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,…
Documentary
‘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….
The Matrix Revelation: How the Wachowskis Opened Our Eyes to a New Kind of Action Cinema
Few films permeate the gestalt consciousness like Star Wars (“I am your father”, “Use the Force” and so on) but in recent times The Matrix…
Slaughterhouse Twelve: Robert Aldrich’s ‘The Dirty Dozen’
In the mid-1960s, director Robert Aldrich was coming up for air after the thick stew melodramas of Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and What Ever Happened to…
An Agency of Chaos: Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’
In October 2005, shortly after his groundbreaking and seemingly stand-alone Batman Begins was completed, writer/director/producer Christopher Nolan ruminated. “You know, I am thinking about another…
Gang Wars, the Prohibition Menace: Brian De Palma’s ‘The Untouchables’
Screenwriter David Mamet came up with a Stanislavski quote to describe The Untouchables: “Tragedy is just heightened melodrama.” Brian De Palma, director of The Untouchables,…
‘Goodfellas’: Martin Scorsese’s Anthropological Goodlife Through a Lens
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 delivering a gut punch…