Broadly defined, a set piece is a thriller within a film, a self-contained showstopper-slash-showcase whose success depends in large part on a director’s chops. Since the 1970s, Steven Spielberg has reigned as its Hollywood master; regardless of what one thinks of his sentimental or narrative instincts, it’s hard to…

With more than 5.4 million articles, Wikipedia is an invaluable resource, whether you’re throwing a term paper together at the last minute, or looking for a station in your area that carries good power converters. We explore some of Wikipedia’s oddities in our 5,497,456-week series, Wiki Wormhole.

Here’s another cautionary tale for men who plan to be obnoxious on the internet any time soon. After a screenshot from a recent Jeopardy! episode was shared on Facebook, one foolish dude took to the comments to argue that a question about the inspiration for Indiana Jones’ outfit in Raiders Of The Lost Ark was…

The requirements for a successful movie mashup really depend on the ultimate goal of the one doing the mashing. Maybe you’re looking to prove two different movies are actually the same movie, so you match them up beat-for-beat like this Avatar/Pocahontas mashup. Maybe you’re aiming for maximum comedic effect, so you…

The ideal musical medium for going on an adventure is probably a cassette, since it’s small enough to be portable but fragile enough to give you some real incentive to take care of it, but the fidelity of the audio on a cassette leaves a lot to be desired. Luckily, if you want to listen to music about an adventure but…

Last month saw the publication of George Lucas: A Life, a biography of the Star Wars director that suffered from favoring a basic kind of storytelling over a complex consideration of the man’s work and legacy. As if on cue, here comes Molly Haskell’s Steven Spielberg: A Life In Films, a work that’s basically all…

Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…

Running a bar or restaurant, even a fictional one, is no easy task. Between keeping the bathrooms well stocked with paper towel and keeping the health inspector at bay for another few months, bar owners may not have enough time in the day to think about building brand awareness. That’s okay, though, because U.K.…

With A History Of Violence, Tom Breihan picks the most important action movie of every year, starting with the genre’s birth and moving right up to whatever Vin Diesel’s doing this very minute.

As reiterated by his latest film, The BFG, Steven Spielberg has made a career out of crafting stories of wonder, or strife, with emotionally resonant characters and a great touch for drama. Even though people are mixed on The BFG, it’s a good time to revisit the master filmmaker’s works, from his earliest home movies…

Before it was the stuff of pop-culture legend, Raiders Of The Lost Ark: The Adaptation was the all-consuming obsession of three 12-year-olds from Mississippi. Along with their friend Jayson Lamb, Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala spent every summer between 1982 and 1989 re-creating their favorite movie, Raiders Of The…

Raiders Of The Lost Ark: The Adaptation truly has to be seen to be believed. In the summer of 1982, three pre-teen kids in Mississippi—Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb—decided to make a shot-for-shot remake of Steven Spielberg’s movie, almost entirely from memory. (Home video didn’t really exist yet when…

It’s a tale as old as time: A group of kids sees a movie they like and spends the next seven years devoted to painfully recreating it shot for shot without any real training, budget, or adult supervision. Wait, that’s not an age-old tale at all! But it is an interesting true-life story of a group of Mississippi kids…

As a kid, one of the most fun aspects of pretending you were Superman, or the X-Men, or any other adventurer or hero, wasn’t actually building your fort, or running around fighting crime: It was drawing up the plans. Whether you were making your own version of a Home Alone-style booby-trapped residence, or outlining…

Few directors are as synonymous with quality cinema (and film in general) as Steven Spielberg. Heck, even his non-union Mexican equivalent shares a certain notoriety in the right circles. Part of that is his ability to choose excellent films on which to work (mostly… sorry, 1941), and part of it is his incredible…

Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.

Long before Family Guy made references the backbone of its comedy, The Simpsons has always incorporated pop culture into its stories. A lot of the allusions acted as introductions to films, TV shows, and music for many who grew up on the various adventures of the citizens of Springfield. The writers and animators…

Long before Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Psycho hit theater screens, three 11-year-old boys attempted to recreate their favorite movie, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, in their backyards. They did it not for fortune or glory, but simply out of their love for cinema. Eventually, Eric Zala and Chris Strompolos’…

In this age of digital effects, extravagant costumes, and larger than life celebrities, it may be easy to overlook the importance of the simple movie prop. As examined by Rishi Kaneria in his video essay “Why Props Matter,” it’s quickly revealed how indelible many props become thanks to the movies in which they…