... FOR "RANDOM UPDATES TO THE SITE"

When I first embarked on this blogging adventure in February of 2010, I'll admit I was a novice at it in more ways than one. Learning to let my freak flag fly, for one thing, figuring out how to stand toe to toe with (and sometimes head and shoulders above) the millions of other movie blogs out there, by offering up a different spin on the basics of filmcraft - technique, trivia, retrospectives, reviews - than you're probably used to. Or struggling to stay relevant, by paying respect to the films of the present (which, let's be honest, is all people really want to hear about) and also to the films of the past (which, let's face it, is where all modern motion pictures get their ideas). Also learning that you can't be everything to everyone all of the time; sure, people love their Comic Book Movies and their MacGuffin With Egg, but try blogging a quiz or two (or three, or eight), and readers will have nothing to do with it. (It took me too long, perhaps, to realize that once one person responds with the answers, it's pretty much pointless for everyone else.)

Still, the thing that's disappointed me the most is that I haven't been able to build up an audience to the degree I'd initially hoped for. I have my core readership, of course, to whom I'm eternally grateful. Ultimately, though, the responsibility of bringing traffic to the site rests entirely on me, and only me, and I've been slow in making that happen. Never one to toot my own horn, I was uncomfortable at first posting updates to Facebook, or anywhere else for that matter, expecting, I guess, to succeed on the strength of my words alone. But it takes a certain amount of shameless self-promotion to make it anywhere in this world, a fact I've only started warming up to, and now that I've started posting to Twitter and Medium.com, we'll see what that does for the site. (Special thanks to Ether Ling for crafting a marketing plan to help bolster the blog.)

... IN DEFENSE OF "THE FILMS OF M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN"

Writing the post on plagiarism was fun, not just because it distracted me from the business of Disney or comic books or strange coincidences between films, but because it reminded me of something I hadn't thought about in quite some time: the films of M. Night Shyamalan. No doubt you recognize the name; there was a time not long ago, in fact, when audiences could barely bring themselves to think about anyone else. From The Sixth Sense (1999) to Unbreakable (2000) to Signs (2002) and, yes, even The Village (2004), the man could do no wrong, at least in the eyes of box office pundits. Then came the accusations of ripping off other people's work, the big-screen debacle that was Lady In The Water (2006), and worse, The Happening (2008), and suddenly, the one-time wunderkind was reduced to a fake and a fraud, a Hollywood hack whose luck - not to mention his talent - had definitely run out. (And don't get me started on After Earth or The Last Airbender, big-budget studio extravaganzas which clearly showed Shyamalan out of his element.)

Still, for a while there, Shyamalan was rightly regarded as one of the defining voices of the 90s/early Noughties. Like Tarantino, Fincher, Anderson (Wes or P.T.) or Jonze, you went to see a Shyamalan movie to experience the shock of the new, for the mood he created, and for the many ways he toyed with the language of film. Everyone remembers the twist to The Sixth Sense (and to a lesser extent, Unbreakable and The Village), yet there is so much more to his earlier films than initially meets the eye. His long, languishing camera takes, for one - as opposed to the staccato style of editing so common to the contemporaries of his day (here's looking at you, Michael Bay). Or the way he used specific colors to key us in on important plot points. By the time he was 32, people were calling him "the next Spielberg," or, better still, "the next Hitchcock." With praise like that, it's no wonder all the acclaim and attention seemed to go to his head.

... FOR "CINEMA STAPLES AND THE OMNISCIENT FIRST-PERSON CAMERA"

The Truman Show (1998)

Continuity errors. Recycled camera shots. The Wilhelm Scream. So far, we've taken look at some of the more common cinema staples used to "cover up" gaps in editing or shave a few extra dollars off production costs. Nitpicking or no, these are all part of the cinematic language and must be addressed, if only to enrich our understanding of the filmmaking process as a whole. But what about those film flubs or lapses in logic directors purposely try to sneak into their films, in order to make specific dramatic points?

Re-watching Bolt the other week, I was struck again by the propulsiveness of its 11-minute opening sequence, which packs twice the fun of the average Michael Bay action blockbuster and three times the clarity. It also has us believing, for a while at least, that the movie will follow the adventures of 13-year old "Penny," her super-powered pet pooch, and their attempt to rescue Penny's scientist father from the clutches of evil-doers. Then, at the climax ("Bolt, speak!"), the rug is pulled out from under us: What we've been watching isn't an actual adventure at all, but the latest episode of a weekly television series, also called Bolt, with a budget roughly the size of the U.S. deficit. The joke, of course, is that Bolt himself has little idea that everything around him is a great big fake. The makers of the TV show have gone to great lengths to hide the truth from their canine co- star, strategically placing their cameras and sneaking around set. But like a doggie variation on The Truman Show, the facade can only last so long.

... FOR "CINEMA STAPLES AND THE MYSTERY OF THE RECYCLED CAMERA SHOT"

Making movies is hard. In fact, with so many factors at play - script, acting, editing, costume and set design, cinematography, not to mention escalating budgets and ever-tightening production schedules - it's a wonder studios manage to churn out coherent films at all. It takes an enormous amount of talent and patience and all-around singularity of vision to pull off what most directors do; that much is to be admired. Like the rest of us, though - those burdened by countless responsibilities throughout the course of our days - they are only human, and prone to make mistakes. Continuity errors, say - the placement of objects or actors mismatched from one camera shot to the next. Or repeated auditory motifs, which not only hearken back to Hollywood's long and illustrious past but also take us out of the movie itself - so that, when we hear them, we are self-consciously aware that what is unfolding before us is, in fact, only a movie.

The process of editing a film might also pinpoint mistakes not evident during actual production. A missing close-up or establishing shot, for instance, which would otherwise clarify narrative action. A director is then faced with a number of choices: one, he can rustle up the necessary approvals and crew to travel back and get that shot; two, he can skip the shot entirely, and risk confusing his audience; or three, he can find a suitable replacement shot, preferably of something already filmed. Most directors, because of time and money constraints, will often re-use or alter specific shots to suit their particular needs. Let's call this the mystery of the recycled camera angle - a repeated shot, used twice within the same film, to cover up a piece of missing footage.

... FOR "IMAGES ('BATMAN' 1989-97 EDITION - PART TWO)"

Part Two of our Burton/Schumacher retrospective, in which we take a visual tour of the 1989-97 series' special (and not-so-special) pleasures.

It was the summer of 1989, and the hype was inescapable: backpacks, posters, video games, candy dispensers - you couldn't walk two feet without bumping into Batman paraphernalia of some kind. (According to this report, Batman merchandise earned over $500 million in retail that year.) Little did marketing pundits realize that the Caped Crusader's long-awaited return to theater screens would turn out to be such a pop culture phenomenon; Premiere magazine, in fact, in their annual summer box-office prediction issue, guessed that Batman would place 3rd - after Ghostbusters II and Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, respectfully - in ticket sales from May to August. (Tim Burton's block-busting juggernaut wound up grossing $251.2 million in the U.S. - $54 million more than Crusade, and $138 million more than Ghostbusters.)

Standing outside the Alpine Cinema in Brooklyn with my aunt and uncle, you could feel the anticipation crackling in the air. It was midnight on June 24th (getting tickets on opening day was next to impossible) and I can tell you the crowd wasn't just there to watch a movie - they came to be part of an event, a communal experience unlike anything since the original Star Wars. That same excitement carried into the theater too. New York audiences have always been a little more... rambunctious than other places, but this was something different. They cheered when the lights went down. They cheered when the "Batman" title card came up on the screen. They hooped and hollered at the first appearance of the Batmobile. And they rose to their feet and applauded when the lights came up again.

... FOR "MARKETING PLOYS AND THE ART OF THE MONEY SHOT"

I happened to catch Independence Day on AMC last week (well, most of it anyway), and was shocked to re-discover how simplistic the movie plays, and how that simple-mindedness works largely in its favor. It's deliberately designed as a callback to those big-budget, star-studded disaster flicks of the 70's, only this time with aliens, and like Earthquake or The Towering Inferno, it appeals to our most basic desire to watch stuff blow up. Each individual character motivation can be summed up in six words or less (Wants His Ex-Wife Back, Wants To Be An Astronaut, Wants To Be A Better President), the special effects (mostly model work, minimal CGI) are impressive in an old-fashioned Irwin Allen sort of way, and its big emotional crescendos ("Today we celebrate... our Independence Day!") are painted in the biggest, broadest strokes. Lump them all together, and it's no wonder audiences went absolutely ape for it.

... FOR "FRANCHISE FACE-OFFS (PART 5 - 'TRANSFORMERS' EDITION)"

Michael Bay is the devil. Or, wait, let me explain. If everything that's good and wholesome in this world must have an opposite, then by "devil," I mean Michael Bay is the antithesis of everything the movie gods hold dear – coherency of plot, characters who resemble actual human beings, and most of all, film footage that hasn't been edited together with the skill and proficiency of a jackhammer. Bay's style of filmmaking seems geared toward people with attention-deficit disorder: explosions, gunfire, more explosions, hot-bodied men and women parading lasciviously past the camera every 6-7 seconds (or less), as if smacking you in the face to make sure you're paying attention. It's juvenile, and watching his movies, I'm insulted at the notion that my brain needs to be under constant assault to feel entertained.

I guess on some level, you have to respect what the guy does. There's a market for this sort of thing, for better or worse (Bay's films have grossed over $3 billion worldwide), and he plays to those strengths well. Born in Los Angeles in 1965, Michael Benjamin Bay started his film career early on, when he interned at Lucasfilm at the age of fifteen. He majored in English and Film at Wesleyan University, attended Pasadena's Art Center College of Design for his graduate studies, and started directing music videos and television commercials after receiving his degree.

... FOR "HOLLYWOOD DÉJÀ VU"

I'd like to give a shout-out to Netflix, as well as the shattered remnants of my fragile brain, for their ongoing efforts to inspire me with ideas for the blog. There are few creative impulses as satisfying as sitting on the couch with my family, watching a movie, when suddenly that little light bulb goes off in my head, and I find myself inspired to thrill you, oh faithful reader, with my latest bit of useless trivia. (The best way to describe this feeling is like watching a fireworks display – it means, Yay! I've got something new to write about!)

To wit: Last week, Netfilx sent us 1995's Rob Roy from our DVD queue, a movie I'd been meaning (and neglecting) to show the wife for a good long while now. (Why Rob Roy? Well, you can never go wrong with an authentically romantic movie, as far as she's concerned. In this one, Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange have a palpable romantic chemistry that's always impressed me. Plus, there's swordfighting. So, you know – best of both worlds.) I told her the movie was a lot like Braveheart, just to put things in perspective – Scottish accents, grand gestures of love and honor, kilts, all that – and off into the player it went. Long story short, she liked the movie (though, admittedly, not as much as Braveheart). Her only question was, "How tall is Liam Neeson, anyway?" since the guy seemed to be towering over his co- stars (which, after some checking, I found out he's roughly 9'7" tall.)

... FOR "CASTING SHIFTS AND THE PLOTS THAT SUFFER BECAUSE OF THEM"

Back To The Future Part II (1989)

I may be jumping on the bandwagon a little late here (as usual), but has anyone who's read this particular story had the same reaction as mine? (Or, when you do click that and read it, will you?) Megan Fox? Dropping out of Transformers 3? The horror! How can this be?

I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. A little perplexed, maybe, but hardly surprised. After all, this is only the latest in a long line of Sequels That Have Replaced Actors Because Of Popularity And/Or Pride Issues. It's a tried-and-true Hollywood tradition that's affected every movie series from Charlie Chan to James Bond to Batman to Don Cheadle stepping in for Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2. It's nothing new. Although to be fair, in this case it seems they aren't simply recasting the role so much as switching love interests altogether. Which is supposed to make the change a little less jarring, I guess. But whatever.

... FOR "MOVIE DIALOGUE AND 'THE RULE OF THREES'"

Something occurred to me the other day as I sat watching The Princess And The Frog with the kids for the twentieth time. (Good movie, that one. It's always nice when kids latch onto something that doesn't make me want to jab a chopstick in both ears.) Original thought doesn't occur to me all that often, to be perfectly honest, so I thought I'd better get it out there.

You're familiar with "The Rule Of Threes," yes? It's a general rule of thumb based on the assumption that people always remember things better in threes (click here for a more in-depth definition). In screenwriting, the most important use of this rule is the three-act structure, which goes something like this:

   Act One: Main character gets into trouble;

   Act Two: Main character tries to get out of

     trouble, but the more he tries, the deeper he

     gets;

   Act Three: Main character gets out of trouble.