In 2006, Robert De Niro donated an archival collection containing “more than 1,300 boxes of papers, film, movie props and costumes” from throughout his motion picture career to the Harry Ransom Center, a research library and museum at the University of Texas in Austin. “Filling more than 300 archival boxes, the paper portion of the collection includes De Niro's heavily-annotated scripts and correspondence, make-up and wardrobe photographs, wardrobe continuity books, costume designs and posters, and extensive production, publicity and research material,” according to a press release from the Ransom Center.

“With about 8,500 items filling more than 1,000 boxes, the costumes and props within the collection constitute the Center's largest single costume holding and include such iconic items as the leopard-print boxing robe worn by De Niro in Raging Bull (1980) and the voluminous, body-length coats of the creature in Frankenstein (1994).

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Thanks primarily to last week’s publicity boost from the Screengrab, Quantum of Solace opened at the top spot on the box office charts. (That’s our theory, anyway.) Raking in $70.4 million over the weekend, Quantum crushed the previous Bond best of $47.1 million held by 2002’s Die Another Day and proved that American audiences can live with a weird title as long as there are plenty of chase scenes. Madascar: Escape 2 Africa slipped to second place with a $36.1 million haul, followed by Role Models with $11.7 million.

Not long ago we were wondering whatever happened to Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. Now he’s inescapable.

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Note: Beginning this week, I’m changing the format for Reviews by Request in an attempt to allow more people to participate in the requesting process. See the note at the end of the review for details.

Special thanks to reader Kent M. Beeson for requesting this week’s review, of which he said, “I'd love to hear what you think, but I fear the words will get stuck in your throat.” Hope I did it justice, Kent.

As sophisticated as I like to pretend my moviegoing tastes are, there’s still a part of me that loves old-school Japanese monster movies with a childlike glee. I’m guessing a lot of this has to do with the monsters themselves, which without fail tend to make me want to emit loud, Harry Knowles-like cheers of “man in suit! Yeeeeeah!!!” But while I (usually) refrain from doing this, there’s still something about this antiquated technique that takes me back to my youth. In an age when practically any monster imaginable can be created on a computer, it still proves tricky for FX whizzes to really give their CGI beasties a real presence in the action.

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"Read the classics, sir," advises Jason Miller's Lieutenant Reno in The Ninth Configuration. "It improves the entire respiratory system." Sure, but who has time for that? When it comes to the great works of western literature, it's all well and good for academics to slog through the thousands of pages of their Penguin Classics editions, but we're busy people. We have screenings of Saw V: Saw Harder to get to. We need our classics simple, direct, stripped of poetry and obscurity, and preferably less than two hours long and starring someone who can sport a decent six-pack. Robert Zemeckis' all-star adaptation of Beowulf, opening wide this weekend, is much more our speed; if we have to sit through a bunch of crazy Old English dialogue, even brought up to speed by comics legend Neil Gaiman, it better be accompanied by some naked Angelina Jolie. Here's a handful of other cinema-clarified classics.

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