with all the comic book existentialism and witty romantic comedy banter we've come to expect from our modern-day pop entertainments.

For her part, Benoist captures the cheerfulness and naivete of the character quite well, thank you very much, especially during the action scenes - check out her obvious glee, for example, at 4:35, when she discovers she's bulletproof. (Speaking of Glee: Benoist and her Flash counterpart, Grant Gustin, are both veterans of Fox's musical melodrama.) The writing, too, takes obvious delight poking at gender stereotypes ("What do you think is so bad about 'girl'? I'm a girl, and your boss, and powerful, and rich, and hot, and smart. So if you perceive 'Supergirl' as anything less than excellent, isn't the real problem... you?"), and, of course, includes its share of Easter Eggs.

... FOR "MOVIE COINCIDENCE(S) OF THE DAY #10 - MOVIE TRAILERS, 2015 EDITION"

Last week, we spoke a bit about the current state of advertising in Hollywood - specifically, how film distributors have figured out a way to tease the trailers for upcoming films, of all things, only to fall prey to Internet hackers and piracy. What we didn't talk about, though the topic certainly merits some discussion, is how these trailers seem to be advertising for films you may have already seen on the big screen. And I'm not just talking about sequels repeating the vices and virtues of their respective originals, as is so often the case. I'm talking about specific shots or sequences lifted from previous blockbusters. They just might be too subtle for anyone to notice them.

There's Marvel's Avengers: Age Of Ultron, of course, which just opened to $191 million in the U.S. (and crossed the $631-million mark at the box office worldwide). But while you can expect the sequel to the Third Most Successful Film Of All Time to continue many of the MCU's long-standing traditions - sequel baiting, mystical doodads, killing off major characters only to bring them back in future installments - there's a moment, approximately 1:30 into the third and final trailer for Age Of Ultron, that should be instantly familiar to fans of The Matrix Reloaded:

... FOR "MARKETING PLOYS AND THE TEASER FOR THE TEASER FOR THE TRAILER FOR THE MOVIE YOU'RE DYING TO SEE"

Could someone please tell me when trailer-worship became an actual thing? By "trailer," of course, I mean "a short promotional film composed of clips showing highlights of a movie due for release in the near future," as Dictionary.com defines it, and by "worship" I mean "people completely losing their s#@% over two minutes of random footage for a movie that probably hasn't even finished shooting yet." Most unsettling is the fact that you no longer need to venture down to your local theater to view these trailers in all their big-screen glory, as was the case in my day. Now, you can download the latest trailers onto your computer, or access them on YouTube or some attention-seeking celebrity's Facebook or Twitter feed, to your heart's content.

As if that weren't enough, we have now reached a point where studios have started releasing trailers for their trailers - 30-60-second teasers for full-length previews soon to debut on TV or the web. I first noticed this during the build-up to Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), when Paramount rolled out this minute-long teaser on December 6th, 2012:

... FOR "MOVIE COINCIDENCE OF THE DAY #9 ('THE IRON GIANT'/'WRECK-IT-RALPH'/'THE DARK KNIGHT RISES' EDITION)"

Our continuing series of blog posts in which we take a look at odd movie coincidences – scenes, jokes, dialogue, even specific camera shots shared between two (or more) seemingly unrelated films. Anyone who's sat through a particular scene in a movie and thought, "Gee, haven't I seen someone so this somewhere before?" will know exactly what I’m talking about.

One of the most underrated animated films of the last twenty years, Brad Bird's The Iron Giant (1999) tells the gentle story of a nine-year-old boy who befriends a sentient robot from outer space. It was based on a children's book, The Iron Man, written by Ted Hughes and published in 1968 (then later adapted as a rock musical by The Who's Pete Townshend). The movie was adored by critics but largely (some would say criminally) ignored by audiences, thanks to a half-hearted marketing push by Warner Bros, who apparently couldn't make heads or tails of it. Since then, it's grown in stature not just as a classic of animation but as a classic American film - as much for its rich 50s period setting as its wicked sense of humor, showcased already by Bird during his stint on The Simpsons (1989-1998) and again during The Incredibles (2004) and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).

... FOR "'BIG HERO 6' AND CAPTURING THAT OLD MARVEL MAGIC"

First things first: Big Hero 6, Disney's 54th Animated Classic, is a charming, heartwarming, often exhilarating adventure that also happens to teach a valuable lesson about grief - how we cope with it, what we do with it, and how we channel that grief into something destructive or used for the greater good. (The screenplay, believe it or not, even incorporates Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief to some degree.) Having watched it at home for the 60th or 70th time (my five-year-old is obsessed with it), I can safely say that the fun and impact of the movie haven't lessened a bit since our first initial viewing - a sign of a quality film if there ever was one. What's also clear, and I'm surprised most reviews failed to focus on it, is that Big Hero 6 is very much a Comic Book Movie in the Marvel mold, with cuddlier characters and a CG bubble gum sheen to rank with Disney's finest.

"What's this?" you ask. "Big Hero 6 is based on a comic book?" "Why, yes," I reply, but one so obscure you're forgiven if you've never heard of it. Created by Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau (who own and operate Man of Action Entertainment, a writers' collective responsible for cartoons such as Ben 10 and Generator Rex), Big Hero 6 first appeared in a three-issue Marvel mini-series in September of 1998. They were a group of highly-intelligent super-beings, sanctioned by the Japanese government to protect the country from enemy attack. The team's initial roster included Silver Samurai/Kenuichio Harada (whose name should have extra resonance for X-Men fans), Sunfire/Shiro Yoshida, GoGo Tomago/Leiko Tanaka, Honey Lemon/Aiko Miyazaki, and Hiro Takachiho and his monster guardian, Baymax. (Future team members included Ebon Samurai, Fredzilla, and Wasabi-No-Ginger.) Needless to say, their comic book incarnations differ greatly from the characters in the film.

... FOR "MORE ACTORS WHO SHOULD PLAY OTHER ACTORS' FAMILY MEMBERS"

So here we are, back for another round of celebrity doppelgangers. Believe it or not, I'd just barely finished up our previous post on the subject when I immediately thought of 15-20 more AWSPOAFMs who could have just as easily made the cut. But that's all for the greater good, I guess, since I was hoping to expand this into a regular column anyway.

As expected, the reaction was a typical one, with enough Facebook friends submitting their own ideas for future brother/sister/parent pair-ups to last us an additional post or two. Also as promised, I will be taking those suggestions and including them here, one per post, in addition to some of my own. As always, your recommendations are welcome, either below or on FTWW's Facebook page. Let's keep this game going for as long as we can!

... FOR "A TALE OF TWO 'POLTERGEIST'(S)"

UPDATE: Via this report from Variety.com, MGM and 20th Century Fox have moved up the release date for Poltergeist to May 22, 2015. The article that follows remains unaltered from its original post.

Excuse me for sounding a little churlish, but the newly-released trailer for 20th Century Fox's Poltergeist remake has my stomach in knots, and I don't mean in a good way. The film, which opens July 24th, has been touted as "a revisionist take" on Tobe Hooper's 1982 horror classic, with "modern" updates including cell phones and flat-screen TVs. Which is fine, I guess - I mean, this is Hollywood, after all, where people aren't truly happy unless they're busy ripping off someone else's work or exploiting the latest adventures of the world's greatest superheroes. And this is hardly the first time Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures label has tried rejiggering a modern classic, with remakes of The Grudge and The Evil Dead burning up theater screens in 2004 and 2013, respectively. My question, though: what's the point in remaking something if you don't have anything new to bring to the table? Why reproduce the same thrills and chills if you can't be bothered to give a fresh spin on old material?

Despite the change in cast (Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt make fine replacements for Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams from the original movie), the new Poltergeist looks to be a rehash of the same exact plot - close-knit family moves into suburban home and is immediately beset by supernatural forces. Again, this is nothing new. Remakes have been a part of our cinematic diet since the days of the earliest films, when Cecil B. DeMille remade his 1914 silent The Squaw Man in 1918 and again in 1931. (Trivia bit: DeMille also directed a silent version of The Ten Commandments in 1923, then later reused some of the same props and sets for his 1956 remake.) True, the marketing gurus behind Poltergeist 2015 could be deliberately trying to goad us into seeing the new movie by plumbing our nostalgia for the previous one. And yes, the final film as released could be entirely different from what the trailer lets on. But the fact that so many elements come directly from Hooper's version suggests a paucity of imagination on the filmmakers' part.

... FOR "GREAT SCENES IN OTHERWISE CRAPPY MOVIES" ("THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2" EDITION)

There are good movies and there are bad movies. There are bad movies with pieces you admire and good movies with scenes you'd be happy to do without. And it's hard to tell which is worse. I vote the former, because any stinker that seems to get so much wrong from the outset is only that much more frustrating when you catch glimpses of its greatness - those moments, however fleeting, where its makers have an absolute grasp of their material. It's scenes like these which we'll highlight for the purposes of this series.

I apologize if I've been harping on Sony Pictures' rebooted Amazing Spider-Man series a little too much as of late. I don't mean to sound like some disgruntled fanboy, unhappy with even the slightest attempt at "modernizing" everyone's favorite web-slinging superhero for the silver screen. Watching them mishandle the property so spectacularly for so long, however (I'm talking about 2007's woebegotten Spider-Man 3 and onward), it's only natural that the reboot became the proverbial punching bag among comic book-to-movie franchises, especially in lieu of Marvel Studios' continued dominance at the box office. (Which is what makes Sony's recent decision to "loan" Spider-Man out to Marvel such an exciting prospect - if you're going to reboot the character, you might as well give it to people who know what they're doing.)

... FOR "MOVIE COINCIDENCE OF THE DAY #8 ('THE SANTA CLAUSE 2' / 'BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III' EDITION)"

Ah, Christmas. That time of year when we gather close to the ones we love, preferably in front of a warm fireplace with a cup of fresh wassel in our hands. A time to bask in the warming glow of each other's company with the snow falling in thick blankets outside. A time of peace, joy, and understanding. And if you're Santa Claus in desperate need of finding a wife before your contractual obligation to do so expires on Christmas Eve, a time to come clean to the beautiful high school principal you've been wooing in hopes she'll return with you to the North Pole to live out the rest of her natural life.

Complicated? To say the least. In this scene from Disney's The Santa Clause 2 (2002), Scott Calvin (Tim Allen), shrunk down in size the closer he comes to his deadline, tries to convince the lovely Carol Newman (Elizabeth Mitchell) that he is, in fact, the most famous holiday mascot in the history of the world. Needless to say what happens does not exactly bode well for their relationship. Then again, the last time I tried convincing a girl that I was actually Santa Claus, she reacted in pretty much the same way:

... FOR "MOVIE COINCIDENCE OF THE DAY #7" (OR, "THAT TIME 'PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN' TOTALLY RIPPED OFF AN OLD BUGS BUNNY CARTOON")

So I was able to enjoy some much-needed rest and relaxation last month, while on vacation with the in-laws at Disneyland, and during one particularly lackadaisical morning in our hotel room, managed to catch the tail end of a Looney Tunes marathon on Cartoon Network. That sounds a bit like sacrilege, I know (Warner Bros created its Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon shorts to compete with Disney's Silly Symphonies during the 1930s), but my love for Bugs, Daffy and the rest apparently knows no bounds, and it's always good to catch up with them on occasion. Even my 12-year-old nephew seemed to get a kick out of them, laughing along with the jokes and staying one step ahead of the characters, which was especially good for my ego.

One cartoon on the rotation, 1954's Captain Hareblower, has always been a personal favorite. It stars Yosemite Sam as a high-seas pirate who tries (unsuccessfully) to commandeer a vessel piloted by that wascally wabbit himself, Mr. Bugs Bunny. (Says Bugs, after Pirate Sam's first declaration of war, "Now, he should know better than that!") Naturally, hilarious hi-jinks ensue, involving a shark, a match, an axe, close-range cannon fire, and a bomb that somehow stays lit underwater - not necessarily in that order. Of course, only Bugs escapes with his dignity intact. Here it is in its entirety, courtesy of YouTube:

... IN DEFENSE OF "HORROR MOVIES"

Why do we love Horror movies? What is it about them we find so consistently fascinating? Is it the childlike thrill of the dark? A secret love for things that jump out and go "Boo!"? Or is it something deeper - a catharsis, say, a way of facing our fears head on, only to emerge, two hours later with a silly grin on our faces, into the light? The fact is, most of us like to be scared on one level or another. It's the adrenaline you feel, that thumping in your chest when you're forced to step outside your comfort zone. This is true whether you're jumping from a plane, climbing a rock face, or riding a roller coaster - you get addicted to it, like a drug. Horror films affect us in much the same way.

Even so, Horror movies tend to illicit different reactions from the people watching them. It's hard to feel threatened by Dracula, for instance, if you don't find vampires particularly frightful or menacing. The shark scenes in Jaws may turn your basic aquaphobe to a quivering mess on the floor, but the effect will be decidedly different for anyone who's spent a great deal of time out on the ocean. From the silent Expressionist films of the 20s (The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu) to Universal's classic monsters of the 30s and 40s (Frankenstein, The Wolf Man) to the slasher flicks of the 70s and 80s (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween and their countless clones) and finally to the J-Horror and "torture porn" films of the Noughties (Ju-On: The Grudge, Hostel), the genre has been fractured and splintered into so many subcategories that there's practically something for everyone. The question becomes: What kind of Horror fiend are you?

... FOR "COINCIDENCES AND CROSSOVERS" (OR, "THAT TIME YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTER FROM SOME OTHER MOVIE ALSO POPPED UP IN...")

Our previous post on Disney's Maleficent leaned a little on the heavy side, so today I thought we'd try something lighter and more trivia-centric...

Watching Collateral the other night, I was struck again by the simplicity of its script, the amazing clarity of its high-def digital photography, the way Michael Mann is able to wring supple, nuanced performances from his two stars, Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, and... holy crap, is that Jason "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" Statham switching briefcases with Tom Cruise at the beginning of the movie? Or did my eyes just deceive me? The man may only show his face for about 15-20 seconds or so, but... yep, a quick scan of IMDb shows that Statham is indeed in the movie (credited only as "Airport Man"). My interest piqued, I check IMDb again, and see that Statham's Collateral cameo comes only one year after The Italian Job (2003) and two years after The Transporter (2002). So he'd already made a name for himself by the time 2004 rolled around - why such a bit part in an otherwise major motion picture? Was it a favor to the director? A favor to Cruise? A way of passing the baton from one action hero to another?

... FOR "DETAILS YOU PROBABLY NEVER NOTICED IN POPULAR FILMS BEFORE ('GHOSTBUSTERS' EDITION)"

In celebration of last weekend's 30th-anniversary re-release of Ghostbusters (not, thankfully, in 3D), we take a deeper dive into one of the movie's biggest and most memorable gags...

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. You know the name. You know the face. You know the portly, pillowy body. From the moment he stepped onscreen, walking out onto that New York City street to battle the 'busters, Mr. Stay Puft became an instant part of our pop culture lexicon, like a cross between the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Michelin Tire Man. The genius of his conception, though, is how it perfectly captured the spirit of the movie in one glorious iconic image - the promise of the supernatural mixed with gut-busting belly laughs brought to life by larger-than-life special effects. (Even today, three decades later, I can still hear the peals of laughter rippling through the theater when the audience first caught a glimpse of him.)

... FOR "UNSUNG HEROES: STELLAN SKARSGÅRD"

A(nother) new feature here at FTWW, in which we celebrate the unsung heroes of the cinema: those hard-working, multi-faceted professionals who've dipped their toes into just about every motion picture ever made - though you'd be hard-pressed to remember who they are or where you'd seen them before. In their own way, their talents are every bit as recognizable as Robert De Niro's or Meryl Streep's - even if their faces are not. With this series, hopefully, we aim to change all that.

Born June 13, 1951, in Gothenburg, Sweden, Stellan Skarsgård didn't initially plan on becoming an actor (he says he wanted to be a diplomat), yet he lucked into it anyway, when he was cast as the title character in the TV series Bomvbi Bitt och jag (Bombi Bitt & I, 1968) at 16 years old. The role catapulted him to the status of a rock star in his native country, and in 1972, Skarsgård joined The Royal Dramatic Theatre Company in Stockholm, where he worked regularly on stage and in film for directors such as Alf Sjberg and Ingmar Bergman. It wasn't until 1985, however, that he gained international acclaim, playing a mentally-disturbed immigrant farmhand in the American Playhouse episode Noon Wine. He won the Guldbagge and Silver Berlin Bear awards for his efforts. Naturally, it wasn't long before Hollywood came calling.

... FOR "DETAILS YOU PROBABLY NEVER NOTICED IN POPULAR FILMS BEFORE ('DIE HARD' EDITION)"

A continuation on a theme, again, as we take a closer look at Die Hard (1988). Unquestionably one of the most influential action films of the 80s (along with Raiders Of The Lost Ark and John Woo's The Killer), John McTiernan's game-changing box office blockbuster snuck up on audiences worldwide, catapulting Bruce Willis into superstardom and launching its own brand of wannabes and knockoffs ("Die Hard... on a boat!" "Die Hard... on a plane!" "Die Hard... in a hockey arena!" ). To judge the film by its countless clones and imitators, though, is to diminish its special contributions to the genre.

Aside from the obvious, which we'll cover in a future Franchise Face-Off (or, if you prefer, you can read Matt Zoller Seitz's in-depth appreciation of its 25th anniversary here), Die Hard is a masterpiece of spatial composition and the characters' relation to the camera frame. The production design by Jackson DeGovia, for example, or McTiernan's staging of certain shots, which constantly arranges actors and objects in trianglular formations:

... FOR "DIRECTOR'S TRADEMARKS: JOHN McTIERNAN AND THE AXIAL CUT"

Last week's post took a lot out of me. I've said it before, but it takes a tremendous amount of brain power to focus all my extra energy and attention on one particular type of film or filmmaker these days, especially with the stresses of work (two jobs!) and family (four kids!) taking precedence so much of the time, and picking apart the films of M. Night Shyamalan was no exception. What it did, however, was get me thinking of other directors' most recognizable trademarks - those nuances or specific camera techniques repeated again and again throughout their cinematic oeuvres. Whether big (Spielberg's Looking Wide-Eyed With Wonder At Some Off-Screen Presence shots) or small (Hitchcock's cameos), directors do love sticking their personal stamp on things. If they didn't, how else would we know who directed what?

Once a staple of late-'80s/early-'90s action cinema, John McTiernan has long since disappeared from the spotlight, mostly due to his nasty run-in with the federal government (well, that and Rollerball [2002]). For a while, though, he was widely considered king, with Predator (1987), Die Hard (1988) and The Hunt For Red October (1990) entrenching themselves forever into the public consciousness. To this day, critics and film scholars continue to sing McTiernan's praises, in particular David Bordwell, who speaks on his blog about the director's penchant for "unfussy following shots" and "tightly-woven classicism." And while it's true that McTiernan's style may seem positively old-fashioned compared to today's smash-and-grab editing techniques, like many filmmakers, he wasn't above cribbing from himself on a regular basis.