Moonbase Alpha, Moonbase Beta: Sam Rockwell Is the Secret VFX at the Heart of Duncan Jones’ ‘Moon’
By Tim Pelan Ten years ago Duncan Jones’ Moon (2009) became the little science fiction film that could, an…
Tim Pelan
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,…
We Blew It? Douglas Trumbull’s ‘Silent Running’ Took the Counter-Culture Legacy of ‘Easy Rider’ As a Paean to the Planet
By Tim Pelan On this first day of a new century we humbly beg forgiveness and dedicate these last…
Rev, Rev, Against the Dying of the Light: The Fading Feudal Code of John Frankenheimer’s ‘Ronin’
By Tim Pelan I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, burned a lot of bridges, and reached…
Play for Play: How The Color of Money’s ‘One For Them’ Assignment Reignited Martin Scorsese’s Hunger for the Work
By Tim Pelan After ‘The Last Temptation’ was cancelled in ’83, I had to get myself back in shape….
“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…
‘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…
‘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…
“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,…
“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…