I can’t say there’d be too many movies that are the subject of a comic strip about a family of four going along to said film’s premiere, but when we’re talking about 2001: A Space Odyssey it of course all makes sense.

Footage of London filmed in the late 1920s by British cinematographer Claude Friese-Greene. There’s even a snippet of the fifth and final Ashes cricket test, played between England and Australia, at the Oval, in 1926.

Made in 1902, Fun in a bakery shop, that was, by the way, produced by Thomas Edison, is one of the earliest examples of a stop motion animation. See more of the oldest known stop motion animation clips here.

Richard Linklater, director of “Dazed and Confused”, “A Scanner Darkly”, and “Bernie”, collaborates once more with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke to make Before Midnight, the third installment in the Before Sunrise and Before Sunset series of films.

No word of an Australian release as yet (13 June is suggested here), but in the meantime check out the trailer (hmm, yes, possible spoilers). I can’t say what piqued my interest in these films since first seeing them on DVD eight or nine years ago. Eurorail maybe? Peneda-Gerês?

(Thanks Alice)

Being blind since birth hasn’t prevented Tommy Edison from becoming a film critic and writer.

The screenplay for Alien, complete with sketches and notes added in by director Ridley Scott.

Not quite along the same lines as the production notes for Moonrise Kingdom, but I doubt fans of Scott’s 1979 sci-fi chiller/classic will mind.

The UP Series is a British TV documentary show that every seven years has looked in on the lives of a group of people since they were aged seven. “7 Up”, the first show in the series, was produced by now retired Canadian TV producer Paul Almond, and aired in 1964, while British producer Michael Apted has helmed every instalment since.

Time is rolling on though, and the latest edition in the series, “56 Up”, came out last year. Despite my fascination with the concept, I’ve heard plenty about the “UP Series”, somehow I’ve never ended up seeing a single show. Time to hunt down the DVD set I think.

It’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it… clean the windows of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the tallest building in the world, that is. That’s exactly what a small team spends three months at a time doing, cleaning each pane, and then starting again.

By the way, if you’ve seen Ghost Protocol, the latest of the Mission Impossible films, and thought Tom Cruise’s antics on the outside of the building, at what was it, 120 floors up, was all a clever piece of CGI wizardry, sorry, you’re mistaken, he was actually out there himself, scaling the tower.

Ok, one last movie pass giveaway before I close off for the holidays on Friday. Samsara (trailer) is the latest feature by documentary maker Ron Fricke, and follows on from his 1992 work Baraka. Consisting only of images and music, “Samsara” leaves audiences to draw their own meanings from what they see.

I’ve been on the road the last couple of weeks so unfortunately missed recent preview screenings in Sydney, but I am reliably informed that “Samsara”, made up of footage filmed over almost four years from all corners of the globe, is a thought-provoking, and visually stunning, film experience.

“Samsara” opens in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day, Wednesday, 26 December 2012 (please check local film guides for screening details in your area), and thanks to the people at Hopscotch Films, I have a couple of double passes to give away, valid from Thursday, 10 January 2013, until the end of the film’s theatrical season.

To go in the draw for a double pass, simply leave your name and email address in the appropriate fields in the below comment form (click here if you cannot see it). One entry per person please. Note also that these passes can only be used in Australian cinemas. I’m closing this off tonight, and will contact winners soon thereafter.

Update: now closed, thanks for your interest.

Summer Eleven is a short road-themed film made by Fernando Sanches, with the aid of Instagram, and shot on location in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Lisbon.

On the subject of travel, I’m on the road myself, around and about, not that anyone should have noticed… have computer will keep posting, after all.