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

If I pride myself on anything here at FTWW, it's that I'm constantly trying to go against the grain of what every other blog on the 'net is doing. By this I mean no disrespect. There are plenty of quality ways to spend your time online, especially if you're as movie-hungry as I am. Movie trivia sites. Aggregate movie review sites. Sites which cover every aspect of the history of film, or scoops and spoilers about every upcoming film. Yet ever since the beginning, it's been my mission statement of sorts to fly in the face of all that - because why bother giving you something you can literally experience thousands of places elsewhere? And so from this idea came regular columns such as Franchise Face-Offs or MacGuffin With Egg or Details You Probably Never Noticed, the purpose of which is not to preach, or sound smarter than the average person off the street, but to open your eyes to the many ways we look at films - the little things that make them work (or not work), and maybe make us view them in a whole new light.

Which is why it's been just a tad disheartening while researching these AWSPOAFMs to find that many other sites have kinda/sorta covered the same idea already. Popsugar's done it. Den of Geek has done it. Heck, even Cracked.com has done it (their Alec Baldwin/Millard Fillmore connection is an especially nice touch). And in those moments when I've thought to myself, Why bother then?, I am reminded of the simple fact that there is no longer anything new under the sun, this idea of the Celebrity Lookalike included. It's something that's obviously crossed the minds of many a blogger or casual TV watcher/movie goer (even yourself) on many an occasion. That's part of the fun, isn't it? Because it isn't the subject itself you're tackling, but how you go about it that makes all the difference.

... 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 "MACGUFFIN WITH EGG (PART 4 - 'RONIN' EDITION)"

Been a while. Shall we recap? A MacGuffin, lest we forget, is any object or doodad in a story or film that every character wants desperately to get their hands on. It hardly matters what said object is; all we need to know is that everyone wants it, and will do whatever it takes to get it, often at the expense of each other's lives. Done right, the MacGuffin will reveal important truths about the characters (i.e., just how much is this person willing to sacrifice in order to accomplish his/her goals?). Done wrong, or explain it too much, and, well, who cares?

To wit: In Paramount's Mission: Impossible series, Tom Cruise and his Impossible Mission Force are sent to retrieve any number of mysterious artifacts, from a computer file to a vial full of hazardous material, before bad guys can sell it for profit or terror. Characters resolve their differences with bullets or by beating each other to a bloody pulp. In Jaws, the MacGuffin is the shark - the existence of which will test the limits of the three men who set out to stop it. And in Hitchcock's Notorious, uranium stored in champagne bottles forces a spy (Cary Grant) to put the woman he loves (Ingrid Bergman) in harm's way.

... FOR "MOVIE COINCIDENCE OF THE DAY #1"

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

We begin with The Last Samurai (Edward Zwick, 2003) and Oblivion (Joseph Kosinski, 2013), two films as distinctly different as they come. One is a historical drama set in 19th Century Japan; the other a special effects-laden sci-fi parable set 60 years in our future. Both, however, feature the same lead actor (Tom Cruise), and conclude with a strikingly similar series of shots.

In both, our hero is able to make it back, after a Long Personal Journey, to the woman he loves. As she works in the garden (with her offspring looking on), they spot each other from a distance. Each film ends on Cruise's goo goo-eyed expression:

... FOR "IMAGES ('X-MEN' 2000-11 EDITION - PART THREE)"

Part Three of our X-Men movie retrospective, in which we take a visual tour of the franchise's special (and not-so-special) pleasures.

Hidden gems and history lessons. Callbacks and cameo appearances. The X-Men movies are perhaps the most richly textured of all comic book franchises, with plenty of subtext and shout-outs for fans and non-fans alike. Take another look, though, and you'll see the films cribbing not just from themselves but from other popular series as well.


Fearful Symmetry

I spoke last time about the X-Men of First Class learning firsthand from President Kennedy, via television, of the impending Cuban Missile Crisis. Here it is again, in case you missed it:

... FOR "TRAILER ROUNDUP, DECEMBER 2012"

There's been a strange confluence of movie trailer releases over the past week, as if studios are already vying to one-up each other for Most Anticipated Film of 2013. I honestly can't remember the last time so many big-budget previews came out around the same time; has it now become like the Oscars, where you're forced to submit your entries before the new year rolls around in order to qualify? (FYI, you can expect most of these to debut in theaters along with The Hobbit today.)

That's not to say the movies themselves look like a waste; if anything, they're equally enticing in their own way, depending on your preference for genres. Thanks to The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises last summer, audiences are primed, I think, to accept nothing less than perfection from their next potential Hollywood blockbuster. And these latest don't look to disappoint.

... FOR "EDDIE MURPHY-ITIS" (OR, "ANOTHER SAD CASE OF A FALLEN HOLLYWOOD ICON") - UPDATED!

I apologize for interrupting myself, but I was just in the middle of a future Franchise Face-Off starring the once-great Eddie Murphy, when suddenly the thought occurred to me: "Gee, whatever happened to that guy?"

It's a common question these days, unfortunately. Like Tom Cruise, Murphy used to be a pretty big deal. Exploding out of Saturday Night Live, a product of the stand-up comedy circuit of the early 80s, Eddie's hair-trigger comic timing and foul-mouthed, larger-than-life persona had him pegged for everlasting superstardom, and for a while, he rode that train rather well.

... FOR "MACGUFFIN WITH EGG (PART 3 - 'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE' EDITION)"

So to reiterate: A MacGuffin is any "object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance." The entire function of the MacGuffin is to tempt the characters, to give them a "goal," so to speak – something to chase after. It hardly matters what the object is. The focus of the plot should be on what drives the characters to get it, what they do to get it, what happens if they do not get their hands on it.

It can be tough to do the MacGuffin justice. Explain it too much, and you risk losing your audience ("What? These people are risking life, love and limb for this stupid thing and it turns out to be a pack of gum? I'm outta here!"). Explain the MacGuffin just enough to peak your audience's interest, and it's, well, Hitchcock-ian.

Paramount's Mission: Impossible series is a prime example of how to cook up a MacGuffin right. They take the same basic setup as the television series (the Tape Scene, the Plan, and Mission Initiation) then add a modern twist, sending IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) after bad guys in possession of increasingly treacherous objects. Each object is given a brief description before we're off and running, barely pausing to take a breath or to ask any questions. This is exactly how it should be.

... FOR "GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE"

Back on the subject of Knight And Day for a moment, isn't it interesting how our buddy Tom Cruise gets top billing over Cameron Diaz, when Diaz herself is actually the protagonist of the movie? Has anyone else caught onto this?

Remember that a "protagonist" is the lead character of any work of fiction with a "noble goal" – and he or she goes about trying to achieve that goal all through the narrative, though they're blocked from it at regular intervals. The plot hinges entirely on the protagonist (or should), as any decision he or she makes actually drives the story forward. At the end, no matter whether the protagonist achieves that noble goal or not, he or she has been irrevocably changed – not the same person at the wrap-up of the story as they were at the beginning.

... FOR "FALLEN STARS AND THE CAREERS THEY LEAVE BEHIND"

Knight And Day stars Cameron Diaz as a single, solitary Boston gal who falls for a charming stranger on a return flight from Wichita, Kansas. They meet when she bumps into him at the airport – twice, literally. On the plane, they strike up some sparkling conversation. Later, she emerges from the lavatory to find he's killed every passenger on board, including the pilots (actually, he explains, he shot the first pilot who in his death throes turned and shot the other one). He crashes the plane in a cornfield, and the two of them emerge unharmed from the wreckage. Still, she's curiously unfazed – if anything, the fact that this man may in fact be a serial killer only makes him more mysterious... and more attractive. (He did not, after all, try to kill her.) Also, it helps that he's played by Tom Cruise.

You remember Tom Cruise. He used to be kind of a big deal. It was that big, toothy grin of his, the cocky assuredness that made him a star. Audiences ate it up – men, women, it didn't matter. Top Gun. Days Of Thunder. A Few Good Men. The Firm. Mission: Impossible. Jerry Maguire. All $100-million-plus grossers in U.S. box office revenue alone. By 2009, his films totaled over $6.5 billion worldwide. Clearly, the guy could do no wrong. In 1997, Empire magazine even voted him one of the five top movie stars of all time.