Most film narratives move in one direction. A character wants something, obstacles appear, time passes, and eventually they – and we – arrive at an ending. This is narrative linearity, and it has been the default mode of cinematic storytelling for more than a century. Think of the classic 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption, which […]
The latest Looney Tunes feature film, Coyote vs. Acme, sees Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme corporation after years of having his various plots and schemes to catch the Road Runner foiled thanks to their defective products. Like Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Space Jam (1996), Coyote vs. Acme is a hybrid animation and […]
In the final moments of Steven Spielberg’s 1981 film Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the mystical Ark of the Covenant is stored in an enormous, box-filled warehouse. How did the filmmakers create such a huge set? The truth is, there is no set: it’s a painting. The technique of matte painting […]
One of Prime’s greatest hits this year has been the teen romance series Off Campus. The show follows hockey player Garrett and musician Hannah as they try to reconcile sex, adulthood, college life, and their feelings for each other. The show makes use of a split screen on various occasions, such as when it simultaneously […]
There is a moment early in David Lean’s 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia, where T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) looks into the burning flame of a lit match just prior to his transfer from London to Cairo. The camera lingers over the orange and yellow flame, before the scene cuts suddenly from a domestic English setting […]
When my feature documentary Motherboard was released, I was in my late 50s. I had filmed it over 20 years, on five generations of smartphones, documenting the pain, joy and comedy of raising my son Jim alone. When I became pregnant at 38, I found myself single and broke. I was working long hours as […]
Before Kane Parsons had a Hollywood deal, he had a cheap laptop in his bedroom, a consumer-grade camera, and a grainy image from a 4chan forum. Now 20, the filmmaker known online as Kane Pixels has gone from posting lo-fi horror videos on YouTube as a teenager to directing a film with the popular studio […]
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has adjusted the eligibility criteria for films vying for Oscars from 2027 onward. Films featuring actors generated by artificial intelligence (AI) are now ineligible, as are scripts that aren’t demonstrably human-authored. Crucially, the rules do not ban AI – generative or otherwise – altogether. The Academy explicitly […]
In the opening moments of Vladimir, Netflix’s new erotic drama series, the protagonist M (Rachel Weisz) is sprawled on a couch in her negligee, writing in her notepad. She leans towards the camera, then stares into the lens to address you, the viewer, on your couch. In film and television, this is called “breaking the […]
In the opening moments of Vladimir, Netflix’s new erotic drama series, the protagonist M (Rachel Weisz) is sprawled on a couch in her negligee, writing in her notepad. She leans towards the camera, then stares into the lens to address you, the viewer, on your couch. In film and television, this is called “breaking the […]
