Menu

Moviemakers

Denzel Washington in Spike Lee's Malcolm X
22Feb

13 Movies: Malcolm X

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
No comments

Directed by Spike Lee, screenplay by Arnold Perl and Lee based on The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley If any filmmaker working today could claim the legacy of David Lean, it would be Steven Spielberg. The man who brought us Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire of the […]

Read more
Triumph of the Will screen shot
18Feb

13 Movies: Triumph of the Will

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
No comments

Directed by Leni Riefenstahl The list of reviled movies everyone should see is short. In fact, I would say there is only one reprehensible film that makes the list: Triumph of the Will, a film not only about Adolf Hitler, but one that helped elevate him to power and is therefore responsible for the Holocaust […]

Read more
1Feb

13 Movies: Topkapi

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
No comments

Directed by Jules Dassin, written by Monja Danischewsky, based on The Light of Day by Eric Ambler The bad guys are the good guys. This seems a simple, uncomplicated conceit. But to a 12-year-old boy weaned on Star Wars and Indiana Jones, this idea was revolutionary. Like Capricorn One and Time After Time, Topkapi was […]

Read more
31Jan

13 Movies: Wall-E

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
No comments

Directed by Andrew Stanton, screenplay by Stanton and Jim Reardon, story by Stanton and Pete Docter I’m going to pick 13 movies. They may be an influence on my writing, on my filmmaking, or on my thinking. They may just be movies I like. There may be more than 13. From 1995’s Toy Story to 2019’s […]

Read more
14Jan

13 Movies: American Psycho

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
No comments

Directed by Mary Harron, written by Harron and Guinevere Turner from the novel by Bret Easton Ellis I’m going to pick 13 movies. They may be an influence on my writing, on my filmmaking, or on my thinking. They may just be movies I like. There may be more than 13. Here’s a hot take. […]

Read more
13Jan

13 Movies: Cries and Whispers

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
No comments

Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman I’m going to pick 13 movies. They may be an influence on my writing, on my filmmaking, or on my thinking. They may just be movies I like. There may be more than 13. There are only three colors in Cries and Whispers. The women wear white. The men […]

Read more
12Jan

13 Movies: Capricorn One

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
No comments

Written and directed by Peter Hyams I’m going to pick 13 movies. They may be an influence on my writing, on my filmmaking, or on my thinking. They may just be movies I like. There may be more than 13. The black helicopters swoop down on the biplane like angry locusts. They communicate by turning […]

Read more
October Sky movie still
11Jan

13 Movies: October Sky

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
No comments

directed By Joe Johnston, written by Lewis Colick based on the book by Homer Hickam, Jr. I’m going to pick 13 movies. They may be an influence on my writing, on my filmmaking, or on my thinking. They may just be movies I like. There may be more than 13. Every man loves October Sky. […]

Read more
21Dec

L.A. Confidential: Merry Christmas, Bloody Christmas

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
No comments

L.A. Confidential is a Christmas movie. It begins with a real event—1951’s “Bloody Christmas” beating of seven prisoners in the L.A. jail—and springboards from there into a sprawling epic weaving police corruption, show business, and scandal together into three, four, or five (I lose count every time I watch it) intertwining stories. L.A. Confidential is […]

Read more
14Dec

Daughters of the Dust: Dreaming and waking

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
No comments

Cinema is dreaming. You enter a darkened space, get comfortable, then experience a series of images and sounds. They may connect one after another into a coherent narrative. They could be disjointed images and sounds, linked thematically or through colors and shapes. They may be somewhere in between, a Strindbergian sonata of surreal meaning. We […]

Read more
« Older posts
Newer posts »