How Francis Ford Coppola Breathed New Life into ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’
By Koraljka Suton It could be deemed rather poetic that the origins of two of the most iconic and beloved horror movie creatures can…
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Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma: ‘The Conversation’ Between Two Great Filmmakers
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Reclaiming the Lost Art of Melodrama in Sidney Lumet’s Unsung Masterpiece: ‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’
By Parrish Stikeleather I sent the script first to Philip, one of the finest actors in the country, and I gave him the choice…
Kael Kael Bang Bang: The Pauline Kael/Clint Eastwood Secret Wars
By Jasun Horsley An alternate and more autobiographical version of this essay first appeared in Seen & Not Seen: Confessions of a Movie Autist….
Getting Lost at the Movies with Pauline Kael
By Jasun Horsley A longer and more autobiographical version of this essay first appeared in Seen & Not Seen: Confessions of a Movie Autist….
“We Translate Every Experience into the Same Old Codes”: In Michelangelo Antonioni’s ‘The Passenger,’ Jack Nicholson Attempts a Transference of Self
By Tim Pelan Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1975 film The Passenger is a languid thriller in which not much seems to happen, beautifully. The protagonist, David…
‘The Past, Present and Future of Humanity’: John Boorman’s ‘Excalibur’
By Tim Pelan John Boorman’s 1981 fantastical retelling of Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur is, to quote Nicol Williamson’s Merlin in the film, “A…
‘Sunset Boulevard’: Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett’s Sobering Exposure of the Dark Side of Hollywood
You will not find in my pictures any phony camera moves or fancy setups to prove that I am a moving-picture director. My characters…
‘Batman’ (1989): How Tim Burton’s Version of the Caped Crusader Put the Dark in Dark Knight and Gave Wings to the Superhero Movie Genre
By Koraljka Suton Exactly 30 years ago, in the summer of 1989, the world was swept off its feet by a creature of the…
‘And the Sea Will Grant Each Man New Hope, As Sleep Brings Dreams of Home’: John McTiernan’s ‘The Hunt for Red October’
By Tim Pelan There is a long and noble history in Hollywood of submarine war films. The two most recent examples that spring to…
“If You’re Going to Sell Your Soul to The Devil, the Consequences Are There for You to Suffer”: Ridley Scott and Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Counselor’
By Tim Pelan Not much of a one for describing his work, author Cormac McCarthy bluntly describes The Counselor, his first original screenplay, knocked…
From Facebook to ‘Fuck-You Flip-Flops’: How Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher Made ‘The Social Network’ a Fiery Word-Off
By Adam Buffery I’ve been Mark Zuckerberg—there are times in my life where I’ve acted that way. There are times in my life where…
‘DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A SICK MAN TO YOU?’: The Horror of Identity and the Identity of Horror in David Cronenberg’s ‘The Fly’
By Travis Woods TELEPOD 1: STATHIS He watches Her, trembling and nerve-twitched, eyes darting, lips pulled back over protruding teeth left exposed by a…
“No One Is Just Anything”: In William Friedkin’s ‘Sorcerer’, Four Reduced Men Must Gamble with Life to Give It Value
By Tim Pelan The film became an obsession. It was to be my magnum opus, the one on which I’d stake my reputation. I…
40 Years of Hurt, Face-Hugging Dreams of Breathing: Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’
By Tim Pelan Ripley’s words to the Xenomorph in Alien 3 sum up how we all feel: “You’ve been in my life so long,…
‘JFK’: Oliver Stone’s Emotionally Accurate and Masterfully Crafted Trip Down the Rabbit Hole
By Koraljka Suton “I think I was always controversial, provocative. But I can’t help it. I have to go there. It’s my nature. It’s…
Noir Cut to Look of the Period, Not About the Period: The Sunny, Seedy ’50’s Underbelly of Curtis Hanson’s ‘L.A. Confidential’
By Tim Pelan I came to it because of Ellroy. When I read ‘L.A. Confidential,’ I just got hooked on the characters, got caught…
‘Frankenstein’: James Whale’s Macabre Take on One of the Most Sympathetic Characters Ever Created in the World of English Letters
By Koraljka Suton Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive… It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!…
In Search of Our Better Selves: The Rebirth, Redemption and Road Warriors of George Miller’s ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
By Tim Pelan I just watched ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ again last week, and I tell you I couldn’t direct 30 seconds of that….
You’re Gonna Be Redeemed: The Jersey Noir and Western Fable of James Mangold’s ‘Cop Land’
By Travis Woods A rotating wire bookrack stands in a shaded corner of the used bookshop, its metal sleeves packed tight with yellowed, spine-split paperbacks….
The Greater the Truth, the Greater the Damage: ‘The Insider’, Michael Mann’s White-Collar Thrill Ride of Corporate Malfeasance
By Tim Pelan You pay me to go get guys like Wigand, to draw him out. To get him to trust us, to get…
The Matrix Revelation: How the Wachowskis Opened Our Eyes to a New Kind of Action Cinema
By Tim Pelan Few films permeate the gestalt consciousness like Star Wars (“I am your father”, “Use the Force” and so on) but in…
Slaughterhouse Twelve: Robert Aldrich’s ‘The Dirty Dozen’
By Tim Pelan In the mid-1960s, director Robert Aldrich was coming up for air after the thick stew melodramas of Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and…
An Agency of Chaos: Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’
By Tim Pelan In October 2005, shortly after his groundbreaking and seemingly stand-alone Batman Begins was completed, writer/director/producer Christopher Nolan ruminated. “You know, I…
Scorsese On the Ropes: The ‘Kamikaze’ Film-Making of ‘Raging Bull’
By Tim Pelan Scorsese’s Raging Bull is not your dad’s boxing movie. It’s certainly not a story of conventional redemption or hope overcoming the…
Gang Wars, the Prohibition Menace: Brian De Palma’s ‘The Untouchables’
By Tim Pelan Screenwriter David Mamet came up with a Stanislavski quote to describe The Untouchables: “Tragedy is just heightened melodrama.” Brian De Palma,…
‘Atlantic City’: Malle’s Nostalgic Juxtaposition of Deterioration and Renewal
By Koraljka Suton When acclaimed French New Wave director Louis Malle was approached by producer Alexandre Mnouchkine with the idea for a Canadian production…
Take It to the Limit One More Time: Michael Mann’s ‘Miami Vice’
By Tim Pelan Michael Mann’s 2006 big screen revamp of 1980s groundbreaking TV show Miami Vice (Brandon Tartikoff, NBC’s entertainment president scribbled “MTV cops”…
‘Ride the High Country’: The Seed from which Peckinpah’s Revisionist Approach to the Western Genre Would Ultimately Grow
By Koraljka Suton During the making of Ride the High Country in 1962, director Sam Peckinpah was ordered by MGM to stop filming on…
‘Goodfellas’: Martin Scorsese’s Anthropological Goodlife Through a Lens
By Tim Pelan As far back as I can remember, director Martin Scorsese has been synonymous with wiseguys, mooks, goombahs, and spin-on-a-dime funny-how guys…
‘The Tree of Life’: The Soul-Shaking Beauty and Pain of Terrence Malick’s Intimate Epic on Family, Nature, and Memory
By Adam Buffery There are things we say to strangers, there are things we say to family and friends, and, finally, there are things…
Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Hard Eight’, AKA ‘Sydney’: “It’s Always Good to Meet a New Friend”
By Tim Pelan Paul Thomas Anderson’s debut film Hard Eight (working title Sydney, preferred by Anderson, thwarted by his backers) arose from the performance…
God’s Lonely Funny Man: Martin Scorsese’s ‘The King of Comedy’ and America’s Pathological Obsession with Fame
By Tim Pelan In this age of television wannabes and quick fix celebs, it is fitting to look back at The King of Comedy,…
Empire’s End: John Huston’s ‘The Man Who Would Be King’
By Tim Pelan On the occasion of John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King screening at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2010…
‘Mise-en-Scène’ and Fritz Lang: The Invaluable, Short-Lived Magazine’s Article on the Master of Darkness
In 1979, Case Western Reserve University Film Society started publishing a magazine called Mise-en-Scéne, a 70-plus-page cinephilic treasure chest with a series of high-quality articles…
‘Magnolia’: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Absorbing Mosaic of Compassion, Humanity and the Importance of Forgiveness
In 1997, an ambitious 26-year-old called Paul Thomas Anderson made Boogie Nights, his sophomore directing effort that dazzled the film loving community. The commercial and…
Philip Kaufman’s ‘The Right Stuff’: “A Search Film, a Quest for a Certain Quality that May Have Seen Its Best Days”
By Tim Pelan The vexed question of patriotism hangs over Damien Chazelle’s First Man, a somber epic that manages to be both a very…
The Story of ‘Saboteur’, Hitchcock’s First Truly American Film
When Alfred Hitchcock came to the United States at the end of the 1930s, having been making films in England for twenty years, it took…
Beware the Beast Man, For He Is the Devil’s Pawn: Franklin J. Schaffner’s ‘Planet of the Apes’
By Tim Pelan Oh my God. I’m back. I’m home. All the time, it was… We finally really did it. You Maniacs! You…
Psycho Pension Qu’est-ce que c’est: Richard Donner’s ‘Lethal Weapon’ Is a Real Live Wire
By Tim Pelan You think I’m crazy? You call me crazy, you think I’m crazy? You wanna see crazy? Well, what do you…
‘Blow-Up’: The Importance and Influence of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Stylish, Thought-Provoking Mystery
In 1966, the Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni, already famous as one of the most prominent European auteurs of his time, reached a far wider audience…
‘L’Avventura’: Michelangelo Antonioni’s Visual Poetry and Its Impact on the World of Film
It was May 1960 when Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura first introduced itself to the public’s eye. Today, this classic of European art films is hailed as…
Downwards Is the Only Way Forwards: Welcome to David Fincher’s ‘The Game’
By Tim Pelan I always wanted to give a lecture at filmschools. You go in and you see all these fresh faces, and you…
‘Horror Implied, as Opposed to Explained… That’s Michael Mann’s Strength (Will)’—‘Manhunter’
By Tim Pelan In 1986, Michael Mann’s Manhunter elevated schlock-horror to a thoughtful, stylised, forensically psychological level, introducing the concept of a serial killer…
‘No Country for Old Men’: The Coen Brothers and Cormac McCarthy’s Ruthless Examination of Life
That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls,…
‘Punch-Drunk Love’: The Hilarity of Anxiety and Blossoming Love in Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘art house Adam Sandler film’
By Adam Buffery According to Paul Thomas Anderson, the self-taught San Fernando valley wiz-kid now entering the second half of his storied career, love…
L.A. Breakdown, a Hitman In Crisis: Michael Mann’s ‘Collateral’
By Tim Pelan When people think of Tom Cruise, what do they see? That shit eating grin, the Scientology, star power? I prefer to…
Rats In the Attic: William Friedkin’s ‘The Exorcist’
By Tim Pelan Forty-five years after its powerful debut, and with all the attendant publicity, analysis and second-hand knowledge, from satire to theological debate…
Duct Soup: The Daffy, Dystopian Design Nightmare of Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’
By Tim Pelan Brazil is the demented, surreal flip-side of George Orwell’s dystopian warning—1984 1/2 was director Terry Gilliam’s originally mooted title. Yet it is…
‘The New World’: Terrence Malick’s Magic Portrayal of America’s Original Sin
After a much-discussed hiatus that lasted for two decades, Terrence Malick returned to filmmaking with the highly praised anti-war epic called The Thin Red Line,…
‘Peeping Tom’: The Road from Disgust to Recognition for Michael Powell’s Brilliant Take on Filmmaking
Michael Powell, one of the most distinguished British filmmakers of the 1940s and 1950s, basically ended his career when he made Peeping Tom in 1959….
Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Out of Sight’: An Achronological Time-Out from Conventional Crime Narrative
By Tim Pelan Steven Soderbergh’s 1998 adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s crime novel Out of Sight experiments with form, tussles with it even. Opening in…
‘The Seventh Seal’: An Enthralling Philosophical Work of Art Made By One of the Truly Greatest
Ingmar Bergman decided to make something completely different upon witnessing the success of his comedy Smiles of a Summer Night in Cannes, where the film…
Sam Peckinpah’s original version of the screenplay for ‘One-Eyed Jacks,’ Marlon Brando’s only directorial effort
On only one occasion did Marlon Brando give directing a shot. Disappointed with the audience’s reaction, disheartened by studio interference or perhaps simply disillusioned with…
‘2001: A Space Odyssey’: Kubrick’s Pioneering Achievement As One of the Most Significant Films Ever Made
Considering the fact we’re discussing a wondrous work of art continuously labeled as one the most significant and influential films ever made, it seems only…
Approaching Menace: The American Pathology of Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’
By Tim Pelan Many rightly attribute Taxi Driver’s success to screenwriter Paul Schrader, director Martin Scorsese, and method leading man Robert De Niro—together they…
Married to the Enemy: The Pathological Obsession Beneath Michael Cimino’s ‘Year of the Dragon’
By Tim Pelan No-one does excess quite like Michael Cimino, director of Heaven’s Gate and The Deer Hunter. And when you factor in a…
A Carpenter of Death and His Four Horsemen: Samuel Fuller’s ‘The Big Red One’
By Tim Pelan In Hollywood, personal films can often become bloated vanity projects. With Samuel Fuller’s semi-autobiographical WWII memoir, The Big Red One, there…
Limitation of Life: You Can’t Go Back in John Frankenheimer’s ‘Seconds’
By Tim Pelan Who we are depends on a multitude of influences, societal and blood-borne. Mankind is the only entity on the planet with…
Ridley Scott’s ‘The Duellists’: A Startling Debut of Honour
By Tim Pelan On Sunday 18 February the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) will honor Sir Ridley Scott with the 2018…
Alan Parker’s ‘Angel Heart’ Is Astonishing as Hell
English film director Alan Parker was first introduced to William Hjortsberg’s novel ‘Falling Angel’ almost immediately after its publication in 1978, but it took another…
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Featured Posts
‘2001: A Space Odyssey’: Kubrick’s Pioneering Achievement As One of the Most Significant Films Ever Made
Considering the fact we’re discussing a wondrous work of art continuously labeled as one the most significant and influential films ever made, it seems only…
Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’: A Game-Changing Science-Fiction Classic
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner’s path to stardom and cultism has hardly been a bump-free ride. Heavily disputed upon its release, often criticized as an occasionally…
A Unique Perspective on the Making of ‘Stalker’: The Testimony of a Mechanic Toiling Away under Tarkovsky’s Guidance
Named by the British Film Institute as one of the fifty greatest movies of all time, Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 science fiction masterpiece called Stalker is,…
‘Persona’: Ingmar Bergman’s Psychological Masterpiece as the White Whale of Critical Analysis
In 1963 Ingmar Bergman was appointed head of the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm. Refusing to cut back on his filmmaking projects, exhausted and stressed…
Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma: ‘The Conversation’ Between Two Great Filmmakers
The most personal of all films in Francis Ford Coppola’s repertoire was born between two big projects that helped Coppola gain the reputation he enjoys…
‘A Woman Under the Influence’: Cassavetes’ Intense and Emotionally Exhausting Slice of Life
When Gena Rowlands, his wife, expressed her interest in appearing in a play about the difficulties that contemporary women had to face, John Cassavetes wrote…
Stanley Kubrick’s original treatment for ‘The Shining’
One of Stephen King’s most popular and celebrated novels, The Shining was initially conceived as the author’s family was staying at the Stanley Hotel in…
Brian De Palma’s ‘Blow Out’ is one of the finest films about the process of filmmaking
A stylish American thriller knee-deep in paranoia, Brian De Palma’s Blow Out is a neatly packed, thrill-ridden film executed on a level far beyond average…
All hail Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lyndon,’ a masterclass in bringing a unique filmmaker’s vision to life
What is now considered one of Stanley Kubrick’s most accomplished films, as well as an example of innovative, audacious filmmaking at its best, was almost…
Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ must be the key lecture in anyone’s filmmaking education
People often exaggerate when they talk about films. They get carried away, leaving the cinema emotionally stirred and too impressed to be able to objectively…
The most studied and analyzed film of Alfred Hitchcock’s career, ‘Vertigo’ is on every level a masterclass in filmmaking
The most studied and analyzed film of Alfred Hitchcock’s career, Vertigo is on every level a masterclass in filmmaking. In 1958 Hitchcock worked with legendary…
More than 65 years since its release, Carol Reed’s ‘The Third Man’ is still a marvel to see, experience and learn from
Carol Reed’s The Third Man might just be as visually stimulating as classic films get. The 1949 film noir features great performances from Joseph Cotton,…
Terry Gilliam has always been a hero of ours, and ‘Brazil’ was perhaps the first step in the development of our fascination with him
Ex-Monthy Python icon Terry Gilliam’s 1985 film Brazil is a wonderfully imagined and ably executed satire on bureaucratic society and its totalitarian government running a…
In the times before the idea of the Internet was conceived, film magazines proved an invaluable source of filmmaking knowledge
In the education of aspiring filmmakers, when every single bit of available information builds upon the artist’s craft and know-how, vital role was played by…
The Art of Cinematography: 8 Essential Documentaries
The world’s top cinematographers discuss the art of how and why films look the way they do. Cinematographer Style is about the art and craft…
Filmmakers to Watch
‘The Devil Needs a Fix’: Ian Ebright’s Sophomore Film Proves His Debut Was No Coincidence
A struggling reporter sits in a diner with an open notepad, nervously jotting down a potential title for his next interview. As he changes his…
‘The Line’: Luke Wallace’s Gripping Crime Drama With a Terrific Cast
A cold, wet, sinister-looking abandoned factory, two serious men with automatic rifles staring out the window, obviously expecting a visitor they deem dangerous enough to…
‘Cool Hair’: William Orozco-Cubbon’s Bonnie-and-Clyde-Like Thriller that Leaves Us Wanting More
The short film Cool Hair, directed by debutant and production manager William Orozco-Cubbon, was screened at the 2017 Zero Film Festival in West Hollywood, the…
‘Hi-Glow Retro’: Alex Morsanutto’s Bullet-Proof Ticket to Feature Filmmaking
From the very first scene, dominated by a cool voiceover accompanied by fragments of the crucial penultimate sequence that we’ll come to understand much later,…
‘Time and Again’: The Importance of Family in Aidan Largey’s Nostalgic Time Travel Flick
As we meet Brian and Lucen, two small-town kids trying to build a time machine when they’re not butting heads with their teachers during class,…
‘Remote’: Marc Roussel’s Highly Suspenseful Mixture of Time Travel and Home Invasion
Do you remember Gregory Hoblit’s 2000 science fiction thriller called Frequency, where a present-day son (Jim Caviezel) manages to connect with his long-deceased father (Dennis…
‘Happy Birthday, Barbara’: A Wonderfully Restrained Piece of Fine Visual Storytelling
A woman stands in a hotel hallway, switching her stare from a wrinkled little piece of paper in her glove-protected hand to the stylized number…
‘Telephone Me’: A Story of Revenge with Frenetic Energy and Honest Performances
It’s delightful to see short films of this kind of frenetic energy. Michael Demetriou’s somewhat bizarre take on a story brought to life by a…
Jordan Rossi’s ‘Shakespeare on Death’: A Brave, Captivating Effort at Honoring William Shakespeare
Through the years we’ve witnessed countless screen adaptations of the work of William Shakespeare. It was to our surprise when we found that young filmmaker,…
Thyrone Tommy’s ‘Avalanche’: How Easy It Is to Become What You Despise
A young boy and a talented archer, who takes his hobby very seriously and passionately, has a strained relationship with his militant, strict, reserved father…
Rajendra Thakurathi’s The Dishwasher: The Price of the American Dream
Rajendra Thakurathi’s The Dishwasher is an important short film on several different layers. First of all, it should be said that we don’t base our…
Kheaven Lewandowski, Director of ‘River’: ‘Making Films For a Living Is a Privilege’
Excited by his inspired and visually captivating short film River, we decided to have a little chat with Kheaven Lewandowski, a talented filmmaker whose greatest…