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….
Cinematography
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…
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…