Barry Diller had a very successful run as president of Paramount. His great biographical book, “Who Knew” describes his professional and private life, detailing what went behind many successes and a few disasters. Get the book if you can. It’s…
Honoring THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS 30 years after
Along came a cannibal. 30 years have passed since Hannibal Lecter entered many people’s lives, mesmerizing them, becoming an instant icon. The Silence of the Lambs ended up winning 5 Oscars, all the “big ones” (best film, director, script, actor…
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Subtext: The Magic Dust of Good Screenwriting
Some script experts don’t even mention it. Others, aware of the importance of subtext in movies, mention it all the time. I’ve spent a significant part of my time as a writer and a director thinking about it. Let’s find…
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David Mamet’s Master Class Memo to the Writers of THE UNIT
David Mamet is the renowned dramatist behind theatre plays like Speed-The-Plow, American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Glengarry Glen Ross (1984 Pulitzer Prize winner). A few of his plays have been adapted into movies. Particularly successful was Glengarry Glen…
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BOOKS on filmmaking, BOOKS on screenwriting, FILMMAKING, POSTS on filmmaking, POSTS on screenwriting, SCREENWRITING
The 5 Best Books on Making Movies, by Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky is a prestigious American film writer and director with a very personal style of filmmaking. His career shows widely different movies, some highly distinguished ones, such as π, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler and Black Swan. Below,…
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The World of Movie Posters
Movie posters are complex entities. Occasionally they are works of art, but this is not their main goal. The mission of a film poster is another: to sell a concept, an image, a title, a tag line, a movie to…
How TOY STORY 3 Was Written
Michael Arndt acquired prestige as a screenwriter with Little Miss Sunshine (2006), a great character-driven comedy that became a success. The future held for Arndt titles like Oblivion (2013), Hunger Games 2 (2013) and The Force Awakens (2015), but this…
The 3 Best Car Chases from the 70s
Today we are going to travel in memory lane, but we’ll do so real, real fast. The 70s was a great time for car chases in American movies. Possibly the film with the most famous car chase ever, though, was…
Film Blocking, What is it?
Film blocking and staging mean choreographing the actors and the camera in a given scene in a way which develops and pushes the film narrative forward. It’s never guided solely by aesthetics, and if it is, it’s wrong, That’s why…
Buster Keaton: The Best Comedian Ever?
A Master of Physical Comedy. Comedy always helps in times of distress. This being the case, why not revisit (or visit for the first time) a genius of the trade? Buster Keaton was one of the very top masters of…
The 11 Best “One Shot” Fight Scenes in TV and Movies
There’s a website in Spanish named Espinof.com. I follow it, it’s good. This is an entry of them with the 11 Best “One-Shot” Fight Scenes in TV and Movies. It’s super. In case you don’t understand Spanish, I have placed…
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