... 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.

... FOR "FRANCHISE FACE-OFFS (PART 1 - JACK RYAN EDITION)"

What makes a quality sequel? At the very least, it should expand upon the themes and characters we encountered in the original film. It should also provide us a refresher course on those elements that made the first chapter work so well in the first place, without merely being content to rehash them.

It's a sad fact, however, that so few sequels in cinema history have been able to do this. Sure, there's always a chance that a follow-up film might equal or (on occasion) even surpass the original, but examples of this are few and far between. Studios are just as likely to rush a sequel into production to make a quick buck, rather than, say, put in the time and effort it takes to create something special. That's why, for every Godfather Part II there's a Men In Black II. For every Empire Strikes Back there's Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D, and Jaws The Revenge.

A few weeks ago we attended family dinner at the in-laws' and somebody had decided to pop The Hunt For Red October into the DVD player. Nice choice, that one. It's the kind of movie I'll always stop and watch whenever it's playing on TV - a brainy, brawny techno-thriller starring Sean Connery as a Russian submarine captain trying to defect to America, and Alec Baldwin as the CIA analyst trying to outguess his every move, before the entire Soviet Navy can hunt him down and stop him.

... FOR "CASTING SHIFTS..." (CONTINUED)

As an addendum to last week's post, I thought I'd entertain those less "in the know," as they say, with some of the more famous instances of Actors Replaced By Other Actors In Major Studio Tentpoles. (This is different from Actors Who Filled In For Other Actors Who Died, as it happened with Harry Potter or Superman, which may or may not be the subject of a post sometime in the future.)

Here are five cases I've always found particularly fascinating: