Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) — The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Hannibal Lecter, M.D. is a fictional character in a series of novels by author Thomas Harris. Lecter is introduced in the thriller novel Red Dragon as a genius psychiatrist  and cannibalistic serial ki**er. This novel and its sequel, The Silence of the Lambs, feature Lecter as one of two primary antagonists. In the third novel, Hannibal, Lecter becomes the main character. His role as protagonist and anti-hero occurs in the fourth novel, Hannibal Rising, which explores his childhood and development into a serial killer. Lecter’s character also appears in all five film adaptations.The first film, Manhunter, was loosely based on Red Dragon, and features Brian Cox as Lecter, spelled as “Lecktor”. In 2002, a second adaptation of Red Dragon was made under the original title, featuring Anthony Hopkins, who had previously played Lecter in the motion pictures The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Hopkins won an Academy Award for his performance of the character in The Silence of the Lambs in 1991. In 2003, Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Hopkins) was voted by The American Film Institute to be the most memorable villain in film history

Jeffrey Gaines 12 Monkeys (1995)

He might not really be radical revolutionary leader of the apocalypse-causing Army of the Twelve Monkeys, but Jeffrey Goines is certainly one entertainingly insane inmate. Managing to make a fashion statement out of pajamas, a track jacket and leather brogues, the tousle-haired Pitt is all scalp-tugging, neck-rolling and crazy hand mania. But he’s most memorable for his motor-mouthery. “

Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie) — Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Girl, Interrupted is a 2000 drama film about a teen’s 18-month stay at a mental institution, starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg, Academy Award winner Vanessa Redgrave and Brittany Murphy. It was adapted from the original memoir of the same name, written by Susanna Kaysen. The film was directed by James Mangold, from a screenplay written by Mangold, Anna Hamilton Phelan and Lisa Loomer.

Dr Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) — Batman Begins (2005)

It’s tough to say whether he’s mad or bad — probably a touch of both. But Crane’s the very definition of the lunatic running the asylum, and not just running it but running it into the ground for power, profit and pervere pleasure. His schtick is dosing patients with fear-creating toxins and then putting on his jolly scarecrow mask for added freak-out factor.

Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) — One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

McMurphy is an Irish-American brawler found guilty of battery and gambling  (he had also been charged with, but never convicted of, statutory rae, something which he brags about). He is a Korean War veteran who was a POW during the war. He is sentenced to a fairly short prison term, and decides to have himself declared insane in order to be transferred to a mental institution, where he expects to serve the rest of his time in (comparative) comfort and luxury.McMurphy’s ward in the mental institution is run by the tyrannical Nurse Ratched, who has cowed the patients – who are mostly there by choice – into dejected submission. The two hate each other on sight, and McMurphy goes on a crusade to flout Ratched’s regime of rules and punishment, as well as liberate the other patients from her grip.

12 years after Titanic James Cameron is betting he can change forever the way you watch movies

In December 2006, Cameron explained that the delay in producing the film since the 1990s had been to wait until the technology necessary to create his project was advanced enough. The director planned to create photo-realistic computer-generated characters by using motion-capture animation technology, on which he had been doing work for the past 14 months. Unlike previous motion-capture systems, where the digital environment is added after the actors’ motions have been captured, Cameron’s new virtual camera allows him to observe directly on a monitor how the actors’ virtual counterparts interact with the movie’s digital world in real time and adjust and direct the scenes just as if shooting live action; “It’s like a big, powerful game engine. If I want to fly through space, or change my perspective, I can. I can turn the whole scene into a living miniature and go through it on a 50 to 1 scale.” To create the world of Pandora as seen in the film, it required over a petabyte of digital storage.

In January 2007, Fox announced that the studio’s Avatar would be filmed in 3D at 24 frames per second despite Cameron’s strong opinion that a 3D film requires higher frame rate to make strobing less noticeable.  Cameron described the film as a hybrid with a full live-action shoot in combination with computer-generated characters and live environments. “Ideally at the end of the day the audience has no idea which they’re looking at,” Cameron said. The director indicated that he had already worked four months on nonprincipal scenes for the film. Principal photography began in April 2007,  and was done around parts of Los Angeles as well as New Zealand. The live action was shot with a modified version of the proprietary digital 3D Fusion Camera System, developed by Cameron and Vince Pace. According to Cameron, the film is composed of 60% computer-generated elements and 40% live action, as well as traditional miniatures. Motion-capture photography would last 31 days at the Hughes Aircraft stage in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California. In October, Cameron was scheduled to shoot live-action in New Zealand for another 31 days

In 1994, director James Cameron wrote a 80-page scriptment for Avatar and he reportedly wrote it in just two weeks. Cameron said his inspiration was “every single science fiction book I read as a kid”, and that he was particularly striving to update the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter series. In August 1996, Cameron announced that after completing Titanic, he would film Avatar, which would make use of synthetic, or computer-generated, actors. The project would cost $100 million and involve at least six actors in leading roles “who appear to be real but do not exist in the physical world”. Visual effects house Digital Domain, with whom Cameron has a partnership, joined the project, which was supposed to begin production in the summer of 1997 for a 1999 release. However, Cameron felt that the technology had not caught up with the story and vision that he intended to tell. He decided to concentrate on making documentaries and refining the technology for the next few years.
In June 2005, Cameron was announced to be working on a project tentatively titled Project 880, concurrently with another project, Battle Angel. By December, Cameron said that he planned to film Battle Angel first for a mid 2007 release, and to film Project 880 for a 2009 release. In February 2006, Cameron said he had switched goals for the two film projects – Project 880 was now scheduled for 2007 and Battle Angel for 2009. He indicated that the release of Project 880 would possibly be delayed until 2008. Later that February, Cameron revealed that Project 880 was “a retooled version of Avatar”, a film that he had tried to make years earlier, citing the technological advances in the creation of the computer-generated characters Gollum, King Kong and Davy Jones. Cameron had chosen Avatar over Battle Angel after completing a five-day camera test in the previous year

American Psycho

Carson Wells, Shot By Cattle Gun. American Psycho is a 2000 film by Mary Harron, a film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel of the same name. The film stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, with Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Justin Theroux, Bill Sage, Chloë Sevigny, Reese Witherspoon, Willem Dafoe, and Samantha Mathis. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on April 14, 2000.

Anaconda

Paul Sarone, Crushed/ eaten by snake. Anaconda is a 1997 horror film, directed by Luis Llosa, starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, and Jon Voight. It centers around a film crew for National Geographic who are kidnapped by a hunter who is going after the world’s largest giant anaconda, which is discovered in the remote jungle. Though a box office hit, the film was critically panned. It was followed by the sequel Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid.

Green Mile

The Green Mile is a 1999 American drama film directed by Frank Darabont and adapted by him from the 1996 Stephen King novel of the same name. The film stars Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecombe and Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey.

The film is primarily about Paul and his life as a corrections officer on Death Row in the 1930s. The movie is told in flashback by the protagonist in a nursing home and follows a string of supernatural events upon the arrival of John, a man convicted, but not guilty, of murder.

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor, Best Picture, Best Sound, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Kill Bill

Elle Driver, Eye removal/ snake bite. Kill Bill is a two part epic film by writer-director Quentin Tarantino, starring Uma Thurman as The Bride. Originally conceived as one film, it was released in two separate ‘volumes’ (in late 2003 and early 2004) due to its running time of approximately four hours. The movie is an epic-length revenge drama, with homages to earlier film genres, such as Hong Kong martial arts movies, Japanese Chanbara films, exploitation films and Italian spaghetti westerns; an extensive use of popular music and pop culture references; and aestheticization of violence. Filming took place in California, Texas, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Mexico.

No country for old men

Carson Wells, Shot By Cattle Gun. No Country for Old Men is a 2007 crime thriller film adapted for the screen and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin. Adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name,[1][2] No Country for Old Men tells the story of an ordinary man to whom chance delivers a fortune that is not his, and the ensuing cat-and-mouse drama, as three men crisscross each other’s paths in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. The film examines the themes of fate and circumstance the Coen brothers have previously explored in Blood Simple and Fargo.

No Country for Old Men has been highly praised by critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it “as good a film as the Coen brothers…have ever made.”[3] The Guardian journalist John Patterson said the film proved “that the Coens’ technical abilities, and their feel for a landscape-based Western classicism reminiscent of Anthony Mann and Sam Peckinpah, are matched by few living directors.”[4] The film was honored with numerous awards, garnering three British Academy of Film awards, two Golden Globes, and four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Joel and Ethan Coen), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem).

Pulp fiction

Vincent Vega shot. Pulp Fiction (1994) is an American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who cowrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references. The film was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture; Tarantino and Avary won for Best Original Screenplay. It was also awarded the Palme d’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. A major critical and commercial success, it revitalized the career of its leading man, John Travolta, who received an Academy Award nomination, as did costars Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman.

Directed in a highly stylized manner, Pulp Fiction joins the intersecting storylines of Los Angeles mobsters, fringe players, small-time criminals, and a mysterious briefcase. Considerable screen time is devoted to conversations and monologues that reveal the characters’ senses of humor and perspectives on life. The film’s title refers to the pulp magazines and hardboiled crime novels popular during the mid-20th century, known for their graphic violence and punchy dialogue. Pulp Fiction is self-referential from its opening moments, beginning with a title card that gives two dictionary definitions of “pulp”. The plot, in keeping with most of Tarantino’s other works, is presented out of chronological sequence.

The picture’s self-reflexivity, unconventional structure, and extensive use of homage and pastiche have led critics to describe it as a prime example of postmodern film. Considered by some critics a black comedy,[3] the film is also frequently labeled a “neo-noir”.[4] Critic Geoffrey O’Brien argues otherwise: “The old-time noir passions, the brooding melancholy and operatic death scenes, would be altogether out of place in the crisp and brightly lit wonderland that Tarantino conjures up. [It is] neither neo-noir nor a parody of noir”.[5] Similarly, Nicholas Christopher calls it “more gangland camp than neo-noir”,[6] and Foster Hirsch suggests that its “trippy fantasy landscape” characterizes it more definitively than any genre label.[7] Pulp Fiction is viewed as the inspiration for many later movies that adopted various elements of its style. The nature of its development, marketing, and distribution and its consequent profitability had a sweeping effect on the field of independent cinema. A cultural watershed, Pulp Fiction’s influence has been felt in several other popular media.

Terminator

Todd Voight, Knife through mouth. The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction action film directed and co-written by James Cameron and distributed by the independent film studio Orion Pictures. It features Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor and Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese. The film was followed by three sequels. The franchise has evolved to include video games and a television series.

The film takes place in 1984, introducing the concept of a “Terminator”, specifically the titular character (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a seemingly unstoppable cyborg assassin who has been sent back from the year 2029 by a collective of artificially intelligent computer-controlled machines bent on the extermination of the human race. The Terminator’s mission is to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) whose future son, John Connor, leads a resistance against the machines. A human, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), is also sent back from the future by John Connor himself to protect her.

In 2008, The Terminator was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

The godfather

Mary Corleone, Melodramatically shot. The Godfather is a 1972 American drama film based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Mario Puzo and directed by Francis Ford Coppola from a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola, and Robert Towne (uncredited).[3] It stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard S. Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte and Diane Keaton, and features John Cazale , Talia Shire, Al Martino , and Abe Vigoda. The story spans ten years from 1945 to 1955 and chronicles the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. Two sequels followed: The Godfather Part II in 1974, and The Godfather Part III in 1990.

The Godfather received Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay, and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In addition, it is ranked as the second greatest film in American cinematic history, behind Citizen Kane, on the AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) list by the American Film Institute.

Titanic

Jack Dawson, Froze in Atlantic Ocean. Titanic is a 1997 American romantic drama film directed, written, co-produced and co-edited by James Cameron about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson and Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater, two members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ill-fated maiden voyage of the ship. The main characters and the central love story are fictional, but some characters (such as members of the ship’s passengers and crew) are based on historical figures. Gloria Stuart plays the elderly Rose, who narrates the film in a modern day framing device.

Production of the film began in 1995, when Cameron shot footage of the real wreck of the RMS Titanic. He envisioned the love story as a means to engage the audience with the real-life tragedy. Shooting took place on board the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh – which aided Cameron in filming the real wreck – for the modern scenes, and a reconstruction of the ship was built at Playas de Rosarito, Baja California. Cameron also used scale models and computer-generated imagery to recreate the sinking. Titanic became at the time the most expensive film ever made, costing approximately US$200 million with funding from Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox.

The film was originally to be released on July 2, 1997, but post-production delays pushed back the film’s release to December 19, 1997.[4] Upon release, the film turned out to be an enormous critical and commercial success, winning eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.[5] It became the highest-grossing film of all time, with a worldwide total of over $1.8 billion (it is the sixth-highest grossing in North America once adjusted for inflation)

The lord of rings

The Lord of the Rings film trilogy consists of three live action fantasy epic films: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003). The trilogy is based on the three-volume book The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. While they follow the book’s general storyline, the films also feature some additions to and deviations from the source material.

Set in the fictional world of Middle-earth, the three films follow the hobbit Frodo Baggins as he and a Fellowship embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring, and thus ensure the destruction of its maker, the Dark Lord Sauron. The Fellowship becomes divided and Frodo continues the quest together with his loyal companion Sam and the treacherous Gollum. Meanwhile, the wizard Gandalf and Aragorn, heir in exile to the throne of Gondor, unite and rally the Free Peoples of Middle-earth, who are ultimately victorious in the War of the Ring.

The films were directed by Peter Jackson and distributed by New Line Cinema. Considered to be one of the biggest and most ambitious movie projects ever undertaken, with an overall budget of $285 million, the entire project took eight years, with the filming for all three films done simultaneously and entirely in Jackson’s native New Zealand. Each film in the trilogy also had Special Extended Editions, released on DVD a year after the theatrical releases.

The trilogy was a great financial success, with the films being among the highest-grossing films of all time. The films were critically acclaimed, winning 17 out of 30 Academy Awards nominated in total, and received wide praise for the cast and for the innovative practical and digital special effects.

Jackson is collaborating with Guillermo del Toro on a two-part The Hobbit film adaptation, for release in 2011 and 2012.

Have a look at the recent releases of Funny People and Bruno. Both were anticipating to stack dollars into the stratosphere but due to early complaints about issues with length and penises (I feel ya) the films underperformed (that’s how I roll).

Paramount has supposedly decided to handpick the websites and critics who would be allowed to review the upcoming G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra in order to avoid any caustic write-ups. We thought it would be refreshing if the studios were just honest for a change and wore their bad reviews like a badge of honor. Like when Billy Madison got all the kids to piss their pants.

Take a look below at our gallery from an alternate universe… where COMPLETELY REAL negative reviews are the hallmark of movie posters:

The producer of a new killer shark movie filmed in Queensland denies the film will scare away tourists from the Great Barrier Reef, claiming it may actually boost traveller numbers.

Tourism operators in north Queensland have expressed fears about the impact of The Reef on an already struggling industry.

The $3.5 million Australian-made film tells the story five young travellers who are sailing in tropical waters when their yacht sinks, stranding them in open water ocean to be harassed by a Great White shark.

The species does not inhabit the Great Barrier Reef.

Head of the Association of Marine Park Operators, Col McKenzie, told media in Cairns he was worried the film would turn off foreign visitors who could not distinguish fact from fiction. Others, like Tourism Tropical North Queensland CEO Rob Giason say The Reef “distorts” the reality of a Great Barrier Reef holiday experience.

“We know from the industry, any kind of shark attack, any kind that they air in the Jaws movies and things like that, there’s a drop off in inquiries within the marine tourism industry,” Mr McKenzie told The Cairns Post.

But The Reef’s producer Michael Robertson said similar horror flicks involving crocodiles, such as the big budget picture Rogue released in 2007, had given Australian tourism a shot in the arm.

“I know that when the crocodile films were made in the Northern Territory it actually increased tourism [there],” he told brisbanetimes.com.au.

“I know for a fact the film Rogue had its Australian premiere in Darwin supported by the Northern Territory tourism board.”

Mr Robertson said nowhere in the film was the Great Barrier Reef mentioned as its setting.

“The film doesn’t go out of its way to mention where it is set. It is set nowhere – its a generic setting, there’s no mention of Australia in the story it is just a place somewhere in the world.”

Dr. Mark David Ryan, lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology and an expert in the horror movie genre, said he also expected tourism to receive a boost, judging by the influence of previous grizzly horror flicks such as Wolf Creek.

“In many ways Wolf Creek has created tourism,” he said

“Before the movie, the Wolf Creek crater wasn’t a major tourism destination whereas now it is on the map so the film has created tourism in that case,” Dr Ryan said.

“The Amityville horror house – even to this day – attracts tourists, it’s become a tourist destination.”

Australian filmmakers have been prolific in the horror genre, incorporating the natural dangers of the country such as Razorback(1984), Open Water(2003), Wolf Creek(2005), Rogue(2007) and Black Water(2007) which Dr Ryan says is typical.

“Australian filmmakers draw on what Australia has so we have sharks, crocodiles, giant boars and the isolated outback, whereas somewhere in Eastern Europe they tend to draw on what they have and this can be a legacy of castles and myths of vampires,” he said.

“Directors here draw on what works in Australia and this is often the fear of sharks, the fear of crocodiles and so on.”

Tourism Minister Peter Lawlor said movie goers were smart enough to work it out for themselves and would not be scared off by what was clearly a fictional film.

“There is no evidence to suggest that horror movies discourage people from visiting a particular destination or from undertaking a particular activity,” Mr Lawlor said.

“The vast majority of people are able to discern fact from fiction and movies such as this can in fact help raise the profile of a destination and add to Australia’s image as an adventure destination. This appeals to many visitors such as backpackers.”

Dr Ryan agreed.

“I think in most cases people that go to watch these films understand that the horror genre is part of fantastic cinema and the aim of these films is to scare an audience,” he said.

The Reef will be released in late 2010.