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.

Steven Soderbergh, director of titles including “Erin Brockovich”, “Ocean’s Eleven”, “The Girlfriend Experience”, and “Magic Mike”, spoke recently at the San Francisco International Film Festival about the contemporary state of cinema.

Art is also about problem solving, and it’s obvious from the news, we have a little bit of a problem with problem solving. In my experience, the main obstacle to problem solving is an entrenched ideology. The great thing about making a movie or a piece of art is that that never comes into play. All the ideas are on the table. All the ideas and everything is open for discussion, and it turns out everybody succeeds by submitting to what the thing needs to be. Art, in my view, is a very elegant problem-solving model.

It’s a longer read, but well worth the time.

In case you still doubt the ability of Daniel Day-Lewis to literally become the characters he portrays, check out his performance as current US President Barack Obama, in this preview of Obama, Steven Spielberg’s follow up to Lincoln.

Now if that’s not an award winning portrayal, I really don’t know what is…

The Hangover Part III opens in Australian cinemas on 23 May, and while I doubt it’ll be as fun as part one, who knows, we may be surprised by the final installment of the trilogy.

Recently though stars of the series including Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis, sat down with director Todd Phillips and put together an uncensored oral history of the making of the films:

It was called What Happens in Vegas. In 2007, screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore came up with a novel pitch: a bachelor party comedy that would play out as a mystery, with increasingly bizarre reveals leading to the location of the missing groom. New Line Cinema executives loved the idea but were dead set on that title and couldn’t secure rights, so they passed. Others weren’t interested. But Lucas and Moore wrote the script anyway and slipped it to fellow CAA client Todd Phillips.

You want to see a certain film, but you’re apprehensive about going along to the cinema alone? Worry no more, now there’s even a way to find someone to accompany you to the movies.

Making a film is no walk in the park, the process takes years and costs a fortune, but can you imagine the frustration of finding the movie you’ve laboured for so long to bring forth is released at almost the same time as another virtually identical production?

Compress the plots of movies down to ten words, or less, and it becomes all too easy to see just how similar many films are.

For instance, which films does the storyline “a disgraced professional guard proves himself worthy after he becomes the only one who can save a group of hostages” bring to mind?

Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and Olympus Has Fallen, of course.

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.

Comic book superheroes have been killed off, or retired left, right, and centre in their droves in recent years. Of course they duly return, reinvented, reinvigorated, and ready to take on the world again. So how’s this now for a bold call, let’s kill off the action film genre, for a time, and see if a way can be found to breathe new life into its tired form.

It is, as I say, a big ask, but after seeing Olympus Has Fallen (trailer), the latest feature of US film director Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”, “Tears of the Sun”), it’s a notion that even the most ardent of action movie fans is likely to find themselves entertaining. A little too far fetched to fly you say? Well, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Secret service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) finds himself languishing in a desk job after taking the fall for a tragedy, that was not his fault, 18 months earlier. Thanks however to an inscrutable Korean terrorist group, whose goal is to unite the troubled peninsula, after they first raze the White House in Washington D.C., that is, redemption is at hand.

Within minutes, it seems, the group, led by Kang (Rick Yune), has effortlessly destroyed half the iconic Presidential building, and have taken US President Asher (Aaron Eckhart), the Vice President (Phil Austin), and the Secretary of Defense (Melissa Leo), among others, hostage in the underground emergency operations bunker.

A full assault by US military forces is out of the question, leaving it up to Banning, who managed to enter the besieged building, to save the day. Single handed. Aside from a little shock value however, “Olympus Has Fallen”, shows us nothing that we haven’t already seen in the likes of “Salt”, “Independence Day”, and the “Die Hard” films.

And while the sight of an institution as established as the White House being compromised and obliterated, with an apparent lack of difficulty, would be unnerving to say the least, as an option for a filmmaker it makes for an all too easy choice. To be succinct, move along, there’s absolutely nothing worthy of your time to see 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)