Batman’s origin story was first told in 1939’s Detective Comics #33. The tale, which has been repeated countless times across many media, is almost always the same: Young Bruce Wayne is out with his parents Thomas and Martha, usually leaving a movie theater in Crime Alley, when they’re attached by a mugger. In the ensuing scuffle, Thomas … Read more
As a filmmaker, knowing the right balance to tell the perfect cinematic story can be challenging. While on set, you film everything you think you’ll need to create a great film, but when you hit the editing bay, you realize that some stuff may not work. Scenes that add different aspects may end up on … Read more
Every single film from a major studio shares something in common: A big animated logo that’s the first thing you see after the lights go down in the theater. These logos become so ubiquitous that messing with their familiar images and music can help establish a film’s visual aesthetic or sense of humor before it even begins. Almost a … Read more
A movie is never finished until it is released — and even then, if the movie was made by some directors (not naming names, but one of them rhymes with Schmeorge Schmucas), it could remain in a state of flux forever. Minor tweaks happen to almost every single film over the course of production. Then there are films … Read more
Zoë Kravitz will make her directorial debut later this summer with Blink Twice. During the film’s development, the original title was Pussy Island. Despite wanting to keep Pussy Island, Kravitz reluctantly changed the name to Blink Twice after facing backlash over the original title. “It was made very clear to me that ‘pussy’ is a … Read more
We love TV for the exact opposite reason we love watching movies. Television shows tell longform stories over hours and hours, putting their cast of characters into new situations every week or every season and watching as they navigate their way through the twists and turns. Whether shows last for ten episodes or 200, whenever … Read more
The version of Boy Kills World that hit theaters this weekend was different than the version that played TIFF Midnight Madness in the fall. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. Sometimes, a movie plays a film fest, gets picked up by a studio, and is changed. That’s exactly what happened to Boy Kills … Read more
Last year, Spears came back in a major way. She published her memoir, The Woman in Me, which was a frank, honest account of her life, including discussing the abortion she’d had while dating Timberlake. The grown-up she’d longed to be while making “Crossroads” was evident on the page. (Speaking of the film, in the … Read more
The Appendix is a masterstroke in how it honors what Gene and Roger did in passionately championing work that they believed in. I was especially happy to see Nancy Savoca’s “Household Saints” on there, which I struggled to find online after watching its rave review on “Siskel & Ebert” [you can view it at the … Read more
There are controversial movies and then there are movies that are so controversial that people get upset about them before they even see them. And then there are movies that are so controversial that people get so upset about them before they even see them to the point that the studios releasing those movies decide to change them … Read more