With The Dark Knight now firmly set as the second largest grossing film of all-time with $489,179,000 I felt there was no time better than right now to take a look at the all-time greatest sequels in film history. Not an easy task and many factors must be considering when devising such a list.

(Rope of Silicon)

Ear-shattering explosions? Check. Gore splattered across the screen? No problem. Graphic sex scenes, or maybe a little torture porn? Bring it on. In Hollywood, anything goes these days — except cigarette smoking.

Rarely in the history of motion pictures have the forces of censorship been as successful as anti-smoking crusaders have been recently. Last year, after congressional hearings on the issue and a public call for a crackdown by 32 state attorneys general, the Motion Picture Assn. of America agreed to consider tobacco use along with sex and violence when determining a film’s rating. Most of the major studios, meanwhile, have promised to either discourage or forbid smoking in youth-oriented films.

(LA Times)

War, as the song goes, may be good for absolutely nothing but war movies are another matter entirely. In Ben Stiller’s frequently hilarious new comedy,Tropic Thunder, a group of spoilt Hollywood actors are pitched from the movie set of their Vietnam War epic into the jungle of the Golden Triangle, where they’re mistaken for American soldiers by the local opium syndicate.

Both Tropic Thunder and the faltering blockbuster within it provide plenty of opportunities for references to the canon of Hollywood war movies, with the actors - who include egocentric action star Tugg Speedman (Stiller), lowbrow comic Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) and Oscar-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey jnr) - often re-creating the somewhat more serious intent of their predecessors.

(The Age)

Not so long ago, funny guy Martin Lawrence was tipped to be The Next Big Thing. John Patterson wonders how he got to Has Been so quickly.

(The Guardian UK)

It won’t be long now before Oscar season picks up momentum and film critics across the country set about surveying the ambitions and aspirations behind the year’s most “serious” and “substantial” films. For many writers, the autumn rush is the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel — the promised sunrise after a stretch of silly and frivolous summer blockbusters concerned chiefly with opening-weekend receipts.

Yet while some critics shun the summer spectacles (so many of which are critic-proof to begin with), these films stand as the clearest examples of where cinema and commercialism overlap; they are essential case studies offering observers a window into the motives of the film industry and the mind-sets of filmgoers. Which blockbusters resonated with audiences (”The Dark Knight”), and why? Which seemingly safe bets flopped (”Speed Racer”)? Which dark horses excelled (”The Incredible Hulk”)?

More to the point, what does all this mean for the movie buff, the theater owner, and the studio executive?

(NY Sun)

Directors have far more autonomy these days than during Hollywood’s golden age - so how is it that a Ron Howard film has so little to distinguish itself from any other, wonders Ronald Bergan.

(The Guardian UK)

For every Batman, there’s a Matter-Eater Lad.  For every X-Men, there’s a Legion of Super-Pets.  There are comic book characters and groups who make it big, and there are those who never find a lasting audience.  Only now and then do the obscure characters get noticed, and even more rarely do they get the big-screen treatment (Blade is the notable exception).  Here are ten superheroes there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of, but that we at GeekDad think are good enough to carry a movie.

(Wired)

Horror movies have thrown up some dubious, disturbing content in recent years. The writers and directors behind movies such as the Hostel and Saw series are an odd bunch, too.

Generally, today’s horror directors appear to have an unhealthy passion for mutilation and death. Yet away from the screen, many of them are young, middle-class boys with nary a worry in the world.

George A. Romero is of the old school. The director best known for his series of five Dead films — from Night of the Living Dead in 1968 to this year’s Diary of the Dead — is a humble gentleman and an unlikely purveyor of zombie thrills.

(The Australian)

“Batman has no limits,” says Bruce Wayne to his manservant, Alfred, early in “The Dark Knight,” and the accountants at Warner Brothers, which released the movie, are likely to agree. I’m not so sure.

“The Dark Knight,” praised by critics for its somber themes and grand ambitions, has proven to be a mighty box office force in a summer already dominated by superheroes of various kinds. But any comic book fan knows that a hero at the height of his powers is a few panels removed from mortal danger, and that hubris has a way of summoning new enemies out of the shadows.

Are the Caped Crusader and his colleagues basking in an endless summer of triumph, or is the sun already starting to set?

(New York Times)

Wherever you look, it seems as though the Klieg lights are going out all over Indieland. Every other week some calamity assails, overwhelms or even flat-out sinks one of the benchmark names of Hollywood’s indie film world.

Just this week we learned that Deutsche Bank has not only refused to get into bed with Paramount Studios, thanks to the ongoing credit crunch, but has also shut down its film finance arm. Perhaps some foreknowledge of this had its effects on Paramount Vantage, the studio’s “semi-autonomous” speciality division (or “faux-indie”), which was subject last month to a disorienting management overhaul and the slashing of its production slate from 12 to six movies per year.

(The Guardian UK)