Three Italian-American sisters who have managed to break free of their family’s overbearing influence, most notably their controlling father’s, must face the clan again when their more traditional sibling decides to get married in their Rhode Island hometown. The visit turns out as excruciating as they expected, but they also discover an unexpected gift in their reunion: wisdom. Stars Alyssa Milano, Monet Mazur, Amanda Detmer and Brooke Langton.

2. The Last of the Mohicans (available now on Fancast and Hulu)

Set against the backdrop of the American frontier, a story of war and romance unfolds as the battle for the colonies is underway. Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his adoptive Mohican brethren join a group of British soldiers in an effort to defeat the French and win control of the territories. The lovely daughter of a British officer (Madeleine Stowe) captures Hawkeye’s heart as he continues to fight for the land in the name of his people.

3. Big Fish (available now on Crackle)

William Bloom (Billy Crudup) tries to learn more about his dying father, Edward (Albert Finney), by piecing together the facts out of the various fantastic tales and legends of epic proportions he’s been told over the years. Edward was a traveling salesman, and his journeys throughout the South are the seed of the tales. Directed by Tim Burton, the movie co-stars Ewan McGregor (as the young Edward), Helena Bonham-Carter and Steve Buscemi.

4. S.W.A.T. (available now on Crackle)

Inspired by the 1970s action-packed TV series with the catchy theme song, this modern-day “S.W.A.T.” stars Colin Farrell as Jim Street, an L.A.P.D. cop who joins the department’s elite special weapons and tactics unit commandeered by Hondo (Samuel Jackson). They’re up against a drug lord (Olivier Martinez) who’s offering a million dollars to the first person who springs him from jail. Only the S.W.A.T. team can stop his plan.

5. A Few Good Men (available now on Crackle)

When cocky military lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and his co-counsel, Lt. Cmdr. JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore), are assigned to a murder case, they uncover a hazing ritual that could implicate high-ranking officials such as shady Col. Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson). Director Rob Reiner’s probing drama earned four Oscar nominations, and Nicholson’s line, “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!” became a ’90s catchphrase.

Movie Compatibility!

And Not Interested!

Now when you visit another person’s profile page, we’ll tell you how compatible you are with that person’s movie tastes.  So if you’re ever looking for a special someone to watch a movie with, now you’ll know just who to choose.  Hieu, I’m afraid we can’t be friends anymore.

And if you have no interest of ever watching a movie on the Find Page, just click Hide Forever, and you’ll never worry about seeing it again!

Let us know what you think about these new tools!

Dr. Dolittle is probably not the first movie that comes to mind when you think of an action-packed movie. But to some people (i.e. our moms who once fed and may still feed us), Dr. Dolittle certainly could be considered an action-packed comedy.

Understanding how most people interpret films is one of the hardest challenges for us as we bang our heads repeatedly to refine the Movie Genome Project. By studying the movie reviews that people write across the Webisphere, we’ve learned what movies people think of when they hear the words Thriller, Provocative, or Jessica Alba. Was suffering some permanent brain damage worth it? Yes.

Our continued research has helped us launch a new set of Tastes and Genres this week including some categories of films that are hard to find elsewhere. If you’re looking for a Classic, a Sports movie, or something Uplifting for Kids, HelloMovies is the place to find it all. And although Dr. Dolittle may still creep his way into some Tastes and Genres that seem inappropriate, we’ve weeded out most of these movies or pushed them further back in search results for this latest revision.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

For those of you who happen to be strolling around Palo Alto from May 21st to the 23rd, go check out the 2009 Stanford Student Film Festival, presented by the Stanford Film Society!  The event is free and open to the public, and will start at 8:00 pm each night in Cubberley Auditorium (on the Stanford campus).  Several local independent film projects will be featured each night, in the categories of drama, comedy, art house, documentary, music video, and interstitial. The films will be critiqued by a panel of judges comprised of Stanford faculty and local movie critics, as well as by the audience! The Grand Jury Prize Winner will be flown down to Los Angeles for a one-on-one lunch meeting with Warner Brothers Executive VP of Production Greg Silverman (10 Things I Hate About You, 300, The One, Get Smart, Yes Man, The Dark Knight, Poseidon, and The Lake House).

We’ll have a booth at the event to tell people more about HelloMovies and chat with any of our lovely users.  We look forward to seeing everyone!

Star Trek
May 8, 2009

Capt. Kirk (Chris Pine) and his trusted team on the starship USS Enterprise boldly go where no man has gone before in this installment of Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi franchise that follows the early days of the intergalactic adventurers. The crew includes Spock (Zachary Quinto), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Scotty (Simon Pegg) and Sulu (John Cho). Eric Bana co-stars, and Leonard Nimoy appears as an older version of Spock.

Angels & Demons
May 15, 2009

After the murder of Italian physicist Leonardo Vetra, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon’s (Tom Hanks) investigation with Vetra’s daughter (Ayelet Zurer) leads to a secret society, the Illuminati, and a quest for the world’s most potent — and deadly — energy source. Ron Howard directed the crime thriller, which is based on The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown’s novel and co-stars Ewan McGregor and Stellan Skarsgård.

Terminator Salvation
May 21, 2009

All grown up in post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor (Christian Bale) must lead the resistance of humans against the increasingly dominating militaristic robots in this fourth installment of the popular action-packed Terminator series. But when Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) appears, his existence confuses the mission as Connor tries to determine whether Wright has come from the future or the past — and whether he’s friend or foe.

The Brothers Bloom
May 29, 2009

The Brothers Bloom made a name for themselves as the world’s best con men. Now, the younger (Adrien Brody) is ready to retire on the millions the pair has swindled. But when his brother (Mark Ruffalo) lures him into one last job, he reluctantly agrees. What he hasn’t counted on, though, is falling for their mark, an adventure-seeking heiress (Rachel Weisz). Robbie Coltrane and Babel’s Rinko Kikuchi co-star.

Up
May 29, 2009

After a lifetime of dreaming of traveling the world, 78-year-old homebody Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) is lured into an unbelievable adventure, thanks in part to the persistence of Russell, an 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer (Jordan Nagai). Together, the unlikely pair embarks on a thrilling odyssey full of jungle beasts and rough terrain. Other voices include the renowned Christopher Plummer as the villain and Pixar stalwart John Ratzenberger.

The Year One
June 19, 2009

Banished from their primitive village after the tribe elders deem them too lazy, Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) leave everything they’ve ever known behind and embark upon an adventure-filled journey through the ancient world. Co-starring Hank Azaria, Oliver Platt, Olivia Wilde and David Cross, this epic-sized laffer is a collaborative effort from comedy giants Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day) and Judd Apatow (Knocked Up).

How did these movies make the list?  The list makers are “movies that shaped the cinema and the audiences that viewed them.”  In other words, films that knocked young directors out of the ballpark when they were young, and influenced their later movies.  These are films that Francis Ford Coppola loved, movies that Spielberg loved, that Peter Jackson loved.  In their youth.  Interesting.

Our hypothesis is, then, that it takes about 20 years before we can consider a movie influential.  THAT is the average length of the feedback loop for younger people to actually make movies influenced by the films they saw when they were younger.  Yes, we’re eyeballing that estimate.

Let’s try a little thought experiment, then, shall we?  Imagine that the year is 2029.  Think of all the people that were, in 2009, between the ages of 10 and 20 (give or take), and are now 30-40.  Now imagine that those 10-20 year olds are by 2029 film directors.  What “recent” movies (between the release of Star Wars and today) did they see that transformed the way they thought about movies?  In other words, what will make the list of most influential movies of the past 30 years for future directors?  Or, if you think there hasn’t been a movie in the past 30 years that will later be considered influential, what the heck happened to film???

Post responses in the comments!  We look forward to hearing from you.

- Mr. Fluffy

Hat tip to Film School Rejects, who seemed to COMPLETELY miss the point of the TCM list.  We love you guys anyway.

What follows is some of our favorite glut of movie poster mashups.  We stole them from all over teh interwebs [sic], mostly from flickr, empireonline.com’s movie mashup sequence, movie-moron.com, and other spots hither and thither.  All hilarious, all ridiculous.  We promise.

Enjoy.

(not going to lie – “Dunston Checks Into the Blue” is my favorite)

Did we miss any especially good ones?  Let us know in the comments, and we’ll update this sucker!

Comic Book Movie Revenue, as a percentage of total domestic box office gross (click the picture to see in much better detail)

In 2008 you had to live under a rock to miss noticing that the world seems to love comic book movies like a fat kid loves cake.  As 2009 ramps up, all the major studios have major comic book adaptations in the works.  It seems that they’re going to keep making these films, especially those of the superhero variety, until literally every director who has the slightest comic book fetish is either dead or runs out of source material.

When we look back at the data it’s clear that this superhero thing ain’t new. Comics have been a source of story material for blockbusters for over 30 years, with plenty of notable dynasties (not to mention attempts at dynasty) emerging over that time. Never before, however, have we seen major studios bank so heavily on superhero comic book films as their major tentpoles, in such large numbers. In the 80’s we had the iconic Superman series, and the 90’s saw Batman’s first incarnation. Those films’ translations wouldn’t have been possible without great direction (Richard Donner for Superman and Tim Burton for Batman). X-Men and later Spiderman (directed by Bryan Singer and Sam Raimi, respectively) solidified the director-as-bringer-of-life model that made the early successes.

To get a better picture of the comic book’s role in the film industry over the last 30 years, we plotted comic book movie contribution to gross domestic box office take.  The trend clearly shows the recent explosion within the genre and hints at a possible decline in 2009.  We’ll leave as homework making an actual prediction for 2009, but might recommend you check out hsx.com to try to build out that forecast.

What do you think, will the comic book genre survive?

Here’s a quick tasty update for y’all.

1. We’ve updated the homepage – far, far sexier.
2. Check out our brand-spankin’-new explore page!  You can see all the hotness going on around our site, and also a heck of a lot of movie nuts.
3. Here’s a little feature-ette; right on your profile page, see who’s following you and who you’re following.
4. Our homepage also shows the latest releases on our most popular services, so you can get your movie fix super-duper fast.

I know it’s a short update, and we haven’t talked in a while.  How are the kids?  How are you?

love,

Mr. Fluffy

Today, we are excited to announce the OFFICIAL LAUNCH of hellomovies.com … we’re live, baby!

*Cue music, dancing girls, delicious herbal tea, flannel PJs, laptops and media centers!*

The crew, left to right: Hamilton, Trond, Hieu, Stan, Me, Matt, David, and Steven.

What does the launch of Hellomovies.com mean to people of the tubes?  Well if you are a hobo on the Movie Train Express, the launch of Hellomovies.com means:

1. Everyone has an easy way to find a movie to watch right now.   You can easily browse for movies on your favorite services, like Netflix, Comcast On-Demand, Hulu, and iTunes.  All at once.  You can find movies based on their features.  Hellomovies.com can help you find and watch quirky Japanese comedies, find where to watch Muppets from Space online for free, or find all the movies currently on Comcast On-Demand.
2. You don’t need to find a golden ticket in your Wonka Bar to play. Anyone can sign up now and get access to a ton of great features – signing up is no longer required for basic movie hunting.  Fans who do sign up can rate and catalog their movies, keep an “I want to watch it!” list and compare their favorites to their friends’.  Many features work way better when you customize them, so sign-up today and check out the work of our Oompa Loompas!

For the team here at Hellomovies launching is just the beginning.  We landed on the first witch and have a long twisty yellow brick road ahead.  There will be dancing, singing, fake-looking colorization and flying monkeys.  We will add new features, make mistakes that we regret (nice flock of seagulls haircut, Mr. Fluffy!) and above all else will work relentlessly to build something that you absolutely love and want to come back to use over and over and over (and over … and over).

We couldn’t have gotten this far without our awesome beta users, and we owe you all a tremendous dose of gratitude.  Thank you all for the comments, the criticisms, and the support.  You stuck with us from our “what the *%($@ are we doing?” to our “oh man, I kind of like this” phases.  We love our late nights together and are excited to take this relationship to the next level as we grow and build hellomovies.com into a Carver Media Network Group-style mega-media conglomerate.  [twitter @hellomovies FTW].  Today, you can help us by getting the word out and by sharing with your friends:

• Show off to your friends that your’e the cool one who’s ahead of the curve on new technology.  (Join our facebook group)
• Keep us in the loop when you twitter about movies (@hellomovies), if you follow us we’ll keep you in the loop too!
• Tell us about your blog so we can comment, participate, guest blog, whatever — let us know!
• Rate movies — your opinions are super-duper important to us.  Like REALLY important.  Think of your favorite childhood blankey (blanket).  Your ratings are like THAT to us.
• Help us find missing movie trailers on youtube, improve our summaries and let us know if you find new sources for movies online (legal only, puh-lease.  We can’t afford bigwig lawyers).

We’re so excited to raise the curtain today and if you’re one of the millions of people who love movies and want an easier way to watch one now, we proudly invite you to check out hellomovies.com.  Comments, ideas, praise, pure untapped hatred, death threats, you name it – feel free to blog about us, email us at feedback@hellomovies.com, or tweet us @hellomovies.  We’ll have warm feelings for you forever.  Or a restraining order, it’s your choice… 

Love,

Mr. Fluffy
Dictator-For-Life / Director of Cuteness / Official Mascot
www.hellomovies.com