We wanted to start this semester off with a list of all the exciting titles we added recently, but we first need to acknowledge the very sad death of Wes Craven, horror director and producer extraordinaire whose slasher films defined and later deconstructed the genre. Wes Craven is best known, of course, for his creation […]
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What happened to the makers of Sky Captain?
The 2004 retro sci-fi caper Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was the first major film to shoot entirely on greenscreen. In an era when blockbuster movies eschew physical sets and use CGI wizardry as a crutch rather than a tool, that doesn’t seem like a groundbreaking or even welcome accomplishment. But no movie […]
Continue readingBeyond Thunderdome, there was Happy Feet
Director George Miller returns to the post-apocalyptic Mad Max franchise this Friday, and early reviews indicate his latest movie is a total triumph, an admittedly surprising outcome given Miller’s thirty years away from action films. That got us wondering: what else was Miller doing in the interim? If you can believe it, George Miller – […]
Continue readingHelp crowdfund Orson Welles’s final unfinished film
In 1970, legendary director Orson Welles began work on The Other Side of the Wind, a film about a filmmaker attempting to fund an experimental comeback film. Welles never intended The Other Side of the Wind to be autobiographical, but his life mirrored the protagonist’s in eerily similar ways. Over the next six years of […]
Continue readingSee sci-fi drama Ex Machina with director Alex Garland
Science fiction screenwriter Alex Garland makes directorial debut in theaters today with Ex Machina, a futuristic drama starring future Star Wars co-stars Domnhall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac about artificial intelligence. The movie has mostly glowing reviews so far, which bodes well for Garland’s transition from the writing desk to the director’s chair. If you want […]
Continue readingVanity Fair celebrates one century of vanity credits
gif via listal Earlier this week, we acknowledged the 100th anniversary of Birth of a Nation and the blockbuster style of filmmaking that create. But as Vanity Fair points out, Birth of a Nation also marked the start of directors declaring authorship for movies. D. W. Griffith was the first director to have a possessive […]
Continue readingVulture reflects on Ousmane Sembène, father of African cinema
This year’s Sundance film festival hosted the premiere of Sembène!, a documentary about African filmmaker Ousmane Sembène. You might not know that name, but Sembène is one of the most important figures in the birth of African cinema. He arguably started the entire African film movement with, as Vulture describes, “no film equipment, no professional […]
Continue readingToday in unexpected fandom: David Cronenberg loves Dilbert
Director David Cronenberg has made a name for himself as a purveyor of dark psychological films, from self-contained thriller experiments like Cosmopolis to the extra-gory body horror that made him famous in Scanners and The Fly. As befits his style, you might expect his tastes to skew towards the terrifying or distressing. But surprisingly, Cronenberg […]
Continue readingThe many works of Mike Nichols, EGOTer and prolific director
Mike Nichols, EGOT-winning director of The Graduate, died yesterday at age 83. For an acclaimed and decorated filmmaker, Nichols kept a comparatively low profile in the entertainment world, but he leaves behind an impressive lineup of truly great films and television productions, including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Primary Colors, Working Girl, Angels in America, […]
Continue readingSee Fredrick Wiseman’s newest documentary with a director Q&A!
If you don’t know documentarian Fredrick Wiseman, you should. Wiseman has an absurdly prolific career, having directed dozens of documentaries since 1967. His first, Titicut Follies, is a incisive look at the American mental health system and the state of asylums in the 60s (we frequently recommend this one to faculty). His next film, National […]
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