‘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…
Cinematography
‘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…
“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!…