Over the past three years, people from all walks of life have learned a great deal about different branches of science. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced many of us to information about virology and vaccine production. Environmental disasters in every part of the world have brought concepts from meteorology and climatology to daily news reports. In […]
In an essay on Kenneth Branagh, screenwriter Scott Frank recalls meeting the future star and director of his screenplay Dead Again (1991) and wondering “why the guy would want to direct a loopy, film noir thriller like mine?” He goes on to say “the answer became abundantly clear: Kenneth Branagh wants to do everything”. Branagh […]
The bitter conflict between actors, writers and other creative professionals and the major movie and TV studios represents a flashpoint in the radical transformation roiling the entertainment industry. The ongoing strikes by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild were sparked in part by artificial intelligence and its use in the movie […]
Last week in a small city in the Ruhr area of Germany, a film that I made inside the video game Grand Theft Auto was screened at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, as part of an extensive overview of machinima. “Machinima” is a linguistic mash up of machine, animation and cinema. The term has […]
Iconoclastic film director Wes Anderson says of his films: I always feel like any character from one of my movies could walk into another one of the movies and be at home there. With the premiere of Asteroid City at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival next week, fans have been doing just that – walking […]
They told me the church was my mother. I learned that at school, and in the seminary. ‘Holy Mother Church’, they said. But I soon discovered that she was a bitch. This was one of the first things Father Bob Maguire ever said to me in a background interview I did with him in 1990 […]
As environments, peatlands have undergone a remarkable transformation over the last few decades from “Cinderella” habitats, regarded as ecologically worthless in the 1980s, to today’s ecosystem superstars – crucial for biodiversity, carbon capture and regulating the water supply. This new appreciation has seen a rise in media coverage of these special places. But peatlands across […]
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for its 95th Oscars and three of the most celebrated films of the season – “The Woman King,” “Till” and “Saint Omer” – received no nominations, a familiar refrain of frustration rang forth. These films demonstrated typical dramatic and technical markers that tend […]
When Marvel Studios released “Black Panther” in February 2018, it marked the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film to feature a Black superhero and star a predominantly Black cast. Its estimated production budget was US$200 million, making it the first Black film – conventionally defined as a film that is directed by a Black director, features […]
In 1972, “Deep Throat,” a feature-length porn film directed by Gerard Damiano, was hailed for moving pornography into the mainstream and beginning a golden age of theatrical porn. To mark the 50th anniversary of its release, a restored high-resolution version was released earlier this year. Yet outside of a few screenings in New York City, […]
