Pulling Focus: Blue Velvet (1986)

blue velvet

“Maybe I’m sick, but I want to see that again.” – Pauline Kael   It’s a strange world, isn’t it? Feigned amidst the well-manicured lawns and white-picket fences of small-town America breathes David Lynch’s darkly disturbing Blue Velvet. Shaken by a quickening dream logic and the upsetting affections of a bad-tempered film noir from the […]

Top 12 Mamoru Oshii Works That Are Not “Ghost in the Shell”

angels-egg-2

Widely recognized for his philosophically inclined adaptation of Masamune Shirō’s manga Ghost in the Shell, Mamoru Oshii is not only one of the most important anime directors out there, but a full-fledged auteur as well. Even when he is in a prankster mood (Assault Girls) or trying to get the best out of Kazunori Itō’s […]

10 Lessons “Citizen Kane” Can Teach You About Scriptwriting

citizen-kane

Released in 1941 Citizen Kane would eventually go on to be known as the ‘greatest film of all time’, it made a star of its director (also lead actor & ‘co-writer’) Orson Welles. Nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories, one can be forgiven for forgetting it didn’t actually win Best Picture (that went to […]

The 20 Best Character Entrances in Cinema History

Vertigo (1958)

Film is the most hybrid of art forms, taking ideas and traditions from many sources.  Perhaps the medium it owes the most to is the legitimate theater, being another platform for performing expressions of art. One long observed motif of the theater is the tradition of giving the production’s lead or prime featured player a […]