The right movie premise can ignite the imagination. When you hear it, you can see the movie in your mind’s eye, and the only thing that needs to happen is the reality of the film must live up to what’s in your head. Consider these: A love story that takes place during the doomed voyage […]

Like comedy, horror is all about provoking a reaction. It’s the setup and the punchline, only horror traffics in chills rather than chortles. If a skilled filmmaker causes a viewer to react the way they want, that means the director knows their job. If the same filmmaker can play an audience like a violin, you […]

I’m a father to a ten-year-old boy. Part of my job is to teach him to be a decent human being, to be kind to others, help whenever possible, and try to make things suck just a little bit less. I’m also white. My wife is white, so that makes our kid white. That whiteness […]

A great film doesn’t have to be subtle. Sometimes it shouldn’t be, depending on what the story is about and how it is told. Oliver Stone is genetically incapable of subtlety, but JFK and Platoon are a couple of the greatest movies ever made. Along similar lines, one of the big myths in filmmaking is that a great […]