Everything And Nothing

Capture Your Own Hoth Snow Beast

You've been pissed ever since Luke Skywalker got captured by a Wampa. Now is time for your revenge! Get your own bear-rug style Wampa! High-quality synthetic fur, plush pillow head and fearsome claws. 

$99.99

50 Most Memorable Movie Cars

Rotten Tomatoes recently named the 50 Most Memorable Movie Cars. They generally only pick one car per film. Also, a car has to show up in a movie to make it on the list (so KITT and the A-Team van don't make it). And they say the rankings refer to how memorable a car is, not how cool it is (that would be a much different list).

Whip it good

George Lucas himself is even telling us not to expect too much from the upcoming Indiana Jones movie - "it's just a movie" after all. But he didn't say not to get excited about the toys bound to precede and follow that movie. And I just may have to have one of these Indiana Jones Electronic Sound FX Whips for myself. Whip-aw! ;)

$19.99

2008 Crossroads Film Festival

From April 3-6, 2008, The Crossroads Film Society presents its 9th Annual Crossroads Film Festival, incorporating over 70 films, local and national recording artists, pre- and post- parties and a variety of workshops and panels. Each afternoon kicks off with a Meet & Greet Reception for filmmakers and passholders and each evening ends with music at downtown venues.

Screenings begin at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 3, at Regal Parkway Place Theater and run through April 6 and include the first two films of Crossroads 2008 Global Lens Film Series, promoting cross-cultural understanding through cinema. Films from India and Argentina will be shown.

On Saturday, April 5, Crossroads will offer a free Children's Storyboards & Flipbooks workshop and a screening of movies made by kids sponsored by the Canton Film Office at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Other workshops include Youth Animation, Teen Filmmaking, Sound for Film, New Media, Film & Music: Legal Issues, and Indy-pendent Filmmaking, featuring two Mississippians who, as teenagers, made a nationally noted recreation of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

And don't miss the only film to win two awards at 2008's prestigious Sundance Film Festival! The Mississippi-made Ballast will screen Saturday night, with Mississippi-based cast and crew in attendance. Saturday's Awards Party at Hal & Mal's will recognize the best features, shorts, documentaries, student and youth films, animation and experimental films and music video.

ALL-ACCESS festival passes are available online at www.crossroadsfilmfest.com or by phone at          800-838-3006       . Passes are $65 ($55 for Crossroads members) and get you into all events.  The full schedule is available online here.

Best movie weapons of all time

A Jedi knight's lightsaber has been voted the top movie weapon, beating out Dirty Harry's Magnum .44 to the post in a 20th Century Fox poll of 2,000 film buffs.

The Star Wars illuminated sword heads a mixed bag of offensive items, including the Hattori Hanzo katana from Kill Bill, Oddjob's unfriendly bowler hat and Indy's bullwhip.

The full roll of honor is:

1. Lightsaber (Star Wars)
2. 44. Magnum (Dirty Harry)
3. Bullwhip (Indiana Jones)
4. Samurai sword (Kill Bill)
5. Chainsaw (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
6. Golden Gun (The Man With The Golden Gun)
7. Bow and arrow (Robin Hood)
8. Machine gun (Scarface)
9. The Death Star (Star Wars)
10. Bowler hat (Goldfinger)

[ via Video ETA ]

Apple announces online movie rentals

This week, Apple rolled out first-run movie rentals on the iTunes store in the United States - it will roll out internationally later this year. There will be more than 1,000 movies for online rental through iTunes by the end of February, with prices of $2.99 for older movies and $3.99 for new releases. Users can watch instantly over a broadband Internet connection, or download and keep the movie for 30 days while having 24 hours to finish the movie once they begin watching.

New films won't be available for download until 30 days after the DVD is released.

Eight reasons to love National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

I re-watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation recently to see if Quentin could watch it. It was PG-13 but I couldn't remember why it got the -13 rating. HINT: Language. (So he's going to have to wait a few more years for this one, unfortunately.)

But Mental Floss's magazine blog had some interesting trivia about the movie in a recent post that I didn't know:

• The assistant director of Christmas Vacation, Frank Capra III, is the grandson of the legendary Frank Capra, who directed It’s a Wonderful Life. (Russ is watching that movie on TV when his grandparents arrive.)
• Cousin Eddie went on to star in his own made-for-TV Christmas Vacation - Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure.
• Aunt Bethany (“Is your house on fire, Clark?”) is played by Mae Questel, the voice of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl. Christmas Vacation was her last movie.

Helvetica: The Movie

In his homage to Helvetica, now on DVD, Gary Hustwit interviews fans and foes of the font (which turned 50 this month).

Helvetica encompasses the worlds of design, advertising, psychology, and communication, and takes a second look at the thousands of words we see every day.

Interviewees in Helvetica include some of the most illustrious names in the design world, including Erik Spiekermann, Matthew Carter, Massimo Vignelli, Wim Crouwel, Hermann Zapf, Neville Brody, Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Bierut, David Carson, Paula Scher, Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones, Experimental Jetset, Michael C. Place, Norm, Alfred Hoffmann, Mike Parker, Bruno Steinert, Otmar Hoefer, Leslie Savan, Rick Poynor, Lars Müller, and many more.

Paris je t'aime

Netflix's list of most-rented movies featuring Paris:

• The DaVinci Code
• Amelie
• Before Sunset
• Before Sunrise
• Moulin Rouge
• Le Divorce
• An American in Paris
• Bon Voyage
• French Kiss
• Love in the Afternoon

Other great Paris movies...

• Breathless
• Charade
• Diva
• The 400 Blows
• Last Tango in Paris

Emmylou Harris' favorite movie soundtracks

Emmylou Harris tells Jamin Brophy-Warren of the Wall Street Journal that her 2000 album Red Dirt Girl was inspired by the film Boys Don't Cry. "You are affected by everything you see and hear," she says.

Below, Ms. Harris's favorite movie soundtracks.

• The Border (Ry Cooder scored the music for this film.)
• The Last of the Mohicans
• Big Night (Her favorite piece, she says, is "Mo Ve'la Bella Mia Da La Muntagna" by Matteo Salvatore. "It sounds like an old folk song," she says.)
• Amelie ("I'm a sucker for accordion music," says Ms. Harris.)
• The White Diamond (On the soundtrack, "some of the vocal pieces sounded like Southern 'shape note' singing," she says, referring to a type of religious singing commonly found in the South. "It's scary, and there's something about this music and the singing that I had to hear it again.")