Filmmakers have named big-screen classic The Godfather their favourite movie of all time.

The Francis Ford Coppola Mafia film, starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, beat the likes of Gone with the Wind and Taxi Driver in the poll.

(Press Association)

Boarding the flight to Las Vegas before a dramatic reunion with an ex-boyfriend who was most definitely trouble, I thought about how much of my love life I’ve based on what I’ve see on television and in movies.

I blame Hugh Grant’s character in Four Weddings and a Funeral for my obsession with British men. I learnt that no matter how bumbling and repressed they seemed, they would come through in the end and declare their love, probably in the rain.

(The Independent UK)

The Brian de Palma film of Oliver Stone’s screenplay for Scarface (1983) is a landmark film of the 80s. Despite lacklustre reviews on opening, it became an enormous global hit and confirmed Al Pacino as a worldwide star.

The poster image for the film, a simplified graphic presentation of Pacino’s Tony Montana in black and white and toting a powerful handgun, perfectly expresses the simplified moral universe of the late 20th century American gangster film.

We’ve already looked at how Hollywood managed to re-invent itself, after the moribund decade of the 1960s, by connecting with the energy and themes of independent and new wave film making. A significant element in this process was the renewed engagement, by Hollywood, with the historical legacy of American cinema. Nowhere was this more successfully realised than in the re-interpretation of the American gangster genre.

(The Guardian UK)

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)

Usually when an actor or filmmaker reveals who inspired them in their creation of a character, it’s the type of politically correct answer sure to offend no one. Johnny Depp had no problem explaining how he channeled Keith Richards for his role as Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean”; Dustin Hoffman sent up his pal, producer Robert Evans, in “Wag the Dog.”

But in a business where backbiting is common and screenwriters are urged to “write what you know,” it’s been a longstanding tradition to say the cruelest things about others under the guise of art. In a summer that will have Tom Cruise applying his considerable cackle to a Sumner Redstone surrogate in “Tropic Thunder” and a manscaping-derelict Bruce Willis doing his meanest Alec Baldwin impression in the adaptation of producer Art Linson’s Hollywood tell-all, “What Just Happened?”, we thought it was high time to look at a few ways filmmakers have exacted revenge, both personal and professional, through their movies in recent times.

(IFC)

If you’re watching a Hollywood movie and a young couple on a transcontinental railroad trip gets involved in a murder, or a ragtag band of thieves plans the perfect heist, or hardened criminals scheme to break out of a tightly guarded prison, you’re probably watching a Hollywood movie from another era.

Thirty years ago or more, studios turned out pictures in these golden genres like Hebrew National turns out hot dogs. They made heist pictures like “Rififi” and prison movies like “Escape From Alcatraz” and train mysteries like “Murder on the Orient Express” (along with scores of lesser efforts).

But like all Hollywood trends, what goes around comes around, or at least gets remade as a European art house film. After decades of neglect, these classic genres — as well as Westerns, now reimagined and reinvigorated in such movies as “Brokeback Mountain” and “3:10 to Yuma” — are enjoying something of a resurgence.

(Reuters)

“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)

Last week, our Top 20 film endings prompted a huge response from readers. Now, Times critics present the 20 worst endings in film. From the absurd to the underwhelming, these are the closing scenes that have ruined memorable films.

(The Times UK)

While some actors spend their final days doing bad voice-over work or Japanese TV spots, others go out in a blaze of glory. Here are some of the more memorable final bows.

(Maxim)

The genre boom of the 1980s, sparked by the success of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘E.T.’ and fostered by the preponderance of household video players, sparked a revolution in film fantasy, combining elements of sci-fi, fairy tale, horror, action adventure and even kung-fu into family-friendly tales of strange worlds and derring-do. As the shamelessly retro ‘The Forbidden Kingdom’ hits our cinema screens, Time Out felt compelled to explore a few of the key rules and overarching themes that unify this diverse, well-loved and much-missed filmic trend…

(TimeOut)