Cloverfield was the first really modern summer blockbuster. It was the first to be produced by JJ Abrams, who has since graduated to directing both the Star Trek and Star Wars films. It was found footage on a scale nobody had ever attempted before, and turned out to be remarkably prescient about the way we document every single aspect of our day-to-day lives with video cameras and cellphones. It also boasted a rigorous and wide-reaching viral marketing campaign that put even the Dark Knight's to shame, and in some cases was pretty much essential to actually understand what the heck was going on as a giant monster from the deep sea tore New York City to pieces. It's a film that was designed to be over analysed, to have every little piece of its backstory gone over for clues, for fans to wildly speculate on the origin and nature of the wee beastie within. The filmmakers were fully aware of this and so the special edition of Cloverfield on DVD is chocka with bonus materials, including a whole raft of stuff you can only get your greedy mitts on by hunting them down, easter egg-style. There's a bunch of fun stuff in there, including news reports about the build up to the monster appearing in New York, commercials for the fake Slusho! brand which is somehow tied up in it, deleted scenes, and some B-roll footage, along with plenty more for you to watch repeatedly and then cry about the lack of a sequel. How to find it all: Again, you probably need a complete guide (only for the two-disc special edition, FYI).
4. Gladiator Fights A Rhino
With the help of veteran director Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe launched himself into the big time with this multi-award winning swords and sandals epic of...well, a gladiator. That should be pretty obvious, even if you haven't seen the film, and really, who hasn't seen Gladiator at this point? One of the many highlights of the film is a brutal and bloody fight between Crowe's disgraced Roman general Maximus and some tigers. The composite between Crowe and the real tigers, filmed on a green screen, is a little less impressive some fourteen years on, but it's still one of the most exciting battles in a movie full of them. It wasn't going to be the only time Maximus came up against a member of the animal kingdom - and seriously upset PETA in the process - though. The original script for Gladiator called for a scene where he did battle with a rhinoceros, for some reason. Did they even have rhinos in ancient Rome? Did they have tigers for that matter? We don't know, we're experts with cool things like pop culture, not boring old dusty history. Anyway, the scene was never shot - because it would've cost even more money on top of the tiger bit - but it was scripted, and storyboarded, and you can have a look at what it might have looked like if you put you excavating hat and (perhaps more crucially) the Gladiator DVD on. How to find it: On the storyboards menu choose "Rhino Fight" and press up when the first frame appears to select the rhino.
3. Watch Memento In Chronological Order
Once more, with feeling, it's that wily Christopher Nolan again. This time his appearance isn't marked by one of his complex and expensive Hollywood blockbusters, however, but the intelligent low-budget thriller that got him noticed by the tinsel town bigwigs in the first place. Memento retains a level of credibility that most indie movies lose a decade or so later, marred by a dated visual style or story that doesn't resonate past the generation it was produced in. Nolan's story of the troubled Leonard Shelby, played by Guy Pearce, lives on thanks to the startling images of the amnesiac Shelby's tattooed body - permanent reminders of the clues to solving his wife's murder - and the non-linear film structure that mirrors the jumbled mind of its star. Like Inception, it can be a difficult film to get your head around, and the fact that Memento is a film that doesn't unfold in chronological order really isn't helpful in that regard. Impressive, but unhelpful. It took us a couple of viewings to really understand all the double crossing and manipulation Shelby suffers at the hands of Carrie Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano's characters, not to mention why some of the flashbacks appear in black and white, much like the story of Sammy Jankis that gets told repeatedly as the film goes on... As a concession to the frazzled brains of his audience, Nolan helpfully provided an alternate cut of Memento on the DVD release: one where everything happens in chronological order, and you can follow clearly all of the terrible stuff that happens to Guy Pearce. Well, we say thankfully, he did hide it behind a bunch of needlessly complex puzzles on the second disc. Less helpful. How to find it: As we say, they don't make it easy. On the second disc go to the clock, select C in every menu until you get to the one where you have to put pictures in order. You want the sequence 3 4 1 2.
2. Hip Hop Yoda In Star Wars Episode II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkeWjWKqHdo George Lucas still gets a lot of flack for the Star Wars prequels and...well, he deserves it, really. They're a horrible mess of contradictions, unnecessary winks to the camera and some of the worst dialogue ever committed to film. He managed to coax some incredibly wooden performances out of some of the greatest actors working today, spent more time fiddling with visual effects than coming up with a proper story, and possibly also based the first film all around racist stereotypes? Anyway, after the debacle of The Phantom Menace, the Star Wars faithful who had waited twenty years for the story of what happened even more long ago, in a galaxy far far away were suddenly less enthused. Attack Of The Clones was approached not with the same unbridled excitement as Episode I, but with a sort of cautious optimism that that was just a misstep, an unfortunate stumble on the path to more cinematic gold. Episode II wasn't that really, at all, but it was marginally better than its immediate predecessor. The one scene that everyone agreed on as being 100% awesome, though, was when the previously frail and slow Master Yoda busted out some sweet fight choreography and lightsaber moves during the final battle against Christopher Lee's Count Dooku. Apparently impressed with the gymnastics their CGI Yoda was capable of, the brainboxes at Industrial Light And Magic also animated a short clip of the elderly Jedi head bopping and break dancing to some rap music, and included it as an easter egg on the DVD of Attack Of The Clones. If you're into that sort of thing. Which we are. How to find them: On the options menu type in 1 1 3 8, a significant number in George Lucas films
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
