... 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 Once released, Bond finds he's been disavowed by MI6 and that his 00 status has been rescinded...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 "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 "'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.