JeddJong

I was hoping Paul would give us a tiny bit of insight into working with Nicolas Cage, and whether there was any awkwardness involved. Paul has a supporting role in Nicolas Cage's upcoming film Army of One.

Could the plot point of water nullifying witchcraft be a tip of the pointy hat to The Wizard of Oz? "And your little dog too!" Also, all this talk about troublesome robot babies brought this to mind:

This 1993 film, adapted from the Michael Crichton novel, is one that hasn't aged well as all and is one of my least favourite films ever. It features one of the least compatible action hero pairings in the form of Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery and with its theme of Japan posing an economic threat, has some very strong racist and sexist undertones. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, best known as Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat, plays yet another stereotypical Asian character.

BB-8's mission is to deliver vital information regarding [spoilerS] to [spoilerS].

I guess you could Dade had Zero Chill. YEEAHHHHH!!!

It's a camera that can see into the future, like the camera that looks into the past in Déjà Vu - only better!

This was a fun episode, the digression into snacking and vaping was a delightfully silly tangent. I know this film is often mentioned in the same breath as The Net, but I lump it together with Antitrust in my head. Antitrust is also dated in a pretty fascinating way, with Tim Robbins as a morally ambiguous Bill Gates-analogue.

There was also a joke in Fast 6 in which Tej had Hobbs listed in his phone under "Samoan Thor" and Roman says, in reference to Hobbs, "so now we work for the Hulk?"

Everyone needs some shotgun-totin' jetski-ridin' Adam Scott in their lives. Everyone.

How many times does Kurt Russell say "well well well" in this film? I'm pretty sure it's at least three times. If this is pretty much The Avengers, then Kurt Russell would have to be the Nick Fury analogue. He's a powerful higher-up in a shadowy government organisation who enlists the skills of our heroes to go on a mission for him. Man, Kurt Russell would've made a far better Earth 616 Fury than David Hasselhoff did. I promise this isn't just eyepatch typecasting.

Kate Beckinsale for the Shaw sister - or if they want to go younger and do a spot of stunt casting, Emma Watson. To add to Paul's point about this franchise becoming the younger, better version of the Expendables, there is the common denominator of Jason Statham and Furious 7 has Kurt Russell and Tony Jaa, both of whom Sylvester Stallone wanted for the Expendables movies. Kurt Russell turned down the first Expendables movie, saying he was "not into ensemble acting at the moment".

This is all conjecture, but perhaps Jason Statham's addition as a member of the Fast and Furious cast was destiny. There is a rumour that the screenplay for Fast Five was repurposed from the screenplay for The Brazilian Job, the proposed sequel to the remake of the Italian Job. The 2003 version of the Italian Job had Jason Statham as Handsome Rob. And because Djimon Hounsou is in this, we get Korath the Pursuer vs. Groot.

Mark Dacascos also starred in the short-lived Crow TV series and was a recurring character on Hawaii Five-0.

When it was revealed that Hello Kitty is not in fact a cat, I decided that she is one of the creatures from the Island of Doctor Moreau who escaped and swam to Japan. Also,

The prison in Escape Plan definitely seems inspired at least in part by the one in Face/Off, intriguing to discover Schwarzenegger and Stallone were considered for this film.

The whole point about John Cusack being Danny Trejo's pick for a bona fide Hollywood badass is fascinating to me. John Cusack recently did a Chinese film called Dragon Blade alongside Adrien Brody and Jackie Chan. That alone makes it a viable How Did This Get Made? candidate, but I digress. In the film, John Cusack fights Jackie Chan, and while doing press, he said that he has been a martial artist since he was 21 and his personal coach is Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, who has done stunts in Jackie Chan movies from back in the day. Cusack has a level six black belt in the "Ukidokan Kickboxing" system. It seems like a missed opportunity to have Cusack truck out some kickboxing moves in this film. It's a long shot, but I think John Cusack could really have it in him to become a Liam Neeson-type later in his career. The end credits, with all the actors smiling and out of character, really reminded me of the end credits from Predator. The tenuous connection is Danny Trejo, who appears in both Con Air and Predators. Also, one of the protagonists in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, played by Oscar Isaac, is named "Poe Dameron". Poe Dameron...Cameron Poe...could it be that JJ Abrams, Michael Arndt and Lawrence Kasdan were subliminally influenced by Con Air?

Also, on the matter of the ocean being haunted - I believe LL is referring to the souls of shark attack victims, rather than the souls of the sharks themselves. "I ate your ancestors/The ocean is haunted". Ghosts are generally thought of as the restless spirits of those who died in violent or unusual deaths. In this case, the ghosts are those of shark attack victims throughout the ages that haunt the ocean.

The possibility of the shark talking at the end immediately brought to mind the ending of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, with Caesar's surprise big "NO!" With regards to alternate titles for the film, I'd like to pitch in with "The Death Aquatica" and "Shark Strong" (the opposite of "Shark *Week*")

I noticed that there is an unusually high number of actors in this film (yes, four is high for me, I have low standards) who would go on to Marvel projects. Thomas Jane became The Punisher, Samuel L. Jackson became Nick Fury, Stellan Skarsgard became Eric Selvig and Saffron Burrows became Victoria Hand (in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show)

Imagine Tron or The Lawnmower Man meets Space Jam. That's Amazing, a 2013 Chinese "sci-fi basketball" film. It's about a gifted Chinese programmer who comes up with a virtual reality basketball game, only to discover fatal flaws in the programming. His boss (named "Frank Miller" and played by scenery-chomping Eric Mabius) pushes the release of the game anyway and the only ones who can fix the situation are Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard and Scottie Pippen. Yes, that Carmelo Anthony, that Dwight Howard and that Scottie Pippen. This was made with the full cooperation and endorsement of the NBA. More than half the dialogue is in Mandarin, but I think this would be a worthwhile foray into so bad it's good foreign moves for HTDGM.

I honestly really admire all the effort it took to pull this movie together (all the fans who donated to the production are thanked by name in the end credits) It just feels like because it was in production for so long, elements like the Sarah Palin parody ended up really dated.

This is a guilty pleasure of mine. The sentimentality actually did get to me and I find it a lot less annoying than most of Sandler's other work. Also, Kate Beckinsale is pretty much my #1 celebrity crush of all time, so I tend to be more forgiving of movies she is in.

I thought Miko Hughes did an exceptional job in this one.