LEGO Movie Quiz

Okay so we're a bit bored and decided to steal these images posted by Toyzone and create a LEGO Movie Quiz. Nerds have spent hours of their lives recreating scenes from their favourite films and we're glad. See how many you can get. Star Wars is just a sample but there are some tricky ones. Answers below.

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Answers: 1.)Casablanca 2.)Creepshow 3.)Dr. Strangelove 4.)Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 5.)Iron Giant 6.)Kill Bill 7.)Leon 8.)The Life Aquatic 9.)The Matrix Reloaded 10.)Men in Black 11.)Pulp Fiction 12.)Serenity 13.)The Graduate 14.)The Ring 15.)The Termninator 16.)Titanic 17.)Alien 18.)Bride of Frankenstien 19.)2001

Metacritic's Role Of Shame

Just in case you are unfortunate to come across these movies in a DVD store and your nose is blocked so you can't smell the foul stench of a giant turd and you're blind so you can't see how obviously rubbish they look, and you're deaf so you can't hear people laughing at you when you pick up the box, avoid these movies at all costs. They are the all time top 20 worst reviewed movies on Metacritic with their embarrassingly low score beside them. Okay we realise Metacritic has only been going since 2000 and our claims of 'all-time' are slightly (read extremely) false but are you going to argue against us heaping extra shame on these travesties? No we thought not.

1. Bio-Dome 1996 - 1
2. Singing Forest, The 2003 - 1
3. Chaos 2005 - 3
4. Vulgar 2002 - 5
5. Strippers 2000 - 5
6. Two of a Kind 1983 - 5
7. Dirty Cop, No Donut 2001 - 6
8. National Lampoon's Gold Diggers 2004 - 6
9. Baby Geniuses 1999 - 6
10. Hottie and the Nottie, The 2008 - 7
11. Screwed 2000 - 7
12. Perception 2006 - 8
13. Price of Air, The 2000 - 8
14. State Property 2002 - 9
15. Dirty Love 2005 - 9
16. Meet the Spartans 2008 - 9
17. Alone in the Dark 2005 - 9
18. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 2004 - 9
19. Battlefield Earth 2000 - 9
20. Mail Order Bride 2003 - 9

Disclaimer: If you are deaf, and blind and have a blocked nose, we mean no offence but hey, you won't be reading this so screw you.

Happy Birthday Lebowski

It's 10 years since The Big Lebowski was released in cinemas and in celebration, a 10 year anniversary DVD is being released. Buy it. Simple as that. Even if you have it already, it's hopelessly vanilla and pointless (we prefer our dusty VHS copy - at least you know where it stands on the extras front).

The Big Lebowski isn't just a great movie, it's a cultural phenomenon and a case study in how the reputation of a movie can build slowly but surely and consistently over 10 years to the point where nobody will ever be able to order a White Russian again without somebody quoting a Lebowski line. As the latest issue of Rolling Stone points out, the movie wasn't even that well received on release. It didn't appear to have a big message, a brooding intensity (like Blood Simple) or a warm heart in a cold world (like Fargo). On the surface it just appeared to be a simple comedy. And even at that, it was a comedy which, on first viewing wasn't that funny. There were very few sight gags, very few slapstick moments, very few crass taboo-breaking gross-out moments. It was surreal and confusing and densely plotted. We can see why it was a hard sell and a relative box-office failure.

But with every viewing, this movie just gets funnier. The details. It's all in the details. The endlessly quotable dialogue reveals new jokes with every viewing. The plot invites repeat visits with each scene seemling like a brilliant short movie. The supporting cast all look like they are dropping in for a cameo from some equally bizarre Coen Bothers movie that is going on in a parallel dimension (John Turturro even wants to make that movie about his Jesus character).

What some critics failed to see was that this is a brilliant updating or even a parody of classic noir like The Big Heat. A rich powerful man (who in the case of The Big Heat is in a wheelchair like Lebowski) calls on the hero and gets him embroiled in a case with impossibly convoluted twists, turns, vamps and femme fatales involving murder, and double crosses. The reluctant hero must sort his friends from his enemies while solving the case and nothing is what it seems. Take that classic noir template and move it to sunny, daytime California and thrust it upon the least likely hero possible. A person who just doesn't belong in this high stakes world. A person who doesn't even believe in stakes. A person who just doesn't care. A person who is lazy. The Dude! The Coens new that would be comedy gold and they were proved right. This is Sunny Noir. Noir for beach bums.

To say the film doesn't have a message or a heart is trite. The message is simple. Just like Fargo, in a world of immoral nihilism, greed and double crosses, where everyone is out for themselves, it is after all - as our cowboy narrator says - good to know that The Dude is out there taking it easy for all of us. There are people who may seem like failures or losers but quite often, they are simply good people who don't hold personal agendas or greedy ambitions. They live and let live it's good to know they're out there. Not everyone is on the hustle. That's why we all want to be a bit more like The Dude. It's not just about getting to drink White Russians in your dressing gown.

* See above for a cool video on the top 5 ways the Lebowski legend has evolved in the past 10 years.*

Vantage Point

The idea for Vantage Point had potential. An attempted assassination of the President of the United States (Hurt), at a summit of international leaders to discuss global terrorism, takes place in Salamanca (Spain). The film shows us the same half an hour period through the eyes of different characters; the president himself; the TV producer (Weaver), the tourist (Whitaker), the agents in charge of the presidents detail (Fox and Quaid) and so forth. Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon pioneered this style of filmmaking in 1950 and it has been used in various guises since.

So while not an original idea, surely with a great cast and a big budget we will get a couple of hours of light entertainment. Sadly we spent the end of the film flabbergasted as the plot unfolded, wondering how anyone who read this script actually thought it was a good idea to make this film.

Its shameless that actors of the calibre of Hurt, Quaid and Weaver would sign up for a film like this, though they may longer have the offers they once had. Whitakers participation further proves the Oscar curse where actors careers have a tendency to nose dive after they win the Oscar (see Hillary Swank). But even with a curse in tow, the character he plays and the dialogue he has is truly shocking.

Its not the worst film of all time, the opening half an hour or so is vaguely entertaining. But the longer the film goes on and the plot unravels everything about this film seems to unravel and we are left with actors we once respected sincerely spouting dialogue that is unworthy of the silver screen.

Apparently everyone's (or at least someone's) favourite satirical newspaper The Onion made a movie a few years ago that ran into production difficulties when Fox pulled their financial backing. It eventually got finished then sat on the shelves for a while. It's now finally getting a release on DVD and if you wondered quite how a satirical newspaper can make a film then see the clip above.

Basically the film is a series of sketches that are linked together. The one above is a fake trailer for a Steven Segal movie with the grand title of Cockpuncher. If the rest of the movie maintains this standard, it could be worth investigating.

The Prophecy

Christopher Walken is never idle. He's in a film every other week. He currently earns a living playing far-out characters lurking on the fringe of bad movies, popping in every now and then to do something outrageous and, usually, he's the best thing on show. In every film. Imagine a time in the distant past, when this unhinged creature was at the centre of a movie, and all the other actors didn't have a rashers how to react to his free-flowing insanity. King of New York, The Dead Zone, Brainstorm - those were the days.

Here is a movie that gives him free reign. Chris is archangel Gabriel, chief angel of heaven - there's a great big war up there, and only one soul can settle the battle. Like that South Park episode. And several other holy war/fantasy epics. This is a cheap enough, DTDVD affair, but thankfully, it also has a decent story and is very watchable on the few occasions Walken isn't eating up the screen. Heaven war is impressively presented in brief asides, angel battles are short and vicious and a great cast render the whole affair a treat - Virginia Madsen and Elias Koteas are the humans caught up in it all, Eric Stotlz is good angel and Viggo Moretensen is a convincingly wicked Satan. But it's Walken's show from the get-go and he is endlessly amusing, scary, weird and compelling right the way through. Avoid bogey knock-off sequels, which Walken cameos in. He's the best thing in them as usual, but the films are poor imitations of this excellent diversion.

The Assassination OF Richard Nixon

The more politically aware reader will already be aware that Richard Nixon was never assassinated (No such luck, they might say. Now now!). So it will hardly ruin the climax of this movie to say that it tells the tale of Sam Bick’s spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Richard Nixon by flying a plane into the Whitehouse. Those who weren’t aware of Dick’s final fate, frankly, deserve to have the ending ruined for them.

Of course, when the movie was released the headlines were grabbed by the striking similarities between the real life Sam Bick’s plot and the September 11th attacks in New York and Washington D.C. But then there are those who will search incessantly for such uncanny parallels and coincidences from Nostredamus to the diaries of the Columbine killers. They need to get out more. It’s not that outlandish a concept, and that is what this film spends two hours trying to say. The truth is that the method of the planned assassination is irrelevant. This is not a film about fanaticism or terrorism. Rather it is a film about a man falling between the cracks in Nixon’s America. A cross between Death of A Salesman and Taxi Driver, it is a scathing critique on the rampant dog-eat dog, screw-the safety-net commercialism of America and the American Dream where a well-intentioned man can be driven to such extremes. Cast aside the parallels with 9/11, this film is relevant now not as an historical document but because of its contemporary resonances with life in Bush’s America.

It all sounds strikingly familiar. A president with a hopeless economy and a quagmire of a war manages to get re-elected by the American public. Sam’s boss calls Nixon the greatest salesman in the country for managing to sell himself to the public twice, even though his product is shoddy as hell. Sam Bick is a struggling furniture salesman who has recently separated from with his wife and only gets to see his kids on Sundays. He has dreams of setting up a tire company but can’t seem to get his foot on the business ladder. He is a diffident, put-upon man whose sense of ethics only seems to get him left behind. It is his journey from this principled position to one of murderous intent that makes the film all the more shocking.

Any remaining headlines were taken up by Sean Penn’s performance. Although it is certainly impressive and powerful, it has the unfortunate problem of finding itself not a million miles away from his learning-disabled turn in I Am Sam. Yes, he even has the same name. The result, for anybody who has seen both performances, is that his Sam Bick almost seems a little too much like a simpleton. This takes away from his lucid reflections on the nature of the cruelty of the American Dream.

The supporting cast are exemplary with Naomi Watts turning in a restrained and surprisingly under-used performance as Sam’s estranged wife. Don Cheadle’s charisma just about saves his character from being the ‘token black’. Ultimately where this film succeeds where it could so easily have failed is in tone. Director Niels Mueller, sets it just right with an understated soundtrack, sombre muted tones in the cinematography and art direction and a restrained pace throughout. With most films now dining out on their concept for the first act before steadily getting worse as the film progresses, this is a rare exception that starts out with a worryingly shaky premise and tone, before steadily reeling the viewer in and delivering a knockout climax, made all the more shocking given the restraint of what has gone before.