Movie posters are complex entities. Occasionally they are works of art, but this is not its main goal. Their mission is another: to sell a movie, a concept, an image, a title, a tag line. Welcome to the amazing world…
Category: POSTS on filmmaking
All DUNES before DUNE
Like the books they are based on, the film adaptations of Frank Herbert’s Dune are an ever-expanding story in themselves. At the very beginning, they were a few mild shots at adapting Dune, which involved names like David Lean (because…
Farewell, Max
A quick post to say goodbye to a guy who has shown us what acting can do. Extensively. Max Von Sydow is one of the actors whose work has made a bigger impression on me. Not only his very renowned…
Three Giants of Cinematography
Nestor Almendros, John Alcott, and Roger Deakins. Of this great triad of Gods of Cinematography, only Deakins is still with us, working at full throttle. Nestor Almendros Spanish by birth (Catalan to be exact), Cuban by adoption, French by most…
The Essential STAR WARS in 5 1/2 Books
The Star Wars canon is inhabited by zillions of books. This is a selection of a few books which, in my opinion, comprehend very well the soul of the main Star Wars films. This is not about those fiction books…
Orson Welles and Superman teaming up to save the world!
They did so 70 years ago, in 1949. Maybe you didn’t know that renowned filmmaker Orson Welles became a key character, not in one Martian invasion, but in two. The first one you may know, as it happened while broadcasting…
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For Screenwriters: How Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut Was Written
Frederic Raphael: There’s a lot of talk. You want a lot of talk? Stanley Kubrick: I can’t say what I want. I want to do Arthur’s story (Schnitzler’s “Traumnovelle”), but in New York, now. That’s all I can tell you.…
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King Vs Kubrick: Doctor Sleep?
The tension that raised between the master of horror Stephen King and the master of film Stanley Kubrick about the movie The Shining is a well-known story. Let me summarise here the basic tale. This story starts at the end…
First Assistant Directors: Who Are They?
During the filming process, the First AD is the guy in charge. Or the woman. He/she organises the shooting, what will be filmed and when. His/her mission, to harmonise the production requirements with the director wishes, which is never easy,…
“How It Should Have Ended”: The Amazing (Super) Power of Parody
Parody is an excellent tool for criticism. In another post, this one in particular, I recommended the “Honest Trailers” as a way to analyse movies: by making fun of plot holes, inconsistencies and poorly scripted scenes, they review a movie… In a…
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