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31Jan

13 Movies: Wall-E

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
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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 […]

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14Jan

13 Movies: American Psycho

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
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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. […]

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13Jan

13 Movies: Cries and Whispers

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
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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 […]

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12Jan

13 Movies: Capricorn One

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
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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 […]

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October Sky movie still
11Jan

13 Movies: October Sky

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
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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. […]

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21Dec

L.A. Confidential: Merry Christmas, Bloody Christmas

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
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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 […]

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14Dec

Daughters of the Dust: Dreaming and waking

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
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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 […]

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16Feb

Election Day

Posted by: mark Categories: Movies Press
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In 2008, I made a little movie called Election Day. It’s about a political campaign in which a murder is revealed. I didn’t think it was very good. I watched it again, and it’s not bad. The acting and photography are professional caliber. My direction isn’t half-bad. The “mystery” is the weakest part—the little “blank […]

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10Jan

The last 18 months

Posted by: mark Categories: In The Soup Movies Press
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Well, I lied. I did indeed let a year go by without a post, but it wasn’t 2020. I published chapters of a serial novel that year, plus posted a short story I’d written back in 2001. I have since removed those posts because I am working on expanded, improved versions of both those stories. […]

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