Prometheus: Alien prequel?

Viral videos have been released for the upcoming science fiction film Prometheus , from the director of Alien, Ridley Scott. There has been much speculation over the film's relation to the 1979 film Alien, in particular whether it's a prequel or not. Ridley Scott has stated in an interview that Alien fans will notice "strands of Alien DNA" within the film. He's quoted as saying: "I mean, you could actually say, and there's a quote I did, a pretty good quote: By the end of the third act you start to realize there's a DNA of the very first alien, but none of the subsequent aliens."

Michael Fassbender in a viral video for Prometheus.

It has been confirmed that it will take place in the same universe as Alien, but it's not directly connected to the Alien franchise. The film is set to be released on June 8, 2012.

The Wizard of Oz: Hanging Proof.

There have been rumours that in the background of a scene from The Wizard of Oz, a munchkin can be seen hanging himself. In fact, there is video evidence in which you can clearly see a small figure hanging from a tree.

The Wizard of Oz: Munchkin hanging from a tree.

The video with the hanging munchkin is actually fake. In reality, a bird can be seen flapping its wings.

As you can imagine, the rumour spread quickly and it became an urban legend. But the truth is, exotic birds were on set to give the movie a natural and realistic atmosphere.

Buried: The ending explained.

A lot of people were confused by the ending to the film Buried. To understand the ending, you need to know who Mark White was. Mark White was a man who was supposedly kidnapped and then saved 3 weeks before Ryan Reynolds' character, Paul Conroy, was taken hostage and buried. But at the end of the film Brenner (the guy on the phone) tells Paul they found Mark buried in a coffin. So why did he lie to him? The obvious answer is that he wanted to console Paul and give him hope. The hostage Mark White had been buried the whole time, but he didn't want to tell Paul Conroy that. The truth is that the US State Department has a low success rate of rescuing hostages, so they wanted to give him false hope to keep him calm.

Ryan Reynolds as Paul Conroy

PAUL
How many others have there been?
DAN
Since I got here? Hundreds.
Journalists, contractors,
soldiers...hundreds have been
taken. It’s one of the only
functioning businesses out here.
PAUL
How many have you rescued?

Dan is reluctant to answer the question.

PAUL
How many?
DAN
Not many.
PAUL
Tell me their names.
DAN
Who?
PAUL
Any of them. Make me know they
really do matter to you.
DAN
Mark White.

He couldn't name anyone they rescued because they had all died, so he named the most recent man who was kidnapped. Paul Conroy was just another name to them.

Why John Carter failed.

Disney estimates that it will lose $200 million on their science fiction blockbuster John Carter. But how could a film that ostensibly has all the elements for success flop so badly? To understand why John Carter flopped, you need to look at it in context. First of all, John Carter is based on a series of novels written over 40 years ago. Most of the ideas have been shamelessly copied by other authors and filmmakers. This has the effect of making John Carter just look...bland. We've seen it all before. In fact, we've seen it quite recently too - in James Cameron's Avatar. It's likely that audiences are suffering from a "post-Avatar fatigue".

Another factor is the film's marketing. Disney's marketing campaign has been notoriously bad, with audiences left confused by incoherent trailers and "uninformative billboards". Another Disney film, "Mars needs Moms", was blamed for Disney's decision to remove "of Mars" from the title. The film's original title "John Carter of Mars" was also said to be too "overtly sci-fi" and was likely to repel female movie fans. Having a relatively unknown lead actor probably doesn't help either.

John Carter

The most probable reason for the film's underperformance is simply that it failed to connect with audiences. Many people are reporting that the film is "dull", "unimaginative" and just plain boring. The director, Andrew Stanton, is a newcomer to directing live action films, having previously directed animated films such as WALL·E and Finding Nemo. It's possible that he couldn't handle a large real life production, or maybe the studio interfered with his vision. Either way, the film has been called a "mess" by critics and audiences were left unimpressed.

Andrew Stanton has stated in interviews that he doesn't pay attention to box office figures. After costing Disney $200 million, it's likely that he won't need to any time soon.

The Social Network: Is it a true story?

Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg

The Social Network was adapted from a book called "The Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich. The book is a work of fiction based on a series of embellished and fabricated events. For example, Mark Zuckerberg did collaborate on a website called ConnectU with the Winklevoss twins, who sued him back in 2004. However, Zuckerberg's girlfriend, Erica Albright, shown at the beginning of the film dumping Mark, is entirely fictitious. The film's negative portrayal of Zuckerberg is largely due to the book being from the perspective of Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield, who did actually file a lawsuit against Facebook because of differences of opinion with Mark.

Other events were dramatized by the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, such as the relationship between Mark and Sean Parker. The real Sean Parker stated in 2011 that “The part of the movie that frustrated me is actually the scene at the end where the character played by Justin Timberlake — who happens to have my name — basically writes a check to Eduardo – who I’m also, I consider Eduardo a friend of mine, and I’m one of the few people at Facebook who still interacts with Eduardo – and throws it in his face and has security escort him out of the building. And I mean, that’s just rude. This guy in the movie is a morally reprehensible human being.”

Zuckerberg has said that the biggest difference between the movie and real life stems from the fact that filmmakers "can't wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things." It is debatable whether Mark is really as ruthless as he is portrayed in the film, but the fact is that he did make a few enemies along the way.

Inception: Was he dreaming?

Inception: Was he dreaming?

The ending of Inception was left deliberately ambiguous as to whether Cobb was dreaming or not. In an interview with the director Christopher Nolan, he stated that he believes "Cobb gets back to his kids" which assumes that Cobb was not dreaming. However, the most important thing to note is that Cobb ignores the spinning totem at the end. Nolan was trying to say that the question of whether Cobb was dreaming or not is irrelevant - what matters is that Cobb is happy to be united with his children. In the end, it may not be possible to truly know if the world we are living in is a dream or just a subset of another reality, but the most important thing is to find happiness in life.