Not in the least bit surprised that Avatar climbed past Titanic, (my review of the movie is here) but the news did prompt a great thread on Reddit about these cinematic curiosities:

Make with the clicky to embiggen and you’ll see it was Lucas’ way of tipping the hat to Cameron back in 1998. But the Redditors pulled out a few more in response:

Great stuff. Here’s ET and R2-D2 too.

I always liked the little friendly digs that crop up in actual movies like the ripped posters in Evil Dead, The Hill Have Eyes and A Nightmare on Elm Street related to raising the horror stakes, but these were new to me. I guess eventually a full set will pop up on Reddit. Keep your eyes open.

I’ve been lucky enough to attend screenings in the presence of cast members before, but last week I had the unnerving experience of watching JAWS with honest-to-god actual sharks swimming only a few feet away.

This evening Sky Movies HD will be premiering Spielberg’s 1975 classic in high definition and as a run up to this event a small group of people were invited to a preview. I couldn’t begin to guess how many times I’ve seen this movie, but I’d have gone to see it on the big screen again anyway. It’s one of those rare movies that never seems to get old and I never ever tire of seeing it. That the Sky screening was taking place after hours in the depths of the London Aquarium right next to the shark tank was icing on the cake…

JAWS in HD is a thing of beauty. Bruce still holds his own against CGI upstarts that fade and out-date almost immediately while Amity and the water has never looked so inviting. I don’t truck with satellite or terrestrial transmissions myself (seems a little 20th century), but if you have the opportunity to tune in this evening around 8pm you will see the movie in all its crystal clear glory. Hopefully we can expect a blu-ray release soon…

So did having the sharks doing their thing right next door distract as much as say some idiot’s mobile phone going off in a regular cinema? Not really. I’m not convinced they were too interested in what we were up to and even Robert Shaw’s demise met no sly winks of approval, but the few times I was aware of the other humans around me it was nice to note that the reappearance of Ben Gardner still causes people to jump and that the beautiful character study of three men on a boat still elicits a warm response.

In fact it’s a credit to the film that even after 35 (!) years and multiple viewings that the only eyes not glued to the screen were the cold dark ones on the other side of the tank…

… and young:

The new trailer for Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull popped up before Iron Man on Friday night and it’s the first preview in ages that had the audience cheering through it. There was some of this back before Phantom Menace but the demographic for that was always skewed away from the women folk, who just rolled their eyes at the nerds they were with.

Indy has a more unisex appeal.

In fact just today over lunch it was remarked to me that there’s quite a lot of expectation laid on Harrison’s shoulders from gals eager to see him don that fedora one last time…

For myself the excitement is growing after the initial ‘meh’ of the first trailer. There’s more than a glimmer of the old magic in trailer number two and I’m already tapping into a rich vein of fan excitement over this one.

Just watching the Twitter time line get all nostalgic over a screening of Raiders was a good gauge of the Indy love out there.

Fingers crossed…