By: Peter Martin (original publish date: December 12, 2007)

(With the Cine-staff off on a late-July mini-vacation, we thought it'd be fun to bring you some of our favorite pieces from years past. Enjoy!)

As a longtime science fiction aficionado with a weakness for special effects, Francis Lawrence's I Am Legend is catnip to me. That doesn't mean I won't be watching with a critical eye, though. I've accumulated a long list of pet peeves about the way that "last man on earth" stories are told, both in print and on screen, and personal warning signs have already popped up just from watching the trailers for I Am Legend. I hope I'm proven wrong and that the film allays my concerns, carrying me away to another time and place, but I'll be on the lookout for some of the stupid things last men on earth do -- and don't do.

1. They Become Attached to Just One Pet

Uh oh, it looks like Will Smith only has one dog. That's never a good sign. He exercises with him, tells him to eat his vegetables, hunts with him, and bathes him. (Later he holds the dog's limp body in his arms; just before that, he screams "Nooooooo!!", sounding like Darth Vader, which may or may not be related to what happens to the dog.) Why do you think all those old ladies keep dozens of cats around? In case one of them dies! Now, I'm not saying Will Smith's dog dies in the movie -- I told you, I haven't seen it -- but if you're the last man on earth, you have to plan ahead. Even if your best dog friend doesn't get eaten by lions or murdered by mysterious creatures of the night, you might actually outlive your buddy, so always have multiple dogs hanging around just in case. (Don't fret too much; remember, All Dogs Go to Heaven.) Unless, of course, Will's canine pal is The Last Dog on Earth, which might be another movie entirely.

Ah yes, Super Bowl Sunday. And the Philadelphia Eagles are not involved. Sigh. I suppose I can try to create some sort of vested interest (nice to see an NFC East team in the big game, plus "David & Goliath" is always fun to watch), but the truth is that I'm mostly looking forward to all the new movie commercials. Don't get me wrong; I freaking love (American-style) football, but the Super Bowl seems more like pre-packaged spectacle than an actual gridiron battle. (Give me an Eagles / Redskins game any day!) And so, logically, my thoughts turn to movie-land...

Ask someone to name a great baseball movie and you'll get nine different answers. Ask someone to name a great (American-style) football movie and you'll get nine puzzled expressions. But while the NFL waits for something as lyrical as a Natural or a Field of Dreams, there's definitely some solid football flicks out there. And by "football," I mean "not soccer."

Any Given Sunday (1999) -- It's garish and indulgent and more than a little scattershot, but Oliver Stone's pulpy exposé of the American Football Machine is pretty undeniably entertaining.

The Longest Yard (1974) -- Long before it became a flat vehicle for Adam Sandler and Chris Rock, The Longest Yard was a rough, tough, and admirably gritty prison/football flick from Robert Aldrich. Try watching the two flicks back-to-back and you'll plainly understand why (and how) most remakes suck.

Semi-Tough (1977) -- Burt Reynolds returns to the gridiron (alongside Kris Kristofferson and Jill Clayburgh) in this underrated rom-com about two pro players and one cool girl. Plus it's funny. I expect a remake by 2011.

Putting together last week's list of my favorite screenplays of the 2000's was relatively easy. I came up with about ten worthy candidates and narrowed from there. When I started putting together this week's list -- my favorite screenplays of the 1990's -- things got a lot more complicated. I had a much larger list of worthy candidates to choose from. It made me realize that a) the 90's, particularly the late 90's, was a genuinely incredible time for film, and b) I was going to have to split my list into two halves: 1995 -- 1999 and 1990 -- 1994.

So, in support of all the great screenwriters currently on strike, what follows is my favorite screenplays produced between 1995 and 1999. Read that last sentence carefully! If you've got movies you'd add to or subtract from my list, I would love to hear them, but make sure your choice fits the criteria. On my 2000's list, I was getting comments like "How DARE you not include Citizen Kane, you freaking idiot?"

Now then, with all apologies to the scripts it killed me to leave off (Office Space, A Simple Plan, As Good As it Gets, Chasing Amy, Lone Star, Three Kings, Swingers, Jackie Brown, Kingpin, I could go on and on), here is my alphabetical list:

Over at Cracked.com, they've made a list of the top ten worst twist endings of all time. Obviously that list has a lot of spoilers, but I'm going to attempt to write this post without revealing any of them. Why? To make sure you go over there, of course. So, if you're not worried about ruining the endings to some movies you probably shouldn't see anyway, then head over and read the hilariously confusing explanations, or attempts at explanations, and/or how some endings don't make enough sense to bother with explanations. I will let you in on the titles of the movies, just in case you are interested in seeing any of them in the future and would like to go in spoiler free. The ten, in order from "least asinine" to "most asinine", are: Stay (2005); High Tension (2003); Signs (2002); Hide and Seek (2005) and Secret Window (2004), which tie for #7, because they're considered the exact same plot (is that spoiling it for you guys? probably -- oh well, I tried); The Forgotten (2004); Basic (2003); Perfect Stranger (2007); The Number 23 (2007); Planet of the Apes (2001); and The Life of David Gale (2003).

I haven't seen the number one movie, but I can't imagine it's worse than the others that I have seen, especially Planet of the Apes. Basically, I think Cracked.com considers it the worst because it stars Kevin Spacey, who also starred in The Usual Suspects, which pretty much, along with The Sixth Sense, obviously, got Hollywood on this crappy twist kick to begin with (He was also in Se7en, which had another so-so twist ending). Look at those films; they all came out between 2001 and 2007. And what was the most common twist? The main character did it. Either he or she has a split personality, or amnesia, or suffers from some other psychological ailment. Other idiotic yet easily written twists include: aliens did it; it's all a dream (as if you need to steal from Bob Newhart, come on!); and, in the fashion of Suspects, it's all just made-up stories. Personally, I'm upset to not see my least favorite twist ending. It involved a whole crop of great actors who just so happened to be explained as existing inside the imagination of some mental patient. That one had the split personality plus the dream plus the Suspects idea that none of what we watched is real. Can you name it?

In less than three weeks, we will finally see a new film from David Fincher. And not only is Zodiac his first release in five years, it is his return to the subject of serial killer investigations. So where is all the excitement? Where is all the buzz? I really thought Fincher would have a bigger online presence, but I was apparently wrong. Nonetheless, I'd like to keep the energy up for this one. I'm pretty sure it will be the first film of 2007 that I actually go out and see. As I mentioned last fall when the first trailer hit, I should at least be pleased with the look of the film. And judging by the new photos apprehended by FirstShowing.net, I have no reason to change my mind on that assumption.

This could be the largest amount of publicity photos I've seen released for a film in a long time, actually. There are so many, in fact, that you'd think you could make a flip book out of them and get the film's whole story. Not quite. But considering the film is about an unsolved case, the story shouldn't be as much a concern as should the look, the tone and the plot structure. So far we've heard the script is "exceptional", we've gotten a couple good early reviews, and some great looking images. What more could we need? The actual film, of course, which hits theaters March 2.

As you may have noticed from some of my previous posts here at Cinematical, I love technology. Gadgets, gizmos, devices and the machine that goes "Bing!" are among some of my favorite things of all time. Of course, as I also have a love for all things film, when I can combine these two passions, it makes things even more perfect. So, its especially interesting to me when I get to take a peek inside the creative process to see how technology is used to help make films happen.

One such example of this is currently up over at Apple's Final Cut Pro site. There, as we previously noted, director David Fincher, of Fight Club, Se7en and Alien 3 fame, explains how he used Final Cut Pro to edit his most recent film Zodiac. It's an interesting glimpse into the technology of post-production as well as into Fincher's creative process. With Zodiac, Fincher shot the film digitally using the Viper cam and then it was edited with Final Cut Studio -- a camera system that's only been around for a few years and software you can buy today and use at home on your own Mac. Pretty cool.

Yes, I realize the video is completely pro-Apple but what can I tell you -- it's Apple's website. Still, with all the pro-Apple spin, the video is pretty informative and makes you think about the current state of filmmaking technology and how it benefits and enhances a filmmaker's creativity. Really, do you expect them to tell you how great it is to edit feature films using Windows Movie Maker or some other system like AVID? I don't think so. Enjoy the video.

Over at Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells had a look (scroll down to "Obsession") at James Vanderbilt's script for Zodiac and was impressed -- in fact, he describes it as potentially a "truly exceptional hunt-for-a-serial-killer movie" (admittedly a fairly small niche), the last of which, Wells believes, was Seven, also directed by David Fincher. (Whoa -- speaking of Fincher, the IMDb just told me that he directed the video for George Michael's Freedom 90. Did you people know that? I had NO idea.) The review is more of an overview than anything else and, assuming that you know how the Zodiac killer case was "resolved," you won't find any spoilers there. Generally speaking, Wells thinks Jake Gyllenhaal's role as cartoonist Robert Graysmith (on whose books the movie is based) is, at least on paper, "the best he's ever had," and makes it sounds like the ending (which he doesn't describe) is just as dark and depressing as Seven's.

If you're like me, you were blown away by Seven, but also never want to put yourself under that sort of emotional stress again (and I'm talking about the whole thing, not just the end). So, while I'm not sure Wells' write-up exactly makes me want to see Zodiac (due out in November), it still sounds awfully good.

[via JoBlo]

It was only a matter of time before someone made fun of Brokeback Mountain...and was actually somewhat funny in the process. Joining the long list of re-cut trailers, Brokeback Mountain has partnered with, of all films, Back to the Future in a trailer that wants us to believe Marty and Doc were really secret lovers. Dun. Dun. Dun.

Using the Brokeback theme music and utilizing a ton of spare time I wish I had, someone has mixed together a bunch of Back to the Future and Back to the Future III footage to make it appear as if our two friends are moving a lot faster than 88mph. Personally, although very comical, I wasn't so crazy about the fact they used two of the movies instead of one. Throwing in scenes from the original kind of threw it off for me, especially that it takes away from the whole Brokeback theme. However, I'm really not one to dissect a joke, so I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Oh, and when you're done watching, head on over here to check out a re-cut Seven trailer which, also, toys with some of the same played out homosexual ideas. Have fun!