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Notable Festivals: Cannes (Palme d’Or) Inducted into the Criterion Collection: 2018 Before he embarked on his twenty year hiatus from filmmaking, director Terrence Malick was laboring over the development of an ambitious passion project he had enigmatically dubbed “Q”. The success of 1978’s DAYS OF HEAVEN had set him up to develop anything he wanted, […]… Continue reading Terrence Malick’s “The Tree Of Life” (2011) — THE DIRECTORS SERIES

The 1990’s were a golden age for brawny, high-octane action films made by directors with a distinct visual style. Before the dull sheen of computer-generated effects brought their cartoonish rag-doll physics to the fore, these films relied on massive pyrotechnics and even bigger biceps to pump up the audience’s heart rate. The bombastic patriotism of […]… Continue reading Ridley Scott’s “G.I. Jane” (1997) — THE DIRECTORS SERIES

Academy Award Wins: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects The late 90’s and early 2000’s were watershed years for American cinema, ushering in a new age of gigantic studio spectacles following the imagination-shattering release of Steven Spielberg’s JURASSIC PARK in 1993. Cinema had been nicknamed “The Dream Factory” for […]… Continue reading Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” (2000) — THE DIRECTORS SERIES

In the annals of silver screen monsters, few loom as terrifyingly large as one Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the infamous cannibal, murderer, and psychopathic genius. First introduced to film audiences by way of Brian Cox in Michael Mann’s MANHUNTER (1986), the character didn’t really take our collective fear hostage until Sir Anthony Hopkins stepped into the […]… Continue reading Ridley Scott’s “Hannibal” (2001) — THE DIRECTORS SERIES

Still riding high off the success of GLADIATOR (2000), director Ridley Scott found his filmmaking services more in demand than ever, jumping from one production to the next with barely a beat between them to catch his breath. His name had become synonymous with both awards prestige and financial success, so naturally every producer in […]… Continue reading Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down” (2001) — THE DIRECTORS SERIES

Notable Festivals: Venice Shortly after the conclusion of his ambitious anti-war/pro-military action drama, BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001), director Sir Ridley Scott began development on another ambitious effort titled TRIPOLI. Written by William Monaghan of THE DEPARTED (2006) fame, TRIPOLI was to be a sweeping period epic in the vein of GLADIATOR (2000), whereby Russell Crowe […]… Continue reading Ridley Scott’s “Matchstick Men” (2003) — THE DIRECTORS SERIES

The cinematic landscape is littered with the ruins of would-be classics, embarked upon by well-intentioned filmmakers who nevertheless couldn’t rise to the task. As much as we like to attribute a technical or industrial quality to the act of filmmaking, we tend to forget its volatile and unpredictable nature as an artistic medium. Indeed, each […]… Continue reading Ridley Scott’s “Kingdom Of Heaven” (2005) — THE DIRECTORS SERIES

At sixty-nine years of age, and with fourteen feature films under his belt, director Ridley Scott had seemingly done everything there was to do. He had directed lavish historical epics, groundbreaking science fiction adventures, pulpy action thrillers, and even the occasional fleet-footed caper or two. There was perhaps one blind spot left— one that nobody […]… Continue reading Ridley Scott’s “A Good Year” (2006) — THE DIRECTORS SERIES

The gangster picture is a time-honored staple of American cinema, equivalent to to the western in terms of cultural influence and popularity. The long, rich history of the genre stretches from early pulp like Howard Hawks’ SCARFACE (1932) to modern classics like Martin Scorsese’s GOODFELLAS (1990). Whereas the western’s straightforward ethical values typically boil down […]… Continue reading Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster” (2007) — THE DIRECTORS SERIES

The 2000’s were a period of peak productivity for director Sir Ridley Scott, with the venerated filmmaker cranking out no less than nine feature films before the decade would come to a close. It’s exceedingly rare for any artist, let alone one capable of commanding massive, logistically-complicated productions, to experience a sustained burst of creative […]… Continue reading Ridley Scott’s “Body Of Lies” (2008) — THE DIRECTORS SERIES