I have seen this link in various places today: Movies From An Alternate Universe. Asking the audience to re-imagine well-known films, the site wonders just who would have starred in a 1950s version of "Drive" or an early 1960s version of "The Hangover"? (The answers are obvious: James Dean is a proto-Gosling; Lemmon/Martin/Lewis are pitch-perfect too). It is a post-postmodern idea that does away with linear time and coherent history. The time is out of joint. Films we know to draw upon the past suddenly become the past - witness the almost lazy re-configuration of "2001" into a Fritz Lang Art Deco futurist epic - and so we have to ask ourselves the age-old question: what is really new?

Or you could do what I did with friends: continue the re-configuration of film history: imagine a 1980s version of "Brokeback Mountain"? A 1940s version of "Pretty Woman"? What about a 1960s version of "Lost In Translation"? The possibilities are endless - and intriguing.

More fun with film: Stephen Wildish is a UK graphic designer who has done some brilliant film alphabets (among other great work - seriously, check out his site). See if you can identify all of these: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.

Finally, I like my pop culture hot & irreverent served with smart snark. I get it from Pajiba most days and I like many of their features such as the Career Assessment and their Guides to everything under the sun. It is not highbrow but it's funny. For slightly more highbrow pieces, I would recommend  The Hairpin's look at Classic Hollywood (it is hardly Pauline Kael but it mixes its Classic Hollywood gossip with astute film readings) and also Clothes On Film which delivers sharp sartorial analysis.

PS. Most of these links would quite possibly not be available or would contain illegal material if SOPA & PIPA were made law. Just in case you wonder why you the non-US citizen should care.