MOSTLYFILM: Famous Last Words

And that's your lot. Today's post on MostlyFilm, Famous Last Words, is the last thing we'll ever put on the site. We'll keep it available - don't worry, we stuffed some money in the meter before we left - but there won't be any more new content after this one.

Still, you can't deny that you've had plenty of new content over the last week and a bit. And to wrap everything up, I've got what I believe is the largest number of people collaborating on a single post: 21 in total, all of whom have suggested their favourite movie ending using a single image and a bit of dialogue.

This means, of course, that the page you're reading right now is the last ever Red Button Bonus Content post I'll ever do. So what should it be? Well, as my concluding stint as editor gave me access to the site stats, I've decided to reveal to you which are the ten most popular posts I was responsible for during my seven years writing for the site. There are a couple of surprises low down the list, but I think the top five is pretty predictable. See what you think, anyway.

MOSTLYFILM: Shortly Oscars 2018

Still hammering though the final days of MostlyFilm - we've published four more pieces since the one I was plugging two days ago - and this one, it has to be said, was the most stressful to get though the editorial process.

It shouldn't have been, really. We always knew that the big climax of the week was going to be the Oscars. Just before the weekend of the award ceremony - that is, today, Friday March 2nd - I wanted Indy Datta and myself to do what we've done in previous years, and publish reviews of the nominees for Best Live Action Short and Best Animated Short. Luckily, as in previous years, Shorts HD were releasing them as downloadable videos across all the major digital platforms - iTunes, Amazon and Google to name the main ones in the UK. "The films will be available on February 27th," it said on the Shorts HD site, which gave us three days to watch them and write the reviews. On February 27th, that was changed to "The films are coming soon." Apparently, co-ordinating the release of the shorts packages across all platforms had proved more troublesome than they thought. That wasn't good.

The site still says 'coming soon' at the time of writing, but in fact the shorts crawled out without fanfare on Thursday morning, two days late. Lucky for them: at one point, when it looked like we wouldn't be able to see them in time, I was planning for us to watch all their trailers on YouTube, and make snap judgments on the films based on those. You may think it's massively unfair on the filmmakers: we thought it was exactly the sort of professional discourtesy that a movie review site should try to pull off in the final week of its existence. What were they going to do, throw us out of future advance screenings? Exactly.

But we didn't need to do that, so you can read proper informed reviews now on Shortly Oscars 2018. And if you fancy seeing those trailers for yourself, they're right here.

MOSTLYFILM: Epitaph 2

Well, that's that. As MostlyFilm continues to ride slowly into the sunset, we've just published what will be my final solo contribution to the site (though I'll pop up in two more collaborative pieces before the week's out). Monoglot Movie Club: Epitaph 1, contrary to what you may have read at the start of my Polish Netflix article, is a real finale to seven years of the feature. It's my one and only chance to run with an idea that I've been toying with since 2013 or thereabouts: take a few films that I've reviewed without subtitles for MMC, watch them again with subtitles, and see if it changes my opinion of them. I've picked seven films from more or less the entire run of the feature - for four of them I've been able to draw on second reviews written for these pages, while the other three have been rewatched specially for this piece. You'll have to read Epitaph 1 to see how all that turned out.

The final episode of MMC is, as ever, accompanied by Red Button Bonus Material on this site. I've always enjoyed the challenge of coming up with some sort of cross-promotional piece that'll back up the main article, whether it's just a simple collection of video trailers or a more detailed bit of text background. This one, however, is a little out of the ordinary.

At the top of the MostlyFilm piece is a map showing the 28 cities where I watched films for the series. What if I told you that really, it should have been 29 cities? And that there was a lost MMC film review that never made it to publication? And that you're going to get to see that previously unpublished review right now? Would that impress you? Would it?

Oh. Well, here it is anyway.

MOSTLYFILM: Mostly Farewell

Thelma: OK, then, listen. Let's not get caught.
Louise: What are you talkin' about?
Thelma: Let's keep going!
Louise: What d'you mean?
Thelma: Go. [she nods ahead of them]
Louise: You sure?
Thelma: Yeah. Yeah.

After a wee false start a few weeks ago, we're finally driving MostlyFilm off the cliff edge as promised. And guess who's behind the steering wheel?

MOSTLYFILM: #NotAllBatmen

True story. About twenty-odd years ago, my young nephew had three favourite action figures. The first was Batman: with his lumpy grey suit and navy blue cowl, he was obviously based on the 1966 TV version, and presumably some sort of family heirloom. The second was Batman: all in black, a sculpted torso replacing the middle-aged spread, looking more like Michael Keaton did in the 1989 film. The third was, well, Batman: the square jaw and cartoonish features marked him out as being the one from The Animated Series, the version my nephew was most familiar with at the time. And I'd watch in fascination as he'd wrangle all three of them into play scenarios that would frequently end with them having a big fight.

In a way, that's kind of what we're doing on MostlyFilm today, as we continue the site's farewell run of posts. #NotAllBatmen features five of us each picking one depiction of the Caped Crusader - the three discussed above in action figure form, plus the one currently on telly in Gotham, and me looking at one of his DTV animated incarnations - and comparing them against each other. No big fight at the end of this one, unfortunately: the best I can do in this Red Button Bonus Content page is show you a bunch of trailers featuring each of our Batmen.

MOSTLYFILM: Netflix i Chłód

The whole internet loves MostlyFilm, a lovely website that loves everything apart from late period Steven Moffat!

*7 years later*

We regret to inform you the website is dead

It was a good run, let's be honest. When a bunch of refugees from Film Unlimited (including myself) first floated the idea of running our own movie blog back in 2011, we had no idea how long we could sustain it. It's amazing looking back at those first posts and realising that between us, we were churning out five new pieces of content every week. It took quite a long time, but gradually that enthusiasm wore off: the frequency dropped off to three posts a week, and then irregularly, while the editor's task of coordinating all the people involved became less and less fun.

For the last couple of months, the site has been kinda just been sitting there while we've been batting around a few ideas for a reboot, and eventually coming to the conclusion that we're more or less spent. A lesser website would have just pulled down the shutters at that point and walked away. We, however, are not a lesser website. We are Europe's Best Website. And so, over the next three weeks (taking us into the start of 2018), MostlyFilm will see one final burst of activity - a series of posts looking back on the last seven years, wrapping up a number of our ongoing series, and continuing to do things that you wouldn't expect from a site that's mostly about film.

And on the topic of doing things that you wouldn't expect, this lap of honour starts with a piece of mine called Netflix i Chłód, in which I review the half a dozen Polish stand-up comedy specials available on Netflix. The prospect of providing Red Button Bonus Content for that is a little daunting, but I'll see what I can do.

MOSTLYFILM: The Good Place/Harry Dean Stanton

It's been a busy old week on MostlyFilm. You may have noticed that the site's not updated as frequently as it used to be, but we're still putting out hot content whenever circumstances demand it: and this particular week, circumstances have demanded it twice. I'm involved in both of the posts that resulted, which is why I'm telling you about them here.

Firstly, there's the TV show The Good Place, for which I've written a preview. I actually watched most of the first season earlier this year, on a Cathay Pacific flight during our holiday in Hong Kong and Japan, and yes I will get around to writing about that soon I promise. Anyway, it's a similar story to the time last year when I discovered Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on a plane: like that show, The Good Place has now been picked up by Netflix in the UK, allowing you to catch up on old episodes as well as watch new ones the day after their transmission in the US. I think you should do just that, and the article explains why.

Secondly, there's the small matter of Harry Dean Stanton, who died last weekend at the perfectly respectable age of 91. It was felt that MostlyFilm should mark his passing in some way or other, so three of us - CaulorLime, theTramp, and yours truly - have each picked one of Harry Dean's performances and written a bit about why they were so good.

It would be monstrously glib to try and link these two pieces by expressing the hope that Harry Dean Stanton is now himself in The Good Place. So I won't. Instead, I'll give you a few bits of video as your Red Button Bonus Content.

MOSTLYFILM: Shin Godzilla

Hey, there's a new Godzilla film out! Well, sort of. It's called Shin Godzilla, and its cinema release in the UK was limited to a series of one-night stands last Thursday, followed by a few short runs that are currently happening in various cities. If you hurry, you might still be able to catch it near you: otherwise, you'll have to wait for the home video release just before Christmas.

Anyway, I've reviewed Shin Godzilla for MostlyFilm, so you may want to go and read that to find out what I thought about it. Did you realise that discounting the various American remakes, there have been twenty-nine Godzilla movies made in Japan, including this new one? Imagine what it would be like to watch all the trailers for them back to back!

Yeah, you know what's coming after the jump.

 

MOSTLYFILM: Celebrating Soderbergh

I'll keep this short, as I usually do when I've got a group piece on MostlyFilm to plug. (After all, it seems a bit much to write a thousand or more words of backup material like I did here when I only contributed five hundred or so to the original article.)

Anyway: Steven Soderbergh has a new film out, and here's its trailer. He technically stopped directing films five years ago (although during that time he directed two complete seasons of a TV show to keep himself occupied), but now he's back. In Celebrating Soderbergh, a bunch of the MostlyFilm regulars have picked one of his films and written about it. I went for Schizopolis, probably one of the oddest things he's ever done.

Need reminding what those films looked like? Well, that's why there's a video playlist down there.

MOSTLYFILM: The Secret Life Of Arabia

I imagine most of you have made some sort of wallchart to accompany the BrewDogging posts on here. You've listed all of the BrewDog bars currently open across the planet - maybe you've even plotted them out on a big map - and you've been marking them off one by one as we've been visiting them. You're probably eagerly anticipating the day when we can say we've had a drink in every single one.

Well, spoiler alert: that's probably not going to happen. The primary reason for that is the BrewDog bar in São Paulo. Yes, I was in the city back in 2012, two years before the bar opened, but that was for work. Even Brazilians will admit that São Paulo has nothing to offer the casual tourist, which is what we'd be if we were visiting it for BrewDogging purposes. We'd have to expend a lot of effort and money just so we could have a cheeky drink or two.

Saudi Arabia's the same, but without the cheeky drink or two. Riyadh is purely a business city, and there's no reason you'd go there as a tourist: there's no actual method of doing it either, given that they don't offer tourist visas anyway. So when I went there back in May this year - primarily for work, but also to research an amusingly futile Monoglot Movie Club piece for Mostly Film called The Secret Life Of Arabia - I did wonder if writing up my usual set of travel tips would work as backup material. It's quite possible they would be of no use to absolutely anyone else reading this.

Mind you, that's never stopped me before, so here goes.