Why are so many people interested in Quentin Tarantino’s favorite movies? Maybe because he’s been so influential or maybe because he’s had so many influences? I’m not sure, but a big topic on the film blogs today is a top 20 list QT came up with for Sky Movies. It’s not his favorite films of all time, however. It’s just his faves since 1992, the year he broke big with his directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs.

The list is filled with a lot of obvious choices, including new Asian cinema classics like The Host, JSA, Audition and his very, very favorite of the past 17 years (the rest of the list is alphabetical), Battle Royale. Surprisingly Oldboy is nowhere to be found despite the fact that QT is responsible for the film’s surprising win at Cannes five years ago. He picked two by Bong Joon-ho, why not two by Park Chan-wook? Is it because that would be too much like self-praise?

The biggest shocker appears to be his inclusion of Woody Allen’s Anything Else, and that’s the main reason people are talking about the list today. I was more stunned, though, by QT’s claim that Supercop has the best stunts of any film ever, including those starring Buster Keaton. I guess I’ll have to see that one again.

Anyway, since QT is known for his borrowing from his influences, I’m excited to see when his movies start pilfering from the likes of Dogville and Shaun of the Dead, both of which would be in my top 20 of 1992-2009, as well.

Check out what other film blogs are saying about the list after the jump:

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The other day I took in a triple feature consisting of the following very different films: Shane Meadows’ Somers Town; the political farce In the Loop; and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Two things each of these films did share are they all come from the UK (the last is a co-production at least) and they all were more naturally funny than Funny People, which I watched the next day.

I’m not sure if it’s my inherent Anglophilia that causes me to appreciate the humor of Jim Broadbent in a fantasy blockbuster more than Seth Rogen or Adam Sandler in the latest from the reigning king of American comedy, but I did realize that I should probably be watching more British cinema, much of which is humorous whether labeled comedy or not, and less Hollywood comedies, most of which tend to be overwritten and forced nowadays.

This isn’t to say I’m going to turn all blueblood snob and ignore the domestic stuff. I still enjoyed Funny People for the bittersweet tale(s) that it is, and I’ll continue loving Keaton more than Chaplin and the Marx Brothers more than any comedy group that has or will ever come out of Great Britain. However, I am looking to expand on my so-far limited familiarity with British comedy, which barely extends further than the must-see bunch listed below. So please leave a comment with any other recommendations you have for myself and anyone else interested.
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Do we really need more zombie movies? Just as one is opening — the Nazi zombie flick Dead Snow — another gets a trailer: the zom-com Zombieland, starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin. Also, according to the IMDb page, Bill Murray has a cameo as a zombie. After the brilliant Shaun of the Dead, there’s not much need for more zombie movies, especially humorous zombie movies, but I can’t help but be excited about this thing. Hopefully that tongue-in-cheek narration is heard throughout the movie and not just in the trailer, in which it’s employed hilariously.

Anyway, as entertaining as Zombieland looks, it’s certainly contributing to the potential over-saturation of the genre. Somehow, though, zombie movies aren’t as threatened, no matter how many examples are made, as some other types of movies. Vampire plots, for instance, are too common these days. And apocalyptic scenarios in general (which does include zombie stories) are excessively prevalent (today’s other most popular trailer is for Roland Emmerich’s destructoporn flick 2012, which also features Harrelson). Yet we always think most films would be better if they had zombies. The real question may be, then, do we really need more non-zombie movies?

Lets see what the film blogs have to say about this trailer after the jump:
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Is the end of the world nigh? It sure seems that way. Even if the economic situation wasn’t enough of a harbinger of doom, this swine flu pandemic is a sure sign of the apocalypse. Or so it would appear through the media attention. Yes, the outbreak is tragic, and it is certainly a serious concern. And necessary, non panic-inciting developments must be reported. But when we read about how the flu might affect the box office for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the news coverage has clearly gone a little overboard.

We’re not saying that we should ignore the topic; in fact if there’s anything we’ve learned from Hollywood’s treatment of plots involving widespread disease and infection it’s that turning a blind eye and/or burying the story will come back to bite us on the ass (or any other part of the body that a zombie can sink its teeth into). But fearmongering isn’t helpful either. That’s another thing the movies teach us.

So, what do we do if we want to get out of this latest flu scare alive? We rent some films, and we learn how to survive from both the characters who endure and the characters who perish. Fortunately for you, we’ve already watched the films and are willing to share their lessons.
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Publisher Quirk Books and author Seth Grahame-Smith have come up with the best way to make a literary work more accessible since the creation of Classics Illustrated comic books: they’ve added “all-new scenes of bone crunching zombie action” to Jane Austen’s 19th century novel Pride and Prejudice. This new version, out in stores this May, is titled Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now With Ultraviolent Mayhem! And if you didn’t think it was a masterpiece before, chances are you will now.

Could we do the same thing to classic films? Well, the technology to add extraneous enhancements to movies exists. Just check out The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for proof. But like Pride and Prejudice, we’d need to “enhance” films in the public domain if we wanted to get away with it. Fortunately, there are hundreds of such titles (see a list at Wikipedia), some of which actually already have zombies (Night of the Living Dead, White Zombie, Revolt of the Zombies, and in a way the “scientific” film Experiments in the Revival of Organisms).

Avoiding the majority of public domain movies already consisting of horror and science fiction elements, we’ve come up with ten great classic films that would be even greater with the addition of zombies.
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Sometimes I really wish David Bordwell’s blog permitted comments. Mostly it’s better that it doesn’t, but the man’s last post has made me want to discuss the art of movie titles for a whole week now. And it didn’t help that coinciding in time with Bordwell’s post was another one of those sidebars in Entertainment Weekly pointing out some new movies with misleading titles. Yes, Lakeview Terrace does sound like a period romance, as do many other badly titled films (Elizabethtown and Wicker Park come to mind). This weekend also sees two new movies employing the method of borrowing song titles, which are typically not appropriate (Ghost Town seems more like a horror western hybrid, while My Best Friend’s Girl actually fits its plot).

Well, fortunately for me (and hopefully you), I can bring the discussion over to SpoutBlog, though not quite as in depth as Bordwell. I’ll be more than happy to have a conversation in the comments section regarding the more general topic of movie titling, but for now I’ll kick things off with a list of what I find to be the most interesting movie titles of the past decade. It’s been a time when studios and filmmakers have been very loose with ill-fitting and overlong titles, as well as some that are too plainly literal (Snakes on a Plane), but the following selections have the benefit of featuring clever, well-chosen and more meaningful monikers.

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Two newly announced collaborations are making my birthday a very special one. In one corner we have the casting of Michael Cera in an Edgar Wright film, which seems almost like an intentional gift from a regular SpoutBlog reader. The only thing missing is the news that this film will also feature the Muppets, a plot involving an Objectivist teleporter and a 3-year-old Star Wars fan. The Cera/Wright team-up is titled Scott Pilgrim’s Little Life, and structurally it sounds like Wright’s Shaun of the Dead. Based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel Scott Pilgrim Volume 1: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, and scripted by Wright and Michael Bacall (Manic), the story involves a “young slacker” (Cera) who must defeat the evil ex-boyfriends of the girl he loves in order to win her heart. As if Cera couldn’t win any girl’s heart just by doing nothing.

See the video above for the first sorta collaboration between Wright and Cera (and Jonah Hill).

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There may not be any literal baton passing going on in the marathon-set screwball comedy Run, Fatboy, Run, but the movie, which was directed by Friends star David Schwimmer, is noteworthy for its hand-offs. The first has to do with the writing of the film, which began as an original screenplay by American actor/comedian/writer Michael Ian Black (Wet Hot American Summer) and was later reworked by British actor/comedian/writer Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead). Despite the screenplay credit confusingly indicating the two writers collaborated, it is more a matter of one taking over from the other and going the distance with it.

The second pass relates to the actors. Although Run, Fatboy, Run is sold as a Simon Pegg comedy, the true stand-out is lesser-known Dylan Moran, who supports as Pegg’s character’s best friend. Familiar to most Brits as the star of the Channel 4 series Black Books (which I keep meaning to finally rent), Moran has also appeared in minor roles in the movies Shaun of the Dead, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story and Notting Hill, none of which really showcased his talent the way Run, Fatboy, Run does. Because it was probably not intentional for Moran to upstage Pegg, though, it has to be said that rather than a hand-off of the spotlight, this is more a stealing of the show. And boy does Moran make a great getaway towards the finish line.
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Edgar Wright has been linked to an adaptation of the Marvel superhero Ant Man since before even Shaun of the Dead was made. Surprisingly, he’s still attached to the project, a feat that is rare in Hollywood. But since Ant Man is a lesser character in the Marvel Universe, there seems to be less of a rush to get him up on the big screen. However, last week Wright told Empire that he has at least completed a screenplay after all these years, and he is taking a meeting (undoubtedly with someone from either Marvel Studios or Paramount) about the movie this week. The writer-director, who last gave us Hot Fuzz, is still unsure what his next gig will be, though he seems to have it narrowed down to Ant Man and another comic adaptation titled Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, the plot of which sounds more in line with Wright’s penchant for comedic gore.

While I eagerly anticipate anything that Wright serves up, I’m especially interested in the Ant Man adaptation. In an interview with Moviehole last year, Wright mentioned that part of the project’s original appeal was the obscurity of the character. And I would have to agree that certainly it would be less stressful and more fun to adapt a comic without the same kind of fanbase as a Batman or X-Men. You could pretty much have free reign as far as what to do with him. It’s pretty much the opposite of Ang Lee trying to do something interesting with the Hulk, a comic book character that everyone is familiar with. Sure, there are times when you may have a popular property and an inventive filmmaker and it can work, as it did with Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins. But that was like a miracle. I’d hate for Edgar Wright to adapt a property that is on its own highly anticipated, because if it failed, it would be doubly disappointing. So, all I can do is hope that this supposed meeting goes well.

I really enjoyed this piece about film framing and humor on David Bordwell’s website on cinema. The pictures alone are worth a look, even if you don’t have time to read the article. (You’ll relive many great Coen Brothers moments.)

Much of the perspective in the article comes from Barry Sonnenfeld, who has worked extensively with the Coen Brothers. Some of the techniques covered include the use of extremely wide angle lenses, geometrical and symmentrical tableaus, forward tracking, and other camera position techniques. The makers of silent films were masters of this, using framing to build up to a gag, creating comedic suspense long before the gag actually happens.

Bordwell also references Jacques Tati and the more recent movies Shaun of the Dead and Crank. He wraps things up with this:

I think that aspiring filmmakers can learn a lot from this tradition. Our films need more pictorial creativity, which often doesn\’t require fancy CGI. Stylistic handling can add fresh layers to a basic story situation, and astute filmmakers can be alert to the possibilities of comic compositions and funny framings.