From a few months ago. Art of the Title takes a look at the end title sequence for WALL-E and interviews the geniuses behind it. As with other films like The Incredibles, Pixar uses the end titles to illustrate key story points in a style that departs from the rest of the movie. It’s like watching another version of the film.

Here’s the sequence:

The Unknown Screenwriter has an awesome post about perfecting the art of the elevator pitch. Now, I hate coming up with loglines and taglines are a total mystery me. Maybe it’s because I have a hard time thinking in brevity. It’s definitely a skill.

Anyway, he talks about what he calls a “compass logline” to be used as a guide as you write the script. Compass lines are intended to pique interest in your story, to make the reader go, “Holy crap! How’s that going to happen?” And then have to actually read the script to find the answer.

For months now, the film world has been alight—with what little information there is—about Ridley Scott’s planned Alien prequel. Yes, as in, “What the hell happened before humans became part of their food chain?”

Early speculation revolved around the derelict ship seen in the first two films, and the fate of the mysterious “space jockey” whose corpse seems fused to the ship’s tech. But Ridley (kind of) dispels that notion with this interesting tidbit he shared with Empire magazine:

“It’s a brand new box of tricks,” said Sir Ridley. “We know what the road map is, and the screenplay is now being put on paper. The prequel will be a while ago. It’s very difficult to put a year on Alien, but [for example] if Alien was towards the end of this century, then the prequel story will take place thirty years prior.”

But will a prequel even have humans in it? Conventional understanding is that the Nostromo incident marked the first encounter between humans and the xenomorphs (aka the scary aliens). Or was it? Perhaps there’s more to explore regarding the mysterious motives of Weylan(d)-Yutani, the corporate villain of the franchise.

Whatever Scott and company decide for the story, I eagerly await to see what comes from his box of tricks.

Here’s what Radiohead sounds like to people who can’t stand their music (or to people like me for whom the band ceased to be interesting sometime just after the release of Kid A).

Radiohead was my “thing” in the late 90s. Up until then, their music seemed on the surface merely more of the same guitar-driven sturm of 90s alienation, thanks in no small part to “Creep” and “High and Dry” overplay on barroom jukeboxes and on increasingly mainstreamed “alternative” radio.

This is a film I wish I’d been given the job to write. For about three years, I’d been doing tons of research on military contractors—too much research, really. When it came time to map out my story, the fire was gone. Still, I think there are plenty of good stories to be told about our recent imperial adventures. And sadly, but with very few exceptions, they have not been told.

Paul Greengrass’s Green Zone stars Matt Damon as a special ops-type investigator who gets caught in a lethal game when he goes to Iraq to find WMDs. From the trailer, it looks like Bourne Identity meets Black Hawk Down, with a dash of Syriana for political controversy:

The dialogue, however, is leaden and banal, and utterly predictable. (Someone please ban the phrase, “You’re off the reservation” from films like this forever, okay?) And I’m a little concerned that the plot will sink under its own inflated sense of purpose. Hollywood has been trying to scratch that itch for years, with awful results like the flaccid Lions for Lambs and the disappointing Body of Lies. Now in this post-Bush era, I wonder whether Tinseltown is hoping for more success in resurrecting its Bush-Iraq War grudge. Remains to be seen.

Still, I’m hoping Greengrass and screenwriter Brian Helgeland deliver the goods—a kick-ass movie with enough nuance to elevate it above the level of a blow-em-up flick.

Entertaining commercial spot from Canal +, France’s HBO. There’s nothing like a good story well told.

Duncan Jones, the director of last summer’s excellent sci-fi drama Moon, has launched a grassroots campaign in support of an Oscar nomination for the film’s star, Sam Rockwell. Amen.

After I saw it, the first thing I thought of was how Oscar worthy his performance was. Rockwell has to shoulder a huge burden as the film’s sole human (apart from brief appearances of a handful of minor characters). Not only that he has to play against himself, or rather his clone. That he does it with pathos, humor and energy is astonishing.

So yeah, Academy, it’s time to make amends for the fucking horrible choices you made ten years ago.

The A.V. Club has a fantastic inteview with Bronson Pinchot in which he talks about fame and celebrity, and gives a rundown of his movie credits. He also pulls no punches talking about former co-stars Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington.

Pinchot’s honesty is both funny and refreshing. Why don’t we see more of this guy?

Wallowing in a Monday morning funk? Thinking you deserve a more glamorous job? Well, according to TV scribe and sitcom humorist Ken Levine, it’s not all rosy in Hollywoodland, where the official language is doublespeak and people die slow, painful deaths by poisoned pen.

He offers a handy glossary to help you understand the lingo, rife with such expressions as “fielding offers”, “projects in development”, “looking into financing”. When you know how the spin works, they’re easy to decipher. These phrases all mean “unemployed”.

Happy Monday!

Odd bit of coincidence. Right after I posted the list of 50 greatest animated films ‘curated’ by Terry Gilliam, I found this mini retrospective via Go Into the Story—Gilliam’s take on all his films, from the legendary Monty Python and the Holy Grail to soon-to-be-released The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus.

Although I’m not a fan of all his films, I do rank some of them as my all-time favorites. I admire Gilliam’s creative tenacity, even when it causes his movies to sometimes run off the rails. There are lessons in his experiences—good and ill—for anyone who wants to go down the rabbit hole of “creativity”.

In related news, Gilliam is back in the saddle with a second attempt at his aborted Don Quixote film. Word of this leaked around April, stating that he had reacquired the film rights. Now it seems that he has the parts he needs—script, actors and budget—to get this cranking. Looking forward to it.